NYPL Blogs: Archives

Transmissions from The Timothy Leary Papers: Hesse, Gurdjieff and Minor White

Jennifer Ulrich, Specialist, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Mon, 14 May 2012 06:24:16 -0400

Early into my project, I opened a box and found a folder that caught my eye. It was labeled “Minor White.” A famous American photographer (b. 1908, d. 1976), White is known for his work with Aperture Magazine, the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco and the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. Most research libraries and museums with major American photography collections own his works, including the NYPL Division of Arts, Prints and Photographs.

How does this folder relate to Timothy Leary? It contained a summary for the Millbrook Workshop in Creative Photography offered 12-21 June 1964 held at the Millbrook School for Boys. One of the more interesting aspects of processing a collection is discovering the purpose and meaning behind the records.

Inside this file is a twenty page outline written by an unidentified attendee. Did Leary attend this workshop, or did his organization simply retain this handout in their files? The course description references "beer and socializing" with the Headmaster and coffee offered in the mornings, clearly targeting adults, not boarding school participants. Did Minor White come to Millbrook because he shared similar interests with Leary and his associates at the time?

The previous year, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were dismissed from Harvard University amid controversial publicity surrounding their psilocybin drug studies. Their methods were questioned as early as 1962, pushing them to take their studies off campus under the research organization, The International Foundation for Internal Freedom (IFIF).

In 1963, Peggy Hitchcock, a follower of Leary and Alpert, offered to host their research on her family estate in Millbrook, New York. The organization then changed names from the IFIF to the Castalia Foundation, taken from the society of scientific mystics in the novel The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse.[1] They lived communally at Millbrook, continuing to run LSD sessions and other non-drug workshops.

Leary and his associates were influenced by the teachings of Georges Ivanovitch Gurjieff, (b.1872? d.1949) a mystic from the Caucuses region who developed unorthodox teaching methods to “awaken” consciousness based on spiritual theories of self-awareness.[2] The Castalia Foundation adopted some of his methods for their non-drug workshops offered at Millbrook.

Like Gurdjieff, they were trying to awaken consciousness. Leary and members of the Castalia Foundation believed one could achieve this through mind-expanding drugs, but were also interested in exploring non-drug methods. This was done through exercises, such as those employed during their "Experiential Weekend" offered at Millbrook. These exercises would be punctuated with alternating moments of meditation in the dark and reading "messages" in the light. The purpose of these exercises in silence was to clear the mind from routine thoughts and open the mind.

Experiential Weekend: Message 1

Your weekend in Millbrook has been planned to provide a series of novel and consciousness-expanding experiences. The first step in the process of going beyond your routine and familiar patterns is a period of
ABSOLUTE SILENCE
Shortly after your arrival at Castalia you will be given further instructions...

Other Gurdjieffian programs are found in the Timothy Leary Papers, such as this script from a program schedule. Ralph [Metzner?] says, “One of the purposes of this weekend is to see clearly that we spend most of our time as robots…”

Detail from Castalia Foundation schedule:

Minor White was also a follower of Gurjieff’s methods. In the book, Mirrors, messages and manifestations, White is described to have gone through a few spiritual transformations: “In his youth, he was for a time a devout Catholic. He studied Zen Buddhism, devoted himself to I Ching, and in later life plunged into the teachings of Gurdjieff.”[3] It is likely that Castalia Foundation members took part in this course, held at The Millbrook School for Boys. Did the Castalia Foundation introduce White to Gurdjieff's teachings, or vice versa? Perhaps a deeper look into his and White’s correspondence will answer that question.

It would be quite interesting to read first-person accounts from those who participated in the photography workshop, or visited the Castalia Foundation in Millbrook.

[1] Greenfield, Robert. Timothy Leary: A Biography. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc, 2006. 208.

[2] "Georgei Ivanovitch Gurdjieff." Religious Leaders of America. Gale, 1999. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 4 May 2012. Document URL

[3] White, Minor. Mirrors, Messages, Manifestations: Photographs and Writings 1939-1968. New York, N.Y: Aperture, 1982. Preface.

United States Sanitary Commission Processing Project: A Day at the (Civil War) Office

Susan Waide, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Wed, 09 May 2012 06:28:39 -0400

Anna Peterson, a graduate student at the University of Michigan's School of Information, recently helped us organize some correspondence of the USSC's Hospital Directory office in Philadelphia. Here are Anna's impressions of a letter she found in the collection during her internship with the Manuscripts and Archives Division:

The Hospital Directory, with offices in Washington, New York, Philadelphia and Louisville, was established in 1862 to collect and record information concerning the location of sick and wounded soldiers in U.S. Army hospitals. Members of the public who had lost contact with their relatives or friends contacted the Directory by letter or visit, in the hopes of learning their condition or whereabouts.

Many letters in this record group reveal the anguish felt by the families and friends of missing soldiers during the Civil War. An inter-agency letter, written not long after the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3), offers another perspective into the search for those soldiers, particularly the administrative feats required to gain information about their fates after a major battle with heavy casualties.

On July 30th, 1863, Hospital Directory superintendent John Bowne, at USSC headquarters in Washington, wrote to H.A. de France, head of the Directory's Philadelphia office. In the letter, Bowne admonishes de France for his tardy reply to Bowne's inquiry regarding a soldier by the name of McGiff. His letter also offers a glimpse into the logistics of the USSC's presence in Gettysburg after the battle.

The letter demonstrates the administrative complexities of the agency's mission. In particular, we see an example of how greatly the regional branches depended on each other to answer soldier inquiries; the offices had different registers of information about soldiers and shared that information with the other branches via letter or telegram. Despite these extensive efforts, this letter offers an example of the agency's inability to quickly satisfy every request for information.

The brief administrative delay in the information regarding soldier McGiff caused the soldier's mother much pain, according to Bowne, as she was "sobbing and distressed at the probable fate of her boy, and left the office mourning not only for her loss of him but also for her fruitless and unwise expenditure of time and money" in traveling to the office. In this case, we see clearly the urgency of the agency's activities.

Perhaps most fascinating is de France's unofficial response, written in pencil on the letter's bottom and reverse side. Here, de France explains the cause of the information's tardy arrival in Washington, offering an unexpected view into the office's daily activities.

We learn that de France was the sole employee in the office when Bowne's request arrived. For that reason, de France sent the information via post rather than using a more expedient telegram, as a trip to the telegram office demanded too much time – usually an hour. He defends his choice by delineating the occupations of other office employees that day. We learn, for instance, that three employees were not in the office for various reasons and that a fourth was occupied with other tasks:

Mr. Webb had left the office his work then having been ended
Mr. Morton had gone to see about the wagons
Mr. Anderson had gone home sick
Mr. Belcher was busy downstairs and I was
alone in the office the whole afternoon.

We do not know if de France also offered this explanation to Bowne or if he simply kept it on record in the Philadelphia office. Instead, we do see an impassioned defense of his work and can perceive the human challenges that the USSC faced in its mission to provide information about missing soldiers.

—Anna Peterson

And what of soldier McGiff? Further insight into de France's and Bowne's untiring efforts to find this one man out of thousands of wounded soldiers will be gained by reading letters written by both men in the USSC's Hospital Directory office correspondence, as well as materials in the Hospital Directory "letter of inquiry" files.

There we find a Washington Hospital Directory file for Christopher McGiff, a private in the 119th New York Infantry, Company A, who turns out to be the soldier in question. It contains a letter of introduction for his mother, Mary McGiff, a "poor woman" traveling from New York City to Washington in search of her son. Although the Hospital Directory offices could not locate him in any hospital at that time, they continued to search for him, writing to his regimental surgeon on August 17, 1863. The reply: "The last we heard of him is that, the 1st Lieut. of his Comp. saw him falling wounded; he supposes in the chest during the action of the 1st July at Gettysburg & since that time he has been reported missing. The impression of the first Lieut. is that he was then killed."

Anna's encounter with H.A. de France's letter represents the beginning of similar individual stories that researchers can pursue, using archival guides to find related materials in the United States Sanitary Commission records, when the collection is made available to the public in 2013. (Other resources within the NYPL and beyond await the curious detective.)

The Lost Musicals: Joel Grey's Star Vehicles, Part One: "Goodtime Charley"

Diana Bertolini, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Fri, 04 May 2012 10:35:56 -0400

I recently processed the papers of one of the musical theater's greatest stars, Joel Grey. His Tony and Oscar winning performances as the bizarre, androgynous master of ceremonies of a nightclub in Hitler's Berlin in Kander and Ebb's Cabaret (1966) and its 1972 film adaptation made him a star; and Grey has had a long, successful career, highlighted by hits like George M! (1968) and Wicked (2003) ; and the revivals of Cabaret (1987), Chicago (1996) and Anything Goes (2011).

After winning his Oscar (and, incidentally, he was up against Al Pacino, Robert Duvall and James Caan in The Godfather!) he did the Hollywood thing for a few years and received lots of praise for his performance in the dark psychological thriller, Man on a Swing (1974). In 1975, Grey moved his family back to New York to star in a new Broadway musical, which had been tailored into a showcase for his abilities and unique style: Goodtime Charley.

The show featured a score by Larry Grossman and Hal Hackaday and a book by Sidney Michaels. The unlikely source material for this musical was the story of Joan of Arc. Composer Grossman had one Broadway show to his credit, a musical biography of the Marx Brothers called Minnie's Boys, which had run for three months in 1970. That show was also a collaboration with lyricist Hackaday.

Goodtime Charley had plenty going for it, but the focus of the show was wrong. Maybe the whole subject was a bad idea, but the songs were certainly good. Grossman's lush and catchy melodies benefited from gorgeous arrangements by Jonathan Tunick, the defining Broadway orchestrator of his generation, who anticipated the sound of musicals in the 1970s with his work on Burt Bacharach's Promises, Promises (1968) and announced it with his work on Stephen Sondheim's Company (1970). (Tunick went on to orchestrate some of the most famous shows of the next 40 years, including many of Sondheim's.)

Goodtime Charley opened with an exciting overture, which led into an unusual opening number, "History", an efficient piece of exposition in which the ghosts of the supporting characters set the historical context for the story.

Grey's character, Charley (The Dauphin/Charles VII of France) was introduced with the lightweight, but attractive title song, in which he, the illegitimate heir to the throne, denies having any desire to become King, proclaiming his contentment to be "Goodtime Charley." By the end of the song admits he's trying to convince himself to believe what he's saying, and does have some ambition.

"Voices and Visions" brings Joan on stage, with a thrilling musicalization of one of the most famous stories of the Joan legend — when she arrives at court and intuits who Charley is even though he's disguised. Joan and Charley's relationship is developed with the duet "Bits and Pieces," her "To Make the Boy a Man," and "I Am Going to Love (The Man You're Going to Be)" and his "Why Can't We All Be Nice." Their antagonistic duet for the scene after Charley's coronation, "You Still Have a Still Long Way to Go" is one of the show's best.

One of the score's gems, "Merci, Bon Dieu," a melancholy charm song with a beautiful melody and touching words, was given to minor characters: Charley's mistress, Agnes Sorel and Minguet, an elderly page.

The show's musical highpoint is Joan's eleven o'clock number, "One Little Year," an angry power ballad for Joan to sing as she waits in vain for Charley to break her out of jail. The cast album is worth checking out just to hear Reinking belt the pants off this number.

Grey also got his own eleven o'clock number, "I Leave the World" for Charley 30 years later, now the good King Charles VII, on his 58th birthday. In this lovely song, Charley wonders if he has lived up to Joan's expectations. (Goodtime Charley's book fudged history a bit to make Charley totally blameless in Joan's conviction and burning. Don't ask how...) Then he is visited by Joan's ghost and receives her blessing and approval. A handwritten copy of the sheet music, signed by Grossman with a dedication to Grey "With thanks and love," dated opening night, suggests that this song was written for him.

The show tried out in Boston, and Grey's correspondence from this period makes it clear that extensive revisions were made. Then it opened on Broadway, and Grey received the usual good luck telegrams from friends and colleagues. I always enjoy reading these, so I thought I'd quote from a few: Director/choreographer Bob Fosse (who had directed Grey in the film of Cabaret and stepped in to give some unofficial help on Goodtime Charley) wired: "Even when you do the steps backwards you are terrific." Cabaret songwriters Kander and Ebb chimed in with "Dear Joel, Long live the King! Love, John and Fred."

Sadly, the show's critical reception was mixed. Grey and Reinking got raves, as did Rouben Ter-Artunian's sets and Willa Kim's costumes. None of the critics loved the score, and all of them had problems with the book. The score was dismissed as unmemorable and criticized for sounding too modern for the medieval setting. Michaels' book was called out on its focus problems, and inability to decide if it was a serious drama or a vehicle for Borscht Belt humor. Lots of critics compared it unfavorably with other, vastly superior depictions of Joan in drama, like George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (1923) and Jean Anouilh's The Lark (1952).

Ultimately, Grey's stardom was one of the major problems and the saving grace of the show. The producers of the show knew that in Grey they had a bonafide Star with a capital S, and the show needed to be advertized with him in the star part. But any time Joan of Arc is involved, she's going to dominate the proceedings. Ethan Mordden summed it up perfectly in One More Kiss: The Broadway Musical in the 1970s when he said, "Charles VII was not an admirable or even interesting character — he lacked just about everything — whereas Joan was so amazing that if she lived today she'd still be ahead of her time." So even though Grey was the star and gave by all accounts a wonderful performance, Reinking had the better character and the better songs.

Grey gave the show a boost, to the extent that his performance and star quality was one of the only things anyone liked about the show. It created a disadvantage though. When Grey had to leave the show after only a few months, to fulfill a previously contracted obligation to appear in Robert Altman's film, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976), the producers decided to close the show, partly because they knew they couldn't replace Grey. Also it wasn't doing that well at the box office.

There have been concerts and revivals of Goodtime Charley — it was done at San Francisco's 42nd Street Moon in 1996, at The York Theatre's Musicals in Mufti Series in 2008, and presented by the Beautiful Soap Theatre Collective in 2011. Enjoyable as these scaled-down productions are, we'll never see it done on the scale of the original again, with a full orchestra, with those elaborate sets and costumes, and most of all, with its original stars.

For more on Goodtime Charley and Joel Grey, check out the Joel Grey Papers in the Billy Rose Theater Division of the New York Public Library. Tune in next month to read about Grey's next flop: The Grand Tour.

Transmissions from The Timothy Leary Papers: The Self-Annotated Papers

Jennifer Ulrich, Specialist, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:36:44 -0400

Annotations throw a wrench in dating materials, and Timothy Leary liked to annotate... everything. Aware of his demise after being diagnosed with cancer in 1995, he wrote notes and signed printed matter, clippings and correspondence from his personal files. Although he authored the autobiographies High Priest and Flashbacks, it will be his annotations that provide the more immediate, intimate “flashback.”

For example, Leary was suspended from the University of Alabama in 1942 (he was reinstated October 1944), prompting him to enroll in the short-lived Specialized Army Training Program offered at Ohio State University. He enlisted in the Army on 16 May 1942 at the University of Alabama and began active duty 4 January 1943. His enlisted records show that he held inactive service from 16 May 1942 to 3 January 1943, before receiving this train voucher from Fort Eustin, Virginia for travel to Washington DC:

Some of his annotations are dated contemporary with the documents, providing much insight.

Unfortunately, dates may not be evident for some notes. For example, this letter and check from the US Treasurer was kept in the following envelope:

It is not the original envelope for its contents, but can be dated at and after the death of his father on 23 December 1956 or his residence at 1230 Queens Road, Berkeley, California, whichever is later.

While I’m on the topic of dates, I came across his diplomas from the University of Alabama and Washington State University, where he received his BA and MS degrees, respectively.

Published and online sources quote him receiving the degrees one to two years earlier. This is an example of incorrect dates mistakenly published, whether from an editorial typo or other error, but the misinformation continues to be quoted. This is an opportunity to emphasize the importance of primary research.

Forensic Files--More Dates!

The archivist searches through recorded media, traditionally paper-based, for official and legitimate historical evidence. This is the essential definition of “archives,” records with evidential value. The Leary papers have many opportunities for fact-checking.

Like this:

This puts Leary in Acapulco, Mexico, receiving a phone call from Cuernavaca, Mexico on 3 Aug 1960, days before his first ingestion of the psychotropic fungi, psilocybin mushrooms. Yes, this is not a big revelation, but it’s good to see documentation for his life-changing trip.

Of course, much of his personal papers contain less official recordings. His manuscripts are written “off the record,” but will have important value in primary research. This type of evidence may not verify a date, but sheds light into his character and relationships.

Timothy Leary married his first wife, Marianne Busch, on 14 April 1945. Marianne would commit suicide ten years later on 22 October 1955, his 35th birthday. This note appears to be a checklist with the fifth item stating, "find out about depressive period."

A couple years after her death and a few years before he first consumed a psychedelic drug, he drafted this:

While much of his personal reminisces are drafts of his autobiographies and other writings, the purpose of this note is not yet clear, as it was loose among papers dating around the same year. It still provides insight into how he perceived himself and his interest in the study of human nature a few years before his introduction to psychedelics (coined by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond at a New York Academy of Sciences meeting in 1957, to describe “mind-manifesting” drugs).

Happy 100th, May Sarton!

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 08:35:51 -0400

May 3rd marks the centenary of the birth of poet and novelist May Sarton. Sarton’s most important novel, Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, tells the story of septuagenarian Hilary Stevens, a poet whose life is retold episodically during an interview with two writers from a literary magazine.

In notes for the draft of Mrs. Stevens, now in the Henry W. and Alfred A. Berg Collection, Sarton cautions herself to "get away from autobiographical in Hilary." Nevertheless, Stevens shares certain superficial characteristics with her creator: both women are poets with a history of romantic relationships with women (Mrs. Stevens was once described as Sarton's "coming out" novel); both avidly garden; both have a habit of mentoring younger, less experienced writers.

More strikingly, Hilary Stevens' attitudes towards writing and feminism, unpacked during her conversations with the interviewers, are echoed in Sarton's letters and journals. Both Sarton and her protagonist in Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing were trenchantly engaged in the problem set of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. How does a woman find the time and space necessary to write successfully? The publication of Mrs. Stevens, a book whose protagonist was both feminist and lesbian, led to an uptick in Sarton's readership at the college level, particularly in Women's Studies courses. Written in 1965, almost 35 years after the publication of Woolf’s long essay, A Room of One's Own hovers like a specter over nearly every page.

One of the most telling moments comes early, as Hilary Stevens rises the morning of the interview:

‘They’ always said, ‘What beautiful flowers you have!’ But ‘they’ never imagined how much time this irrelevant passion took from her work, at least an hour every morning in summer. No man would trouble about such things; the imaginary man in her mind got up at six, never made his bed, did not care a hoot if there were a flower or not, and was at his desk as bright as a button, at dawn, with a whole clear day before him while some woman out of right was making a delicious hot stew for his supper.

Woolf and Sarton met in 1937 at Elizabeth Bowen’s. Soon after they traveled together to Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire. Hermione Lee writes in her biography of Woolf that she found the 25-year-old Sarton “pretty, artificial, and starstruck.” For Sarton, her encounter with Woolf was full of glamour. The writer, who she greatly admired, reminded her of a giraffe, “aristocratic” and “sensitive” (for Woolf, Sarton is only, “that goose.”) In a Berg Collection letter, Woolf teases Sarton, who has written that she finds the thought of Woolf reading her own work scary. Since she’s as “tame as a giraffe," why should she find her intimidating?

Woolf was certainly on Sarton’s mind when she was composing Mrs Stevens. Sarton's notes for the novel contain a reminder to remember Woolf as she’s writing (along with Colette, H.D., Willa Cather, and Sarton’s close friend Louise Bogan). A long list of "phrases Hilary might use," also in the manuscript notes, are inspired by Woolf’s intimate friend and correspondent, Ethel Smyth. And letters exchanged between Woolf and Sarton in the late 1930’s discuss poetry and criticism in language that is reprised in early drafts and the final published novel.

The premise of Sarton’s picaresque novel pivots on her recollections of her encounters with past lovers — "Muses" — who inspire her to write one of her books. For Stevens, each of these meetings is a "collision" of sorts: frequently resulting in a loss of equilibrium, and sometimes serious damage to herself and others. And yet, she is adamant that feeling — even feelings of anger and despair — yield good art. As she tells her interviewers, "eventually her [the Muse's] visitations must be paid for in human terms. And one pays… one is glad to pay."

In a letter in Sarton’s papers, the novelist Madeleine L’Engle writes to Sarton about Mrs. Stevens: "You hit me where I live, you hit beneath the belt… Some of it touched me so deeply that it frightened me…" A decade earlier, Sarton wrote L’Engle a letter on the subject of writing:

…remember that a year or two or even five or ten in the total life of a writer is very short; you are digging deep into reality, the reality of being human, being a mother, having to work a bit too hard etc. and all the time you are accumulating or building up the rich human loam from which books will grow in time. … Sometimes I think (and your crest suggests it) that one of the professional writer’s greatest problems is not to write too much, to keep still… You will be saved from this — and I think it was a danger for you at one time.

Along these lines, Sarton cautions herself in a note in the Berg’s Mrs. Stevens draft to write less, and to cap her daily page count at three.

The Sarton archive is rich in correspondence, and in addition to Bogan, L’Engle and Woolf, includes letters from Elizabeth Bishop, Kay Boyle, Pearl S. Buck, H.D., Eva La Gallienne, Archibald MacLeish, Vera Nabokov, Freya Stark and Jean Tatlock. Sarton’s manuscripts in the Berg also reveal how real the distraction of flowers was for the author, as it was for Hilary. The Berg Collection has eight of Sarton’s garden diaries, including one kept during the years she wrote Mrs. Stevens. The finding aid can be found online.

Sarton will be feted in York, Maine May 3-6 at the May Sarton Centennial Symposium. Register here.

N.b.: Sarton’s draft and notes for Mrs. Stevens live in the Berg Collection not far from the Berg’s intriguing proof copy of Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own, acquired in July 2010 and long regarded as lost.

Frank McHugh: A Beloved Character Actor Who Played an Important Role in World War II

Diana Bertolini, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:36:00 -0400

Unless you’re a classic film buff, you’ve probably never heard of Frank McHugh, and most of the hundred odd movies he appeared in during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s have fallen into obscurity. Born into a theatrical family, McHugh (1898-1981) grew up touring in a Vaudeville act with his brother and sister. He honed his acting skills in the 1920s, performing in regional/stock productions and on the Broadway stage. He landed in Hollywood in 1930, along with the rash of New York theatre actors talking pictures created a demand for.

McHugh quickly became one of Warner Brothers’ most reliable supporting players. His diminutive stature, sunny face, comic timing and appealing manner made him a beloved character actor, very popular in his day. McHugh’s films include The Front Page (1931) Gold Diggers of 1935 and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), Four Daughters (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), Going My Way (1944), Mighty Joe Young (1949) and The Last Hurrah (1958).

Though McHugh got a few star parts, more often he supported stars James Cagney and Pat O’Brien. Irish-Americans McHugh, Cagney, O’Brien and Spencer Tracy were close friends and the core members of a group known as, “The Irish Mafia,” which also included Allen Jenkins, Ralph Bellamy, Lynne Overman and Frank Morgan.

Like many of his fellow stars, he was a keen supporter of the war effort. A discovery I made while processing the library’s very small collection of Frank McHugh’s Papers was a trove of interesting letters, photographs, and publicity materials on the USO tours McHugh participated in during World War II.

In 1942, five months after Pearl Harbor, McHugh was a member of the Hollywood Victory Caravan. At the request of the War Activities Committee a crew of 21 stars traveled across the US by train, performing in several cities over the course of three weeks to raise money for the Army and Navy Relief Fund.

The dazzling line-up of stars, headed by Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Cary Grant featured the talents of some of Hollywood’s biggest names. McHugh and his Irish Mafia pals James Cagney and Pat O’Brien were on board, along with Charles Boyer, Claudette Colbert, Joan Blondell, Joan Bennett, Merle Oberon, Rise Stevens, Eleanor Powell, Laurel and Hardy, Bert Lahr, Charlotte Greenwood, Olivia de Havilland, Desi Arnaz and Groucho Marx.

The show they performed was a musical revue, put together by Mark Sandrich (a director known for the Astaire/Rogers musicals) and Alfred Newman (20th Century Fox’s house musical director and composer) with contributions from several top screen and song writers. Everywhere the Caravan went, it was greeted by cheering crowds, and its stop in Washington D.C. included a trip to the White House, where the stars were greeted and thanked by first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

After the tour, photographer Gene Lester compiled a booklet of 30 photographs from the tour for the participants. McHugh’s copy is available in the collection. This amazing resource is a mix of posed publicity shots and candids of the stars hanging out backstage, at meals or on the train. Many of the stars recalled the Hollywood Victory Caravan as one of the most incredible and memorable experiences of their lives.

McHugh’s dedication to helping the war effort was not over. He first toured England in August and September of 1942 in a USO tour, appearing in the American Variety Show with Al Jolson, Merle Oberon, Patricia Morrison and Allen Jenkins.

Two years later, McHugh came back to Europe with his own show. He designed and starred in “McHugh’s Revue” which toured France, Holland, Belgium and Germany in November and December of 1944. The show was actually in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. This USO show featured McHugh, four beautiful girls (actresses Mary Brian, June Clyde, Charlotte Greer and Nina Nova) and a piano-player (Eddie Eisman), touring the front line, entertaining and meeting the troops. The McHugh Papers include many accounts of the tour.

Here is McHugh’s own account of traveling to Europe in the company of servicemen:

"Getting acquainted with my companions was something that I looked forward to with great apprehension. They were all so many years my junior that I suddenly felt very old and very far away from them. But I was mistaken — I have never met a bunch of young fellows that were so good humored, agreeable and easy to get along with. I’ll always remember them and wonder what their individual careers were in the army.”

The November 4, 1944 editions of the Special Service Publication, Trans Quips described meeting up with McHugh for an interview:

“I found him and June Clyde talking to a bunch of G.I.s, looking at the pictures of their girls, cracking jokes and signing autographs. He talked to the men about their home towns, and Frank really knows the home town of almost everybody on board… He did shows in all the big towns and cities in the States.”

McHugh’s USO tour earned him a Citation “for exceptionally meritorious service while working as a member of an entertainment unit” from the army, signed by Major General Raymond S. McLain. In a 1945 letter to McHugh and his troupe, McLain wrote:

“I want to make of record what I was glad to say to each of you when you left and what many of the command said to you then and what they have said to me since — “That your show was like an oasis in this desert of hardship and suffering”. It reminded us what a vital factor a bit of entertainment is in this business where boredom is almost as difficult to bear as the hardships of the campaign. Your show was sparkling, and left a refreshing atmosphere in the spirit of many battle weary soldiers.”

To learn more about Frank McHugh’s career and war effort activities, see the Frank McHugh Papers in the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library.

A New Dance Oral History Project Interview

Susan Kraft, Oral History Project Coordinator, Jerome Robbins Dance Division — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:25:15 -0400

The first of our Spring Oral History Project interviews was just recorded and it was a true breath of fresh air. On March 19 and 26, 2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa sat down to interview Marya Warshaw.

Warshaw has been the Executive/Artistic Director of BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange (formerly The Gowanus Arts Exchange) since its founding in 1991. In 1998, BAX received a "Bessie" Award for its innovative work creating a house and a true home for the arts in Brooklyn. You can read about Yaa Asantewaa’s take on her experience at this writer’s fascinating blog.

The staff of the Oral History Project has been producing in-depth dance related oral history interviews since 1974, seeking to record and preserve stories that might otherwise go untold. Our mission is to add to the existing primary source documentation available in an art form which, by its very ephemeral nature, is challenging to preserve and study. We record oral histories with dancers, choreographers, scholars, administrators and designers. You can check out our links to descriptions of over 400 oral histories.

We loved the opportunity to document Warshaw’s work because BAX has been such a unique and vital force in the life of so many dance artists throughout New York City. As the Coordinator of the Oral History Project, I welcome your suggestions of people in the dance community who you would like to see as participants in our Project—it might be your favorite dancer, or a choreographer that you would love to know more about. We are also particularly interested in senior members of the dance community or those whose stories might be at risk in some way.

Perhaps you are aware of an unsung dance hero?

I look forward to hearing from you!

Transmissions from The Timothy Leary Papers: Applying Archival Processing

Jennifer Ulrich, Specialist, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 06:22:49 -0400

People ask me what my work entails as I process the Timothy Leary papers. As I pore through the boxes, I am faced with over 400 linear ft. of material created and collected by Leary which I must process to make available for research. I encounter various media, such as photographs, video tapes, computer disks, prints and posters. I encounter quite a bit of paper.

My responsibilities include determining the record keeping structure and making decisions regarding the intellectual and physical arrangement of the material, describing the material according to archival standards, and physically re-housing for access and long-term preservation.

When records or personal papers are acquired by repositories, such as the NYPL, the material is "processed," producing a "finding aid" to allow researchers to search, locate, and request material from the collection.

When archivists mention terms, such as: records, collections, cataloging, processing, description and arrangement, we are specific in the usage. It's our professional jargon. When asked what "processing" entails, I often explain it simply as the arrangement and description of non-published material. Published or bibliographic material is "cataloged," a distinction in the US, although other countries may use the term "cataloguing" for archives. Regardless, the work of arranging and describing by archival standards is the same.

Archivist's Jargon

For the archival curious, one can refer to glossaries published by the International Council on Archives Committee on Descriptive Standards (ISAD(G)) or the Society of American Archivists. Let me offer a more refined definition for archival arrangement from the ISAD(G):

The intellectual and physical processes and results of analyzing and organizing documents in accordance with archival principles.[1]

I still haven't explained what processing to archival standards or principals really means. It requires arrangement and description. Archival description is based on the principal of provenance or respect des fonds. The fonds is the group of records created or collected by a person (in Leary's case), not mixed with the records from another creator. The fonds is the broadest level of description. The description from this level follows to finer, more detailed levels within the hierarchy. The archivist describes the fonds or collection as a whole with increasing detail, in possible sub-fonds, and then series, sub-series, folder and item-level description. This structure holds value and differs from the simple item-level, bibliographic description formerly applied to manuscripts.[2]

Due to the complexity of some collections, time restraints, and research demand, description may not be carried out to these finer levels as a whole or may vary within a collection. This flexibility allows for the accessibility to records on a time-effective basis.

