The Albert Gore Research Center will be closed on Friday, May 24, and Monday, May 27. We will resume normal hours on Tuesday, May 28.
Written by Dallas Hanbury–Ph.D student/Project Archivist
The Albert Gore Research Center and Middle Tennessee State University’s Aerospace Department have collaborated once again to process collections housed in the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame Archives (TAHFA). The TAHFA is housed on Middle Tennessee State University’s Campus in room S214 of the Business and Aerospace Building. Dr. Ron Ferrara, chair of the Aerospace Department, wrote and was awarded, a grant to process collections in the TAHFA. This is the second year in a row that Dr. Ferrara has written a successful grant to fund processing activities at the TAHFA. Last year, the Ninety-Nines Collection (covering most of the southeast), the Regalado Collection, and the Gillespie Airways Collection were all either processed or had begun to be processed. This year, the Regalado Collection has been prioritized for processing.
The Regalado Collection is composed of materials associated with the long career of Raul Regalado. Over the course of his career Regalado was a high level airport administrator at the Nashville International Airport, the Houston International Airport, owned his owned aviation consulting company, and was associated with a wide variety of other projects, notably on the West Coast in California. The Regalado Collection is composed of nineteen linear feet worth of records comprising three series: Airport/Terminal Operations and Management, Domestic Aviation, and International Aviation.
The Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame Archives is still being established and has a significant backlog of unprocessed collections. Volunteer and internship opportunities abound at the TAHFA. Students wishing to pursue a project need to speak to Donna Baker, MTSU University Archivist, or Dr. Ron Ferrara, chair of the MTSU Aviation Department. Volunteers and interns can select from an array of projects, including processing a collection, staffing the archives so that interested patrons can come and use the archives, design some sort of outreach program to promote the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame Archives, or all of the above!
Written by Kayla Utendorf, Graduate Assistant
We had a researcher yesterday look at the Margaret Lindsley Warden Papers, and with the Kentucky Derby and the Steeplechase happening in the next couple of weeks we decided to share some of her great photographs! Warden wrote a column for The Tennessean newspaper for fifty years called “Horse Sense” and was active in promoting equestrian studies in the area. She founded the Middle Tennessee Pony Club and was a supporter of Middle Tennessee State University. Her love of horses is evident in the pictures!
Hope you enjoy the photos and the upcoming races!
Many folk at MTSU are familiar with Tennessee History Day as we host one of the division competitions. A lot of our people also help judge the state level competition. As an archivist I had the pleasure of judging a special award for best use of archival materials. Sound exciting? Well, it was just as exciting as you would expect. That probably means that if you get into that sort of thing you would have found it fun, and if you don’t, you wouldn’t have.
What made it really fun was the discoveries that the winners of this award (one senior division, one junior,) made when they visited archives. They each expected to work hard digging through old documents, and they were not disappointed. What neither expected was the personal connections that they were able to make with the based through the documents and interaction with the archivists. Each found some treasure, a rare award given to someone long ago or their grandfather’s name and property among reports of land to be claimed by the creation of a new lake.
History in general is not something that excites everyone, but many people find it fascinating when it touches in some way on their own lives; when it gets personal. These young people felt that they had found something valuable. It is always fun being an archivist when you see someone find treasure in the collections that are in your charge.
Interested in the state winners of the competition? Here you are: http://tnsos.org/Press/story.php?item=511
Written by Donna Baker, University Archivist
Dr. Mary Hoffschwelle came to the Albert Gore Research Center last semester with an idea for her Tennessee History Honors class. She had been experimenting with her own research on a website called Historypin, and would we be interested in working with her class on a similar project? We are always looking for ways to collaborate with faculty and students, and this was a new way to get our content out to new audiences, so we were happy to join in the experiment. Eight students poured over our collections, read university histories, and pieced together images and narratives to create the collections, which were then incorporated into a campus tour by Dr. Hoffschwelle. On Wednesday, April 17, we launched the new Albert Gore Research Center channel on Historypin.
I have described Historypin as “Pinterest for Historians.” Historypin uses Google™ maps and other technology to “pin” photographs to a geographic location. Private citizens as well as archives, libraries, and other cultural institutions can post content on the map. What is more helpful, photographs can be placed in a timeline, giving the historical context of the image not only on each individual channel, but across the Historypin site. Want to see all the images on the site from 1930? You can do that with no problem.
