The photo is taken from the Centennial Image Collection in UMW’s Digital Archives.
Karina and I met with UMW’s Simpson Library‘s Archivist this past Wednesday to see what tools she thought we might be able to use for our research. Carolyn Parsons is a former professor of mine (she taught my Archives and Society Class last semester), so she and I already know each other. She is the head of Special Collections and works together with the Digital Resource Librarian, Angie White. They help students find information within the collection, work to preserve the materials, and keep the depository organized. Professor Parsons was showing me how they had a leak in the ceiling of one of depository rooms, so they are also in the middle of getting that fixed and drying out materials that became damaged. Luckily for the most part, they only had a couple things severely damaged and for the most part are able to restore the other items.
We made the appointment with the intention of asking specifics regarding the book Maurice, but unfortunately because we do not have a local case with that particular book we had to rethink right before our meeting. From the local research Karina and I have done, we have found the To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have been banned fairly recently in Accomack, Virginia, so we asked Professor Parsons where we may start in order to find primary resources.
She showed us a few other newspaper resources we could use besides the couple we were shown on class this past Monday. The ones she shared with us were a little more our area and Virginia specific so I think that will be a big help. We also had a long discussion about what other types of resources might be used for such a recent case. Her suggestions were that we look at the school administration pages and find the meeting minutes for the school board meeting that discussed the removal of the books from the school and we look at legal cases. Professor Parsons showed us how to filter through those and find specific types of cases on Nexus Lexius. I think after we have narrowed our research more we can ask her questions again. We might even try to talk to a subject specific research librarian here too and record some of that conversation.
After the meeting, Karina and I began to so some more digging and found an audio recording of the meeting where the books were discussed for this nearby case in Accomack County. I also found that the Hanover County Schools banned To Kill a Mockingbird in the late 1960s while Harper Lee was still alive. When the author heard about the removal of her book and their reasoning was the book was “immoral” she remarked, “Recently I have received echos down this way of the Hanover County School Board’s activities, and what I’ve heard makes me wonder if any of it’s members can read.” I found that story in this article first and I want to do some more specific research of this incident and why the county believed the book was “immoral.”
From here, we are looking into the specific of the Accomack County Public School Case and seeing their reasoning for challenging the book. I am hoping we can get into contact with the school and ask for any information regarding the complaint and so on. Looking forward to seeing where our research will bring us.