The Leary papers, like other personal papers, blends qualities both from traditional archives (institutional records) and manuscripts collections. It contains records created during his work as a student, enlisted man, clinical psychologist, professor, lecturer, author, and actor, among his many personas. His papers also consist of his writings: handwritten notes, journals, drafts, typescripts, annotated and not. His papers contain some collected material, publications, posters, recorded music and videos. The collection also holds collaborative work, such as writings and correspondence authored by his wives. There are his father's records retrieved and assembled by Leary's associates. There is his mother's correspondence, given to him after her death. Some material may have been retrieved by private collectors. His papers are an assemblage of material produced in the course of his work, received by others, and collected for his consideration.

Therein lies the challenge to honor the original order, while providing a logical system that promotes access to the materials.

The papers arrived at the NYPL after years of care and maintenance from Leary and his associates. His friends and colleagues also had a hand at organizing his papers and left some detailed inventories, aiding in the identification of his writings and other items. For this I'm eternally grateful. In fact, his former archivist and friend, Michael Horowitz, published the Annotated Bibliography of Timothy Leary, first published in 1988, providing an important resource for researching his papers and manuscripts.

This information aids in the arrangement and description of the collection, to honor the original order of the record keeping system and provenance. An example would be keeping enclosed photographs and clippings with letters and not separate them by format. The letter is kept with similar correspondence as a function of its use. This can be seen with email. Messages are kept in the email record keeping system in mailboxes: received, sent, drafts, and any other folders created by the user. Attachments are maintained. Most people do not alter this record keeping system. Unfortunately, with hard copy files, the system may be compromised by rearranging material, all too common with personal papers.

It is also common to find various levels of order and disorder within a collection.

If the provenance and original order is compromised or non-existent, series may be created based on criteria that will aid research, by format, chronology, or function. The work of intellectually arranging personal papers and archives is an art of applying these principles to create a type of hierarchical outline. This step may or may not be done simultaneously while physically rearranging the material. In case you are curious, this is the work I've been doing...

[1] International Council on Archives. "ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description." ICA, 2000. Web. 1 Mar. 2012. <http://www.icacds.org.uk/eng/ISAD(G).pdf>.

[2] Roe, Kathleen. Arranging and describing archives and manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2005. 34-35.

Manifesting Destiny: First Person Accounts of Westward Migration

Kit Messick, Manuscripts & Archives Division — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:58:36 -0400

The 1840s marked a period of unfettered expansion and exploration in America. Whether inspired by the romantic nationalism of John O'Sullivan's "Manifest Destiny," or by the more material goal of striking gold at Sutter's Mill, nearly half a million Americans pushed westward by land and by sea in search of new ground, new opportunities, and new lives. Within these larger historical currents, researchers can find the stories of individual travelers, many of whom recorded their experience of emigration in journals and diaries.

In America and western Europe, the keeping of diaries to record personal events and experiences grew out of the tradition of spiritual diaries meant to chronicle religious and spiritual development. By the early 19th century, the practice of diary keeping had become both more commonplace and more secularized. While diaries were not solely relegated to the feminine sphere, they were — and continue to be — quite popular with women, and can serve the researcher by providing the female voice, which was so often absent from public discourse at this time. But while diaries provide a personal context to the historical record, they must also be recognized as subjective — and selective, or even inaccurate — records: each diarist narrates their experiences through his or her own unique lens.

Below is a short list of diaries held by The New York Public Library's Manuscripts and Archives Division, exemplifying both the practice of diary keeping and the journeys undertaken during the largest migration in American history.

Lodisa Frizzell diary, 1852
Written in Cañon Creek, California, the diary of Lodisa Frizzell describes an overland journey from the Little Wabash River in Illinois, through Missouri, and on to the Oregon Trail to the Continental Divide. Seven months later, while snowbound in the Sierra Nevadas, Frizzell used memories of her journey and notes taken along the way to compile a journal of her travels. Her own sketches and watercolor illustrations provide a unique representation of westward migration. While the original resides in the Manuscripts and Archives Division, Frizzell's diary was reprinted in full in the April 1915 issue of the Bulletin of The New York Public Library, which is available without advance notice in the General Reference Division.

John Henry Cornelison diary kept aboard the "Hannah Sprague," 1849-1850
John Henry Cornelison of Jersey City was in his early twenties when he departed for California on the barque "Hannah Sprague" with the New York Mining Company. Beginning on April 11, 1849, Cornelison's diary contains detailed descriptions of his travels, the tedium of the long journey, and the ways in which he and fellow passengers entertained themselves. The "Hannah Sprague" stopped in Chile, where Cornelison received news regarding other California-bound vessels and accounts of the plentiful opportunities there. Cornelison and his shipmates arrived in San Francisco seven months after departing New York. Later entries describe the chaos of the overflowing city, and the rampant price-gouging for food and supplies he encountered there. The diary also includes a short list of vessels leaving from New York for California in 1849.

Charlotte Lambert Whipple diary and family correspondence
In 1852, Charlotte Lambert Whipple left Batavia, New York with her husband and daughter to venture west via the Oregon Trail. Letters sent to family members describe the tribulations of her journey, and later remark on her life in the Pacific Northwest. Her 1852 diary further tells of the difficulties of wagon travel — such as weather and road conditions, crossing dangerous rivers, and maintaining cattle — and frequently records the distance her party traveled each day. Notable entries include descriptions of the American prairies, her feelings on departing the relative civilization of Kanesville, Iowa (near Council Bluffs) to enter the wild land beyond, and her thoughts upon encountering the aftermath of a cholera outbreak. The last entry was written in the Bear River Valley of western Wyoming.

John W. Bell diary, 1849
John W. Bell of New York traveled on the schooner "Gager" to take part in the California gold rush. In July of 1849, the "Gager" met the "Talisman of Bremen," a barque carrying German immigrants bound for California. September and October entries follow Bell's progress through "the most romantic and richest scenes [he] ever beheld," and describe a brief encounter with Native Americans. The diary includes expense accounts and entries discussing the varying exchange rates of gold.

Samuel Locke diary, 1850-1851
Some items in the Manuscripts and Archives Division are more statistical in nature, such as Samuel Locke's diary, which helps illuminate the expenses the forty-niners incurred in the boomtowns of the California Gold Rush. Locke recorded few descriptive entries in this slim volume, but provides a "sick list" and "accounts against persons for medicine and attendance." Locke also recorded his personal expenditures, proving how many common goods were sold at a premium in San Francisco at the height of the Rush.

The Manuscripts and Archives Division has almost 300 singly catalogued diaries, and many more are present within larger collections. Singly catalogued diaries can be found most easily by consulting the card catalogue in the Manuscripts and Archives reading room; they are arranged chronologically. The Division has undertaken an extensive retrospective conversion project to add all of these items to NYPL's catalog, but at present, the card catalog remains the most comprehensive record of the Division's diary holdings.

The Pompadour's Book: A Mystery Manuscript Owned by Madame de Pompadour

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 06:48:41 -0400

It's a small volume, neatly but unostentatiously bound in mottled calf. The gilt ornamentation is discreet, except for an impressive coat of arms on both boards. That becomes even more impressive when we identify it as the blazon of one of the standout personalities of 18th-century France, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, marquise de Pompadour — elevated from her haute-bourgeois background and a boring union with a certain M. Lenormand d'Étioles (nephew of her mother's lover) to become the official maîtresse-en-titre to King Louis XV, who ennobled her under the ancient (but extinct) title of Pompadour.

The brothers Goncourt wrote of young Mlle. Poisson/Mme. d'Étioles as she was when she burst onto the French social scene in the 1740s:

"Marvellous aptitude, a rare and learned education, had given this young woman all the gifts and graces which made of a woman what the eighteenth century called a virtuosa, an accomplished model of the seductions of her sex... All the talents of grace seemed to meet in her. No woman was a better rider; none could dance more lightly; none more quick to excite applause with the notes of her voice or the strains of an instrument ... There was no one, again, who could tell a story in a more piquant way. And where others might compete with her in the field of coquetry, she took the palm over all by her genius of dress, by the turn she gave to a bow, the air she gave to the nothing which adorned her, the signature that her taste set upon all that she wore. ...

"To please and charm, Mademoiselle Poisson had again her face, a complexion of the most extreme whiteness, lips somewhat pale, but eyes with the vivacity of fire, glances which seemed of flame, and which veiled in lightning the languid air of her lymphatic nature ... Again she had her magnificent chestnut hair, ravishing teeth, and the most delicious smile ... her figure, rounded but not large, curved admirably, her perfect hands, the play of gesture from all her vivacious, passionate body, and, above all, a mobile, varying physiognomy, marvelously animated, which the soul of the woman ceaselessly moved, and which, with incessant renewals, displayed turn by turn a moved or imperious tenderness, noble seriousness, or wanton graces."

It's no wonder the King was bewitched. Pompadour would remain his Number One Mistress from 1745 until the day she died, aged just 42, in 1764. In this role, she occupied one of the few positions of power available to women of her era. Her influence reached beyond the King's bedchamber to ...

Matters of state and of might,
Things that great ministers do...

...as the Victorian poet Austin Dobson would write in a ballade about a pretty trinket of hers, "On a Fan,"

She was also a friend and patroness of Voltaire's, which explains why the Rare Book Division of The New York Public Library acquired the volume we're discussing here. The Rare Book Division has a large collection of Voltaireana, the Martin J. Gross Collection, acquired during the administration of the former Library president, noted Voltaire scholar Paul LeClerc. (Browse the collection here.)

La Pompadour counted acting upon the stage among her plethora of accomplishments, and to please and amuse the King and herself, she installed a small but fully-equipped theater at Versailles. One of the roles she performed, on December 30, 1747, was that of the title character in Zéneïde, a trifling one-act comedy by Louis de Cahusac that may or may not have been inspired by an episode in Zeneyde by Count Anthony Hamilton, a writer of Scottish ancestry who lived in France, wrote in French, and published posthumously in his Œuvres mêlées en prose et en vers, 1731. An English version of Hamilton's Zeneyde is found in Select Tales of Count Hamilton (1760).

