Author Archives: Lynn Durgin

ACLU Court Document Summons King’s Last Days

Posted on by
Reply

A recent ref­er­ence inquiry brought to light a doc­u­ment within the Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) Records that pro­vides a record of one of the events that took place in the days sur­round­ing the assas­si­na­tion of Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968 in Mem­phis, Tennessee.

Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr., with Dean of the Chapel Ernest Gor­don, at Prince­ton in 1960. His­tor­i­cal Pho­to­graph Col­lec­tion, Indi­vid­u­als Series.

W.J. Michael Cody, an attor­ney in Mem­phis, who, along with his firm, rep­re­sented King and other defen­dants in a case brought by the City of Mem­phis, inquired whether we had doc­u­ments related to these events in the ACLU Records.

The court case at issue con­cerned the City of Mem­phis’ desire to pre­vent a march in sup­port of strik­ing san­i­ta­tion workers—the city wished to ban the demon­stra­tion because an ear­lier san­i­ta­tion work­ers’ march (held on March 28, 1968) had become dis­or­derly and resulted in riot­ing and the use of aggres­sive law enforce­ment mea­sures includ­ing mace and tear gas. King wished to lead another, peace­ful march for the cause, but the City of Mem­phis obtained a tem­po­rary restrain­ing order to pre­vent it from occur­ring (Cody, p. 700).

Cody, a for­mer pres­i­dent of the West Ten­nessee Chap­ter of the ACLU, was con­tacted by ACLU Gen­eral Coun­sel Mel Wulf, and asked whether his firm, Burch Porter & John­son, would rep­re­sent King in a case to lift the restrain­ing order and allow the march to pro­ceed legally. On the evening of April 3, in the midst of the defense’s prepa­ra­tions for the case, King gave his well-known “I’ve Been to the Moun­tain­top” speech to the san­i­ta­tion work­ers and their fam­i­lies at the Mason Tem­ple (Cody, p. 700).  Accord­ing to the doc­u­ment below from the ACLU records, the hear­ing was held on the day of April 4, and the court decided that the march could pro­ceed under a set of con­di­tions that would help to ensure its order­li­ness.  That evening, King was assas­si­nated at the Lor­raine Motel.

The three-page court doc­u­ment from the ACLU Records, filed April 5, 1968, indi­cates that the Coun­sel for the City changed its posi­tion after the tragic event and joined with the defen­dants in their efforts to allow the march to pro­ceed with the pro­vi­sions listed.

Opinion and Temporary Injunction (page 1), ACLU Records, Subgroup 2, Box 656, Folder 2

Opin­ion and Tem­po­rary Injunc­tion (page 1), ACLU Records, Sub­group 2, Box 656, Folder 2

Opinion and Temporary Injunction (page 2), ACLU Records, Subgroup 2, Box 656, Folder 2

Opin­ion and Tem­po­rary Injunc­tion (page 2), ACLU Records, Sub­group 2, Box 656, Folder 2

Opinion and Temporary Injunction (page 3), ACLU Records, Subgroup 2, Box 656, Folder 2

Opin­ion and Tem­po­rary Injunc­tion (page 3), ACLU Records, Sub­group 2, Box 656, Folder 2

Cody recounts the com­plex and com­pelling events of this period in Mem­phis in his arti­cle “King at the Moun­tain Top: The Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr., Mem­phis, April 3–4, 1968,” The Uni­ver­sity of Mem­phis Law Review, Vol. 41, pages 699–707.

 

New Accession: Atomic-bombed Roof Tiles from Hiroshima University

Posted on by
Reply

The Uni­ver­sity Archives was recently given the honor and respon­si­bil­ity of pro­vid­ing a home for seven roof tiles that sus­tained dam­age in the atomic bomb­ing of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945.  The roof tiles were col­lected in a river bed near ground zero of the atomic bomb explosion.

3 of the 7 tiles.

3 of the 7 tiles.

Along with the roof tiles, the dona­tion includes pho­tographs of the loca­tion where the tiles were recov­ered; book­lets and pam­phlets on the bomb­ings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and doc­u­ments related to the artifacts.

