Affiliated Societies, April 1986

The Institute for Research in History

We have long pondered the problem of how to celebrate the beginning of the Institute’s sec­ond decade. Suggestions have been plentiful, as well as playful. Reluctantly, we put aside some of our members’ more spectacular ideas. However, the AHA meeting in New York with the Institute as the local host institution, was the right time and place o begin a year-long celebration,

We are a special organization, and in our first decade we have clone more for each other, and more in the name of the study of history, than all but a few thought possible. Thus, in addition to the party, we arranged for all Institute members to wear a special badge, along with the standard AHA identi­fication, at the Annual Meeting.

Work at the Institute continues. Under contract with the New York Public Library, Bill Zeisel is managing editor for the catalog which accompanies the library’s official cele­bration of the centennial of the Statue of Liberty. The exhibit will open at the library in June and then will be shown in Paris and other selected cities.

Under Key Perspectives, Karen Rubinson and Institute fellow, Linda Jacobs, are work­ing on a project for the New York Stock Exchange to survey its educational services to colleges and universities. Linda’s skill at pro­posal writing as well as her expert organiza­tional abilities are very welcome. Terry Col­lins has been busy consulting with  archivists at Trinity Church and Equitable Life Insur­ance, helping them to  install  MARCON II, the archival software package. She also continues to curate the Life Insurance Under­ writers Exhibit scheduled to open in June at the World Trade Center.

The Margaret Sanger Papers Project con­tinues to make progress. Letters from ar­chives around the country have begun to appear at the office. Indiana University Press has contracted to publish the four-volume book edition of selected papers. Negotiations with microfilm publishers are under way. Joan Ringelheim’s catalog of Holocaust ar­chives is nearly ready for printing. The gal­leys of a new issue of Trends in History, devoted to women’s history, are being proofed. The visiting scholars project for ACLS has a bank of 100 scholars hosted by thirty universities. Katie Crum is planning a fall exhibition on women and surrealism at the Baruch gallery, cosponsored with the Institute.

We are ready, even eager, to take up new projects. Please call or come in with ideas you would like to pursue! Do not be deterred because the ideas seem impractical, hard to fund, or not yet fully worked out. The Insti­tute is, to a large degree, the sum of its members’ intellectual life in all its incredible variety and diversity. Indeed, from the his­tory of sports fishing to medieval saints, from questions of contemporary debate to classical texts, we have active scholar members and we look to support their research.

Responses to the Transitions’ Talent Bank have been extremely enthusiastic. Mary Somers asks that those of you interested in joining, send in your application forms as soon as possible. Mary has had ten new employment openings for the Talent Bank since the middle of November.

Again, we are eager to have an  up-to-date list of ongoing research groups. Thus far, we have information on only the religious history and urban history groups (thank you!). We urge all other research groups that are cur­rently active to drop us a note with the name of your group and the name and telephone num­ber of  the  contact  person.  We hope to send you the updated list of research groups as soon as we can collect the information.