Blogging@NYPL

Where am I going with this recent riff on women attaining modernity in dress? I’d like to know what other women think about the long road to dress reform. The issue of fashion is ours to discuss, and there are still some ambiguities in where we are heading. Feminine pleasure in dresses is still strong, and rightfully so. Women deserve all the clothing options they desire. What matters, however, is that their choices are healthy ones. I make no secret of my disdain for stiletto heels. It doesn’t matter how “sexy” a woman looks in them—they still can seriously maim the foot and harm one’s posture.

What does emerge from investigation of the 20s and 30s is how women enjoyed the freedoms they now possessed: to wear shorter skirts, shed a corset, bob their hair, and don a realistic swimsuit. The pursuit of women’s rights in Europe and America played a key role in shaping dress reform. A solid academic study, Reforming women’s fashion, 1850-1920: politics, health and art, gives supporting evidence for these social changes.

What do scholars say about current dress reform? Fashion designers now employ novel ways of using corsets. Liberating ourselves from imposed fashions, like the constricting corsets and girdles of earlier decades means we can reinvestigate those items as new fashion statements. Irony has become part of our fashion birthright, I guess.

p.s. Hail to Ralph Lauren for bankrolling the conservation and restoration of the original flag that hung over Fort McHenry in 1812 and prompted the creation of our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." He did this to the tune of $13 million!

And then there was the idealization of woman at the hands of the artist. Women had some discretion over their choice of dress in earlier centuries, following fashion when they could. But masculine expectations would intervene from time to time, especially when artists got involved. Fashion as art became a means of turning a woman into yet another decorative object, as seen with the Pre-Raphaelites and the men of the Aesthetic Movement.

The perspective of scholarship allows one a look at the larger social context. Radu Stern’s Against fashion: clothing as art, 1850-1930, illuminates the couturier’s artistic impulse in dressmaking as a means of following the changing modern world. Voluptuous femininity was a comforting ideal until the Art Deco age. Perhaps the early modern couturiers understood that artful dressing—independent of the male artist, or in spite of him—could allow the woman in be in control. By the end of the twentieth century, fashion as art permitted women to grasp that control. Just look at the images in Artwear: fashion and anti-fashion to see the progress that was eventually made.

On the day-to-day level, we enjoy purchasing artfully-made clothing, garments that proclaim fashion as art, to make our own personal statements. I notice that holiday markets and major crafts fairs usually have booths with such garments. Yet we don’t really see this kind of clothing worn all the time by individuals, however. Is that because it would be just a little too much? What do you think?

I'm so pleased to be able to tell you, at last, all about a project that has been consuming me this fall at NYPL. This amazing project that I've been lucky enough to work on is a series of small documentaries following five talented local artists as they gather inspiration for their work at the New York Public Library. It's co-produced by Grace Bonney of leading design site Design*Sponge and my Library colleagues in the Digital Experience Group. The first episode is now out, and you can watch here:

I'll continue to post news about the series here, so stay tuned. You can also visit the Design by the Book homepage for more information, including links to each artist's site.

You've probably heard it by now: the first of the baby boomers started turning 60 in 2006. Born between 1946-1964 in the prosperous post-war U.S., they were preceded by the Silent Generation, and the Greatest Generation before that. Every day thousands of boomers throughout the country undergo a modern rite of passage--they get their AARP invitations in the mail upon turning 50.

Don't despair if you are a Boomer, or a Silent, or a Greatest--the public library is with you every step of the way. Chances are you grew up going to your public library. But people have changed; they take advantage of the myriad options now available for getting information and spending leisure time. And libraries have changed; the passing of the card catalog since the 1980s has left some bereft of a lifelong friend. Libraries throughout the U.S. constantly retool to meet the needs of library users and, as librarians, we welcome the 50+ population, in its millions of manifestations, through our physical and virtual doors.

