This Just In: Summer Beach Reading, Part II

Some of our summer beach reading: 19th-century American fiction newly added to the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature

Some of our summer beach reading: 19th-century American fiction newly added to the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature

You may have noticed that “This Just In” took a brief summer hiatus. Yes, it’s true: we were vacationing at the beach, reading!  Catching up, not with the latest Dan Brown thriller, but with an influx of 19th-century American fiction to the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. It is unlikely that any of these works ever made the best-seller list, but we recommend them to you nonetheless, for they significantly enrich the Barrett Library’s holdings in interesting ways.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Septimius: a romance. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1872. (PS1872 .S4 1872d)

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Septimius: a romance. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1872. (PS1872 .S4 1872d)

The Barrett Library is so comprehensive for major American authors that it is hard to believe that it lacked a Nathaniel Hawthorne first edition! But only this spring did we obtain the true first edition of Septimius: a romance. Left unfinished at Hawthorne’s death, Septimius was prepared for publication by his daughter Una with assistance from Robert Browning. The first edition appeared in London in 1872, with the first American edition, retitled  Septimius Felton: the elixir of life, following two months later. Initially well received, Septimius was soon deemed a “failure” by critics, though there are signs of renewed scholarly interest in Hawthorne’s “romance of immortality.”

Catherine Eaves, How I twice eloped: an Indiana idyll. Chicago: Oak Print. and Pub. Co., 1901. (PS1567 .E36 H6 1901)

Catherine Eaves, How I twice eloped: an Indiana idyll. Chicago: Oak Printing and Publishing Co., 1901. (PS1567 .E36 H6 1901)

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln authored a short novel? Neither did we, until we encountered at a small book fair a copy in original illustrated wrappers of How I twice eloped: an Indiana idyll, billed as “the only novelette ever sketched by Abraham Lincoln.” Actually, a closer perusal reveals a sort of Lincolnesque tall tale, as Lincoln’s agency in this work was scant indeed. How I twice eloped was penned, we are told, by Catherine Eaves, a member of the Lincoln Literary Society in Hoosier Heights, Indiana, a stone’s throw from Lincoln’s boyhood home near the banks of the Ohio River. (Or perhaps the true author was the copyright holder, Albert Alberg.) Taking her cue from an anecdote (related in Ida Tarbell’s recently published Life of Abraham Lincoln) that Lincoln reputedly told about his youth in Indiana, Eaves “elaborated” it into a short novel. How I twice eloped is one of many fascinating works of regional American fiction to be found in the Barrett Library.

Lois Waisbrooker, Nothing like it, or, steps to the kingdom. New York: Murray Hill Publishing Co., 1885. (PS3129 .W38 N68 1885)

Lois Waisbrooker, Nothing like it: or, steps to the kingdom. New York: Murray Hill Publishing Co., 1885. (PS3129 .W38 N68 1885)

As the 19th century progressed, women’s issues loomed ever larger in American literature. Lois Waisbrooker was one of many who sought to advance the cause of women’s rights through didactic fiction. Born Adeline Eliza Nichols, Waisbrooker adopted a new name and a feminist outlook following a forced marriage. Her career as a radical reformer led her from spiritualism to anarchism, but it was as an advocate of women’s rights and sexual freedom that she was best known. Nothing like it: or, steps to the kingdom, first published in 1875, takes free love, public morals, and the true meaning of marriage as its ambitious subject. The Barrett Library still lacks the first edition, but we have acquired the second edition, published in New York in 1885 by the Murray Hill Publishing Co.—the publishing arm of free speech and birth control advocate Edward Bliss Foote.

Henri Gordon, Alva Vine, or, art versus duty. New York: American News Co., 1880. (PS1757 .G42 A7 1880)

Henri Gordon, Alva Vine, or, art versus duty. New York: American News Co., 1880. (PS1757 .G42 A7 1880)

The changing role of women is addressed from a different perspective by Henri Gordon in Alva Vine; or, art versus duty, published in 1880. Noting that “one class now rapidly developing in the United States” is that of the career woman, Gordon tells the fictional story of opera singer Alva Vine, who “thinks and acts for herself as an individual endeavoring to do right and follow the dictation of the spirit given her for self direction, without regard to prejudices or received ideas of the exact boundaries of woman’s sphere, or the right she has to be a self-poised untrammeled, helpful woman, being bound only by a sense of duty and good judgment.” The novel is also interesting for its two “Artotype” illustrations, which are unrelated to the text. These probably were inserted at the request and expense of the Artotype patent holder in order to advertise this new photomechanical process. In any case, this is a very early use of Artotype for book illustration.

