Collection Connection – News & Announcements

White AED metal box with red defibrillator

Feb 24 2023

UIowa Hearts Richard Kerber

Posted on February 24, 2023 by Elizabeth Riordan

The following is written by graduate student and Special Collections student worker Emily Schartz

To wrap up American Heart Health Month, we’re remembering University of Iowa professor, cardiologist, and researcher Richard Kerber (1939-2016). If you have noticed the white AED (Automated External Defibrillator) boxes around, you have seen Kerber’s long-lasting impact on our campus and community. Kerber was a pioneer in Echocardiography and CPR research, as well as a driving force in expanding public defibrillation programs.

Richard Kerber was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1939. He completed an undergrad degree in anthropology at Columbia 1960 and in June of that same year married Dr. Linda Kaufman Kerber, now retired professor of history. He went on to complete medical school at New York University, graduating with his medical degree in 1964.

After school, Kerber joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps and worked in both a mobile Army surgical hospital and a base hospital in Vietnam between 1967 and 1968. He was awarded the Bronze Star in 1968 for his service. After completing his medical education with a cardiology fellowship at Stanford University, Kerber joined the University of Iowa in 1971. He remained at the University of Iowa for the rest of his career.

At Iowa Kerber took on many roles, serving as Director of Echocardiography, as well as Associate Director of the Division of Cardiovascular medicine, from 1983-2008 and Interim Director from 2009-2012. He helped establish the CPR training program for UI Hospital staff and faculty and served on task forces and committees that established the UI Hospital’s Code Blue and CPR guidelines and policies.

Kerber standing with 5 Black Students in classroom — Kerber with students from the Short-term Minority Student Research Training Summer Program

Outside of the University of Iowa, Kerber remained involved in Echocardiography and CPR research. He served as the 11^th President of the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) from 1997-1999 and worked closely with colleagues in the American Heart Association (AHA), serving as chair of the AHA’s Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee. His work with these organizations and taskforces helped establish the standards used to train laypeople in CPR beyond the University of Iowa.

A well-loved professor and a dedicated researcher, Kerber published more than 250 articles as well as many book chapters and abstracts over the course of his career. He was in charge of the Cardiology Fellowship Program and mentored students participating in the Short-term Minority Student Research Training Summer Program for many years.

Though he gave many lectures over the course of his time at Iowa, he is perhaps best remembered for his “Deconstructing the Body: Medical Imaging, Medical Art and the Art of Medicine,” where he examined depictions of the body in art throughout history. You can certainly sense his sense of humor from some of the art he chose to include.

Kerber had many interests outside of academics. He is remembered as a successful clarinet player and participated in orchestras and chamber groups. He was also an avid cyclist and rode in RAGBRAI (the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) multiple times.

White and black photo of Kerber at piano holding a clarinet, white music notation overlays image — Richard E. Kerber, MD. Photograph by Ina Lowenberg.

In 2017, the Richard E. Kerber HeartSafe Initiative was launched in memory of Kerber with the goal of expanding CPR and AED training for University of Iowa faculty and staff in non-medical buildings. In 2019, inspired by the HeartSafe Intitiative, the Rotary-Kerber HeartSafe Community Campaign was launched to expand community-member training in CPR and AED use in Iowa City and Coralville. These initiatives have certainly had an impact, Johnson County was just recognized as a HeartSafe Community by the Citizen CPR Foundation in January of this year and AEDs can be found in buildings all across campus.

If you’re curious, you can find a current map of public access AEDs on the University of Iowa’s campus right here.

Sources

Dr. Richard E. Kerber, Rotary-Kerber HeartSafe Community Campaign

In Memoriam: Richard E. Kerber, MD (1939–2016), The Texas Heart Institute Journal

Richard E. Kerber, MD, 1939–2016, JAHA

Richard E. Kerber, M.D., Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association

Richard E. Kerber—A pioneer in echocardiography and emergency cardiovascular care, Resuscitation

Richard Kerber Obituary, Lensing Funeral Home

Saving lives: Johnson County program sends alerts to trained laypeople to respond to cardiac arrest cases, The Gazette, January 15, 2023

UI memorializes renowned cardiologist Richard Kerber with lifesaving program, IowaNow

Bright pink and black cover of Black art with collage of people

Feb 20 2023

10 Black Poets to check out in Special Collections & Archives

Posted on February 20, 2023February 20, 2023 by Elizabeth Riordan

The following was written by academic outreach coordinator Kathryn Reuter

Reading poetry by Black authors is a great way to celebrate Black History Month! We searched through Special Collections and Archives to find materials from Black poets, some who are familiar to us, and some less so. It was tough to limit ourselves to just 10 poets to highlight, but we hope the list below provides some inspiration for your next visit to our reading room.

You can see some of these books of poetry yourself at our Black Poetry Pop-up on Wednesday, Feb. 22, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. in Group Area D of the Main Library (1st floor, across from Food for Thought Café). Stop by the pop-up to make some poetry of your own! We will have supplies for cut and paste and blackout poetry.

