Author Archives: Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Symposium | The Wilsonian Century: Critical Perspectives on the Treaty of Versailles at 100

by Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library on

1 April 2019 | 6:00pm | Room 203 Butler Library

Scholars and authors examine the centennial of the Treaty of Versailles peace agreement that ended the First World War, tracing its impact on democracy and tyranny, international governance, and the shaping of the modern world.

The talk will be moderated by Ted Widmer (CUNY Macaulay Honors College). Panelists include: Rashid Khalidi (Columbia University), Erez Manela (Harvard University), and Patricia O’Toole, author of The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made.

poster of versaille hall and illustration of weeping angelThe panel highlights themes and issues raised in the exhibition on display in the RBML, Remaking the World, on display now.

This event is co-sponsored by the History Department. Registration is required. 

Chinese oral histories at Columbia

by Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library on

In many ways, both professionally and collegially, the addition of Yingwen Huang, is a boon to the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

In particular, Ying has brought both archival and historical perspective on several oral history interviews and supplementary archival materials that were bequeathed to the, as it was known then, Oral History Research Office at Columbia.

In this post, Ying showcases the Chinese Oral History Project, a 1959 oral history project begun with Academia Sinica’s Institute of Modern History and the Claremont Graduate School’s China missionaries project. Ying’s diligent work on this collection addresses valid concerns regarding the processing, cataloging and accessibility of these valuable collections that offer a window into the historical dynamics shaping modern China.

As the Communist party took over mainland China in 1949, Republican officials began to leave for Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States. In 1957, Clarence Martin Wilbur, the professor of Chinese history at the Columbia University’s East Asian Institute, was inspired by Allan Nevins’ American oral history project to start a Chinese oral history project and saw the possibility of procuring primary historical sources using oral history interviews to capture the life stories of these prominent Chinese political officials living abroad. Professor Franklin L. Ho, who at the time was the Professor of Chinese Economics, agreed to join as the project’s co-director. The project officially began in 1958 and ended in 1980. Over two decades, the project’s oral historians interviewed a total of 19 prominent Chinese figures from the Republic of China period and produced a total of 16 extensive oral history interview transcripts in English, with many later were translated and published in Chinese and English. The project also collected eight autobiography manuscripts from related individuals as well as 13 interviewees’ personal papers.

Over two decades, the Chinese Oral History Project’s oral historians interviewed a total of 19 prominent Chinese figures from the Republic of China period and produced a total of 16 extensive oral history interview transcripts in English…

The Chinese Oral History Project (COHP) documents the legacy of the COHP at Columbia University dating from 1958 to 1980. The collection primarily consists of administrative records, photographs and portraits of the interviewees, interview reports and transcript drafts, sample audio recordings, as well as related autobiographies that the project’s organizers collected. Records from the collection document the close connections between the project staff and the interviewees. Researchers who wish to learn more about the history of the lives of the interviewees as well as their collaborative work with the project will find the collection useful.

The Chinese oral history project not only contributed to the timely acquisition of primary historical materials for the study of modern Chinese history, it also initiated and promoted the interest of oral history in Taiwan and later in mainland China. In 1958, Hu Shih, the first interviewee of the Chinese oral history project, was appointed as the president of the Academia Sinica. After returning to Taiwan, he advocated and supported oral history in Taiwan. During Dr. Hu Shih’s oral history interview in 1958 as noted by his interviewer Te-Kong Tong, he had strongly encouraged another individual to participate and “to leave a record for the future generations”.

Interview report with Dr. Hu by Te-kong Tong, 1958, page 2. (Note: The full name of Dr. Niu mentioned in the excerpt is Niu Yongjian 鈕永建). Chinese oral history project collection; Box 6 Folder 11 | Rare Book and Manuscript Library

The oral history project at the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Modern History began in 1959. The project was initially subsidized by Columbia and later funded by the Ford Foundation. The project focused on collecting oral histories from important political and military figures who settled in Taiwan after the Communist took over in mainland. The interviews documented the lives of political figures representing nearly all provinces of Republican China. The Academia Sinica oral history project deposited a total of 37 finalized handwritten oral histories transcripts, photographs, diaries, and memoirs at Columbia.

