Acquisitions

Fifteen scrapbooks covering the career and political interests of George Rivet Van Namee have been donated to Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno, California. Containing news clippings, memorabilia, and printed ephemera, the scrapbooks provide a window into Democratic politics (particularly the career of Governor Alfred E. Smith), Catholic organizations, and social life in the New York City of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. George R. Van Namee was born in Watertown, New York on December 23, 1877. He graduated from the Cornell University College of Law and practiced law in Watertown for nine years before being appointed Clerk of the New York State Assembly from 1911–1913. Van Namee then served as commissioner of the Bill Drafting Commission, which assists legislators, from 1914 to 1918, after which he worked as secretary to Governor Alfred E. Smith beginning in 1920. Van Namee’s relationship with Smith continued for the rest of their careers, with Van Namee serving as Smith’s private secretary and then being appointed by the governor as a commissioner of the Public Service Commission in 1924, a post Van Namee held until 1943.

The records of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) are available for research at Georgia State University Library’s Southern Labor Archives, one year before the 30th anniversary of the strike that broke the union. President Ronald Reagan’s confrontation with PATCO in 1981 marked a turning point in U.S. labor relations. The records provide insight into one of the most tumultuous and significant events in recent labor-management history. PATCO, formed in 1968 to represent the interests of federally employed air traffic controllers, survived as a union for only 14 years. Dissatisfied with their Federal Aviation Administration contract, PATCO members went on strike on August 3, 1981, though as federal employees it was illegal for them to do so. Subsequently, over 11,000 controllers were dismissed and the union was decertified. The PATCO strike and firings led to a loss of bargaining power for U. S. labor unions. In their aftermath, corporations began to view termination of striking workers as a viable option to negotiation. Fearful of management response, unions have seldom called strikes since the early 1980s. The PATCO records, created and used by officers and staff at their national headquarters, detail the daily operations of the union and the administration of its regional and local offices. Highlights of the collection include records related to the 1981 strike; files from the offices of the union president, vice-presidents, and director; along with publications. The collection consists of over 200 feet of material housed in over 450 boxes.

The papers of Irvine S. Ingram, president of West Georgia College from 1933 to 1960, have been processed and are now open for research in Ingram Library’s Annie Belle Weaver Special Collections at the University of West Georgia. The Irvine S. Ingram papers contain a wealth of information not only on the educator who led the college for nearly 40 years, but also on the development of higher education in Georgia during the 20th century. Ingram became principal of the Fourth District A&M School, the predecessor of the University of West Georgia, in 1920. In 1933, he was appointed president of West Georgia College, a two-year teachers college, when the A&M system of schools was abolished by the state legislature. Privately known as “Izzy” to his students, Ingram led the college in offering desperately needed teacher training to the West Georgia region. He obtained substantial grants from the Julius Rosenwald Fund during the Depression and early years of World War II, without which many programs and buildings on the campus would not have been possible. Ingram developed College in the Country, a nationally recognized program for rural education training and adult education, including programs for African Americans. He pushed for the four-year degree program, which the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents approved in 1957. The Irvine S. Ingram Collection has been cataloged and currently contains 51 boxes of materials, mostly correspondence between Ingram and other educators, members of the Board of Regents, newspapermen, governors, and numerous movers and shakers in Georgia politics and education.

Irvine S. Ingram

The A. S. Williams III Collection of History and Culture of the South has been acquired by the University of Alabama (UA) Libraries. For more than 40 years, Williams, a Eufaula native and UA alumnus, collected rare Americana, primarily books, manuscripts, and photographs relating to the history of the United States. The collection represents a lifetime of avid collecting by Williams, former executive vice president and treasurer of Protective Life Corp. In addition to presidential and historical documents, the collection also includes Indian land grants; unpublished archival collections of 19th-century business records; some 3,000 works of Southern fiction from the earliest examples to contemporary authors; and several literary archives. The collection is rich in first editions, signed copies, limited editions, association copies and rare books and manuscripts. The photography portion of the collection has more than 12,000 photographs from the South and Alabama ranging from the late 1850s to the mid-1930s. The Williams Collection comprises more than 20,000 books and 12,000 photographs.

The Archives and Special Collections Library of Vassar College Libraries has become an official repository of the publications of Thornwillow Press, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. This collection, from the Newburgh, New York-based company, will join other major collections of Hudson Valley-based publishers in the Special Collections Library F o u n d e d in 1985 by Luke Ives Pontifell, Thornwillow Press is a printer and publisher of handmade, limited edition books, with titles that vary widely, from President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address, to a collection of George Washington’s documents compiled by W. W. Abbott, to a volume of short stories by John Updike. Their goal is to present the author’s words in a manner that enhances the relationship between the reader and the text by adding an aesthetic dimension. Thornwillow’s books are now in the permanent collections of the White House, the Library of Congress, the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Beinecke Library, and Houghton Library, among many others.

The Fred Way Collection of Steamboat Images has been acquired by Marietta College’s Legacy Library. This collection of more than 9,500 negatives documents riverboats that plied the Mississippi River and its tributaries (principally the Ohio River) from the mid 19th century through the later 20th century. The collection includes images of both packet boats (passenger and freight boats operating on a schedule between two main terminals, as well as ferry boats, excursion boats, and lighthouse tenders) and towboats (work boats involved in moving bulk freight in barges). Roughly 55 percent of the collection contains images of packet boats, about 25 percent is devoted to towboats, and the remainder represents showboats, people, Civil War gunboats and other miscellany. Fred Way (1901–92) was active in riverboat work in his early career as pilot and master on boats working the Ohio River and its tributaries. Although he never gave up life on the river, he eventually devoted himself to becoming a writer, publishing books about life on the river, such as The Log of the Betsy Ann (1933), Pilotin’ Comes Natural (1943), and Saga of the Delta Queen (1951), and indispensible reference books on riverboats, culminating in Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1983: Passenger Steamboats of the Mississippi River System Since the Advent of Photography in Mid-continent America (1983) and Way’s Steam Towboat Directory (1990). Way was also publisher of the Inland River Record, an annual compilation of boats operating on inland waters, until 1976. He served as president of the Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen from 1941 until his death in 1992, and for many years edited its journal, the S&D Reflector.

Negative from the Fred Way Collection of Steamboat Images.