Spring 1999
LAMA News News from LAMA Institutions New
Publications Exhibits Other News
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Spring 1999
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LAMA NEWS
The Louisiana Archives and Manuscripts Association is pleased to announce the availability of a new directory of repositories in the state which hold primary research collections. The guide includes academic repositories, special libraries, archives, public libraries, historical societies, and genealogical organizations. Kathie Bordelon (McNeese State University) and Bruce Turner (University of Southwestern Louisiana) compiled the guide, available on the LAMA website at www.gnofn.org/~nopl/lama/guide/guide.htm. Please direct comments or suggestions about the guide to Irene Wainwright (iwainwri@gnofn.org) at the New Orleans Public Library.
Two Louisiana archivists, Chuck Thomas of LSU's Hill Memorial Library and Marie Windell of UNO, recently passed the Academy of Certified Archivists certification exam. Congratulations, Chuck and Marie!
The Louisiana Library Association will assume sponsorship of the Bayou State Periodical Index. It will have expanded coverage and will be mounted on-line.
Please send newsletter submissions to Pati Threatt at Hill Memorial Library, LSU, Baton Rouge, LA 70803 or pthreat@lsu.edu.
The Southwestern Archives and Manuscripts Collection (USL)
The Southwestern Archives and Manuscripts Collection (SAMC) in USL's Dupre Library recently acquired the John C. Fontenot Land Abstracts Collection. The 2000 land abstracts (1950's - 1980's) cover a large part of the Acadiana Region and are available to historians, economists, and other scholars interested in urban and rural land development. The collection was donated by John C. Fontenot's sons; including Dr. John S. Fontenot of USL's English Department.
SAMC also received the Mario Mamalakis Published Paper Collection (1940's - 1990's). Ms. Mamalakis is a well-known feature writer and respected journalist; her collection of articles illuminates the history of USL and of Lafayette.
Other recent acquisitions include:
Dr. I. Bruce Turner, Head of Archives & Special Collections at the Dupre Library, was appointed to the Louisiana State Historical Records Advisory Board by Governor Mike Foster. Dr. Turner is currently the Endowed Professor for the Friends of Dupre Library. Dr. Turner has served as President of Louisiana Archives and Manuscripts Association and has held offices in the Society of American Archivists.
Dr. Turner will also receive the Friends of The Edith Garland Dupre Library/Board of Regents Support Fund Endowed Professorship for 1998-2001. The Endowed Professorship honors an outstanding member of the library faculty for a three year period. As the library's first Endowed Professor, Dr. Turner will continue to promote Dupre Library and its collections to the USL community and the Acadiana region. Friends of Dr. Turner gathered at a reception to commemorate his appointment and to wish him success. Dr. Turner will pursue his research in the field of libraries, archives, and history.
The Board of Directors of the Society for Louisiana Iris has selected USL to be the archival repository for the Society's records and documents. The SAMC will collect, preserve, and make available to scholars and students these valuable materials. The decision by the Board of the Society recognizes and strengthens the collection of iris-related materials in SAMC at the Dupre Library.
The Southwestern Archives and Manuscripts Collection already includes the papers and documents of several influential leaders of the Society for Louisiana Iris: Ira S. Nelson, William B. McMillan, Mary Swords Deballion (selected records), Frank Chowning (iris-related papers) and Joseph Mertzweiller (selected records).
For more information, please contact Dr. I. Bruce Turner at the Southwestern Archives and Manuscripts Collection, (318) 482-5702.
McNeese State University
The Archives Department recently conducted and transcribed fifteen hours of interviews with members of the Lebanese and Italian communities in Lake Charles and Sulphur for its Mediterranean Oral History Project. The project was funded with a grant from the Arts & Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana and the City of Lake Charles and a cash award from the Southwest Louisiana Historical Association.
The interviewer for the project, Tyler Crogg, previously recorded oral history interviews for the Chippewa Valley Museum in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Tyler also published two articles based on the interviews in the Lake Charles American Press on July 2 and 3. The tapes and transcripts have been processed into a document collection that also contains twenty copied and donated photographs. The collection is now available to patrons. The Archives hopes to add more interviews to the collection in the future.
