Blog – Page 26 – Special Collections & The Gallery

New Judaeo-Christian Studies Digital Collection

Msgr. Oesterreicher, Rabbi Finkel, and Fr. Frizzell of the Institute for Judaeo-Christian Studies, from the John M. Oesterreicher papers, Mss 0053 (mss0053_s43_04)

The Archives and Special Collections Center has a strong relationship with the Institute for Judaeo-Christian Studies here at Seton Hall University. Five manuscript collections here at the A&SCC came to us through the Institute, and are rich resources for the study of Judaeo-Christian relations. The Edward H. Flannery papers, 1965-1996, Mss 0012, the Nancy Forsberg papers, 1913-2011, Mss 0022, the John M. Oesterreicher papers, 1920-2000, Mss 0053, the Rose Thering papers, 1944-2005, Mss 0016, and the Michael Wyschogrod papers, 1941-2002, Mss 0013 are important collections documenting the efforts of individuals striving to increase understanding among all people, especially Christians and Jews.

Now these five collections have a new digital resource, the Judaeo-Christian Studies Collections. Portions of each collection are being digitized and made available through this digital collection, and include manuscripts, photographs, pamphlets, correspondence, newsclippings, and other materials. We think this collection will prove to be an invaluable resources for scholars in Judaeo-Christian Studies or in any aspect of religious studies, and will continue to add to the collection. Bridgette, a graduate student in the Judaeo-Christian Studies department, has put a great deal of work into processing these collections, digitizing selected items, and making them available online. Thanks to Bridgette, and to Fr. Frizzell of the Institute for Judaeo-Christian Studies, these materials are now widely available to interested researchers. Check out the collection, and subscribe to the updates to see newly digitized items as they are uploaded!

Leonard Dreyfuss and New Jersey Civil Defense Display in the Archives

Currently on display in the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room are items from the Leonard Dreyfuss papers, 1786-1972 (bulk 1931-1972), Mss 0001.

Leonard Dreyfuss materials on display in the Archives Reading Room

Leonard Dreyfuss was a resident of Newark and the city’s Outstanding Citizen of the Year in 1942. A businessman in advertising, Dreyfuss was also very active in war efforts on the home front during World War 2, and continued his civil defense involvement after the war.

The United States Civil Defense was a non-military organization created to prepare and educate Americans on potential military attacks. Their purpose was to create and inform civilians of evacuation plans, fallout shelters and routes, survival skills, and alerts. Local chapters of Civil Defense created newsletters, passed out pamphlets, and held demonstrations and test alerts so citizens would be prepared. Leonard Dreyfuss was heavily involved with the organization’s activities in New Jersey, particularly in Newark, and served on the Governor’s Civil Defense Advisory Committee during the 1950s.

Items on display include materials related to Civil Defense activities in New Jersey, including photographs and newsclippings, and items published or distributed by Civil Defense, including pamphlets, armbands, and a poster. These items demonstrate the kind of organized efforts made by local citizens to prepare for conflict. During the Second World War, Americans were concerned with supporting the war effort and about the possibility of the conflict suddenly coming to American soil; after the war, nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction became a major concern for most Americans. The materials on display reveal one aspect of how local people tried to address those concerns and prepare for the worst.

Leonard Dreyfuss and group next to Civil Defense Rescue Service truck, from the Leonard Dreyfuss papers, Mss 0001

How do you see these activities and materials from the 1940s-1960s, and how does that compare to similar concerns today? How do you think people deal with fear of conflict at home, and do you think it has changed over time? View the materials on display and get a historical perspective!

These items will be on display through November, 2013. Special thanks go to Lucia Alvarez, intern at the Archives and Special Collections Center, for putting much of this display together.

Opening up the Reading Room

The Reading Room of the Archives and Special Collections Center has undergone a minor facelift! With a brand-new conference table in the Mr. and Mrs. George L. Steciuk Conference Room, and shifting and re-appropriating of furniture in the William T. and Marie J. Henderson Special Collections Reading Room, we have opened up the space to give researchers (and staff) a little more room.

Use of the Reading Room is a very important part of conducting research in any archives or special collections. Because our materials are often old, fragile, and sensitive to light damage or other causes of deterioration, and because all of our materials are meant to be kept safe for use by researchers 50 or even 100 years from now (or more!), the use of archival and special collections materials must be carefully monitored and controlled. So a Reading Room provides a space for researchers to access materials in a controlled environment that also allows them to make use of library resources often necessary as supplementary research items. We provide wireless and desktop access to all library resources as well as many vital reference books, volumes, yearbooks, and microfilm. With our new desk set-up, we can accommodate more researchers in the Reading Room while providing better security for our materials. Our new conference table will more comfortably accommodate classes that visit the Archives or groups who make use of the conference room. The new arrangement also frees more of our beautiful glass walls and makes the space feel more open.