Libraries for the Future, a national nonprofit organization based in New York, has been partnering with public libraries throughout the country since 1992 to "respond creatively to the changing needs and opportunities of their communities." In 2006 they began the Lifelong Access Libraries Initiative to support libraries eager to enhance their services to the active older adult. The New York Public Library has responded to the generous invitation to ratchet up their knowledge and skills to improve libraries for the 50+ population.

As a librarian who has benefited from LFF's training by participating in their 2007 Lifelong Access Institute, I'm starting this blog--my first--to share what we are doing at The New York Public Library, plus related items of interest. Feel free to comment, suggest, nudge, blather, or whatever, as the spirit moves you.

Disturbing news from the NY Daily News this morning: Diabetes takes grim toll on New York. "New Yorkers are dying from diabetes at an alarming rate despite city efforts to stem the disease." Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden "blamed bad habits, like overeating, not exercising and smoking as major culprits, as well as a failure to control cholesterol and blood pressure."

"Diana Berger, a Brooklyn diabetic and city expert on the subject, said one of the biggest obstacles to controlling diabetes is stress."

How, with the stress of the holiday season rapidly approaching, and the many meals involved in our celebrations, do we begin to turn this news around?  read more »

“In olden days, a glimpse of stocking,
Was considered something quite shocking….”

Here’s evidence that sex was used to sell fashions back as early as 1915. In spending so much research time on the clothing of the Art Deco era, I did take notice of what was transpiring in the preceding decades. Voluminous garments were cut to suggest a very feminine shape. The Victorian and Edwardian fashion aesthetic favored the full figured, voluptuous woman, yet while her body was draped in layers of cloth, that innate eroticism was muted.
Yet ready to blaze forth at the right command of the canny couturier or dressmaker. The best study on the psychological aspect of women’s dress to date is still Valerie Steele’s Fashion and eroticism: ideals of feminine beauty from the Victorian era to the Jazz Age. To better understand the weight of historical repression that the modern woman had to shed, look in CATNYP under the subject heading Sex Symbolism.

Is it any wonder that today’s women prize their individual dress rights? After acquiring metal knees, I decided to make pants my preferred fashion choice. Thank heavens that the right to wear pants had ceased to be an issue long ago.

The Tottenville Branch will be having a book discussion of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert this coming Monday, November 17 at 7:00PM. Come join us! We ask only that you have read the book to take part in the discussion.

The Tottenville Branch is located at 7430 Amboy Road, Staten Island, NY 10307, and the phone number is 718-984-0945.

We will be discussing The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd on December 15.

Visit the Book Discussion Groups page for a full list of book titles, dates and locations.

These hosiery ads take a slightly different approach. Here, the modish subject is still involved with a mischievous small animal, but now she is engaged in braving the elements. What does this say about the product being advertised? Yes, their stockings are reliable; they’ll hold up in the most difficult of conditions! Selling intimate apparel in early twentieth century America required practical social imperatives. In a time when stockings had to be moved from luxury to necessary goods, consumers needed to be convinced. 1921 is still a long way from the time of Victoria’s Secret.

But the story of women’s liberation could never have happened without the development of undergarments, including stockings, which allowed the wearer more physical freedom. The 1920s woman is the start of the march towards the feminine cigarette slogan coined in the 1970s: “you’ve come a long way, baby.” Fashion as a social force is the subject of an excellent study, An intimate affair: women, lingerie, and sexuality. And the turn away from the McCallum Company’s type of fashion merchandising to newer imperatives is best documented in Fashion brands: branding style from Armani to Zara.

The Duke Project team -- consisting of Sarah Ziebell (middle), Flordalisa "Lisa" Lopez (right), and myself (left) -- are gearing up for the second concert in the Duke Jazz Series.

