BROADSIDE

Africa News Archive: Stories of a Continent
The Leroy T. Walker Africa News Archive has just become accessible in RBMSCL as part of the John Hope Franklin Collection of African and African American Documentation. This collection comprises the resource files of Africa News Service, assembled over a period of twenty-five years by the award-winning Durham-based organization that has provided an alternative source of news from Africa since 1973. The files include almost 400,000 clippings, articles, press releases, newsletters, brochures, reports, and other materials; many of these items are quite ephemeral and difficult to find elsewhere--publications of non-governmental organizations and grass-roots groups are examples. The files cover all aspects of mid-to-late twentieth-century African history, with emphases on foreign and internal relations, independence and other political movements, and economic trends, as well as cultural developments, women's issues, health, education, military affairs, and agriculture. There are extensive files on U.S. relations with African countries. For years, scholars who have used these files at ANS have found them invaluable; now they are easily available at RBMSCL with a full file listing and with on-line access to follow. For more information about this collection or related materials, contact Franklin collections staff or any RBMSCL reference librarian or by telephone (919-660-5822).

Hiroshima's Angel of Peace
Mary McMillan taught at a Methodist mission school in Hiroshima in 1940 and was one of the first westerners to live there after the war. On her return she gave a speech at the Hiroshima railroad station that became legendary in the city condemning and apologizing for the American use of the atomic bomb. She went on to become a singular voice for peace and reconciliation, serving in Hiroshima for thirty-three years. McMillan's papers, over 3,000 items in all, recently received and opened to use, include a forty-two volume diary, correspondence, photographs, and other materials documenting her life in Japan as a Methodist missionary-teacher, the pacifist movement, Japanese life and customs, and related topics. Contact any RBMSCL reference librarian for more information (919-660-5822).

Poet-Novelist-Dramatist-Teacher-Editor: George Garrett
The papers of George P. Garrett, author, professor of English and creative writing at the University of Virginia, and editor of several literary journals, are now open to researchers. Correspondence with numerous authors, publishers, and educators offers much information about the history of 20th-century Southern literature, publishing, and literary education. The collection contains letters from many contemporary American authors, including Madison Smartt Bell and Fred Chappell, as well as numerous recordings of Garrett's lectures, classes, and addresses to groups of writers, students, and literary scholars. Recordings of lectures and readings by many other well-known authors also appear. The collection, which contains over 150,000 items spanning the years 1929-1996, documents Garrett's career as an author of novels, short stories, poetry, and dramatic works (including film scripts) and the tremendous influence he has had as teacher and editor on an entire generation of writers, particularly in the South. Contact an RBMSCL reference librarian for more information.

"The Life and Death of an American Factory": Photographs by Bill Bamberger.
In May 1993 White Furniture Company of Mebane, N.C., the "South's oldest maker of fine furniture," closed its doors, and 203 women and men lost their jobs. Before, during, and after the closing, Bill Bamberger, a widely exhibited and published photographer who teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, documented on film the work life and craft of the employees of White Furniture as well as their devastation when they learned that they would lose their jobs. RBMSCL has acquired the full set of about 1,500 proofs of Bamberger's work on this project, including hundreds of 3X5 machine proofs and 8X10 proofs of images selected as firsts, alternates, and seconds for the 1998 book Closings: The Life and Death of an American Factory , with text by Duke professor Cathy Davidson. Contact any RBMSCL reference librarian for further information

Beautiful Facsimiles Of Rare Religious Texts
Newly cataloged rare printed items include a limited-edition facsimile of a book of hours, Libro de horas de Isabel la Catolica, the original of which is in the Royal Palace in Madrid. Larger than most prayer books, this is a full-color edition of the hand-decorated and gilded 15th-century manuscript with an accompanying volume of commentary. Also recently acquired is a volume of Greek hymns, Akathistos (Himno marial griego), a facsimile edition of Eastern Orthodox liturgical texts with a Spanish transcription and analysis. Both volumes include exquisite artwork and will interest researchers in various areas, including religion and art. Visit RBMSCL for a viewing.

Shaper Of U.S. and Colombian Economic Policy
In the 1930s, economist Lauchlin Currie started a long and influential career that lasted into the 1990s, teaching at Harvard, advising various governments, and speaking and writing for an international audience. His personal papers are now at Duke and reflect the rich variety of his interests, especially in the U.S. and Colombia, and the significant reaches of his influence here and in his adopted South American home. The collection pertains to Currie's work on macroeconomic policies, economic growth, US-China relations, and financing/indexation policies, especially regarding housing, and includes memos, correspondence, and many unpublished writings. Currie was an authority on institutional development, drafting such policies as the Banking Act of 1935, and helping to shape the New Deal. His impact in Colombia was powerful in an era of great transition for that country. Currie's papers will support many areas of research in the history of economics. For additional information please contact any RBMSCL reference librarian.

