On Thursday, January 17, the Stedman Gallery at Rutgers-Camden welcomed Camden residents and the campus community to its newest exhibit “Visions of Camden and an Artist’s Talk with featured artist Mickey O’Neill McGrath. In his talk Brother McGrath praised Visions of Camden for offering a counter-narrative to the negative stories written by major media outlets. The Camden he lives, works, and creates in is a place of great hidden beauty.
Upcoming public programming offered at the Stedman Gallery will explore other visions of Camden past and present, with community leaders, historians, writers and artists.
Lecture: Father Jeff Putthoff January 29, 12:20 p.m.
Father Jeff Putthoff, SJ has lived and worked in Camden, NJ for the last thirteen years. He is the founder and Executive Director of Hopeworks ‘N Camden, a youth technology portal using the technologies of web site design/development and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to work with youth ages 14-23 in Camden New Jersey. Father Puthoff will speak on his role as community leader in Camden and his recent initiative with the symbol of the cross as a way of providing healing and awareness.
Round Table: Vibiana Cvetkovic and Daniel Sidorick, moderated by Charlene Mires February 12 12:20 p.m.
Vibiana Cvetkovicwill speak about the RCA glass window and Nipper as a mascot; Daniel Sidorick will speak about the Campbell Soup water towers.
Daniel Sidorick is the author of Condensed Capitalism: Campbell Soup and the Pursuit of Cheap Production in the Twentieth Century, published by Cornell University Press. The New Jersey Historical Commission awarded the book the Richard P. McCormick Prize. Sidorick has taught at Temple University, the College of New Jersey, and Rutgers University New Brunswick, where he is currently teaching a course on the history of New Jersey workers.
Vibiana Cvetkovic is a Reference Librarian and the head of Access and Collection Services at the Paul Robeson Library, Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. Ms. Cvetkovic is Chair of the Children and Childhood Studies Area of the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association, and an Associate of the Center for Children and Childhood Studies at Rutgers University.
Charlene Mires Associate Professor of History and Director of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers-Camden.
Round Table: Howard Gillette and Paul Jargowsky moderated by Charlene Mires February 19 12:20 p.m
Howard Gillette will speak about Camden’s 2012 homicide rate and the response of the crosses to that calamity. Paul Jargowsky will speak about the Carnegie Library as a symbol of disinvestment in Camden.
Howard Gillette is Professor of History Emeritus at Rutgers University-Camden, and specialized in modern U.S. history, with a special interest in urban and regional development. His book, Camden After the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a Post-Industrial City, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press (2005), received best book awards from the Urban History Association and the New Jersey Historical Commission.
Paul Jargowsky is Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Urban Research and Education at Rutgers-Camden. His principal research interests are inequality, the geographic concentration of poverty, and residential segregation by race and class. Jargowsky has also been involved in policy development at both the state and federal levels.
Charlene Mires Associate Professor of History and Director of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers-Camden.
Artist’s lecture: Camilo Vergara February 14, 4 p.m.
Camilo José Vergara is a Chilean-born, New York-based writer, photographer and documentarian. Beginning in the 1980s, Vergara applied the technique of re-photography to a series of American cities, photographing the same buildings and neighborhoods from the exact vantage point at regular intervals over many years to capture changes over time. Camden, NJ is just one of these cities.
Lecture: Fred Barnum February 21
Followed by the Rutgers-Camden Jazz Ensemble
Parking available in lots 13 and 14 free of charge 4-8 p.m.
Fred Barnum, business development manager for Camden’s L-3 Communications Systems, is a Camden County Historical Society Trustee and author of His Master’s Voice In America (1991), an illustrated history of the enterprise that began in 1901 as the Victor Talking Machine Company, then became RCA-Victor.
The Rutgers-Camden Jazz Ensemble, led by Rutgers-Camden Professor Eric Polack, will offer a selection of tunes from the RCA-Victor playlist.