Vision for 2020

Our vision for the DeWitt Wallace Library of 2020 is to expand and build up our current vibrant and active space for engaging scholars. We want a library that contributes to the transformative experience for all students as well as a space that will attract faculty to utilize our space, resources, and expertise for collaborating on digital projects. We want to continue to be a community gathering space where all points of view can be shared and civil discussions can take place. We want to be a welcoming center of learning and understanding

Rewriting portuguese women’s history at international expositions (1889-1908)

This article aims to understand how the changing nature of industrial schooling contributed to the erasure of women’s participation. Industrial schooling, manual work and the politics of exposition were increasingly conceived as male, despite the Portuguese tradition of female artisanal production. With the promotion of technological modernization, at the turn of the nineteenth century, women’s artisanal or mechanical productions were no longer considered “industrial;” henceforth they ceased to be recognized as a professional activity and were mistakenly categorized as homework. Marques Leitão and António Arroio appear as key players in this process through their efforts to redesign industrial schooling with a representation of industry that was more limited than before. In the process they repositioned women’s work firmly within the home, introducing a vision of feminine domesticity which had not held sway in Portugal until then. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, both men consolidated their vision of industrial schooling through written reports and studies that synthesized the legal and pedagogical changes that they defended. These documents, written by “experts” in the field, served as precious primary sources. Reality is the product of what is said and what is left unsaid. In this case, the material traces left by the industry of women lace workers in expositions offers a suggestive way to rewrite this history.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Blood and Justice: Red Cross Nurses on Strike

[Excerpt] For 10 days in April 1987 the nurses who draw blood at Red Cross blood centers in Los Angeles and Orange counties were on strike. Try to picture their situation: These were 225 workers who are spread out at 30 different worksites covering 9,000 square miles. To conduct a membership meeting required strikers to drive as much as two hours. Besides being geographically dispersed, the workforce is divided between Registered Nurses (RNs) and Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVNs), whose status and salaries were grossly disproportionate. And who were they on strike against? Not arrogant, greedy corporations like GE and USX, whose only purpose in life is to make more money this year than last? No, they were on strike against the Red Cross — an international symbol of nonpartisan humanitarianism. And the key to the strike was to dry up Red Cross\u27 blood supply, upon which 200 hospitals depend. How easy could it be for editorial cartoonists to depict the nurses as vampires sucking the blood out of Los Angeles! Any labor leader in her right mind would understand immediately that this was a strike that could not be won. But it was won, and the sisterhood that made it possible should be an inspiration to a labor movement that is struggling to renew itself