Golden colored publication of Last Poets — Photo: (The Last Poets cover), 1993. (msc 1049, Andrew William “Sunfrog” Smith Collection of Alternative Publications” Box 7

Back cover of Last Poets signed by members — Photo: (The Last Poets Reverse), 1993 (msc 1049, Andrew William “Sunfrog” Smith Collection of Alternative Publications” Box 7

1.The Last Poets

First on our list is the poetry and music collective The Last Poets. Originally founded in Harlem, New York, in 1968, the group has since experienced several iterations with different members. Music historians and critics consider The Last Poets to be the forefathers of hip-hop because of their groundbreaking spoken word poetry and protest raps. Of their founding, Abiodun Oyewole writes, “The Last Poets were born on May 19, 1968/ In Mount Morris Park in Harlem, New York/ It was a birthday celebration in memory/ in honor of Malcolm X/ The Last Poets were on a mission/ we became the voices of the East wind/ blowing away the West with our sound/ The Last Poets, men who knew/ in their youth the truth must be told/ the lies must be revealed/ and we got to be sassy and funky and sincere/ about it” (from the poem “Invocation”). The pamphlet Selected Poems: The Last Poets was printed in 1993 and is part of the Andrew William “Sunfrog” Smith Collection of Alternative Publications. The back cover is inscribed to Sunfrog by Last Poets Umar Bin Hassan, Baba Donn Babatunde, and Abiodun Oyewole.

black and white photo of Gwendolyn Brooks, husband and child — Photo of Gwendolyn Brooks and family found in A Street in Bronzeville (PS 3503.R7244 S8 cop 2 )

signed inside cover of book — A street in Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks signed to Paul Engle (PS 3503.R7244 S8)

2. Gwendolyn Brooks

Born in 1917, Gwendolyn Brooks published her first poem at the age of 13 and would go on to have multiple pieces published in the African-American newspaper The Chicago Defender. A Street in Bronzeville (1945) was her first book of poetry, it celebrates the everyday people living on Chicago’s South Side. One of the copies held in Special Collections is inscribed by Brooks to Paul Engle, director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, who praised the book in a review for the Chicago Tribune. Found in Special Collection’s second copy of A Street in Bronzeville is a photograph of Gwendolyn Brooks, her husband Henry Lowington Blakely, Jr., and their son Henry Lowington Blakely III, dated to 1945. Because the handwriting on the back of the photograph matches Gwendolyn Brooks’ inscription to Paul Engle, we believe this family photo was labeled by the author herself, and perhaps tucked into the book before giving it to a friend.

Inside cover of dissertation — For my people. Margaret Walker. Theses/ Dissertations T1940 .W18

3. Margaret Walker

Like Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker was an influential poet of the Chicago Black Renaissance. Walker is also a two-time graduate of the University of Iowa. You can visit her 1940 master’s thesis, a poetry collection titled For My People, in the University Archives. With this volume of poetry, Walker won the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. While a master’s degree student at the University of Iowa, Walker was roommates with artist Elizabeth Catlett. In 1992, the two old roommates collaborated to produce an illustrated edition of For My People. Catlett’s prints from this work are held at the Stanley Museum of Art, and you can view them on the Iowa Digital Library. Margaret Walker returned to the University of Iowa to earn her PhD in 1965. For her dissertation, she submitted her first completed draft of her acclaimed novel Jubilee.

title page of Phillis Wheatley — Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley PS 866. W5 1834

4. Phillis Wheatley

In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American author to publish a volume of poetry. Born in West Africa, Wheatley was kidnapped and sold by slave traders. The Boston merchant John Wheatley bought her as a slave for his wife and the couple renamed the young girl. In the Wheatley household Phillis received tutoring in reading and writing – she wrote her first poem at the age of 14. Not finding publishers in New England willing to support her writing, Wheatley traveled to London where her collection Poems on Various Subject was published. Special Collections and Archives holds an issue of this volume, printed in 1834, which also includes a memoir of Wheatley written by Margaretta Matilda Odell.

cover of Selected Plays and Prose of Amira Baraka, and open book with inscription next to it — Selected Plays and Prose of Amira Baraka (PS3552.A663 A6 1979) & The Sidney Poet Heroical inscribed by Amira Baraka (PS 3552.A663 S5 1979)

5. Amira Baraka

Born Everett LeRoi Jones (in Newark, New Jersey, in 1934) Baraka changed his name to Amiri Bakraka after the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965. The same year, Baraka founded the Black Arts Repertory Theater in Harlem, New York, effectively sparking the Black Arts Movement. Baraka wrote in multiple genres, penning poems, plays, and essays. Baraka’s influence as an artist, activist, and teacher cannot be overstated. Special Collections and Archives houses two inscribed volumes of Baraka’s poetry [Selected Plays and Prose of Amiri Baraka/ LeRoi Jones (1979) and The Sidney Poet Heroical, in 29 Scenes (1979)] – as well as a sampling of poems stapled together in a pamphlet titled Black Art. Printed in 1966, this pamphlet came to the University of Iowa through the collection of artist Lil Picard.

cover of book with Black hand holding wishbone and dice — Shakespeare in Harlem by Langston Hughes (PS 3515 .U274 S5 1942)

Open page signed by Langston Hughes — Inscription from Langston Hughes (PS 3515 .U274 S5 1942)

6. Langston Hughes

Like Baraka, Langston Hughes was a writer who excelled in multiple forms. Considered a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes’ poems such as “Harlem” (also known as “A Dream Deferred”) and “I, Too” are iconic pieces of American poetry. We hold a number of Langston Hughes publications in Special Collections & Archives, but one of our favorites is this first edition of Shakespeare in Harlem, inscribed by the author to his friend Lee Crowe.

Brown and yellow cover of Ten Poems book — Ten Poems by Rita Dove (PS3554.O87 A17 1977 )

7. Rita Dove

Rita Dove was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1952. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa in 1977. She was U.S. Poet Laureate at the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995. Pictured here is Dove’s collection Ten Poems, of which approximately 200 copies were printed by hand in Lisbon, Iowa, at Penumbra Press in 1977.