James Daly, The little blind god on rails: a romaunt of the Gold Northwest. Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1888. (PS1499 .D87 L5 1888)

James Daly, The little blind god on rails: a romaunt of the Gold Northwest. Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1888. (PS1499 .D87 L5 1888)

Another unusual late 19th-century example of “product placement” in American fiction is The little blind god on rails: a romaunt of the Gold Northwest, published in Chicago in 1888. This large-format work, authored by “James Daly” (pseudonym of Frank S. Gray) and profusely illustrated by True Williams (who earlier had illustrated Tom Sawyer), was written to promote leisure travel to the American northwest on board the Chicago & North-Western Railway. Train travel is the true hero of this tale, whose human characters, when not enjoying the sights or pursuing the “little blind god” (i.e. Love), extol the comfort and convenience of riding the rails.

J. McHenry Jones, Hearts of gold: a novel. Wheeling [W.Va.]: Daily Intelligencer Steam Job Press, 1896. (PS2151 .J28 H43 1896)

J. McHenry Jones, Hearts of gold: a novel. Wheeling [W.Va.]: Daily Intelligencer Steam Job Press, 1896. (PS2151 .J28 H43 1896)

The Barrett Library has also acquired a fine copy of Hearts of gold, the only novel published by J. McHenry Jones. An African American born in Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1859, Jones distinguished himself academically before moving to West Virginia in 1882. There he became a leader in the African American community, serving as a school principal and president of what is now West Virginia State University, a prominent member of fraternal organizations, a Republican Party stalwart, and newspaper editor. Jones opens Hearts of gold, published in 1896, in an idealized African American settlement north of the Mason-Dixon line. Its protagonists then move southward to attend a fraternal gathering, only to fall prey to the new forms of racial injustice being instituted by whites in the post-Civil War South.

Faddei Bulgarin, Ivan Vejeeghen, or, life in Russia. Philadelphia: Carey and Lea, 1832. (PG3321 .B8 I815 1832)

Faddeĭ Bulgarin, Ivan Vejeeghen, or, life in Russia. Philadelphia: Carey and Lea, 1832. (PG3321 .B8 I815 1832)

Thanks in part to the enterprise of British publishers—and to the absence of international copyright agreements—19th-century American readers also had access to a surprisingly broad range of foreign literature in translation. In 1832, for instance, the Philadelphia firm of Carey and Lea—then the American publisher of James Fenimore Cooper’s best-selling novels—offered to their readers what may be the earliest work of Russian fiction to be translated into English, and the first to be published in the United States: Faddeĭ Bulgarin’s Ivan Vejeeghen; or, life in Russia. Set in early 19th-century Russia, Ivan Vejeeghen is less the story of its rather bland hero than a lively panorama of contemporary Russian society.  Bulgarin’s novel proved popular in Europe following publication in 1829, and an English translation by George Ross followed two years later. Carey and Lea promptly reprinted Ross’s translation, presumably without permission or royalty payment, but it is unlikely that they profited much from this speculation.

ABCs of Special Collections: J is for…

Of course, we had to begin the letter “J” with the most famous “J” of all at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library!

J is for the handwritten first letter of Thomas Jefferson's signature. This detail of his signature is from his famous "firebell in the night" letter to John Holmes, senator from Maine, 22 April 1820. (MSS 11619. Paul Mellon Bequest. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

J is for the handwritten first letter of Thomas Jefferson’s last name. This detail of his signature is from his famous “firebell in the night” letter to John Holmes, senator from Maine, 22 April 1820. (MSS 11619. Paul Mellon Bequest. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

J is for Jamestown

The Virginia Company of London received a charter from James I for land in Virginia in April 1606. Three ships departed London on December 20, 1606 and on May 13, 1607 the settlers selected an island on the James River as the site of James Fort, soon to be Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Two of the most dramatic American firsts to which Jamestown can lay claim both occurred in August 1619: the first representative assembly, and the arrival of the first enslaved Africans.