There is still some re-decorating to do, to showcase some of our framed pictures and items, but the Reading Room is ready for our fall visitors and researchers. Come by the Archives to see some of our early yearbooks, to conduct original research on the Archdiocese of Newark or Seton Hall University, or check out the rotating displays in our exhibit cabinets. You’re always welcome!

Ace Alagna photographic collection: Online Finding Aid

Mss 0018: Ace Alagna with camera. 00182583

The Ace Alagna photographic collection, 1944-1998, Mss 0018, is a unique, rich resource depicting the history of Newark, the Italian American community in and around Newark, New Jersey politics, people, places, and events in beautiful black and white. This collection, which has more than 2,000 images already available online through the Ace Alagna photographs digital collection, has about 40,000 items including photographic negatives, prints, videos, and layout sheets from the Italian Tribune newspaper. Now, a finding aid describing the almost 30,000 negatives in the collection has been completed and is available online.

Ace Alagna was a photographer from Newark who worked in the White House Press Corps before buying the Italian Tribune newspaper. He edited the newspaper for almost 30 years, during which time he and the Italian Tribune were the organizers and main sponsors of the Newark Columbus Day parade. The annual parade usually had a celebrity grand marshal, often someone of Italian heritage, who would be present for the parade and attendant celebrations. Ace Alagna knew a wide a range of people in New Jersey, and traveled around the country and around the world.

Mss 0018: Ace Alagna and Frank Sinatra at Tribune Award in Atlantic City. mss0018_E0388_011

The Ace Alagna photographic collection, 1944-1998, Mss 0018, includes images of notable politicians, actors, athletes, musicians, and writers such as John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, N.J. Governors Richard Hughes and Brendan Byrne, Congressman Peter Rodino, Danny Aiello, Frank Sinatra, Connie Francis, Phil Brito, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Piscopo, Tony Curtis, Bob Hope, and Tony LoBianco, among many others. The collection includes numerous pictures of Newark and the Columbus Day parade from the 1970s-1990s, and a large number of pictures of N.J. politicians in the state senate and assembly.

Many of the images in the collection have been scanned, and so far a small percentage of those scans are available online. There are also unprocessed portions of the collection that have not yet been described in the finding aid, particularly black and white and color prints of many of the negatives, videos related to the Columbus Day parade, and some materials that appear to be layouts for images to appear in the Italian Tribune. Materials that are not available online are available for research, with the assistance of Archives staff, at the Archives and Special Collections Center. Additional scans will be made available online in the future, as time permits, and unprocessed materials will be added to the finding aid as they are processed. Keep an eye out for more images and materials, and meanwhile, take a close look through this rich window into Newark’s history and culture!

Online exhibit from the Catholic Research Resources Alliance (CRRA)

The Archives and Special Collections Center at Seton Hall University is proud to be a part of the new web exhibit Treasures from the Catholic Research Resources Alliance (CRRA): Women Religious. This exhibit, conceived of by SHU Librarian Marta Deyrup, highlights archival and special collections materials related to women’s religious orders held by a variety of institutions, both by members of the CRRA and non-members. Thirteen institutions contributed images on a variety of topics and in a variety of formats, making for a diverse and fascinating exhibit.

Each contributing institution gave information about the collection from which they included images. Some collections focus on a particular school, highlighting the academic and service contributions of the sisters and educators, while other collections focus on a particular order, documenting the missionary, nursing, or other work performed by the sisters of that order. Some collections belonged to an individual, highlighting the range of activities of one remarkable woman. All of the materials provide insight into the depth and breadth of women religious, and the many accomplishments or contributions they have made to their orders, schools, families, and communities.

The exhibit can be browsed or searched in several ways. Images can be viewed by contributing institution, geographic region, time period, format, or subject, or browsed through from the home page. There is also a search box available. Each image allows commenting, and viewers are invited to comment, or to share information about additional resources not included in the exhibit. Information about several institutions not included in the exhibit is provided on the Additional Resources page, but the exhibit creators would welcome further suggestions. Information about the exhibit and links to the CRRA and the home institutions are also provided. The exhibit will be live through the end of October 2013, and will be available online after that, but comments and questions will no longer be answered.

