What’s with all the buzz about Burnham? One hundred years ago, Daniel H. Burnham and Edward Bennett compiled the most influential city planning documents in U.S. history, the 1909 Plan of Chicago (SpC. 720.9 C734p 1909). Their visions and architecture defined many of the familiar features of Chicago today. A first edition copy of the Plan along with other works from this time period that highlight the history and development of Chicago are currently on exhibit in Special Collections and Archives­—Room 314.

Commissioned by the Commercial Club of Chicago, an elite group of Chicago businessmen, the Plan of Chicago was an attempt to re-shape Chicago to address some of the problems caused by its rapid growth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Burnham, well-known for his architectural and city planning work including the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, was already a member of the club. Edward Bennett, his associate in his architectural firm, was responsible for much of the design work on elements of the Plan that were put into place in the decades after its publication. Some of Bennett’s best known work includes Buckingham Fountain and the Michigan Avenue Bridge. 

    

Over the next 20 or so years, many elements of the Plan came to fruition in one way or another. While many of results do not exactly match the visionary illustrations in the Plan of Chicago, one can clearly see the intention of the Plan in much of what we have today in Chicago, especially in the areas of the lakefront, Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive, and Burnham Harbor and the Museum Campus.  

 

Exhibit runs through Dec. 18. Free to the public.

  

Please join us on Nov. 4 at 5:00 when Dr. Joe Schwieterman of the Chaddick Institute will read and sign copies of his book, Beyond Burnham: An Illustrated History of Planning for the Chicago Region. A reception will follow.

 

We label and stamp them, charge them out, and then back in again. We gather them in great piles from the drop boxes. We shelve them, a never-ending task, much like bailing out the ocean with a teaspoon. Still, we love them – the books.

Our first books were about girl detectives, boy wizards, kind monsters, and countless heroic orphans. We inhabited these completely, and they live on inside of us. As adults, we still encounter books that mark us. This exhibit is a way for members of the library staff to share our passion for books and reading.

 
The books in this exhibit on the first floor of the Richardson Library are all the personal copies of DePaul library staff.  Join the discussion at our Shelfari online group – go to www.shelfari.com and search for the group called “Bookmarked”.

There's still time to cast a vote for your favorite submission to this year's student video contest, This is DePaul. Students have already submitted an impressive selection of short videos depicting the DePaul student experience, and the entries can all be viewed and voted on from the YouTube movie gallery.

According to contest guidelines, all submissions had to feature at least one aspect of academics at DePaul, so it's no surprise that you'll see shots of the library in so many of these videos! Submissions also needed to feature elements of student life and Vincentian mission and at least one iconic Chicago landmark.

After online voting closes on May 25th, a panel of judges will choose three winners and award $4000 dollars in prize money. An additional award, the Audience Choice, will also go to the entry with the highest YouTube rating. So check out some of the fine work submitted to this contest and cast your vote soon!:

http://www.youtube.com/groups_videos?name=thisisdepaul

The Victorian Age in England saw an increased demand for print and pictures to accompany a growing literacy and increase of book publication.  The current exhibition in Special Collections and Archives highlights our growing collection of Victorian materials here at DePaul.

Victorian publishing merged the work of authors with artists in countless ways.  Authors like Charles Dickens used illustrations to define the plot and characters of their novels.  The artists for those novels depicted scenes in vivid detail to call the reader’s attention to minute aspects of the story.  But books dealing with all subjects were also illustrated, both through woodcuts and engravings. Those illustrations enhanced the understanding of the reading public about the expanding role of science, technology, and sociological study that blossomed during Victorian England.  

From amateur artist-scientists illustrating the worlds seen through a microscope, to travelers depicting the world they saw, illustrations provided a visual means to understand and amplify the text. The world was captured for readers who would never dissect a caterpillar or travel to India.  Illustrations also provided a way for the publishing industry to market and sell their books to new audiences, such as those riding another major invention of Victorian times, the railroad.  The illustrations communicated information about new inventions such as the velocipede, a Victorian version of today’s bicycle.

Illustrations in serious literature diminished by the end of the 19th Century, but  found new life in children’s books, magazines, and cheap popular fiction; eventually making their way into the 20th century as comic books, graphic novels, and fine press illustrated editions.

Department of Special Collections and Archives, 314 Richardson Library, Open Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm.  http://library.depaul.edu/Collections/SpecialCollectionArchives.aspx

Ex Libris: Gilbert Sims Derr

Second in a series highlighting the book collectors whose subject expertise, passion, and resources have contributed to DePaul’s Special Collections

Starting in the 1960s, DePaul Professor and Alumnus Gilbert Sims Derr strove to inspire mutual understanding between African-Americans and whites by providing resources for African-American studies at DePaul.  In his words, “When the whites get a better idea of what the blacks have contributed to our mutual culture, many of the problems of race relations will be eased.”