The McNeese Library's Archives Department recently finished processing the papers of former state senator and governor of Louisiana, Alvin O. King (1890-1958). The son of a founder of Kelly, Weber & Co., Alvin King served as state senator from Southwest Louisiana between 1924 and 1931. He became lieutenant governor in 1931 when Paul Cyr, Huey Long's lieutenant governor, tried to claim the governorship. After Long entered the U.S. Senate, King served as governor from January to May, 1932. He left politics in 1932 to return to law and business practices in Lake Charles, including the publication of a short- lived newspaper, The Southwest Citizen, between 1949 and 1951.
The collection contains documents and correspondence accumulated during King's tenure as state senator as well as documents from a lawsuit Paul Cyr filed against King in 1932 claiming the governor's office. The Alvin King Collection holds extensive business papers, correspondence, newspapers, and photographs from The Southwest Citizen. It also features documents and photographs from Kelly, Weber & Co. The materials date from 1921 to 1953 and are available to researchers.
The Archives Department has finished the arrangement and cataloging of an extensive photograph collection donated by the Southwest Louisiana Chamber of Commerce. It contains about 700 portrait photographs of individuals, 4,000 pictures of various local events, and nearly 1,000 slides of area sites. Taken when the organization was known as the Greater Lake Charles Chamber of Commerce, the images span the years 1964 to 1986. They are now available for perusal by patrons.
The collection will be most valuable to anyone studying the economic history of the area owing to its copious scenes of business people, business openings, and Chamber of Commerce events. Its numerous photographs of civic affairs like Contraband Days, the planting of palm trees along the lakefront, and the "Sailors Make Good Neighbors" campaign make it valuable for general local history research. It will also be a useful source for people seeking pictures of local landmarks.
The Chamber of Commerce Collection offers photographs of individuals both notable and ordinary. Prominent in the collection are McNeese president Jack Doland; Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards; businessmen Adolph Janca and Willis Noland; local mascot Gumbeaux Gator; and mayors Jim Sudduth, Paul Savoie, and Ed Watson. The collection's extensive index contains cross-listings for all identified people.
A guide has been created for the Archives Department's collection of aerial survey photographs of Calcasieu Parish. Donated to McNeese by Eloi Primeaux in 1991, the photographs were taken in 1940 for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. They cover almost all of Calcasieu Parish and parts of neighboring parishes and Texas counties.
New Orleans Public Library
NOPL recently completed processing of the papers of former New Orleans City Council member Peggy Wilson (1986-1998; 24 boxes and 12 volumes) and added the finding aid to NUTRIAS at www.gnofn.org/~nopl/inv/council/wilson.htm. Wilson was elected to represent District A on the City Council in 1986 as a Republican. She was re-elected in 1990 and four years later ran successfully for one of the two at-large seats on the Council, a seat she lost in 1998. Most of the records are from the council member's at-large term (1994-1998), but some files do date from her years as District A's representative on the Council. The records include general subject files, files on individuals, Republican Party files, and Wilson's annual appointment books.
The City Archives staff began a new project to digitize early pamphlets from its collection and from the Louisiana Division's Rare Vertical File. So far, 10 pamphlets are available in NUTRIAS, including "Specification of builder's work to be done in the restoration of the St. Louis Cathedral" (1849) and the "Fortieth annual and first printed report of the Poydras Female Asylum" (1857). The pamphlets (more to come soon) are online at www.gnofn.org/~nopl/ spec/pamphlets/pamphlets.htm.
Also new online at NOPL is a partial index to the journal Architectural Art and Its Allies, 1905-1913. The index, an electronic version of a card index prepared many years ago by Library staff members, includes references only to articles dealing with issues relevant to New Orleans, Louisiana, and, in at least some instances, neighboring states, and also indicates the presence of photographs or other illustrations. The index is available at www.gnofn.org/~nopl/info/louinfo/ aart/aartintro.htm.