Marta Deyrup of Seton Hall Libraries was the main motivator behind this exhibit, and Tracy Jackson (that’s me!) of Seton Hall Archives helped deal with the images, as did Tom McGee (who created the site) and Mike Soupios of Seton Hall’s Teaching Learning and Technology Center (TLTC). Jennifer Younger and Pat Lawton of the CRRA were very helpful and supportive as well, as were all of the institutions who contributed, and the hardworking archivists, librarians, and special collections folks at each who selected and scanned the images, wrote the description, and sent them along.

Check out the exhibit, and then explore the related resources via the CRRA’s Catholic Portal!

50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech

Fifty years ago, on 28 August 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom marked an important step in the struggle for civil rights by African Americans, and the most famous part of the event was the speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream.” Dr. King was a Baptist minister and civil rights activist advocating non-violent demonstrations, and he represented the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the March, one of six large civil rights groups. Dr. King was already a well-known activist by the time of this speech, having been instrumental in several large boycotts and demonstrations throughout the South, but his speech came to be the lasting symbol of the event and is widely acknowledged as one of the best examples of American oratory in history. The speech lasted for 17 minutes, and the most famous lines, those beginning “I have a dream…” by which the speech came to be known, were not part of the written speech and were instead ad-libbed on the spot.

If you have never read or heard the speech in its entirety, now is the time. This compelling and moving speech helped push the civil rights movement along; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed the next year, and Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, as well. These words, so eloquent and important fifty years ago, still have the power to move.

Archives and museums often hold the important pieces surrounding an event such as this, and preserve these pieces for future generations. Read the typed speech, housed at the National Archives and Records Administration, or watch a video on Youtube. Check out some of the other events and programs put on or up by the National Archives or by the National Civil Rights Museum. Remember the words of Dr. King, and work toward the dream.

Seton Hall contributes to the Newark Archives Project

The Archives and Special Collections Center at Seton Hall University is excited to be a part of the Newark Archives Project (NAP), a comprehensive online database of primary source material related to Newark co-sponsored by the Newark History Society and Rutgers University-Newark.

The Newark Archives Project’s mission is to “identify and describe Newark-related archival materials, not only in Newark and Essex County, but in New Jersey and New York, and ultimately throughout the United States.” What makes this project especially helpful for scholars is the in-depth description of materials related to Newark within collections; project staff survey materials in person as much as possible to identify relevant content and the locations of that content within a collection, giving greater and more specific detail than can often be achieved in the descriptions provided in finding aids alone. For researchers interested in Newark and its history, NAP is an invaluable tool for locating material.

Since 2010, when the pilot phase of the project was launched, about a dozen institutions, primarily in the city of Newark, have been surveyed. Now project staff have expanded beyond the city into neighboring towns and areas, surveying nearby institutions holding materials related to Newark. Seton Hall University’s Archives and Special Collections Center, as the repository for the Archdiocese of Newark and located in South Orange, adjacent to Newark, is delighted to contribute to NAP. Since June of this year, Dr. Gail Malmgreen, Project Director, and Alix Ross, Archivist, have been surveying our collections to highlight specifically Newark-related materials. Based on their work, the collection descriptions are included in the Newark Archives Project database with box and folder-level lists of relevant materials. More than 50 of our collections have been surveyed and described already, and they’re not finished yet!

The NAP site is very easy to use. Researchers can search for materials by keyword, subject, or time period, or can browse by repository. The result list gives the name of the collection, the repository that holds it, the collection size, and the first part of the collection description. Clicking on the collection title gives the full collection description as well as the detailed contents of Newark materials. The name of the repository is a link to more information on location and how the collection can be accessed, including a link to the institution’s website. So far more than 1300 collections are included in the database, and more are being added continuously.

This is great resource for local researchers or anyone with an interest in Newark and its history. Seton Hall is very proud to be included in the NAP database and we are grateful to the wonderful staff who have surveyed our materials. Check out Seton Hall’s collections in NAP, and explore from there!

Campus Under Construction

Anyone who has been on campus in the past few weeks (not to mention the past year) has noticed some construction going on at the Recreation Center. Construction on campus can lead to traffic and parking headaches, noise, and re-direction or confusion, but is also important progress on improving life and learning for our students, faculty, staff, and visitors.

As these photographs show, Seton Hall today is quite a bit different from the Seton Hall of yesterday, and as we continue to grow and develop, who knows how the campus will look in another 50 or 100 years? Construction, like change, is an essential part of campus life – so see some of the changes our predecessors oversaw!

