Archives for February 2012

Ruminations on Research: Success Story 3

February 17, 2012 by Steve MacLeod Leave a Comment

The public service staff of Special Collections and Archives work closely with researchers daily. As a new feature of this blog, we will be sharing stories about research in Special Collections and Archives that yielded successful outcomes. We hope to further expose the wide variety of research that our collections support and to encourage others to ask us for assistance. You can reach us at spcoll@uci.edu or 949-824-3947.

SUCCESS STORY 3

WHO: Martin McQuillan, Professor of Literary Theory and Cultural Analysis and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Kingston University, London .

THE CHALLENGE: Martin began his research on the Paul de Man papers at UCI with a view to editing a collection of de Man’s teaching notebooks covering a 30 year pedagogical career. From the outside, through the UCI finding aid to the Paul de Man Papers (MS-C004), this looked to be the most promising part of an already extensively explored archive. The challenge was to locate promising, underutilized texts by de Man.

ASSISTANCE PROVIDED: Providing access to both processed and unprocessed parts of the collection, we worked closely with Professor McQuillan, over several visits, to locate materials for his research.

POSITIVE RESOLUTION: As Professor McQullian stated to us after this research was completed: “By working my way through the boxes of the collection I discovered a number of fascinating texts and archival problems that have led to a range of different publications and activities. The most challenging was an unpublished monograph manuscript from 1972, ‘Textual Allegories’, which was later rewritten by de Man to be included in some of his most famous work. Working with staff in Special Collections and a funded post-doctoral research assistant, Dr. Erin Obodiac, this manuscript was brought to publication on-line in both type-script and verso form. A similarly imaginative solution was found, with the assistance of the UCI team, to publish on-line de Man’s edition of ‘The Portable Rousseau’ which became impossible to publish in his lifetime due to the size of the manuscript. Working with the Special Collections team I have also produced a collection of unpublished texts by de Man, ‘The Post-Romantic Predicament’, as well as the original volume ‘The Notebooks of Paul de Man’, which will ultimately contained many fascinating items as well as some of the teaching material. This work also gave rise to an international conference at UCI on this research, the papers from which will be published in the volume ‘The Political Archive of Paul de Man’. My initial, limited project became a much larger one, funded by the British Academy and the the Arts and Humanities Research Council, with the support, guidance and creativity of the Special Collections team at UCI.”

MORAL: Ongoing efforts to know our collections and the needs of our researchers were key to our support of the research of Professor McQuillan.

New Archival Collections in the the Performing Arts and Art History Available Now

February 16, 2012 by Steve MacLeod 1 Comment

In an earlier post, we introduced our efforts to provide researchers with access to unprocessed collections. We will continue to share brief information about recently “exposed” collections here in the “New & Noteworthy Collections” blog. Below is information about a group of collections related to the Art History and the Performing Arts. For additional information contact Special Collections and Archives at spcoll@uci.edu, (949)824-3947.

Can-can dancers in Col. W. de Basil's Ballet Russe at the Philharmonic Auditorium,1936. — Can-can dancers in Col. W. de Basil's Ballet Russe at the Philharmonic Auditorium

Verena Ruegg Collection (MS-P007)is a collection of sketches of dancers on paper from 1941-1994.

Many major dance companies and notable individual dancers around the world are portrayed.
Extent 39.6 Linear feet (60 boxes)

June Wayne Exhibit Catalogs and Publications (MS-P051) comprises exhibit catalogs and exhibit related ephemera documenting the work of artist June Wayne from the 1950s through the late 1990s. Also included are journal articles on Wayne and her artwork, some articles by Wayne and her 1999 curriculum vitae. In 1960, June Wayne first gained notoriety as the founder and director of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Hollywood. She worked with artists such as Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis, Rufino Tamayo, and Louise Nevelson. By the end of the 1960s, Tamarind had become an international force in the printmaking arts. June Wayne’s own lithographs are widely recognized as masterpieces of the medium. She was also involved in the design of tapestries, in the Feminist Art movement, and in arts education. She died in 2011 at her studio on Tamarind Avenue in Hollywood.
Extent 0.6 linear feet (1 box).

Claire Adams Photographs (MS-P008) consists primarily of fifty-four photographs of silent movie actress Claire Adams depicted in many of her forty six silent films. Production companies include Paramount, Universal, and Jesse G. Hampton Productions. The collection also includes studio portrait photographs, a number of clippings, and two serial issues. Claire Adams’s best known film was The Big Parade (1926), the second largest grossing silent film in cinematic history, after The Birth of a Nation. It was directed by King Vidor and Adams starred alongside John Gilbert. Perhaps her most memorable role came in 1920 as Barbara, the undercover detective who humanizes the crippled crime boss played by Lon Chaney in The Penalty.
Extent 0.3 linear feet (1 box and 1 oversize folder).

Kurt Bergel Collection of Viennese Dance, Theater, and Music Programs (MS-P010) consists of a small number of German-language programs from Vienna for dance, theatre, opera and music concerts, 1917-1935.
Extent 0.4 linear feet (1 box).

Jennifer Fisher Collection of Dance Ephemera and Promotional Materials (MS-P045) comprises dance ephemera and promotional materials collected by University of California, Irvine associate professor of dance Jennifer Fisher that documents dance performance and education in Southern California between 1985 and 2006.
Extent 8.0 linear feet (8 boxes).

