Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) welcomes students, educators, and learners of all kinds for communal exploration and study. If you would like to partner with us on our outreach activities or learn more about TUSC programming, please contact specialcollections@tulane.edu.
For directions and hours, please see our Visitor Information page.
Printing Beauty: The Kelmscott Press and the Arts & Crafts Movement
September 20, 2024 – January 17, 2025
Opening reception September 20, 2024, 5:00pm – 7:00pm.
Free and open to the public.
The exhibition features holdings from the Kelmscott Collection at Tulane University Special Collections. It places the materials in dialogue with items from other contributors to the Arts & Crafts Movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Europe and the United States. Advocating economic and social reform, proponents of the Arts & Crafts Movement addressed the creative and domestic needs of a growing middle class. They believed that art should be accessible to all and incorporated into the fabric of everyday life. To these ends, the movement emphasized the value of handmade objects, slow production, and traditional design techniques. The materials in this exhibition highlight their creators’ lasting impact on book design, craftsmanship, and cultural heritage in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.
Curated by Agnieszka Czeblakow, Faye Daigle, and Kevin Williams, Printing Beauty: The Kelmscott Press and the Arts & Crafts Movement opens September 20, 2024 and runs through January 17, 2025 at the Tulane University Special Collections 2nd Floor Gallery, 6801 Freret Street, Joseph Merrick Jones Hall, on Tulane University’s Uptown campus. Hours are 10am–4pm Monday-Friday. Admission is free and open to the public.
For more information contact:
Kevin Williams, Coordinator for Exhibits & Outreach,
Tulane University Special Collections
(504) 247-1836
kevinw@tulane.edu
Please join us for these upcoming events!
The Prima Memorial Series
Lecture with Dr. Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr.: “What I Did with Musicology and What It Gave Me Back”
Thursday, September 19, 2024
6:00 p.m.
Rogers Memorial Chapel, 1229 Broadway St.
Tulane University
Click here for directions
Free and open to the public
Guggenheim Fellow and musicologist Dr. Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr. will discuss his 30 years of multimodal inquiry as a scholar, author, musician, teacher, and community activist as a route of possibility for an academic career in music.
Dr. Ramsey is Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. His work includes writing books such as his latest, Who Hears Here: On Black Music Pasts and Present (2022); and consulting for projects such as the 2020 Emmy Award-winning HBO documentary, The Apollo: The Soul of American Culture.
The Prima Memorial Lecture Series presents discourse and discussion around American popular music, including its origins in American jazz.
Presented by Tulane University Special Collections and the Gia Maione Prima Foundation. Co-sponsored by the Newcomb-Tulane College Office of Undergraduate Research and the Newcomb Department of Music.
For more info, click here, or email mweber3@tulane.edu.
In the Archives: Researching and Learning with Primary Source Materials about New Orleans
Monday, October 21, 2024
12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
Louis Prima Room (room 306) in Jones Hall, 6801 Freret St.
Tulane University
Registration required
This hands-on introduction to archives allows attendees to engage with holdings from the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, a unit of Tulane University Special Collections.
Learn about what archives are, how they're interesting and can benefit you, and why archives about New Orleans music and culture are important. Led by Melissa A. Weber, Hogan Archive curator.
This in-person workshop is open to both the Tulane University community and the general public. Students are encouraged to attend. Capacity: 20 attendees. For more information, email mweber3@tulane.edu.
The Prima Memorial Series
Louis Prima: The Wildest documentary screening
+ Q&A with film producers Joe Lauro and Don McGlynn
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
12:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Diboll Gallery, 3rd floor of The Commons
Tulane University
Refreshments served
Free and open to the public
Registration recommended
Before Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tom Jones, Tony Bennett or Engelbert Humperdinck ever played the stages of Vegas, there was Louis Prima. One of America's most hypnotic and original performers, Prima's career spanned several decades and turned out hits like "That Old Black Magic," "Sing, Sing, Sing," "Just a Gigolo," "I Ain't Got Nobody" and "Jump, Jive an' Wail." In Disney's animated classic The Jungle Book, Prima created the "hep" voice of King Louie the orangutan. This film profiles the magnetic Louis Prima in a nostalgic historical journey through the music scenes of a racy New Orleans, the swinging jazz culture of uptown New York and Las Vegas's formative years.
Following the screening, Anthony J. Sylvester of the Gia Maione Prima Foundation will moderate a talkback session with the film’s producers, Joe Lauro and Don McGlynn.
The Prima Memorial Lecture Series presents discourse and discussion around American popular music, including its origins in American jazz.
Presented by Tulane University Special Collections and the Gia Maione Prima Foundation. Co-sponsored by the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library.
For more info about the event, email mweber3@tulane.edu.
Archives Social Hour
Friday, November 9, 2024
1:00 - 2:00 p.m.
TUSC Reading Room
Jones Hall room 202, 6801 Freret St.
Tulane University
Tulane University Special Collections invites students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors to its mixer and open house during Wave ’24 Weekend.
View, handle, and learn about rare and unique archival materials from TUSC holdings, meet TUSC staff who can answer your questions about archives and special collections, and "visit the archives" just for fun. Free treats and giveaways available, while they last.
Sponsored by Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC), which consists of the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, Louisiana Research Collection, Rare Books Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, and University Archives.
For more information, email mweber3@tulane.edu.
Image credit: Louis Prima papers, Tulane University Special Collections
Recent exhibitions include “I Shall Not Be Moved”: Black Student Life at Tulane, 1963-2023 (April - December 2023); Absolutely Unpredictable: Anne Rice in the City of Transgression (October 2022 - February 2023); Music IS the Scene": Jazz Fest's First Decade, 1970-1979 (March - May 2022); Captive Voices: Hearing, Seeing, and Imagining Angola Prison, launched as a complement to the 2019 Tulane Reading Project selection, Vengeance by Zachary Lazar; and Proteus 1892, Teunisson 1902, and Louis Armstrong 1949: Selections from the Carnival Holdings.
View highlights from the following recent exhibitions on the Tulane Libraries YouTube channel:
- "Music IS the Scene”: Jazz Fest’s First Decade, 1970-1979 (2022)
- Where We Stand: Zines from New Orleans (2020)
- Proteus 1892, Teunisson 1902, and Louis Armstrong 1949: Selections from the Carnival Holdings (2019)
- The Laurel Valley Plantation Photographs of Philip M. Denman (2018)
- Cook Dat! A Celebration of New Orleans Cuisine (2018)
TUSC staff, as well as many Tulane students, have created several digital exhibitions that feature TUSC collections. Some highlights are linked here; to view all of the TUSC digital exhibitions, please visit the Tulane Libraries portal for online exhibitions.
- “Music IS the Scene”: Jazz Fest’s First Decade, 1970-1979
- Books Through Their Pages
- William Faulkner’s New Orleans
- The Treasures of Tulane
- Riverboats and Jazz
- Education: Celebrating the Artistic, Academic, Athletic, and Administrative Achievements of the Women of Tulane University
- Louisiana Women’s Collection: A History of Political Activism
- The Organic Modernism of Albert C. Ledner
- The Extraordinary Life of Natalie Scott
Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) welcomes loan requests from institutions with established exhibition programs and professional staff qualified to handle the materials requested. Loan requests are judged on their own merits and the final decision to loan an item is made on a case-by-case basis. TUSC will provide an agreement for approved loans and cannot sign agreements from a borrowing institution. For more information about our loan program, please email Kevin Williams, Coordinator for Exhibits & Outreach, Tulane University Special Collections, kevinw@tulane.edu.