On May 11, 2021, the fifth episode of our ExhiBits series welcomed teacher, author, politician, and activist Ruth Scott. Dr. Scott’s papers were featured in the exhibition, We Want More and We Will Have It: Women Running Rochester in 2020. She was joined by Autumn Haag, the Assistant Director of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation to talk about her work and her papers. The conversation started with a discussion about her papers and how they came to be collected and donated. Dr.

On April 13, 2021, episode four of our ExhiBits series welcomed Rochester artist Brittany Williams.  Brittany was commissioned to paint three murals on paper for the exhibition, We Want More and We Will Have It: Women Running Rochester in 2020. Brittany was joined by Miranda Mims, the Joseph N. Lambert and Harold B. Schleifer Director of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation to talk about her work and her experiences as a local artist, and to give some insights into the three pieces she painted, which are now part of RBSCP’s permanent collection.  

Rochesterians tend, historically, to be a philanthropic group. One of the earliest organizations, founded in 1822 nearly simultaneously with the settlement of the community was the Rochester Female Charitable Society, whose papers are housed in the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation [RBSCP]. Eleven years following its founding, Elizabeth Tinker Sibley [1815-1903] arrived in Rochester from North Adams, Massachusetts, joining her fate with the fortunes of her entrepreneur husband, Hiram.

On January 12, 2021, we launched our new virtual series, “ExhiBits,” which has allowed us opportunities to take short but informative dives into aspects of our newest digital exhibition, “We Want More and We Will Have It: Women Running Rochester.” Each ExhiBit will take place on the second Tuesday of the month, from 3:30-4:00 pm EST (LIVE), and will be recorded and shared via this blog afterward.

Immigration is intricately woven into the histories of major American cities like Buenos Aires, São Paulo, New York City, San Francisco, and Toronto. Immigration is also a central feature to Rochester’s history. In Professor Molly Ball’s Fall 2018 HIS252: Immigration in the Americas course, students explored immigrant experiences across the American continent between 1860 and 1960.

For our "Gender and Sexuality in Social Protests and Film" class, we had to form collective groups on a topic we are passionate about. My group and I decided to do research at RBSCP on Rochester’s unknown women. There are so many important women who made differences in our society, whose contributions have been forgotten, so in this series of five blogs you will learn a bit more about some of these women and how they impacted each one of the members of this collective.

On Friday, September 7, Frederick Douglass’ personal copy of The Works of Robert Burns undertook a historic trip back to the town where it may have been purchased. The Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation lent the book to the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park in Massachusetts to be put on display with The Seraph, an 1836 hymnal also owned by Douglass.

The excitement that comes from the acquisition of an exciting new manuscript can be tempered by the realization that its creator had less than perfect penmanship. Even archivists who work with material written in a wide range of hands can find it difficult to read a letter in cursive. Many factors come into play; the creator’s penmanship, the size of the paper and text, and the type of ink used. Our new letter written by Rose O’Neal Greenhow is a wonderful example of a letter that benefits greatly from transcription.

In celebration of International Archives Week, we are delighted to highlight the Chicago Dzviti Photograph Collection. In 2018, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP) at the University of Rochester received a notable collection demonstrating the remarkable photographic works of Chicago Dzviti, who documented Zimbabwean life and culture in the 1990s. RBSCP is humbled to be the responsible repository of Dzviti’s photographic archive.

Hello, and thank you for reading this blog!  For my film class, "Gender and Sexuality in Social Protests and Film," we had to form collective groups on a topic we are passionate about.  My group and I decided to do research at the RBSCP about Rochester’s unknown women. There are so many important women who made differences in our society, whose contributions have been forgotten, so this is one in a series of five blog posts where you will learn a bit more about some of these women and how they impacted each one of the members of this collective.