Blog topic: Manuscripts

It was my distinct pleasure to offer a window into Stanford Libraries’ rare music collections to students in the “Why Music Matters” course from the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institute, and performers in the St. Lawrence String Quartet’s Chamber Music Course.  We gathered in Special Collections for an up-close examination of manuscripts and early print materials, dating from 1942 (Irving Berlin’s White Christmas) all the way back to the 12^th century (a sacred chant fragment).

Welcome to part four of our week-long venture into the John Marcum papers. In the midst of revolution and upheaval, many African countries found themselves courted by both East and West in a proxy Cold War. Naturally, much of the battle was fought with propaganda, and these items reflect the urgency and tension of those times.

This week we celebrate the release of the John Marcum Papers with daily posts highlighting various aspects of this Africanist scholar's collection. Today we present various material from Series 22. South Africa.

South African author Nadine Gordimer instructing Marcum to send his book on Angola discretely packaged: