Periodical Ramblings (14)

 

Liberty Magazine - The Canadian One

   You will gather from the title that I have often written about periodicals and the rationale for doing so is stated in, "Periodical Ramblings (The Series)" which is found back in the summer of 2017. In the last few, I dealt with Look and Saturday Evening Post which, like Liberty, were popular magazines.

   I did not grow up in Canada, but if you did in the 1950s and '60s you probably read it or saw it displayed in the newsstands which used to exist. If you have any copies, you should hang onto them since they often fetch a fair price.

   

  Images of the magazine are easy to locate, but the periodical is not. One reason for that is that "liberty" is a word attached to many things, including many different kinds of periodicals There was a very popular Liberty in the United States about which much is found, but that is not true for the Canadian version, although I will add that my searches for it have not been exhaustive. 

  

   

  Apart from having a popular name, the title varied and you will find a Canadian New Liberty Magazine and one with a subtitle: Liberty: Canada's Young Family Magazine.

  It was published in Montreal and likely existed over the years from 1932 to 1964 and was edited during the latter years by Frank Rasky who was a popular Canadian author. A paperback edition of the one pictured above is available on Amazon for around $200. 

   I don't think any copies of Liberty exist in libraries in London. For anyone studying Canadian popular history, it would be an interesting resource. Gale has digitized for researchers the entire collection of the Liberty Magazine published in the United States, ("Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950.") 

Ohio State University Press

    As the dreary weather continues, so does the search for good reading material. It is not usually found on the New York Times Best Seller List which, we have come to learn, does not contain books recommended by the NYT, but only those found in the various tabulations gathered by someone who works for the NYT. The best sellers are often not good, but they are popular, which also does not necessarily mean "good". As I type this on "Family Day", a holiday throughout much of Canada, it is interesting to note that Jennette McCurdy's, I'm Glad My Mom Died, is #4 on the "Non-Fiction" list. It may, or may not, be good, but apparently it is selling well. 

  About 12,000 books are published annually by University Presses, but they rarely appear on the lists in the NYT. An exception might have been, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, which was published by the University of Chicago Press and was at least somewhat popular and made into a film directed by Robert Redford and starring Brad Pitt. Given that you may not come across many university press catalogues, or pay much attention to the book ads in some high brow magazines, there may be 12,000 new books of which you are unaware. 

  It is to make you aware of potential sources for good books that I have provided short profiles of university presses over the past couple of years. I began way out on the west coast with the University of Washington and lately have focused on ones near by, ranging from the University of Minnesota to those even closer to Ontario: Penn State, Wayne State, Michigan State and the University of Michigan. I must soon begin including Canadian ones. 

  Today, the choice is from Columbus, Ohio. I should have mentioned earlier, and have done so in earlier posts, that not all university press books are unreadable and full of the jargon we civilians associate with those who reside on campuses. While many current university press publications deal with things like intersectionality and hyphenated identities, the older entries in the catalogues can be of interest and many of them can be read and enjoyed by people like us. 

   At the website of The Ohio State University Press, you can quickly learn about their publishing priorities. When I have posted about the university presses close by, I have indicated that there is often a regional focus which encompasses our area, where books of "local" interest are found. See, for example, Penn State's "Keystone Books" and Wayne State's, "Great Lakes Book Series." Books with a midwestern focus produced at Ohio State are found under the "Trillium" imprint, a floral emblem Ontarians will recognize.

   If you are especially interested in nature and the birds and fishes found close by Ontario, be sure to check the works of Milton Trautman. Although he didn't make it beyond Grade 8, he is renowned as an ornithologist and ichthyologist and wrote many articles of interest about the Bass Islands a little bit south of Pelee Island. His very big book about The Birds of Buckeye Lake can be downloaded for free, but his Birds of Western Lake Erie could cost you almost $300. For a long and interesting article about Trautman see: "The Last Naturalist: A Zoologist Happiest in the Fields and Streams of Ohio, Wrote Major Works About the State's Birds and Fishes," Parker Bauer, The American Scholar, April 21, 2022. 

