1. Congratulations to all of the Academy Award nominees today! In celebration of the nominations it has becoming an annual tradition for us to post a photo of one of our most famous treasures at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Yep, believe it or not, but The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses TWO Academy Awards in its collections. One is the Oscar that Paul Muni won in 1937 for Best Actor in THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR and the other belonged to Burl Ives who won it for Best Supporting Actor in 1959 for THE BIG COUNTRY. 

    Congratulations to all of the Academy Award nominees today! In celebration of the nominations it has becoming an annual tradition for us to post a photo of one of our most famous treasures at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Yep, believe it or not, but The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses TWO Academy Awards in its collections. One is the Oscar that Paul Muni won in 1937 for Best Actor in THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR and the other belonged to Burl Ives who won it for Best Supporting Actor in 1959 for THE BIG COUNTRY. 

  2. We just had to share this with you! While taking a look at the Library’s Timothy Leary archives with our good friends at The Verge (piece coming to a computer near you later this winter), we discovered that Mr. Leary had a nintendo wrist controller  Power Glove (immortalized in the 1989 film The Wizard aka A 100 Minute Long Commercial for Super Mario Brothers 3)… and Adidas sneakers. Very clean, red-laced Adidas sneakers. This made us very happy.

    We just had to share this with you! While taking a look at the Library’s Timothy Leary archives with our good friends at The Verge (piece coming to a computer near you later this winter), we discovered that Mr. Leary had a nintendo wrist controller  Power Glove (immortalized in the 1989 film The Wizard aka A 100 Minute Long Commercial for Super Mario Brothers 3)… and Adidas sneakers. Very clean, red-laced Adidas sneakers. This made us very happy.

  3. For this week’s Mustache Monday - the first in the month of Movember (no that’s not a typo) - we have another unidentified man whose portrait is in the A.G. Spalding Baseball Collection. This means he has something to do with either cricket or baseball, but we don’t know much more. The inscription along the bottom of the photo reads, “Bailey, San Fran co.” albumen print ; 10 x 6 cm. The A.G. Spalding Baseball Collection. NYPL, Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photograph.

    For this week’s Mustache Monday - the first in the month of Movember (no that’s not a typo) - we have another unidentified man whose portrait is in the A.G. Spalding Baseball Collection. This means he has something to do with either cricket or baseball, but we don’t know much more. The inscription along the bottom of the photo reads, “Bailey, San Fran co.”

    albumen print ; 10 x 6 cm. The A.G. Spalding Baseball Collection. NYPL, Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photograph.

  4. We know you’ll like this, Tumblr — it’s Obed Hussey, Inventor First Man to Patent the Reaper. According to Ohio History Central, Obed Hussey was born in 1791 to Quaker parents. As a young man, he became a sailor on a whaling ship, but he eventually forsook this career. He moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he created a farming machine known as the reaper in 1833. The reaper was a horse-drawn machine that chopped and collected a farmer’s grain. Hussey was the first man to patent his invention, but he was not the first person to invent such a machine.

    We know you’ll like this, Tumblr — it’s Obed Hussey, Inventor First Man to Patent the Reaper.

    According to Ohio History Central,

    Obed Hussey was born in 1791 to Quaker parents. As a young man, he became a sailor on a whaling ship, but he eventually forsook this career. He moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he created a farming machine known as the reaper in 1833. The reaper was a horse-drawn machine that chopped and collected a farmer’s grain. Hussey was the first man to patent his invention, but he was not the first person to invent such a machine.

  5. Colored woodcut, “An illustration of writing brushes.” (Kokushi Daijiten, 1868)

    Colored woodcut, “An illustration of writing brushes.” (Kokushi Daijiten, 1868)

  6. The Jerome Robbins Dance Division yields some cool suprises:  The collection contains a number of items relating to current events in the 1950s and ‘60s. In particular, Robbins was keenly interested in the civil rights movement.  One treasure discovered in the audio collection is “Project 65: Mississippi Summer,” a two-hour radio documentary produced in 1965 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, exploring the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. The doc allows activists, locals, blacks, whites, mayors, tenant farmers, and schoolchildren to speak for themselves, creating a multi-faceted portrait of the struggle for African-American civil rights. Fannie Lou Hamer describes being beaten in a Winona, Mississippi jail; a young volunteer from Wisconsin canvases for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; the president of the pro-segregation White Citizens’ Councils defends their purpose; farmer Hartman Turnbow describes his attempt to register to vote and the subsequent firebombing of his home.  Also in the Jerome Robbins Audio Collection is an archival recording of a 1964 gathering of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Greenwood, Mississippi, at which Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier (who are heard on the tape delivering speeches) appeared to present funds raised for SNCC; and radio news reporting about race riots in Detroit, Milwaukee, and other cities in July, 1967. Another gem to emerge from the collection is a complete audio recording of the television program Night Beat, on which John Wingate interviews Jack Kerouac and Earle Hyman. Hyman discusses his struggles and triumphs as an African-American actor and his love of theater. Kerouac, on the occasion of the publication of The Subterraneans, defines Beat vocabulary for his host and discusses the controversy surrounding the “Beat Generation,” his writing process, his cats, his painting, and his study of Buddhism. These extremely rare sound recordings are now available for research use on-site at the Library for the Performing Arts, along with a two-hour lecture-performance by Stephen Sondheim at the 92nd Street Y in 1971, a radio interview with Lee Harvey Oswald, a recording of Arthur Miller’s biblical musical Up From Paradise, archival recordings of traditional Japanese music, and other audio materials reflecting Jerome Robbins’s wide-ranging, ever-searching intellect. - Imogen Smith

