Mary Johnson’s Legacy of New Haven Activism

The following post was written by Michael Brenes, Senior Archivist for American Diplomacy, Manuscripts and Archives.

The events at the end of the summer in Charlottesville, Virginia, brought into sharp focus the ongoing and painful legacy of racism in the United States. But the marches led by white supremacists, including members of the Ku Klux Klan—now collectively rebranded as the “Alt-Right”—also generated a resounding and determined resistance against the violence witnessed around the world, which echoed the vibrant history of social movements in the United States. Indeed, as much as the horror at Charlottesville revealed the conspicuous bigotry that remains prominent within sectors of the country, it also offered an opportunity for historical reflection—to assess the significant progress made on civil rights and race relations.

News clipping from an unknown paper documenting the Ku Klux Klan in New Haven for the taping of Sally Jesse Raphael Show, 1987 June 16. Mary Johnson Papers (MS 2050), Box 15, folder 12.

News clipping from an unknown paper documenting the Ku Klux Klan in New Haven for the taping of Sally Jesse Raphael Show, 1987 June 16. Mary Johnson Papers (MS 2050), Box 15, folder 12.

For the Yale and New Haven community, the moment recalls the 1980s, when members of the Ku Klux Klan held marches and rallies across Connecticut. In May 1980, Imperial Wizard Bill Wilkinson of the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan came to Hartford, Connecticut, in response to “an influx of applications” received by the hate group. Days after Wilkinson’s announcement, ten Klansmen burned a cross in Hartford near Bradley International Airport. By March 1981, the Klan arrived in Meriden looking for a confrontation. The hate group planned a march to recruit new members, creating a tense standoff between the Klan and counterprotestors. The march quickly turned violent, with demonstrators pelting Klansmen with bottles and bricks. The Klan was chased out of Meriden, but vowed to return. As recent Yale graduate Nelson Reed (’17) wrote in his senior essay , “[t]he Invisible Empire was like a parasite in Connecticut: small and persistent, the Klan wreaked havoc, threatening the state’s racial immune system,” much to the dismay of the state’s residents.

The Klan resurfaced in Connecticut again in 1987—this time, in New Haven. The talk-show host Sally Jesse Raphael invited members of the Aryan Youth Movement and James Farrands of the Shelton chapter of the Ku Klux Klan to a taping of her show in New Haven, ostensibly to discuss why they maintained such repugnant ideas. One of the leaders of the resistance against the Klan was Mary Johnson, a longtime activist in New Haven since the 1960s. Johnson argued that Raphael was sensationalizing white supremacy. Johnson told the New Haven Register, “The Klan has not made any attempt to come to New Haven in many years and [Raphael] has the gall to invite them, to give them a platform.” Johnson and fellow activists shouted down the Klan at the taping, forcing white supremacists in the audience to leave the stage.

"We Support the Unions at Yale," poster, circa 1980s. Mary Johnson Papers (MS 2050), Box 20.

“We Support the Unions at Yale,” poster, circa 1980s. Mary Johnson Papers (MS 2050), Box 20.

Mary Johnson’s run-in with the Klan represented only one moment in a lifetime of fighting against injustice. Her papers in Manuscripts and Archives—donated to Yale in 2016—demonstrate Johnson’s longstanding interest in a range of social issues, from dilapidated housing and poor public transportation in New Haven, to immigrant rights and union organizing. Johnson was also involved with the group Greater New Haven Coalition for People, whose records came to Manuscripts and Archives in 2014. Now processed and accessible to researchers, both collections offer multiple possibilities for researchers looking to discover more information about the history of social activism in New Haven and its connections to the Yale community.

Mary Johnson died on August 13th, 2017, but with her archival collection in Manuscripts and Archives, her storied and extensive legacy in New Haven activism and politics will endure.

"El Grupo Moncada" event poster, circa 1980s. Mary Johnson Papers (MS 2050), Box 20.

“El Grupo Moncada” event poster, circa 1980s. Mary Johnson Papers (MS 2050), Box 20.

Papers and Publications on Hawaiian Youth Henry Obookiah and Early Missionaries to Hawaii in the Yale University Library

Letter from Henry Obookiah, sent from Cornwall, Connecticut, to Samuel Wells, Jr. of Greenfield, Massachusetts, dated 16 June 1817, page 1. Gustave R. Sattig Collection (MS 1429), Box 1, folder 17. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Letter from Henry Obookiah, sent from Cornwall, Connecticut, to Samuel Wells, Jr. of Greenfield, Massachusetts, dated 16 June 1817, page 1. Gustave R. Sattig Collection (MS 1429), Box 1, folder 17. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

The following post was written by Judith A. Schiff, Chief Research Archivist, Manuscripts and Archives.

In 2020, the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives (HMH) in Honolulu will celebrate the Bicentennial of its founding, by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), to bring “literacy, Christianity, constitutional government, polyphonic music, and Western medicine” to Hawaii.  The first anniversary program was held in Connecticut in June 2017, the Bicentennial of the founding of the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, CT.  Its establishment was inspired by the amazing life experiences of a young Hawaiian prince, Obookiah, who arrived in New Haven in 1809 and was educated by Yale alumni, students, and President Timothy Dwight, a co-founder of the ABCFM. After attending the program in Cornwall, Obookiah’s Hawaiian family descendants visited three Yale special libraries on June 20, to examine and discuss original manuscripts and publications by and relating to Obookiah and the early missionaries in Hawaii.  Christopher Cook of Kauai, author of The Life of Henry Obookiah, accompanied the family and is coordinating the bicentennial programs honoring the missionaries’ landing in Hawaii in 1820.

Letter from Henry Obookiah, sent from Cornwall, Connecticut, to Samuel Wells, Jr. of Greenfield, Massachusetts, dated 16 June 1817, page 2. Gustave R. Sattig Collection (MS 1429), Box 1, folder 17. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Letter from Henry Obookiah, sent from Cornwall, Connecticut, to Samuel Wells, Jr. of Greenfield, Massachusetts, dated 16 June 1817, page 2. Gustave R. Sattig Collection (MS 1429), Box 1, folder 17. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

After a period marked by Hawaiian royal family power wars and island unification in the late 18th and early 19th century, a young prince, Opukahaia, in America Henry Obookiah, became the only survivor of his immediate family.  In 1808, he swam out in Kealakekua Bay of Hawaii Island, the Big Island, to greet a China Trade ship.  The captain of the brig Triumph was Caleb Brintnall from New Haven, Connecticut.  Brintnall liked the boy and brought him along, with the permission of Obookiah’s relatives, on his long sealing voyage.  Russell Hubbard (Yale BA 1806) was on board and tutored Obookiah.  After sailing east to Mexico to hunt seals, then west to China to trade skins for goods, they continued west around the world to New York to sell the full cargo of China goods.  Not long after the ship returned to New Haven in the late summer of 1809, Edwin Welles Dwight (Yale BA 1809) found Obookiah sitting on the steps of a Yale building and weeping “because nobody gives me learning.”  Edwin took him to President Timothy Dwight (the Elder), a distant relation, who took him into his home and educated him privately in secular and religious subjects.  In 1810, President Dwight became a founder of the ABCFM and a major force in the first American society to establish missions outside the United States.  A microfilm of the ABCFM records at Harvard is held by the Yale Divinity School Library.

