PennTags Feed for /tag/history

Bay & river, Delaware; a pictorial history / By David Budlong Tyler.

Tyler, David Budlong, 1899-1993. . Bay & river, Delaware; a pictorial history / By David Budlong Tyler. series Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 1955.
Call#: Van Pelt Library F157.D4 T9

New Jersey's Delaware Bay shore, an inventory of land use.

New Jersey. Division of State and Regional Planning. . New Jersey's Delaware Bay shore, an inventory of land use. series [Trenton, 1964]
Call#: Fine Arts Library Fine Arts HT393.N5 A49

Stone-Campbell Movement

Resources for history of the Stone-Campbell Movement, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Churches of Christ

Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell movement : Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, Churches of Christ / edited by Douglas A. Foster ... [et al.].

. Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell movement : Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, Churches of Christ / edited by Douglas A. Foster ... [et al.]. 0802838987 (alk. paper) series Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B. Eerdmans Pub., c2004.
Call#: Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks REF BX7321.3 .E53 2004

Albert Music Hall Home Page

Albert Music Hall. Traditional musical gatherings of the NJ Pinelands. An evening of live country, bluegrass, and pinelands music each Saturday night at 7:30 PM. Year round

Stone-Campbell movement : an international religious tradition / edited by Michael W. Casey and Douglas A. Foster.

. Stone-Campbell movement : an international religious tradition / edited by Michael W. Casey and Douglas A. Foster. 1st ed. 1572331798 (alk. paper) series Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press, c2002.
Call#: Van Pelt Library BX7316 .S76 2002

Building the Washington Metro

This site tells the story of the Washington Metro, a 103-mile rapid transit system serving Washington, D.C., and the surrounding areas of Maryland and Virginia. Planning for Metro began in the 1950s, construction began in 1969, and the first segment opened for operation in 1976. Metro is one of the largest public-works projects ever built, and it is the second-busiest rail transit system in the United States.

Metro is the creation of thousands of planners, engineers, architects, and builders, and hundreds of thousands of neighbors and riders. Whatever your role, we hope you will share your own experiences as part of the ECHO Science and Technology Memory Bank.

This site was researched and written by Zachary M. Schrag, author of The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).

YorkSpace: Item 10315/1250

Denton, William. "FRBR and the History of Cataloging."

Chapter 4 in Understanding FRBR: What It Is and How It Will Affect Our Retrieval, edited by Taylor, Arlene G.

An explanation of where FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) comes from, given by a look at the work of librarians such as Panizzi, Cutter, Ranganathan, and Lubzetsky, and an examination of four themes in the history of library cataloging: the use of axioms to explain the purpose of catalogs, the importance of user needs, the idea of the "work," and standardization and internationalization.

Strange history of Bonnie and Clyde / John Treherne.

Treherne, John. The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde. Briarclif Manor, NY: Stein and Day, 1985

John Treherne’s book The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde explores the real life story of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. The book follows the two mischievous outlaws in their killing sprees in the Midwest. The chapter Final Bullets describes the death of Bonnie and Clyde in an ambush in Louisiana. This final shootout was the most famous scene in Arthur Penn’s 1967 film and is the final touch in his vision of the two criminals as heroes.
The chapter begins with Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn’s efforts’ to catch Bonnie and Clyde. He and a number of other policemen had tracked the couple to Gibsland, Louisiana, the hometown of their then partner in crime, Henry Methvin. Hinton and the others following the group had began to think of a way they could trap the sneaky crooks, “the hunters of Bonnie and Clyde had discovered early of their quarries’ most vulnerable trait: the strong psychological dependence on their families” (195). After the lawmen learned of Methvin, they tracked his family to Gibsland and preceded to arrange an Ambush that would finally put an end to the pair’s spree. Methvin had been separated from Bonnie and Clyde, and Hinton and Alcorn suspected that they would try and rendevue with him at his fathers house in Gibsland. The officers, 4 from Texas and 3 from Louisiana, hid in bushes along the side of a road just south of Gibsland. After two days of tiresome waiting, they finally captured Irvin Methvin, Henry’s father and used his car as decoy for Bonnie and Clyde. However, the arrest of Irivin Methvin was entirely illegal, along with their seizure of his vehicle for the ambush. The officers were almost ready to quit on the ambush when Bonnie and Clyde came rolling down the road. The rest reads just like the movie, with the two being riddled by bullets while they sat in the car, with no time to fire a single shot.
Treherne’s book recounts the actual death of Bonnie and Clyde as described by the officers hunting them and gives truth to the final scene of the Penn’s film. The book, however, is from the policemen’s vantage point and creates an entirely different imagery of the final shootout. Methvin and his father had no intention or previous knowledge of a setup like C.W. Moss and his father did in the movie. The blood soaked shootout in the film, however, seems faithful to its original story, and the scene that set critics aflame was possibly the most loyal to the real account.

