'A Different Way of Learning About History'

Volume 18 Fall 2013 A newsletter for faculty and the University of Chicago community published with support from the Libra Library Society AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CURATOR ‘A Different Way of Learning about History’ Ph.D. candidate HE EXHIBITION Race and the Design of American Life: African Americans in Twentieth-Century Commercial Art runs through January 4 in the Special Christopher Dingwall Collections Research Center. Rachel Rosenberg interviewed Christopher Dingwall, a Ph.D. candidate in History, to learn about his first experience as explores race and consumer Ta curator and the exhibition itself. Tell me a bit about the exhibition. culture as a curator Images of African Americans have appeared on a wide range of consumer goods throughout the twentieth century, from Aunt Jemima’s pancakes to the Air Jordan basketball shoe. But these images did more than sell things. The exhibit explores how commercial art capitalized on—and gave powerful form to—widely held racist attitudes among white Americans throughout the twentieth century. It also illustrates how many corporations and designers, white and black, used graphic design to envision the place of African Americans in American society—from the nadir of Jim Crow racial segregation continued on page 4 f rom the d irector THE 2013-14BOARD OF THE LIBRARY diane Sperling Lauderdale, Chair; Preparing for Crossroads Interim Department Chair and Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Health Studies By Judith Nadler, Director and University Librarian Robert Bird, Associate Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the College; Chair, Department of Cinema and Media Studies The historic mission of libraries—to build collections and projects tackling complex questions information from our user surveys Sydney Hans, Samuel Deutsch through cross-disciplinary collaboration and invest in flexible solutions that Professor, School of Social Service via the Neubauer Family Collegium meet the needs of our faculty and Administration make them available to users now and in the future—is just for Culture and Society. In one, faculty students. A generous gift from John Richard Kron, Professor, Department and library staff are collaborating with Blew (see page 8) supports research of Astronomy and Astrophysics and one aspect of our Library’s mission today. technologists to explore how the methods and teaching with rare materials in the College; Fermilab: Experimental of “big science” might elucidate and a group study in the Special Astrophysics Group Libraries have successfully served built for easy discovery and access facilitate the humanistic understanding Collections Research Center while generations of users, making only in an increasingly complex resource Brian Prendergast, Professor, of music, speech, and other audio joint investment by the Library, incremental changes in an environment environment. Toward this goal, we Department of Psychology and the expressions via the Audio Cultures of College, and Computer Science College with stable expectations. Today, are currently working to develop a India project (see page 6). Department (see page 7) is enabling technology introduces change at a community source, interoperable library mindy Schwartz, Professor, Department the creation of an enhanced pace that was infeasible before. New software system, Kuali OLE, with of Medicine How can we maximize the impact of library instructional laboratory in the John technologies, changing approaches to support from the Andrew W. Mellon spaces in support of user needs for study, Crerar Library that supports the Katherine fischer Taylor, Associate learning and research, and dynamic user Foundation, that will allow flexibility in teaching, and research? needs of a growing program. Professor, Department of Art History expectations raise important questions the choice of discovery tools. and the College and call for informed decisions about the We must build a spatial How can we equip library staff to help mauricio Tenorio, Professor, Department choices we make. How can we ensure long-term availability environment that users identify and locate information, of History and the College; Director, of our resources in their different forms Center for Latin American Studies provides seamless undertake research, and synthesize and How can we respond to the expectation and media? integration of create knowledge? Ruey Tsay, H.G.B. Alexander Professor of broad access to exponentially growing study, teaching, of Econometrics and Statistics, Booth physical and electronic collections when we In collaboration with peers, we must School of Business and research We must invest in the ongoing have limited budgets for acquisitions? invest in the development of shared with Library development of an excellent staff, solutions for a national preservation resources and conversant in emerging technologies EX OFFICIO We must explore ways to complement eco-system, much of which is still in the services. and creative in applying their our local collections with collections we exploratory stages. Partnering in these Robert J. Zimmer, President and We must transformational power in support of Trustee of the University; Professor, collaboratively build with trusted peers. developments in their early stages ensures mine the study, teaching, and research. Department of Mathematics and Achieving the proper balance between synergy and the ability to integrate local Physical Sciences Division local depth and collective breadth will be solutions into the eco-system. A generous We would like to keep you—our Thomas f. Rosenbaum, Provost of the crucial to our users’ present and future endowment established by Dr. Albert faculty, alumni, and friends— University; John T. Wilson Distinguished information needs. We must be prepared Somit (see page 9) supports a preservation Service Professor, Department of informed about these changes and to make these decisions wisely as options internship for young librarians. Physics, the James Franck Institute, and the role you can—and do—play in the College arise. With the support of a generous preparing us to navigate crossroads. donation from the Rhoades Foundation How can we harness the power of new Garrett Kiely, Director, University of Toward that end, we have redesigned through the cooperation of Julius Lewis technologies to support new approaches to Chicago Press and expanded our newsletter, Libra, (see page 8), we are exploring possibilities research employing a wide range of media? so that it not only provides news Klara Jelinkova, Associate Vice with our Ivy League colleagues through President and Chief Information about how the Library supports the Borrow Direct program. New approaches can be developed Technology Officer, IT Services research, teaching, and learning at through interdisciplinary and, the University but also thanks and Judith Nadler, Director and University How can we broker ubiquitous and sometimes, international collaborations Librarian recognizes those who join us in easy access to information that we do not among faculty, librarians, and making this investment. diana Jergovic, Associate Provost for locally control? technologists. A generous gift from Academic and Budgetary Initiatives Joseph Neubauer, MBA’65, and Jeanette We must invest in the development of Lerman-Neubauer to the University is forward-looking, linked discovery tools now enabling eighteen ambitious research Judith Nadler Director and University Librarian 2 | LIBRA Fall 2013 Fall 2013 LIBRA | 3 Interview WITH curator Christopher Dingwall continued from page 1 Top left, Roger Lewis and Harry Olsen. Jazzin’ the Cotton Town Blues. Top center, Christopher Dingwall with album covers: to the advent of the Civil Rights how I’m going to try to explain them to graphic designers, corporations selling nineteenth century. Have you given special thought to how you King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Freddie Movement. audiences. It’s a way for me to explore a these images, the products they were But blackness could be abstracted want to address and analyze those images in Keppard, New Orleans Horns; and Kenny With racial imagery, American different kind of scholarly communication selling, and where the products were used in other ways to project different the exhibit? Burrell, Kenny Burrell. Top right, album advertisers and consumers gave social directed at a public audience rather than in the home. In the end, although each visions of African American life. Take, cover: Roscoe Mitchell Sextet. Sound. Yes, absolutely. That’s something I’ve been meaning to the mass produced things of scholarly, academic readers. part of the exhibit advances a history for instance, the albums produced by Bottom, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre. thinking a lot about. I don’t want to show modern consumer culture. Particularly that moves forward through time and African American entrepreneur Henry Humility in the Light of the Creator. All items these images gratuitously. They come held by the Special Collections Research for African American entrepreneurs and Did your ideas about the subject evolve shows changes, particularly in the role Pace for Black Swan Records in the from a dark time in American history Center, The University of Chicago Library. artists, the graphic design of race could much as you worked on it? of African Americans as consumers and 1920s. “Black Swan” was an allusion when this was a part of everyday life. But be used as a powerful tool to claim their designers, I decided that each section of to a nineteenth-century

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