It was presumably around the time of this performance that the Marquise acquired the present manuscript volume, which is identified in the captions of its three sections and on the spine of its binding as "Zeneyde." It has always been assumed to be a version of Hamilton's Zeneyde. In the catalog of Pompadour's books offered for sale after her death, it was listed immediately following her copy of Hamilton's Œuvres.

However, upon closer examination, the manuscript appears to bear little or no relationship to Hamilton's Zeneyde. For one thing, there is no character by that name in all of its 487 pages, and none of its major characters appear in Hamilton's conte, a short historical tale left incomplete at his death. There is a bit of overlap in the period. The subtitle (inscribed in another hand) of the manuscript's first section is "Anecdotes du règne de Childéric," and Hamilton's Zeneyde is also set in part among the half-mythical early Merovingians.

I have been able to establish the manuscript's true identity. The text is word for word the same as that of a work by Marguerite de Lussan that appeared anonymously in 1736 under the title Anecdotes de la cour de Childeric, roi de France. This work was indeed once ascribed to Hamilton, who died 16 years before it was published. The Bibliothèque du roi (predecessor of today's Bibliothèque nationale de France) listed it under Hamilton in its catalog of 1752. However, A.A. Barbier, in his classic Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonyms (the 1822 and later editions) declares this attribution to be without foundation, and adds, "I have found the name of Mademoiselle de Lussan inscribed by hand in a copy."

Who was Marguerite de Lussan?

She was born in 1682, some say to a fortune teller named La Fleury and a coachman, while others declare her to be the child of Louis Thomas, Count of Soissons and Prince of Savoy, and an unknown courtesan. Or perhaps the child of La Fleury and the prince — modern research would seem to support this theory. At any rate, the prince, who was the older brother of the more celebrated Prince Eugene of Savoy, took a special interest in her education and permitted her to bear his arms. Feted and encouraged by older men of letters, she never married, but found a long-time companion in the minor dramatist, royal censor, and compulsive gambler Jean-Louis-Ignace de La Serre, to whom some of her works were, at times, unfairly attributed (a similar fate has befallen women writers in many eras).

Mining a vein uncovered by earlier French female romanciers, such as Madame de La Fayette and Madame de Villedieu, Lussan wrote a string of successful historical novels, mostly dealing with the tribulations of true love against the background of court life under various French monarchs. Such works were the "chick lit" of their day, popular but critically scorned — "except," writes Doris Cuff, "among enlightened people who favored literature in any form, such as, for example, Mme. de Pompadour." Indeed, Pompadour is said to have thought highly of Lussan, and possibly granted her a pension. Lussan's Anecdotes de la cour de François I (1748) is dedicated to the Marquise. She died in 1758.

I am still seeking an explanation as to why this manuscript bears the wrong title. If anyone reading this has any ideas, please tell me! In the meanwhile, the little volume keeps its secret. I've already quoted from the Austin Dobson ballade about another beautiful object that belonged to the Marquise de Pompadour. It concludes:

Where are the secrets it knew?
Weavings of plot and of plan?
— But where is the Pompadour, too?
This was the Pompadour’s Fan!

This was the Pompadour's book!

For further reading:

I've cited English translations of French works, when available.

Cahusac, Louis de. Zénéïde: comedie, en un acte, en vers, avec un divertissement. A Paris: Chez Prault fils, 1744. Available online via HathiTrust.

Catalogue des livres de la bibliothéque de feue Madame la Marquise de Pompadour, dame du palais de la Reine. A Paris: Chez J.T. Herissant, et J.T. Herissant fils, 1765. Available online via HathiTrust; Google Books.

Cuff, Doris A. "Introduction à une étude sur Marguerite de Lussan et le roman historique au commencement du XVIIIe siècle." Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France. 43e année, no. 1 (1936), pp. 1-19. Available online via JSTOR at all NYPL locations. Most of my information on Lussan is derived from this source.

Goncourt, Edmond de, and Jules de Goncourt. The Confidantes of a King: The Mistresses of Louis XV. Translated by Ernest Dowson. London: T.N. Foulis, 1907. Available online via HathiTrust; Google Books (v. 1; v. 2).

Hamilton, Anthony. Select Tales of Count Hamilton. London: Printed for J. Burd, 1760. "The History of Zeneyde": v. 2, pp. 154-230. Online resource; available onsite at the Library's research locations.

Jones, Colin. Madame de Pompadour: Images of a Mistress. London: National Gallery Company, 2002.

Jullien, Adolphe. Histoire du théâtre de Madame de Pompadour, dit Théâtre des petits cabinets. Paris: J. Baur, 1874. Available online via Google Books.

Lussan, Marguerite de. Anecdotes de la cour de Childeric, roi de France. A Paris: Chez Prault père, 1736. Available online via Google Books (v. 1; v. 2)

Lussan, Marguerite de. Anecdotes de la cour de François I . A Londres: Chez Jean Nours, 1748. Available online at the Library's research locations, and via Google Books; dedication to Pompadour follows the title page.

Salmon, Xavier, editor. Madame de Pompadour et les arts. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2002. "Madame de Pompadour bibliophile," by Isabelle Conihout: pp. 268-279.

At NYPL: Books about Pompadour in English, to borrow or read online.

I would be remiss not to mention madamedepompadour.com, a Madame de Pompadour "fan site" maintained by Lorenzo Crivellin, in Italian, French, and English. It's a great source of miscellaneous information, documents, links, and pictures of everything Pompadour, including dozens of portraits.

Transmissions from the Timothy Leary Papers: Welcome!

Jennifer Ulrich, Specialist, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:19:25 -0400

Welcome to Transmissions... where I'll update the public on the processing of the Timothy Leary Papers, held by The New York Public Library.

I look forward to sharing the experience of arranging and describing the collection of Timothy Francis Leary, an American psychologist and Harvard professor who, through his studies regarding the use of psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25), went on to become an advocate for mind-altering drugs, eastern philosophy, sexual liberation, cyberspace, and the cyberpunk genre. He was a prolific writer, lecturer, and counter-culture icon from the 1960s until his death in 1996.

One can imagine the wealth of resources this collection will provide to scholars and alternative culture enthusiasts. The collection includes letters, notes, clippings, posters, film, VHS and reel to reel tapes, phonograph records, books, greeting cards, screenplays, book drafts, drawings, and contracts — and the list goes on and on.

In my initial survey, I found a plethora of memorabilia. Yet, the scope and extent of the collection provides a picture, not only the iconic person of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s counter-culture, but also Leary as a young man from Springfield, Massachusetts, the child of school teacher Abigail (née Ferris) and dentist Timothy F. Leary, Sr. There are records from his time enrolled at West Point and Army, the University of Alabama, Washington State, and University of California-Berkeley. The archive also portrays him as a father to Susan and Jack, husband to Marianne, and as a professional clinical psychologist.

This early part of his life is generally less well known, and I will highlight some of this material, along with his post-drug, more publicized career.

But First, Let Me Explain Transmissions...

"This signal is being transmitted from a cell in Folsom Prison, which is the Black Hole of American society."

...wrote Leary in the opening sentence of his 1973 publication Starseed: transmitted from Folsom Prison, while incarcerated after a high-profile prison escape in 1970.

Leary’s legal troubles began on December 26, 1965, when he was arrested for marijuana possession while crossing the border from Mexico into Laredo, Texas with Rosemary Woodruff and children Susan and Jack (from his first marriage to Marianne Busch). He was stopped and arrested again for marijuana possession in 1968 while driving in Laguna Beach, California. After losing his protracted legal battles, Leary was finally incarcerated in 1970 at California State Prison in San Luis Obispo. Denied parole, he escaped with the aid of then wife, Rosemary, and the radical leftist group Weathermen that same year. He fled in exile to Algeria, where he stayed with Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panthers, then traveled to Switzerland, and eventually landed in Afghanistan, where he was apprehended and deported back to the US. The book Confessions of a Hope Fiend recounts his escape and exile period.

He was re-incarcerated at Folsom Prison, which returns us back to Transmissions...

The Black Hole

Leary’s attempts to evade prosecution had failed, leaving him to face a long prison sentence. In this context, he became interested in comet Kohoutek, which was predicted to to give a significant visual display yet given scarce media attention. He wrote:

“The entire universe is gently, rhythmically, joyously vibrating. Cosmic intercourse. This is a message of hope and interstellar love from the Black Hole. Irrepressible optimism. Yes, it is true that repressive pessimists now control planetary politics. This is a larval phase.”

Leary followed Starseed with another prison writing, Terra II: The Starseed Transmission, a “transmission” received by prison mate Lynn Wayne Benner and recorded by Leary, proposing space travel and colonization in human evolution.

There was much publicity surrounding his Starseed phenomenon. Joanna Harcourt-Smith, whom he met while in Switzerland, was behind his defense campaign and helped with the publication of his prison writings. She ran the Starseed operations on his behalf, publishing, arranging events and fundraisers, and disseminating information in support of his release through the Starseed Information Center.

The collection is rich with press releases and publicity materials from this time, such as the event “A Tribute to Dr. Timothy Leary,” which was held at Zellerbach Hall on the University of California-Berkeley campus and featured the British band Hawkwind, Leary’s documentary film, and guest speaker Joanna Leary (his common-law wife).

This is just one small sample from a short period of Leary’s life. I hope you will return for more.

A Luxury Cruise in 1928: The Rose de Rose Papers

Lea Jordan, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 08:32:24 -0500

When socialite Rose de Rose accompanied her mother on the 1928 round-the-world cruise aboard Empress of Australia, it was one of Canadian Pacific’s most luxurious vessels. By the 1920s, Canadian Pacific had diversified from rail travel to launching its own fleets of ships — first for the movement of goods, and then for travel and leisure. The very popular round-the-world cruises were offered on its three luxury ships — the Empress of Britain, the Empress of Canada, and the Empress of Australia.

The Rose de Rose papers held by the Library's Manuscripts and Archives Division contain travel ephemera from her 1928-1929 world cruise on the Empress of Australia. The materials include dinner menus, programs, and invitations to balls and parties.

