Upcoming Lectures on the Coeducation and the Yale Campus Exhibit

The following post was authored by Michael Lotstein, university archivist in Manuscripts and Archives.

The Yale University Archives, in collaboration with the Yale Alumni Association, are pleased to announce a pair of lectures for the fall semester on the exhibit, “We thought of ourselves as architects”: Coeducation and the Yale Campus, 1968-1973.

Image of an aerial view of the two new residential colleges proposed by the Brewster administration in 1972 that were not built due to opposition from the city of New Haven and Yale students.

An aerial view of the two new residential colleges proposed by the Brewster administration in 1972 that were not built due to opposition from the city of New Haven and Yale students. Yale Events and Activities Photographs (RU 690), Box 17, Folder 267.

Hosted by co-curators Michael Lotstein, university archivist, and Charlotte Keathley, Class of 2022 (Ezra Stiles College), the lectures will delve into the history of coeducation in Yale College through the lens of the buildings and physical spaces of the Yale campus, which were an integral part of this important period in Yale history.

The lectures will be offered on Zoom and scheduled for Thursday, October 14, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., and Wednesday, November 17, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. RSVPs are not required to attend.

Please send any questions to the University Archives at archives@yale.edu.

Zoom link for October 14th:

https://yalelibrary.zoom.us/j/91796381847?pwd=QVArUFRKZGR1Vzd1SVQraGE2VHdXZz09
Passcode: 055595

Zoom link for November 17th:

https://yalelibrary.zoom.us/j/97966310424?pwd=TTQ2ZllDcUZtMGZMM0RoNjgvb0VrZz09
Passcode: 128150

L. Paul Bremer III Papers (MS 2123) Now Available for Research at Yale Manuscripts and Archives

The following post was authored by Joshua Cochran, archivist for American diplomacy in Manuscripts and Archives.

Photograph of L. Paul Bremer III with Jalal Talabani, member of the Iraq governing council on February 13, 2004.

Photograph of L. Paul Bremer III with Jalal Talabani, member of the Iraq governing council on February 13, 2004. L. Paul Bremer Papers (MS 2123), Series IV, box 45, folder 5.

For scholars exploring the history of United States foreign relations during the final decade of the Cold War and the emerging the global war on terrorism of the early twenty-first century, the L. Paul Bremer III Papers (MS 2123) are now open for research at Yale Manuscripts and Archives. The material highlights Bremer’s tenure as Presidential Envoy to Iraq, where he also served as Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, from May 2003 until June 2004. This collection includes subject files, correspondence with his family, contemporaneous notes, speeches, and his daily schedules while in Iraq. Speeches, editorials, interviews, working papers, and notes from his early career with the State Department and in the private sector are also available for researchers.

Letter from Amb. Bremer to his wife Frances discussing the coalition's progress on conversations with Iraq Governing Council. January 30, 2004.

Letter from Amb. Bremer to his wife Frances discussing the coalition’s progress on conversations with Iraq Governing Council. January 30, 2004. L. Paul Bremer Papers (MS 2123), Series III, box 13, folder 7.

Bremer’s papers include daily emails sent to his wife, Frances Bremer, while in Iraq, which provide a journal-like account of his observations and analyses of the day-to-day situation there. In this correspondence, Bremer provides a firsthand account of the experiences, challenges, setbacks, and successes he and other coalition officials had in Iraq. Here, he describes his work in the Baghdad Green Zone, his travel throughout the country, and his meetings with members of Iraq’s Governing Council, United States and coalition political officials, military planners, contractors, and representatives of international organizations.

In addition to Bremer’s daily emails, researchers can review his daily schedules, working files, background readings, photographs, and contemporaneous notes from his thirteen months in Iraq. Reports, presentations, briefing memos, budgets, surveys, strategic plans, and legal orders maintained by the Coalition Provisional Authority Executive Secretary Jessica LeCroy, who reported directly to Bremer, are also part of the collection. Issues highlighted in the files include the removing of Ba’athist influence in Iraq, reconstructing the disbanded Iraqi army, fostering civil society, addressing a growing insurgency directed against United States and coalition forces, restoring basic public services, and responding to torture and human rights abuses by United States soldiers at the Abu Ghraib Prison. Also discussed are the capture of Saddam Hussein by United States forces on December 14, 2003, President George W. Bush’s secret trip to Baghdad on Thanksgiving Day 2003, and the formal transfer of sovereignty to the Iraq Interim Government on June 28, 2004.

Bremer’s handwritten notes from an April 13, 2004, meeting with Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Generals John Abizaid and Peter Pace on increased violence in Fallujah, Iraq.