Letter from Henry Obookiah, sent from Cornwall, Connecticut, to Samuel Wells, Jr. of Greenfield, Massachusetts, dated 16 June 1817, page 3. Gustave R. Sattig Collection (MS 1429), Box 1, folder 17. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Letter from Henry Obookiah, sent from Cornwall, Connecticut, to Samuel Wells, Jr. of Greenfield, Massachusetts, dated 16 June 1817, page 3. Gustave R. Sattig Collection (MS 1429), Box 1, folder 17. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Obookiah moved on to other New England schools, studying to become a Christian missionary, and inspired the founding of the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut, known as the Cornwall Indian School, in 1817.  The most important Obookiah document at Yale is a long original personal letter describing the life and studies at the Indian School.  It is the only currently well-known original manuscript letter in his hand. A transcription and link to a PDF of the letter is available at the end of this article. The original is in the Gustav Reinhold Sattig Collection (MS 1429), Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Sadly, Obookiah died from typhus in 1818, not long after the school opened.  His memoirs, edited and published by Edwin Dwight continued to inspire college and theological students to become missionaries.  The school thrived until 1826, when it closed largely due to the concerns raised when the marriages of two Cornwall girls with Cherokee students became known.  In 1993, in connection with the commemoration of the 175th anniversary of his death, the remains of Obookiah were exhumed from his grave in Cornwall and returned to Hawaii.  The Records of Reuben A. Holden, Secretary of Yale University (RU 19) in Manuscripts and Archives include correspondence and printed matter relating to the 150th anniversary (see Series III, Box 275, folder 944).

Letter from Henry Obookiah, sent from Cornwall, Connecticut, to Samuel Wells, Jr. of Greenfield, Massachusetts, dated 16 June 1817, page 4. Gustave R. Sattig Collection (MS 1429), Box 1, folder 17. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Letter from Henry Obookiah, sent from Cornwall, Connecticut, to Samuel Wells, Jr. of Greenfield, Massachusetts, dated 16 June 1817, page 4. Gustave R. Sattig Collection (MS 1429), Box 1, folder 17. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

In the year after Obookiah’s death the first missionary ship sailed for Hawaii, led by Asa Thurston (Yale BA 1816) and Hiram Bingham (Yale Hon. 1819).  A month before their embarkation from Boston on October 23, the missionary board decreed that no unmarried men could serve in Hawaii.  This proved no obstacle to Asa and Hiram, who within a few weeks met and married professional women teachers dedicated to their cause.  A Yale sophomore, Samuel Whitney, was so motivated that with the permission of the faculty he joined the mission.  The Hawaii venture thrived, and, with the blessing of Yale President Jeremiah Day, a second missionary ship sailed from New Haven in 1822, including Joseph Goodrich (Yale BA 1821).  The papers of Hiram Bingham I, in the Bingham Family Papers (MS 81) in Manuscripts and Archives, provide important documentation on the first settlements, their development, and their contributions to the religious, educational, and cultural life of the Hawaiian Islands.


Transcript of a letter from Henry Obookiah to Samuel Wells, from MS 1429, Box 1, folder 17:

Cornwall       June 16th, 1817

My dear sir,

Again, I take my pen at this moment as to embrace this opportunity in writing.  Indeed, on this very day I received a most affectionate letter, but when I came to unseal it, lo, it was from my dear beloved friend Mr. S. Wells!  How, or what answer can I give for it!  Though we were commanded to “give the glory to God in the highest, and on the Earth there is a peace and good will towards men.”  Yes, my dear friend, I received your letter with a thankful heart; I am rejoice[d] to hear that you have still, a lively thought, concerning the great things of Eternity.  O that may our thought sand hearts, be united together in the fear of God and in the love of the Lord Jesus; to whom you spoke well of.  Indeed my dearest friend, we are in a great debt, both to God and the Son Jesus Christ; we have owed them ten thousands of talens [talents?]; alas! How would we repay for all?  Notwithstanding: the greatness of our due to God and for all his goodness and kindness towards us, yet we could easily repay it by giving up ourselves to him; for he does it not wishes for ours but us: for thus as it is written, “my son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.”  Your observations which you observed in this your letter, are just as the thoughts of a true and humble believer in God and as one that fear God.  Surely, as you say that the supreme love and affection, must we give to him who is the lord over all and blessed forever.  Pray that may these thoughts be not mislaid in the heart, but beware of them all.  “Take heed,” says the Apostle Paul, “lest a being left us to enter into his nest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” – I have not heard any news since I wrote last, neither from broad nor yet at home.  There are no more scholars added to our school, but those whom I have already mentions in my last letter.  They make a great progress in their studies, at the least, they all seemed to be very anxious to get long as quick as possible.  Their principal studies are these, the English Grammar, Morse’s Geography, Daboll’s Arithmetic, and together with reading, writing, and spelling.  About four of them are just beginning to read in the spelling-books.  The study hours are beginning from nine to twelve, and from two to five, and from eight to nine in the evening.  The rules of the school are, that, the scholars should not go to any house, or to visit any family in town; neither shall go to a store – , (unless they have a liberty) no visitor or a friend should call to see any that is in the school, at a study hour, no student shall come into another’s room before the study hour is over.  Every student may take part in laboring each two ½ days in a week; two one at a time.  This seems to be very important to us all, as well as to learn to read and write; but some of these youths with me, are very little acquaintance with farmings business, and so that they are not delight in them.  The most part of them are understand about the sailing business.  Since I have received your letter, they had for curiosity of knowing it, or the person from whom the letter was sent, I told them from one of my friends at the place where I was kindly treated by them; they asked me further.  They were very much pleased with the letter, supposed that you as a friend of Christ, and as a true believer in God, by what you spoke well of; both of Christ, and as a true believer in God, by what you spoke well of; both of Christ and his character.  To whom I answered, that I had a strong for you, and that you may be as a fellow traveler through the journey of this wilderness World.  O that we both may meet at the presence unknown to each other in the Eternal world above; where sin never enters there!  Let us not neglect the principal duty, which we owe to the omnipotence God, that is to love him with our hearts, souls, and strength, or at least to pray without ceasing.  With this, I must leave you my dear friend, in hand of God, look to him to receive further instruction – and to know his holy character and perfection.

Remember me in your prayers.

With yours,

Henry Ob.

The following are written on the sheet that bears the address of the recipient:

Greenfield:  I shall always remember them.  Please to remember me particularly to Mr. & Mrs. Repley;    June 20th.  We had today a new scholar added to the school’s very pious character.  His name is James Elyes, formerly of this state.  He seems to have an anxiety of the souls of his fellow’s mortal. He had also a strong desire of being as a missionary as to do good in world.  Three of my friends here were thinking that they had joined the Lord Jesus in their hearts’ Those that lately came to this country.