Digitized versions of 13 photographs by Marion James Porter document aspects of the civil rights struggle in New Orleans. The photos are available at www.gnofn.org/ ~nopl/photos/porter/porter.htm#photos.
Tulane Special Collections
Tulane Special Collections is comfortably ensconced in its new home, Jones Hall. Jones Hall lies directly across from its previous home in Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. The new quarters give researchers a more pleasant research environment and provide modern services such as network computer connections. A larger research room, better lighting, modern telecommunications, an archives-quality HVAC system, and more efficient service are only a few of the advantages researchers will enjoy in our new facility.
Built in 1939, Joseph Merrick Jones Hall was the original Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. When the current library opened across the street in 1969, Jones Hall became Tulane's law school. By returning to Jones Hall, Special Collections is going home.
Amistad Research Center at Tulane
University Amistad welcomes two new staff members: Mr. Clarence Hunter and Mr. Clifford Johnson. Mr. Hunter comes to us from Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi and will fill the position of Archivist. Mr. Johnson served as Vice-President for Development at Dillard University and he will fill the new position of Director of Development.
Dr. Hylan Lewis donated his library of over 500 books and periodicals to Amistad. Dr. Lewis is a prominent sociologist whose personal papers are also housed at Amistad. The books cover a wide range of subjects dealing with African and African American culture and history, sociology, psychology, and political science.
Amistad also received major donations from the following individuals and organizations:
Hill Memorial Library
On March 29-31, the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET) sponsored a "train-the- trainers" workshop on disaster recovery, funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Elaine Smyth, Curator of Rare Books, LSU Libraries, attended as the trainer for Louisiana. She will work with SOLINET staff to schedule and present a disaster recovery workshop for librarians and archivists in Louisiana this fall. Smyth also was appointed LSU's representative to the Louisiana Academic Library Network Consortium (LALINC) Preservation Task Force. For additional information about the SOLINET workshop, contact Smyth at esmyth@lsu.edu or (225) 388-6547.
LSU Libraries is pleased to announce the addition of Pati Threatt to the faculty of Hill Memorial Library. Formerly Assistant Archivist of the Cammie G. Henry Research Center in Natchitoches, Threatt will serve as Head of the Special Collections Processing Department.
Historic New Orleans Collection
Bank To Shore is an interactive, multimedia site that presents the urban development of New Orleans through three of its neighborhoods -- Marigny, Bywater, and Holy Cross. Bank to Shore uses extensive maps and graphics to trace development from the past to the present. It can be easily accessed through pre-packaged tours, in addition to an index that contains information on the architecture, communities, and ethnic makeup of the neighborhoods. Bank to Shore is presented courtesy of Systems Planning.
Le Comite des Archives de la Louisiane
Le Comite des Archives de la Louisiane has announced the publication of its new book, Calendar of the Natchez Trace Collection Provincial & Territorial Documents, 1759- 1813. This is a guide to ten reels of early Louisiana and Mississippi records on microfilm, the originals of which are housed at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. The records cover a broad geographical area, but are concentrated primarily in and around Natchez, Avoyelles, Iberville, Ouachita, and Pointe Coupee. Types of documents found include civil records such as land sales, marriage contracts, lawsuits, and probate sales. The society will present the microfilm and calendar to the Louisiana State Archives on Essen Lane in Baton Rouge Sunday, May 2nd, at 1:30. Editor Judy Riffel will give a brief presentation and will be on hand to assist researchers in using the microfilm. The society has also set its annual meeting for September 11, 1999, at the State Archives from 9 a.m. until noon. Speakers will be announced.
Tulane Special Collections
Jews of New Orleans: An Archival Guide. Andrew Simons and the Greater New Orleans Archivists. This 240 page book describes archival holdings about the New Orleans Jewish experience. It is an invaluable research resource for Southern Jewish history.
