Author Archives: Linda Papa

Magnets, Pins, and Colors

“The job of art is to turn time into things.” (Robert Genn)

Summer is my favorite time of year!  I’m a “summer” person!  Oh, the other seasons are nice and all.  Each has its own unique expression.  But, for me, you can’t beat the full complement of experience packed into a perfect summer day.  For me, summer is a special type of color that seems to stretch from June to August.  And summer days are filled with a seemingly endless array of shapes that hold those colors.

Maurice Greenia, Jr. has found a way to capture those colorful shapes and fashion them into wearable art. And he does this a lot! His overall archive is a treasure house of images that offer a unique way to spend a summer day, and the Magnets and Pins collection is the perfect place to start.

Maurice’s Magnet and Pin Collection is especially intriguing. There are currently 294 images in this interesting collection waiting for your visit. Each one is a unique expression, each is titled, and each is signed.  I would challenge you to find two alike!

In the introduction to this collection, we discover that,

“Maurice Greenia, Jr. painted several hundred miniatures on magnets and pins. He’d take discarded political buttons or refrigerator magnets, and coat them with white gesso so the paint would stick better and not flake off.

Like his larger paintings, these would go in many directions, pictorially. Some depict people or animals; others are more abstract. Some have bright colors; others are muted or monochromatic.

Maurice views these as means of getting his work out to the audience in a more affordable format: People enjoy wearing the painted pins, including the artist himself.”

Figure in Striped Clothes (image 225)

Figure in Striped Clothes (image 225)

Spending time in the Magnet and Pins collection of the Maurice Greenia, Jr. archive is a great way to lose yourself in colorful images.

“Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are timeless.” (Julia Cameron)

 

 

 

Maurice Greenia, Jr. Collections , , Updated: June 5, 2014

Celebrating Independence

Today all Americans celebrate Independence Day (July 4th) as a federal holiday commemorating the Declaration of Independence signed on July 4, 1776. This event marked this country’s freedom from Great Britain during the Revolutionary War (1775-1783).

But did you know that August 1 (Emancipation Day) was celebrated as a day of independence and liberation for thousands of enslaved and formerly enslaved people in this country and others for years after slavery was abolished in the West Indies on this day in 1833?  This one act (the British Slavery Abolition Act) freed 700,000 in West Indies, 20,000 in Mauritius, 40,000 in South Africa.  (See Abolition of Slavery timeline here).  And while it would be another 30 years before the Emancipation Proclamation officially ended slavery in this country, this major legal action in the British West Indies offered hope for further reasoned laws abolishing slavery in all other countries forever.  Quite a reason to celebrate.

And while Emancipation Day (August 1) is today overshadowed by Independence Day (July 4) in this country, August 1 is still celebrated in Caribbean countries such as Barbados, Jamaica, and Bermuda.

*** Side note of interest here:  Within the U.S., there are several states that celebrate their own Emancipation Day on dates associated with the end of slavery for their state.  So, for example, Texas celebrates Juneteenth on June 19th.  In Mississippi, the date is May 8 (the celebration there is called Eight o’ May). ***

Below is a page from an Emancipation Day speech delivered in 1849 by little known black abolitionist Abner H. Francis.  This 17 page speech was published in a black newspaper called the North Star on August 17 of that year and can be found in the Black Abolitionist Archive among our digital collections.  In this speech, Francis spoke eloquently and passionately for the cause of freedom, and for a reasoned approach to ending slavery.

On page 6 of this speech, Francis says,

“When the shackles are falling from hundreds of thousands of our race, when the great principles of human liberty and equality are reanimating the nations of the earth, shall we remain satisfied, in the valley of poverty and ignorance, or shall we avail ourselves of every means within our reach that may render us worthy of those principles and the age in which we live?”

Sometimes when reading these speeches, I hear the voices of these great men and women pleading with those living in my own time.  They seem to say, “Don’t forget us!  Don’t forget what we have fought so hard to overcome.  Honor us by living the best life you can live. Learn from the past, and create a valued place for yourselves in the future.”

Visit the Black Abolitionist Archive to learn more about this speech and others.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN—Our meeting this evening - Francis_09947spe_Page_01

Black Abolitionist Archive , , , , , , , Updated: June 30, 2014

Independence Day

In a New Haven, Connecticut church on July 5, 1832, black abolitionist Peter Osborne spoke of independence.  In those early days of the movement towards freedom from slavery, each July 4th holiday offered a way for abolitionists to remind the country of those who had never known freedom here.  This one day out of each year had come to symbolize what had become the hallmark foundation of the United States, and yet was denied to so many who lived here.  Until the full promise of the Declaration of Independence could be realized, Osborne said, the country would be reminded that it was founded on a lie, signed by those who fought so hard to escape the oppression they’d known in Great Britain.

