GRANTS AND ACQUISITIONS
C&RL News, June 2009
Vol. 70, No. 6
by Ann-Christe Galloway
The New York University (NYU) Division of Libraries has received a $100,000 grant from the Leon Levy Foundation for an oral history project that will help document the transformative impact of renowned chef James Beard and his circle on American food culture. According to Marvin J. Taylor, head of NYU’s Fales Library and curator of the Food Studies Collection, New York City was at the center of a post-war food revolution, thanks to a group of chefs and writers based there who were among the first to think about distinctly American food and American taste. They included Beard, whose papers are in the Fales collection; Cecily Brownstone, whose collection of 8,000 cookbooks, 5,000 pamphlets, and personal correspondence with food writers and authors became the cornerstone of the collection; Clementine Paddleford, Joe Baum, Craig Claiborne, Julia Child, and Pierre Franey. To that end, Fales Library has begun a two-year project of interviews with a selected list of New York chefs, restaurateurs, writers, food critics, and farmers market founders, including Mimi Sheraton, Saul Zabar, Betty Fussell, Lidia Bastianich, and Florent Morellet. Journalist and former food reporter Judith Weinraub, winner of two James Beard awards for journalism, will conduct the interviews this year and next. The resulting tapes and transcripts will be a source of material for scholars, educators, and writers and will become part of the Fales Food Studies Collection.
Acquisitions
Physicist and science fiction author Charles Sheffield’s (1935–2002) correspondence and manuscript collection has been acquired by the University of South Florida Libraries. The collection of Sheffield’s papers includes correspondence from 1977 to 2001; manuscripts for approximately 160 written works, including novels, short stores, and nonfiction works; the author’s notebooks from 1984 to 1995; and records of contracts, publishers’ lists, and awards. Additionally, authors Nancy Kress, Joe Haldeman, Kathleen Ann Goonan, and Elizabeth Hand, as well as collector Rusty Havelin, have donated their science fiction collections to the libraries through estate gifts. British novelist Brian Aldiss, whose 1969 short story Super-Toys Last All Summer was the basis for Steven Spielberg’s film A.I. Artificial Intelligence, has also donated a collection to the libraries.
The papers of Lou Cannon, presidential biographer and former White House correspondent, have been acquired by the University Library at the University of California-Santa Barbara. Cannon wrote five books about the legacy of Ronald W. Reagan and four other books, including Official Negligence, a comprehensive social history about the Rodney King beating and the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Cannon is widely considered the nation’s leading authority on the career and administrations of President Reagan. He covered politics for the Washington Post for 26 years and was a Sacramento reporter for the San Jose Mercury News early in his career. The collections contain primary source material gathered for his books Ronnie and Jesse: A Political Odyssey (1969); Reagan (1982), President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (1991), Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power (2003), and Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles (1997). The Rodney King, Los Angeles Riots Collection also contains extensive interviews, as well as court documents, materials related to the investigation of the Los Angeles Police Department, and files on police brutality, racism, race relations, the Christopher Commission, and the rebuilding of Los Angeles, for example. Included in the collection is a heart-wrenching memoir by the schoolchildren of Central Los Angeles. In English and Spanish, poetry, and with pencil drawings, they wrote about what they saw and how it affected their lives in “What I Remember About the Riots.”
A first edition Catesby has been acquired by the University of South Carolina. Susan Gibbes Robinson, a leading Columbia, South Carolina educator and philanthropist, gave the rare, first edition copy of Mark Catesby’s The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands to the university. The two volumes, published in London beginning in 1731, contain the works of the British naturalist (1683–1749) during his four-year journey through the American Southeast. The volumes contain 220 hand-colored copper-plate engravings of flora and fauna, with descriptions in English and French in parallel columns on the facing pages.
A collection of German composer Paul Hindemith’s (1895–1963) papers and memorabilia has been donated to the Gumberg Library at Duquesne University. The Hindemith collection consists of documents, photographs, articles, pamphlets, and books illustrating various aspects of Hindemith’s life. It also includes a large number of photocopied letters along with postcards Hindemith both sent and received. There are photographs of Hindemith at varying times of his life, including rare images of his childhood. Some original artwork, such as hand-made post cards and a puzzle he made as a gift, are unique items of the collection. A wooden panel from Karl Bauer’s (editor at the American branch of publisher B. Schott’s Söhne, Mainz) desk has special significance since Hindemith would carve an illustration in it each time they met at Bauer’s office.
A collection of works by Thomas Merton—writer, poet, social critic, religious thinker, and monk—has been donated to the University of Arkansas Libraries-Fayetteville. Included in the collection are 156 first editions by Merton, 192 other Merton editions, and another 142 first-edition volumes written by scholars about Merton. The collection also includes essays, bibliographies, journals and issues of journals on Merton, and more than 100 recordings. Thomas Merton (1915–68) was the author of more than 70 books that include poetry, personal journals, collections of letters, and writings on social criticism, peace, justice, and ecumenism. Merton’s early education was in England and France; after a year at Cambridge University in England, he entered Columbia University in New York.He entered the Abbey of Gethsemani near Louisville, Kentucky, and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1949. Merton’s first published works were books of poetry, but it was the publication of his best-selling autobiographical Seven Storey Mountain (1948). From the publication of that book onward, Merton’s writings had a dramatic impact on social attitudes toward Christian spirituality—especially contemplative spirituality—during the 20th century. Works that reflect Merton’s keen interest in solitude and contemplation as an antidote to what he calls “the murderous din of our materialism,” include Seeds of Contemplation (1949) and The Silent Life (1957). Other works such as The Way of Chuang Tzu (1965) and Mystics and Zen Masters (1968) reflect his keen interest in Eastern philosophy and mysticism. Works such as Faith and Violence (1968) and The Nonviolent Alternative (1980) show his passionate stance against war and violence.
Ed. note: Send your news to: Grants & Acquisitions, C&RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795; e-mail: agalloway@ala.org.