Marie Maynard Daly, who received her PhD in chemistry from Columbia in 1947, is considered the first Black woman in the U.S. to earn a PhD in chemistry. At Columbia, Daly was one of the 18 graduate students who completed their degrees under Prof. Mary Leticia Caldwell’s sponsorship. Caldwell herself was also a “first.” In […]
Oral History | OHMA’s spring 2024 workshop series announced
Our colleagues in the Oral History Master’s Program (OHMA) have an exciting line-up of talks and workshops for spring semester. Oral history as a research tool has been at times almost synonymous with a certain kind of interviewing: one-on-one, biographical, long-form, recorded, and intended for the archive. In this year-long series of events, are exploring […]
Lewis A. Rosenthal Memorial Room Plaque
Have you ever wondered who else lived in “your” dorm room? Some Columbia students have been visited by returning alumni (see Art Garfunkle); others could search student directories and other sources available at the University Archives. But for a select few, from around the 1930s to the 1970s, there was a plaque right in their […]
Collections highlight | Sam Higgins on the Sidney Kramer paperbacks
Sidney Kramer was a major figure in the 20th-century publishing world, a literary agent and a founder of Bantam Books, an early paperback company that flourished during WWII. Bantam Books reprinted hardbacks and out-of-print titles at cheap prices and its line of classics, including pocket editions of Shakespeare, made the firm a leader in mass-market […]
Peter Schickele (1935-2024)
The RBML notes with sadness the passing of composer, music educator, and satirist Peter Schickele (1935-2024). He was a well-regarded composer in his own right, but was best known for his comedy pieces composed by the fictional P.D.Q. Bach, the “only forgotten son” of Johann Sebastian Bach. A brilliant musical magpie, Schickele’s long-running and elaborate […]