Hiroshima Uni­ver­sity was dec­i­mated in the atomic bomb attack— most of its stu­dents and fac­ulty mem­bers per­ished and its build­ings were demol­ished.  In the post-war period, Hiroshima University’s pres­i­dent Tat­suo Morito reached out to uni­ver­si­ties world-wide to help to renew the insti­tu­tion by send­ing books for its library and saplings to bring its grounds back to life.

IMG_0012IMG_0011

Prince­ton was among the schools that responded in 1951 by pro­vid­ing both a book for the library’s col­lec­tion and a mon­e­tary dona­tion for the pur­chase of a native tree for the cam­pus; and now, in cel­e­bra­tion of its 80th anniver­sary, Hiroshima Uni­ver­sity is rec­i­p­ro­cat­ing by donat­ing these artifacts.

The roof tiles are dis­trib­uted by Hiroshima University’s Asso­ci­a­tion for Send­ing Atomic-bombed Roof Tiles in order to per­pet­u­ate aware­ness of the dev­as­tat­ing effects of the atomic bomb­ings in Japan, and to oppose the use and pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons.  In a let­ter that accom­pa­nies the dona­tion, Toshi­masa Asa­hara, Pres­i­dent of Hiroshima Uni­ver­sity, explains:

The threat of nuclear weapons still exists in many areas of the world.  It is our earnest desire, how­ever, that the pain and sad­ness expe­ri­enced in Hiroshima not be re-created any­where else in the world.

This wish is not only the wish of those of us liv­ing today but rep­re­sents the silent voices of the 240,000 Hiroshima cit­i­zens who per­ished from the atomic bomb.  We believe it is also the will of oth­ers such as your­selves who will work together with us to build a peace­ful future for the world.

See the Atomic-bombed Roof Tiles from Hiroshima Uni­ver­sity Find­ing Aid

 

 

 

 

 

Revised Dissertation Embargo Policy in Effect

Posted on by
Reply

The new pol­icy for the Pub­li­ca­tion, Access, and Embar­go­ing of Doc­toral Dis­ser­ta­tions, which was approved on May 14, 2012, is now in full effect.

The new pol­icy enables each grad­u­ate stu­dent to request a two-year embargo on his or her dis­ser­ta­tion, with the poten­tial for renewal. When approved, the embargo applies to the dissertation’s avail­abil­ity in Pro­Quest, as well as in Princeton’s dig­i­tal repos­i­tory, Data­Space. If not embar­goed, dis­ser­ta­tions are made avail­able in full-text to sub­scrib­ing insti­tu­tions via Pro­Quest, and in full-text on the Inter­net through DataSpace.

Indi­vid­u­als who sub­mit­ted their dis­ser­ta­tions between Sep­tem­ber 29, 2011 and June 19, 2012 had an oppor­tu­nity to request an embargo retroac­tively. They were con­tacted by email on June 19, 2012 (and again on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2012) and given until Octo­ber 15, 2012 to request approval for their embargo. The dis­ser­ta­tions that were not embar­goed dur­ing this period were released to uni­ver­sal acces­si­bil­ity via Data­Space on Novem­ber 5, 2012.*

The process of gain­ing approval for an embargo is gov­erned by the Grad­u­ate School. Stu­dents who wish to embargo their dis­ser­ta­tion should fill out the Dis­ser­ta­tion Embargo Request and Approval Form, obtain an approval sig­na­ture from their advi­sor or a com­mit­tee mem­ber, and sub­mit the form as part of the Advanced Degree Appli­ca­tion Process. Writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion of the embargo approval from the Grad­u­ate School must be pre­sented in hard copy at the time of sub­mis­sion to the Mudd Man­u­script Library.

Details about sub­mit­ting your dis­ser­ta­tion to the Mudd Man­u­script Library are here: http://www.princeton.edu/~mudd/thesis/index.shtml

*As an interim mea­sure while the new pol­icy was being devel­oped, on March 23, 2012, all dis­ser­ta­tions that had been deposited in Data­Space in the fall of 2011 were restricted to the Prince­ton net­work. Those sub­mit­ted in the spring of 2012 were also lim­ited to the Prince­ton net­work. All dis­ser­ta­tions from Sep­tem­ber 29, 2011 and for­ward that were not embar­goed were released uni­ver­sally via Data­Space on Novem­ber 5, 2012.