Meneray, Wilbur E., ed. The Favrot Family Papers: A Documentary Chronicle of Early Louisiana. 1988- . Vol. 4, 1803-1809. The family saga continues through a period of extensive change in the United States. Pierre-Joseph Favrot's military career was shortened by the Louisiana Purchase and the documents reflect a greater personal and family focus. An invaluable resource for studying the early national period in the United States.
Historic New Orleans Collection
Limited edition of Complementary Visions of Louisiana Art: The Laura Simon Nelson Collection at the Historic New Orleans Collection. Slipcase. 60 numbered and 26 lettered copies. Autographed by essayists. Included with each limited edition will be one of three restrike etchings from an original plate by Ellsworth Woodward, St. Mary's Market New Orleans, Old French Market, or Madames John's Legacy. Woodward (1861-1939), a legendary art professor at Newcomb College, was a major force in the New Orleans art world for more than 50 years. $150.00 numbered; $225 lettered.
Limited edition of Haunter of Ruins: The Photography of Clarence John Laughlin. 100 numbered and 26 lettered copies, autographed by essayists. Includes Under Loops of Moss (1940), a print from an original Laughlin negative. $150.00 numbered; $225.00 lettered.
Jazz Scrapbook: Bill Russell and Some Highly Musical Friends Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Bunk Johnson, Mahalia Jackson, Baby Dodds, Natty Dominique and Fess Manetta - a roll call of the early jazz greats in an important new book on New Orleans music. Nine essays and 66 rare photographs give an intimate, backstage view of the jazz world documented by the William Russell Jazz Collection. 152 pages - $9.95.
Bill Russell: An American Ensemble. A special issue of the Southern Quarterly devoted to the pioneering jazz collector. 148 pages - $10.00.
The Southwestern Archives and Manuscripts Collection (USL)
Mardi Gras in Louisiana, January -
March, 1999.
Ambassador Jefferson Caffery,
1886-1074: April - June, 1999.
McNeese State University
So What's With This Pirate Thing?: The Modern Celebration of Piracy in Lake Charles. August 20, 1998 - May 17, 1999. There is no historical evidence that Jean Lafitte ever even visited Southwest Louisiana, but Lake Charles still uses pirate images for everything from businesses to Carnival krewes. This exhibit examines why the city is so interested in the buccaneer theme and why our fascination for it did not begin until after World War II.
The History of Lake Charles (the actual lake, not the city). November 25, 1998 - June 21, 1999. Although insignificant in size, Lake Charles has long affected the history of the city that touches it. This display on the third floor uses historic photographs to discuss the various landmarks that have sat around the lake as well as recent engineering projects that have reduced its size.
New Orleans Public Library
The Louisiana Division's current exhibit, African Americans in New Orleans: Les Gens de Couleur Libres, mounted in honor of Black History Month, will be available for view on the 3rd floor of the Main Library, 219 Loyola Ave., through May. The exhibit is designed to display first-hand examples of the role that free people of color played in antebellum New Orleans and uses original documents from the City Archives and other Louisiana Division collections. An online version of the exhibit is available in NUTRIAS at www.gnofn.org/~nopl/exhibits/fmc/fmc.htm.
Louisiana State Museum
So Much More Than Just a Map: Perspectives on Louisiana and the New World, the popular exhibition of 92 maps that has been on view in the State Museum's Presbytere since September of 1996, is slated to close on Monday, March 29, 1999.
Featuring original maps from 1525 through the present, So Much More Than Just a Map illustrates how, over the centuries, maps have served many more purposes than showing how to get from one point to another. Major exhibit themes include maps as artistic, scientific and technological creations and as documents of the social, political, and economic times in which they were produced.
A traveling version of show comprised of photographic reproductions of the various historic maps will continue to travel to libraries and other venues across the state. An online "virtual" tour of the exhibition will also remain accessible through the Museum's website at www.crt.state.la.us/crt/museum/map.htm.
For a current schedule for the traveling exhibition, call the State Museum at (504) 568-6968 or toll free at (800) 568-6968. The website address is www.crt.state.la.us/crt/museum/lsmnet3.htm.
