When researchers first visit the Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives whether for a class, research, or just to stop by, they are always amazed by the many collections that we possess. We pride ourselves in the vast amount of primary resources we have on various topics such as the history of the book, playbooks from the Cradle of Coaches Archive, and more. While many are in awe of our collections, there are a number of topics or types of materials that we do not have. We are adding women’s diaries with our most recent acquisition.
In October, we acquired the beginnings of a new collection. This collection will hold the diaries of women from various time periods. Our first set of diaries are those of Mrs. Margaret Watson Gillespie Fagg (November 4, 1863 – July 3, 1955). The entries cover years 1917 through 1949. Although consecutive diaries are not in this collection, the entries tell a story of her day to day experiences during WWI, The Great Depression, and WWII eras. Although we are uncertain of these being the only diaries she had, it appears that the diaries in this collection start at a pivotal point in her life. 1917 was the year her husband, John Gerardus Fagg, passed away. It was their marriage that increased her commitment to the Reformed Church in America (RCA). She served as a missionary assistant during the Amoy Mission with him immediately after they were married in 1889 through 1894. This mission was from the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church to China where her husband trained Chinese Christians to be pastors and preachers.
While the aforementioned periods of time could be seen as challenging times for individuals and families, Fagg focused more on her positive interactions with people she’s met over the years and keeping track of her meetings with people and organizations. The entries in her diaries from 1917-1919 are predominantly about the soldiers she met at Camp Merritt while working in the library. She would write for several pages about what soldiers were doing. One of many stories she wrote about was about finding a letter in the library written by Alvin E. Milton, a bugler, at Camp Merritt describing him being assigned to be on the ship that escorted Woodrow Wilson to Paris to attend the Paris Peace Conference on December 2, 1918.
While her entries were much shorter in her later diaries, it is quite clear that she was heavily involved with her church, the Women’s Board of Foreign Missions (WBFM), and the International House. The WBFM was created “to aid the BFM [Board of Foreign Missions] of the RCA by promoting its work among the women and children of [nonreligious] lands”. (Kansfield, 2004) It is through this work, women like Fagg were able to experience and learn about the world through a different lens.
“[A]cquiring knowledge about the lives of these women and children quickly became an obsession. They knew from the start that in order to help other women in foreign lands, they had to know who these women were, how they lived and what their lives were like. Learning about the lives of women and children in foreign lands and the work of missionaries… opened unforeseen doors and windows into the world. It removed the Reformed Church women from their limited and self-contained lives and opened before them a vastly new and exciting world.” (p. 32)
This experience naturally propelled Fagg to surround herself with those who possessed varying views than her own and lived a different life based on their culture. It can be inferred that this is what drew her to participating in activities with the International House. According to the International House’s website (International House, 2022), their mission “is to enable selected university students, fellows, faculty, and interns from countries around the world and the United States to live and learn together in a challenging and supportive residential community in New York City that builds life-long qualities of leadership, respect, empathy, and moral courage among individuals of all nations and backgrounds.” The “obsession” that was spoken of above could be shown through Fagg’s memorandum book containing the names and some addresses of Chinese students that she’s met and corresponded with.
The greatest benefit to having these and other collections of women’s diaries is more opinions of historical events or the ability to get a sense of everyday life for women as most stories heard, especially during this timeframe, are told from the perspective of men. Fagg’s husband was very well known amongst the members of the Reformed Church in America.There are a number of publications about him and his time with the Reformed Church in America, but not about the contributions she made as well.
To read in her own words about the life she led, the Fagg Collection is open for research weekdays 9am-4 pm. Appointments are preferred and can be made on our appointment page. Stay tuned for more information on our next women’s diaries acquisitions.
Referenced Sources:
International House. (2022). Our Mission, Vision and Values. https://www.ihouse-nyc.org/about-student-housing-in-ny/our-mission-vision-and-values/
Kansfield, M. (2004). Letters to Hazel: Ministry within the Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America. Reformed Church Press
October is American Archives Month, and the Society of Ohio Archivists (SOA) offered to host virtual tours of Ohio archives, so we had to get involved! The format of the tour was left up to us – it could be a tour of our physical spaces, or we could show-off some fun materials from our collections, and we chose to do the latter.
Two collections are highlighted: First, is the Gene Krebs Collection, where we take a first-time look at this political collection, which is currently in the midst of being processed. Second, is the Rick Ludwin Collection, which contains materials from Ludwin’s time at Miami University, as well as his time working in television broadcasting, and ultimately his time as the Executive Vice President for Late Night and Primetime Series at NBC Entertainment.
We were glad to share our collections tour with SOA, and we wanted to spotlight it here as well! Please enjoy the video below, and feel free to contact us to learn more about these, or any of our other great collections.
At the Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives, the staff has continued to share our many collections with Miami students, faculty, staff, and the greater Miami community. The work that is performed with our collections has been recognized by individuals and organizations around the world. Our staff have received many accolades while assisting students who made discoveries in the classroom or researchers who are using our materials for the first time. The work that our student assistants perform allows our staff to do a number of great things. These tasks are different from those of student employees in other areas of the library as they can involve using specific software, such as Adobe Lightroom, or searching through our catalog using advanced search strategies. There are three of our students who deserve to have a bit more recognition as they have graduated earlier in May 2021.
Emily earned a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies. She comes from Solon, Ohio, a suburb outside Cleveland. She joined the Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives in Fall 2018. Over the years, Emily has had her hands in a number of projects with our Special Collections Librarian, Rachel Makarowski, and our University Archivist, Jacky Johnson; however in 2019, she was able to be a part of a project that kept her engaged in many ways.
