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My book comes out tomorrow & I want to thank the librarians & archivists who made it possible. Come and Be Shocked would not exist without the AMAZING, smart, and generous librarians and archivists I worked with. Thread of shout outs. @JHUPress https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/come-and-be-shocked
I did tons of research in @ubaltmain special collections. Aiden Faust helped me so much, from identifying collections to digitizing images. Their collections are extraordinary and they have digitized a lot of important modern Baltimore history. http://library.ubalt.edu/special-collections/
I love the Baltimore City Archives. It's on a weird industrial street and sometimes the archivist hands you a pair of scissors to cut the tape on an archival box that hasn't been opened in decades. 12/10 research experience. https://msa.maryland.gov/bca/
The Maryland State Archives holds great stuff about MD tourism. Plus, it has the state's censorship records, so you can see that Mary Avara, the censor, didn't love when Dawn ate the umbilical cord in Female Trouble, but made Waters delete the cunnilingus scene. @MdArchives
My favorite research happened @prattlibrary. It's where I rediscovered Chicory magazine, which Pratt then digitized. The folks there are amazing, especially Wesley Wilson. Pratt library is a gem. I even get to babble about my book thanks to them. https://calendar.prattlibrary.org/event/writers_live_mary_rizzo_come_and_be_shocked_baltimore_beyond_john_waters_and_the_wire
@mica archivist Katherine Cowan did me a huge solid when I was researching the Baltimore Promenade, a citywide public art project from 1981. Superstar! They also have cool stuff. https://www.mica.edu/libraries/decker-library/find/special-collections/
At Wesleyan University, I used William Manchester's papers to learn about how he wrote The City of Anger, an amazing novel about blockbusting and numbers running. Leith Johnson, now retired, helped me navigate the gargantuan collection. Thank you Leith!
https://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/sca/
https://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/sca/
Thank you to the Maryland Historical Society for selecting me as a Lord Baltimore Fellow. Got to use their collections to explore urban renewal, civil rights, and the arts, critical to my chapter on William Donald Schaefer, the arts, and neoliberalism. https://www.mdhs.org/
The @schomburgcenter collections are obviously amazing. There, archivists helped me with the papers of educator and civil rights activist August Meier who wrote A White Scholar in the Black Community (timely). I went back to read copies of the magazine @afaa created, Blind Alleys
Finally, shorter research trips took me to the @tamimentlibrary, Philly urban history archive at Temple, @SCRC_Temple and @ONEarchives.
Thank you to archivists and librarians there and everywhere! We couldn't write history without you.
