The SCRC processing team is excited to announce that we have more new finding aids to share! All of the following collections are available for use in the Special Collections Research Center and the finding aids are available on our website (or use the links included below).
Through Women’s Eyes: Southeast Asian American Women’s Stories records, C0509
Collection processed by Vilma Chicas Garcia
Through Women’s Eyes: Southeast Asian American Women’s Stories was an Oral History project originally titled Dual Identities/Multiple Roles conducted by Lisa Falk and Uaporn Ang Robinson in the early 1990s in which they interviewed and photographed eighteen Southeast Asian American women who were born in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, or Vietnam, and migrated to the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area in their young adult years during the 1960s-1990s. This oral history project aims to describe what caused these women to move and their transition into American culture and life while keeping their native customs alive in their homes. The project was made into a temporary independent exhibit for the Smithsonian in 2016. This collection includes planning and exhibition files from the oral history project itself, research materials used for interviewing the women, interview records and transcripts, correspondence, biographical information and other personal materials from the interviewees, and contact sheets, photographs, negatives, and slides of images taken throughout the project.
Selection from February 1929 “Old Pal Dal” letter, C0344
Letters to music lyricist and publisher Dallas “Dal” Gray, C0344
Collection processed by Meghan Glasbrenner
Personal and professional letters received by music lyricist and publisher Dallas “Dal” Gray, the majority of which are from his long-time collaborator Jack Kjellin who addresses them to “Old Pal Dal”. Gray was a newspaper editor, songwriter, and owner of the Gloucester City, New Jersey based Monmouth Music Publishing Company, with Western offices in Portland, Oregon and Hollywood, California. Kjellin was a composer and lyricist, based in Battle Creek, Michigan. While neither man achieved widespread fame, both appear to have had some success in publishing or selling songs, such as Gray’s “Annie” (possibly in collaboration with Kjellin, circa 1930) and Kjellin’s “Just another night” in collaboration with Nick Kenny (1939) and “There’s a story going ’round” (1940). These letters, of which there are approximately 53, conclude with the breakup of their collaborative relationship, but the final letter appears to end on a friendly note from Kjellin. The remaining letters are from mixed senders, such as composer Claude Lapham, and concern personal or financial matters, with several addressed to Gray’s Monmouth Music Publishing Company business. Contents also include a single photograph of Jack Kjellin and his wife, a page of handwritten lyrics, and a flyer advertisement.
Leesburg, Virginia “Rates of Toll” list, C0345
Collection processed by Meghan Glasbrenner
A printed single sided sheet, dated December 18, 1833, with the heading “Rates of Toll: To Be Paid Here” above a list of Leesburg, Virginia toll rates for various carts, wagons, carriages, and animals printed by the “Washingtonian-Office, Leesburg”. The toll information is surrounded by a floral decorative border with round seals in each of the four corners. In the latter half of the 18th through the early 19th century, road building in Virginia was marked by the development of many toll roads, also known as turnpikes. In 1785, when established methods of funding for road improvement and maintenance proved insufficient, gates were constructed along heavy travel and trade routes to collect tolls. These newly established turnpikes got their name from the original toll gate design, which consisted of a turnstile
made from two crossed bars, pointed at their outer ends, and turned on a vertical bar. In and around Leesburg, these newly established turnpikes included seven toll gates between Leesburg and Alexandria and four from Leesburg to Georgetown.
Washington, D.C. souvenir postcard circa 1916, C0551
Randolph Lytton historic Washington, D.C. postcards and photographs collection, C0511
Collection processed by Vilma Chicas Garcia
This collection consists of postcards, souvenir photographs, and stereographs featuring images of Washington, D.C., as well as one photo album of Washington, D.C, and one foldable postcard booklet of Arlington, Virginia. The materials in this collection were created from the early 1910s-1968, with the majority of the postcards created between the 1910s and the mid 1940s. The United States Congress allowed for the private selling and mailing of postcards on February 27, 1861. However they did not become a preferred method of communication until 1907, when the U.S. government – alongside the Universal Postal Union – created a divider on the back of their postcards. This design allowed for customers to add a message on the left side of the postcard and the address on the right. The souvenir photographs in this collection include assorted views of different areas throughout Washington, D.C. and one set of souvenir photographs of the 1938 New York World’s Fair. Stereographs were photographs used to create a three-dimensional image with the illusion of depth through a stereoscopic lens. Their relevance faded in the early 20th century after the postcard was introduced.