The eight collections created by the students feature university figures such as Q.M. Smith, Charles “Bubber” Murphy, Johnny “Red” Floyd and May Saunders. Specific locations on the map featured our first buildings–the President’s House and Rutledge Hall–as well as nonextant buildings, like the Murfree Library.
A group photo was absolutely necessary to capture the successful launching of the channel.
For a quick film about the launch, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR1r49_J0hM&feature=youtu.be.
Go to http://www.historypin.com/channels/view/id/15113065#|photos/list/ to view to our Historypin channel.
We are grateful to the class for all their hard work on this project. If you like what they did, please leave a comment below.
Written by Quinn Walsdorf (Registrar) and Aja Bain (graduate assistant)
Did you know the open house for our new exhibit is next week? Join us on Monday, April 15th, to learn about the life of Louise Mott Miles, a local educator and Middle Tennessee State Teachers College graduate (1928). Mrs. Miles taught math and domestic science at Central High School in Nashville for decades, and remained a strong advocate for education throughout her long life. She also documented her career and interests through materials she later donated to the AGRC. These artifacts shed light on the life of an interesting woman in mid-century America, and also provide an amusing look into the world of retro cookery, when anything could be made into a loaf and mayonnaise provided structural integrity.
Intrigued by her recipe books and their sometimes questionable content, we wanted to highlight food oddities from our other collections as well.
Category one: layers. Nothing tempted the Atomic Age palate like food with defined stratigraphy. Here are two such examples of this unique phenomenon:
Loaves were also an important dietary staple in this era, be they meat, vegetable, or purely carbohydrate. Behold the mac and cheese loaf, truly a testament to American ingenuity.
Marshall County Schools lunch program (Adgent Family Papers)If you want to try this at home, please adjust your measurements. You’re probably not cooking for a cafeteria of ravenous schoolchildren.
If the macaroni loaf proves to be too powerful, try this vegetable alternative: Carrot Loaf with Egg Sauce.
Another important element of American cuisine in this period was the mock dish. Ambitious chefs, bored with traditional methods and ingredients, spiced up their tables with food that masqueraded as other food, to the wonder and bemusement (and perhaps horror) of their guests.
If real country ham is not available, rest assured that you can transform any plain old ham with the aid of Karo syrup and a fifty-pound lard can (empty):
Zadie Key PapersAnd for dessert: one does not simply make a pie. One makes a pie out of crackers.
Zadie Key PapersNo mock pie is complete without a scoop of mock ice cream:
Our last category defies all description and analysis. We present to you the true food oddities, cinnamon cucumbers and cake made from tomato soup.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this look at retro cookery in our collections, and we hope to see you at the premiere of our Louise Mott Miles exhibit on Monday the 15th from noon to two o’clock. We won’t have layers or loaves, but come enjoy some light refreshments and take home a souvenir recipe card. See you there!
Written by Kayla Utendorf, graduate assistant
Today may be cold and rainy, but the recent warm weather has gotten all of us in the AGRC looking forward to spring!
We have recently started a project to display photos from our collections on a television set up in our window, and the theme for the month of April is “Celebrate Spring!” All of the photographs in our slideshow relate to springtime, with pictures taken either in Middle Tennessee or by someone from the area. Today’s blog highlights a few of those photos.
The 1966 Miss Midlander, from the 1966 Midlander yearbook.
From the Tennessee College for Women Papers
From the Walter King Hoover Papers
From the Q.M. Smith Papers
From the Charles M. “Bubber” Murphy Papers
Be sure to stop by to view the rest of the slideshow, as well as to see our new exhibit about Louise Mott Miles, a former student! Have a wonderful spring!
 | Mary Hoffschwelle on Albert Gore Research Center Ch… |
 | Tara Mielnik on Layers, Loaves, and LOLs: Maki… |
 | Kayla on Albert Gore Research Center Ch… |
| Celebrate Spring! |… on Exhibit Goes Up in the AG… | |
 | gpcox on Welcome to the Albert Gore Res… |
