{"id":12147,"date":"2025-01-22T19:03:54","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T19:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/01\/22\/sleuthing-through-archives-and-gossip-columns\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T10:28:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:28:23","slug":"sleuthing-through-archives-and-gossip-columns","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/01\/22\/sleuthing-through-archives-and-gossip-columns\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleuthing through archives and gossip columns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p class=\"intro news-subhead\">Art historian Kristina Wilson\u2019s quest to track the lives of two mid-century designers<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe allow=\"autoplay *; encrypted-media *; fullscreen *; clipboard-write\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"175\" style=\"border:0;width:100%;max-width:800px;overflow:hidden;background:transparent;\" sandbox=\"allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/sleuthing-through-archives-and-gossip-columns-with\/id1608025510?i=1000684406781\"><\/iframe><p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How does one write art history when there are no physical objects to study? This is a question at the center of art history Professor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/faculty\/profiles\/kristina-wilson\/\">Kristina Wilson<\/a>&#8216;s latest work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wilson came across the names of two designers, Addison &#8220;Add&#8221; Bates and Perry Fuller, in editions of <em>Ebony<\/em> Magazine from the 1950s. Curious about their work, Wilson tried to learn more and discovered no readily available archives to study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On this episode of <strong>Challenge. Change.<\/strong>, Wilson describes sleuthing through newspaper gossip columns, magazines, and more to learn about Bates and Fuller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;When you&#8217;re a historian, you get used to looking at evidence and knowing how to put it together. This project has made me consider, first of all, what is the evidence that we rely on, and second of all, what are the assumptions that I make when I put the evidence together,&#8221; she says. &#8220;There is so much that we gain by learning about their careers \u2014 it offers some really interesting perspectives into life in mid-century America that you wouldn&#8217;t learn about otherwise.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Challenge. Change.<\/strong>\u202fis produced by Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/4UuYAjq1d3Hq45cjwxoCNL\">Spotify<\/a>\u202for\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/challenge-change\/id1608025510\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile has-light-gray-background-color has-background\" style=\"padding-top:9px;padding-right:21px;padding-bottom:9px;padding-left:21px\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023_James-Maurelle_pm-copy-1024x683-2.jpg\" alt=\"James Maurelle\" class=\"wp-image-48759 size-full\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"h-exploring-creativity-on-challenge-change\">Exploring creativity on Challenge. Change.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/clarknow.clarku.edu\/2024\/10\/15\/finding-verse-in-the-perverse\/\">The Salem Witch Trials, Poetry, and the Violent Language of Law with Professor Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/clarknow.clarku.edu\/2024\/03\/25\/clark-alum-finds-his-true-colors\/\">Getting Pictures Perfect with Film Colorist Brian Woos \u201916<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/clarknow.clarku.edu\/2024\/03\/15\/finding-freedom-in-the-eye-of-the-hurricane\/\">Sculpture Professor James Maurelle on Life, Death, and the Creative Process<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Art historian Kristina Wilson\u2019s quest to track the lives of two mid-century designers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12148,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"#525250","story_headerImg":12148,"section_label":"Challenge. Change. Podcast","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[225],"displayed_author":[237],"featured":[],"topic":[249,176],"class_list":["post-12147","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-humanities","displayed_author-melissa-hanson","topic-art-and-art-history","topic-podcast"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sleuthing through archives and gossip columns | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/01\/22\/sleuthing-through-archives-and-gossip-columns\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sleuthing through archives 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