Contributed by Edward Gaynor, Head of Description and Specialist for Virginiana and University Archives

“A Pattent Graunted by His Majesty (James I, King of England) for the Plantation of Two Colonies in Virginia.” 10 April 1606. (MSS 11625. Paul Mellon Bequest. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

“A Pattent Graunted by His Majesty [James I, King of England] for the Plantation of Two Colonies in Virginia.” 10 April 1606. (MSS 11625. Paul Mellon Bequest. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Title page of The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith, 1624. (A 1624 .S55. Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Title page of The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith, 1624. (A 1624 .S55. Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Creation of the Virginia General Assembly and the importation of enslaved Africans are featured here on page 126 in this last paragraph of a Generall Historie of Virginia..., 1624 (A 1624. S55. Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

The creation of the Virginia General Assembly and the importation of enslaved Africans are featured here on page 126 in this last paragraph of a Generall Historie of Virginia…, 1624 (A 1624. S55. Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

J is for Jefferson––Joseph Jefferson

Washington Irving’s beloved character Rip Van Winkle was translated to the stage by the 19th-century actor Joseph Jefferson (1829-1905).  The son of an established American theatrical family, Jefferson, who had debuted on the stage at the early age of four, sought to create his own adaptation of Irving’s story but found his 1859 rendition wanting. Five years later, Jefferson contracted with playwright Dion Boucicault to write a version of Rip Van Winkle specifically for Jefferson to perform on the London stage. His performance proved a success both in London and later in New York, and the role of Rip became synonymous with Joseph Jefferson. For nearly forty years, until his retirement in 1904, Jefferson portrayed Rip Van Winkle in his repertoire of theatrical roles.

Contributed by Margaret Hrabe, Reference Coordinator

Cover of Rip Van Winkle as Played by Joseph Jefferson.  This edition contains proof impressions of all the illustrations, and portrait signed by Mr. Jefferson. One hundred copies were printed. (PS2068 .A33 1895a. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Photograph by Petrina Jacksobn)

Cover of Rip Van Winkle as Played by Joseph Jefferson. One hundred copies were printed. This copy contains proof impressions of all the illustrations, and portrait signed by Mr. Jefferson.(PS2068 .A33 1895a. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Front cover endpaper of Rip Van Winkle as Played by Joseph Jefferson. ()

Front cover endpaper of Rip Van Winkle as Played by Joseph Jefferson. (PS2068 .A33 1895a. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Signed frontispiece of

Signed frontispiece of Rip Van Winkle as Played by Joseph Jefferson. (PS2068 .A33 1895a. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Autographed carte de visite of Joseph Jefferson as "old" Rip Van Winkle. Barrett Print Files. Clifton

Autographed carte de visite of Joseph Jefferson as “old” Rip Van Winkle. (Barrett Print Files. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

J is for Curtiss “Jenny”

The JN-4 “Jenny” was one of a series of biplanes built by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, N.Y. Although the “Jenny” never saw combat duty, it was used chiefly as a training airplane in World War I and as many as 95% of all U.S. pilots learned to fly in a “Jenny.” At the conclusion of the war hundreds of well-trained pilots familiar with the “Jenny” returned to the U.S. The “Jenny” was the airplane of choice for many and became the workhorse of American post-war civil and commercial aviation.

Contributed by Edward Gaynor, Head of Description and Specialist for Virginiana and University Archives

Blueprint of the front elevation for the model J-N-4-D airplane, built by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, N.Y., later the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, 1917-1918. (MSS 10875-bv. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Blueprint of the front elevation for the model J-N-4-D airplane, built by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, N.Y., later the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, 1917-1918. (MSS 10875-bv. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Blueprint of the side elevation for the model J-N-4-D airplane, built by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, N.Y., later the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, 1917-1918. (MSS 10875-bv. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Blueprint of the side elevation for the model J-N-4-D airplane, built by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, N.Y., later the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, 1917-1918. (MSS 10875-bv. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

