Now Searchable: Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. Collection

by Dana Miller The Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. Collection is now searchable in our Manuscript Collections Database! Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. (born 1948) is an American letterpress printer, papermaker, educator, and social activist. He established the first iteration of his imprint, Idiot Press, in the 1980s, with several additional iterations in the years following: Kennedy […]

Happy birthday, Gwendolyn Brooks!

by Dana Miller Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas. She is often recognized for her time as Poet Laureate of Illinois (1968-2000) and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1985-1986), and for being the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize in any category (1950). While many […]

Stuart David and Sophia Belzer Engstrand Collection

By Nicole Connell The Stuart David and Sophia Belzer Engstrand Collection has been processed and cataloged, and is now open to researchers at RBML! Stuart David Engstrand (1904-1955) was a best-selling author, publishing primarily in the 1940s. His works include Beyond the Forest, A Husband in the House, The Invaders, More Deaths Than One, The […]

Collection Highlights: The Story of Mable Schamp (1912-1951)

by Jonathan Puckett The Schamp-Levin Collection contains the papers of Mable Schamp and her second husband, Meyer Levin. Mable Hall Schamp (1912-1951) grew up in poverty but earned a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1936, served as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, worked on male contraceptives, battled mental illness, and […]

Digging the Depths of The American Songbag

by Stephen Griffith Editor’s Note: Writer and musician Stephen Griffith (http://stephengriffith.com/) is working on several projects relating to Carl Sandburg’s The American Songbag (1927). A recent visitor to the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, he is turning over everything he can find about Sandburg’s ground-breaking collection of American folk songs. However, with many of his […]

Rare Book & Manuscript Madness: Archival Division

ARCHIVAL: Carl Sandburg – Stereograph (ELIMINATED IN ROUND 1) Before becoming a well known poet and author, Carl Sandburg spent four years selling stereographs from door to door.  Stereographs use two almost identical photographs to create a three-dimensional image when viewed through a stereoscope. The Keystone View Company produced this stereograph of the Union Stock […]