Ransom Center Magazine

About Gabrielle Inhofe

Inhofe was an undergraduate intern who majored in Plan II and International Relations and Global Studies.

Meet the Staff: Film Curatorial Assistant Albert A. Palacios

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Meet the Staff is an occasional series on Cultural Compass that highlights the work, experience, and lives of staff at the Harry Ransom Center. Albert A. Palacios has been the Film Curatorial Assistant at the Ransom Center since January 2010 and is a doctoral student in Latin American history at The University of Texas at Austin. He holds a Master of Science in Information Studies and a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. He was recently awarded the 2014 prize for best graduate essay for Book History. The judges noted “Not only is his research breathtaking, he offers a whole new approach to the issue of Spanish colonial censorship, and beyond that, a new perspective on the mechanics of censorship in general.” Palacios has coordinated several major volunteer projects, including the digitization of the Alfred Junge collection, the preservation of the Perry Mason film, and the fan mail database in the web exhibition Producing Gone With The Wind.

 

What does an average day for you entail?

Typically I manage eight to 15 graduate volunteers working at the film department each semester. We work on a range of projects, from creating digital collections and preserving film media to processing archives. However, this past semester we had 24 graduate and undergraduate students helping develop content for the web exhibition Producing Gone With The Wind.

 

Tell us about your role in the exhibition The Making of Gone With The Wind?

I was the project coordinator for the Gone With The Wind fan mail database, which shares thousands of letters that Selznick International Pictures received between 1936 and 1939. I recruited and trained graduate volunteers on preparing letters for scanning, digitization, image cropping, database records, transcription, as well as writing feature stories about the different types of letters. I also reviewed for quality and approved each entry. To date, we have records for more than 3,000 letters and transcripts for more than 6,000 pages.

 

What’s the most rewarding part about your job?

I think working with the volunteers is the most rewarding. They help us accomplish many high-quality projects, and they are always so excited and engaged. I am particularly glad to see that the myriad experiences and skills we offer can support their professional development. They help us preserve and make our collections accessible, while we help them define their career aspirations.

 

Tell us about your academic background and interests.

I started as an undergraduate at UT, pursuing a dual degree in architecture and anthropology. I knew I didn’t want to be an architect or an archaeologist when I finished in 2009, but I still wanted to explore questions of design and cultural representation. I started looking at museum exhibition design while I was studying architecture in Italy. That was when I decided to combine my architecture and archaeology/anthropology majors within the context of museums and archives at the School of Information. I graduated with my master’s degree there and jumped over to Latin American studies, where I wrote my thesis on book censorship in sixteenth-century Mexico. After receiving my master’s degree, I began in the history Ph.D. program. Ultimately, I’m working toward becoming a curator of Latin American special collections.

 

Did you travel to research your thesis?

I have gone to Mexico City, Chicago, New York, and other U.S. cities the throughout past two years to hunt down Mexican “inculabula” and manuscript sources that elucidate publishing practice in sixteenth-century Mexico. I am analyzing the censorship process, printing privilege (akin to copyright) and the social networks that intellectually and economically favored New Spain’s authors. I’m happy to say that two papers from that research are being published this year—one will be a chapter in a book and another in an academic journal.

 

What’s your favorite movie?

Spellbound! I’m a big fan of psychological thrillers. At the Ransom Center, we have original storyboards, construction drawings, and props that were created for the movie’s dream sequence.

 

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In the Galleries: Producer David O. Selznick defends casting Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara

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British actress Vivien Leigh is best remembered for her part as Scarlett O’Hara, the beautiful Southern belle who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Her inspired performance won an Academy Award for Best Actress. However, when word got out that she was being considered for the role, letters against the selection poured into Gone With The Wind producer David O. Selznick’s office.

 

The president of a chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy wrote a letter stating that she and the members “vigorously protest against any other than a native born southern woman playing the part of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind. Furthermore, we resolve to withhold our patronage if otherwise cast.” The Hollywood Reporter’s Joe Shay wrote to Selznick calling it “an unfortunate selection” should someone other than a Southerner be cast.