Bremer’s handwritten notes from an April 13, 2004, meeting with Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Generals John Abizaid and Peter Pace on increased violence in Fallujah, Iraq. L. Paul Bremer Papers (MS 2123), Series III, box 10, folder 1.

Bremer’s papers additionally document his career in the United States foreign service and in the private sector from the mid-1970s through the early 2000s, preceding his appointment as Presidential Envoy to Iraq. Records cover his foreign service assignment to Norway in the 1970s and as Ambassador to the Netherlands (1983-1986).  His speeches address the dominant issues of the Cold War’s final decade: arms control, international trade and commerce, tensions between the United States and Soviet Union, relations with NATO allies, and cultural diplomacy. Bremer’s speeches, editorials, and interviews from his work on terrorism and counterterrorism policy beginning in the mid-1980s when he served as United States Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism are housed in the collection. Supplementing these records are documents from Bremer’s consulting work as managing director of Kissinger Associates, chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Marsh Crisis Consulting, and as Chairman of the bipartisan National Commission on Terrorism, known as the “Bremer Commission” from 1999 to 2000, which predicted a massive terrorist attack on the American homeland.  Researchers interested in consulting the Bremer Papers may direct their inquiries to Yale Manuscripts and Archives at mssa.assist@yale.edu or Josh Cochran, Archivist for American Diplomacy, at Joshua.cochran@yale.edu.

Ambassador Bremer’s speech at the Haarlem, Netherlands Rotary Club in February 1986 discussing the NATO alliance.

Ambassador Bremer’s speech at the Haarlem, Netherlands Rotary Club in February 1986 discussing the NATO alliance. L. Paul Bremer Papers (MS 2123), Series I, box 11, folder 33.

 

New Online Exhibit on Coeducation at Yale, 1968-1973

The following post was authored by Michael Lotstein, university archivist in Manuscripts and Archives.

Image of Ezra Stiles College petition against housing women in the tower, February 1969

Ezra Stiles College petition against housing women in the tower, February 1969. [RU 821, Accession 19ND-A-086, Box 28, Folder 965]

This month the University Archives posted a new online exhibit entitled, “We thought of ourselves as architects”: Coeducation and the Yale Campus, 1968-1973.  Co-curated by University Archivist Michael Lotstein and Charlotte Keathley, Class of 2022 (Ezra Stiles College), this exhibit explores how the sudden decision to bring coeducation to Yale College in 1969 impacted the buildings and spaces of the Yale campus, which had been conceived and built to house and educate men for the previous 250 years.

Included in the exhibit are university records, photographs, and digitized audio-visual materials which document how in a few short months university administration planned and reconfigured both Vanderbilt Hall and the residential colleges to safely and comfortably house the incoming women; how the implementation of coeducation impacted student life on campus; how the women, through sheer force of will, successfully carved out spaces for themselves on this previously all-male campus; and how the male and female students united in the face of the mounting social and political changes of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

For more information about the exhibit, please contact the University Archives at: archives@yale.edu.

John Clayton Tracy (1890 Ph.B.) and Jesse Owens’ 1935 World Record

The following post was authored by Genevieve Coyle, public services assistant in Manuscripts and Archives.

In 1890, John Clayton Tracy earned his Ph.B from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University, and then his Civil Engineer (C.E.) degree from the Yale Graduate School in 1892. He went on to teach in the Department of Civil Engineering at Yale for 46 years, including serving 22 years as the department chairman. Tracy is known to many engineering students for his important work on plane surveying. His 1907 book Plane Surveying: A Textbook and Pocket Manual is still considered by many scholars to be a key piece of work in building today’s knowledge on the topic.

At the very beginning of his extensive time at Yale, Tracy participated in some extracurricular activities, including the 1890 Yale Track Team. While he may not have made a career out of his speed, he was certainly competitive as seen at a track meet on October 26, 1889 where he ran the 100-yard dash in 10.6 seconds. He also served as a judge for several Yale track meets for events including the javelin throw and dashes.

Yet it was his seemingly forgotten role in a track world record that truly merged his two passions for running and civil engineering.

Jesse Owens was a young, Black track runner who had a brief, impressive career in the track world. He is largely known for the four gold medals won at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and the many world records he held throughout his career. Perhaps most notably, at a May 25, 1935, collegiate track meet at the University of Michigan’s Ferry Field, Owens broke four world records in the timeframe of 45 minutes. Today, Owens is also known as the first man to ever run the 100-meter dash in 10.2 seconds, setting a record that stood until Willie Williams ran it in 10.1 seconds two decades later. Owens held the 100-meter dash world record longer than anyone since.

