New-to-me, from Curbed New York: The unsung modernist treasures of Queens. “In Bayside, Queens, the American Martyrs Roman-Catholic church sits proudly on a street corner, standing in high relief compared to the single-family homes nearby. It’s circular and covered in yellow bricks, with a folded-plate copper roof that’s aged into a mossy shade of green…. It’s a fine building designed by John O’Malley, one of the most prolific ecclesiastical architects in Brooklyn and Queens. You won’t find the church in most history books about modern architecture, but it is included in Queens Modern, a digital archive composed of adaptations of the movement in New York City’s largest borough, which was updated at the end of December to include deeper dives into over a dozen firms active during the mid-20th-century.” There appears to be some concern in the comments that not everything included is “real” modernist. I don’t know enough about architecture to judge.
1950s
Times Colonist: History available at your fingertips in online archive
Times Colonist: History available at your fingertips in online archive. “Back issues of the Colonist are more accessible than ever before, thanks to a digitization project led by the University of Victoria. Back issues from 1858 to 1970 are online… and the 1970s will be added early in 2019. As John Lutz, a history professor at the University of Victoria, has said, the website is a game-changer in historical research in B.C.”
ESB: Film Archive is launched
ESB: Film Archive is launched. ESB stands for Electricity Supply Board. It is an electric utility in Ireland. “To celebrate the 90th anniversary of the establishment of ESB’s Public Relations Department, we have launched previously unseen film footage commissioned by ESB from the 1920s to the 1980s. Our film archive offers unique insights into the social, cultural and economic development of Ireland throughout this period.”
The Telegraph: Urgent appeal to save huge photo archive depicting Venice in its post-war heyday
The Telegraph: Urgent appeal to save huge photo archive depicting Venice in its post-war heyday. “In urgent appeal has been launched to save a huge archive of photographs depicting Venice in its post-war, Dolce Vita heyday, when the Grand Canal and St Mark’s Square were frequented by the likes of Paul Newman, Sean Connery, Ernest Hemingway and Sophia Loren. The archive of more than 320,000 photographs, amassed by a now defunct Italian photography agency called CameraPhoto, depicts world leaders such as Winston Churchill and Pope John Paul II, as well as artists such as Dali and Picasso and the American poet Ezra Pound.”
Library of Congress: Veterans History Project Highlights Cold War Collections
Library of Congress: Veterans History Project Highlights Cold War Collections . “The Veterans History Project (VHP) in the Library of Congress today launched a website feature, titled ‘Cold War Dispatches: Service Stories from 1947-1991,’ as part of its ‘Experiencing War’ online series. The feature highlights the stories of veterans who served in non-combatant roles within the military between 1947 and 1991, commonly referred to as the Cold War era.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Needs Help Identifying African-American Portrait Photography
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is looking for help identifying studio portraits of African-Americans. This link goes to a Facebook post. “This exhibition presents more than one hundred and fifty studio portraits of African Americans from the mid-twentieth century. To this day, both photographers and subjects remain mostly unidentified. Does someone look familiar?”
Dag Hammarskjöld Library: Digitization Update – SG Bulletins & Staff Rules
Dag Hammarskjöld Library: Digitization Update – SG Bulletins & Staff Rules. “In an ongoing initiative the Dag Hammarskjöld Library’s Digitization Unit has scanned over 160 memorable Secretary General’s Bulletins, including UN staff rules, from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. These historical UN documents contain milestone communications including bulletins addressed to the “Members of the Staff of United Nations” by Secretaries-General Trygve Lie and Dag Hammarskjöld. Since many of the staff rules have numerous amendments one can follow the path of refining for each rule, and the evolution of the Organization’s human resource topics throughout the decades.”