Our Digital Collections Librarian, Alia Levar Wegner was in the beginning stages of curating materials for the Bearing Witness Exhibition with Cody Sprunger, our Senior Library Technician. She approached Emily to assist her in acquiring some materials and to keep a listing of contacts to borrow materials from. Right away Emily invested her time wholeheartedly. Her involvement started off on a small scale, but then she quickly became very instrumental in the creation of Bearing Witness and a concurrent exhibition, As We See It. Since she not only worked with us and was a Hillel Student Leader, she became the student liaison between Special Collections and University Archives and Hillel: Association of Jewish Students. Hillel is a student organization on Miami University’s campus that provides a wide variety of social, educational, community service, religious and cultural programming focusing on deepening the understanding of Jewish life and Jewish issues on campus. Emily’s passion for teaching others about the Jewish experience and her professionalism really shined when given this responsibility.
While gathering information and materials for the Bearing Witness Exhibition, Cody re-discovered diaries that were kept by students of a Miami University history professor, Dr. W.E. Smith, from 1942-1957. Ironically, Emily explored these same diaries during her visit to the department during her freshman year. Cody and Emily decided that these diaries should be displayed, but they wanted to do so in a more creative way. Emily thought that it would bring the WWII diaries to life. With WWII occurring between 1939-1945, students were bound to have more input into what everyday life was like during that time. Cody and Emily believed that it would be interesting to have two sets of diaries. One set from Dr. Smith’s classes and another set of diaries from current Jewish students and staff to share their experiences. Emily was in charge of securing the current diaries. Five students, including herself, and two faculty members agreed to submit diaries. These two sets of diaries formed the As We See It Exhibition.
When Emily is not with us, she enjoys listening to music and teaching others about Jewish culture. She loves history and books as well. When asked why she joined us, she stated, “I was really interested in helping special collections in any way I could! I really enjoyed this type of work and so wanted to work here.” A final thought that she had for us was:
-Emily Garforth
“I’d just want to say thank you so much to Bill, Alia, Cody, Rachel, and Tiffany for making my years here so special and great”
We’re happy that you chose to work with us. Thank you, Emily, for all that you’ve done!
At the Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives, the staff has continued to share our many collections with Miami students, faculty, staff, and the greater Miami community. The work that is performed with our collections has been recognized by individuals and organizations around the world. Our staff have received many accolades while assisting students who made discoveries in the classroom or researchers who are using our materials for the first time. The work that our student assistants perform allows our staff to do a number of great things. These tasks are different from those of student employees in other areas of the library as they can involve using specific software, such as Adobe Lightroom, or searching through our catalog using advanced search strategies. There are three of our students who deserve to have a bit more recognition as they have graduated earlier last month.
Last month, Anna completed a Bachelor of Arts in Strategic Communication and Political Science with a minor in Interactive Media Studies and Economics. Originally from Gahanna, Ohio, she joined the Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives (“Spec” as it’s commonly referred to) at the beginning of the Spring 2019 semester. She was hired to join a small team of students who were responsible for digitizing the 38,811 pages that make up all volumes of the Recensio yearbooks as part of the W.E. Smith Family Charitable Trust grant project. The digitization process is more involved than one would expect. Not only are the pages scanned individually, but each page is also cropped and straightened. The last two students who were highlighted, Megan and Abby, were part of this same project.
When asked why she applied for a Student Assistant position, she stated, “Sophomore year I wanted to get a job. Rather than sit at a desk doing nothing or working in a busy dining hall, I wanted to be able to work on specific projects and be a little more stimulated on the job”. During the Fall semester of 2020, she was enrolled in PRISM, a capstone for Strategic Communications. According to the creator of PRISM, Bill Brewer, this capstone “serves regional non-profit organizations’ marketing and communication needs while providing senior students experience in producing professional programs in a consulting capacity”. Anna’s team’s client was Miami University Libraries. The Libraries challenged the team to help them develop a strategic communication plan that would help solve an identified problem. Alia Levar Wegner was the contact person for this project. With the project coming to a close at the end of the Fall 2020 semester, Alia created the opportunity for Anna to continue the project to bring the team’s findings to life. The continuation of this project involved Anna’s knowledge of strategic communication coupled with her viewpoints as a current student. This helped shape the narrative of the Go Digital Initiative. The Go Digital Initiative focuses on featuring library digital resources of which our students can take advantage. Consulting with Anna has given Alia, along with the libraries’ strategic communications team, the information needed to advertise to a virtual patron in the college student demographic. There have been three videos that have been published so far on the Libraries’ website and on the Libraries’ YouTube Page.
Outside of the department, Anna is quite the artist. She is normally painting or making digital drawings. She likes to track all of these on her Instagram page @lifebyannagrace. This summer she could be caught experiencing nature by hiking in parks. One fun fact about Anna is that she created, Women in Social Entrepreneurship, a student organization with her roommate. While building this group, they learned “from entrepreneurs and activists about non-profits and humanitarian orgs in our communities”. Since graduating, she will now be able to focus more on her career goal which is to continue her design and branding path that she has been able to experience with us at a more professional level. When asked to describe her experience with us, she replied:
“Thanks for creating such a welcoming environment! Everyone in Spec is so kind and so eager to help out. I really appreciate the attention to growth and the dedication to making my (and everyone’s) experience positive and educational! My time here has been so impactful.”
-Anna Gyde
We’re happy that you chose to work with us. Thank you, Anna, for all that you’ve done for us! We will miss you terribly!