Brown/tan cover with word Cane on it — Copy of Cane published in 2000 ( FOLIO PS3539.058 C3 2000)

8. Jean Toomer

Jean Toomer (born Nathan Pinchback Toomer in 1894, Washington, D.C.) might have objected to being on this list of Black poets because he resisted racial categorization and identified simply as “American”. Of mixed-raced ancestry, Toomer attended both segregated Black schools and all-white schools throughout his education. In 1921, he taught at an agricultural college in Georgia – his experiences there inspired him to start writing a series of vignettes that would be published as Cane in 1923. The novel has a non-traditional structure, combining poems and short stories about different characters. The copy of Cane seen here was published in 2000, it contains woodcuts by the artist Martin Puryear. Jean Toomer’s archival papers are held by the Beinecke Library at Yale, and some of the collection has been digitized, which you can browse here.

Red cover of book with elephant and bird, palm tree and two people next to tree — The Nature of Things by Frederick Tillis (Iowa Authors Collection)

9. Frederick Tillis

Perhaps best known as a composer and jazz musician, Frederick Tillis (1930-2020) was also a prolific poet. He earned both his MA and PhD in music composition from the University of Iowa. You can find his dissertation (Quartet for flute, clarinet, bassoon and cello) in the University Archives and a number of his poetry books in our Iowa Authors collection.

Black and white photo collage of Black Americans — Book jacket for *Re:Creation* by Nikki Giovanni (PS3557.I55 R4)

10. Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni was one of the leading authors of the Black Arts Movement. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1943, Giovanni was raised in Ohio and attended Fisk University. Until 2022, she taught as a university distinguished professor at Virginia Tech. In addition to numerous poetry collections, Giovanni has authored several children’s books and was nominated for a Grammy Award (for Best Spoken Word or Non-musical Album) for The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. We love the cover of this 1971 publication Re:Creation, which features the photography of Chester Higgins.

Oct 09 2022

Collecting Your Ghost Stories

Posted on October 9, 2022 by Elizabeth Riordan

The following comes from university archivist Sarah Keen

Have you heard footsteps where no corporeal being is walking? Have unexplainable events occurred in your building that have no humanly cause? Are there spaces on campus where the spirits of those who have walked this earth before us feel particularly present?

If so, the University Archives would like to hear your tales of paranormal encounters on campus and in Iowa City. Share your spooky stories to be added to the archives and shared with the campus community.

Please share your stories here.

Sep 28 2022

A Tale of Tails: Pets in the Archives

Posted on September 28, 2022September 28, 2022 by Elizabeth Riordan

A new exhibit bound to make you feel warm and fuzzy is up in the Special Collections & Archives reading room.

Curated by lead outreach and instruction librarian Elizabeth Riordan and academic outreach coordinator Kathryn Reuter, the exhibit A Tale of Tails: Pets in the Archives explores the pets found in Special Collections & Archives, expanding on how the notion of the “pet” continues to grow and morph with the changing years while recognizing some of the aspects of pet ownership that remain constant.

As Riordan explained, “at the beginning of the pandemic I saw so many people on social media adopting new pets. And studies have shown a huge increase in pet adoption at the beginning of the pandemic. I myself adopted a kitten in May of 2020. It made me really think about the comfort pets bring during difficult times.”

When Riordan returned to working in person at the library, it was hard not to notice the pets that seemed to be everywhere in the collections. Whether featured in family photos, on the margins of an image, or companions in a story, pets were there. While these animal companions were nothing new to the collections, recent events and personal experiences put these archived pets in a whole new light.

As Riordan and Reuter write in their curator statement:

“Despite some of the reports saying many people returned those animals they adopted once the pandemic started to slow down, it should be noted that an overwhelming majority chose to keep their pets. They join the billions of humans across time and space who see pet keeping as an extraordinary yet common human experience. “

The curators hope that those who visit the exhibit see some of their own pet history in the stories on display and reflect on our bond with animals we choose to bring into our homes and lives.

To get to know the exhibit, Riordan and Reuter have selected 10 items from the exhibit that they are particularly fond of:

1.Dog Tags from the Ruth Salzmann Becker Collection, IWA 0123

Licensing a pet is one of the more concrete ways humans assert official ownership over an animal. Dog tags also demonstrate the potential dangers of living with animals – as dogs must be vaccinated against rabies before receiving a license. The oldest dog tag displayed in the exhibit is from 1915, it was the license of a dachshund that belonged to Ruth Salzmann Becker’s cousin.

2. The complete idiot’s guide to Pet Psychic Communication

If you’ve ever wished you could tell your pet just how much you love them- or, if you’ve ever really needed your pet to get on board with the house rules – this book is for you!

3. SNACKS by PAS DE CHANCE,

This zine is a compilation of Lost Pet posters readers photographed and sent in from around the globe. We hope that many of the posters resulted in reunions between pet and owner.

4. The Wizard of Oz

In the Wizard of Oz, most animals in the land of Oz have the ability to speak. For the first four books of the Oz series, Toto, unlike the other animals, does not have the gift of speech. In the eighth book, Toto reveals that while he is able to talk, he simply chooses not to.

5. This is the Story of Little Cat

The illustrations in this picture book are all so sweet, it was difficult to choose just one page to display for the exhibit.

6. Portrait of Ruth and cat from Ruth Suckow Papers, MsC0706

Ruth Suckow’s papers include a whole photo album dedicated to her cats. But it is this painting done by Ruth’s husband Ferner Nuhn that really demands attention. An older Ruth, somehow still exhibiting a youthful aura due to her clothes, holds up a white cat, obscuring much of her face. The relationship of the woman and her cat comes strongly across to viewers.

7. Smiling dog, Stanley Museum of Art

Honestly, this isn’t even in Special Collections, it’s an image from Stanley Museum of Art. And even though we just have a picture of it for this exhibit (you’ll have to go next door to the Museum to see the real thing), we can’t help but smile ourselves when we see it.