For those of you who missed September's show, the wonderfully talented Dafnis Prieto Sextet were featured, filling the Bruno Auditorium with Cuban-infused jazz. We had an excellent turn out for the event -- despite having to compete with presidential debates and pouring rain -- and hope to match the turn out next week with the sounds of Brazilian pianist/flutist/composer Jovino Santos Neto and his Quintet. In addition to the quintet (traveling to NY from Seattle to perform) are special guests Harvey Wainapel and Felipe Salles.

Jovino and his band were in New York during the summer as part of the River to River festivities, and the Duke team caught his set. Jovino and his band mates are excellent musicians and the danceable Brazilian rhythms make the music irresistible.

We were fortunate to include this program in the Third Annual Latin American Cultural Week (LACW), which is a celebration of Latin American arts and artists throughout New York City from November 5 through 21. LACW is a program of PAMAR (Pan American Musical Art Research), founded and directed by Uruguayan pianist Polly Ferman. For more information, visit www.pamar.org.

Please join us for this free, first-come, first-served show on November 21st at the Bruno Walter Auditorium, 111 Amsterdam Ave. @ 65th Street. Doors open at 7:00. If you have any questions, give us a call at (212) 870-1793.

The Duke Project has many outstanding musicians scheduled throughout 2009 -- both as part of the Duke Jazz Series and Duke Jazz Talks -- so please check back often to find out who is performing next at the LPA.

We'll look for you there!

Jovino_Santos_Neto-Duke_Jazz_Series.pdf (110.27 KB)

In looking around for a keepsake to remind me of this historic election for President of the United States, I came across a pin of the Obama Progress poster. I was surprised to learn that the poster was done by a street artist named Shepard Fairey.

It is amazing to see how graffiti artists have come up in the art world, from Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring to Banksy and now Shepard Fairey, who will have his first museum retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

I came across the website ‘Pictorial Americana’ by the Print Division of the Library of Congress, which has presidential campaign images from 1836 to 1908. A number of these images were done by important lithographers, such as: Currier & Ives. Here is one for Abraham Lincoln’s candidacy for the sixteenth president of the United States…

For further information on political campaigns in the United States go to CATNYP, the Libraries online catalog and search ‘Political Campaigns United States’

To learn more: Check out a video discussing New York City’s role in presidential campaigns on the Museum of the City of New York website: Campaigning for President: New York and the American Election

http://discussions.mnhs.org/collections/?p=31

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/atm-objects-200811.html

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/default.htm

If you noticed me at any time during the last few weeks, skulking through the halls of the New York Public Library, I was probably clutching a plump little volume in one hand, wondering when I’d get another chance to read a few more pages. That copy of Dombey and Son was my loyal companion for a long time. Henry James might have derisively called nineteenth-century novels “loose, baggy monsters,” but I certainly appreciated the scope of this book, the sense of time passing, lives changing, characters intersecting on a vast, 900-page canvas. It made me wonder how much more intense the reading experience would have been, as it was originally conceived, in monthly numbers stretching over a year or so. The closest analogy I could come up with were the glory days of Masterpiece Theatre, before the VCR was even invented, when I just had to be home on Sunday night to catch the next episode of “I, Claudius” or “Jewel in the Crown.”

I have had some trouble with Dickens in the past. My initial enthusiasm in starting one of his books usually peters out after the first few hundred pages. Maybe I just start to long for a female character who does not so totally embody the concept of goodness. But, since I’ve been preparing my public presentation on Charles Dickens, I thought I’d try again and chose one of the few novels I’d never read before, Dombey and Son. To my surprise, it’s one of the most thoroughly enjoyable Dickens novels I can remember. Of course, I’m familiar with the phenomenon of talking myself into feeling the way I think I should be feeling, but in this case there are many substantive reasons for my enjoyment—one of which might just be that I came to it at the right moment in my life.  read more »

My colleague Susan Waide put me onto the illustrations you see here and in my next post. They’re all advertising illustrations by M.C. Woodbury, executed between 1920 and 1922, for the McCallum Hosiery Company in Northhampton, Massachusetts. I love them for their period feel, and for what they say about fashion advertising in the U.S. at that time.

