Rare Books
The combustion cycle
Image not available
You might also be interested in
Image not available
Above the human nerve domain
Rare Books
"The domain of poet Will Alexander's nervy curiosity ranges from the icy Himalayas, to African savannahs, from physics, astronomy, and music, to alchemy, philosophy, and painting. Orishas, angels and ghosts all sing to this poet, instructing him in their art of verbal flight. This is a poet whose lexicon, a 'glossary of vertigo,' might be culled from the complete holdings of a reconstituted Alexandrian library endowed for the next millenium"--Harryette Mullen. Book Jacket.
653854
Image not available
Across the continent
Rare Books
Probably the first African-American domestic travel book of the 20th century which recounts a cross-country railroad trip by five Virginia Black clergymen and lay-leaders to attend a Presbyterian assembly in Los Angeles.
645555
Image not available
The Sri Lankan loxodrome
Rare Books
"In navigation a loxodrome, or rhumb line, is a line that crosses all meridians at the same angle, maintaining a constant compass direction, a path of constant bearing. The Sri Lankan Loxodrome threads this theme through a series of ecstatic monologues filled with the poet's vast imaginary and intellectual wanderings, and touched by the sufferings of his ongoing battle with cancer. The book culminates in the title poem, which follows a lone Sri Lankan sailor who beheads sea snakes as an ongoing meditation while sailing the expanse of the Indian Ocean. Along the way the traveler meets various African communities as he journeys eastward from Madagascar to Sri Lanka.In lush mesmeric language filled with the spirit of Aime Cesaire and Sun Ra, Will Alexander maps an epic voyage unlike any other in contemporary American poetry."--Page [4] of cover.
653780
Image not available
W. Sherman Savage collection
Manuscripts
The papers concern Savage's writing and research on African American history, especially in the California and trans-Mississippi West, his retirement from Lincoln University in 1960 and his subsequent teaching at Cal State LA. There is also material about his efforts to secure a publisher for his major study, Blacks in the West. The papers in this collection represent only the latter portion of Savage's career as an historian and educator. Unfortunately, according to Savage himself, his earlier papers were destroyed by a tenant who was leasing the Savages' home after his retirement from Lincoln University. Notable items include correspondence in 1969 and 1970 between Sherman Savage and various representatives of the University of Nebraska's educational television station in the course of developing a television series on African-Americans in the West; multiple drafts of Sherman Savage's major publication, Blacks in the West.
mssSavage
Image not available
W. Sherman Savage Collection
Manuscripts
The papers concern Savage's writing and research on African American history, especially in the California and trans-Mississippi West, his retirement from Lincoln University in 1960 and his subsequent teaching at Cal State LA. There is also material about his efforts to secure a publisher for his major study, Blacks in the West. The papers in this collection represent only the latter portion of Savage's career as an historian and educator. Unfortunately, according to Savage himself, his earlier papers were destroyed by a tenant who was leasing the Savages' home after his retirement from Lincoln University (carbon copy of letter to Dr. Michael R. Winston, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, July 14, 1974, Box 7, folder 10). Some notable items include correspondence in 1969 and 1970 between Sherman Savage and various representatives of the University of Nebraska's educational television station in the course of developing a television series on African-Americans in the West (see Savage to Larry Long, Box 6, folder 53 and University of Nebraska, University Television to Sherman Savage, Box 7, folder 42); multiple drafts of Sherman Savage's major publication, Blacks in the West (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), Boxes 1 through 3. Note: Many of the materials are in rather poor physical condition because of the deteriorating paper upon which the letters or manuscripts were produced or because of previous circumstances of storage.
mssSavage collection
Image not available
Entertainment
Visual Materials
The Entertainment subseries comprises sheet music published in the United States between 1900 and 1998, with the bulk of the materials dated between 1900 and 1979. This subseries covers a broad range of subject areas: creators (composers, directors, lyricists, producers, and publishers)and performers, fetes (carnivals, circuses, expositions, and fairs), cartoon and comic book characters, and dances (cake walks, the Charleston, marches, polkas, quadrilles, shuffles, two-steps, and waltzes). Also found within the subseries are scores about musical instruments (brass, percussion, string, and wind), music stores, patriotism (domestic and foreign), minstrels, musical productions (theatrical and concert), and scores published outside of the United States. A broad representation of people from African, Asian, European, Hawaiian, Hispanic, and Native American backgrounds appears throughout. Notably, a sizable portion of the collection includes scores with vernacular and imagery recognized as stereotypical or offensive today; these include mention of racially prevalent stereotypes, such as Blackface. Prominent early twentieth-century performers in this subseries include George Walker and Bert Williams (Williams and Walker, Co.), two of the most renowned African American minstrels of the early 1900s; Ada Overton Walker; Eddie Leonard, one of the most prominent minstrels of his era; Sherman Houston Dudley, creator of the first Black operated vaudeville circuit; and Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones. Also included are Eva Tanguay, the first performer to achieve national mass-media celebrity; Helen Hayes, the first woman to reach EGOT status (winner of an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony); and Eddie Cantor. Other performers appearing within this subseries are Jean Constant Havez, a Hispanic American lyricist, screenwriter, and vaudevillian; Kitty Doner, one of the foremost male impersonators of the early twentieth century; Karyl Norman, one of the foremost female impersonators of the early twentieth century; and Al Jolson, the first openly Jewish American performer, best known for his starring role in the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927). Prominent performers from the 1920s moving forward include Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (Stepin Fetchit), the first African American actor to receive a featured screen credit in a film, In Old Kentucky (1927); Julius Lorenzo Cobb Bledsoe, the first African American opera singer and the first African American to obtain regular employment on Broadway; Rudy Vallée, the first male singer to rise from local radio broadcasts to national popularity as a crooner; Fannie Brice; and Ethel Merman. Other performers include Native American jazz singer Mildred Bailey (Queen of Swing), Cab Calloway, Hoagy Carmichael, Ethel Waters, the Supremes, and many others. Prominent composers, directors, lyricists, producers, and publishers in this subseries include composer Queen Liliuokalani, the last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom (1891-1893) and composer; Harry von Tilzer, a prominent Tin Pan Alley songwriter at the turn of the twentieth century; Florenze Ziegfeld, Jr.; W.C. Handy, one of the first song writers in the United States to publish blues music; E.T. Paull, noted composer, arranger, and sheet music publisher known for his colorfully lithographed sheet music; May Frances Aufderheide; Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle who together wrote Shuffle Along (1921), one of the first Broadway musicals written and directed by African Americans. Other notable creators mentioned are Dai-Keong Lee, an Asian American composer whose Symphony No. 2 was runner-up for the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Music; Shepard N. Edmonds, composer, lyricist, and founder of the Attucks Music Publishing Company (1904), the first African American music publishing company in the United States. Also found within this subseries are composers and lyricists Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, George M. Cohan, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and theatrical producer, and the Shubert brothers, prominent producers and theatre owners. To note are scores written by Dorothy Fields, librettist and lyricist, and one of the first successful Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood female songwriters; Carrie Minetta Jacobs-Bond, the first woman to sell one million copies of a song; and Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand (1946-2016), who composed Blue Night from Michael Todd's Peep Show (1950). Throughout the subseries are scores from notable productions , including Ain't Misbehavin; Cats; the Cotton Club Parade; Grease; the Greenwich Village Follies; Hellzapoppin'; the Passing Show; Phantom of the Opera; Porgy and Bess; Ragtime; West Side Story; the Wizard of Oz; and Ziegfeld's Follies.
priJLC_SMUS