The Mudd Manuscript Library Hosts its Third Edit-a-thon on October 19

Posted on by
Reply

In the spirit of vol­un­teerism, the Mudd Man­u­script Library will host its third Wikipedia edit-a-thon on Fri­day, Octo­ber 19th from 12:30–4:15 p.m. dur­ing Vol­un­teer Week­end at Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity.  This edit-a-thon will pro­vide a unique, hands-on expe­ri­ence with Uni­ver­sity Archives col­lec­tions and its focus will be on expand­ing and/or cre­at­ing Wikipedia pages on Prince­ton athletics.

Stu­dents and com­mu­nity mem­bers with all lev­els of expe­ri­ence (includ­ing none!) are wel­come to par­tic­i­pate in this event.  Instruc­tions for edit­ing and con­tribut­ing to Wikipedia will be pro­vided, along with lunch and snacks. Full details of the event are avail­able on our meetup page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Princeton_University_Edit-a-thon_Three

We ask that you bring a lap­top to work on, and, since space is lim­ited, please RSVP to .

View posts on our pre­vi­ous edit-a-thons:

http://blogs.princeton.edu/mudd/2012/05/she-roars-we-record/

http://blogs.princeton.edu/mudd/2012/02/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-at-mudd-library/

Please direct ques­tions to

 

 

Senior Theses to Go Digital in 2013

Posted on by
Reply

Access to the most fre­quently used col­lec­tion at the Mudd Man­u­script Library—the Senior The­sis Col­lec­tion—will be greatly enhanced in 2013 as we tran­si­tion from col­lect­ing paper copies to elec­tronic copies (PDFs) of the­ses.  Dean of the Col­lege Valerie Smith has approved a plan for senior the­ses to be avail­able online (but lim­ited to the Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity com­mu­nity) through Princeton’s dig­i­tal repos­i­tory, Data­Space.

To this end, next sum­mer Data­Space will become the main search inter­face for all the­ses.  Senior the­ses sub­mit­ted in 2013 and in the future will be avail­able only elec­tron­i­cally (but lim­ited to the Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity domain), while senior the­ses sub­mit­ted in 2012 and before will be avail­able in paper for­mat at the Mudd Man­u­script Library, as they are today.  In the sec­ond phase of the project, PDFs of legacy senior the­ses will be added to Data­Space as they are scanned for patrons, which will incre­men­tally grow the num­ber of the­ses avail­able digitally.

“The senior the­sis has a long his­tory at Prince­ton,” said Uni­ver­sity Archivist Dan Linke. “This is just the next chap­ter for this impor­tant aspect of a Prince­ton education.”

The sub­mis­sion process for aca­d­e­mic depart­ments will evolve as we move to PDFs—all of the data entry and upload­ing will be done through a sim­ple online form. Staff in the aca­d­e­mic depart­ments will do the ini­tial data entry and upload­ing, and Library staff will make a final check and then release the the­ses to Data­Space. Train­ing on the new process will be offered in the win­ter of 2013 and will include online videos as well as in-person demon­stra­tions at the Mudd Man­u­script Library.

Ques­tions about the new process can be directed to the Uni­ver­sity Archivist, Dan Linke (609.258.5879; ).

Modernization of Dissertation Submission Procedures

Posted on by

One of the Uni­ver­sity Archives’ impor­tant roles is to pre­serve and pro­vide access to Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Ph.D. dis­ser­ta­tions and Master’s the­ses. Recently the Mudd Man­u­script Library has taken steps to both mod­ern­ize and stream­line the process that Ph.D. can­di­dates carry out to sub­mit their dis­ser­ta­tions, while at the same time improv­ing access to these works.

Part­ner­ing with ProQuest

Since 1950, the Uni­ver­sity has part­nered with Pro­Quest (for­merly UMI) to pub­lish and dis­sem­i­nate the work of Princeton’s Ph.D. stu­dents to the wider aca­d­e­mic com­mu­nity. After decades of mail­ing bound man­u­scripts to Pro­Quest for micro­film­ing and/or scan­ning, and more recently, mail­ing CDs with PDFs of dis­ser­ta­tions, Prince­ton Ph.D. can­di­dates will now upload their own PDFs to Princeton’s ETD Admin­is­tra­tor site (www.etdadmin.com/princeton). Can­di­dates will choose pub­lish­ing options, decide if they want Pro­Quest to reg­is­ter their copy­right, and pay any rel­e­vant fees on the site as well.