Although slavery had existed in this country since the 1600s, it was not until the 1830s that the Black Abolitionist movement began.  When initial aggressive measures to win freedom had failed (e.g., Nat Turner’s attempt in 1831 along with Denmark Vessey’s revolt in 1822, see African American History site), taking a milder approach seemed the best option (and, as it turned out, a successful one after years of agitation, speech making, and influential reasoning).

Peter Osborne was one of the first to argue for the moral logic of freedom for all people based on the promises of the Declaration of Independence and all other documents that helped establish this country’s existence.

Maybe this July 4, we can consider the high price some have paid for the freedom we enjoy today.  Maybe too this Independence Day we can consider what more needs to be done to ensure that this hard won freedom continues for all of us.  Taking a steady, reasoned approach has worked in the past, and will likely work for our collective futures if we stand together.

In concluding his speech, Peter Osborne says,

“Let us make it known to America that we are not barbarians; that we are not inhuman beings; that
this is our native country; that our forefathers have planted trees in America for us, and we intend to
stay and eat the fruit. Our forefathers fought, bled and died to achieve the independence of the United
States. Why should we forbear contending for the prize?”

Visit the Black Abolitionist archive to read more of this speech and others:

Black Abolitionist Archive , , , , , , , , , Updated: July 3, 2014

The Last Light-Hearted Year

On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to Austria-Hungary’s throne, and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated while they were visiting Bosnia. By July of that year, Austria-Hungary and Serbia were at war; and by the end of August Germany, Russia, France, Great Britain, and Belgium were all involved in what would become the first World War. While President Woodrow Wilson worked to keep the U.S. out of the hostilities, the entire world shook with rage and horror over this bloody conflict.  (In 1917, the U.S. entered the fighting when, on April 6, it declared war on Germany.)

As events unfolded in Europe, the atmosphere around  the U. of D. campus seemed unaffected by it all.  Reading through the Tamarack publication from October 1914 (four months after the world began its steady march towards “The Great War”), I could find only a tongue-in-cheek mention of the conflict (shown in the image here).

Some of the humor in this page needs a bit of explanation. Earl Kitchener, a newly created peerage in the British ranks (dukes, marquess, earl, viscount, baron) had just been created in 1914 for famous soldier, Herbert Kitchener. Stroh and Goebel were brewers in Michigan (doing quite well at the time). The other puns seem obvious.  And it’s likely that the rest of the names mentioned here were students (Edward D. Devine, Charles L.  Bruce, and Henry N. Gaspard were all listed as officers in the Alumni Association in the 1915 bulletin).

Earlier Tamaracks expressed the light-hearted school boy air of those carefree days before the first world war.  After that, it seemed the tone changed to a more somber one. The students of U. of D. seemed to view a very different world after this point.

Tamarack Archive , , , , Updated: June 5, 2014

Riddles, Sayings, Superstitions

Professor James T. Callow along with Professor Frank M. Paulsen have done something amazing: they’ve put together a huge collection of folklore materials gathered from their students between 1964 and 1993; and now Professor Callow has shared this collection with UDM and the world. In 1964, Professor Callow, along with Professor Paulsen, founded the University of Detroit Folklore Archive. This amazing archive was donated to the University of Detroit Mercy Libraries /Instructional Design Studio in digital form in 2009, and we are proud to include it in our Digital Special Collections.

The introduction to the archive tells visitors that it is …

“…comprised at this point of over 42,000 folklore traditions taken from field notes gathered by UDM (formerly University of Detroit) students as part of their course work in ‘Introduction to Folklore,’ Studies in Folklore,’ ‘Folk Groups,’ and ‘Folklore Archiving’. The folklore archive covers traditions gathered between 1964 and 1993. Included in the Archive is the Peabody field note collection containing approximately 12,000 entries from Tennessee and the Southeast.”

The archive is searchable by text, title, keyword, location, subject and contains folklore such as:

  • urban legends
  • jokes
  • fraternity, sorority, and scouting songs
  • drinking games
  • graffiti
  • initiation pranks
  • superstitions
  • gestures
  • riddles
  • proverbs
  • customs
  • festivals, and
  • elder lore

Here’s an example of what you might discover in this amazing collection:

Superstition

How Many Children?

Thread a needle and hold it at the top, next to your left wrist. If you keep watching for awhile, the needle and thread will move all by itself. If it moves in circles, for example, three times, that means you will have three daughters someday. If it sways back and forth, that means you will have the respective number of sons. If the needle and thread don’t move at all, you will be childless.

