Digital Library Services

Anybody who spends more than a few months on a university campus knows how quickly the buildings and landscape can change. For instance, a sidewalk I used to traverse everyday on my way to and from the Main Library while in library school (ca. 2003) is now the Adler Journalism Building. A whole swath of land south of the library across Burlington Street will soon (2010?) be a huge recreation center. (I can’t wait!) For as many changes as there can be in five years, the campus space at The University of Iowa has been documented through maps since its founding in 1847.

The Libraries have completed digitization on nearly 100 campus maps from holdings in the University Archives, which are now available online as the University of Iowa Campus Maps Digital Collection. There are some particularly eye-catching maps in the collection, especially the 1930 campus plan depicting a unified, neoclassical campus that was not exactly finished that way. (The map shows the Main Library in Pentacrest-matching limestone…we got red brick instead.)

Mighty Morphing Power Building

There are maps from every course catalog since 1904, and although they appear extremely similar from one year to the next, subtle difference can hold clues to when a particular building was erected. 

For example, the photo on the left is a view south from the library of the Law Building (present day Gilmore Hall), and is noted as being taken during the 1900s. Looking at the course catalog maps, 1907-1908 shows the spot from which this picture was taken as a Future Armory and Athletic Pavilion (#20), and 1908-1909 shows the same area as a Proposed Gymnasium (#26), but finally in 1909-1910, the building is labeled as the College of Law. So we know the photograph must have been taken no earlier than 1909.

Thanks to DLS Library Assistant Bobby Duncan for his work scanning the maps and building the digital collection.

See the UI News Press Release for more information on the collection.

–Mark F. Anderson
Digital Initiatives Librarian

The granddaughter of slaves and daughter of a college professor, (Alice) Elizabeth Catlett grew up in a household that placed great value on education. She received a B.A. in art from Howard University in 1936, and then taught high school for two years before coming to The University of Iowa for graduate school to study under Grant Wood.

Since the residence halls were several years away from integration, Catlett rented rooms with local African American families during her stay in Iowa City, and also spent a year in the Iowa Federation Home. In a 2003 interview for the UI’s alumni magazine, she remembered her surprise at the mixture of openness and discrimination present at Iowa — a contrast to the more straightforward segration of her Washington D.C. upbringing: “I’d lived in an African American culture my whole life. In Iowa City, I suddenly was living among white people, but I still couldn’t do things like live in the dorms.”

Catlett expressed no such ambivalence when recalling her classes with Grant Wood: “[He] was a very generous teacher and he influenced all my work. He would tell his students, ‘Paint what you know.’” This advice helped her to develop her signature social realism style, featuring images drawn from African American culture and experience. Upon graduating with The University’s first M.F.A. in sculpture, Catlett’s thesis work included the stone carving Mother and Child, which won top prize in Chicago’s 1940 American Negro Exposition — only the first of many awards in Catlett’s long and distinguished career.

In October 2007, The University of Iowa Museum of Art opened the exhibit “I Am: Prints by Elizabeth Catlett,” featuring 27 newly acquired prints. The artist donated their purchase price to the UI Foundation to establish the Elizabeth Catlett Mora Scholarship Fund, which benefits printmaking students who are African American or Latino.

–Jen Wolfe
Metadata Librarian, Digital Library Services

Sara Baird, an assistant in the Libraries’ Technical Services department, has recently begun augmenting her duties cataloging physical objects for the online catalog with creating metadata records for digital objects in the Iowa Digital Library. In the process of describing and providing access to archival materials in the digital collections, she’s gained no small expertise on some of their subjects, including Iowa-born librarian and activist Esther Walls.

The University of Iowa’s Iowa Women’s Archives contains a collection of letters, articles and photographs chronicling the life of alumna and Iowa native, Esther Walls. The Iowa Digital Library has scanned much of this collection to provide more accessibility and to promote the diversity of materials available in the Archives.

Mason City is the small Iowa city where Esther Jean Walls grew up and returned to see her family over the years. Born in 1926, Walls attended public schools and junior college in Mason City before coming to The University of Iowa in Iowa City. While at The University of Iowa, she was one of the first African American students to live in Currier Hall in 1946. Also during her time in Iowa City, Walls was very active in the Greek social life at The University as well as singing at the First Methodist Church.