Reduced Cost for Students

The new online sub­mis­sion sys­tem allows can­di­dates to real­ize sig­nif­i­cant sav­ings in pub­lish­ing fees—Traditional pub­lish­ing is free and Open Access pub­lish­ing is $95—in both cases, a sav­ings of $25 over the pre­vi­ous process. The optional copy­right reg­is­tra­tion fee remains $55, and a dis­ser­ta­tion main­te­nance fee of $15 is due at the Mudd Man­u­script Library at the time of submission.

In addi­tion, with the new pro­ce­dure, can­di­dates are required to sub­mit only one bound copy of their dis­ser­ta­tion to the library (instead of two), which cuts their bind­ing fees in half, a sav­ings of $40 or more.

Enhanced Access to Dissertations

Depend­ing on the pub­lish­ing option that can­di­dates choose, dis­ser­ta­tions will be made avail­able either through ProQuest’s Dis­ser­ta­tions and The­ses sub­scrip­tion data­base (avail­able to the Uni­ver­sity com­mu­nity at http://search.proquest.com/pqdtft/advanced?accountid=13314) or through ProQuest’s open access data­base PQDT Open (http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/), which offers full text ver­sions of dis­ser­ta­tions to any­one with Inter­net access.

Another step for­ward in pro­vid­ing access to dis­ser­ta­tions is their avail­abil­ity on Princeton’s dig­i­tal repos­i­tory, Data­Space http://dataspace.princeton.edu/jspui/. Start­ing with dis­ser­ta­tions sub­mit­ted for the Novem­ber 2011 degree award, an elec­tronic copy of each Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity dis­ser­ta­tion will be placed in Data­Space. This will be a full text, uni­ver­sally acces­si­ble ver­sion of the dissertation.

More Infor­ma­tion

Full details of the new dis­ser­ta­tion sub­mis­sion pro­ce­dures are avail­able on our web­site at: http://www.princeton.edu/~mudd/thesis/index.shtml . If you have ques­tions about the dis­ser­ta­tion sub­mis­sion process, please con­tact the Mudd Man­u­script Library at 609–258-6345 or .

New Accessions: April-June 2010

Posted on by

The Mudd Man­u­script Library received 12 pub­lic pol­icy acces­sions and 30 Uni­ver­sity Archives acces­sions between April and June 2010.

The pub­lic pol­icy col­lec­tions received sig­nif­i­cant addi­tions to the Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union Records and the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions Records. In addi­tion, a won­der­ful sur­prise was the receipt of Woodrow Wilson’s and Edith Bolling Galt’s mar­riage license, 1915. The item was donated by Mr. Barry C. Keenan of Granville, OH, who also con­fessed to hav­ing caused the green ink stain on the doc­u­ment as a ten-year-old.

Wilson marriage license

On the Uni­ver­sity Archives side, the Library received the papers of two impor­tant Prince­ton fig­ures– Dr. Carl. A. Fields and Dean Mathey.
Edu­ca­tor and advo­cate of minor­ity edu­ca­tion, Dr. Carl A. Fields was assis­tant dean of stu­dent aid at Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity and later served in var­i­ous other lead­er­ship posi­tions out­side the Uni­ver­sity. The Carl A. Fields Papers con­sist of cor­re­spon­dence, reports, research mate­r­ial on race rela­tions and minor­ity edu­ca­tion, hand­writ­ten notes, project pro­pos­als, and other papers that doc­u­ment his life and active career. An online find­ing aid for this col­lec­tion is avail­able at: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/5138jd936.
Dean Mathey, Class of 1912, was a mem­ber of the Board of Trustees and an ardent sup­porter of the Uni­ver­sity. The col­lec­tion doc­u­ments Mathey’s famil­ial rela­tion­ships, his ser­vice to Prince­ton, his ten­nis career and other activ­i­ties from his under­grad­u­ate days to the end of his life. A find­ing aid is for this col­lec­tion is in process.
The fol­low­ing is a com­plete list of mate­ri­als that were acces­sioned between April and June of 2010. As always, if you would like addi­tional infor­ma­tion about these mate­ri­als, please con­tact us through our gen­eral email account at .

