Where do all those papers in Readex’s America’s Historical Newspapers come from? The majority of the issues in the seven series of Early American Newspapers were originally filmed over many decades in partnership with the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. However, a variety of libraries, museums, universities, and historical societies have also contributed a great many issues, as have several current-day publishers with historical back files. (more…)
Archive for August, 2010
Who Wants Yesterday’s Papers? We Do!
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
Women’s Suffrage: The Frontier Background
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
"Spirit of the Frontier" by John Gast (1872)
Since the late 1800s, historians have debated the importance of the frontier on the development of American institutions and culture. For some, the Western frontier was the source of American innovation and individualism. For others, the Western frontier is a symbol of American ethno-centrism and imperialism. Perhaps, it is neither, but rather, both. While the story of the American frontier is one of rugged individualism, it is also a story of oppression.
But there is another aspect that may help reconcile these conflicting views of the frontier in American life. Since the earliest colonial days, the frontier played a significant role in the development of American democracy. As American settlement moved west, not only did democratic institutions follow, they evolved. As Western states sought to increase representation to compete against Eastern states, state voting laws expanded to allow greater participation in the electorate. To avoid losing population, Eastern states expanded their voting laws as well. Over time, historic restrictions on the right to vote, such as property qualifications and gender, gave way to a growing egalitarianism that would come to characterize American democracy by the twentieth century. (more…)
Hapless Orphans?: Anonymity and Authorship in the Early American Novel (1789-1820): A Society for Early Americanists Conference Panel
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010Panel Chair: Duncan Faherty, Queens College & the CUNY Graduate Center
As Cathy Davidson registers in Revolution and the Word, “at least one hundred novels were produced in America between 1789 and 1820.” Since the initial publication of Davidson’s Revolution and the Word in 1986, our sense of the variegated contours of that archive has dramatically increased. Indeed “rediscovered” texts which barely received consideration even a decade ago — like Leonora Sansay’s The Secret History (1808) — are now central parts of our rapidly expanding canon.
This panel aims to explore a still largely ignored subset of these novels: the dozens of novels published anonymously during the period. Texts such as The Hapless Orphan (1793), The History of Constantius & Pulchera (1795), St. Herbert (1796), Moreland Vale (1801), and Humanity in Algiers (1801) have much to tell us about the development of early American literary history and cultural practices, yet, perhaps, because of the lack of biographical inroads, they continue to be overlooked. (more…)
Materials and Methods in Early American Religion: A Society of Early Americanists Conference Roundtable
Thursday, August 19th, 2010Panel Chair: Chris Phillips, Lafayette College
Scholarly interest in early American religions has greatly expanded in recent years across a variety of disciplines. This panel is intended to generate discussion about how ideas about doing research on religious topics has changed, and how scholars can best use archives, both digital and physical, many of which are only newly available. The chair invites one-page proposals for 10-minute talks (not formal papers) from any field, including interdisciplinary studies. (more…)
Right to vote for U.S. women approved August 1920
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
Proposing the 19th Amendment
In her recent NewYork Times column titled “My Favorite August,” Gail Collins wrote about women getting the right to vote in August 1920.
The previous year—on May 19, 1919—both Houses of the 66th Congress had approved House Joint Resolution 1, proposing the 19th amendment to the 48 states. The Joint Resolution was only two sentences long:
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
“Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
The following summer, on August 18, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify what many referred to as the “Susan B. Anthony federal suffrage amendment.”
Click to read full article from August 18, 1920 issue of the Bellingham (Washington) Herald
Eight days later—on August 26—the 19th amendment was certified by U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby.
Click to read full article from Aug. 26, 1920 issue of the Aberdeen (South Dakota) Daily News
The history of the 19th Amendment can be found at this page on the National Archives website. Also available on the same site is an exhibit on the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and all the subsequent amendments.
Acclaimed biographer James McGrath Morris — featured speaker at recent Readex event — participating in National Book Festival
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
We at Readex are excited to learn that the key speaker at our 2010 ALA breakfast, James McGrath Morris, will be participating in the National Book Festival next month in Washington, D.C. As in years past, you can vote for your favorite author via the festival website.
Book-lovers may select from among the roughly 500 authors who have appeared at the nine previous National Book Festivals, or will appear at this year’s festival, using an alphabetical listing or voting from the page that includes each author’s biography and photograph. The top 10 vote-getters are displayed on the voting page, with daily updates.
Morris, author of Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print and Power, is certainly one of our favorites. We hope he is one of yours as well!
Please go to this Library of Congress webpage and vote today. (You’ll find James McGrath Morris between Edmund Morris and Sylvia Jukes Morris.)
