On October 15 and 17, the Cagliari Opera House will present the first modern rendering of the opera L’Ape Musicale (The Musical Bee) in the Rotunda of Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library, at 7:30pm. The performance is part of a symposium, Lorenzo Da Ponte and the Birth of Italian Opera in New York. Both events are free, […]
Old-school Columbia freshman fashion
“Never neglect to say ‘hello’ to a man who wears a Freshman cap, whether you know his name or not.” – Columbia Blue Book, 1917-18 Proudly worn as symbols of a freshman’s distinctive but lowly position on campus, these caps helped the new classmates forge a close allegiance amongst themselves and against their greatest detractors: the […]
Alice was here
Tomorrow, October 6th, is Mad Hatter Day! University Archivist Jocelyn Wilk shares a Columbia connection to the day, which celebrates the Hatter, a key character in Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland. Did you know that Alice in Wonderland came to visit Columbia and was awarded an honorary degree? You may think us mad to suggest […]
New Resource | Notable Columbians
At the University Archives, working with researchers allows us to learn about a wide range of Columbians. From a researcher, we learned about Otelia Cromwell, the first African American woman to receive a PhD at Yale. (Cromwell received a Master’s degree from Columbia in 1911.) Another asked us about Anni Weiss-Frankl, one of the […]
Newly available RBML collections – September 2018
Head Archivist Kevin Schlottmann shares collections newly opened by RBML archivists. A large addition to the New York Clearinghouse records was processed, and the finding aid substantially improved: “New York Clearing House Association (now The Clearing House Association) was founded in 1853 as the first banking clearing house in the United States. The records include amicus briefs, […]