Gilbert Sims Derr (1917-1989) grew up in Durham, North Carolina. He completed his undergraduate work at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia in 1939 and received a Masters Degree from DePaul University in 1948.  While researching his thesis on interracial education, he discovered that DePaul University’s library lacked materials on African Americans.  He vowed to provide these materials by creating a research center for African-American studies at DePaul.  Then, while teaching part time at DePaul in the School of Education and serving as a human relations coordinator in the Chicago public school system, Derr contributed his DePaul salary to the Verona Williams Derr Fund.  The money from this fund went towards a scholarship fund, lecture series and the Verona Williams Derr Collection (named for Derr's wife) now housed in DePaul University’s Special Collections and Archives. 

The Collection contains books relating to African-American culture, Negro Life and History, Black-White Experience, and the Area of Black Studies. The publication dates for the books range from the 1790’s through to the 1960’s.  Professor Derr collected books that presented both sides of the race issue.  The collection contains pro-slavery book titles such as An Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Faculties, and Literature of Negroes, 1810 by H. Gregoire and Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments; Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright, 1860.  On the other side, the collection also includes anti-slavery publications such as Lydia Maria Francis Child’s 1833 An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans and texts by Abolitionists and African American authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Check out some selections from the Derr Collection on exhibit on the third floor of the library through February 28, 2009.

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Many book collectors paste bookplates inside the front covers of their books and the Latin words ex libris, meaning “from the library of,” were often used.

 

 

 

 

The Center for Latino Research presents two photo exhibits for Fall Quarter in the Richardson Library. The collections will be displayed in the Haber Lounge on the first floor, and are entitled:

"Radicals in Black & Brown: Palante, People's Power, and Common Cause in the Black Panthers and the Young Lords Organization" and "Chicago's Original Rainbow Coalition 1969-1975: the Young Lords Organization, the Black Panthers, and Rising Up Angry."

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This exhibit will run from September 19, 2008, through January 12, 2009, and will be the subject matter for film screenings and lectures throughout the quarter. Please join us in the Richardson Library on Friday, September 19th, at 6:00pm for the opening reception.   

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DePaul Univeristy Co-Sponsers: The Center for Black Diaspora, The Cultural Center, the Egan Urban Center, University Libraries, and the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity

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1.  Photographer: Carlos Flores, photo courtesy of Carlos Flores Collection.  Photo taken on the corner of Wilton and Grace in 1975, 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez talking to crowd at a Young Lord Rally.

2.  Photographer: unknown, photo courtesy of Archives of Michael James, Rising Up Angry and Heartland Journal.  Photo taken outside WTTW at a press conference on the 1 year anniversary of Martin Luther Jr.'s assassination.  The groups include the Young Lords Organization, the Black Panther Party, the Young Patriots, and Rising Up Angry.  The first three groups (the Young Lords Organization and the Black Panther Party) made up of the Rainbow Coalition and hosted the press conference to call on their communities to quell riots and racial violence.

Priests for Peace: The nonviolent roots of 1968 protests


March 2008 marked the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and this anniversary saw numerous protests against that war.  Anti-war protests emerge from many attitudes and ideas, including deep religious convictions.  This exhibit (available now until November 1, 2008) from the collection of Daniel Berrigan shows how he developed some of his beliefs of the role of religion.  It highlights the protest of the Catonsville 9 in 1968, burning draft records with the same napalm then in use in Vietnam to burn villages and villagers.

The 1960's witnessed an upsurge of dissidence within the American Catholic church, with religious figures taking part in protests in black ghettos across the country and against the Johnson Administration's pledge to win the Vietnam War.  Rev. Daniel Berrigan, S. J., was deeply committed to political and spiritual activism, and his work as a Jesuit priest, social activist, and author of nonfiction and poetry reflects that commitment.  
 
In 1968, Daniel and his brother Philip (a Josephite priest), along with Tom Lewis and six others, burned the draft records held by the Draft Board in Catonsville, Maryland.  Their subsequent trial and publicity for this nonviolent act of civil disobedience drew attention to the religious and moral objections to the war.

Of particular interest in the exhibit are works annotated by Daniel while in prison or on the run from prison, as well as his copies of works by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk and peace activist.  Thich Nhat Hahn was exiled from Vietnam in 1966 for his relief work and activism, and became an inspiration for nonviolent protest and the anti-war movement in the US, including Daniel Berrigan.