The collection of menus is not complete, but all are beautifully illustrated and printed, with information on themed nights, such as a dinner honoring the 107th anniversary of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, with haggis being served in his honor. Other dinners include a birthday dinner in honor of George Washington, the "Twelfth Night Revel," and "King Neptune’s Dinner Party." All menus include music selections, as well as the food to be served.

The richest material consists of over 50 handouts given to the passengers before each port of call, describing the sights and people that they would encounter at each stop. The shipboard handouts include a monthly calendar showing all stops and lectures, followed by maps of the area detailing points of interest. More detailed handouts were often deemed necessary, and include topics such as "Chinese Street Restaurants," "Tropical Fruits of Java which you may safely eat," and "Snake Charmers of India."

The handouts provide insight into Eurocentric attitudes of the time, but also detail the passengers’ genuine interest and delight in world travel. The handout on "Chinese Customs" — highlighting what is different culturally — is printed backward so that one has to hold it up to a mirror to read statements like "Dessert is eaten at the beginning of a meal."

The handout on snake charmers assures guests that the snakes have not been defanged, and that the call they will hear is "Mastah.. please.. Laidee.. pleasee... You like to see mongoos[e] fight cobra!" Maps of Egypt include tiny drawings of tradesmen shouting "For you, very cheap!", and when passing Italy, the maps show "two Italian fish fighting over a string of macaroni." The attention to detail is exceptional and it is clear that every effort was made to make the passengers on the cruise feel at ease with their ever changing surroundings.

The Lost Musicals: "Skyscraper"

Diana Bertolini, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 05:24:38 -0500

The successful casting of non-singing stars (or at least stars not known for singing) such as Rosalind Russell in Wonderful Town, Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, and Richard Burton in Camelot inspired a trend in 1950s and 60s musicals. In his book Open a New Window: The Broadway Musical in the 1960s, Ethan Mordden classifies these as “Novelty Stars.”

Writing for and casting a novelty star was a dicey business. For one thing, the songs had to be written in a certain way — to accommodate a different kind of performance, and even then the star had to have enough sense of pitch and rhythm to get through the songs. But mostly, the star had to be so special that they could get away with not really "singing." Not every novelty star made their vehicle as successful as My Fair Lady, though. One such case is the casting of one of America’s great dramatic actresses, Julie Harris, in the musical comedy Skyscraper (1965).

By the time she made her musical debut at age 41, Harris had already won acclaim for her starring roles in The Member of the Wedding and I Am a Camera, both on stage and screen and played opposite James Dean in East of Eden. She had two Tony awards, two Emmy awards and an Oscar nomination. She didn’t have much of a singing voice, but no one seemed to think that would matter.

Skyscraper, written by Peter Stone, is credited as "suggested by Elmer Rice’s play Dream Girl," and that’s a pretty accurate description. Dream Girl focused on the heroine’s attempts to get through life and love while constantly checking out for involved day dreams.

Skyscraper did retain that day-dream element from the original play, as well as the basic plot set-up of Georgina (Harris) living with her parents and running an unprofitable business with the brother-in law, who she has a massive crush on, until she meets another man who she instantly hates but ultimately ends up in love with.

In Rice’s play, this man is a blunt journalist who tells Georgina that a novel she’s written stinks. In Stone’s book, the love interest is a visionary young architect, Timothy Bushman (played by Peter Marshall, a comedian who’d recently displayed his musical theater chops in the London production of Bye Bye, Birdie).

Georgina owns a 19th century brownstone in the east 50s, which has historical value to her but a different value to Bushman, who wants the building so he can tear it down and build a skyscraper, which will symbolize a promise of the future for him. The argument of whether the old should be preserved or torn down to make way for the new is the central conflict, intensified by sexual tension between Georgina and Bushman. That in itself was enough for one show, and Stone might as well have tossed Rice’s daydream concept as it's a totally different story. To hear the introductory number for Georgina, "Occasional Flight of Fancy," you'd think the show is about her day dreaming, but it's just a mildly distracting side line in the musical! Once you get over this problem, Stone’s script has plenty of fun dialogue to enjoy.

The songs were by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn. Van Heusen, who was often partnered with Cahn but also worked with other lyricists, had composed hit songs for dozens of Hollywood musicals (including four Academy Award-winning songs), as well as plenty of pop songs, often written for and originated by Frank Sinatra.

During Sinatra’s reign as America’s most popular singer, Cahn and Van Heusen were court composers providing him with hits, such as “All the Way,” “Call Me Irresponsible,” “Come Fly with Me,” “High Hopes” “Love and Marriage,” “My Kind of Town (Chicago),” “Only the Lonely,” and “The Tender Trap.” During Bing Crosby’s reign, Van Heusen had written songs for him to originate in many movies, including Going My Way and several of the Road pictures.

Cahn and Van Heusen wrote two other Broadway scores, but neither was a hit. Walking Happy (1966), a musical version of Hobson’s Choice written with Cahn the year after Skyscraper, only lasted a few months. Van Heusen’s only previous Broadway score, Carnival in Flanders (1953), was written with lyricist Johnny Burke and only played six performances, but one of the songs, “Here’s That Rainy Day,” emerged as a major hit.

Skyscraper's delightful score was unfortunately not given a fair hearing by Harris’ singing voice — which wasn’t exactly up to the same standards as her acting — and should not be overlooked. Marshall’s second act ballad “I’ll Only Miss Her When I Think of Her” was promptly covered by Sinatra (naturally), Bobby Darin, and many other singers. It has become a standard, more recently by Harry Connick Jr. (Darin also recorded the show’s other hit, “Everybody’s Got the Right to Be Wrong,” on the same album, In a Broadway Bag.) I actually think Marshall’s soaring first act ode to skyscrapers, “More Than One Way (To the Stars),” is even more gorgeous. And the sexy/antagonistic duet for Tim and Georgina, “Opposites,” is catchy and funny.

The cast was graced by another Broadway favorite, Charles Nelson Reilly, as Georgina’s lusted-after, but spineless brother-in-law Roger. Reilly, who would become a beloved television personality, had already originated roles in two classic musicals: Bud Frump in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961) and Cornelius Hackl in Hello Dolly (1964). He brought his usual zany campiness to Skyscraper as well — and formed a lasting friendship with Harris, whom he would later direct in The Belle of Amherst.

Unless you were around in 1965, you probably aren't lucky enough to have seen a production of Skyscraper, but you can still enjoy the cast album and read the published script (as well as earlier drafts) in the Peter Stone Papers of the Billy Rose Theatre Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Greetings from the Jerome Robbins Dance Division Oral History Archive!

Cassie Mey, Oral History Archive, Jerome Robbins Dance Division — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:50:50 -0500

The Jerome Robbins Dance Division Oral History Archive is home to unique and rare dance-related audio recordings that capture the voices of dancers, choreographers, composers, lighting designers, costume designers, and dance scholars from the mid-20th Century through today. These recordings encompass a wide range of original and donated content, including Dance Division-produced oral history interviews, radio show broadcasts, speeches, lecture/demonstrations, panel discussions, dance classes/workshops, and personal recordings.

As the Oral History Archive assistant at the Library, one exciting aspect of my job is to help transform the collection's fragile audio recordings into the stable formats that you can listen to and use for your dance history research.

Some of my favorite, recently preserved gems include:

A 1964 radio broadcast of Ruth St. Denis speaking about the influence of Indian culture and Hindu temple dances on her life and work;
Martha Graham in her mid-career, ca. 1951, lecturing on her philosophies of dance artistry to a live audience;
Katherine Dunham interviews from 1999 & 2000, part of the Popular Balanchine project, regarding her collaboration with George Balanchine on the 1940-1941 Broadway show Cabin in the Sky.

You can listen to these recordings, and many others from the collection, at the Library for the Performing Arts listening stations on the third floor.

Stay tuned for future updates on newly available audio recordings that make dance history come to life!

The Lost Musicals, Hollywood Edition: Comden and Green’s "Wonderland"

Diana Bertolini, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:32:57 -0500

Wonderland isn’t technically lost — it was never made, but I found a rare script for this would-be film musical in the Betty Comden Papers. Betty Comden and Adolph Green were the two halves of the longest-running writing partnership in Broadway history. They met in 1933 at New York University and first worked together in the late 30s, writing sketches for the comedy group the Revuers, in which both also performed. They continued writing lyrics and scripts together until Green’s death in 2002. They are known for their lyrics to great Broadway shows like On the Town, Wonderful Town, and Bells are Ringing.

Comden and Green also made their mark in Hollywood, where they were contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and wrote screenplays for six film musicals, all produced by MGM’s legendary movie musical impresario Arthur Freed. One of these (On the Town, 1948) was an adaptation of their own stage musical, another (Good News, 1948) was an adaptation of a stage musical by DeSylva Brown and Henderson.

The four original screenplays by Comden and Green are a series in which Wonderland might have been the fifth entry.

The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) was the final teaming of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers — a backstage story about a dance team and off-stage couple. Oscar Levant co-stars as Astaire’s wise-cracking best friend. Comden and Green wrote the story and screenplay, but the songs were by Ira Gershwin and Harry Warren, with one exception — the extraordinary reprise of “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” a Gershwin/Gershin song they'd previously performed 12 years earlier in Shall We Dance.

Their next film is the undisputed masterpiece Singin’ in the Rain. It's too well-known to describe it in detail here, so I’ll just point out a few elements — another show biz story, this time in Hollywood, another feuding couple, another charming wise-cracking rapport between the hero and his sidekick (Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor). Most significantly, it was an original story by Comden and Green, built around the songs of a particular writing team — in this case, their boss at MGM, Arthur Freed, and his former partner, Nacio Herb Brown.

Their next film, The Band Wagon, was another triumph, another show biz story, another feuding couple, and another original story built around the existing songs by a song-writing team. In this case, the songs were those of Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz. Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse were the stars, but in this one the wise-cracking friend was a wise-cracking couple, Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray as married song-writers — modeled after Comden and Green themselves, with an in-joke about how they were constantly — and mistakenly — assumed to be couple as well as a writing team.

Their next film, It’s Always Fair Weather, was an unusual musical — following the fortunes of three army buddies (Gene Kelly; Dan Dailey; and one of Broadway and Hollywood’s greatest choreographers who'd done remarkable work on The Band Wagon, Michael Kidd) who come home from WWII in 1945 and vow to meet again 10 years from that day.

