Charlotte Shedd was born in Austria in 1913 as Charlotte Kraus, and became a student of the performing arts. In 1938, she was denied the right to appear on stage because of the Nazi occupation of Austria, the Nuremberg Laws, and her father's Jewish background. On Christmas Eve 1938, she escaped to America with a nearly expired Austrian passport and began her singing career. Shortly thereafter, she met Eleanor Roosevelt's bodyguard, who introduced her to the First Lady, beginning a close friendship that lasted until Mrs. Roosevelt's death in 1962.
Content types:
Performed music and Spoken word
Formats:
Text document and Open reel tape (unknown material)
Extent:
Approximately 120 recordings, microfilm, 4.6 feet, paper copies
Repository/Collector:
University of Delaware Library, Special Collections
Based in Newark, Delaware, Dreamstreets is a magazine featuring local poetry and writing with an irregular but persistent publishing history since 1977. After appearing once a year, and then in several issues per year, in 1984 the magazine began using radio station WXDR to broadcast performances of its poetry and fiction. Contributors to Dreamstreets also performed at various literary events and poetry readings. Steven Leech is the editor and publisher, with regular contributors such as e. jean lanyon, Douglas Morea, and Phillip Bannowsky.
Content types:
Performed music, Spoken word, Two-dimensional moving image, Text, and Still image
Formats:
Text document, Open reel tape (unknown material), Analog audiocassette, VHS (including SVHS and VHS-C), Photographic print, and Microfilm
Extent:
Approximately 23 recordings, microfilm, 7 feet
Repository/Collector:
University of Delaware Library, Special Collections
The Frank E. and Anna Hayes Owens family papers comprises 14.3 linear feet of materials, spanning the dates between 1900 and 2011, and includes correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, travel brochures, reel-to-reel tapes, magazines, fanzines, and other materials documenting intergenerational American family life in Delaware.
Content types:
Performed music, Spoken word, Notated music, Text, and Still image
Formats:
Text document, Open reel tape (unknown material), and Photographic print
Extent:
Approximately 25 recordings, 14.3 linear feet and 1 oversize box (17 boxes)
Repository/Collector:
University of Delaware Library, Special Collections
Ishmael Reed, African-American novelist, poet, and publisher, was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on February 22, 1938. Reed moved with his mother to Buffalo, New York in 1942. His mother worked in various wartime industries and Reed attended public schools, graduating in 1956. He also played violin and trombone and began writing a newspaper column on jazz for the Empire Star Weekly when he was thirteen. He enrolled as an evening student at Millard Fillmore College, the night school division of the University of Buffalo, and worked as a clerk at the Buffalo public library during the day. His writing ability was quickly recognized, and he moved into the bachelor of arts program at the University of Buffalo. He withdrew in 1960 because of a "dire shortage of funds" (Gates) and a "wide gap between social classes" (Gates). To escape "the artificial social and class distinctions that he associated with American university education," (Gates) he moved to Buffalo's Talbert Mall Project. Daily exposure to systematic poverty cycles in the projects led him to political activism in the civil rights and Black Power movements.
Content types:
Performed music, Spoken word, Two-dimensional moving image, Text, and Still image
Formats:
Pressed LP disc, LaserDisc, Open reel tape (unknown material), Analog audiocassette, VHS (including SVHS and VHS-C), Betamax, Text document, Photographic print, and Microfilm
Extent:
Approximately 20 recordings, microfilm, 65 feet
Repository/Collector:
University of Delaware Library, Special Collections
J. Allen Frear, Jr. (1903-1993) was a politician from Dover, Delaware (Kent County). A member of the Democratic Party, Frear served two terms as U.S. Senator from Delaware. The Senator J. Allen Frear, Jr. papers are primarily those of his congressional career, when he represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1949 to 1960, though the collection also includes personal material from pre- and post-Congressional periods. The collection dates from 1917 to 1963, with bulk of the material dating from 1949 to 1961. The collection consists of correspondence, memoranda, reports, legislation, speeches, clippings, photographs, and audio-visual material. Personal material includes correspondence, class notes, travel brochures and post cards, and memorabilia.
Content types:
Spoken word, Text, Still image, and Two-dimensional moving image
Formats:
Text document, Open reel tape (unknown material), Analog audiocassette, Motion picture film, and Photographic print
Extent:
192 recordings, 80 feet, 75 boxes and 2 oversized boxes
Repository/Collector:
University of Delaware Library, Special Collections
The papers of Senator John J. Williams span the dates 1946- 1988, with the bulk of the collection representing the years of his career in the U.S. Senate, 1947-1970. The collection consists of nearly 150 linear feet of papers and also includes scrapbooks, books, photographs, and film and sound recordings. For the most part, the arrangement of the collection reflects the original filing series of Senator Williams's office. The collection is divided into 25 series which are organized under four record subgroups. The first three subgroups--Legislative Staff/Office Files, Constituent Correspondence and Cases, and Administrative and Personal Office Files--consist of series that document the work performed in office by Senator Williams and his staff. The subgroups reflect the functions of the Senator's work and include series typical of a congressional collection. Duties reflected in the Legislative Staff/Office Files include committee, legislative, and investigative work. The Constituent Correspondence and Cases subgroup includes materials created in response to the concerns and interests of constituents, and those filed on receipt of issue-related opinions from the general public. The Administrative and Personal Office Files reflect the management of the office and the Senator's personal schedule. The fourth subgroup, Personal, includes series of files and other formats that document the personal activities and opinions of Senator Williams. The material in these files supplements information about his Senate career in the first three subgroups. There is also material from the 1970s and about Mrs. Williams and Senator Williams's family life.
Content types:
Spoken word, Text, Still image, and Two-dimensional moving image
Formats:
Disc (unknown material), Edison dictation disc, Open reel tape (unknown material), Analog audiocassette, Motion picture film, VHS (including SVHS and VHS-C), Text document, and Photographic print
Extent:
149 boxes (149 linear ft.), 4 oversize boxes, 45 volumes of scrapbooks, 11 reels of microfilm, 6 films, 4 videotapes, 15 audio-recordings, 15 audiocassettes
Repository/Collector:
University of Delaware Library, Special Collections
This collection features audiotape recordings of poetry readings and performances by American poets and University of Delaware professors. The collection contains poetry readings dating from 1953 to 1960 by Robert Hillyer, an influential poet and professor at the University of Delaware. There are also recordings of poetry readings, some broadcast by Delaware radio stations, by Wilbur Owen Sypherd, professor and administrator at the University of Delaware. The collection also features a reading by English actor Claude Rains and readings at the University of Delaware by American poets Robert Lowell and Robert Frost.
Content types:
Spoken word
Formats:
Open reel tape (unknown material)
Extent:
39 1/4" open reel(s)
Repository/Collector:
University of Delaware Library, Special Collections