When I wrote this letter, I had but a few moments at a time; for the want of an opportunity.  My time was taken in many others things to attend, and it is impossible for me to do anything else but what I was bound to, do.  But, be not fear my friend, that you should be, forgotten by me;  I prefer to write to you as often as I can have a time.  And you like wise must, write to me if I don’t.  If nothing happens I shall see you at next fall.  Do not forget to remember me to friends in …

George Sandweth?  He said he met you; one who used to live with Esqr. Field of Enfield.  He is one that seems to be very anxious for his poor soul. H.O.


 

Bibliography of materials in the Yale University Library relating to Henry Obookiah and early missionaries to Hawaii

In Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library:

  • Henry Obookiah.  Letter to Samuel Wells. 1817 Jun 16.  Gustav Reinhold Sattig Collection (MS 1429), Box 1, folder 17.
  • Bingham Family Papers (MS 81), Series I. Hiram Bingham I, 1811-1920. Boxes 1 – 2. Includes correspondence and writings by and about Hiram Bingham (1789-1869) and his wife Sybil Moseley Bingham (1792-1848).   Writings of Sybil M. Bingham consist of her journal, 1811-1847, including photostatic and typewritten copies of extracts, and her manuscript, “Select Hawaiian Phrases.”
  • Reuben A. Holden, Secretary of Yale University, Records (RU 19), Series III. University Secretary: Subject File Special Events. Box 275, folder 944.  Obookiah Ceremony, 1968, contains correspondence and printed matter relating to the exhumation of the remains of Obookiah from his grave in Cornwall, CT and return for burial in Hawaii.

In the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library:

In the Yale Divinity Library:

 

An 1802 Petition on Dining at Yale College

Petition regarding Commons, page 1, circa 1800-1801, Bates Family Papers (MS 65), Box 1, folder 5

Petition regarding Commons, page 1, circa 1800-1801, Bates Family Papers (MS 65), Box 1, folder 5

In a December 1995 “Old Yale” column from the Yale Alumni Magazine, Chief Research Archivist Judy Schiff traces the history of dissatisfaction with dining facilities, service, and fare all the way back to the opening of the first Yale College building in New Haven in 1718. Sometime in 1800-1801, more than two and a half decades before the infamous Bread and Butter Rebellion of 1828, four members of the Class of 1802 sent a petition to Yale President Timothy Dwight protesting against the immoral and wicked behavior of the kitchen staff. The petition survives in Box 1, folder 5 of the Bates Family Papers (MS 65) in Manuscripts and Archives. Herewith the text of the petition:

To the President of Yale College.

Sir,

Sensible of the important purposes for which the Commons was originally designed, and convinced of the salutary consequences of which they might still be productive, we cannot but regret the unfortunate perversion of so valuable an institution.

With these impressions, and with the presumption that the President is ignorant of the conduct of those employed in the Hall, we beg leave respectfully to remonstrate, and submit to his consideration the following facts.

  • 1st. We have satisfactory proof that they have unwarrantably converted to their own use sundry articles belonging to the kitchen.
  • 2d .They have served up a part of our provision, in a more palatable manner, which, for a pecuniary reward, they have appropriated to the use of individuals.
  • 3d. They have continually harboured the low, riotous, and immoral inhabitants of this town.
  • 4th. They are destitute of cleanliness.
  • 5th. By deserting the hall, for the purpose of prosecuting their own private, they have shamefully neglected the duties of their occupation.
  • 6th. They have in the presence of the more young and inexperienced students, traduced the character of the Authority.
  • 7th. They admit into the hall, to the exclusion of others, those who will furnish them with spiritous liquors.
  • 8th. They have appropriated to their own use much more than an equitable portion of the better provisions provided by the steward.
  • 9th. They are notorious for excessive drinking.
  • 10th. They are openly profane.
  • 11th. They constantly violate the sabbath, by admitting into their company disreputable persons, and by diverting themselves with ludicrous and improper amusements.

It is therefore the unanimous request of the Junior Class that for these and many other improprieties, the President would take into consideration the conduct of the Cooks and make such regulations as he shall think proper.

Isaac C. Bates, Wm. F. Brainard, Jeremiah Evarts, Junius Smith, Committee in behalf of the Class

Petition regarding Commons, page 2, circa 1800-1801, Bates Family Papers (MS 65), Box 1, folder 5

Petition regarding Commons, page 2, circa 1800-1801, Bates Family Papers (MS 65), Box 1, folder 5

The “Commons” in question in the petition was the first separately standing Commons building on Yale’s Old Campus. It was built in 1782 as a dining hall, or Commons, and designed by Jeremiah Atwater. It’s location was behind South Middle College (today’s Connecticut Hall) and behind the Chapel Street location where Street Hall was eventually constructed in 1864, approximately in the present location of the southern end of McClellan Hall. It served as the dining commons for Yale College students until 1820, when a larger Commons building was constructed nearby. From 1820-1888 the building was used as a chemical laboratory and known as the Old Laboratory, and from 1885-1887 also served as the first home for the Yale Cooperative Society (which after 1893 became the Yale Cooperative Corporation). The building was demolished in 1888, contemporaneously with the construction of the new Kent Chemical Laboratory building across High St. from the Old Library (now Dwight Hall) at the corner of Library St. (on a site now occupied by Jonathan Edwards College).

And what of the four members of the Class of 1802 selected by their classmates to petition the Yale College president seeking some kind of redress for the perceived abuses of the Commons staff?

  • Isaac Chapman Bates (January 23, 1779-March 16, 1845) practiced law in Northampton, Massachusetts, and later served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1827-1835) and the U.S. Senate (1841-1845) representing Massachusetts.
  • William F. Brainard practiced law in his hometown of New London, Connecticut.
  • Jeremiah F. Evarts (February 3, 1781-May 10, 1831) also was a lawyer, served for many years as treasurer then secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was one of the leading opponents of Indian removal, and engaged in lobbying efforts attempting unsuccessfully to defeat the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
  • Junius Smith (1780-1853) also practiced law, and later in his life was a determined supporter of efforts to build a fleet of transatlantic steam ships.

 

 

 

Winners of the 2017 Manuscripts and Archives Diane Kaplan Memorial Senior Essay Prizes

Poster for 2017 senior essay contest

Poster for 2017 senior essay contest

Manuscripts and Archives is pleased to announce the winners of the two 2017 Manuscripts and Archives Diane Kaplan Memorial Senior Essay Prizes. The winners each will receive a certificate and a check for $500.00 at their residential college ceremonies on Commencement Day, Monday, May 22, 2017. Prize-winning essays are also published in EliScholar, the Yale University Library’s digital platform for scholarly publishing. Additional information about the prizes is available on our MSSA Prizes website.

Title page of Sarah Pajka's senior essay, "Doctors, Death, and Denial," 3 April 2017

Title page of Sarah Pajka’s senior essay, “Doctors, Death, and Denial,” 3 April 2017

The prize for an outstanding senior essay on a topic relating to Yale is presented to Sarah E. Pajka (Morse College) for her essay Doctors, Death, and Denial: The Origins of Hospice Care in 20th Century America. Her senior essay project was advised by Professor Naomi Rogers of the Program in the History of Science and Medicine. Sarah’s essay explores the emergence of the need for hospice care in the United States in the rise of institutionalized medicine and the conundrum presented by “the patient who could not be healed.” Sarah used the Florence and Henry Wald Papers (MS 1659) in Manuscripts and Archives, among other sources, to explore the pivotal role of Yale School of Nursing Dean Florence Wald in the development of Connecticut Hospice, which was the first modern hospice facility in America when it opened in 1980.