8. Les Chats

Les Chats by François-Augustin Paradis de Moncrif is considered one of Western Europe’s first books devoted to cats. The book contains several fantastic images of cats from ancient Egypt to “modern day” (18th century) France.

9. Andy Warhol cat books

We have two books from Andy Warhol about his cats. Warhol is famous for having several cats at once, all named Sam. The exhibit features his 25 Cats named Sam and One Blue Pussy and a book he did with his mother Julia called Holy Cats by Andy Warhol’s Mother.

10. Where the Red Fern Grows

This was put in there purely for sentimental reasons. As a child, this book was read aloud in class, and memories of crying as we reached the end of the story are still vivid in the mind. It is a devastating tale, but that sorrow was because Wilson Rawls painted such a real relationship between a boy and his dogs. Those who have experienced the loss of a beloved pet probably still will cry ugly tears over this book.

Perhaps the best part of the exhibit, however, is the growing wall of library staff pet photos. This part of the exhibit has already caught the eye of several students and patrons passing our doors. It is a testament to the power of pets when you see strangers smiling at pictures of your own pets.

Sep 01 2022

Welcome Sarah Keen, our new university archivist

Posted on September 1, 2022September 12, 2022 by Elizabeth Riordan

We are pleased to welcome Sarah Keen as our new university archivist in Special Collections & Archives.

Sarah joined the Libraries at the start of the fall semester. She comes to Iowa from upstate New York, where she served as Colgate University Libraries’ university archivist and head of Special Collections and University Archives. Previously, she was technical services archivist and American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences project archivist at Cornell University Library, and archivist for the Jane Harman Congressional Papers Project at Smith College. She earned her MSI from the University of Michigan and her BA from Alma College.

As an archivist, Sarah says that she enjoys “learning about people’s lives and their experiences as individuals and with the organizations they create.” She looks forward to learning about the University, its complex history, and its wide range of activities while collaborating with colleagues across campus.

When not digging through the archives, Sarah enjoys rowing, crocheting, and listening to music. She is also a Red Sox fan, and she enjoys reading mystery books and watching mystery/detective shows. Have we already told her about the culinary murder mystery books in Szathmary’s collection? You bet we have.

Welcome Sarah! We’re excited to have you on the team.

Jun 30 2022

Telling Their Stories: LGBTQ+ Zine History

Posted on June 30, 2022June 30, 2022 by Elizabeth Riordan

The following is written by Academic Outreach Coordinator Kathryn Reuter

In honor of Pride month, we are highlighting some queer zines in our collections.

A zine is a hand-made and self-published pamphlet that can contain writings, collages, comics, illustrations, and other artwork. Zines are made in a variety of styles and cover endless types of content; makers are motivated by the possibilities of self-expression and creativity in this medium. For a brief history of zines, and to find more zines in our collections you can refer to this resource from the University of Iowa Special Collections & Archives.

Various zines from the Sarah and Jen Wolfe Zine collection, MsC0878

Because of their low production cost and the lack of oversight and censorship in making a zine, zines can be especially appealing to members of marginalized communities or counter-culture movements. An early subculture that embraced zines was the Science Fiction Fan community; fans would produce zines with newsletters, fan art, and fan fiction to share with others in the fandom.

In self-publishing their own work, people who are intentionally excluded from traditional media and who have barriers to accessing the institutions of publishing and academia can “take the mic” and make a zine on any topic they are passionate about. Other subcultures that adopted the counterculture self-expression of zines include the punk music movement and the riot grrrl movement. Alongside these movements, queer folks have been making and reading zines for decades.

Some of the queer zines in our collections have an informative bent to them, such as Asexual, Bisexual, Cissexual: A Sexual Identity Glossary and Dykes and Fags Want to Know, which features interviews with lesbian political prisoners. Here we can see an example of how queer zine culture frequently blends with other movements for social/ political justice, including the Prisoners’ Rights Movement and the movement for Prison Abolition.

In the same collection – ZINES AND FANZINES (MsC0331) – we came across the zine series The Life and Times of Butch Dykes which features wonderfully illustrated brief biographies of lesbians you probably did not learn about in history class.

covers of Asexual, Bisexual, Cissexual: A Sexual Identity Glossary and Dykes and Fags Want to Know

Queer history is a subject that mainstream society for years has intentionally overlooked. By producing and spreading zines that share queer histories, zine makers are emphatically stating: we are here, we have always been here, and we belong here.

Even with the positive and inclusive messages in queer zines, their makers acknowledged that the content of their creations would not be accepted by all. In the front matter of the zine Homocore, the editors explain how to subscribe to the zine and reassure readers that issues are “mailed in a plain envelope to accommodate your oppressive environment.” Queer people were at risk of being discriminated against by landlords, neighbors, roommates, or even family members who may have seen their mail.

Despite this risk, queer zine makers and readers were leveraging the postal system as a tool for community building. Zines like Holy Titclamps and Homocore featured sections for printing letters from folks seeking pen pals, people who were interested in zine swaps and subscriptions, and even people looking to swap records and share music.

In addition to building personal relationships, zines offered the opportunity to organize readers in social justice efforts. For example, Issue 7 of Homocore includes a full page outlining the Marlboro/ Miller Boycott of 1990-1991. The boycott, organized by ACT-UP/San Francisco and ACT-UP/Washington DC, aimed to unseat conservative Senator Jesse Helms (who was a vocal opponent of gay rights and feminism). Helms received hefty political donations from Phillip Morris, makers of Marlboro cigarettes and then-parent company of Miller Brewing. Homocore writes, “Helms lives in the tobacco industry’s back yard; he supports them with legislation, they support him with money” and outlines reasons to participate in the boycott. For decades, zine editors have used their zines as a political tool to amplify the efforts of queer organizers and queer rights campaigns.

