July 27, 2011, Filed Under: ConservationWeights removed from red burgundy dress from "Gone With The Wind" to prevent damage “Wear that!” spits Rhett Butler, throwing a burgundy ball gown at Scarlett. “Nothing modest or matronly will do for this occasion.” When the provocative burgundy gown from Gone With The Wind arrived at the Ransom Center in the early 1980s, lead weights lining the back hem had torn parts of… read more
July 26, 2011, Filed Under: Exhibitions + EventsIn the Galleries: "Love and Relationships" In one of Tennessee Williams’s early writings in which he interviews himself, he identifies his audience as “the wild at heart kept in cages.” He also notes that the play Battle of Angels is a prayer for “more tolerance and respect for the wild and lyric impulses that the human… read more
July 21, 2011, Filed Under: FilmTragic play ending transformed into happier film version in "Sweet Bird of Youth" Explore the Harry Ransom Center, search digital collections, or plan your visit. The Tennessee Williams Film Series at the Ransom Center concludes tonight with Richard Brooks’s Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), featuring Paul Newman and Geraldine Page. The series features films highlighted in the current exhibition, Becoming Tennessee Williams, which… read more
July 20, 2011, Filed Under: ConservationConservation efforts begin on five "Gone With The Wind" costumes Last summer, more than 600 Gone With The Wind enthusiasts from all over the world donated $30,000 to the Ransom Center to preserve five dresses from the film. When we last reported on this project in November 2010, Nicole Villarreal, a Textiles and Apparel Technology graduate student at The University of… read more
July 13, 2011, Filed Under: Research + TeachingFellows Find: Photos, playbills, news clippings document history of blackface in minstrel shows Matthew Sutton completed his Ph.D. in American Studies at the College of William and Mary in May 2011. This June, he came to the Ransom Center, supported by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship, to begin the process of revising his dissertation, Storyville: Discourses in Southern Musicians’ Autobiographies, into… read more
July 12, 2011, Filed Under: Research + TeachingScholar discusses work in Knopf publishing collection Independent scholar John Thornton came to the Ransom Center last year to research his upcoming biography of Alfred and Blanche Knopf and the House of Knopf. The Ransom Center’s Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. collection comprises 1,526 boxes. To navigate this extensive archive, Thornton says, he emulated biographer Lytton Strachey: “[Strachey]… read more