New Resources in Gay Fiction and Periodicals
RBMSCL has acquired the extensive archive of one of the most prolific, influential, and widely read writer/illustrators of Southern gay male pulp fiction. Carl Corley of Zachary, Louisiana, published twenty-two paperback novels, most with Southern settings, between 1966 and 1971 as part of P.E.C. Publishers' "French Line" series, and was one of the few writers of erotica of the period to sign his real name to his work. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Corley also was a notable artist and illustrator in a variety of fields, ranging from homosexual and heterosexual erotica, to Louisiana history, to Biblical topics; he illustrated his fictional works and produced numerous comic books and "graphic novels." The collection includes a very rare complete set of his paperback fiction, as well as extensive artwork, typescripts of unpublished works of utopian science fiction, erotica, and other genres, and correspondence and scrapbooks documenting various aspects of his life, including service with the Marines in the South Pacific in World War II. Among other areas, this collection documents gay life and gay fantasy at a time when such representations, especially in and of the South, were quite rare. For more information, contact RBMSCL reference librarian.

In the early 1950s, One, Inc., of Los Angeles set out to establish an advocacy force that turned into an historic publication of the gay liberation movement. RBMSCL now has a rare complete run of One Magazine: The Homosexual Viewpoint, including extra issues published by an editor who left the organization, and the last issues of the 1970s that attempted a revival. The magazine regularly reported on gay rights legislation and strove to "...benefit social variants and to promote among the general public an interest, knowledge and understanding of the problems of variation...." Contact any  reference librarian in RBMSCL (919-660-5822) for more information.

A Unique Partnership Between Government, The Media, Corporate Supporters, and Advertisers
The Advertising Council Collection (1939-1984) documents public service advertising since the beginning of World War II. Originally founded in 1942 as the War Advertising Council, the Ad Council continues even today to promote a wide range of public service issues and concerns. Campaigns developed by the Council are documented through council booklets, brochures, published articles, and sample advertisements which were distributed to Ad Council members and participating advertising agencies. Particular ad campaigns which are well-represented include U.S. Savings Bonds during World War II, the creation of Smokey the Bear and related fire prevention campaigns, ca. 1941-1951, and a campaign to explain the American Economic System, ca. 1950-1957 (Cold War anti-communism). Various campaigns throughout the 1960s and 1970s are also documented here, including efforts on behalf of the War on Poverty, equal employment opportunity, and child protection. This collection should support research on a wide range of topics related to wartime advertising, cultural history, and the development of advertising concerns. For more information, contact Hartman Center staff or any RBMSCL reference librarian.

The Jantz Collection of German Baroque Materials and Early German Americana

In the 1970s, the Duke University Library was fortunate to acquire the remarkable 10,500-volume collection of early German printed books, German Americana, and other works assembled by the distinguished comparative literature and literary history scholar Harold Jantz. Some materials were microfilmed and became accessible through paper finding aids in 1974, but grant support in recent years has finally made possible standard on-line cataloging of the entire collection, as well as significant preservation efforts. The cataloging project will conclude in early April 1998 and researchers from a variety of disciplines can now take full advantage of Professor Jantz's assiduous collecting efforts.

Duke history professor Tom Robisheaux had these comments about the Baroque materials: "The Jantz Collection, along with the Faber du Faur Collection at Yale, which complements it, represents the most significant collection of late sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth century printed German books outside Germany....Jantz had an eye for the unusual: books on travel, politics, moral conduct, alchemy, magic, and wonders, religious devotion, and many other subjects. What was unusual then, however, has become mainstream and exciting today, as scholars have broadened their interests to study works that better reflect the everyday experience, thought, and culture from this period. One comes across works like these: an everyman's encyclopedia from 1750; a moral satire told with ribald Rabelaisian wit from 1610; a manual on correct political titles and forms of address in the Holy Roman Empire; a witch hunter's manual; the mysterious alchemical wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, one of the best-seller occult books of the 1600s; a stern and serious Jesuit morality play; a credulous tale of the all-powerful sorcerer, Dr. Faustus. There are also many works of fiction and poetry, German and Neo-Latin as well. Still, many of these works do not easily fit our notions of early print culture from this era, and this is what makes it a resource for discovery, a fabulous resource...."

The German Americana section of the collection is also extensive and includes perhaps the largest collection of German Americana printed before 1801, with the 19th and 20th centuries also well represented. There are works of varied origins such as titles written by Germans in America, works written by Americans living in Germany, works brought over during the colonial era, and British and European Americana in German translation. Jantz himself wrote that the degree to which literary works outnumber expository titles in his collection ``truly bears witness to the fact that the impact of America upon the imagination of man, upon his dreams, hopes, plans, projections, has been seriously neglected or else studied with material inadequate for the purpose." Concentrations within the collection are numerous and diverse.

Rare book cataloger, Randy Kloko discussed his experience working with the materials, "We processed the books in reverse chronological order, starting with 19th- and 20th-century German-Americana and worked our way back. It was like starting with more familiar German perceptions of America and moving gradually back in time to a radically different Baroque world-view, expressed in works that grew ever rarer and more exotic... It's one thing to read Baroque literature in a modern edition, but something much more engaging with the aroma and feel of worn calf-skin bindings, not to mention the added challenge of grappling with the old Fraktur type and puzzling out signatures in the even more arcane Sutterlin script. It's an experience I wish every student of German literature could enjoy."

If you need help beyond the on-line catalog with Jantz materials or want to hear about other resources for German studies in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, please contact RBMSCL reference librarians. The library holds printed guides and staff can personally assist students and other researchers in finding what they need.