This summer all of the Pamphlet Collections in Archives and Special Collections are being renovated to be made more concise and accessible.One collection that has already seen some attention and new material is the Left-Wing Radicalism Pamphlet Collection.Most of the material in this collection dates from between 1945 and 1975, with the greatest concentration coming from the Vietnam era.The notable exception is a number of periodicals from the middle 1990s. The collection includes pamphlets, journals, book-length studies, posters, periodicals, and newspapers. Here is one highlight from that collection:
The Object is to Win was a pamphlet influential to the late 1960s New Left, in particular the Weather Underground Organization.The pamphlet was originally written by Clayton Van Lydegraf in 1967; our copy is from the second, 1971 edition. The WUO originated as a faction of the Students for a Democratic Society, formally splitting from SDS during their 1969 national convention.This was due to the WUO’s belief that non-violent resistance, which SDS advocated only, would not stop the war in Vietnam.They instead advocated militancy and more dramatic forms of direct action.In 1970 the WUO issued a “Declaration of a State of War” against the US government and was eventually responsible for a number of public demonstrations, a high-profile prison escape, stealing FBI documents, and a successful campaign of bombings against government buildings and banks including the Capitol, Pentagon, and Department of State building.The group always issued warnings before their attacks and no one outside of the group was ever injured.The Object is to Win describes some of the ideas important to the group and details some of the tactics and revolutionary strategies they would later put to use.
In March 2009, National Women’s History Month is celebrating “Women Taking the Lead to Save our Planet”.This post highlights two collections from the Mansfield Library’s Archives & Special Collections department that fit this theme.
ElizabethReitellSmith Papers - Mss 623
Born and educated in New York, ElizabethReitellSmith became inspired by the west in 1962 on a Montana Wilderness Society sponsored trip through what is now Montana’s BobMarshallWilderness.That same year, Smith moved to Montana to become publications director for The University of Montana’s School of Forestry in Missoula.It was in Montana that she met her fourth husband, environmentalist and wildlife biologist EldonSmith.
Map of Proposed Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Montana Wilderness Association, 1972. Elizabeth Reitell Smith Papers
From 1967-1980, ElizabethSmith was director of the Montana Wilderness Association and she and her husband traveled the Western states advocating for wilderness and the environment.
The ElizabethReitellSmith papers contain materials relevant to Smith’s work as a Montana wilderness and environmental activist. The materials include research, newsletters, drafts of speeches, position papers and correspondence dating from 1965 to 1980.Smith remained actively involved in local and regional environmental issues until her death in 2001.
GASP (Gals Against Smog and Pollution) Records - Mss 043
GASP was formed in the spring of 1968 by a group of Missoula women fighting against air pollution in the Missoula area. The group was active until 1970 and helped bring the provisions of the 1967 Clean Air Act to the MissoulaValley.
GASP Newsletter. GASP Records
The collection details the organization and history of GASP and documents air and water pollution conditions in Montana and in the United States. Included are correspondence, other GASP records, and an extensive collection of publications and clippings about GASP and pollution in general.
Apologies for the delay in posting, but we’ve all been busy with remodeling. Here’s a quick image from an interesting bookplate (click to view larger version):
Bookplate imagery is often associated with the identity of the owner (coats of arms, for instance, or something related to the owner’s last name or history), but sometimes the images are just pictures someone found interesting, or perhaps the connections to an individual or family just aren’t easy to puzzle out to those not in on the secret. The bookplate above is an example of the latter. What is the unusual big cat (a leopard?) holding? Is it catching a comet? Deflating a beach ball?
For anyone interested in bookplates, the blog Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie offers a steady stream of interesting bookplates and commentary.
Daniel Bandmann, An Actor’s Tour; or, Seventy Thousand Miles with Shakespeare. Boston: Cupples, Upham and Co., 1885. (SpColl-MT Coll: 910.4 B214a)
The 1905 New York Times obituary for Daniel Bandmann describes him as “a Shakespearean actor of note and one of the best-known residents of Montana”. In this 1885 work, Bandmann relates a tour around the world on which he performed Shakespeare’s plays in locations like New Zealand and India. After moving to the Missoula area Bandmann continued acting, putting on numerous local productions, as well becoming the owner of two ranches. Among other things, Bandmann is cited as the person who first introduced McIntosh apples to the state1.
But An Actor’s Tour is also an example of one reason that digitized books usually aren’t a substitute for the physical object. Our copy includes a two-leaf program inserted between the endpapers and the frontispiece:
The program describes the performances of “Herr and Mrs. Bandmann” (Bandmann’s wife acted as well) at the Princess’s Theatre in London. In addition to being visually interesting and offering information about performances in which Bandmann took part, the program includes advertisements for such products as “Rimmel’s Aquadentine”, a tooth-whitener, and “Rimmel’s Fancy Crackers” (Eugene Rimmel, “Perfumer by Appointment to H.R.H. the Princess of Wales”, and an interesting figure himself, sponsored the program). A copy of the book is available online through Google Books, but it doesn’t contain the program where it appears in our copy.