Title page of Sarah Kim's senior essay, "Of a Healthy Constitution," 3 April 2017

Title page of Sarah Kim’s senior essay, “Of a Healthy Constitution,” 3 April 2017

The prize for an outstanding senior essay based significantly on research done in Manuscripts and Archives is presented to Sarah D. Kim (Jonathan Edwards College) for her essay Of a Healthy Constitution: Socialized Medicine Between the Triumphs of Social Security and Medicare. Her senior essay adviser was Profession Jennifer Klein of the Department of History. Sarah used, among other sources, the Isidore Sydney Falk Papers (MS 1039) in Manuscripts and Archives to explore the debates in the United States over the controversial issue of national health insurance between the late 1930s and the early 1960s. She uses Falk’s activism on national health care as a lens through which to explore the impact of Cold War politics on the debate.

Congratulations to both Sarahs for their outstanding senior essay accomplishments! Thanks as well to the 15 other members of the Yale College Class of 2017 who submitted senior essays for consideration in this competition. The 2017 MSSA senior essay judging panel consisted of 11 Yale alumni and Yale University Library staff members.

Guest Post: A Salisbury Christmas in Berlin, 1838

This is a guest post by Robin Dougherty, librarian for Middle East Studies at the Near East Collection,Yale University Library.

The Legacy of E.E. Salisbury exhibit poster.

The Legacy of E.E. Salisbury exhibit poster.

The year 2016 marks the 175th anniversary of the appointment of Edward Elbridge Salisbury (1814-1901) as Professor of Arabic and Sanskrit Languages and Literatures at Yale. An exhibit devoted to exploring this groundbreaking appointment, its context, and its legacy (and based upon materials in Yale’s Manuscripts and Archives department, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and general library collections), is on display in the Memorabilia Room of Sterling Memorial Library through February 6, 2017. If you had the time, you too could trace Salisbury’s life and legacy through documents held in Yale collections and elsewhere. For the Christmas season, I’d like to highlight two paragraphs that can be found in items held in the collections of Manuscripts and Archives.

Salisbury (B.A. 1832), scion of the wealthy Salisbury family of Massachusetts, married his cousin Abigail Phillips (1814-1869) shortly after completing his theological education at Yale. The two then set out on the customary honeymoon/”Grand Tour” of Europe. As Salisbury later wrote in his brief autobiography, “We younglings … were amply provided for, and could follow freely our fancies and tastes.” On this Grand Tour, Salisbury not only visited the great universities of Europe, meeting the greatest living scholars of the time, but stayed on long enough in Paris and Berlin to acquire a foundational education in Oriental languages (principally Arabic and Sanskrit), aiming to establish himself as an academic (and, in 1841, successfully obtaining a Yale professorship to teach these two Oriental languages). He was among only a few dozen Americans up to that point to make the arduous journey across the Atlantic in pursuit of advanced study in Europe—a group dominated by graduates of Harvard and Yale. His journal entries and the letters that he and Abby wrote back home reveal their discoveries and their impressions as New England innocents abroad.

Although terribly homesick for her family, friends, and her Congregationalist church back in the United States, newlywed Abby gamely explored Europe with her husband Edward, studying European languages with him and giving birth to their daughter Mary (1837-1875) in Switzerland. In December 1838, not long after arriving in Berlin with Edward and little Mary, Abby described to her mother-in-law Abigail Breese Salisbury, with great excitement, a scene utterly unfamiliar to most New Englanders of the time:

Letter from Abigail Phillips Salisbury to her mother-in-law Abigail Breese Salisbury, 16 December 1838. E.E. Salisbury Papers (MS 429), Box 11, folder 45a. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Letter from Abigail Phillips Salisbury to her mother-in-law Abigail Breese Salisbury, 16 December 1838. E.E. Salisbury Papers (MS 429), Box 11, folder 45a. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

This is a very gay time in Berlin, every one is making preparations for Christmas, a fair has already begun, to last until Christmas, the booths are filled with toys & fancy things, principally for children, & every one seems so busy & happy that it is a pleasure to see them, one enclosure is filled with pine trees to place the presents on, which is the custom in every German family you know, in the evening the booths are illuminated & must present I think a very pretty sight. [Salisbury Family Papers (MS 429), Series III, Box 11, Folder 45b, APS to ABS, 16 December 1838.]

She concludes her letter to her mother-in-law with the fervent hope of establishing the “pretty” German-style observation of Christmas in her own New Haven home after returning from the Grand Tour. Theodore Woolsey, future president of Yale but at that time still just a professor of Greek, was Salisbury’s brother-in-law, having married Salisbury’s sister Martha—Abby’s 1838 letter paints a lovely picture of her own little family joining Madame Salisbury along with Woolsey’s budding family in a style of Christmas celebration that would be utterly innovative in New Haven:

If it please God, I trust the next year we may all form a happy family circle around a Christmas tree, for it is such a pretty custom, I think we shall adopt it.

In his journal entry for Dec. 18, 1838, Edward recorded his own impressions of his first experience of the celebration of Christmas, German-style:

“Journal of travels in Europe 1838 May 27-1839 Aug 6,” p. 147. E.E. Salisbury Papers (MS 429), Box 5, folder 251. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

“Journal of travels in Europe 1838 May 27-1839 Aug 6,” p. 147. E.E. Salisbury Papers (MS 429), Box 5, folder 251. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

I have just returned from an eveng visit to the “markt”…. All the streets in the quarter of the fair are alive day and night with people moving to and fro’ the great deposit of Christmas presents; grave looking gentlemen may be seen carrying off rocking-horses half concealed under their cloaks, and servants bearing home on their shoulders the “Christmas-tree,” which must be introduced by stealth, while the “Kinder” are asleep, dreaming of their patron Saint Nicholas…. There is not a family in Berlin, probably, however humble, which does not have its tree and its interchange of gifts.–The house of amusement, as I style it, exhibits dioramas, green-houses, a saloon for refreshments, (where are made tables for separate parties,) and a mock concert of automaton musicians,–a capital quiz! From one of these dervish objects to another, old & young, high and low stroll, and look and laugh, and look and stroll again. It would seem as if the whole city had given up its cares and were in quest of wherewithal to divert the mind. Almost every face looks brightened and intent,–miserable must he be who has not some share of the general blitheness. [Salisbury Family Papers (MS 429), Series I, Box 5, Folder 251: “Journal of travels in Europe 1838 May 27-1839 Aug 6,” p. 147-148. Salisbury here has translated the German word “Festhalle” as “house of amusement.” He uses “quiz” to mean a practical joke or hoax of some kind. His use of “dervish objects” is unclear, perhaps referring to the spinning and gyrating movement of the automaton figures.]

Illustration of Saint Nicholas by Howell, from Clement Clark Moore, Visit of Saint Nicholas (Fisher & Brother, circa 1850). Shirley +569. Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University .