If you can’t stop by Special Collections & Archives to read zines this summer, we highly recommend the Queer Zine Archive Project – an online archive “to preserve queer zines and make them available to other queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest in DIY publishing and underground queer communities.”

For those local, the LGBTQ Iowa Archives and Library is a wonderful resource for more queer history in the Midwest.

Jun 27 2022

Thor Rinden: Artist’s notebooks reveal Iowa’s lasting impressions

Posted on June 27, 2022June 27, 2022 by Elizabeth Riordan

The following is written by student worker Jack Menzies

Black and white photo of young man standing at an easel — Thor Rinden at work. Image from the Thor Rinden website

Thor Rinden was an artist born in Marshalltown, Iowa in 1937 and studied at the University of Iowa before attaining his Master of Arts at Hunter College, New York, NY. Living with his wife, Jane,the couple spent decades renovating their home in Brooklyn, which garnered substantial media attention and brought focus to his artwork.

Combining elements of geometry and architecture with the organic influence of his Iowa roots, Thor Rinden created little worlds within his pieces. Employing differences in texture, as can be seen in his “wovens,” interlocking strips of canvas and other materials to create textured designs, and “slab paintings,” in which smaller canvas paintings are placed within a larger canvas frame, his work invites viewers to not only view the art but interact with it and unfold its meanings. Check out examples of woven and slab paintings on the Thor Rinden website.

The combination of mediums with which he worked perfectly marries his Iowa origins and appreciation for New York abstraction. Farmland scenes and quiltlike patterns juxtapose with the clean lines and sharp angles of a modern skyline. To better understand the artist, I took the opportunity to talk with Thor and Jane Rinden’s close friends Samuel Scheer and Rosetta Cohen, who helped shed more light on Rinden’s work. Scheer described Rinden’s art as “lucidly geometrical,” a study in how things are exquisitely and imperfectly joined in the world. His work is deliberately imperfect and showcases his humorous side, thus showcasing humanity alongside mechanical precision.

Though Rinden loved his homes in Iowa and New York, he was an avid world traveler, and his travels hugely impacted his work. He was especially influenced by his experiences in Asia and his introduction to Buddhist culture. Though not quite mandalas, his woven work showcases some similarity with the intricate sand paintings created by Buddhist monks. Creating art was a spiritual experience for Rinden, and that spirituality can be seen within the inter-animated aspects of his paintings and wovens. He appreciated both agrarian and industrial development and his work showcased his dual appreciation. Much of his work can be plotted as grids, like neat Iowa cornfields or the network of New York streets, perfectly exemplifying his desire to portray the interconnectedness of all things and places.

Sketch of New York building features — Study of New York buildings

Geometic drawing of river in a valley — drawing of a geometric depiction of river in a valley

Some of Rinden’s work has come back to Iowa and is housed at the Stanley Museum of Art. His collection here at Special Collections & Archives contains 25 sketchbooks that include his blueprints for paintings, many sketches and life studies, plans for his renovations, and poetry. A common factor with all of these is his connection to Iowa and its landscapes. His collection will resonate with anyone who feels a connection to their homes and those who are moving into a new phase in their lives. His collection speaks to the integral and involuntary connection we have to our origins and invites people to carry their roots with them even as they move out into the world. It asks the question, “What will you bring with you as you enter the world?”

Cover of Subway Seizure poems — Cover of Subway Seizures: Poems

Also included in the collection is a book of his poems titled Subway Seizures: Poems. The poems are accompanied by sketches, and they showcase the humor and left-handedness of Rinden’s character. His poetry can be seen as a dialogue with his wife Jane, who was a poet herself and an English teacher. Subway Seizures is seen as a “language of love” in which he embraces her love of language. As his friends describe, when coupled with the originality and innovative artwork, his poems reveal satirical elements within his paintings and open new ways of approaching his work.

While Rinden never created art with the specific intent of showcasing it at museums and exhibits, several of his paintings were showcased during his life, and over 20 pieces have been placed in museums since his death in 2009. Rinden was an artist who created out of need to express himself, not desire for acclaim or recognition. However, his work deserves to be shared and perfectly captures the ideas of home and forward progression.

May 10 2022

Memories of a Memogram

Posted on May 10, 2022 by Elizabeth Riordan

The following is written by graduate student worker Emily Schartz

As we get ready for warmer weather and summer vacation, we look longingly at a group of travelers 90 years ago who were preparing to start a 137 day-long worldwide cruise on their own vacation to much warmer places.

This epic vacation is recorded in a book now found in Special Collections & Archives. This book is a bound collection of colorful memograms, created during the Empress of Britain’s Round the World Cruise. The memograms were created while the ship was at sea and distributed to the travelers on board. A bound copy, like this one, could then be purchased at the end of the trip as a souvenir. Read together these memograms create a “pictorial record” of the crew and travelers’ “journey around the world.”

The 1932 cruise featured in this particular book was the 10th annual cruise by Canadian Pacific and the second completed by the Empress of Britain liner. Around 300 cruisers left aboard the ship on Saturday, December 3, 1932 at “noon sharp” and would not finish their cruise until April 19, 1933, when they arrived back at Cherbourg and Southampton. Over the course of their journey, the Empress of Britain would cover 30,000 miles, stopping in 81 ports across 23 countries. Truly a world-wide cruise.

Each memogram is a colorful sheet with information and illustrations for the travelers and they cover a variety of topics. There are maps and itineraries for travelers to use when planning their day-to-day excursions, information about the places they were visiting and their cultures, and posters for ship-wide events, such as a treasure hunt and a Christmas party. The level of detail in the sketches varies from page to page, some are barely more than stick figure cartoons, while others are detailed drawings of specific locations. Many of the memograms within this particular copy show signs of their use. Some are folded as if they were slipped into a pocket or have notes in the margins and sketched out additions to the maps. Some additions are a mystery, such as the bold line added to a map of Palestine helpfully labeled “FISH.”