OSU PRESS

"The Trillium imprint publishes books about Ohio and the Midwest in an effort to help the citizens of the state learn more about the unique history, the diverse culture, and the natural environment of the state of Ohio. Books published under this imprint will also help to fund our scholarly publishing program, and will aid in lowering the cost of the student textbooks we publish." 

The entire book can be read by clicking on this link. 

A Few More Buckeye Books

The United States of Ohio covers little-known facts about Ohio, such as how the state was the birthplace of both the National Football League and Major League Baseball and how it was Ohioans who led efforts toward racial integration in both sports. Readers will learn what makes the state a manufacturing and agricultural powerhouse—with both the largest tire company, Akron’s Goodyear, and the largest consumer products company, Cincinnati’s Procter & Gamble, based there. The state grows, processes, and builds on a level that far outpaces the size of its population or expanse of its borders. And it is the birthplace of many prominent US figures—from Thomas Edison to John Glenn to Neil Armstrong. From sports to a century’s worth of entertainment superstars to aviation and space exploration, Ohio’s best have made for America’s greatest stories—all captured here in a look at the Buckeye State and its impact on the other forty-nine.

“An exceptionally thorough history of white supremacy focused on Ohio but relevant nationwide. By analyzing supremacist influences on American history, from conquests of Native Americans to today’s alt right, the authors have created an eye-opening resource. Its accessible style will engage a broad readership.”—Deborah Levine, editor of American Diversity Report

“Falconry in Hawking Women touches on so many topics: the strange intimacies of memory training that bonded a bird with its handler, gender hierarchies, and especially the entangled freedom and constraint of poetics. Petrosillo’s rich practical knowledge of the sport illuminates a key component of medieval literature.” —Karl Steel, author of How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages.

The Bonus:

  

   University presses also often publish journals and one produced by OSU is: Inks: The Journal of the Comic Studies Society. 

For an article of local interest in this journal see: "Comics and Public History: The True Story of the 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars, " Dale Jacobs and Heidi LM Jacobs, in Vol.4, No.1, Spring 2020, p.101.

Periodical Ramblings (7)

Weatherwise

I discovered this interesting magazine in the old periodical room in Weldon Library at Western University and was reminded of it because of two recent articles issuing from that university. Weatherwise covers the climate, weather and meteorology from a variety of different perspectives and the two pieces from Western News indicate that some scholars at Western are now studying those subjects. They are likely to find the periodical useful as will the many others who are increasingly interested in the climate and the way it has changed. 

      Professor MacEachern of the History Department was somehow able to get Environment Canada to send him a considerable amount of data AND somehow able to convince the folks in the Archives and Research Collections Centre to house the material which consists of two parts: “The first part comprises all existing meteorological observations generated at thousands of weather stations across Canada, from the predecessor agencies of Environment Canada, from 1840-1960….”The second part of the collection consists of 250 volumes of journals, observations, letter books, and correspondence related to Canadian meteorological and climatological history, and spanning the 1820s to the 1960s.” 

     Professor Melitta Adamson a “ Modern Languages and Literatures professor and food historian is among the first scholars in her field to document how climate change, with its critical impact on food production, shaped the Middle Ages (or Medieval Period) through famine, disease and war.” 

     Those interested in their work should see: 1) “Canada Researcher Unboxing Canada’s Climate History,” Adela Talbot, Western News, June 12, 2018 and 2) “Professor Tracks Medieval Winds of (Climate) Change, Aniruddho Chokroborty-Hoque, Western News, June 12, 2018.

