Schomberg Center Remembers Maya Angelou

From Timeout New York:

If rereading Maya Angelou's poetry has left you wanting more ways to mourn her passing, the New York Public Library is offering Angelou fans a chance to connect with the author through an exhibit of her personal artifacts and manuscripts. . . . 

When Angelou donated the archive, she explained that libraries had given her a sense of safety and possibility as a child. Her hope, she said, was that her collection might allow the NYPL to do the same thing for another child. For the next month, visitors interested in exploring Angelou’s work and life can browse through the exhibit in the lobby of the Schomburg Center in Harlem. Although the display will close June 30, the archive is currently available to researchers, and is expected to be fully catalogued within a year.

Learn more about the exhibit and the collection at the Schomburg Center.

Categories: exhibits

Women & the Civil War: Exhibit, Symposium, and CFP

Paper proposals are invited for a half-day symposium entitled “Women and the Civil War,” to be held April 27, 2012, at the University of Maryland, College Park. The symposium in being organized in connection with an exhibit at the university’s Hornbake Library, Women on the Border: Maryland Perspectives of the Civil War, which draws on materials in the University Libraries’ Special Collections. The exhibition focuses on the lives and experiences of ordinary women living in Maryland during the Civil War, using letters, diaries, photographs, sheet music, rare books, and other special collections materials as sources. A digital version of the physical gallery exhibition is being planned and will launch within the next few months. To learn more about the exhibit please visit: http://www.lib.umd.edu/mdrm/gallery/index.html

The symposium will provide a forum for discussing the multitude of roles women played in the war and the many ways in which the war affected them. The keynote speaker will be Thavolia Glymph, Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Duke University. The symposium committee is especially interested in scholarship relating to Maryland women and the Civil War or to women’s experiences in the border states. Proposals relating to these topics will be given preference, but proposals relating to other aspects of the topic of women and the Civil War will also be considered. The committee welcomes proposals from graduate students as well as more experienced scholars. Papers should be no longer than twenty minutes when delivered. Paper proposals (500 words or less) and brief presenter bios should be e-mailed to Elizabeth Novara at enovara@umd.edu.

Submissions deadline is November 15, 2011, and the program committee expects to notify successful applicants by December 15, 2011.

Categories: call for papers, exhibits, repositories, symposia, Women

Radical Woman in A Classic Town: Frances Willard of Evanston

Social reformer Frances Willard (1839-1898) earned a world-wide reputation for her charismatic speaking and for her leadership of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the largest and most powerful woman's organization of its time. But Willard always maintained a bond with Evanston, her hometown from 1858 until her death. She also had a strong connection to Northwestern University, where she was the first Dean of Women and a Trustee. This exhibit, curated by Assistant University Archivist Janet Olson, examines the complex ties between Willard and the Classic Town that helped shape her vision of the world.

On view January 18 - March 19, 2010, at the Northwestern University Library, Evanston, IL.

More information

Categories: exhibits