The memograms are as diverse as the activities the travelers participated in. Listed on the calendar pages are sightseeing excursions, educational lectures, concerts, and dinners with dancing aboard the boat in the evening. There are also pages that depict anecdotes and “remember when” moments from the cruise.

There is a whole page dedicated to bananas from the ship’s time in Ceylon and another page devoted to the “Tropical Fruits of Java” that mentions fruits that definitely don’t grow in Iowa, such as doekoes and mangoesteens.

The Empress of Britain continued her annual cruises until 1939 and eventually ended her career when the liner was sunk in an attack by German forces in 1940 while being used for wartime service as a transport vessel. She certainly left behind a legacy, carrying hundreds of travelers on trips around the globe.

Sources:

By PERCIVAL KNAUTH Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES. “EMPRESS OF BRITAIN REPORTED BOMBED: FORMER CANADIAN PACIFIC LINER REPORTED SUNK BY BERLIN.” New York Times, Oct 27, 1940, pp. 1. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/empress-britain-reported-bombed/docview/105285677/se-2?accountid=14663.

“New Empress of Britain Sails Friday on Maiden Trip.” New York Times, Apr 18, 1956, pp. 62. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/new-empress-britain-sails-friday-on-maiden-trip/docview/113884909/se-2?accountid=14663.

Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES. “BRITISH ANNOUNCE EMPRESS SHIP LOSS: ADMIRALTY FIXES DEATH TOLL AT 45 OUT OF 643 ABOARD CANADIAN PACIFIC LINER TORPEDOES FINISH JOB U-BOAT OVERTAKES BURNING SHIP IN TOW AND COMPLETES TASK STARTED BY BOMBER SHIP ATTACKED THREE TIMES WOMEN AND CHILDREN CALM.” New York Times, Oct 29, 1940, pp. 11. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/british-announce-empress-ship-loss/docview/105415046/se-2?accountid=14663.

“WORLD CRUISE STARTS WITH NOTABLES TODAY: EARL OF CADOGAN AND PRINCESS DE LIGNE AMONG PASSENGERS WHOM SHAW WILL JOIN LATER.” New York Times, Dec 03, 1932, pp. 14. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/world-cruise-starts-with-notables-today/docview/99789304/se-2?accountid=14663.

Apr 28 2022

Art From Tragedy: Mauricio Lasansky’s The Nazi Drawings

Posted on April 28, 2022April 28, 2022 by Elizabeth Riordan

The following is written by Academic Outreach Coordinator Kathryn Reuter

Mauricio Lasanky was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1914 to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. Lasansky showed artistic skill from a young age — printmaking was his preferred medium, a choice perhaps influenced by his father, who worked as a printer of banknote engravings. After completing high school, Lasansky studied printmaking at the Superior School of Fine Arts and after just three years, was named director of the Free School of Fine Arts in Cordoba, Argentina. His work caught the attention of Henry Francis Taylor, who was then director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Taylor recommended Lasansky for a Guggenheim Fellowship, a distinction Lasansky was awarded in 1943—with a renewal in 1944. This fellowship allowed Lasansky to travel to New York City, where he worked at the famed printmaking workshop Atelier 17 and, over the course of two years, reportedly studied every. single. print. of the old masters in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Drawings and Prints (an estimated 150,000 works!).

In 1944, as Lasansky’s Guggenheim Fellowship was coming to a close, University of Iowa president Virgil Hancher was looking for a Printmaker in Residence as part of the development of the University Art Department. Mauricio Lasansky accepted the position and while he initially planned on being in Iowa City for “just a year”, Lasansky taught at the University for forty years and established one of the most respected printmaking workshops in the country. By all accounts Lasansky was an exceptionally dedicated teacher; in his farewell letter to the director of the University Art Department in 1984, he wrote:

“Somehow I will miss teaching since I don’t recall one day in my teaching one-to-one that was not enjoyable. For that I am grateful to the University, the Art Department, and above all to my students, who are scattered all over the world as you know. I can honestly say that I did the best I could. Was it good enough? Time will say.”

-Letter to the Director of School of Art & Art History. Oct. 31, 1984 file: Lasansky, Mauricio. Vita and Farewell Correspondence, 1983-1984 collection: Iowa Print Group Records

Mauricio Lasanasky with art students in the studio in 1950s, Frederick W. Kent Collection

Throughout his time teaching, Lasansky continued to earn accolades for his own work – in fact, in 1961, Time magazine called him “the nation’s most influential printmaker”.

Because of his skill and success as a printmaker, it is somewhat surprising that Lasansky’s most famous works are a suite of drawings. The Nazi Drawings — a set off 33 portraits of Nazis, other perpetrators of the Holocaust, and bystanders — are haunting depictions of the disgust and pain that Lasansky felt about the Holocaust and atrocities of World War II. Created over a period of five years, the drawings are made primarily with pencil on paper, with some treatments of turpentine, earth colors, and collaged newspaper. With simple materials, Lasansky was able to conjure a thick layer of horror and tragedy onto paper. The drawings vary in size: a few measure about two feet in height, but the majority are around five feet—and the largest is almost seven feet tall. The scale of these works makes them feel unescapable, they violently confront the viewer with deeply dark depictions of humanity. To see a grotesque image as a sketch on a page is one thing, but these large drawings force us to see the figures as the same size as us. They are fully disturbing.