 

The two covers above will indicate why, in the old days, Weatherwise was often seen on the re-shelving shelves and frequently used, even if only by the odd faculty member who had wandered in to avoid grading. Here is how the magazine describes itself: “Weatherwise features fascinating articles and spectacular color photographs that showcase the power, beauty, and excitement of weather. Weatherwise articles present the latest discoveries and hottest issues in meteorology and climatology and focus on the relation of weather to technology, history, culture, art, and society. In each issue, our expert columnists answer reader questions about the weather; discuss current events and people in the news; review new weather-related books and videos; test reader forecast skills with analysis of weather maps; and summarize recent weather events in the United States and Canada.” As they mention, Canadian weather information is often provided and here is a partial sample: “Hail and High Water,”, Malcolm Geast, Oct/.Nov.1996: “One of the worst flooding disasters in Canadian history devastated parts of Quebec in July, as eight inches of rain in less than 48 hours triggered flash flooding in the Seguenay (sic) River valley, killing ten people. The flood, coupled with several ferocious hailstorms in Winnipeg and Calgary, resulted in over half a billion dollars in damages and made for a memorable summer north of the border.”

And, way back in 1956 you will find “A Short History of the Meteorological Service of Canada,” Vol.9, 1956, No.2

Historians interested in the weather only as it affected an historical event will find examples such as these: On the Halifax explosion -” Retrospect: December 6, 1907: Halifax Explosion,” Sean Potter, Vol. 70, 2017, No.6 “U.S. Weather Synoptic Weather Map for 1300 GMT (9:00 a.m. AST) December 6, 1917. An area of high pressure helped create cool, clear conditions for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the morning of an explosion that would prove to be the deadliest disaster in Canadian history. Meanwhile, a developing coastal low to the southwest would move up the Atlantic coast over the following 24 hours, bringing heavy snow and blizzard conditions to the area, hampering relief efforts.”

The military historians will enjoy: “The Weather of Independence: Burgoyne's Northern Campaign”, David M. Ludlum, Vol. 29, , 1976 No.5, and “Friend and Foe: Weather and the War of 1812,” Stephen Vermette, Vol. 65, 2012, No.1 I know you are interested in the weather and are now curious about this serial, but before you run up to the lovely campus you should know that the print Weatherwise was cancelled and most of the volumes are in storage. Over the years, hundreds of periodical subscriptions had to be cancelled at Western and that is the case at other universities as well. That bad news has to be followed quickly with the good news that the Western Libraries has been able to continue subscribing to the electronic version. It is available via three different vendors so, if you are associated with Western, you can read the periodical from afar and not have to visit the old periodical room. But, I need to quickly also add that you will not be able to access all the issues of Weatherwise electronically, including most of the articles mentioned above. The magazine began in 1948 and the Western Libraries have a healthy print run going back to 1950. But the oldest issues one can access electronically via the Western Libraries catalogue are from 1990. One can search the archives of Weatherwise from their site and get articles from before the 1990s either by subscribing to the publication or paying per article. One can also search the back issues from one of the vendors provided by Western (Taylor & Francis), but they also ask you to pay per article for the older ones. It is highly likely that the library could not afford to buy access to the complete electronic file - and keep in mind that the journal had already been purchased once.

(Tip: Search Weatherwise from their site or via Taylor & Francis in the Western Library catalogue and then ask for the journal to be retrieved from storage. Another tip is to ask a bona fide librarian.)

Sources:

The series "Periodical Ramblings" so far has considered: The Sewanee Review, Fortune, The Village Voice, Flair and the Wilson Quarterly. For its rationale see: Periodical Ramblings (The Series) Professor Adamson, mentioned above is also the author of Food in the Middle Ages : A Book of Essays. If you are interested in the history of food, see my recent post about sources for that subject: Food History. If you are really, really interested in that subject see my brief essay on "Clean Eating" (which, you should be warned, has a section on "placenta eating"). If you are more of a locavore see Local Food.

Finding books about the history of weather and its cultural impact can be tricky. Here are two that will illustrate how scholars are now looking at things with weather in mind.

For a look at the weather as experienced by Lewis and Clark see: Lewis & Clark: Weather and Climate Data from the Expedition Journals, edited by Vernon Preston. It is available as an ebook from the Western Libraries:

 "The Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1803-1806 systematically recorded weather and climate data during their 4,162-mile journey across largely uncharted territory. This data, organized by date and complemented by route descriptions and 50 color photos and historical maps, creates a fascinating look at the weather-related challenges that, at times, nearly derailed the Corps of Discovery from completing its mission and  returning safely. Lewis and Clark is both a compelling read for weather and history buffs and a key resource for scientists  researching climate history."

