Quarterly Review

News from the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections & University Archives at the UNC Greensboro University Libraries

Summer 2025 | Issue 19

First Edition, 1966.

RECENT ACQUISITIONS

One of the primary roles of The Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives is to acquire books and original materials, whether by donation, purchase, or transfer.

Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 historical novel by Dominican-British author Jean Rhys. The novel is set in Jamaica between the 1830-40s and serves as a postcolonial and feminist prequel to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre (1847), describing the background of Mr. Rochester's marriage from the point of view of his wife Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress.

Learn about the latest acquisitions to all collections HERE...

PACKING UP: SCUA AND THE LIBRARY RENOVATION

SCUA faculty and staff continue to plan and work towards the upcoming Phase Two relocation of our department. This work has included inventorying collections, checking and double-checking boxes to confirm their locations coincide with SCUA’s online content management platform, and labeling boxes in anticipation of moving a portion of our physical collections to the campus’s Becher-Weaver Building on Northridge Street.

Read more about the new exhibit HERE...

MYSTERY ARTIFACT

This Woman's College (now UNCG) pin presents a tantalizing enigma. It appears to be four penguins marching in tandem - an adult followed by three chicks? But what is its significance? If any reader knows about this mysterious iconography, please contact scua@uncg.edu.

SCUA NEWS

Preparing for the library renovation entails getting ready to move SCUA collections from Jackson Library to an off-site building. And it's a team effort! SCUA staff members Patrick Dollar and Scott Hinshaw, along with the rest of SCUA spent a morning deframing Triad Stage posters for easier storage.

Read about more SCUA News HERE...

STUDENT SUCCESS

The UNCG Humanities at Work (H@W) program provides paid internships to undergraduate humanities majors. Students in the program work in small teams with local community partners to learn how to leverage their degrees beyond the classroom.

In Spring 2025 Magnus Holland and Daniela Campbell created the exhibit titled "So, What Did You Learn at UNCG?

INSTRUCTION

SCUA has a strong commitment to instruction, teaching many class sessions each year. SCUA hosted a group of KIN Ed doctoral students who were visiting campus for their in-person orientation. Department Head Kathelene Smith gave a talk about the history of physical education on campus, and created a large exhibit that included early gym suits, artifacts, and images, as well as a display of several important books on the history of physical education from SCUA's collections.

PRESERVATION AND CONSERVATION:

THE BIG LITTLE BOOKS

The Big Little Books were first published during the early 1930's by the Whitman Publishing Company of Wisconsin. These wonderfully small books were often related to comic book characters, popular radio stories, movie characters, and novels. SCUA recently received a group of Big Little Books that were in need of some restoration before being added to the stacks.

Read about this restoration HERE...

STORYMAP: NICHOLAS SPARKS' THE LAST SONG

New York Times best-selling author Nicholas Sparks sets his novels in coastal North Carolina. The narratives he creates always feature locales in North Carolina, with the settings becoming crucial factors in his books. In his 2009 book The Last Song, Sparks set the story in Wrightsville and Wilmington, NC.

Follow in the characters' footsteps on the StoryMap...

THE DOLPHIN-SEAL CLUB: AQUATIC ADVENTURES ON CAMPUS

Students at the Women's College of the University of North Carolina (now UNCG) formed the Dolphin Club in 1926 to improve their swimming stroke and technique. Later on, the club added the “Seal” part to the name to include girls who wanted to join but were not as skilled in swimming.

Learn more HERE...

SCRAPBOOK SPOTLIGHT: CHERYL "CHERRY" MANN CALLAHAN

The 1967-1969 scrapbook of UNCG Class of 1971 alumna Cheryl "Cherry" Elizabeth Mann (Callahan) offers insight into the life of a student who was very involved in campus organizations during a time of societal upheaval. She ended her illustrious career at UNCG as Vice-Chancellor of Student Affairs.

Read about this scrapbook HERE...

CAROLYN'S COOKING THROUGH THE COUNTIES: WESTERN NC

Rare Book Curator, Carolyn Shankle, is cooking her way through SCUA's vast North Carolina Cookbook Collection! For this issue she made a sour cream poundcake from the 1997 Mount Carmel Baptist Church WMU.

SCUA's cookbook collection includes more than 2,000 volumes from churches, community groups, hospitals, and various clubs across North Carolina. Many of these community publications were created with the intention of raising money.

Read about Carolyn's experience baking the poundcake HERE...

LUGUBRIOUS DISTANCE:

Experiencing mourning & loss for North Carolina, almost to an exaggerated degree.

This beautiful artist book by Ellen Knudson, published through her press, Crooked Press, in 2010, is an incredible homage to life lived in North Carolina, through the author's words, illustrations and delicate, tactile hand printed and bound work of art.