Initially, the reunion is a dismal failure — Kelly has become a sleazy boxing promoter; Dailey a narrow-minded, uptight ad man; and Kidd a vulgar, boring hamburger-stand proprietor. It seems they have nothing in common anymore, but over the course of the story, the three re-kindle their friendship as they help one another sort out their messy lives.

Comden and Green did their usually clever lyrics, and Kidd and Kelly choreographed some impressive numbers — Kelly did one on roller-skates, his love interest Cyd Charisse dances in a boxing ring with a chorus of boxers, and perhaps most memorable is the famous "trash can" dance (I can’t explain — you have to see it.) However, composer Andre Previn wasn’t quite up to the standard of Gershwin, Freed, Brown, Dietz, and Schwartz. Although the film was less successful at the time, some consider the cynicism in the story ahead of its time. Others still find it distasteful. And Dolores Gray’s spectacular camp number “Thanks a Lot, But No Thanks” is not to be missed.

Fans of Comden and Green’s screenplays may wish that they’d written more movies. Wonderland would have been one more. Comden and Green wrote it in 1955 or 1956, but it was never made. Here’s the rundown: Johnny Conway and Hal Benson are a Hollywood writing/producing team who have convinced their boss to purchase the catalog of songwriter “Noel Walters” (a thinly veiled Cole Porter — the songs in the film were from the Porter cannon) to write a film biography of him.

The script opens with our heroes Hal and Johnny mapping out the possible plot structure for this film, with benchmarks such as rags to riches, early struggles, a loyal wife, eventual success, too busy for a wife, success that turns out to be hollow and empty, a reuniting couple, and writing the biggest hit yet.

Highly fictionalized composer bios were de rigueur at MGM and Warner Brothers in the 40s and 50s. George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue, 1945) got this treatment, as did Jerome Kern (Till the Clouds Roll By, 1946); Rodgers and Hart (Words and Music, 1948); Kalmar and Ruby (Three Little Words, 1950); Gus Kahn (I’ll See You In My Dreams, 1951); and Sigmund Romberg (Deep in My Heart, 1954). Perhaps the most outrageous fiction of all was Night and Day, the 1946 bio of Porter himself.

All set to churn out the standard plot, Hal and Johnny interview Noel Walters and he tells them that 1) He was born on Park Avenue and had no early struggles, 2) His first show was an instant success and 3) He’s had no marital drama — he’s never even been married! So the boys are stuck writing his life story without any drama — and Walters forbids them from fictionalizing his life in any way!

Without a plot, Hal and Johnny focus on a leading lady. On Walters' recommendation, they’ve signed an unknown British musical star Walters has seen onstage but never met. Iris Fielding arrives with lots of unfortunate misconceptions about wicked Hollywood producers forcing young starlets onto their casting couches, and mistakes Hal and Johnny’s friendliness for lechery. Eventually she realizes her error and they become fast friends, in true Comden and Green style. (Think Debbie Reynolds’ initial hatred of Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain, or Cyd Charisse’s initial hatred of Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon, or Charisse’s hatred of Kelly in It’s Always Fair Weather.)

Those examples are romantic relationships, as is this — both Hal and Johnny fall in love with Iris and promptly engage in open rivalry. After the first evening Hal and Johnny spend with Iris when they both fall for her, Comden and Green designed a charming musical sequence that uses a split screen to show us Hal’s and Johnny’s fantasies on each side — each seeing himself being welcomed home in the hallway by Iris as he sings “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.”

After meeting Iris, Hal and Johnny simultaneously come up with the idea for their movie — a new story using the Noel Walters songbook — about an English girl who comes to Hollywood with misconceptions about producers but changes her mind after meeting two nice writer/producers who both fall in love with her and in the end chooses the right one. Both Hal and Johnny expect to be picked and they grow increasingly jealous of one another as they take Iris out on alternate nights. They eventually have a full on flare-up, as Walters returns to town and makes Iris’s acquaintance.

They break up their partnership and each write an ending for the script with himself as the romantic hero and the other as a villain. At a party at Walters’ Hollywood mansion, Hal and Johnny end up rolling on the floor fighting, and the studio boss tells them that both their scripts are lousy. They realize they must reconcile for their careers and force Iris to choose between them, just as they walk in on her passionately kissing Walters. (I must mention the uncanny similarity between this denouement and the surprise twist at the end of a 1949 Warner Brothers musical called It’s a Great Feeling.) The film ends with Hal and Johhny best friends again, as they realize that they can write the film they originally planned — The Noel Walters Story — now that it has a romantic plot.

So here is Wonderland, with all the essential elements of a Comden and Green Freed Unit MGM musical, but it remains a ghost on paper. What happened? In a 1997 interview conducted by Tina Daniell and Pat McGilligan for the book Backstory 2: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s, Comden explained why the film was never made:

“They couldn't cast Wonderland… It just didn't get made. We got more focused on living in New York and raising families and writing more for the theater. I don't think we made a conscious decision. It just sort of happened. And more and more time went by.”

I wonder about the casting problems. The relationship between Hal and Johnny is so reminiscent of other male friendships in the Comden and Green films that I couldn’t stop myself from casting it as I read: Gene Kelly as Johnny, Donald O’Connor as Hal, and Peter Lawford as Noel Walters. There’s a wisecracking secretary with lines like, “When I pass on, instead of having a headstone I’ll just have them erect a large stone percolator.” Can’t you just hear Eve Arden saying that? Perhaps Freed was reluctant to do another Comden and Green film after It’s Always Fair Weather hadn’t been up to their old standard of profit, or maybe he just thought they’d run their course. In MGM’s Greatest Musicals: The Freed Unit, Hugh Fordin states that Freed dismissed the Wonderland script with a single comment: “Déjà vu.”

Freed was intrigued by the new style of musicals on Broadway, notably My Fair Lady, written by another Freed Unit alum, Alan Jay Lerner, who still owed Freed one from the three picture deal he’d signed in the early 50s. That third picture, Gigi, was the Unit’s greatest film. The Freed Unit went out with a bang, but it still went out. By the time the Wonderland script crossed Freed’s desk, the golden age of MGM musicals was winding down. Sadly we’ll never see the fifth Comden and Green show biz movie musical, but it’s nice to imagine it…

To read the script of Wonderland or learn more about Comden and Green, see the Betty Comden Papers, the Adoph Green Papers, and the Comden and Green Papers in the Library's Billy Rose Theatre Division.

Findings from the Miscellaneous Personal Name Collection: Two Documents Reflect Cause, Resolution of the War of 1812

Mike O'Connor, Intern, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:30:38 -0500

In 1812, the Royal Navy would capture and impress American sailors as a means of bolstering its personnel during the Napoleonic Wars. Irritated by this practice, the American Navy soon returned the favor.

This document, signed by Commander Joshua Barney of the schooner Rossie, contains a list of British captives, their rank, and their ship’s name. The document promises that the British sailors "are at Liberty to proceed to any British port, when it is expected, that the same number of Americans are released and set at Liberty to return to the United States."

Naval harassment between the United States and Great Britain contributed to the start of the War of 1812.

In his 1815 letter, Jacob Barker writes to Daniel Tompkins, Governor of New York, providing him with the latest information about peace negotiations between England and the United States at Ghent.

Mr. Barker wrote "I have the pleasure to inform you that a Treaty of peace was signed on the 24th December, was ratified by the Prime Regent on the 29th and left England on the 2nd January in the British sloop of war Favorite, which vessel, has arrived at this port."

United States Sanitary Commission Processing Project: Army of the Potomac

Susan Waide, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 07:41:41 -0500

The Army of the Potomac Archives, part of the United States Sanitary Commission Records, is an important resource for anyone interested in studying the USSC’s work alongside the Union armies on campaign in eastern Virginia from 1862-1865, especially during the long and bloody struggle from the battle of the Wilderness in 1864 to the fall of Petersburg and Richmond in 1865. Archivist Elizabeth Delmage shares materials explored during processing, which shed light on how the USSC geared up its systems to meet ever-growing military and humanitarian needs.

From June 1864 to May 1865, City Point, Virginia served as General Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters for the Army of the Potomac, one of the major Union armies in the Civil War. It also served as the site of the USSC’s supporting center of operations. It was here at City Point where the Commission’s systematic approach to providing additional supplies and relief services for soldiers really flourished, thanks to the efforts of their Field Relief Corps and Auxiliary Relief Corps.

The Field Relief Corps, organized in July 1863 under the charge of Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, grew out of the USSC’s inspection, field relief, and battlefield relief practices dating from the beginning of the war. USSC workers known as relief agents, under the direction of inspectors, followed the troops while they were on campaign. They were expected to familiarize themselves with the wants and needs of the soldiers and medical officers, so that the USSC could provide the right supplementary goods and services.

The Auxiliary Relief Corps was created in May of 1864. Instead of supporting the Army on the march, its mission was to provide personal service to the large number of sick and wounded in hospitals, and to the wounded and dying left on the field. Now, during battles, agents from both Relief Corps were present and had specific roles to play. After assisting at battles in May and early June, the Auxiliary Relief Corps set up work at City Point, with agents stationed at Army corps field hospitals. Not only did relief agents distribute food and clothing supplies equally to men who needed it, they also arranged feeding stations for soldiers in transit, assisted the wounded with letter writing, provided reading materials, and comforted the dying and recorded their burials. Frank B. Fay, superintendent of the Auxiliary Relief Corps, wanted his agents to treat the soldiers as if they were their own brothers, asking in one of his reports, “if one of these wounded men were our brother and were in our home, how many hours or how many members of our family of the neighborhood would be devoted to his comfort?”

It was essential to the USSC that the soldiers be fully outfitted with all the proper supplies and food stores to remain healthy and prepared for battle. Supplies that they regularly issued to hospitals, medical staff, and their own relief agents at City Point included cotton and woolen clothing, blankets, towels, handkerchiefs, bedding, stationary, fresh and dried produce and proteins, jellies, sugar and spices, milk, tea, coffee, chocolate, and liquors.