     For a literary example see: Weatherland: Writers and Artists under English Skies by Alexandra Harris.

"Writers and artists across the centuries, looking up at the same skies and walking in the same brisk air, have felt very different things and woven them into their novels, poems and paintings... 'Weatherland' is both a sweeping panorama of cultural climates on the move and a richly illustrated, intimate account - for although weather, like culture, is vast, it is experienced physically, emotionally and spiritually; as Harris cleverly reveals, it is at the very core of what it means to be English."

(also available at Western)

Periodical Ramblings (4)

The Wilson Quarterly

    Canada is one of eight nations (conveniently ignoring the indigenous ones) in the Arctic Council and as Canadians we tend to look north and think most of it belongs to us. On this blustery Arctic-like day, I can perform a civic duty while conveniently inside and point you to some of the articles on the Far North in a recent issue of The Wilson Quarterly:

THE CHALLENGE OF ARCTIC GOVERNANCE
BY DOUGLAS C. NORD
Governance is challenging in any context, but it becomes even more complex when attempted in an area that, until recently, has had little experience with regional decision-making.

CHANGING CLIMATES FOR ARCTIC SECURITY
BY SHERRI GOODMAN
Shaped by changing climates – political as well as planetary – our understanding of security in the Arctic has morphed since the Cold War and continues to take on new forms.

THE ARCTIC ENVIRONMENT IN THE AGE OF MAN
BY ROSS A. VIRGINIA
The Arctic is hurtling into the Anthropocene, and caribou, walruses, and even mosquitoes are responding.

THE ARCTIC, FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY
BY MICHAEL SFRAGA
From oil paintings and poetry to militarization and melting (and yes, even video games), our quest to understand the region at the top of the planet continues – and the stakes today are higher than ever.

LANGUAGES OF THE ARCTIC
“The languages of the Arctic - carriers of the culture and identity of the region’s people - are fighting for their survival. In this special interactive project, explore the linguistic diversity and human spirit of the Far North.”
A special project by The Wilson Quarterly [this will take you to a very interesting YouTube presentation].

     Unfortunately you cannot run to the local newsstand (which is probably far away) or to the nearest Indigo and grab a copy of The Wilson Quarterly. Fortunately you can read it here. The print publication which began over forty years ago had to cease publishing print copies about five years back. You are probably saying "So What?, I can read it without getting cold.”  Still, I would like to suggest that something has been lost and, besides, it gives me another excuse to ramble among the periodicals we used to find in good libraries and even at newsstands on a nearby corner.

     The first thing you should know is that it was a much better reader's digest than the other one. The first thirty to forty pages were devoted to alerting you to what was being published in various magazines and journals. This section, (initially called "Periodicals" and later "The Periodical Observer" and still later, "In Essence"), offered thorough summaries and digests of articles that were much longer than typical abstracts.  If you are a researcher interested in in the intellectual or popular culture of, say the late 1970s, you could learn a lot by grabbing a single issue of The Wilson Quarterly from that period. 

     In the first issue in the autumn of 1976 the editor, Peter Braestrup, indicates that The Wilson Quarterly “ is designed to bring the world of scholars and specialists to the intelligent lay reader" and that is what it did. There were articles, book reviews, interviews and "clusters" of essays on particular subjects, such as the Arctic cluster in the current issue. The coverage was eclectic. Two of the books reviewed in the first issue demonstrate this: A River Runs Through It takes care of the subject of fish while Beautiful Swimmers deals with crabs. (That was a cheap way to get in a plug for the latter book which is about crabs and the Chesapeake Bay area - an area where I grew up. William Warner, the author of the book, did win a Pulitzer for it, however, and it does illustrate that the WQ was more than a political or economics journal.)

