Ann Hornaday, movie critic at The Washington Post, recently visited the RBML as part of her research for her project entitled, “Follow the Money: The Making of ‘All the President’s Men.'” Below she discusses discovering multiple drafts of William Goldman’s screenplay, and how Woodward and Bernstein were transformed into big screen characters by Alan Pakula and Robert Redford. *** What brings you to Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library?  The papers of screenwriter William Goldman, who wrote the Oscar-winning script for the movie I’m researching. How long have you been using ..read more

Historian Brad Schwartz recently visited the RBML as part of his research on legendary broadcaster Edward Murrow. Currently a graduate student at Princeton, Brad delved into the RBML’s rich journalism collections and oral histories of journalists. Below he describes how his visit to the RBML fits into his ongoing project, Newsman: Edward R. Murrow and the Invention of Truth. *** What brings you to Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library?  I visited the Rare Book & Manuscript Library primarily to explore its journalism history collections, as well as the wealth of oral histo ..read more

Senior Class gifts have evolved significantly over the years. In the early days of Columbia on Morningside Heights, the Senior Class ended their Class Day with the presentation of the class gift: the planting of a yew tree and a speech given by a Yew Tree Orator chosen by the class. Why would students give the University a yew tree? And where are all these yew trees today? In 1801 Dr. David Hosack, a member of the Columbia medical faculty, purchased 20 acres from the City of New-York to develop a research garden. He named it the Elgin Botanical Garden. (The Garden was located between 47th and ..read more

  An A-to-Z of Oral History at Columbia is a monthly posting featuring the people, events, and organizations in the Oral History Archive at Columbia’s collections, as well as behind-the-scenes info about oral history methodology.   The next two entries in the OHAC A-to-Z focus on what happens behind-the-scenes in oral history methodology and archival processing for oral history materials. For this post “e” stands for “ethics.” To say, “Once one sees the ethical issues in oral history, one cannot unsee them,” is an understatement. Photo by Piret Ilver on Unsplash Like most academic d ..read more

A notice in the New-York Journal of November 23, 1786, notes that a number of young women participated in public examinations at Columbia College, vying for prizes for the best reader, best writer, best speller and best proficient in French. Women taking exams at Columbia in 1786? Yes, just months after its first Commencement since the American Revolutionary War, Columbia College hosted the public examinations of the students from the nearby French and English Boarding School. French and English Boarding School, from the New-York Journal, November 23, 1786. In the spring of 1786, Eliza Harriot ..read more

Alice Louise Pond was not the first nor even the second woman to receive a Columbia diploma. Those honors belong to Winifred Edgerton, the first woman to receive a degree from Columbia, a PhD in Mathematics in 1886, and to Mary Parsons Hankey, who completed the Collegiate Course for Women and became the first woman to receive an undergraduate or LLB degree in 1887. But Alice Louise Pond also deserves all due recognition: in 1888, she was the second woman to complete the Collegiate Course for Women and, luckily for us, she told a reporter about what her college experience was like.  What w ..read more

The Xi’an Incident/西安事變 is also known as one of the most controversial historical events in 20th Century Chinese history. This event led to the united forces between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists in 1936 December prior to the all war against Japan aggression in China during WWII. In the midst of the incident, William Henry Donald (端納), an Australian journalist who was a close friend of Zhang Xueliang (Peter H. L. Chang/張學良), and the mediator between Zhang Xueliang, Chiang Kai-shek, and Yang Hucheng, as well as many other who were involved. The William Henry Donald letters consist ..read more

Our colleagues at the Spotlight blog posted this nice interview with Flor Barceló, a graduate of our primary source internship program. Student Employee Profile: Meet Flor Barcel ..read more

All birthday parties need a cake and Columbia’s 250th Anniversary in 2003 was no different. Harlem native Patrick De’Shaun Dennis III, better known as Cake Man Raven, made a 13-foot-tall replica of Low Library in his signature flavor: red velvet. While this massive 3.5-ton cake was impressive, Cake Man Raven’s masterpiece was yet to come. He entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s largest sculptured cake in 2012. In October 2003, Cake Man Raven was the designer and master baker of a 3.5-ton cake celebrating Columbia’s 250th anniversary. Before beginning the undertaking, Cake ..read more

The work of archival and rare book processors is truly fascinating and never-ending. At RBML, we take great pleasure in exploring beyond the obvious and discovering curious and surprising artifacts left behind between pages and amidst letters for years, decades, and even centuries.  These treasures come in varying formats, subjects, and meanings, some of them are jewels, while others are everyday curiosities lost in the shuffle of collecting or left behind as forgotten bookmarks. As someone who has used odd items like lottery tickets as placeholders, I can attest that these items often ha ..read more