Con­tinue read­ing →

New Accessions: January through March 2010, Part II

Posted on by

In Jan­u­ary, the Uni­ver­sity Archives acquired a lec­ture note­book penned by Eli­jah Rosen­grant (1776–1832). The note­book was writ­ten in the spring of 1791 for John Witherspoon’s course “Lec­tures on Moral Phi­los­o­phy.” The sig­nif­i­cance of the note­book derives not only from its doc­u­men­ta­tion of Pres­i­dent With­er­spoon as a fac­ulty lec­turer and of the ped­a­gog­i­cal tech­nique of the col­lege in the 18th cen­tury, but also from the fact that Eli­jah Rosen­grant was not enrolled as a stu­dent in the Col­lege of New Jer­sey (as Prince­ton was then known). In fact, Rosen­grant was a stu­dent of Queen’s Col­lege (now Rut­gers Uni­ver­sity), Class of 1791, in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Rosengrantsm

Con­tinue read­ing →

New Accessions: January through March 2010, Part I

Posted on by

The Mudd Man­u­script Library received 8 pub­lic pol­icy acces­sions and 31 Uni­ver­sity Archives acces­sions between Jan­u­ary and March 2010.

In Jan­u­ary, the Library pur­chased a rare pam­phlet writ­ten in Yid­dish sup­port­ing Woodrow Wilson’s bid for reelec­tion 1917. The pam­phlet is one of only a hand­ful of Yiddish-language Wilso­ni­ana known to exist (acces­sion num­ber ML.2010.003).

Wilson%20Pamphlet

In addi­tion, in March the Library pur­chased a per­sonal note­book by James For­re­stal con­tain­ing records of meet­ings and con­ver­sa­tions as well as Forrestal’s thoughts on cur­rent events for the year 1949. The note­book, which is typed but con­tains a num­ber of hand­writ­ten items, seam­lessly com­ple­ments Mudd’s prior hold­ings of Forrestal’s diaries. It is espe­cially note­wor­thy because For­re­stal was in the habit of typ­ing even his per­sonal notes, mak­ing this one of the scarce exam­ples of Forrestal’s hand­writ­ing (acces­sion num­ber ML.2010.008).

Forrestal%20Notebook

Com­ing soon in New Acces­sions, Part II will be an acces­sions high­light from the Uni­ver­sity Archives– the Eli­jah Rosen­grant Lec­ture Note­book, 1791.

The fol­low­ing is a com­plete list of mate­ri­als that were acces­sioned between Jan­u­ary through March 2010. As always, if you would like addi­tional infor­ma­tion about these mate­ri­als, please con­tact us through our gen­eral email account .

Continue reading →

New Accessions: October — December 2009

Posted on by

The Mudd Man­u­script Library received seven pub­lic pol­icy acces­sions and 31 Uni­ver­sity Archives acces­sions between Octo­ber and Decem­ber 2009.

One of the high­lights is an archi­tec­tural ren­der­ing of Com­mence­ment Hall (now called Alexan­der Hall) that was pub­lished in Amer­i­can Archi­tect and Build­ing News on Decem­ber 12, 1891. The ren­der­ing was cre­ated prior to the building’s con­struc­tion, which began in 1892, in accor­dance with archi­tect William A. Potter’s design.

First occu­pied in 1894, Alexan­der Hall was built to accom­mo­date com­mence­ment exer­cises and other large gath­er­ings. Today, the Romanesque-style struc­ture is one of Princeton’s most rec­og­niz­able build­ings and it is home to the Richard­son Audi­to­rium con­cert hall.

Commencement_hall_3

Com­mence­ment Hall, archi­tec­tural ren­der­ing, 1891, AR.2009.111.

The fol­low­ing is a com­plete list of mate­ri­als that were acces­sioned between Octo­ber and Decem­ber of 2009. As always, if you would like addi­tional infor­ma­tion about these mate­ri­als, please con­tact us through our gen­eral email account .

Con­tinue read­ing →