However, this record was almost never awarded to Owens, through no fault of his own.

On June 20, 1936, Jesse Owens ran 100 meters in 10.2 seconds, which was a tenth of a second faster than the current world record. Unfortunately, a standard post-race measurement of the course found the length to be 1.5 centimeters short. Despite the fact that Owens was clearly on track to still beat the record if he had gone an extra 1.5 centimeters, officials determined this race would not stand as a world record.

Letter from John C. Tracy to Paul R. Jordan, May 8, 1937

Letter from John C. Tracy to Paul R. Jordan, May 8, 1937

Although little record of this incident can be easily found today, Tracy caught wind of the almost world record, and the John Clayton Tracy Papers (MS 502) hold documentation of his attempt to correct the situation. In March 1937, John Tracy wrote to Jesse Owens’ Ohio State University track coach, Larry Snyder, inquiring about how the measurements of the track were performed. Over the next few months, Tracy was brought into the fold of several other individuals all working to prove Owens’ record should be ratified. In addition, the men discussed a broader goal of setting permanent, international measurement standards to prevent these issues in the future. It is worth noting that their discussion includes the effect temperature would have on a steel measuring tape, and today the World Athletics Organization’s current Track and Field Facilities Manual has detailed instructions on exactly how to account for temperature.

As you can see in the May 8, 1937 letter above, Tracy wrote to Paul R. Jordan, chairman of the Records Committee at the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) of the United States, about the issue. Tracy explains that his expertise on the issue of errors in measurement is two-fold, stemming both from his experience as a judge at track meets as well as his extensive work on plane surveying.

"Permissible Errors in Measurements on Running Tracks" by John C. Tracy, C.E. typescript, page 1

“Permissible Errors in Measurements on Running Tracks” by John C. Tracy, C.E. typescript, page 1

Eventually, on June 11, 1937, John C. Tracy submitted his report, entitled “Permissible Errors in Measurements on Running Tracks,” to the AAU Records Committee. Regrettably, there is no further correspondence on this subject in Tracy’s papers, but we know that Jesse Owens was eventually recognized for having set a new world record that day in 1936.

New “Virtual Bookshelf of Undergraduate Publications” – Yours to Explore!

The following post was authored by Michael Lotstein, University Archivist, Manuscripts and Archives.

This week the University Archives has updated the undergraduate publications section of the Yale Publications research guide to include a new website called Virtual Bookshelf of Undergraduate Publications.  The Virtual Bookshelf is the brainchild of Jarron Long, Class of 2023 (Grace Hopper College) and contains links and information on dozens of current undergraduate publications featuring a wide variety of topics and interests.  Jarron tackled this project single-handed, mostly over the 2020 holiday break, and aims to promote and celebrate the hard work and dedication that goes into the production of these important publications.  Jarron’s admitted favorites are the Yale Epicurean because, who doesn’t love food(!) and the Turnaround, which is the official magazine of the Yale Undergraduate Jazz Collective.

Screen shot of the Virtual Bookshelf of Undergraduate Publications home page

Screen shot of the Virtual Bookshelf of Undergraduate Publications home page

So take a moment and visit this amazing new site to learn more about the multitude of journals, ‘zines and publications the Yale undergraduate community is hard at work creating!

Manuscripts and Archives: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan of Action

The following post was authored by Michelle Peralta, Resident Archivist for Yale Special Collections, and Christine Weideman, Director.

To be both transparent and accountable, Manuscripts and Archives shared our initial efforts to address bias and discrimination in our work and workplace in early September. Our first step was to create a Statement of Affirmation on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) which was made publicly available on our blog and website. As a next step, we considered how to sustainably and intentionally incorporate DEI efforts into all our areas of work as described in the affirmation statement. We created a DEI Plan of Action that outlines specific tasks and projects staff are undertaking now or will undertake in the next several years. Work is divided among four categories: collections, services, spaces, and workplace.

We consider the Plan of Action to be a living document that is responsive and reflective. We recognize that it will evolve as a result of our experiences and critical analysis of the work we undertake. We are committed to regular reviews of the plan and will modify, revise, or update it as necessary. We will continue to make the plan accessible as a means of documenting our work and commitments.

We welcome all feedback on our plan, affirmation statement, or our DEI efforts.

