MARBL

by Sara Logue, Research and Public Services Archivist, MARBL

In the time leading up to the Civil War, the southern states were tasked with deciding how they were going to move forward after it was determined that Lincoln was to be the next President. South Carolina made the first move towards secession at the end of 1860. Mississippi, Florida and Alabama soon followed. It was time for Georgia to make a decision, not only about whether or not they wanted to still be joined with the North, but if their secession would lead to a united front in the south.

It is with great pleasure that the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library announces the opening of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference records as of May 1, 2012. Made possible by a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources to uncover hidden archival and special collections, the SCLC records will shed new light on a hugely important, and largely undocumented, civil rights organization.
 
The collection consists of the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from 1957-2007, with the bulk of the material from 1968-2003, including records from various offices and departments; files of various programs; financial and legal records; printed material; photographs; audiovisual materials; and artifacts and memorabilia.

The Writers exhibition, on display in the Schatten Gallery until November, features photographer Nancy Crampton’s pictures of authors, poets, novelists, journalists and other writers. A small selection of MARBL materials, chosen by guest curators from the Emory community, complements each photo. The materials illuminate the connections the writers have with each other and the special collections in MARBL. The guest curators were asked to write an essay explaining how their own research has been influenced by using primary source materials, and we will be featuring them here once a week. The following essay is by Sally Wolff-King about Eudora Welty.

by Erika Farr, Coordinator for Digital Archives, MARBL

Two events this week remind me why archives, digital stewardship, and curation are not only vital to documenting our cultural moment but also can prove enthralling and inspirational.

The first of these events is wonderfully local. The Emory University Libraries celebrated the opening of the WRITERS exhibition on Monday sampling some of the dynamic collections of personal, literary papers housed in MARBL and revealing the impact these collections and the artists who created them have had on a wide array of guest curators. In Professor Ronald Schuchard's introductory essay for the exhibit entitled "The Imaginative Culture of MARBL," he describes the archive as a space for "communal delight, awe and use." This heady mix of joy and utility drives the archival mission and guides the development of MARBL's Digital Archives program, in particular. As is true throughout the archives field, MARBL increasingly acquires computing-related materials, such as disks, floppies, drives, hardware, and all sorts of other digital miscellany. The practical and necessary demands of how to manage such material should not obscure the ultimate goal of providing researchers with the "communal delight" of exploring these digital treasures.

The Writers exhibition, on display in the Schatten Gallery until November, features photographer Nancy Crampton’s pictures of authors, poets, novelists, journalists and other writers. A small selection of MARBL materials, chosen by guest curators from the Emory community, complements each photo. The materials illuminate the connections the writers have with each other and the special collections in MARBL. The guest curators were asked to write an essay explaining how their own research has been influenced by using primary source materials, and we will be featuring them here once a week. The following essay is by Elizabeth Chase about Margaret Atwood.

by Sara Logue, Research and Public Services Archivist, MARBL

Before I move into the Civil War period, I wanted to make sure readers of Discovering Atlanta had a good sense of what was going on in the decade before. It can be difficult to process just how small Atlanta was in the 1850s, and how things changed so rapidly. While it was moving swiftly, it was still a modest town prior to the Civil War. The changes which occurred in this decade can be seen most clearly in maps of the era and through comparing contemporary population demographics with historical city data.

by John Bence, Research Library Fellow, Emory University Archives

In the 1920s, the Emory University Glee Club was a blockbuster group, touring not only all of Georgia and the South but also New York, Washington, Havana, London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Founded on the Emory College campus in Oxford, Ga., the club moved to the Atlanta campus and was more formally organized soon thereafter. But the year 1920 marks the beginning of the Glee Club's celebrated history, when Professor Malcolm Dewey became the director.