Illustration of Saint Nicholas by Howell, from Clement Clark Moore, Visit of Saint Nicholas (Fisher & Brother, circa 1850). Shirley +569. Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University .

Edward was a connoisseur of the arts, and throughout his journals and letters freely offered his opinions on the musical offerings of the day. As part of his journal entry quoted above, he made this interesting suggestion

I like the festival which thus spreads a joy over half the year, or at least makes one bright spot when, otherwise, all would perhaps be gloom, or dimness; I could suggest, as an addition, however, that there might be some great musical festival on this occasion, to give utterance to the deeper feelings associated with the season in the performance of the “Messiah”. I think it is not preaching which one wants at such a time.

Handel’s “Messiah,” originally composed for use during Lent, had been popular in the U.S. and Europe since its composition. It was first performed on Christmas Day, in its entirety, in Boston, 1818, but did not achieve its current popularity as a piece for the Christmas season until the late 19th century–Salisbury’s taste was way ahead of its time!

Guest Post: Abolitionist Sentiments Meet Profit Motives

This guest post is by Connor Williams, a second-year graduate student in the Yale History Department, who has been working as a graduate assistant on a project in Manuscripts and Archives to identify more collection materials relating to slavery, abolition, and resistance in the 19th-century United States.

I had great hopes for the William and George, the Woolsey brothers.  At first glance, their resumes seemed impeccable: they were New York merchants who at times served as presidents of both the New York Chamber of Commerce and the New York Manumission Society. William also fathered Theodore Dwight Woolsey, Yale’s anti-slavery President during and after the Civil War, and through his service their surname graces Yale’s grand concert hall and war memorial, where the walls bear the names of the 114 Yale men who died for the Union.  (For full disclosure, 54 Yalies also died for the Confederacy, and their names are intertwined alphabetically with their Yankee classmates, providing a troubling reminder of how far the Lost Cause spread).  On more esoteric matters the Woolseys also appealed to my northeastern biases—they were early blockade runners when Jefferson forced his myopic Embargo Act upon the merchant classes, and savvy operators in international trade.  William even petitioned that Congress include black and foreign-born seamen in its 1795 act guarding against sailors’ impressments, acknowledging that though not U.S. citizens, they nonetheless sailed for American merchants and deserved “the protection of the American flag.”  Taken in sum, the Woolseys presented that which so often eludes a student of the New Republic and the 19th century: pro-union, anti-slavery federalists who were civic minded and strove to enhance the lives of many.  In short, some early Americans who we can celebrate without reserve, and in whose eponymous concert hall the Yale Glee Club can perform without regret.

Yet maxims exist for a reason: and that which seems too good to be true almost always is. Reading through the Woolsey’s business records, slight patterns start to emerge.  Though noble in purpose, the manumission society’s practices leave something to be desired for the modern researcher: one manumission was contingent on the slave’s faithful service as a deckhand aboard two dangerous voyages to the East Indies and back, while another master manumitted his slave only after the slave finished eleven years service as a hired hand (the master received the wages).  That man, twenty-seven years old at the time, would not receive his freedom until close to his fortieth birthday.  A similar document, for a five-year-old girl whose owner calls her a “wench,” withholds freedom for twenty years.

In matters of trade, some troubling anecdotes also appear: most notably, in the summer of 1796, William Woolsey seemed reluctant to investigate claims that New York merchants were bringing enslaved men and women to Cuba in order to take away the valuable sugar products being created there.  Despite being reminded that it was “a crime against humanity and the law of the United States” by a petitioner and receiving evidence of nine New York vessels plying the illicit trade, Woolsey only lukewarmly consented to form a committee to investigate future claims, and to act only if “any cases should be discovered sufficiently clear so as to warrant them to commence a suit.”

One of three plantation mortgages the Woolseys underwrote soon after the Louisiana Purchase. As with many documents issued in New Orleans, the text is entirely in French.

One of three plantation mortgages the Woolseys underwrote soon after the Louisiana Purchase. As with many documents issued in New Orleans, the text is entirely in French. Woolsey Family Papers (MS 562), Box 69, Folder 26.

Perhaps Woolsey’s reluctance to investigate New York’s commercial ties to slavery was prophetic: seven years later the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, and the Woolseys were some of the first major investors in the plantation products—especially cotton and sugar—that New Orleans now offered the nation.  In 1805 George Woolsey even went so far as to employ New Orleans denizen George Phillips as his agent in the port to buy and ship slave-grown sugar and cotton up north: William signed on as a silent partner.  From the start Phillips’ letters to Wolsey indicate an ambition that borders on avarice: he repeatedly asks for more buying power, fewer restraints on his agency, and more money. This process culminated in Phillips’ entry into three mortgages with the Woolseys for  $75,000—at least $1,500,000 in today’s dollars, and almost certainly more in real value—to expand his New Orleans operation.  For one of the mortgages, Phillips offered 41 slaves as collateral to secure a $23,000 loan.

Not uncommon at the time, and increasingly common during the antebellum era, one $23,000 mortgage was secured by 41 slaves.

Not uncommon at the time, and increasingly common during the antebellum era, one $23,000 mortgage was secured by 41 slaves. Woolsey Family Papers (MS 562), Box 69, Folder 26.

Though dubious, this in itself is not especially damning.  Successful mortgages never see the security brought into question; instead, the debts are paid on time to the benefit of both parties.  The Woolseys, an apologist might say, faced the same dilemma that investors face today: diversifying their portfolio across varied interests, even those that may cause controversy.   In this sense, a mortgage secured with slaves was no different than an investment in shipping cotton.  Slavery existed somewhere in the process, but there was little that William and George, as merchants and creditors, could do about it.  Besides, their work with the manumission society, however faulty, demonstrated that their intentions were in the right place.

As their business dealings worsened, the Woolseys began to consider the possibility of actually acquiring the slaves as a security, and made plans to sell them.

As their business dealings worsened, the Woolseys began to consider the possibility of actually acquiring the slaves as a security, and made plans to sell them. Woolsey Family Papers (MS 562), Box 69, Folder 27.

Yet the events that transpired removed any of these ambiguities.  By 1807, Phillips proved to be overwhelmed in his new venture, and rumors came back to George that the debtor was unable to meet his upcoming financial obligations.  Woolsey wasted no time in dispatching another agent to the New Orleans, with instructions to press the Woolseys’ claim with all haste to recover whatever funds might remain.   He expressed his desire for the agent to avoid collecting the slaves as payment, but tellingly instructed his new agent to “dispose of them in the most summary way possible” in case nothing else could be collected.  By 1808, Woolsey was actively pursuing their collection, before Phillips “[sent] them away to Baton Rouge” or another difficult to reach part of the territory.  The Woolsey brothers, whatever their intentions at the outset might have been, had become slave owners and slave-sellers.

Ultimately, money trumped morals. Fearing that the slaves would be moved inland to Baton Rouge, Woolsey ordered his agent to collect them at once.

Ultimately, money trumped morals. Fearing that the slaves would be moved inland to Baton Rouge, Woolsey ordered his agent to collect them at once. Woolsey Family Papers (MS 562), Box 69, Folder 28.