    The Jerome Robbins Dance Division yields some cool suprises: 

    The collection contains a number of items relating to current events in the 1950s and ‘60s. In particular, Robbins was keenly interested in the civil rights movement. 

    One treasure discovered in the audio collection is “Project 65: Mississippi Summer,” a two-hour radio documentary produced in 1965 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, exploring the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project.

    The doc allows activists, locals, blacks, whites, mayors, tenant farmers, and schoolchildren to speak for themselves, creating a multi-faceted portrait of the struggle for African-American civil rights. Fannie Lou Hamer describes being beaten in a Winona, Mississippi jail; a young volunteer from Wisconsin canvases for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; the president of the pro-segregation White Citizens’ Councils defends their purpose; farmer Hartman Turnbow describes his attempt to register to vote and the subsequent firebombing of his home. 

    Also in the Jerome Robbins Audio Collection is an archival recording of a 1964 gathering of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Greenwood, Mississippi, at which Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier (who are heard on the tape delivering speeches) appeared to present funds raised for SNCC; and radio news reporting about race riots in Detroit, Milwaukee, and other cities in July, 1967.

    Another gem to emerge from the collection is a complete audio recording of the television program Night Beat, on which John Wingate interviews Jack Kerouac and Earle Hyman. Hyman discusses his struggles and triumphs as an African-American actor and his love of theater.

    Kerouac, on the occasion of the publication of The Subterraneans, defines Beat vocabulary for his host and discusses the controversy surrounding the “Beat Generation,” his writing process, his cats, his painting, and his study of Buddhism.

    These extremely rare sound recordings are now available for research use on-site at the Library for the Performing Arts, along with a two-hour lecture-performance by Stephen Sondheim at the 92nd Street Y in 1971, a radio interview with Lee Harvey Oswald, a recording of Arthur Miller’s biblical musical Up From Paradise, archival recordings of traditional Japanese music, and other audio materials reflecting Jerome Robbins’s wide-ranging, ever-searching intellect.

    - Imogen Smith

  7. Some delightful photos from the Library’s A.G. Spalding Collection are currently blowing up around the internet, so we thought you Tumblr fans would like to see them, too.  Click through for more.

    Some delightful photos from the Library’s A.G. Spalding Collection are currently blowing up around the internet, so we thought you Tumblr fans would like to see them, too. 

    Click through for more.

  8. What is the difference between a photographer and the whooping cough?

    Why are ‘Capstan’ Cigarettes like L100,000?

    Why is a school boy being flogged like you eye?

    Why a plum cake is like the ocean?

    .

    For more delightfully dumb old-time jokes, go to the library’s digital collection of “riddle” cigarette cards. (Warning: they really are dumb.)

  9. Earlier this year, the NYPL Manuscripts and Archives division acquired the papers (PDF finding aid) of the acclaimed novelist and children’s book author Lore Segal. The collection contains letters and literary manuscripts documenting her life as a Jewish refugee in England during World War II and her subsequent writing and teaching career. Among the papers is a small, but delightful, batch of items from the late Maurice Sendak. Segal and Sendak collaborated on a wonderful collection of Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales entitled The Juniper Tree, and Other Tales from Grimm, published in 1973.  Read more…

    Earlier this year, the NYPL Manuscripts and Archives division acquired the papers (PDF finding aid) of the acclaimed novelist and children’s book author Lore Segal. The collection contains letters and literary manuscripts documenting her life as a Jewish refugee in England during World War II and her subsequent writing and teaching career. Among the papers is a small, but delightful, batch of items from the late Maurice Sendak. Segal and Sendak collaborated on a wonderful collection of Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales entitled The Juniper Tree, and Other Tales from Grimm, published in 1973. 

    Read more…

  10. RIP Doc Watson. Listen to the great folk musician on vinyl at the Library for the Performing Arts →