Manuscripts and Archives: DEI Plan of Action (developed August 2020)

FY 21 (in progress)

Collections

  • Develop/roll out website to document impact of 2020 on lives of persons in Greater New Haven area
  • Document activities of Grant Hagan Society, student org, to support people of color in Yale School of Music
  • Contact Dwight Hall to document student work with New Haven organizations
  • Document how Yale student organizations are responding to national protests
  • Enhance, correct, and highlight description about our collection material
    • Provide leadership to the Yale Reparative Archival Description (RAD) project

Services

  • University Archivist serves on Yale University working group investigating Yale’s entanglement with slavery and connections to the abolition movement.

Spaces

  • Conduct audit of physical and virtual spaces to ensure they are inclusive, accessible, and welcoming

Workplace

  • Request that diversity competency language be included in all position focus statements or job descriptions so that the importance of inclusivity can be discussed with potential candidates (MSSA recommendation has been passed on to Central HR and is being addressed at the University level)
  • Develop internal MSSA group to focus on workplace culture
    • Develop departmental code of conduct to align with YUL community values and MSSA efforts to address bias in collections, services, spaces, and workplace
    • Develop departmental procedures for addressing microaggressions or inappropriate language/behaviors
  • Update MSSA’s About page including mission statement, history, and collecting emphases

FY 22 (to be planned)

Collections

  • Enhance, correct, and highlight description about our collection material
    • Provide more subject terms for student papers with focus on under-documented populations in New Haven and at Yale, to enhance their discovery and use.
    • Create a LibGuide on our holdings related to minority populations in New Haven and at Yale. Include language about silences and perspectives in MSSA’s collections
    • Create a workflow for staff members to contribute citations and flag MSSA materials/collections documenting under-documented populations in New Haven and at Yale.
    • Create a workflow for staff members to suggest revisions to collection descriptions to make those descriptions more inclusive, accurate, and useful to researchers (pending guidance from RAD)
  • Pursue collaborative projects to surface primary sources/collections related to marginalized populations (Grad School placement of grad students in semester projects within the Library; participating in non-MSSA driven projects)

Services

  • Develop/provide guidance and parameters for archiving student projects, individual or teams, documenting New Haven and Yale history, and what we can do to assist

 

 

 

 

1924 Silent Films from the Yale University Press

The following post was authored by Michael Lotstein, University Archivist, Manuscripts and Archives.

Image of volumes of the Chronicles of America volumes

Chronicles of America volumes published by Yale University Press. Image source: chairish.com

In 1918, the Yale University Press published a fifty-volume book series on American history entitled Chronicles of America. The series included contributions from Yale faculty, including Ellsworth Huntington, Charles Seymour, and Charles McLean Andrews. In 1923, the Yale University Press commissioned the production of historical films based on the series. Ultimately, fifteen films were made at a cost of $1.25 million dollars ($15.2 million dollars today) that proved to be a financial failure. The films not only proved to be theatrically impractical, but unusable in schools that at the time lacked the means to incorporate films into the classroom. Two of these films—“The Puritans” and “The Pilgrims,” both produced in 1924, provide instructive glimpses into how academic historians of a century ago envisioned the shared heritage of the America and New England. Note: The films are posted on YouTube, so there may be commercials included that are unaffiliated with the films or with Yale University Press.

Manuscripts and Archives’ Statement of Affirmation on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The following post was authored by Michelle Peralta, Resident Archivist for Yale Special Collections, Manuscripts and Archives.

During the past several months, staff in Manuscripts and Archives met to discuss our responsibility to address bias and discrimination in our work and workplace. After several lengthy discussions with the entire department, we developed the following Statement of Affirmation. It outlines our commitment to implementing more equitable policies and procedures, remediating prior practices and deepening our understanding of diversity, equity, inclusion issues as they relate to libraries and archives.

In creating our statement, we drew inspiration and guidance from various sources including the Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia and the Alabama Department of Archives and History, as well as the Society of American Archivists.

Our Statement of Affirmation is included on the departmental blog but will also live on our department homepage as a first step in our efforts to improve transparency and communicate more broadly the ways in which we are carrying out this work.

Statement of Affirmation

Manuscripts and Archives (MSSA) affirms our commitment to adhering to the Yale University Library community values and to addressing bias and discrimination in our collections, services, spaces, and workplace.

  • In doing this work, we acknowledge the following:
    Archives and archivists are not neutral. Archives exist within systems that have traditionally privileged and welcomed narratives of the wealthy and powerful, particularly cisgender, heterosexual white men, and have often perpetuated practices that marginalize, suppress, and harm those with other perspectives and experiences.
  • We cannot fully understand the experience of marginalized communities.
  • We are not experts in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work. This work, however, is an ongoing departmental priority and deserves our dedication, engagement, and willingness to act and to listen.
  • We recognize our institutional and individual privileges as well as our responsibility to collaborate with local and professional communities in addressing DEI issues.