Ultimately, this is meant neither to sensationalize the Woolsey family story, nor to insinuate that the accomplishments of the Woolsey family—and their works at Yale—are necessarily invalidated by this moment in two of their lives.  A trove of much needed scholarship over the last decades has outlined the prominent roles northerners and northern institutions played in the trading and financing of enslaved people and the plantation goods they produced.  A dozen years ago Craig Wilder’s Ebony and Ivy focused the issue on venerable academic institutions, and Yale continues to grapple with its past relationship with slavery and slaveholders to this day, as highlighted by the debate over the name of Calhoun College during the 2015-2016 academic year.  Moral judgments on matters like this depend on more factors than could possibly be listed in this blog post.

Yet the facts of the case present us with a compelling historical case study that reminds us that American slavery was not confined to the plantation, and that though the heartless cruelties of the lash and the auction need to be remembered by all, they are far from the only instances in which slavery interacted with our society during the New Republic and antebellum years.  The story of this pair of manumission-minded brothers from New York, who inadvertently acquired absolute control over the lives of 41 humans and sold them for cash rather than granting their freedom is a telling reminder that rather than a “peculiar institution” within American society, chattel slavery was a foundation upon which that entire society was built.  The question is not whether the Woolseys could have absorbed the $23,000 loss that would have come with emancipating or manumitting their suddenly acquired slaves; for whatever it matters, their record books, which often reached six digits, suggest that it would have been a manageable loss.  The right question should be how a society could exist in the Land of the Free that saw human beings enumerated, valued, and mortgaged as property, and how their otherwise liberal-minded new owners could wish for them to be quickly “disposed of” as though they were a sub-par shipment of any other commodity to be sold at whatever price could be salvaged.   For while there are many rubrics for what constitutes a slave society, it’s difficult to think of one where this story, preserved in Yale’s Woolsey Family Papers, would not fit.


Note on quotations in this post that are not accompanied by an image of the quoted document: Quotations in this post relating to manumission and illicit trade with Cuba are taken from letters in the Woolsey Family Papers (MS 562), Manuscripts and Archives, Box 67, Folders 2-3. The discussion of the growing precariousness of George Phillips’ financial dealings in New Orleans are drawn from correspondence that can be found in the Woolsey Family Papers (MS 562), Box 68, Folders 11-12.

 

Class Days and Alumni Reunions

Garry Trudeau (left, Class of 1970), Class Day speaker, May 1991. Photograph by Mike Marsland. RU 690, Accn 2009-A-070, Box 12.

Garry Trudeau (left, Class of 1970), Class Day speaker, May 1991. Photograph by Mike Marsland. RU 690, Accn 2009-A-070, Box 12.

With Yale’s Commencement 2016 just past, and the appearance of crowds of Yale alums and their loved ones celebrating reunions over the next two weekends, we thought we’d take a look through the collections in Manuscripts and Archives and see what was going on in 1991, since the Yale College Class of 1991 is holding its 25th reunion this year.

Yale’s senior class gets to invite someone to address them on Class Day, which occurs on Old Campus the Sunday before Commencement each year. The Class of 1991 invited Doonesbury cartoonist, and member of the Yale College Class of 1970, Garry Trudeau to give its Class Day address. Trudeau began cartooning while a Yale undergraduate, and contributed the strip Bull TalesDoonesbury’s precursor, to the Yale Daily News.

In recalling the days of his Yale College career, and reflecting on the “good intentions of the young,” Trudeau delivered some sage words of advice to the class of 1991, as relevant today as they were then. His address is preserved in RU 236 in Manuscripts and Archives, but here’s an excerpt to give you a taste:

Garry Trudeau (Class of 1970), Class Day speaker, May 1991. Photograph by Mike Marsland. RU 690, Accn 2009-A-070, Box 12.

Garry Trudeau (Class of 1970), Class Day speaker, May 1991. Photograph by Mike Marsland. RU 690, Accn 2009-A-070, Box 12.

My advice to you: make a break for it. Take off. Cut your own swath. Stride out from under the longest shadow ever cast by a generation. Ask your own impertinent questions. There are many at hand.

Wonder aloud what war is like for all its participants. Check out the accounting, what it cost us as a nation. Was it the same war for you as it was for the Army engineers who, away from the cameras, bulldozed 100,000 dead conscripts into the pits left by collapsed bunkers?

A focus group of college students told a reporter last winter that they all supported the war, but not one would consider it his duty to join. “It may sound selfish,” said one student, “but I don’t think the best and the brightest should be on the front linesdepends on its

Wonder, too, about the homefront agenda that got overlooked; the energy policy that may have made the war inevitable; an environmental agenda that has been all but abandoned; a business culture so moribund that even 70% of the high-tech components used in our Gulf War weapon systems were produced in Japan.

These questions, when given a public voice, are all part of the ongoing dialogue between those who lead and those who would be lead. Ours is a system whose very vitality depends on its raucous dissent, its competing visions of how it should work. America is still very much a work in progress, and one of the things that has always distinguished it from other countries is that we’ve always been open to reinventing ourselves for the common good.

One interesting bit of contextual information. The day after Trudeau’s Class Day speech, at the Yale’s 1991 Commencement exercises, then-President George H.W. Bush was given an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Yale University.

Pioneers in Family Planning: Margaret Sanger, Rose Pastor Stokes, and Emma Goldman

The women’s rights movement was one of the most significant of the Progressive Era.  In addition to the right to vote, women advocated for equal rights to access to higher education, the professions, and other occupations; for marital and property rights; and for freedom of information on family planning.  While the media focuses on the centennials of World War I-related events, it is important to note other historic milestones.  In 1914, “Birth Control,” was a new term coined by the movement’s leader, Margaret Sanger.  And in 1916, a new wave of women’s activism led to the opening of the first public birth control clinic in America.  Important groups of papers of Margaret Sanger’s colleagues, socialist (later Communist) Rose Pastor Stokes and anarchist Emma Goldman (in the Harry Weinberger Papers) are in Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Rose Pastor Stokes (1879-1933), political activist and author, at her desk in her New York City apartment.

Rose Pastor Stokes (1879-1933), political activist and author, at her desk in her New York City apartment. Rose Pastor Stokes Papers (MS 573), Box 10, Folder 20.

Born in 1879, Stokes vividly described her early life in her autobiography, I Belong to the Working Class.  The drafts in her papers were edited and published in 1992.  A poor Jewish immigrant from Russian Poland, at the age of eleven Stokes went to work in a Cleveland cigar factory and struggled to educate herself at the public library at night.  In 1903 she moved to New York City and became a feature writer for the Jewish Daily News.  On an assignment she interviewed the “millionaire socialist” James Graham Phelps Stokes, whose brother, Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes was the Secretary of Yale University.  When they were married in 1905, the tabloids dubbed her “the Cinderella of the sweatshops.”   Working with her husband in the socialist movement, Stokes moved progressively to the left and eventually became the highest-ranking woman in the American Communist Party.  Highly talented, she was a charismatic political speaker, writer, dramatist, poet, artist, and singer.  Her fearless dedication to reform causes is reflected in her correspondence and subject files.