Seton Hall College panoramic postcard, 1916

This postcard shows the campus as it appeared in 1916. The Administration Building seen here is now President’s Hall and the Library is present-day Mooney Hall. The Chapel and Bayley Hall are in their present locations, but where we would today see McQuaid and Jubilee Halls are grass and trees.

Aerial view of SHU South Orange campus with Corrigan Hall under construction, circa 1943-1944.

This aerial view of campus in the 1940s shows construction on Corrigan Hall, and an early incarnation of the present-day Richie Regan Athletic and Recreation Center behind Mooney Hall. Boland Hall has not yet been built.

Addition to Boland Hall- progress of construction, 1965.

This picture from 1965 shows construction progress on Boland Hall, with Corrgian Hall in the background.

Construction for Walsh Library. View towards recreation center and parking deck.

Construction for Walsh Library. View towards Duffy Hall and Mooney Hall.

Walsh Library was constructed in the mid-1990s. These photos show very early stages of the construction, and the effect this had on the south-east corner of campus.

For more pictures of Seton Hall as it looked in days past, check out the digital collection of Seton Hall University photographs!

The Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies has a new website

Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies homepage

The Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University has a new website featuring the scholarly and community activities of the Institute. The IJCS has a long-standing partnership with the Archives and Special Collections Center, and that relationship is highlighted on the Research and Publications page on the new website, which describes the four large archival collections that have been gifted via the Institute: the John M. Oesterreicher papers, 1920-2000, Mss 0053; the Michael Wyschogrod papers, 1941-2002, Mss 0013; the Edward H. Flannery papers, 1965-1996, Mss 0012; and the Nancy Forsberg papers, 1913-2011, Mss 0022.

The new home page for the Institute describes the wide variety of work conducted at Seton Hall dedicated to Catholic-Jewish relations. The site, like the Institute, is an excellent resource for all those interested in Jewish-Christian scholarship, understanding, and peace-building efforts. In addition to the archival collections housed at the Archives and Special Collections Center, the site provides information about and links to scholarship and writings from the current Director of the Institute, Father Lawrence Frizzell, past and current publications, programs and lectures, the program of study in the Jewish-Christian Studies Graduate Program (the only graduate program of its kind in the United States), scholarship information, and the history of the Institute. The Institute also has a new Facebook page to keep in closer touch with students and scholars, and both sites provide links to the Institute’s regular radio program on WSOU, the Kinship of Catholics and Jews, which is also available for download via iTunes.

The Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies Facebook page

For any scholar interested in Christianity and Judaism, the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies is a unique and invaluable source of knowledge and exploration. Visit the site to find out more!

From the Shelves: the Jack Chance collection on Wendell Willkie and the 1940 presidential election

Two pages from Scrapbook 1 in the Jack Chance collection on Wendell Willkie and the 1940 presidential election,1939-1940, Mss 0023.

A new finding aid has been posted for a small but fascinating collection on American politics: the Jack Chance collection on Wendell Willkie and the 1940 presidential election, 1939-1940, Mss 0023. This collection consists of 5 scrapbooks containing newsclippings from 1939 and 1940 on the presidential election of 1940, as well as some additional information on Wendell Willkie, the Republican candidate in that race.

The 1940 presidential election was unusual in several respects: it marked the first (and only) time in American history that a President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, officially ran for a third term; both candidates were selected at the party conventions and came as something of a surprise to their party; and the entire campaign was shadowed by World War 2 in Europe and Asia, with both candidates advocating non-intervention. In addition, Wendell Willkie was a former supporter of Roosevelt who, although defeated in the campaign, went on to work closely with Roosevelt afterwards. Willkie was a dark horse candidate who had never held or even run for political office before, and the lead-up to the Republican National Convention included strong runs from candidates including former President Herbert Hoover and Thomas E. Dewey, who would go on to become the Republican candidate in the 1944 election when Roosevelt ran for a fourth term. As a result of Roosevelt’s long turn as President, the United States congress passed the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1947 that limited a President to two terms or ten years in office.

The major issues of the campaign, faithfully documented in this rich set of scrapbooks, revolved around the economic recovery of the country from the Great Depression after the stock market crash of 1929, the possibility of American involvement in World War 2, and the legality or advisability of Roosevelt’s run for a third term. The scrapbooks include news articles describing events of the campaign and election as well as opinions, editorials, and political cartoons on candidates and issues. These materials have not yet been digitized and are very fragile, but they give a window into a political process quite different from today. Come to the Archives to see them, or contact us to find out more!