Louisiana Contemporaries of Degas Exhibited at State Museum. Edgar Degas, the French Impressionist who considered himself a son of Louisiana, visited New Orleans during a period of personal transformation. Coincidentally, his 1872-73 sojourn occurred at a time when historical changes were taking place within the state's visual arts community. An exhibition of paintings reflecting this shift will be open at the Louisiana State Museum on April 29, 1999.
The Changing Canvas: Paintings by Louisiana's Postbellum Artists, complements Degas and New Orleans: A French Impressionist in America, an exhibition of the New Orleans Museum of Art. Both shows are presented in conjunction with FrancoFete. The Changing Canvas features portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings by Richard Clague, Jr., Harold Rudolph, Victor Pierson, Paul Poincy, and John Genin, among others. It will be on view in the Presbytere on Jackson Square in New Orleans through September.
Admission to the Presbytere is $5 for adults, $4 for senior citizens, students and active military, and children 12 and under are admitted free. For additional information, call the State Museum at (504) 568-6968 or toll free at (800) 568-6968.
Hill Memorial Library
On March 17, 1699, French explorer Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, first viewed the Native Americans' ceremonial "red stick" boundary marker near the present location of Baton Rouge. LSU Libraries Special Collections will host two exhibitions in celebration of 300 years of Baton Rouge history.
Nineteenth-Century Baton Rouge Through Paintings, Prints, and Drawings displays and interprets maps, drawings, prints, and paintings of nineteenth-century Baton Rouge. Despite Baton Rouge's small size in the nineteenth century, more drawn, painted, and printed images of the town exist than of any other place on the lower Mississippi River except New Orleans. Images range from early watercolors by military people such as W. T. Kummer to fine lithographs and gouaches of local architecture and the surrounding area by the French-born and -trained artist Adrien Persac. When Baton Rouge became the state capital in 1847, artists had new impetus to depict the city, especially after the building of the Gothic Revival statehouse between 1847 and 1852. The show includes contemporary portrayals of the Dakin statehouse as well as modern watercolors by architectural archival artist Jim Blanchard. H. Parrott Bacot, Executive Director of the LSU Museum of Art, curated the exhibition. The LSU Libraries and the LSU Museum of Art hope that this exhibition will stimulate interest in Baton Rouge's rich architectural heritage.
From Red Stick to River Capital: Three Centuries of Baton Rouge History explores how Baton Rouge's history has shaped the present-day city. Native Americans, French, Spanish, English, African, and American cultures and heritages shaped the early history of the region. Descendants of these peoples and many later immigrants have all played a part in the growth, vitality, and culture of Baton Rouge. V. Faye Phillips, Associate Dean of Libraries for Special Collections, curated the exhibition, and dedicates it to the memory of Mark Thomas Carleton (1935-1995) and Marshall Stone Miller, Jr. (1938-1991). Dr. Carleton authored River Capital: An Illustrated History of Baton Rouge; Mr. Miller was responsible for the pictorial research. Both Dr. Carleton and Mr. Miller were associated for many years with the LSU History Department and the Libraries Special Collections. This celebration of three centuries of Baton Rouge history, based on their book, is a tribute to their work and lives.
Historic New Orleans Collection
Although "kids are kids" in any country or in any era, the experiences of children in 19th-century New Orleans were distinct from those in other communities. Vignettes of their life-style are explored in the exhibition, Seen and Not Heard: Facets of Childhood in 19th Century New Orleans, on view at the Historic New Orleans Collection, 533 Royal Street, from November 17, 1998 through April 1999.