J is for Jerusalem by William Blake

The visionary English Romantic poet William Blake (1757-1827) is perhaps as famous for his work as an artist as for his poetry. Considered eccentric, he was not well respected as a creative figure until later in life.  While Blake was an established engraver, he also received commissions for watercolors, and painted scenes from the works of Milton, Dante, Shakespeare and the Bible.
Jerusalem, the last of Blake’s great epic poems, was begun about 1804 and not completed before 1818. This first published facsimile of the book is made from the only known illuminated original. Blake printed his etchings in orange ink and illuminated them in watercolors and gold. These facsimiles are hand colored, and required 44 applications on average.

Contributed by Anne Causey, Public Services Assistant

Title page of Jerusalem: A Facsimile of the Illuminated Book by William Blake, 1951. (PR4144 .J4 1951. Gift of Sandra Elizabeth Olivier and Raymond Danowski. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Title page of Jerusalem: A Facsimile of the Illuminated Book by William Blake, 1951. (PR4144 .J4 1951. Gift of Sandra Elizabeth Olivier and Raymond Danowski. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Illustration from Jerusalem

Illustration from Jerusalem by William Blake (PR4144 .J4 1951. Gift of Sandra Elizabeth Olivier and Raymond Danowski. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

"End of Jerusalem" illustration

“End of the Song of Jerusalem” illustration (PR4144 .J4 1951. Gift of Sandra Elizabeth Olivier and Raymond Danowski. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

J is for Junkie

Published under the pseudonym William Lee, Junkie, Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict was William Burroughs’s first published work. Encouraged by Allen Ginsberg to write about his experiences as a heroin addict, Junkie is a semi-autobiographical account of Burroughs’s life on the streets in the early 50’s. Junkie was roundly rejected by mainstream publishers, but eventually found a home with Ace Books, purveyors of cheap paperbacks. Junkie came out in 1953 as an ‘Ace Double,’ published along with Narcotic Agent by Maurice Helbrant.

Contribution by George Riser, Collections and Instruction Assistant

Cover of Junkie, published by ACE Double Books, 1953. (PS3552 .U75 J8 1953. Marvin Tatum Collection of Contemporary Literature. Photograph by Petrina Jackson )

Cover of Junkie, published by ACE Double Books, 1953. (PS3552 .U75 J8 1953. Marvin Tatum Collection of Contemporary Literature. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

The other cover or flip side

Narcotic Agent by Maurice Helbrant, which is the other book (on the reverse), published by ACE Double Books with Junkie, 1953. (PS3552 .U75 J8 1953. Marvin Tatum Collection of Contemporary Literature. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

We look forward to seeing you again when we feature the letter “K.”  Until then, bye bye!

Patron’s Choice: Sex, Celebrity and Scandal in the Amélie Rives Chanler Troubetzkoy Papers

This week we are pleased to feature a guest post from Donna M. Lucey, author of Archie and Amélie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age and Photographing Montana 1894–1928: The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron and media editor for the online Encyclopedia Virginia being produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

In this post, Donna Lucey provides some favorite high-points of using the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collection Library for her 2006 biography Archie and Amélie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age.

***

If there is one verity in life, it is this: SEX AND CELEBRITY AND SCANDAL SELLS. And those commodities pop up in the strangest places—take, for instance, the hushed, staid precincts of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.  Who knew that sex would be lurking inside MSS 8925 of the Amélie Rives Chanler Troubetzkoy Papers? But open the oversized box of images attached to that number, and there she is—the voluptuous nude Amélie Rives in all her glory, lying on a divan in a kind of post-coital bliss, her eyes closed, her luxuriant mane of hair undone.  And what can one say about that curvaceous figure of hers? Some hyperbole had to be involved in that, right?  Who would draw such a thing in the 1890s?  In fact, Amélie herself created it.  She drew it on a Sunday in August—August 21, 1892, to be precise—the very day her paramour from London, Lord George Curzon (future Viceroy of India), arrived at her family’s ancestral Virginia estate, Castle Hill.  Her husband, John Armstrong “Archie” Chanler, an heir to the Astor fortune, was conveniently in New York City at the time….  Well, such are the secrets that the Special Collections Library harbors amid its underground treasures.