We’ve grown so used to lingerie ads that are filled with sexual angst, or at least that’s what I remember from fashion magazines since I was young, and still see today. What strikes me about these two ads is the sweetness portrayed in the imagery. A modish, obviously style-conscious young woman is featured, while one of her stockings is in peril from a precocious bird or kitten. A boudoir setting is implied, but the overall effect is one of whimsy. Such illustrations say a lot about the marketing outlook of advertising and manufacturing companies.

In this case, there’s a charm and an innocence that will eventually get lost in the process of product selling. The advertising staff for McCallum are counting on the feminine delight in a luxury such as a silk stocking. Their slogan appears as a caption, “You just know she wears them.” And so the process begins of linking desire with need.  read more »

What better way to kick off your election night then an evening in the DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room – relax, listen to great new writers introduced by their editors, join us for a glass of wine afterward, all still with plenty of time to catch the election results. The line up begins with Editor Thaddeus Rutkowski (Many Mountains Moving) introducing fiction writer Jon Swan, followed by Levi Rubeck (Washington Square) introducing poet Elisa Gabbert and wrapping up with Michael Vazquez (Bidoun) introducing non fiction writer Anand Balakrishnan. Periodically Speaking showcases NYPL’s great collection of contemporary literary magazines. Lots of librarians have worked on building the collection over the years and for awhile now I've been doing it - lucky me! So - come back (either in person or at www.nypl.org) and check out the vast holdings of literary magazines, poetry titles, small & alternative press materials of all kinds!
Tonight the reading begins at 6:00 pm at The Humanities and Social Sciences Library – 5th Ave and 42nd St.

This certainly is the election of my lifetime. If you’ve already voted today you probably had to wait a while to do so. This morning I’ve been spending time with the Encyclopedia of U.S. campaigns, elections, and electoral behavior. While it was just published in 2008 and is excellent for historical review, so much has changed this election season that I am wondering if an addendum will be published in the near future. I’m looking forward to new studies that will take the innovations used in the 2008 election into account as well as the recent grassroots movements in politics. But for right now, I’m just eager to see who wins.

Writing from the edge of my seat…

It’s Election Day, and history will be made by this evening, once the West Coast has cast its last ballots. American Presidential elections are significant events, with repercussions into almost every aspect of our lives. There were few fashion points to be made with this one, two men slugging it out in suits. But the awesome factor is that one of the candidates is a black man. At one point, it looked like there might have been a woman presidential candidate, but when that collapsed, suddenly the other party came up with a female vice-presidential choice! Regardless of how you feel about these candidates, at least the ticket isn’t all white men as in the past.

No matter what, history will be made today: we either break the color barrier, or the age barrier, along with a glass ceiling. Whatever the outcome of this day, a message has been sent. More people can have dreams, who once figured there were no possibilities for them because of who they were. The old American adage, “you, too, can grow up to become president,” just might fit everyone in this country. Back in the 1960s, there were concerns over a Catholic president, and then one was elected. Later, questions arose if a divorced man could be fit for the office—and then one was elected.

What’s next? Will I live to see a black woman become President?

← A Rich Display of Chrysanthemums (Image from NYPL Digital Gallery)

The chrysanthemum, which "occupies the sovereign position in autumn," has particular pride of place in Japanese culture. The blossoms can be spotted on the Japanese royal crest, in elaborate floral arrangements, at mealtimes as an edible accompaniment, and as an element in Japanese design. And for the next few weeks, chrysanthemums take center stage at the New York Botanical Garden. Until November 16th, visitors to the New York Botanical Garden can take in Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum.

In addition to the impressive flowers themselves--be sure to see the four Imperial styles of chrysanthemum arrangements, including the type pictured above in which each plant produces just a single, brillant blossom--don't neglect to take in an accompanying small exhibition of chrysanthemums in art. Of all of the lovely objects included in this display, I was especially drawn to a number of delicately executed stencils in paper and silk used to decorate textiles.

