-
Our NHPRC-Funded Digitization Project at Six Months
Late last year, the Mudd Manuscript Library was granted an award by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to digitize our most-used Public Policy collections, serve them online, and create a report for the larger archival community about cost-efficient digitization practices. Excerpts from our six-month progress report is below. Work so far Project planning…
-
Records of Adlai Stevenson, Ambassador to the United Nations, Now Available to View Online
In October 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, Adlai Stevenson spoke the most famous line of his career. The former Illinois governor and two-time presidential candidate was the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations. After a series of provocative political moves and a failed US attempt to overthrow the Cuban regime,…
-
Archives for Everyone
In each of the last two springs, several staff of the Mudd Manuscript Library and other members of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections have judged at the regional qualifier of the National History Day competition held on Princeton’s campus. This is a contest for middle and high school students who, based on…
-
Why — and How — We Digitize
It’s February, and we’re now in the second month of our NHPRC-funded digitization project. In twenty-three more months, we’ll have completed scanning and uploading 400,000 pages of our most-viewed material to our finding aids, and anyone with an internet connection will be able to view it. This is just the most recent effort to introduce…
-
New Public Policy Accessions: May – June 2011
There’s a scene in a documentary about the French philosopher Jacques Derrida where Derrida visits UC Irvine (where he had donated his personal papers). The philosopher, going through the rows of newly-processed collections, comments that the gray archival boxes on the shelves look like little gravestones. For someone whose best-known axiom was that "there is…
-
Folk Art in the Archives
[Left] William Bowen by Stanislaus Korneski. Paint and etching on wood, AR1995.78. [Right] Photo of William Bowen by the Princeton Alumni Weekly. I would guess that every archives has material like this — objects created out of affection or respect in a non-official capacity. These two paintings on etched wood — recently re-discovered here at…
-
New Public Policy Accessions: April 2011
As organizations grow and change through time, so do their archives.The Mudd Manuscript Library collects the records of the American Civil Liberties Union [ML.2011.011], the Association on American Indian Affairs [ML.2011.005], and Americans United for Separation of Church and State [ML.2011.003], among many other organizations. In the last few months, we’ve had the pleasure of…
-
“How High Can an Income Tax Fix Go?” The LBJ tax scandal that you’ve probably never heard of.
The Mudd Manuscript Library recently acquired an extremely interesting collection from a little-noted event in political history. Werner’s 1944 memo explaining the discovery of fraudulent bonuses to Brown & Root executives. The actual recipient of these funds was determined to be the Lyndon B. Johnson 1941 U.S. Senate campaign. Between 1942 and 1944, Elmer Charles…
-
New Public Policy Accessions: July 2010 – March 2011
One of Mudd’s newest accessions, the Kristen Timothy Papers, finds itself in good company with other Mudd collections documenting individuals who have had profound influence in the United Nations, including the papers of Margaret Snyder, Regional Advisor of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa; Henry R. Labouisse, Director of UNRWA and Executive Director of…
This blog includes text and images drawn from historical sources that may contain material that is offensive or harmful. We strive to accurately represent the past while being sensitive to the needs and concerns of our audience. If you have any feedback to share on this topic, please either comment on a relevant post, or use our Ask Us form to contact us.