Nude photo of a reclining Amelie Rives Chanler, drawn by the subject. (MSS 8925. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Self portrait of a reclining Amelie Rives Chanler. (MSS 8925. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

I was working on a joint biography of Amélie and poor, deluded Archie, when I came upon that revealing image.  Archie and Amélie were the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald of their day—with literary fame, fortune, and madness mingled in equal doses.  Amélie was a Virginia blueblood of the grandest sort—in her great-great-grandfather’s time, Jefferson and Madison were habitués of Castle Hill; Robert E. Lee was her godfather—but she scandalized the entire nation when her first novel, The Quick or the Dead?, was published in 1888.  The book dared to suggest that women had sexual feelings.  Nothing by today’s standards, but the novel featured lots of “soughing” rain and wind, and heaving bosoms, and even passionate kisses (“Jock! kiss me!”). The book was reviled by critics and clergymen across the country—and sold 300,000 copies. A celebrity was born. In a supposedly secret ceremony, the notorious author married her Astor heir; but—thanks to an obliging Amélie—the press covered the event and trumpeted it in newspaper headlines across the country.  Gossip columnists parsed the couple’s every move and utterance.  Amélie loved the attention (note that nude portrait again—she actually had copies of it made); but Archie thought HE deserved the attention.  He was, after all, an ASTOR. It was a marriage from hell, but Archie adored Amélie and continued to support her even after she dumped him and wed a penniless artist/aristocrat named Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy.

Frontispiece and title page of The Quick or the Dead by Amelie Rives, from Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, April 1888. (Taylor 1888 .T76 Q8. Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

Frontispiece and title page of “The Quick or the Dead?” by Amelie Rives, published in full in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, April 1888. (Taylor 1888 .T76 Q8. Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

John Armstrong Chaloner (Chanler) seated on a horse, 30 September 1912. (Holsinger Studio Collection. Image by U.Va. Digitization) Services)

John Armstrong “Archie” Chaloner (Chanler), seated on a horse, 30 September 1912. (Holsinger Studio Collection. Image by U.Va. Digitization) Services)

Photograph by Fred Hollyer of Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy sketching, 1 August 1894. (MSS 2532. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

Photograph of Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy by Fred Hollyer, 1 August 1894. (MSS 2532. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

One astonishing story after the next tumbles out of the voluminous papers dealing with both Archie and Amélie at Special Collections. You couldn’t make up Archie’s life: his creation of a mill town in the wilderness of North Carolina; his fascination with the occult; his betrayal by über-architect Stanford White and by his own family, who committed him to an insane asylum for the rich in White Plains, New York; his escape from Bloomingdale Asylum after nearly four years of incarceration; his re-emergence in Charlottesville where, in a famous lunacy trial, he was declared sane in Virginia—but he remained “insane” everywhere else; his killing a man in his own dining room (he was acquitted of the deed but paid for the victim’s funeral and had a six-pointed metal star placed on the dining room floor to commemorate the event); his nearly twenty-year struggle to have himself declared sane in New York and reclaim control of his fortune.  Archie was finally victorious, but thereafter fell into madness, turning into a recluse at his Virginia estate. His renown was secured, however, when he coined the famous line “Who’s Looney Now?” and cabled it to reporters.

So sex and celebrity and scandal, Gilded Age style, lie simmering in those archival boxes.

Portrait of John Armstong Chaloner or "Archie." 4 May 1918. (MSS 9862. Holsinger Studio Collection. Image by U.Va. Digitization Services)

Portrait of John Armstrong “Archie” Chaloner (Chanler). 4 May 1918. (MSS 9862. Holsinger Studio Collection. Image by U.Va. Digitization Services)

Four Years Behind the Bars of "Bloomingdale" or The Bankruptcy of Law in New York by John Armstrong Chanler, 1906. (PS3505 .H2 F6 1906. Gift of John Staige Davis. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

Title page of “Four Years Behind the Bars of ‘Bloomingdale'” (1906), John Armstrong Chanler’s scathing account of being placed by his family in “Bloomingdale Asylum,” White Plains, New York. (PS3505 .H2 F6 1906. Gift of John Staige Davis. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