Sayyid Qutb in the pages of the FBIS Daily Report and in The Economist’s review of a new biography of Qutb
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010John Calvert’s forthcoming book Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (London: Hurst & Co., 2010) was anonymously and seemingly fairly reviewed in The Economist, July 15, 2010. Qutb, according to The Economist’s review, and I summarize here, flirted with Sufism but became a secular nationalist in the 1940s, opposed to British rule in Egypt and “Zionist colonization in Palestine.”
After completing his first major book, Social Justice in Islam, Qutb spent two years in the United States where, according to Calvert (or Calvert’s anonymous reviewer), his final conversion to radical Islamism was solidified. He returned to Egypt and joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1953, a year after Gamal Abdel Nasser and a group of officers overthrew the pro-Western government of King Farouk.
MARC Records for the U.S. Congressional Serial Set and American State Papers
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
Readex offers MARC records for the documents and reports of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994 based on the high level of indexing found in the full citations of the Readex digital edition. MARC records are also available for every publication in Readex’s American State Papers, 1789-1838.
To convert its indexing to MARC records, the Readex government publications cataloguing team worked with an expert advisory board that included Terry Reese, Gray Chair for Innovative Library Services, Oregon State University Library; Becky Culbertson, Shared Cataloging Program Manager, California Digital Library; and Leona Faust, Senate Librarian, United States Senate Library. Three sample records are available here.
Sample MARC Records
Readex’s cataloging includes:
- Description, which may include the title, statement of responsibility, edition, material specific details, publication information, series, notes, and standard bibliographic numerical data specific to the Reports, and Documents of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set as well as to the publications of American State Papers.
- Main entry (either the “United States Congress. Senate” or “United States Congress. House of Representatives”) and added entries (full official committee name).
- Subject headings, based on the following authorities:
- Legislative Indexing Vocabulary of the Congressional
- Research Service of the Library of Congress
- Library of Congress Subject Headings
- United States Congressional Biographical Directory for names of Senators and Representatives
- Getty Thesaurus of Geographical Names.
For the duration of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994 project, new catalog records are added quarterly to our MARC Records portal.
MARC records currently available include:
American State Papers: covering the 1st through 25th Congresses (1789-1838): 6,278 records
U.S. Congressional Serial Set: covering the 15th through 98th Congresses (1817-1984): 353,240 records.
Readex Twitter Feed, 1-7 August 2010
Monday, August 9th, 2010RT @amhistorymuseum: New on our blog: Collecting American science http://ow.ly/18stRS
RT @cliotropic: RT @briandistelberg: Absolutely riveting color photos taken by Farm Security Administration b/w 1939 and 1943: http://bit.ly/c4eZhn
RT @cliotropic: RT @bancroftlibrary: Alice Ramsey and 3 friends complete the first all-female transcontinental auto trip in 1909 http://bit.ly/akc2yN
RT @newsweek “A world without physical books is to conceive of a world somehow diminished.” http://bit.ly/awWVr2 (more…)
HMS Titanic and Deepwater Horizon: Lessons of Limited Liability Lost to History
Thursday, August 5th, 2010
The Titanic (AP)
Nearly a century after the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, scientists are planning to revisit the site of the wreckage in mid-August with today’s most powerful imaging technology. Expedition leaders hope to create a three-dimensional map of the Titanic remains and surrounding area. From a forensic perspective, this upcoming expedition will focus on the decay of the ship’s structure caused by deep ocean currents, salt water and the intense pressure. According to David Gallo, an expedition leader and Woods Hole scientist, the team is “actually treating it like a crime scene.”
In a 1912 speech before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Senator Isidor Rayner could not have agreed more with Gallo’s approach. The Committee on Commerce had been directed by (62) S.Res. 283 to investigate the causes of the disaster in its immediate aftermath. The U.S. Congressional Serial Set contains over 1,100 pages of testimony taken during the investigation by survivors of and eyewitnesses to the Titanic disaster.
From their testimony we discover numerous incidents of potential negligence and overconfidence by Titanic officers and crew that may have contributed to its sinking and the subsequent loss of life. However, it was the lack of recourse for survivors and the families of those who perished that seemed to most anger Rayner.
Speaking to the committee, the senator framed the discussion in terms of what has been a perennial issue in American politics, the relationship between powerful corporations, in this case shipping lines, and individuals. In terms of the limited liability of shipping lines he said,
From the U.S. Congressional Serial Set
Rayner not only argued that the potential benefits of granting economic incentives such as limited liability to industry are outweighed by the potential cost to the public at large but went on to say,
From the U.S. Congressional Serial Set
Nearly 100 years after the sinking of the Titanic—billed as the most technologically advanced ship of her time—the notion of limited liability for certain industries and corporate responsibility has resurfaced. Mere months after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, we are left to wonder if the lessons referred to by Senator Rayner have been lost to history.
