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Dr. Rita Liberti at work in UNC Greensboro's Jackson Library As if she were opening a door into another world, sports historian Rita Liberti draws you into the 1920’s and 1930’s when basketball opened opportunities for black women at historically black colleges and universities that were not shared by many of their white counterparts.   At HBCUs in North Carolina, and particularly at Greensboro’s Bennett College, women’s basketball reached a level of prominence and success that would fade as the 1940’s came and expectations about gender roles changed.   Between 1925 and 1945, however, with strong administrative support, young women from as far as Detroit were recruited to come play basketball at Bennett, and provided grants-in-aid to do so.   They played on high profile, well-organized teams that traveled extensively and played 20 game schedules against teams from other black colleges and universities. Liberti has an infectious passion for her subject. ...

Diane Russeau-Pletcher is a person who likes to go down rabbit holes when she finds them.   Exploring some of those rabbit holes recently brought her to the University Libraries at UNCG  to do research in the papers of Ellen Winston, found in the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives.   Russeau-Pledger is the 2014-2015 Research Travel Grant Award recipient of the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives. Diane is studying the history of the eugenics movement in North Carolina, especially after World War II, and sees Ellen Winston as a key stakeholder in the state’s program as head of the State Eugenics Board and Commissioner of Public Welfare in North Carolina prior to being named by President Kennedy in 1963 as the first U.S. Commissioner of Welfare in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). Not only is the history of the eugenics movement still a current issue in North Carolina an...

Even as a beginning cellist many years ago, the question arose in Zoltan Szabo’s mind – why are there so many editions of the six Johann Sebastian Bach suites for solo cello?  As his skill and knowledge grew, the question remained an open one for him. There are no manuscripts of these important works in the composer’s own hand, but there four 18th century manuscript copies.  These four different manuscripts have spawned more than 100 published editions, not including reprints.  As time has passed, cellists have chosen different editions for many reasons, not always the best ones.  Some may have been chosen because they were inexpensive, some because they had a nice cover, or for other reasons, but there is no single definitive edition, nor is there likely to be one.  That is not even Szabo’s goal, for there is no original to consult, but he finds and studies all of the various editions of the master’s work, and tries to record the differences and changes tha...

What do your snapshots say about the way you look at the world? Andi Gustavson wants to know.   The recipient of the University Libraries’ Research Travel Grant this year, Gustavson has an unusual dissertation topic for her work in American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, one with a somewhat unconventional methodology. Her dissertation, “What Comes Home: Vernacular Photography and the Cold War, 1945-1991,” explores how American nurses, servicemen and servicewomen, and diplomats used their cameras to construct their own worldviews, posing and positioning themselves within an emerging new global order. Because these personal photographs depict the ordinariness of life lived amidst violence, she believes that they are key to understanding how Americans became accustomed to a culture of endless war. Andi Gustavson in Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives Research Room Gustavson says her work bridges a gap in the scholarly research o...