Olympia / Taylor Downing.

Downing, Taylor. Olympia. London: BFI Publishing, 1992.

The chapter “Aftermath” in Taylor Downing’s examination of Olympia describes the reception of the film and its post-release history. Initially the film received generally positive reviews, but as Germany became more threatening, Riefenstahl and the film became less popular, resulting in a boycott of the film in the United States. For the rest of her life, Riefenstahl would have trouble clearing her reputation for her involvement with the Nazi party. The film stands as a major artistic achievement, however, and the author notes its influence on films about future Olympics, although competition with television coverage of the games made a cinematic masterpiece such as Olympia more difficult. Downing argues that Olympia beautifully captured the spirit of the Olympics, and Riefenstahl’s use of retakes in the film aid its artistic vision if they decrease its level of journalism.

The chapter concludes by grappling with the film’s propaganda question. Downing notes that the Berlin Olympics themselves were designed as propaganda to promote Germany as a friendly, peace-loving nation, and hence the Nazi party invested in Riefenstahl’s production to display their propaganda to the world. The author affirms Riefenstahl’s artistic independence during the production, however, and concludes the film is not intentionally propagandistic. Nevertheless, he maintains the film is still political since it was set up for political reasons and documents a political event, but he argues this fact does not and should not detract from its artistic merit.

Nazi games : the Olympics of 1936 / David Clay Large.

Large, David Clay. Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.

The chapter “Olympia” in David Clay Large’s book on the 1936 Olympics provides a succinct history of the film. It notably refutes some of the claims made by Riefenstahl regarding her independence from the Nazi party in the making of the film. While Riefenstahl claims the film was commissioned by the International Olympic Committee and funded by a firm called Tobis Films, the author contends it was commissioned by the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda and financed by the party. Furthermore, while Riefenstahl claims that Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, was at odds with her, Large asserts that he tolerated her despite his preference for a different director to make the film, although he acknowledges that Goebbels did cause some problems for Riefenstahl such as when he audited her company. The chapter then discusses some of the technical innovations of the film and some of the difficulties the crew encountered during filming, and finally finishes by describing the mixed critical reception Riefenstahl received internationally.

The chapter also devotes some time to discussing the film’s propaganda value. Large argues the film, even the German version, was not explicitly partisan in any particular way. The film gives no sense that the Germany was the winning team, and it includes some of the nation’s defeats as well, although the Ministry of Propaganda did mandate fair reporting of the games. On the other hand, while the author notes that the black Jesse Owens was portrayed very favorably, other black athletes did not receive as much screen time as they probably deserved. Furthermore, many of the most dramatic moments are of German athletes, and some events featured disproportionately more footage of Germany and her allies Japan and Italy. Additionally, the German version contained more shots of Hitler and swastikas and placed a greater emphasis on the games as a national battle. And finally, the film’s glorification of physical perfection and the communitarian togetherness depicted in the Olympic Village are reminiscent of Nazi values. The author concludes by suggesting the film’s late release lessened its political potential as propaganda to foreigners, however, since by then Germany was well into its path of aggression, undermining any sense of international good will the film could evoke.