Ruminations on Research: Success Story 2

February 15, 2012 by Steve MacLeod Leave a Comment

SUCCESS STORY 2

WHO: María Gabriela Estrada, a UCI Graduate Student in Dance.

THE CHALLENGE: Ms. Estrada was working on a UCI MFA thesis on the choreographic development of the ballet The Three-Cornered Hat from the debut in 1919 through 2009. Of particular interest to her research was information on the various re-stagings of the ballet from the initial staging of Leonide Massine’s 1919 choreography through contemporary Spanish dance.

ASSISTANCE PROVIDED: María Gabriela Estrada was enrolled in UCI Dance Professor Nancy Ruyter’s Dance 284 class – a graduate seminar on dance bibliography and research. Professor Ruyter asked Steve MacLeod to do a session for her class on doing dance research using Special Collections and Archives materials. She provided Steve with a list of some of the research topics that students in her class were just beginning to work on, so that he might select a representative sample of materials to bring to the class that would both reflect the broad range of materials in our dance collections as well as be of relevance to topics for her students. One of the items Steve selected was:

Beaumont, Cyril W., 1891-1976. The three-cornered hat / written by C.W. Beaumont; decorated by Ethelbert White. London: C.W. Beaumont, 1919. Dance GV1787.B45 1919 no. 5 c.1 [La Meri’s (Russel Meriweather Hughes) copy, with her penciled annotations. Le Meri used this copy for the staging of a revised version of the original Diaghilev 1919 one-act production of Three-Cornered Hat.]

María Gabriela Estrada was aware of this title and had looked at it in collections elsewhere, before coming to UCI. However, she was in need of additional information about the La Meri version.

POSITIVE RESOLUTION: Ms. Estrada was ecstatic to learn of our copy of the book that includes detailed choreographic notes and descriptions of how La Meri approached the staging of The Three-Cornered Hat. She spent a great deal of time in the Special Collections and Archives reading room examining and studying the annotations. As aspects of her thesis evolved, she worked with Steve and other reference staff in the reading room to locate and use other books and archival collections to address those needs. She became a regular in our reading room. After she completed her thesis and moved on to a teaching position elsewhere, she kept in-touch with us. She also donated some of her research material to our collections.

MORAL: The book and archival collections pertaining to dance history is able to support research broadly, as this and many other stories attest to.

New Regional History Archival Collections Available Now

February 15, 2012 by Steve MacLeod Leave a Comment

In an earlier post, we introduced our efforts to provide researchers with access to unprocessed collections. We will continue to share brief information about recently “exposed” collections here in the “New & Noteworthy Collections” blog. Below is information about a group of collections related to regional history. For additional information contact Special Collections and Archives at spcoll@uci.edu, (949)824-3947.

Charles Sparks Thomas Papers (MS-R003) consists of the personal papers of Charles Sparks Thomas (1897-1983), who served as Secretary of the Navy (1954-1957), President of Trans World Airlines (1958-1960), and President of The Irvine Company (1960-1966). The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence as well as personal and business files for the years 1946 through 1966. Charles Sparks Thomas was born in Independence, Missouri and he attended the University of California, Berkeley and Cornell University. Thomas was President of Foreman & Clark, Inc., a men’s clothing chain, between 1937 and 1953. During World War II, he served in the administration of the Navy Department. In 1954 Thomas became undersecretary of the Navy, then secretary of the Navy between 1954 and 1957. He returned to business as president of TWA in 1958 and became president of The Irvine Company in 1960. Thomas has been active in Republican politics at the state and national levels. His interviews focus on his management of Foreman & Clark, building a material organization during the war, becoming secretary of the Navy, his friendship with Howard Hughes, involvement with TWA, the plight of scheduled airlines, and organization of The Irvine Company for land development in Orange County.
Extent 34.6 linear feet (19 record cartons, 42 document boxes, 2 flat boxes, 6 OS flat boxes)

Walker Family Papers (MS-R005) comprises the personal papers of James E. Walker (d. May 1972), an attorney in Santa Ana who had offices in the Spurgeon Building and ran for the California Assembly and the U.S. Congress as a Democrat from Orange County in the early 1950s. Also included are some papers of his father, Sharpless Walker, who also had been an attorney in the Spurgeon Building. The bulk of materials are from the 1950s and 1960s.
Extent 10.0 Linear feet (15 boxes).

McPherson Family Papers (MS-R006) consists of the personal papers of Stephen, William, and Robert McPherson and families. Included are correspondence, photographs (including tintypes), legal and business documents, account books, diaries, and unsorted ephemera.
Extent 11.1 linear feet (13 boxes).

Leland Frederick Cooley and Lee Morrison Cooley Papers (MS-R018) consists of papers of Leland Cooley’s literary activities, including his fiction as well as his non-fiction books on retirement and land issues in Southern California. Included are manuscripts, galleys, reviews, promotional material, research files correspondence, and photographs. There are also papers from his wife Lee Morrison Cooley, consisting chiefly of black and white photographic prints and clippings documenting her career as a dancer and choreographer in theater, television, and movies.
Extent 16.2 linear feet (37 boxes).

Bessie Coulter Collection (MS-R019) consists of materials documenting Bessie Coulter’s activities as Curator of the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana and her research notes and chronologies relating to the Bernardo Yorba family. In Coulter’s papers there are photographs and other miscellaneous materials including photographs of exhibits (religious, doll show, etc.), receptions, and of Coulter herself.
Extent 1.1 linear feet (2 document boxes, 1 XOS folder).