Manuscript copy of paper from Annie K. Southwick recipe book, C0346
Collection processed by Meghan Glasbrenner
Single page of five handwritten recipes (spelled “receipt”) originally found in Annie K. Southwick’s recipe book. This page is dated 1884, almost 10 years later than the full recipe book’s date of March 1875. All recipes are written in paragraph format without a separate list of ingredients or measurements. Derived from the Latin “recipere” (meaning “to receive” or “to take”) “receipt” and “recipe” books have a long history. Originally, both terms were used interchangeably and referred to instructions for the preparation of medicinal mixtures. It wasn’t until the mid-1700s that the terms began to be applied to instructions for food preparation and it would take until the early 20th century for the term “recipe” to fully replace the term “receipt”. The popularity of both handwritten and published recipe books in the United States reached its height in the 18th and 19th centuries. This newfound popularity is attributed to both increased literacy and mobility in the population, as well as a growth in the immigrant population which encouraged the writing down of traditional and family recipes.
“Woodsy Fieldsy” flyer circa 1965, C0415
Collection processed by Evan Dorman
This collection contains material collected by former George Mason College (GMC) student Bonnie Atwood from the late 1960s to the mid 1990s, with much of it focused on her antiwar activism and the broader protest movements of the 1960s-1970s, as well as news reports from student, professional, and underground publications, legal documents, and promotional materials produced by Northern Virginia Resistance. During Atwood’s time at GMC she was a member of the anti-Vietnam War organization Northern Virginia Resistance (NVR), alongside fellow students and GMC professor James Shea. She and David Lusby, another member of NVR, were arrested in 1969 for trespassing after protesting inside Draft Board #39 in Fairfax, Virginia. The American Civil Liberties Union defended them in the case Lusby v. Commonwealth of Virginia. Atwood provided articles to the GMC student newspaper Broadside while enrolled at GMC, and wrote professionally for the Manassas Journal-Messenger afterwards.
“A New Atlas of the British West Indies” bound volume, C0349
Collection processed by Meghan Glasbrenner
A bound volume titled “A New Atlas of the British West Indies” containing 11 maps of various 19th century colonized islands in the Caribbean, published by James Humphreys of Philadelphia. The three fold-out maps depict “A New Map of the West Indies” engraved by J.H. Seymour and St. Domingo and Jamaica engraved by Benjamin Tanner. The eight single page maps include St. Vincent, Barbados (spelled Barbadoes), the Virgin Islands, Grenada, and the Island of Tobago engraved by Benjamin Tanner, as well as “Maps of the Island of Dominica” engraved by J.H. Seymour, and the Island of St. Christophers and the Island of Antigua attributed to “Marshall”.
This atlas volume was printed to accompany the 1806 Philadelphia printing of Bryan Edwards’ History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies and can be recognized by key details on the fold out maps, such as the circular cartouche that contains the title on the West Indies map and the signatures of the engravers in the bottom right corner. Bryan Edwards was born in Westbury, Wiltshire, England on May 21, 1743, the eldest son of Bryan Edwards and Elizabeth Bayly. After the death of his father in 1756, young Bryan came under the care of various family members, eventually relocating to Jamaica where he would spend the majority of the rest of his life. In 1793, he published the first London edition of his History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies, a two-volume account of the history and culture of the British colonized islands, which ran for five editions, including an 1806 edition published in Philadelphia by James Humphreys. He passed away on July 16, 1800 in Southampton, England.
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