The interviews documented the lives of political figures representing nearly all provinces of Republican China.

With the Chinese version of these prominent political figures’ memoirs later published in the Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China, the Chinese oral history project and the Academia Sinica oral history project are viewed as the foremost oral history projects that documented the life of Chinese political figures during the troubling period of China dating from the early to mid-20th Century.

Another oral history project housed by the oral history archives related to religious missionaries based in China is the Claremont Graduate School’s China missionaries project. The project, started in 1969 and funded by Henry Luce Foundation grant, collected oral history interviews from 44 individuals who worked as missionaries in China. The oral history transcripts were later deposited at Columbia.

The Oral History Archives at Columbia also house two versions of the Peter H. L. Chang (Zhang Xueliang) oral history transcripts as well as his papers that were opened to the public in 2002 on his 100th birthday. One of the interviews was conducted by T. K. Tong in 1990 and another by the Chang sisters (Chih-ping Chang-Sobelman and Chih-yu Chang) from 1990 to 1993.

In addition to the aforementioned projects that mainly focus on the Republic of China period, the oral history archives also collected oral histories of Chinese-Americans in New York as part of the September 11, 2001 Telling Lives Oral History Project and the Nobel Laureates Project on scientific research project, which include the Reminiscences of Tsung-dao Lee and the Reminiscences of Chen Ning Yang.

Thank you to Chengzi Wang and his article,  “Chinese Oral History Collections at Columbia: Toward Better Access” in the Journal of East Asian Libraries. 

Talk | An aftertaste of dread: Cornel Woolrich in fiction and film

by Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library on

27 March 2019 | 7:30pm | Lenfest Arts Center

This Rare Book & Manuscript Library event marks the opening of the The Dr. Saul and Dorothy Kit Film Noir Festival hosted by Columbia University’s School of the Arts. It will feature James Naremore, Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus, Indiana University.

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library holds the Cornell Woolrich Papers.

The festival’s themes is The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: Paris 1946 and American Film Noir and is curated by Rob King, Film and Media Studies.

Co-sponsored by the School of the Arts. RSVP is required.

Researcher Profile | Andrea Kmetz-Sheehy

by Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library on
We see you every day, handing you a lockers key as you walk in each morning, and receiving it back toward the end of the day. Most often you’re hunkered down over a particular archive, getting to understand a portion of one of our archives better than anyone who works in the RBML.
We await the longer scholarly projects that you’re developing from this research but in the nearer term we thought it would be interesting to give a preview of your work.
 
In this brief interview, Classical Studies master’s degree student Andrea Kmetz-Sheehy shares with us her research into Roman provincial coins. She’s been a steady presence here in the RBML reading room since last year, which makes learning about her research even more illuminating. Thank you for sharing, Andrea!
 
Roman coins with man's head wearing wreath and woman with animals

The close up image of the example coin with the nomenclature and descriptions as provided in reference sources available today, and often also at the time of Olcott. | Coin Image credit: Emma Pratt, American Numismatic Society on behalf of the RBML

Where are you visiting us from?

I’m in my second year of the Master’s Program in Classical Studies at Columbia.

What is your research project?

My thesis project is the cataloguing of the Roman provincial coins of the Olcott Roman Coin Collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Butler Library.  The objective is to create a catalogue for publication of the provincial coin subset in the Olcott Collection. Continue reading →

Columbia Professor key to climate science, dies at 87

by Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library on

Professor Emeritus Wallace Broecker, a noted climate scientist with Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, died 18 February 2019 at the age of 87. His scientific contributions are being touted in major news sources, notably his landmark paper on increased carbon dioxide levels as a predictor of rises in global temperatures, which gave us “global warming” as a popular descriptor.