Attending the University of Iowa was the doorway to an adventurous life for Esther Walls. She was encouraged to go to library school in New York after finishing her undergraduate degree. Some her first few years as a librarian were spent in the New York Public Library branches, especially in Harlem, where she specialized in serving young adults. At the Countee Cullen Branch, she organized and moderated panels such as “The Role of the Black Writer” and “The Role of the Black Artist”, meeting famous people such as Chinua Achebe. During this time in New York, she also rubbed elbows with Allen Ginsburg and hosted house parties with writers, musicians, artists and many scholars.

Many artifacts in the collection highlight other stages in Walls’ career. In the 1960s, she worked for the Franklin Book Program. During this time, she travelled to Africa on four separate occasions, to promote literacy and international publishing relations. In the early 1970s, Walls continued working for international literacy, going to Bermuda to promote International Book Year 1972 and serving on a UNICEF board. At one point, she was nominated to be included in the pool of potential presidential candidates for Grinnell College! In 1975, Walls became an administrator for the State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook Libraries from which she retired in 1987.

Mason City Globe newspaper articles about Esther Walls, referring to her as a hometown hero, are abundant and illustrate the pride that community took in her career success and activism. Walls’ life has been anything but ordinary and The University of Iowa is extremely privileged and honored to house her personal artifacts, letters and files that encapsulate this woman’s accomplishments and journeys. To explore and discover more about this phenomenal Iowan, visit the African American Women in Iowa Digital Collection or come in and browse the physical artifacts in the Iowa Women’s Archives in the Main Library.

–Sara Baird
Library Assistant, Central Technical Services

In honor of African American History Month, DLS will be highlighting the stories of African Americans featured in the Iowa Digital Library. First up is Digital Librarianship Fellow Shawn Averkamp on Dora Martin Berry, campus queen of the UI (then State University of Iowa), 1955.

Though segregation was never a matter of official policy at The University of Iowa, African American students were routinely shut out from housing, student organizations, hair salons, restaurants, and social activities, and were left to form their own student communities outside of The University. As a result, there is little documentation of these African American fraternities, sororities, literary societies, and other student clubs in University publications, such as yearbooks and newspapers, or within the Libraries’ archives. Following the trail left by researchers Richard M. Breaux and Madgetta Thornton Dungy, we gathered artifacts scattered across the Libraries and outside repositories to create a digital collection that would highlight the experiences and achievements of African American women students at The University.

Among the many stories in this digital collection is that of Dora Martin Berry, the first African American woman to win the title of Miss State University of Iowa. Berry came to Iowa City from Houston, Texas, in 1955, a “wide-eyed and excited” seventeen-year-old. Though she was only a freshman, Berry was selected by the women in her dormitory to proceed to the semifinals of the pageant. With overwhelming support from the African American student community, she earned the majority of votes needed from the male student electorate to win the title of Miss SUI. The national news broke the story before Berry was even crowned queen, and she immediately was inundated with calls from reporters across the country. In the midst of school desegregation, the press attention continued for months with many news services heralding Berry’s victory as a testament to Northern racial tolerance. Back at The University of Iowa, however, Berry found a less than tolerant response to her success. The University politely denied her the duties and appearances traditionally held by the campus queen, and she quickly faded back into the student body, never officially recognized by University administration.  

In addition to the news clippings, photos, and oral history excerpts that frame the story of Dora Martin Berry, there is a wide variety of artifacts in this collection offering glimpses into the lives of other African American university women. Iowa Bystander newspaper articles circa 1919 chronicle the activities of the fledgling Iowa City chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. Snapshots from the Althea Beatrice Moore Smith scrapbook capture student life in the mid-1920s. Dance cards from the Esther Walls collection at the Iowa Women’s Archives commemorate formal dances attended in the 1940s by one of the first African American women to live in the dorms.

Please visit the African American Women Students at The University of Iowa Digital Collection to learn more about these students who overcame racism and discrimination to receive their education at the UI.  

–Shawn Averkamp
Digital Librarianship Fellow