Soldiers convalescing at field hospitals were likely to receive reading materials and even spelling books to help pass the time during their stay and perhaps further their educations. Relief agents also helped soldiers send packages (usually their personal belongings) and money back home to their families, especially when a battle was imminent.

Never was this need for the comforts of home more necessary than around the holidays. USSC employees brought holiday cheer to their base of operations in City Point, Virginia, on December 25, 1864, by adorning their ships with evergreens and festive buntings. The day was “celebrated by the army and fleet as a gala-day,” even though the turkey dinner that was planned for the soldiers around City Point was postponed a day due to the late shipment of the turkey. Soldiers with the 9th Corps of the Army of the Potomac were treated with a special dinner of roasted turkey and vegetables on Christmas day, and relief agent C. B. Wycoff observed that “the men were grateful for the good care they have received, and the dinner was fully appreciated.”

For additional reading:

Hospital life in the Army of the Potomac by William Howell Reed, 1866.

Three years in field hospitals of the Army of the Potomac by Mrs. W. H. (Anna Morris Ellis) Holstein, 1867.

The Lost Musicals: Make Mine Manhattan

Diana Bertolini, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:53:24 -0500

Richard Lewine and Arnold B. Horwitt’s Make Mine Manhattan, which clocked in 429 performances at the Broadhurst in 1948 might be the longest-running musical you’ve never heard of. I had never heard of it until I processed the Richard Lewine Papers in 2007. The collection includes scores and scripts from many musicals and revues Lewine composed before becoming a successful television producer. Make Mine Manhattan intrigued me the most because the songs have been recorded and because it was a pretty big hit.

Though not equaling the runs of the big hits of the era like South Pacific, Kiss Me Kate, Where’s Charley, Brigadoon and Finian’s Rainbow, it easily beat out Allegro, Miss Liberty, Love Life, Street Scene and Lost in the Stars. Strictly speaking, it’s not a musical; it’s a revue. This format of self-contained songs and comedy skits, more structured and more carefully written vaudeville was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s, especially for the song-writing team of Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz.

Many songs from their revues have become standards, and the tunestack for the MGM musical, The Bandwagon, was comprised from the Dietz and Schwartz catalog, including the instrumental version of "Dancing in the Dark,” danced by Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, and choreographed by Michael Kidd, one of the most sublime sequences in musical film.

Dietz and Schwartz were the star practitioners of the Revue, with a successful string of hits in the 20s and 30s, including Merry-Go-Round, The Little Show, The Second Little Show, Three’s a Crowd, The Band Wagon and At Home Abroad. The musical changed substantially in 1943 with the huge success of Oklahoma, which ushered in the age of the integrated musical play. There were still plenty of hit musical comedies and after that revues became less profitable, but a few holdovers from the earlier style of entertainment. By the late 40s there were only a few revues each season, and with a few exceptions, like Dietz and Schwartz’ Inside USA, Charles Gaynor’s Lend an Ear and Make Mine Manhattan, most of them flopped.

Many famous revues were made up of songs and sketches on a particular theme. In Irving Berlin and Moss Hart’s classic revue, As Thousands Cheer (1933), each segment was inspired by a newspaper story. In Inside U.S.A. each segment focused on a different American location.

Make Mine Manhattan was, naturally, a revue about New York City. Some of the songs, like “Saturday Night in Central Park” and “Manhattan in the Spring” were fairly general, but others dealt with more specific aspects of New York life. There was a song called, “Trafft’s,” a thinly veiled tribute to the popular restaurant chain, Schrafft’s. Another song “Phil the Fiddler” told a Horatio Alger-type story set in Gilded Age New York.

“The Subway Song,” in which a young man complained about the difficulty of dating in New York when “you live in Brooklyn on New Lots Avenue and she lives in the Bronx on 242nd Street” seems as applicable today as it was sixty years ago! Make Mine Manhattan didn’t get a cast album, but most of the songs can be heard on Ben Bagley’s Make Mine Manhattan and Other Great Revues Revisited.

Listening to the delightful score, it’s easy to believe that the show was a hit. Oh—and it had one other thing going for it: the cast featured the talents of a 26 year-old comedian making his Broadway debut: Sid Caesar, just two years before Your Show of Shows would make him household name all over America.

Its New York-centric theme made a national tour unlikely for Make Mine Manhattan, but it did play on what was known as the Subway Circuit, which consisted of large theatres in the outer Burroughs, New Jersey and Long Island, where Broadway shows would play short engagements to audiences who didn’t make it to Times Square, despite living in the vicinity.

The Subway Circuit had been in operation since the early 20th century and also hosted vaudeville shows and touring productions from the Metropolitan Opera. Some theatres on the Subway Circuit were the Bronx Opera House, the Standard Theatre on 90th and Broadway, Brandt's Flatbush, Brighton Beach and Majestic Theatres in Brooklyn, as well as other theatres in Jackson Heights, Atlantic City and Long Island.

Lewine and Horwitt’s next revue, The Girls Against the Boys was much less successful. By 1959, the well-structured musical plays of the 40s were becoming old hat and a revue was very old hat. By that time Lewine had already moved on to a second, highly successful career in television, where he produced some acclaimed early programs including Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella and Streisand’s first television special, the now legendary My Name is Barbra.

To learn more about Make Mine Manhattan and Richard Lewine, check out the Richard Lewine Papers in the Billy Rose Theatre Division. If you're interested in seeing Make Mine Manhattan, it's being revived in New York in March of next year by the UnsungMusicalsCo.

Findings from the Miscellaneous Personal Name Collection: Georgie Barrymore’s 1884 acceptance of a stage production role

Mike O'Connor, Intern, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 06:15:33 -0500

In this heavily faded 1884 letter written from the New Jersey beach town of Point Pleasant, actress Georgie Barrymore accepts a role in a New York stage production for a salary of $100.

Ms. Barrymore, an ancestor of the legendary Barrymore acting family (and great-grandmother of Hollywood star Drew Barrymore) writes:

“I will accept the weeks engagement commencing Sept 8th + two rehearsals in NY for the stipulated sum of one hundred dollars. Let me know at your earliest concerning when I shall be called for rehearsal…”

United States Sanitary Commission Processing Project: Department of the Gulf

Susan Waide, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:23:34 -0500

Our archival processing staff continues to follow the U.S. Sanitary Commission on campaign during the Civil War, this time along the Gulf Coast. Melissa Haley reports on one man's journey in their service:

Based in New Orleans, the USSC’s Department of the Gulf was founded in the spring of 1862, soon after that city came under Union control. Its scope of operations coincided with the territory covered by the Union’s Department of the Gulf — eventually including the entire Gulf Coast, from Brownsville, Texas on the Mexican border to Key West and the Tortugas in Southern Florida, as well as points inland, mostly in Louisiana.

The Sanitary Commission had several departments whose area of operation encompassed more than one state. The Department of the South, for example, based in Charleston, handled relief work in South Carolina, Georgia, and parts of Florida. But it was the Department of the Gulf that faced the special challenge of distributing much-needed supplies to Union forts and desolate outposts along 1,600 miles of craggy coastline.

The scope of much of the Department of the Gulf’s relief activities can be seen in the records of one individual—relief agent George G. Edgerly. In his early twenties and from New Hampshire, Edgerly spent several months traveling the length of the Gulf Coast and up the rivers of Louisiana to distribute supplies for soldiers.

In the fall of 1863, he was sent to Port Hudson, Louisiana to issue clothing, vegetables, bedding, and stationary to troops stationed there, including the Corps d’Afrique, originally formed with free people of color from Louisiana. Then it was on to Pensacola, Key West, and the Tortugas in Florida where Edgerly distributed supplies to forts, hospitals, and a gunboat. He spent Christmas in the Tortugas, 70 miles from the mainland.

In early 1864, Edgerly traveled along the Texas coast, stopping in Indianola, Port Isabel, Brazos Santiago, and Brownsville, near the Mexican border. At Indianola, he requested “15 foot-balls” and “the same number of base balls with bats, and the rules of the game” be sent, diversion for isolated troops. At Brownsville, where Edgerly spent two months manning a temporary supply depot, he asked for mosquito netting to combat the flies, which were “very annoying especially to those sick with the small pox.” The Confederacy used Brownsville to smuggle cotton to European ships in Mexico; the Union Army was sent to the border town to put an end to the smuggling. Edgerly reported the town to be “a contemptible, half-civilized, God forsaken country,” but added he would “try to make the best of it.” He spent his free time making settees for the Post Hospital, using cotton and empty supply boxes.

After his Brownsville stint, Edgerly was back in Louisiana in the spring, providing supplies for Union troops in Alexandria recovering from the failed Red River Campaign. On one supply run up the Mississippi from New Orleans, his ship was shot at by Confederates on the river bank for an hour and twenty minutes: “Our well-filled boxes of Sanitary stores were immediately converted into breastworks; every available man on board from the Captain down to the boot-black, armed with a loaded musket, and one artillery heavily charged with grape and canister, wheeled into position beside which the gunners, lanyard in hand, stood ready at a moment’s notice to 'let slip the dogs of war.'”

George Edgerly survived enemy fire, multiple Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River voyages, and unfavorable and isolated conditions in remote backwaters, but, sadly, he did not survive the war. In June of 1864, he reported from Vicksburg, Mississippi: “Your correspondent here much against his wishes was compelled to yield to the force of circumstances and himself to become an inmate of the hospital, a victim to that popular juvenile malady known as the measles”—contracted while working onboard a hospital steamer. He continued to report on supply distribution from his hospital bed.

Edgerly returned to New Orleans enfeebled, expecting to recover, but died on July 15 at the USSC’s Soldiers’ Home, “surrounded by those whom he knew and loved best.” The Sanitary Commission Bulletin of August 15 included him in its IN MEMORIUM section, along with three others who had recently died while in service to the Commission: Professor Henry Hadley of the Union Theological Seminary and Arabella Griffith Barlow, both relief agents who died from disease, and William Wilson, an agent who was shot by enemy fire while working on a supply steamer. “Like brave soldiers they have fallen at their posts,” the Bulletin lamented.

George G. Edgerly’s untiring efforts in the Department of the Gulf benefited countless soldiers from Texas to Florida. Researchers can explore his work, as well as the work of numerous such dedicated relief agents, when the US Sanitary Commission records become available in the spring of 2013.