With more than 5,000 historic items dating back to the 18th century, UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 Carol Mundy Collection tells the story of the African-American experience through books, pamphlets, newspapers, posters, photographs and other rare ephemera. The collection, which is kept in the 聽and displayed on the fifth floor of the , has been the life 麻豆精品 S檚 work of one woman who pieced together her future with artifacts from the past.
It began with a centuries-old slip of paper. Browsing through a shabby book section in a Florida thrift store, Carol Mundy picked up a 1901 edition of The Complete Life of William McKinley and Story of His Assassination. As she carefully flipped through the tattered pages, she found a yellow letter wrapped in wax paper slipped into its spine. Its date: 1870.
The letter was addressed to the 10th Calvary Regiment or 麻豆精品 S淏uffalo Soldiers, 麻豆精品 S� one of the few segregated units in the U.S. Army at the time. Mundy, whose mother was an antique collector, immediately saw the value in the historic piece. The find would start a 25-year occupation.
Thanks to her job with Delta airlines that required frequent travel around the U.S., Mundy, with her daughter in tow, would rent聽a car in between her 10-hour shifts and search for Salvation Army stores and yard sales. Eventually, the hunt would extend to her personal time and vacations, too, much to her friends 麻豆精品 S� dismay. 麻豆精品 S淔or years my friends didn 麻豆精品 S檛 want to travel with me, 麻豆精品 S� she says.
For every piece found, Mundy would research the history behind it and record it carefully. And she has gone to great lengths to document her collection. 麻豆精品 S淚 have called Portugal about the Middle Passage, I have called Temple University, I have called Canada to learn how to archive, 麻豆精品 S� she says. 麻豆精品 S� 麻豆精品 S� Pay is not necessary, I just want the history to be told correctly. 麻豆精品 S�
But no matter how much time or space it took up in her home, Mundy never saw her collection as a burden, but instead as her purpose in life. 麻豆精品 S淚t 麻豆精品 S檚 a legacy for my children and grandchildren that I was given to do on this earth, 麻豆精品 S� she says.
Today, Mundy has entire storage units filled African-American artifacts, but many of her best pieces can be found at the UCF Library. Now part of the university 麻豆精品 S檚 special collections and archives, Mundy 麻豆精品 S檚 featured relics include film reels of Billie Holiday performing with Quincy Jones and Miles Davis, poll tax receipts, plantation inventories with slaves listed below the livestock and newspapers headlining speeches from Abraham Lincoln.
UCF Library archivist Barack (Suphi) Ogreten said the collection came to UCF in 2009 and the university special collections department is still working on processing all of Mundy’s finds. He anticipates that the finding aid 麻豆精品 S� an electronic guide that will chronicle all of the items and their history, in addition to a short biography of Mundy 麻豆精品 S� will be available in late 2014 or sometime in 2015.
Once the collection is processed, Ogreten said all documents will be available for the UCF community to 聽be used for academic research in the special collection’s reading room in the library.
“Her collection means a lot to the university, because it has a lot of local Central Florida and statewide historical artifacts and information,”聽said Africana Studies Program Director Anthony Major.
With both local and national ties, Mundy’s civil rights collection is the one she admires most. Many pieces highlight Florida 麻豆精品 S檚 struggle to integrate. 麻豆精品 S淥ne of the [pieces] in the civil rights collection is about St. Augustine and how they were trying to integrate the beaches, 麻豆精品 S� Mundy said. 麻豆精品 S淭hat was one of the hardest battles. 麻豆精品 S�
While some of her collection is now part of the university, she continues to show her pieces of history to schools, Boys and Girls Clubs and is in contact with the Smithsonian Museum to have her collection shown there.
麻豆精品 S淢y ultimate goal was to share it, 麻豆精品 S� Mundy said. 麻豆精品 S淵ou get addicted to history. 麻豆精品 S