Workers at Gleichmans Cigar Factory in Cleveland. Rose H. Pastor is in back row, third from left.

Workers at Gleichmans Cigar Factory in Cleveland. Rose H. Pastor is in back row, third from left. Rose Pastor Stokes Papers (MS 573), Box 10, Folder 20.

In January 1916 Stokes supported Sanger, who was facing federal charges for distributing “obscene” literature on birth control, by organizing a dinner to raise funds for her defense at the historic Brevoort Hotel on lower Fifth Avenue.  Margaret Sanger described it in her autobiography as follows:

As we were about to go in to dinner, Rose Pastor Stokes, the Chairman, took me aside and said, “Something very disturbing has happened. We’ve just been talking to Dr. Jacoby. He has a speech ready in which he intends to blast you to the skies for interfering in what should be a strictly medical matter. Remember he’s greatly admired and he’s speaking here tonight for the doctors. We meant to have you come at the end of the program but now we’re going to put you first so that you can spike his guns.”  My trepidation was increased. Nevertheless, I plunged into my carefully prepared maiden speech in behalf of birth control.

In October 1916 Sanger opened the Brownsville Clinic in Brooklyn where her pamphlet What Every Girl Should Know was distributed.  She was arrested and served 30 days in jail, but nonetheless in December the New York Birth Control League was established.  In 1921 Sanger united the growing number of state leagues into the American Birth Control League, renamed “Planned Parenthood” in 1942.

Emma Goldman, an early mentor of Margaret Sanger and the author of Why and How the Poor Should Not Have Many Children, was arrested in 1916 for her birth control lectures and public instruction.  On December 22, 1916 she wrote to her attorney, Harry Weinberger on her “Mother Earth Publishing Association; Mother Earth – Monthly Magazine of Anarchist Thought” letterhead stationery:  “Please write a letter to the Judge… Tell him about Dr. Robinson’s book and the Margaret Sanger pamphlets that are being sold everywhere and go through the mail…. Then tell him about the birth control campaign, of the people in different professions sponsoring. …Write to the judge that none of us who are engaged in the birth control campaign stoop to sneaking in a leaflet in a book.”

Blog post author: Judith A. Schiff

Guest Post: Professor Jenifer Van Vleck: Archives as Passports

[Nota bene: With permission of its author, Jenifer Van Vleck, Assistant Professor of History at Yale University, we’re happy to post the following comments from a presentation made by Professor Van Vleck at a meeting of the University Library Council in the Manuscripts and Archives reading room on Friday, December 11, 2015. The focus of the meeting was on plans for renovations to Manuscripts and Archives, driven in part by the need for flexible teaching space within the security perimeter of the department.]

Archives as Passports

Hiram Bingham III, notebook of general orders, circulars, and reference notes, 1914-1915. Yale Peruvian Expedition Records (MS 664), Box 20, Folder 36.

Hiram Bingham III, notebook of general orders, circulars, and reference notes, 1914-1915. Yale Peruvian Expedition Records (MS 664), Box 20, Folder 36.

The British novelist L.P. Hartley famously wrote, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” To extend the metaphor, archives are the passport to that country. Special collections at Yale play a unique and vital role in allowing students to engage with the past—and, through their engagement with history, to think more critically and constructively about the present. Yale’s collections—particularly extensive in my own field, the history of U.S. foreign relations—offer students the opportunity to learn and practice the historian’s craft. In using these collections, students work with a rich variety of primary sources, including correspondence, diaries, oral histories, policy documents, organizational records, creative writing, photographs, and memorabilia. (And that is just a partial list!)

Hiram Bingham III, notebook of general orders, circulars, and reference notes, 1914-1915. Yale Peruvian Expedition Records (MS 664), Box 20, Folder 36.

Hiram Bingham III, notebook of general orders, circulars, and reference notes, 1914-1915. Yale Peruvian Expedition Records (MS 664), Box 20, Folder 36.

While doing research in Yale’s special collections, students learn to reinterpret the lives and legacies of familiar historical figures—such as Charles Lindbergh or Eli Whitney, whose papers are housed at Manuscripts & Archives. However, they also meet new and sometimes unexpectedly fascinating characters—such as A.C. Gilbert, class of 1909. The creator of mid-20th-century America’s most popular toy, the erector set, Gilbert inspired literally millions of children to become interested in science and engineering. Today’s Yalies are unlikely to know Gilbert’s name or his historical significance—until they discover his papers here, as several students have done in my seminar on the history of technology.

Speaking of technology: Current and future Yale undergraduates are digital natives. They grew up with the Internet and email, and when they want to know something, they instinctively turn to Google or Wikipedia. This isn’t a bad thing, of course—Google and Wikipedia, among other online resources, are powerful tools. I use them every day. Yet, as I tell my students, Googling is a kind of “fast food” approach to research. You get to consume instant results, which can be satisfying but not always intellectually “nutritious.” And the word “consume” is fitting, I think, for we tend to skim Google search results quickly and selectively pick out what we want to find, usually from the first page or two of results. Archival research, by contrast, requires time and concentration. It’s not easy. It can lead to frustrating dead ends. Particularly when working with pre-20th century documents, it often requires reading nearly indecipherable handwriting. It requires careful attention to the contexts in which the contents of archives were produced, acquired, and organized. But, as my students discover, time spent in the archives, though at times challenging, is always intellectually rewarding. We sometimes don’t find what we expect to find. Yet we also find what we never even imagined to find. One of the greatest joys of my career is to witness my students becoming historians, and becoming excited about history through their archival research.

Dr. David F. Ford, photographs of Quichua individuals, 1915. Yale Peruvian Expedition Records (MS 664), Box 34, Folder 42.

Dr. David F. Ford, photographs of Quichua individuals, 1915. Yale Peruvian Expedition Records (MS 664), Box 34, Folder 42.

I teach students of all levels and academic interests: freshmen to Ph.D. candidates, STEM majors to history majors. In each of my courses, the resources of the Yale library—and Manuscripts and Archives in particular—are crucial to my teaching. I am immensely grateful to have the opportunity to collaborate with Yale archivists and librarians. Particularly because digitized archival databases are expanding so rapidly, it is difficult for professors to keep up with the latest developments and resources. In our own research, we rely upon librarians’ and archivists’ professional expertise in how to navigate the exciting yet often confounding and ever-changing landscape of archival resources. And we also rely on librarians and archivists in our teaching. Let me offer a few examples.

Dr. Luther T. Nelson, anatomical research notebook, containing records for individual native Peruvians, 1912. Yale Peruvian Expedition Records (MS 664), Box 20, Folder 28.

Dr. Luther T. Nelson, anatomical research notebook, containing records for individual native Peruvians, 1912. Yale Peruvian Expedition Records (MS 664), Box 20, Folder 28.