Concise history of Italy / Christopher Duggan.

Call#: Van Pelt Library DG467 .D84 1994
Call#: Van Pelt Library cat on bib 4043492

Duggan, Christopher. A Concise History of Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

The Republic, a chapter in A Concise History of Italy, serves to understand the time period in which Divorzio all’Italiana was filmed. In the 1960s, Italy was caught between an economic miracle and the rise of social protests. However, this miracle was not achieved without severe costs – the South was “left almost untouched,” and the gap between the two halves of the peninsula widened (264). Duggan states that part of the problem for why the South benefited so little from the attempts at industrialization was due to the “corrupt character of much of the Southern society” (269). Economic modernization is many times accompanied with social unrest. The Church helped the government by denouncing modern culture, and waging a propaganda war against the left. The Church’s influence in politics was soon to end. John XXIII’s death in 1963 “marked the start of a profound reappraisal of the Church’s character and role in society […] and the Vatican looked to distance itself from party politics”(266). Finally, revolts in the late 1960s “were the judgment of a generation on the Republic and specifically on the failure of politicians to meet the needs and expectations of a society that had undergone such rapid changes in the preceding decade” (269). According to Duggan, these represented a critique of the whole of Italian society and its values.

Understanding Italy in the 1960s is crucial for understanding the backdrop of in which Pietro Germi’s Divorzio all’Italiana was filmed. Characteristics of the poor, agricultural and corrupt South are observed in the movie. The Cefalu family is a rich, traditional Sicilian family, and when the main character, Baron Fefè Cefalu, first introduces himself, he makes the distinction between his family’s social class and the proletariat quite obvious. Fefè also points out who is who in Agramonte: he alludes to the fact that his father was corrupt and squandered money, and he introduces Don Ciccilo Matara, the head of the mafia, as well as the priest and some members of the Gentleman’s club. Furthermore, the audience notices at once how the Sicilian society circles around the church. Throughout the movies, we listen to snippets of sermons in which not only are the leftist parties denounced, but Fellini's La Dolce Vita is criticized as well. Lastly, Germi was among the first directors to voice the desires and struggles of the public through film. By making a comedy centered on the fact that divorce is not yet allowed in Italy, Germi truly offered a critique of traditional Italian society in Divorzio all’Italiana.

Films of Leni Riefenstahl / David B. Hinton.

Hinton, David B. The Films of Leni Riefenstahl. Filmmakers Series, No. 74. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2000.

David B. Hinton provides a succinct history and analysis of Olympia in his chapter of the same title in his collection of works on Riefenstahl’s films. He holds it to be the first truly successful film about the Olympics, having been a massive undertaking that captured the spirit and beauty of the games in ways that previous newsreel footage could not. He praises the prologue of the film, set in the Greece, which connects the games to their ancient roots and implies the unchanging nature of beauty. He spends some time detailing the meticulous preparations Riefenstahl made for shooting the film such as devising innovative camera techniques that influenced how sports would be shot from then on. He goes on to describe Riefenstahl’s perfectionist quality, as she controlled every aspect of production to the minutest detail. The end result of her toils was that the film did not just record the games but rather illustrated the essence of each event, such as the physical strain of the marathon and the beauty of the divers.

The chapter discusses some of the accusations of propaganda leveled against the film but discredits most of them. Hinton notes that Riefenstahl’s use of retakes made the film less of a historical documentary but more of an artistic vision, which could potentially aid any propaganda aims. Still, he rejects the presence of Hitler in the film as evidence of propaganda because his appearance is brief and unspectacular. Furthermore, Riefenstahl’s choice to give the black Jesse Owens significant credit for his athletic accomplishments instead of downplaying them undercuts any support for racist Nazi ideology. The Germans are not portrayed as a “master race,” but rather internationalism is honored, as the Olympic flag is the dominant symbol, not the swastika. Some critics have contended that the glorification of competitiveness and strength reflects fascist ideals, but Hinton argues that this is an inherent quality of the Olympics themselves and not the film.

