CLA: IHRC Updates

This is the theme of 2009 Friends Annual Meeting which will be held Sunday, November 8, 2009. The meeting will focus on the importance of the census, and in particular its value for documenting ethnic communities. For additional information see http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/pdfs/Friends2009savethisdate.pdf

Save this date: Sunday, November 8, 2009 for the 32nd Annual Meeting of Friends of the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota between 4:30-7 p.m. The event will begin with some social time and a cash wine bar. There will be displays about the 2010 census of U.S. population. The meal will include hors d'oeuvres and a light dinner, assorted desserts and beverages. The annual meeting will consist of brief reports on the year's activities, followed by our speaker, J. H. ("Jay") Fonkert, board-certified genealogist and president of the Minnesota Genealogical Society who will talk on "Role of the Census in Telling Immigrant Stories," and then there will be time for questions & answers. It will be held in the Atrium and room 120, Elmer L. Andersen Library, U of M West Bank Campus (directions and parking, see www1.umn.edu/twincities/maps/EALib/. The cost is $25 per person. For further information or tickets contact Jeanette Pafko at 952-831-1440 or e-mail her at pafkova@aol.com. Open to everyone; reservations are required. Please share this notice with others who may be interested in attending. For additional information see: http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/pdfs/Friends2009savethisdate.pdf

Posted by nels2242 at 3:18 PM | Permalink

IHRC Program Director Haven Hawley has been awarded a six-week professional development leave to work on a book-length manuscript titled "Bodice Rippers to Printing Grippers," focusing on printing technologies related to marginalized American publishers in the 19th century.

Hawley's research includes artifact analysis and the techniques of printers in the United States from the colonial period to the present. The College of Liberal Arts awarded her professional development leave from August 17 to September 25, 2009.

The title of her manuscript takes its name from linkages she has found between marks left by certain printing presses on examples of sensational fiction and street publications. Her previous work on printing grippers has contributed to the field of analytical bibliography by helping historians to trace the shop practices of printers, even when no business records documenting their work had survived.

She also is writing an article-length manuscript titled "Straw Into Gold: Yellow-Wrappered Books as Technologies of Color and Consumption." That article suggests that technological choice, economic efficiency and visual appeal helped to drive the prevalence of yellow wrappers among books sold by street vendors in antebellum America.

Since 2003, Hawley has demonstrated historical printing techniques and helped teach descriptive bibliography at Rare Book School, University of Virginia. In 2007, she curated an exhibition on American printing technologies at the Atlanta History Center (Atlanta, GA).

She received her PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2005.

Posted by Elizabeth Hawley at 3:02 PM | Permalink