 

Visit the James T. Callow Folklore Archive to learn more. Or, if you are doing research and want access to the physical collection, please contact the UDM McNichols Campus Library research desk at 313-993-1071 to make an appointment.

James T. Callow Folklore Archive , , , Updated: June 5, 2014

Education, 1851

History has a way of collapsing time.  It moves along a social timeline from major event to major event and the small steps that occurred to the human beings involved in the day to day struggle between those events are often overlooked.  We see for example the settling of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 (and the African slaves who were included in this), the Civil War in 1861, and the emancipation of slaves in 1863. We’re told that slavery had a long history of cruelty and abuse, and we are hesitant to spend too much time exploring the detailed lives of those who survived this.

But the history of slavery is also the history of triumph, of survival, and of the joining together of an enslaved people toward a common goal of freedom. The tireless work of so many unsung heroes called the Black Abolitionists, along with their white counterparts, helped to realize something few would have thought possible during this time: emancipation. This is not to trivialize this milestone. The journey wasn’t smooth and neither were the years that followed, but the determination of those who would fight for freedom and continue this fight deserves recognition.

Before the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 finally put an end to nearly 250 years of slavery in this country, there were free people of color living in almost every state in the Union. While freedom for these people didn’t also include social acceptance (or even citizenship), it did offer a way of working toward freedom for many of those who became Black Abolitionists during the 1800s.  Education for these people was rare, however, except for those privileged few who were sent to schools in Scotland and other countries.

An education was therefore highly valued, since it offered a way for those who fought hard for freedom to enter into a reasoning debate with those who had the power to influence change.  An educated mind, for example, knew that slavery was an economic institution and cotton was its driving force.  Uncovering the commodities that encouraged the continuation of slavery, meant the chances were better for making a logical argument for its end.  Convincing those countries that bought our cotton that their dollars were better spent elsewhere, for example, was an educated way to disrupt the economic value of this horrible institution.

The brief editorial shown here is from The Voice of the Fugitive newspaper issue published in 1851, twelve years before Emancipation.  Discovering these nuggets of history offers readers a way of better understanding the actual line of events that weaved its way through the years prior to and including those dreadful years.

Spend some time in the Black Abolitionist Archive and read this and other treasures you can discover there.

voice_of_the_fugitive_june1-1851

The Voice of the Fugitive, June 1, 1851

Black Abolitionist Archive , , , , , , , , , , , Updated: May 27, 2014

The Colors of Spring

Ah!  It’s so nice to find the days warming and the sun shining with all its might!  After spending as much time as possible outside in the fresh spring air, you might find yourself musing over something to do.  “I spend too much time in social media,” you might say to yourself. “I need to just soak up the colors of this new season, but how can I do this and still benefit from the social world?” 

Well, one answer may be to spend some time with the art from the Maurice Greenia, Jr. archive. 

When I think of the spring and upcoming summer months, I think of color.  And color usually takes me to the Maurice Greenia, Jr. Collection and the watercolors there.  The image posted here is one of my current favorites.  It offers the shapes and colors of a comic strip without the words … without the comedy.  With this image, the viewer can appreciate the artistry of work that in comic book form some may dismiss as “merely” cartoon. 

This image offers a different perspective, and one that allows the viewer to appreciate the positioning, color, and interaction of shapes within the boxed display. With the right perspective this type of creativity offers a way of identifying an artistry comic book readers might not expect. Seeing with a shifting of perspectives in this way, allows viewers to learn a different way of interpreting their world. This helps improve critical thinking skills, and offers those who appreciate this approach the benefit of learning a new way of understanding the layers of experience that are part of many issues they may encounter both in and out of the classroom.

Spending time with art is beneficial to the person overall: as student, as individual, and as member of a dynamic world. Maurice’s artwork helps balance the academic with the creative nicely.  His work in digital form is a wonderful addition to our archive collection.

comic_strip

Maurice Greenia, Jr. Collections , , , , , , Updated: May 22, 2014

The 1960′s “Take-Over Generation”

The 1963 Tower Yearbook introduces the reader to 12 months of changes summed up in one span of time between March 15, 1962 to March 15, 1963. The yearbook narrows down the events of that unsettled time in the world to the microcosm of the University of Detroit campus. So, how does this compare with the broader turmoil in the rest of the world?

When someone mentions the 1960s the first thing that often comes to mind for a lot of people these days is a vision of colorfully dressed hippies dancing in a park playing tambourines and singing songs of peace. Some people think of the Vietnam War and the protests that went along with it; some think of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the dark hours of that dramatic event. The  troubled and troubling decade of the 1960s, and the string of events that ended once and for all the innocent years following World War II, seems to have been started by one major occurrence that a lot of people tend to overlook when they consider this time.