     The print publication was published by The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the digital one still is - for now. That such an interesting periodical, even with some 'institutional' support, has to struggle is unfortunate. As one 'obituary' writer noted when the print edition ceased:

     "I'd hate to see The Wilson Quarterly fold," said Daniel Akst, a longtime contributing editor, and author of "We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess." "Few publications are as reliably (and pleasurably) non-hysterical, historically informed and pragmatic in outlook. WQ's infrequent publication schedule has only made it more precious in this day of unlimited instantaneous blab."

Some Sources:
     An article about the first issue of The Wilson Quarterly notes that the initial press run was 80,000 and that it cost $12.
“The Wilson Quarterly, Review of Ideas, Issued,” The New York Times, Oct. 19, 1976. It says that “ the 160 page review is a digest of articles that have appeared earlier elsewhere, as well as a printed record of excerpts from discussions at the center. It also contains reprints from books, short book reviews, and recommended background reading lists on subjects it treats. There is an original article, on Brazil, and a reprint of Russell Lyne’s 1949 Harper’s piece entitled, “Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow,” with Lyne’s recent reflections on his 1949 selections.’

For two articles about the demise of the print edition see:
“Wilson Quarterly to End Print Publication,” Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times, June 9, 2012.
“The Wilson Quarterly, the 36-year-old general interest magazine published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, has announced that it will put out its final print issue in July….”
“Mr. Lagerfeld said he did not know the magazine's current circulation figures, but a blog post at the Nieman Journalism Lab noted that the Wilson Center spent $1.96 million on the magazine against $950,000 revenue in 2010. The Wilson Quarterly's spring issue, currently on newsstands, is titled ''The Age of Connection,'' and includes several articles on the promise and perils of the digital age.”

“Wilson Center May Sell or Fold its Esteemed Wilson Quarterly, as Readership Declines; The Wilson Center’s 37-year-old Publication Center has Struggled to Find a Footing in the Digital World.”Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post, Sept. 8, 2013.
“The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is exploring selling or ceasing publication of The Wilson Quarterly, a wise, wonky and sometimes witty magazine that showcases the work of renowned intellectuals and policy experts but has struggled to find a footing in the digital world, according to sources.
The quarterly abruptly canceled its print edition last year, shifting its focus to digital platforms such as the Kindle and iPad, as well as its Web site. But readership has declined, and the cachet of a 37-year-old publication that once cultivated a loyal and elite audience drawn to its special brand of brainy, yet accessible, writing has slipped.”
The quotation by Akst is from the article above.


     
Fortunately the archive is provided on the web site, although the link is not immediately apparent. You will find it here.

  To conclude with some Canadian content, here is a sample from the first issue.
This is a summary of an article by George Woodcock that appeared in The American Scholar. 

“Rediscovering The Noble Savage: “The Lure of the Primitive" by George Woodcock, in The American Scholar (Summer 1976), 1811 Q st., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009. “Although many scholars have studied vanishing primitive cultures, few have asked why civilized man is so fascinated nowadays by what Europeans used to call "savage cultures." Woodcock, editor of Canadian Literature, writes that Portuguese voyages to Africa and the discovery of America first brought Europeans into contact with primitive peoples. They were regarded as inferior pagan beings, "as unspoiled children to be converted into imitation Christian gentlemen," or simply exploited for commercial purposes (the ivory trade and slavery). Paralleling these derogatory attitudes, there emerged among rationalist thinkers in the late seventeenth century the romantic cult of the Noble Savage. Real knowledge percolated slowly into Europe from the reports of travelers, missionaries, and traders. Then came Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871) and the slow development of anthropology. Not until early in the twentieth century was primitive man seen "as the representative of a complex, valid way of life contemporaneous with our own, neither intrinsically inferior nor necessarily improvable." Woodcock says such recognition came about largely through shifts in perception among Western artists and intellectuals: Picasso, who discovered African art and in 1907 painted the pioneer work of cubism, Les Demoiselles d'dvignon-like primitive art, a projection of inner visions; Sir James Frazier, whose 12-volume The Golden Bough (1907) revealed a worldwide network of common mental constructions -including the mythologizing habit we share with primitives; and the pioneering field studies by Anglo-Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands of the western Pacific. The lure of the primitive, says Woodcock, lies both in a desire to find what is common to all societies and "in a pointless nostalgia for peoples and ways of existence that our greed for land and resources has destroyed." 