Freshman seminars. The History department, like many others, offers small seminars exclusively for freshman. These enable students to have frequent and substantive interaction with professors, and intellectual dialogue with their peers, at the very beginning of their Yale education. Last year, I co-taught a freshman seminar on U.S.-Latin American relations with History Ph.D. candidate Taylor Jardno, a specialist in Latin American history. Because our seminar was designed to introduce students to historical methodology as well as the particular topic, we required a research paper based on primary sources. Our students’ interactions with Yale’s archival collections was— according to their own evaluations of the course—an indisputable highlight of the semester. In collaboration with archivists Bill Landis and Maureen Callahan, we designed an interactive class session that focused on one particular Manuscripts and Archives collection: the Peruvian Expedition Papers, featuring Hiram Bingham, the famed Yale anthropologist and explorer whose expeditions to Peru in the early 20th century resulted in the rediscovery and excavation of the “lost” Inca city of Machu Picchu. (The swashbuckling professor, allegedly, is also the model, or at least a
model, for the character of Indiana Jones.)

Dr. Luther T. Nelson, anatomical research notebook, containing records for individual native Peruvians, 1912. Yale Peruvian Expedition Records (MS 664), Box 20, Folder 28.

Dr. Luther T. Nelson, anatomical research notebook, containing records for individual native Peruvians, 1912. Yale Peruvian Expedition Records (MS 664), Box 20, Folder 28.

Since most of our first-semester freshmen had not done archival research in high school, we thought that focusing on this one particular collection—which offers such rich and fascinating insights into the history of U.S.-Latin American relations—would be a manageable way to introduce them to the process of research and the types of materials that they can discover in archives. So my co-teacher and I went through the collection and selected records for our students to look at. We wanted them to understand the diverse kinds of materials one can find in an archive, even within a single collection. And we wanted them to think through how to work with different types of historical documents. How do you analyze a photograph, for example, as compared to diplomatic correspondence, or a legal contract? How do you place sources in dialogue with one another? What does any given primary source reveal—and what does it not reveal? What other types of sources would you need to consult in order to answer your research questions? We grouped our chosen materials into four categories: Bingham’s diaries; official reports from the expedition; photographs; and contracts—e.g. legal contracts between Yale and the Peruvian government that authorized Bingham to conduct archaeological work in Peru. After Maureen gave a brief presentation on the Peruvian collection and its history, students spent the rest of the class exploring the different materials. At first, they gravitated to what seemed to be the most exciting and accessible stuff: the photographs and diaries. The legal contracts, in comparison, seemed boring and difficult to interpret. Yet, as they spent time looking at and talking about the records, they gradually realized that these contracts were absolutely key to understanding the history of the expedition: how it came about, and what was at stake for Bingham, for Yale, and for Peru. “Dry” legal contracts came to life when read in conjunctionin conversation—with the other types of archival records. As I watched my students’ amazement and excitement as they handled, read, and talked about the Peruvian Expedition Papers, I realized I was witnessing a kind of meta-process of discovery: my students discovering history—and how to do history—as they encountered, first-hand, these documents on the discovery of Machu Picchu.

Upper-level seminars—“junior” now departmental seminars. I also teach upper-level seminars designed for junior and senior history majors. In each of these seminars, I dedicate one full class (two hours) to an instructional session here at the library, in which librarians and archivists offer a presentation on research methodologies and resources. One of my most popular seminars, “The Global 1960s,” examines the dramatic events of that decade in countries around the world. In order to introduce my students to relevant sources, Bill Landis and David Gary created a website with information about and links to library resources—both physical and digitized. During the third week of the semester, I bring my class to the library, where Bill and David lead a discussion about research methodologies: how to find and use online databases, for example. They also introduced students to particular collections relevant to the course. To that end, Bill and I identify about twenty relevant collections and placed boxes from those collections on reserve. I require students to explore these materials in advance of our library session, and to choose one particular box to discuss in class. For more advanced undergraduates, this interactive method of training them to work with archival materials has been highly effective in 1) ensuring that their final 15-20 page research papers are the product of intensive, semester-long work, not a stressful all-nighter before the deadline, and 2) getting them excited about the contents of archives. In the words of one student’s email to me: “I had so much fun digging through various boxes this afternoon. I eventually claimed the one containing the Asia Foundation’s reports in the late 50s and early 60s, although I also found President Brewster’s archive about coeducation at Yale quite fascinating. It was hard to choose!”

And it IS hard to choose! There is so much here. Using Manuscripts and Archives’ collections, my students have written seminar papers and senior essays on topics such as: U.S. governance of the Philippines during the late 19th and early 20th century. General Motors’ role in Germany during and after World War II. World’s fairs, from 1893 through 1964. The scholarly and political career of H. Stuart Hughes, one of the most prominent intellectuals of the 20th century. The Cuban Revolution. The creation of American football. The history of American conservatism. Yale’s role in promoting public health education in New Haven. The Yale-China Association. Gay, lesbian, and queer history, at Yale and beyond. One of the most fascinating research papers I’ve read, which this student ultimately turned into her senior essay, was about Christopher Phillips, Yale’s first out gay undergraduate, who lived much of his life as a cosmopolitan expatriate in nations throughout Asia and Europe.

My lecture courses are relatively large—on average, 150 students—so it would be impossible to hold an interactive class session at the library, as I do in my undergraduate and graduate seminars. However, in my lecture courses, I use the resources of Manuscripts and Archives in two ways. First, I encourage my Teaching Assistants to bring small groups of students to the library and familiarize them with its collections. Second, I incorporate Yale’s archives into my own lectures. My course “Origins of U.S. Global Power” surveys the history of U.S. foreign relations—and I say foreign “relations” rather than the more narrow term foreign “policy,” because while the course deeply examines the history of American diplomacy, it also features international interactions that are “informal” or not government-directed: such as business and trade, tourism, and cultural exchanges. Accordingly, while we analyze the legacies of presidents and secretaries of state, we also meet less-known people, who nonetheless had great impact on the United States’ international history. So, for example, while I use the Henry Stimson papers in my lectures on World War II (he was head of the War Department), I also draw upon the papers of Louise Bryant when I discuss American reactions to the Russian Revolution. Bryant, memorably portrayed by Diane Keaton in the 1981 movie Reds, was a prominent bohemian and journalist who was one of the few U.S. citizens to be in Russia at the time of the revolution. Her writings about it thus offer fascinating and unique firsthand perspectives.

The Yale Library, then, does not only offer a passport to the “foreign country” of the past. It offers a passport to the world. THANK YOU.

Daniel Pinello’s Gay Marriage Interviews Coming to Manuscripts and Archives

Manuscripts and Archives and the Yale University Library are excited to receive nearly

Cover image, Daniel R. Pinello, America's Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Cover image, Daniel R. Pinello, America’s Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

300 in-depth recorded interviews and transcriptions on the topic of gay marriage. The interviews were conducted between 2004 and 2012 with lesbian and gay couples and their families in eleven states. Daniel Pinello, a professor of political science at the John Jay College in New York City, conducted the interviews as part of his research on U.S. law, gay marriage, and discrimination by state and federal governments in refusing to give legal standing to gay and lesbian relationships.

The interviews represent a rich set of primary sources on gay marriage and families that will be available for use by Yale faculty and students, and by researchers from around the world.

Additional information on Daniel Pinello’s scholarly work and interview donation cane be found in a recent John Jay College of Criminal Justice online news release.