After admiring these stencils, I returned to the Library and found books of Japanese stencil patterns from the late 19th century (in Stencils of Old Japan and The Book of Delightful and Strange Designs). These patterns remain inspiring and inviting to the eye today, and I'm pondering what I might use these patterns for in the future. To learn more about Japanese stencil work, I'd also recommend Japanese Design through Textile Patterns (which devotes an entire chapter to the chrysanthemum) and Carved Paper: The Art of the Japanese Stencil.

I grew up in a kinder and gentler world (and I’m not that old) where I remember roaming the streets of the various towns I lived in wearing my Halloween costume and ringing the doorbells of strangers for my “Trick or Treat.” I’ve got a particularly warm and fuzzy memory of being a fifth grader when we lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and being dropped off in a posh neighborhood so I could collect great swag from the nice houses there.

Boy, those days are gone! No sane parent would expose their child to the mercies of strangers in these times, and as a result, Halloween has turned into a series of safe, bland events where parties are given and candy collecting is tightly monitored. Instead, over the course of the last decade or so, Halloween has become a holiday that caters to adults more than kids. I think deprivation may lay behind this trend; at heart, we all want to be young again and go get goodies that make our teeth rot and give us sugar shock.

The Library is the place to learn about the historical and contemporary trends to the holiday. Whether it’s tracking the All Soul’s aspect of Halloween, or discerning a postmodern influence, publications abound from the encyclopedic to the pictorial. You can read about the origins of Greenwich Village’s famed event, or treat yourself to an academic survey of the holiday’s development over the centuries.

But, most of all, I want to know if others feel the nostalgia I do, and if they think that there’s something behind the adult-ification of Halloween? Since the old-time American door-to-door Trick or Treat ritual has been replaced by less satisfactory options, are holiday celebrations really that relevant? Or are we merely readjusting to a changing world, and jettisoning something that was never really that germane to our culture?

In addition to the sheep-peeping I did in Michigan earlier this month, I also took in some beautiful tilework made by Detroit's own Pewabic Pottery. As I learned when touring the stunning Guardian Building in downtown Detroit (with its richly glazed Pewabic Pottery ceiling tiles), Pewabic Pottery was founded on Arts and Crafts principles over one hundred years ago, and buildings throughout Detroit (and across the country as well) boast examples of its tiles and mosaics.

← The Detroit Skyline (Image from NYPL Digital Gallery)

Pewabic Pottery remains a prominent creative force in the teaching, exhibition, installation, and craftsmanship of pottery today. Pewabic Pottery's site has plenty of images of its work (click on the Design Studio tab). You can also peruse The Arts and Crafts Movement in Michigan: 1886-1906 and The Pewabic Pottery at the Library if you want to read, learn, and see more. And the National Park Service includes Pewabic Pottery in its recommended Detroit itinerary. As for me, I'm going to head to the 34th Street/Herald Square subway station, which has an installation of tiles from Pewabic Pottery!

For the most part materials at the Milstein Division include print and electronic resources. A particularly unique collection held in our stacks is a seven-volume set of scrapbooks filled with World War I and World War II shoulder patches. Recently, these scrapbooks were treated by the Conservation Lab staff who lovingly restored them, cleaning the patches and encapsulating the pages. Conservation staff enjoyed this project thoroughly and invited Mr. Burger to the lab to view the newly stabilized albums; the meeting was recorded in the above video. The scrapbooks have been returned to the closed stacks of the Milstein Division and are now available for limited and supervised viewing.

As my valued colleague hangs up his NYPL id and follows the dream of “westward ho” I ponder my own fate on the east coast and in particular the question, “Is NYC a place to grow old?” Stepping lively onto a subway, is that a future I'll be equipped physically, financially, and emotionally to handle?
 
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