 

Selznick wrote a letter to Ed Sullivan, an entertainment columnist at the time, defending Leigh. He notes that Leigh’s parents are French and Irish, just like Scarlett’s, and he draws comparisons between England and the South. Selznick writes, “A large part of the South prides itself on its English ancestry, and an English girl might presumably, therefore, be as acceptable in the role as a Northern girl.” Furthermore, he notes the relationship between the Southern and British accents is much closer than that of the Southern and Northern accents. He also points out that the English have warmly received the portrayals of Englishmen by Americans, so Americans would be ungrateful to do the same. Finally, Selznick points toward successful cross-cultural performances in American theater, like the British actor Raymond Massey as Abraham Lincoln and the American actress Helen Hayes as Queen Victoria.

 

When Leigh’s selection as Scarlett was made official, the reaction in the South was overwhelmingly negative. Susan Myrick, who advised the filmmakers on historical detail, helped to convince Mrs. W. D. Lamar, President of the United Daughters of the Confederacy on the soundness of the choice. According to Myrick, Lamar “greatly preferred an Englishwoman for the part of Scarlett O’Hara, rather than a woman from the East or Middle West, as she had always felt there was a close kinship between the Southerner and the English people.”

 

The memo is on view through January 4 in the Ransom Center’s current exhibition The Making of Gone With The Wind. A fully illustrated exhibition catalog of the same title will be co-published by the Harry Ransom Center and University of Texas Press in September with a foreword written by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) host and film historian Robert Osborne.

 

Image: Ed Sullivan, then a gossip columnist, had learned that Vivien Leigh was Selznick’s choice for the role of Scarlett.  Selznick denied it but, anticipating resistance to his decision, had already developed a five-point justification, which he began to circulate to entertainment reporters.

Meet the Staff: Archivist Amy Armstrong

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Meet the Staff is a new Q&A series on Cultural Compass that highlight the work, experience, and lives of staff at the Harry Ransom Center. The series kicks off with a Q&A with Amy Armstrong, who has been an archivist at the Ransom Center since January 2009 and is head of the Archives Cataloging Unit in the Archives and Visual Materials Cataloging Department. She holds a Master of Liberal Arts degree from St. Edward’s University and a Master of Science in Information Studies degree from The University of Texas at Austin. Armstrong has processed many collections at the Ransom Center, including the papers of Sanora Babb, William Faulkner, Paul Schrader, Denis Johnson, and the McSweeney’s publishing archive. She also catalogs non-commercial sound recordings in the Ransom Center’s holdings.

 

Tell us about any current archives you’re working with.

I’m currently processing the records of McSweeney’s publishing house, which is a dream come true. I also catalog non-commercial sound recordings, which are sort of a “hidden collection.” We have almost 14,000 recordings, [including] some amazing recordings from Erle Stanley Gardner, Norman Mailer, and Denis Johnson. I’m committed to making them easier for patrons to find and use, and if they aren’t preserved, they’ll deteriorate.

 

What is your favorite collection that you have processed?

I actually love all of them, but one of my favorite collections is the Sanora Babb papers. Babb was an amazing woman who had big aspirations beyond the plains of Oklahoma and Kansas, where she lived in the early 1920s. After immigrating to California, she wrote a novel about Dust Bowl migrants. However, the contract for her book was cancelled, because John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was simultaneously being published. Babb was also married to cinematographer James Wong Howe, who was Japanese, at a time when interracial marriage was illegal. She loved life and didn’t take it for granted.

 

What is your favorite thing about your work?

My responsibility as an archivist is to ensure that the materials we’ve been entrusted to preserve are made available as widely as possible for anyone to use. I get such a thrill when I know someone has come into the Reading and Viewing Room and used a collection I have processed. After all, that’s why the Ransom Center exists and why are all so committed to the work we do here.

 

Have you had a favorite experience processing archives?

Denis Johnson autographed a book for my husband, who is a big fan. I was so touched by his kindness and generosity. It really made my year.

 

What is your favorite book?

The Hummingbird’s Daughter, by Mexican-American writer Luis Alberto Urrea.

 

What is one of your primary interests?

Culinary history!

 

Have you lived anywhere unusual?

I grew up in San Antonio and lived for three years in England when my mom worked at RAF Alconbury, an American Air Force Base.

 

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