On August 18, 1963, James Meredith graduated from the University of Mississippi with a degree in political science.  On October 1, 1962, he had become the first black student to enter “Ole Miss” and his time there was arguably the spark that set fire to the Civil Rights Movement in this country.  Ten days after Meredith graduated, 250,000 people participated in the March on Washington, and were present to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his historic I have a Dream speech.

The 1963 Tower Yearbook, published at the on-set of the turbulent years to follow, offers readers a rare glimpse into the final days of social innocence that marked the beginning of changes that continue to this day.

1963_tower_yearbook

1963 Tower Yearbook, page 5

University of Detroit Tower Yearbook Collection , , , , , , Updated: May 4, 2014

“A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words”

I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage, “A picture is worth 1,000 words.” The truth in this saying is evidenced by the variety of photos without text in the later issues of the Tower Yearbook.  The 1973 edition (titled, “The Urban 1973 Almanac and Yearbook, A Guide to the University of Detroit“) is a great example of this.  The title page of this yearbook alone, offered as it is in the curly-ques and leafy design of an actual almanac, is a reflection of the times.  In those days, a return to a simpler time was encouraged: back to the present moment, back to nature, back to the farm, back to the almanac.  And in this urging to slow down the frantic rush to the future, we have the potential bridge between university life and the changing cultural.

The idea behind the focus on simplicity during this time is that the complexity of a growing industrial and technological social structure could be conveyed in one picture. This seems to lead the way to current times when we can recognize direction through the image of a smiley face or simple letter-structured terms like “LOL” (or even the highlighted text on a web page indicating a link)!  In a sense, the icons that populate the electronic devices we’re so attached to now are miniaturized versions of this adage (“An icon is worth any number of words”?).  (This can be quickly recognized in our response to the “X” for close shown in the upper right corner of your browser screen even now!)

In 1973, however, the Tower Yearbook staff were just figuring out the power of the image in its ability to communicate a lot of information. On the beginning page of this yearbook after the Contents, is one line of text announcing the images that follow, “Some things you might have missed”. This is followed by several pages of images without text offering readers a stroll through the year in their own memories of it.

On page 24 of the 1973 Tower, the image of the open gate on part of the tall fence near a campus dorm building illustrates more than one meaning regarding Public Safety as explained in the text next to it .  It seems this fence was both a curse and a blessing: it reduced crime but only worked to do this if the gates were monitored and kept locked.

1973 was a turbulent year, not only for U of D and the city of Detroit, but for the country overall. The changes taking place outside the campus gates were reflected in the protests, crime, and discontent on the campus itself. Campus life became more involved in assisting social change than in parties and festivals. Trying to explain the times, the culture, the turbulence of the year in words would take more than one volume to convey. And while these changes could be complex, the picture heavy edition of this yearbook offered a way of clarifying them.

 

1973_tower_yearbook

The Urban 1973 Almanac and Yearbook

University of Detroit Tower Yearbook Collection , , , , , , , , Updated: April 4, 2014

Tamarack Collection Overview

This first publication of the Tamarack came after 20 years of discussion about whether or not to start a college newspaper, or so the editor tells his readers in his “Salutatory” introduction (shown below). The college itself had only been around that long. And during those first 20 years, Detroit College was alone the only Catholic college in Michigan. Having its own newspaper was important not only to ensure its place among institutions of higher learning, but as an expression of pride in its knowledgeable and talented student body. And now, at long last, here it was fresh and humble.

Within this issue we discover a page that offers the names of the Editorial Board, those first intrepid few who worked so hard to make this happen.  And on this page we find that for $1.00 a year (10 cents an issue), readers could subscribe to the monthly paper.  Sweet deal; although this amount may have been quite dear for that time. While this first edition encourages students and alumni to help by contributing money (through subscriptions) and/or writing, the quality is already first rate and foreshadows the excellent content of future volumes.

The Tamarack was a strong presence in the lives of Detroit College students between 1897 and most of 1901.  But then it grew silent.  In 1907 it rallied for the publication of an “Athletic Number,” but then returned to silence for another few years.  In December 1913, without much fanfare or explanation, the Tamarack reappeared.  Detroit College had become the University of Detroit by then and maybe this explains the Tamarack’s absence.

The next publication, in April 1914, let readers know that the long silence was over and the Tamarack was back.  From then on, it would be a quarterly publication.  And so it was, for a while.

In June 1918, we see the final Tamarack. The Varsity News had begun publication by this time, and it would soon assume prominence as the University of Detroit newspaper. (Be sure to check out our Varsity News digital archive!)

Tamarack Archive , , , , Updated: April 17, 2014
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