Moving forward, we strive to do the following:

  • Embed our commitment to address DEI issues in our strategic planning, department and unit work plans, and individual goals.
  • Embrace transparency in our work so we can be held accountable internally and externally.
  • Address biases in our services, collection development and stewardship, descriptive practices, spaces, and workplace.
  • Cultivate a safe workplace that empowers staff members and encourages open discussion.
  • Educate ourselves and those around us on DEI issues, recognizing the various experiences and engagement of staff with DEI work.
  • Assess progress on our efforts at least bi-annually.

John Franklin Enders and Modern Vaccines

The following post was authored by Genevieve Coyle, public services assistant in Manuscripts and Archives.

We often turn to the past for answers to problems we are facing in the present. While science does not move backwards, it can still be interesting, perhaps even useful to look back and remember the lessons we have learned before. With that in mind, the John Franklin Enders Papers (MS 1478) seem more relevant now than ever. Today, Enders is known to many as the “Father of Modern Vaccines” due to his integral role in developing both the polio and measles vaccines.

John F. Enders on the cover of Time magazine, November 17, 1961. Leonard C. Norkin blog post dated August 4, 2016. https://rb.gy/ixi3mn

John F. Enders on the cover of Time magazine, November 17, 1961. Leonard C. Norkin blog post dated August 4, 2016. https://rb.gy/ixi3mn

John Franklin Enders was a Yale graduate whose life work was in bacteriology and immunology, although it took time to find this ultimate vocation.  He received an Bachelor of Arts in English from Yale in 1919, after spending several years away from his studies to be a flight instructor in the U. S. Naval Reserve Flying Corps during World War I. While pursuing a PhD in literature at Harvard University, Enders was introduced to Hans Zinsser, the head of the department of bacteriology and immunology at Harvard. Shortly thereafter, in 1927, he transitioned to studying bacteriology and immunology, and received his PhD from Harvard Medical School in 1930.

During Enders’ lengthy career, he was a very active author, publishing countless articles and papers for over 40 years. Specifically, his work on measles can be tracked through the numerous publications he contributed to during the 1940s and 1950s, before a vaccine was successfully developed in the early 1960s. These writings include Etiology of Measles published in 1940, Recent Advances in Knowledge of the Measles Virus published in 1958, and Vaccination Against Measles published in 1961. Of course, he wrote papers on dozens of other research subjects including mumps, polio, and influenza, all of which can be found in Series II of the Enders papers.

Measles lab notebook entry for January 25, 1954. John Franklin Enders Papers (MS 1478), Series III, Box 102, Folder 5.

Measles lab notebook entry for January 25, 1954. John Franklin Enders Papers (MS 1478), Series III, Box 102, Folder 5.

Enders’ lab notebooks provide a more granular depiction of his research on measles, as well as many other experiments. As shown in this image, the very first page in volume 1 of his measles laboratory notebooks, dated January 25, 1954, details an attempt to isolate measles using four types of tissues. In total, four measles notebooks span nearly two decades of Enders’ lab work on the virus, from 1954 to 1970.

The picture of Enders’ work is rounded out by the extensive correspondence held in the 88 boxes of Series I from MS 1478. There are more than four boxes of materials completely dedicated to the subject of measles, including correspondence with the Communicable Disease Center (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and correspondence about a measles vaccine study in New Haven, Connecticut.

Letter from John F. Enders to Hans Zinsser, December 12, 1938. John Franklin Enders Papers (MS 1478), Series I, Box 88, Folder 2072.

Letter from John F. Enders to Hans Zinsser, December 12, 1938. John Franklin Enders Papers (MS 1478), Series I, Box 88, Folder 2072.

On a more personal side, letters exchanged with friends and colleagues offer a slightly more intimate portrait of Enders. Although there are only a small handful of letters between him and his colleague and mentor, Hans Zinsser, the notes serve to humanize Enders. In this December 12, 1938, letter to Zinsser, Enders wrote “I have been flattened out myself with what you would probably call grippe…”. Enders seems to get no amusement from the irony that his work in infectious diseases does not stop him from suffering a case of the flu.

 Through his hard work in the field, Enders received many honors, most notably the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1954. In addition to the research detailed above, Enders also studied cancer, AIDS, and countless other diseases during his illustrious career. The John Franklin Enders papers are housed at Manuscripts and Archives, and they are a scientific treasure trove waiting to be explored.