Nazi Olympics, by Richard D. Mandell.

Mandell, Richard D. The Nazi Olympics. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971.

Richard D. Mandell’s work on the 1936 Olympics provides a notably positive overview of Olympia in his chapter “The Olympics Preserved.” The chapter begins with background information about Riefenstahl, her career, and her close relationship with Hitler. Mandell then turns to the film itself and notes its technical achievements in areas such as editing and its use of zoom lenses and slow motion, which ultimately contributed to a dramatic cinematic experience that was unprecedented in sports film. Mandell likens Riefenstahl in the editing process of the film to composing a masterpiece more than a documentary film. He then spends some time analyzing particular scenes to reveal their drama and beauty, but notes that the second part of the film, “Festival of Beauty,” is less successful than the first because it is more disjointed and varied. The chapter ends with a discussion of Riefenstahl’s disgrace after World War II for her associations with the Nazi party, a fate the author considers lamentable given her artistic genius.

Mandell’s appraisal of Olympia is mostly positive, and he considers the film to be largely non-political and lacking in propagandistic content. He points out the prominence of black and Asian athletes in the film as evidence of the film’s disassociation with racist Nazi beliefs. He acknowledges that the mass exercise scene is reminiscent of the grand and awe-inspiring shots of Triumph of the Will, but contends that it is nonpolitical and only meant to convey beauty. Mandell does admit, however, that the film does capture the Nazis’ promotion of nationalism through the games’ intense communal competitiveness.

Origins of the Second World War / R.J. Overy.

[Overy, R. J. . Origins of the Second World War / R.J. Overy. 2nd ed. 0582290856 series London ; New York : Longman, 1998]

Overy, R.J. The Origins of the Second World War: 2nd Ed. New York:Longman, 1987.

Overy outlines the main factors essential to understanding the outbreak and
subsequent character of the Second World War. He presents the political, social, economic,
military, and imperial contexts of each of the major powers that would enter World War Two
and analyzes them for the domestic and international spheres. He divides the book into chapters
on: the crisis in international politics especially within diplomacy and international
relations, the economic and imperial rivalries between the nation-states, armament policies,
the conflict over Poland, the outbreak of the war, and a final assessment on the role
that Adolf Hitler played in causing the start of World War Two. Overy does not present a
particular argument or controversial analysis of the factors that set the stage for the Second
World War but rather seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the world in the 1930s
that can serve as a guide to more in-depth study of the war itself.

Overy's review of America in the pre-World War Two period is helpful in understanding "The
Philadelphia Story" in its historical context. The film was made in 1940 when World War Two
had already been going on in Europe and Japan for a year but before the United States
entered the conflict. The points that Overy highlights that best contribute to an understanding
of the film are America's public opinion and foreign policy in these years. He explains that
the United States had a staunchly isolationist attitude towards foreign relations in this
period. America was a strong and significant player on the world stage however because of its
industrial power which translated into economic might. The topic of financial security and
how it is linked to fear of change is one that is also pervasive throughout "The
Philadelphia Story". The Lords' and Havens' are established families of the American cultural
elite that have flourished for generations in their familiar hometown, Philadelphia. They
enjoy the comforts of an economically secure lifestyle; but they and their entire class
are wary of changes to the social conventions in their community. Overy's explanation
of the American public in the 1930s and 1940s helps extend the attitude exhibited
by the Lord's to the U.S. population. Just like Dexter hates to see Tracy change in a marriage
to George, the United States did not want to see its lifestyle changed by involvement
in a war; they did not want to experience it in real life and they certainly did not
want to see representations of these kinds of major changes on screen when they went to the
movies.

Peru : society and nationhood in the Andes / Peter Flindell KlareL