1963
The Exhibition
Christopher Gately, Curator
The Boston University Libraries present 1963, an exhibition featuring material exploring the events and upheavals of the year, all drawn from its Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.
BU’s Special Collections (now the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center) was founded in 1963, and as the Center looks back over 60 years of collecting, it is using the collections as a lens through which the BU community can explore the pivotal moments of 1963.
With materials from some of the most prominent names in journalism; civil rights; film & television; literature and genre fiction; and poetry, the exhibition places a spotlight on the Birmingham campaign, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy while weaving through cultural, artistic, and historical connections.
These are moments of action, art, or conflict across and through an extraordinary year. The exhibition represents not a full or final rendering of what the archive offers, but rather a brief window onto the constellations of connections that already exist and those waiting to be discovered.
We hope that in traveling through 1963 with us, students and visitors will draw a novel connection between familiar ideas that allows for new insights, or find something altogether new.
The exhibition, on display for an extended run, can be viewed in the Gotlieb Memorial Gallery on the first floor of Mugar Memorial Library, 771 Commonwealth Avenue, during regular library hours. If the material on display elicits questions, please ask; if you see something that sounds an off-note, please tell us; if you have an idea about another missed connection, please share it with us: archives@bu.edu.
Thank you for celebrating 60 years of collecting with us.
The Items
Gotlieb Center staff share the importance of just some of the items included in the exhibition:
Why that John Clellon Holmes letter to Jack Kerouac?
Katie Fortier, Archivist
In 1948, notable writers and great friends John Clellon Holmes and Jack Kerouac discussed their generation who had just survived World War II. Kerouac turned to Holmes and said, “You know, this is really a beat generation,” coining the phrase that would describe the famed literary and social movement of the 1950s.
In 1963, Holmes embarked on a nonfiction project to chronicle the lives of famous Beats, and in this letter mentions he is ready to write his chapter on Kerouac, “an American phenomenon that is as indigenous as a gas station in the Grand Canyon.”
From the John Clellon Holmes collection
Why David Halberstam’s reporting from Vietnam?
Ryan J. Hendrickson, Assistant Director for Manuscripts
Throughout his long career David Halberstam insisted on telling the truth through his reporting. This constantly put him at odds with the Powers that Be, whether it was racist Sheriffs in Nashville or upbeat US Army spokesmen in Vietnam. Halberstam arrived in Saigon in 1962 and immediately started to contradict the official line that South Vietnam and its US “advisors” were handily defeating the Viet Cong. Despite open threats to first his livelihood, then his life, Halberstam and his colleagues delivered the truth to their readers. Their bravery set the stage for the anti-war movement that transformed America by the end of the 1960s
From the David Halberstam Collection
Why the program of Richard Roud’s New York Film Festival?
JC Johnson, Manager of Digital Archival Resources
The inaugural New York Film festival was held at Lincoln Center in September of 1963. The festival’s first director, Richard Roud was an American film critic and scholar who also programmed the London Film Festival. Roud wanted to highlight the artistic breadth of cinema and hired as co-founder Amos Vogel of New York’s famed Cinema 16 film society. Under Roud’s stewardship, the New York Film Festival was designed as a platform which reached beyond commercial Hollywood fare and celebrated experimental and foreign films and filmmakers. The early 1960’s saw a rise of distribution of world cinema in American theaters which piqued audiences to foreign and art films. This fueled a new generation’s discussion of movies as serious art and helped birth a more global film culture. The New York Film Festival emerged at that moment and, under Richard Roud’s guidance it became, and remains, one of the most important showcases for filmmakers from around the world.
From the Richard Roud Collection
Why the On Top of Spaghetti sheet music?
Jane Parr, Archivist for Acquisitions
I wanted to include “On Top of Spaghetti” in the exhibit because it was one of my favorite songs as a child. When I was little, I didn’t know who sang or wrote the song, but I remember singing it with my mom and sister in our car all the time (probably singing along to a cassette tape!) When we started discussing the exhibit, and I realized that the song was written by Tom Glazer, whose collection we hold, I was adamant that the music be included. I hope to sing the song with my two young children in the car now, but this time streamed on my phone and not on cassette tape.
From the Tom Glazer Collection
Why items from the McSweeny Collection?
Alex Rankin, Assistant Director for Acquisitions
The William and Dorothy McSweeny Collection is unheralded. From Korean War hero to award winning journalist to civil rights advocate to shadow diplomat and philanthropist, Bill and Dorothy were actively involved in many of the momentous events of the 20th century: from Kennedy’s nomination and assassination to the Soviet Union and the cold war, Vietnam to Watergate, Lyndon Johnson to Ronald Reagan administrations, the design and building of the Korean War Memorial to saving Ford’s Theater. The McSweeny archive is a treasure trove. Shown in the exhibit is the front page of the Dallas Morning News, November 23, 1963, one of many significant items in the McSweeny papers from 1963.
From the William and Dorothy McSweeny Collection
Acknowledgements
Faculty & Staff Advisors
Special thanks for the insights and advice on content and logistics provided by the following members of our community:
| Donald Altschiller Librarian for History, Religion, and Military Affairs Boston University Libraries |
Joel Christian Gill Associate Professor of Art Chair, Department of Visual Narrative School of Visual Arts College of Fine Arts |
| Paula Austin Associate Professor of History and African American & Black Diaspora Studies Director of Graduate Studies College of Arts & Sciences |
William McKeen Professor, Department of Journalism College of Communication |
| Dana Clancy Associate Professor of Art Director, School of Visual Arts College of Fine Arts |
Carrie J. Preston Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Associate Director, Center on Forced Displacement College of Arts & Sciences |
| Bonnie Costello Professor Emeritus Department of English College of Arts & Sciences |
Bruce J. Schulman William E. Huntington Professor History Department College of Arts & Sciences |
| Lissa Cramer Director Boston University Art Galleries College of Fine Arts |
Paul Schneider Chair, Department of Film & Television College of Communication |
| Chris Daly Associate Professor, Journalism College of Communication |
Harvey Young Dean College of Fine Arts |
Curation & Installation
Thanks to the staff and students for their diligence in selecting each item, and presenting it as part of this exhibition.
(* denotes a Boston University graduate)
Christopher Gately*, Curator
Ford Curran*
Shayla Fitzgerald*
Katie Fortier
Claudia Friedel
Ryan Hendrickson*
J.C. Johnson*
Sean Noel*
Jane Parr
Alexander Rankin*
& our partners at Fenway Group
Boston University Student Curators
Hanzhi Li (MET ’23)
Sydney Villegas (CAS ’24)