PERIODICAL RAMBLINGS (1)

The Sewanee Review

    I said I would be rambling on about magazines and it is fitting to start with a literary one that has been around a long time. Founded in 1892 it is “the longest-running literary quarterly in America.” In the fall it will publish its 500th edition. It issues from Sewanee which is more formally known as the University of the South which, by the way, is ten years older than Canada. It is fitting, as well, that the issue displayed has flowers on the cover since Sewanee is situated in a bucolic ‘Domain’ occupying 13,000 acres. Sewanee is about an hour from Chattanooga. If at this point you are humming “Old Folks at Home” you are thinking about the Suwannee River which begins in another state farther south.

  My selection of this serial as the first in this series can be explained partially (perhaps even largely) by the fact that some of the work I was going to do has already been done. A new Yankee editor has been hired and he and the journal are the subjects of a recent article in The New York Times, making my job easier.

   Although The Sewanee Review would have been described by some as “moribund” the new editor, Adam Ross, thought it “a magazine with some of the greatest DNA in the American literary ecosystem” and that it “seemed worth slowing my literary career down for.” Great writers have always been associated with the journal and Ross is bringing in some great new ones. The website has been made more robust and the subscription numbers now have four digits.

    If you visit the site of The Sewanee Review you will find that $35 are required to breach the paywall. You can, however, sample some material from the archives where you will find pieces by such writers as Joyce Carol Oates, Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor. You can also access the associated blog - The Conglomerate - and read for free some essays and interviews.

    The article in The New York Times notes some other literary revivals and I will include the section here and strike these serials from those to be considered in future rambles.

    “The Sewanee Review is one of a handful of pedigreed literary journals to be given a second life. The Evergreen Review, a journal founded in 1957 that published work by Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, John-Paul Sartre and Samuel Beckett, was reinstated online this year, with the novelist and critic Dale Peck as editor in chief. Granta, founded in 1889, was revived by Bill Buford in 1979 and now has an estimated readership of 37,000 an issue. And The Paris Review, whose future seemed uncertain after the death of its longtime editor George Plimpton, is thriving, with 20,000 paid print subscribers, up from just under 12,000 a decade ago, according to the review’s editor, Lorin Stein.”

Sources:

“New Life for a 125-Year-Old Literary Journal,” Alexandra Alter, The New York Times, June 4, 2017.

Locally (here in London) the London Public Library does not appear to have a subscription.

If you wander up to Western University you will find a complete run of The Sewanee Review from 1892. It appears that the last print issue is from 2007 and after that the electronic version is available on a few different platforms.

Bonus hint: JSTOR is a huge digital library accessible from many university libraries and The Sewanee Review is available in it. Individuals can also pay for access. BUT, if you go to the JSTOR site and search for the journal you will find that issues of The Sewanee Review BEFORE 1923 (and copyright concerns) can be read for free. Newer articles cost around $25 or you can pay a fee for access.

CANCON Considerations.

   That is a joke; I don’t think unread blogs like this one are subject to Canadian content laws, but, if so, here you go:

Canadian poet William Wilfred Campbell is discussed in the Oct. 1900 issue and “Canadian Novels and Novelists” are covered in 1903. Both articles are by the Canadian Lawrence J. Burpee and both can be accessed for free.  

If you want to read some fiction with a local Ontario setting you will have to pay since the piece was published in 1968. See: “The Coast of Erie,” by George Lanning in the Winter, 1968 issue.

P.S. In a recent post I discussed retiring and university towns. Have a look at the Sewanee site and see what you think. http://www.sewanee.edu/