Located in the oral history archives is an interview with Prof. Broecker from 1997. The interview is wide-ranging, but a through line is Professor Broecker’s conviction that one must stand up for the science.

quote by Broecker

Search: Oral history interview with Wallace S. Broecker, 1997

The transcript is available for review in the RBML readings rooms. Or, as the Lamont-Doherty Observatory oral history collection is also available online, you can read the transcripts via the American Institute of Physics website.

New and Updated Collections | January/February 2019

by Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library on
rows of archival boxes in a white room

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

Head Archivist Kevin Schlottmann shares collections newly opened or updated by RBML archivists.

Now available

Al Jaffee Papers
Al Jaffee (born March 13, 1921) is a comic artist best known for
creating MAD magazine’s iconic Fold-In feature. The collection
contains extensive original artwork, including sketches, tracings, and
proofs documenting Jaffee’s creative process. Publishing and
commission contracts, correspondence, clippings, and a small amount of
programs and ephemera from fan conventions and other public
appearances are also included.

Columbia College Records
This collection is composed of the general files of Columbia
College’s Dean’s Office and the correspondence of Columbia College
administrative officers during the years 1892 through 2019. A review
of this collection allows researchers to gain insights into the
interaction of Columbia College faculty and administrators with
students, fellow faculty members, parents of students, and
administrators of other colleges. Continue reading →

Talk | Iliazd as transnational artist

by Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library on

7 March 2019 | 4pm | Room 523 Butler Library

We’re marking the opening of the exhibition “Ilia Zdanevich: The Tbilisi Years” with a symposium considering Zdanevich as a transnational artist.

In her keynote lecture, “Zdanevich in Paris, 1923: Zaum, Ledentu, and the Eclipse of the Early Avant-Garde,” Johanna Drucker, Breslauer Professor of Information Studies at UCLA, will address Zdanevich’s enthusiasm for promoting the work of Tbilisi’s 41° in Paris and his rapid disillusionment in the face of Dada squabbles and the birth of Surrealism.

François Mairé, President of the Iliazd-Club, will offer “From Ilia Zdanevich to Iliazd: A Life in Images between Tbilisi and Paris,” followed by Boris Fridman, curator of the recent major exhibition on Iliazd at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, on “Collecting and Displaying Iliazd.”

Continue reading →

Book History Colloquium: Old Books as Digital Objects

by Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library on

13 February 2019 | 6pm | Room 522 Butler Library

early english manuscript

Photo courtesy sarahwerner.net

We are used to reading texts with our eyes—reading the words and images for their content (in fact, this is so obvious it’s odd to describe it). But we also read texts with our fingers—the feel of the materials, the act of navigating through a codex or scroll, and the feel of the weight shifting or paper folding as we move through the content all contribute to our understanding of the work we’re reading.

The guest speaker for this event is Dr. Sarah Werner, independent scholar, editor of the blog Wynken de Worde books, early modern culture, post-modern readers and the author of the forthcoming Studying Early Printed Books 1450-1800: A Practical Guide.

Continue reading →

A King’s College/Columbia founder’s contributions to Hebrew Studies

by Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library on

 

Judaica Librarian Michelle Chesner keeps you updated about new acquisitions, collection finds and exhibitions in Jewish Studies at Columbia. In this post she shares some revelations about  Revered Samuel Johnson’s connection to the study of Hebrew. Samuel Johnson was the founder of King’s College (renamed Columbia after the American Revolution), and its sole faculty member until 1757.

Title page of Samuel Johnson’s grammar text

Newly Available | All issues of alumni magazine, Columbia College Today (CCT)

by Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library on

All issues of the College’s alumni magazine, Columbia College Today (CCT) from its inception in 1954 through the Summer 2016 issue have been uploaded to the Internet Archive.

University Archives worked collaboratively with CCT’s staff to generate a full index to all issues of this publication from November 1954 through Fall 2018, which allows for directed searching of this incredibly useful content.

Continue reading →