My Father, a historian, always told me that 90% of history work is brute-force research: going through letter after letter and diary after diary to find evidence or information. Though it may be arduous at times, this sort of work is essential to piecing together accurate histories. When I was assigned to look through the Porter Family Collection this semester, I did just this.

As part of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass, a year celebrated not just in Rochester but across the United States, and around the world, Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSCP) at the University of Rochester used this year as an opportunity to expand and explore our collections as they relate to Douglass, building upon the rare and unique materials that are expected in an archive.

Edward Gorey has been one of my favorite illustrators for a long, long time. So much so that I have a tattoo of one of his famous characters, Figbash, on my back and his artwork adorned my wedding invitations. Seeing that the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP) here at Rush Rhees Library had a small but respectable collection of his books made me realize that coming here was pretty much fate. The bulk of our Gorey collection came in through a generous donation from Sylvia Davis in 1992.

In order to talk about the fascinating history of Suffrage cookbooks, it’s important to know about community cookbooks as a whole.  These cookbooks, compiled by members of religious congregations, PTAs, political, civic, and social clubs, and more, are found on many of our shelves.

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.