Although the end of World War II and the liberation of concentration camps occurred in 1945, Lasansky would not begin work on his drawings until 1961. This gap in time is because, like many people around the world, he did not fully know the extent of the tragedy until decades after the war. Immediately following the war, media attention on the Holocaust was minimal, and it was only years later that stories of the persecution and genocide of Jewish people and other groups were introduced into wider public consciousness.

As an example, one of the most famous works of literature to come out of the Holocaust, Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, would not be published in Amsterdam until 1947 – and only after great effort by her father Otto Frank. As a post by the Anne Frank House explains, “It was not easy to find a publisher so soon after the war, because most people wanted to look to the future.” Similarly, an English translation of the book for publication in the United States was turned down by 10 publishers before Doubleday Publishers agreed to publish the translation in 1952. The diary is undoubtedly a vital piece of history, but the writings are about Anne’s quiet life in hiding — the reality of genocide and the horrors of labor and death camps were not included in the published volume. The climate of the 1950s was heavy with post-war optimism and American society at large was saturated with a culture of positivity; most people preferred not to grapple with the tragedy and grief of the Holocaust.

For many, full recognition of the horrors of the Holocaust was spurred by the widely publicized 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, a German Nazi officer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was responsible for the logistical planning of genocide and escaped capture at the end of the war. In 1960, Nazi hunters found Eichmann living in Argentina and brought him to Israel to stand trial for 15 criminal charges. This trial was broadcast around the world, from April to October of 1961, and people watched on their televisions as over 90 Holocaust survivors gave testimony about the horrors of the Holocaust and the brutality of the Nazis. There had never before been this level of exposure for Holocaust survivors and the terrible truth of their experiences. During the Nuremberg Trials, for example, only 3 Holocaust survivors gave testimony because the prosecution decided to rely on documentary evidence in building their case. The Eichmann trial was widely followed by the media and exposed many people, including Mauricio Lasansky, to the truth about the horrors of the Holocaust.

In The Nazi Drawings, Lasansky was putting his rage and grief onto paper. In a biographical essay, scholar Alan Fern summarizes:

“Both the formal and the iconographic development of Lasansky’s work reached a climax in The Nazi Drawings of 1961-1966. For Lasansky, this was both an artistic watershed and an emotional catharsis, during which he turned his major creative energies away from the print to give physical embodiment to his seething reaction against the Nazi holocaust. He saw the unleashing of bestiality in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s as a brutal attack on man’s dignity, and felt it carried the potential seeds of man’s self-destruction.”

– “The Prints of Mauricio Lasansky” by Alan Fern (page 17) in Lasansky: Printmaker John Thein, Phillip Lasansky – University of Iowa Press 1975

Detail of no. 21 from Lasansky's Nazi Drawings

Even with greater public awareness of the Holocaust, The Nazi Drawings were difficult for many to stomach. In 1967 Time magazine noted that the works were on display at the Whitney Museum and called them “as unsettling a set of drawings as any museum has shown in years” and reported “the impact of the drawings is so devastating that the Chicago Institute of Art declined to show them altogether…” With just pencil and paper, Lansky managed to illustrate intensely uncomfortable images and convey the immense tragedy of the Holocaust. The Nazi Drawings are an example of the power of art as process – they were a way for Lasansky to lance the wound and pour out the heavy emotions he felt. The drawings have also endured as an example of the power of art to unsettle viewers; to provoke emotional reactions from an audience. No one would venture to call these drawings beautiful, but there is no mistaking their power.

The entire set of drawings are currently on display for the first time in over 15 years at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. This exhibit, on display until June 26th, pairs the drawings with archival media of the Eichmann trials as well as contemporary prints by Lasansky.

Undoubtedly significant to the rise of printmaking in the United States, Mauricio Lasansky’s legacy is also deeply imprinted on Iowa City. The tradition of excellence he established continues in the University of Iowa’s printmaking program, and members of Laskansky’s family run The Lasansky Corporation Gallery on Washington Street in downtown Iowa City.

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As another way of remembering this difficult time in history, on April 29th, 2022 the University of Iowa will plant a new tree on the Pentacrest: a sapling propagated from the old chestnut tree that grew behind the Amsterdam annex where Anne Frank and her family hid during WWII. Learn more about the event here.

Books in Special Collections:

– The Nazi Drawings / by Mauricio Lasansky FOLIO NE539.L3 N3 1976

– Lasansky, Printmaker FOLIO NE594.L3 T44

Material in University Archives:

– Papers of Mauricio Lasansky University Archives RG 99.0030

– Iowa Print Group Records RG 06.0007.002

– Howard N. Sokol Papers (RG 99.0017) Subject Files – L. Lasansky, The Nazi Drawings 1972.

Box 3.

View more digitized photos of Lasansky (from the University Archives) as well as digitized prints (from the collection of the Stanley Museum of Art) at the Iowa Digital Library

Also be sure to check out Lasansky’s collection at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

Apr 12 2022

Decolonizing the Kitchen: Sean Sherman

Posted on April 12, 2022April 12, 2022 by Elizabeth Riordan

The following is written by Olson Graduate Research Assistant Matrice Young

Sean Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, was born in 1974 and spent the early days of his childhood on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Much of his childhood was spent on his family’s ranch, playing out on the edge of the Badlands. Coyotes, rattlesnakes, jackrabbits, mallards, sandhill cranes, prairie dogs and more were a common populace of the area. At seven, Sherman was hunting animals like grouse and pronghorn antelope, while also helping gather chokeberries, and dug up wild turnips and timpsula. Along with his cousins he pitched in to help around the family farm, moving cattle, tracking horses, and mending fences.

Sherman and his cousin Justin on Pine Ridge in 1982, from *The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen*

However, his childhood wasn’t all work. Much of it was spent immersed in his culture: attending powwows, Sun Dances, holiday parades, and family gatherings. Even in school, the Lakota-language class they had was just as important as their English, math, and social studies classes. While he was close to his culture, Sherman remarks that the land around them wasn’t the best “growing area,” supporting mostly cactus and desert plants.