Center for Regional Studies/Archives and Special Collections (SLU)
The Civil War in Louisiana as Revealed by the Archival Treasures of the Center for Regional Studies is on display at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. United States Army General Halbert Paine's handwritten journal, unpublished memoirs, General Orders book, and family correspondence describe the Baton Rouge and Port Hudson campaigns in vivid first-person detail. The Volunteer's Friend, a New Orleans school newspaper, expresses Southern early war enthusiasm while issues of the rare Amite Daily Wanderer show the despair over the hard realities of the last days of the Lost Cause. Period letters and photographs display the feelings and faces of Louisiana's Confederate generation. An interpretive narrative complements exhibits of uniforms and equipment and enhances an interpretive map of Louisiana Civil War operations.
Announcement from the Society of American Archivists Preservation Section
The Education Committee of the Preservation Section of SAA invites you to submit your preservation policy statements for selection for inclusion in a Model Preservation Management Policies manual in the making. The object of the project is to provide a manual that can assist archives in developing and implementing effective preservation management programs. An outline of good preservation elements is listed below. Your preservation policy and procedures statements incorporate these elements in part or in whole and can be helpful to your fellow archivists as they prepare their own individualized institutional programs.
It is the plan of the committee that this resource be made available both via the Internet and in hard copy. A possibility is publication by SAA. However, we would want to have preservation policy and procedures statements in hand before submitting our proposal to the Publications Board of SAA. We ask for your help on behalf of our committee in its effort and on behalf of your fellow archivists as they take on a task for which you can provide a model. Please direct copies of your documents to either of the Co-chairs of the Education Committee as soon as possible. If you have questions please contact them as well.
| Anke Voss-Hubbard Archivist Rockefeller Archive Center 15 Dayton Avenue, Pocantico Hills Sleepy Hollow, New York 10591-1598 Direct Line/Voice Mail: (914) 366-6321 RAC Tel: (914) 631-6017 E-mail: vossa@rockvax.rockefeller.edu www.rockefeller.edu/archive.ctr/ | Glenda B. Stevens Jim Wright Archivist Texas Christian University Box 298400 Ft. Worth, Texas 76129 Telephone: (817) 257-7595 Fax: (817) 257-7282 E-mail: g.stevens@tcu.edu lib.tcu.edu/www/SPCOLL/wright.htm |
Elements of the Manual
Preservation assessments are made to identify the current situation and needed improvements. They address: site, collections, policies, practices, procedures, roles and responsibilities. Preservation policies articulate commitment of institution and staff to the integration of preservation concerns into all archival operations. They include policies for the following areas: preservation goals, strategies, and priorities; disaster planning; environmental controls; acquisition; interiors and storage; exhibition; staff and user training; security; public access; housekeeping; pest control; mold; exteriors and buildings; holdings maintenance; reformatting procedures; conservation treatment of individual items; and care and handling. Society of Southwest Archivists Annual Meeting, May 27-29, 1999
Society of Southwest Archivists
The Society of Southwest Archivists will hold its annual meeting in Austin, Texas, May 27-29, 1999. The meeting's theme, Archives in Bloom: Expanding our Environments, is a fitting focus for environmentally-friendly Austin. The theme lends itself to a diverse program for the meetin, suggesting the link between archives and the many kinds of environments affecting our work. The following sessions will be held Friday, May 28 and Saturday, May 29:
Two preconference workshops will be offered on Thursday May 27, 1999:
The SSA-member rate for each workshop is $45 and $80 if a member registers for both workshops. The non-member rate for each workshop is $60; $105 for both workshops.
Highlights of the meeting include:
Meeting Registration Fees:
SSA members $85
Non-members $100
Students $35
Late Registration Fees (postmarked after April 30, 1999):
SSA members $110
Non-members $135
Students $40
For more details and descriptions, consult the SSA's web site at: lib-04.lib.uh.edu/SSA/SSA.htm. This site also includes a registration form.
For more information about the meeting, contact the Co-Chairs of the Local Arrangements Committee:
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Kinga Perzynska Catholic Archives of Texas P.O. Box 13124, Capitol Station Austin, Texas 78711 (512) 476-6296 cat@onr.com | Brenda Gunn State Bar of Texas Archives P.O. Box 12487 Austin, Texas (512) 463-1463, ext. 2711 bgunn@texasbar.com |
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