In an interview with American food journalist Francis Lam, Sherman states that “We didn’t have a lot of the traditional foods growing up; we definitely had a lot of commodity foods. … But looking backwards as a chef much later in life, I realized there should’ve been a lot more knowledge of the traditional foods of the Lakota. That’s what set me off on the path; I was trying to figure out the food of my own heritage.”

After his parents separated, Sherman, his sister, and his mother moved to Spearfish, South Dakota so his mother could pursue her college degree. He and his sister put food on the table for the family as their mother was now a single parent working two jobs and busy with school. During this time of his life, chef-hood crept closer into his life, into his future.

At 13, he bussed tables and prepped food at Sluice, a restaurant nearby. The next summer he worked at the Sylvan Lake resort as the youngest on staff, working on the grill, where the college-age kids experimented with meats, switching from steaks to rattlesnake and beaver. Sherman remarks “I knew then that I loved this work.”

Sherman’s culture has always been a large part of his life, and as such, so has Indigenous food. When Sherman’s grandfather was a child, he was one of the first Native American children to attend a mission school on their reservation. The forced assimilation that started during the 19th century eliminated a lot of Native American food culture across the country, and that was no exception for Sherman’s family. Despite this experience, Sherman’s grandfather still maintained parts of his tribe’s food culture, becoming one Sherman’s first teacher. He passed when Sherman was 18, leaving the budding chef with a plethora of unanswered questions, both in general and about the culture of their food.

After spending his early 20s in Minneapolis as a sous chef and becoming an executive chef at La Bodega in 2000, Sherman decided he wanted to create a Lakota cookbook. Finding the research on plants and game native to the Great Plains severely lacking, Sherman devised his own research plan to study ethnobotany. He spent time talking to elders and looking at how Native Americans in other parts of the country had their own food systems and pieced together what commonality they shared.

At 29 he moved to San Francisco, Nayarit in Mexico. This region was colonized by Europeans later than other areas, leaving much of the native plants and foods intact. He found the culture there very similar to his own back home in the Midwest.

Sherman states in his introduction to his book The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, “In an Epiphany, I tasted how food weaves people together, connects families through generations, is a life force of identity and social structure. After seeing how the Huicholes [the native individuals in the area] held on to so much of their pre-European culture through artwork and food, I recognized that I wanted to know my own food heritage. What did my ancestors eat before the Europeans arrived on our lands?”

Sherman spent a lot of time reading cookbooks, magazines, research publications, along with traveling across the US to visit other Indigenous Americans to learn more about their food cultures. He states that one of the biggest parts of Native American cuisine was the method of preserving their food, as during the summer they were preparing for the next winter. He relied on a food dehydrator and experimented with drying by wood fires or using the sun. His research is continuous, but in 2014 he was able to put his work into fruition by creating the organization The Sioux Chef. He describes The Sioux Chef as “a mission-driven enterprise of Indigenous team members.” It includes the Tatanka Food Truck which is a full-service catering company, Indigenous Food Labs, an Indigenous kitchen and training center, and Sherman’s restaurant: Owamni.

Bison steak with carrots — Owamni Bison Entrée, image by John Yuccas Photography

Owamni was started by Sherman and his wife Dana Thompson in Minneapolis, MN in July of 2021. Thee restaurant is run by an over 80% Indigenous staff. Many individuals on the Owamni team and in the community find the restaurant to be more like a community service than a regular restaurant, according to Thompson. Even the name of the restaurant is integral to the communal history and the mission of the restaurant.

Owamni was named after a map of the Eastern Sioux that Thompson’s grandfather and his best friend made. Without this map, many of the original names of the natural landmarks before colonization would’ve been lost. Owamni sits on an area which used to be full of waterfalls with sacred islands to the Dakota and Anishinaabe people.

Owamni, like the organization The Sioux Chef, is dedicated to de-colonizing food. Thompson, who is of Dakota ancestry has stated that “These foods were systematically removed by forced assimilation and genocide and the culture was almost erased. The fact that we have these foods here is an act of resistance itself.”

The name origin of Owamni, the food that they serve, and The Sioux Chef entirely are part of Sherman’s mission to engage the community in conversations about race, equity, sustainability, and the history of Indigenous Americans. To teach a history that has often been left out and erased.

Sherman states “I’ll never learn everything about Indigenous foods, but we’re setting up structures and systems to be able to preserve it and maintain it for the following generations … We envision eventually being able to drive across the U.S. or anywhere in North America and having the option of Indigenous food businesses: to be able to stop there and to experience the immense diversity and culture and language and stories and food.”

In our library here at University of Iowa, we have Sean Sherman’s book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, so, if you’d like to learn more about Sherman, his journey, different Indigenous foods and their importance, and want to learn to cook some of his recipes yourself, this book is worth a read!

SOURCES:

Meet the Sioux Chef

The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen

The ‘Sioux Chef’ Is Putting Pre-Colonization Food Back On The Menu

One of Minneapolis’ Newest, Hottest Restaurants Is Also One of the Country’s Most Important

‘Our whole mission is Indigenous education and Indigenous food access’: A Q&A with owners of Owamni by The Sioux Chef

How this Minneapolis chef is reintroducing Native American cuisine to the world

Further interviews/talks with Sean Sherman:

Sean Sherman: What Can We Learn From Indigenous Culinary Traditions?

Exploring indigenous kitchens of North America with Sean Sherman

Sean Sherman – Author of The Souix Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen LIVE Q&A at R-Future 2021

Native Minnesota podcast: Revitalizing Indigenous food with Sean Sherman