 

ABCs of Special Collections: I is for

Welcome to our most recent installment of the ABCs of Special Collections, where the  featured letter is

I is for Italian Palatino (1566)Lewis F. Day. Alphabets Old and New: Containing Over One Hundred and Fifty Complete Alphabets….London: B. T. Batsford, 94 High Holborn, 1898. (Typ 1898. D39. Stone Typography Collection. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

I is for Italian Palatino (1566). Lewis F. Day. Alphabets Old and New: Containing Over One Hundred and Fifty Complete Alphabets….London: B. T. Batsford, 94 High Holborn, 1898. (Typ 1898. D39. Stone Typography Collection. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

I is for Robert Ingersoll

Robert Ingersoll, the great American 19th-Century orator, was popularly known as “The Great Agnostic.” An attorney by trade, Ingersoll, by virtue of his oratory skills, kept paying audiences enthralled for hours as he weighed in on controversial subjects, political, social, and moral. Walt Whitman considered Ingersoll the greatest orator of his time. Whitman wrote, “It should not be surprising that I am drawn to Ingersoll, for he is Leaves of Grass. He lives, embodies, the individuality, I preach.” Ingersoll delivered the eulogy at Whitman’s funeral in 1892.

Contributed by George Riser, Collections and Instruction Assistant

Shown is the cover of an 1892 edition of Walt Whitman. An Address by Robert G. Ingersoll. (PS 3232 .I5 1892. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Shown is the cover of an 1892 edition of Walt Whitman. An Address by Robert G. Ingersoll. “Liberty in Literature.” (PS 3232 .I5 1892. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Image by Petrina Jackson)

I is for Ingles

Mary Draper Ingles was an early frontier settler in southwest Virginia.  In 1755 during the French and Indian War, the settlement of Draper’s Meadow was raided by a group of Shawnee warriors.  Several settlers were killed and five hostages were taken, including Mary and her two young sons, Thomas and George.   The Indians forcefully led the hostages through the wilderness to an area near Big Stone Lick, Kentucky.  Mary was separated from her sons and became enslaved to the Shawnee, but later escaped.   She made her way on foot over hundreds of miles back to Virginia.  One of her sons died in captivity and the other remained with the Shawnee for many years.  Ingles relayed her ordeal to another son, John Ingles, whose hand-written manuscript of her narrative is held in Special Collections.  Over the years the story of Mary Draper Ingles has been adapted to theatre, film, and historical fiction.

Contributed by Margaret Hrabe, Reference Coordinator

Page 3 of John Ingles' handwritten manuscript, which was later published as a Escape From Indian Captivity: The Story of Mary Draper Ingles and son Thomas Ingles, ca. 1825. (MSS 38-246. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Page 3 of John Ingles’ handwritten manuscript, which was later published as a Escape From Indian Captivity: The Story of Mary Draper Ingles and son Thomas Ingles, ca. 1825. (MSS 38-246. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Cover of the first edition of Escape from Indian Captivity: The Story of Mary Draper Ingles and son Thomas Ingles, 1969. (E87 .I53 1969. Gift of Mrs. R. I. Steele. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Cover of the first edition of Escape from Indian Captivity: The Story of Mary Draper Ingles and son Thomas Ingles, 1969. (E87 .I53 1969. Gift of Mrs. R. I. Steele. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Cover of The Long Way Home by Earl Hobson Smith (1976).  The Long Way Home was an outdoor historical drama adaptation of the story of Mary Draper Ingles' capture by and escape from the Shawnee Indians. (PS 3537 .M346 L56 1976. Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund 2006/2007. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Cover of The Long Way Home by Earl Hobson Smith (1976). The Long Way Home was an outdoor historical drama adaptation of the story of Mary Draper Ingles’ capture by and escape from the Shawnee Indians. (PS 3537 .M346 L56 1976. Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund 2006/2007. Image by Petrina Jackson)

I is for Insurrection

On August 21, 1831, Nat Turner raised the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history in Virginia’s Southampton County. The slave force massacred over 60 white men, women, and children.  The rebellion was brutally suppressed and an orgy of violence followed, in which over 200 African Americans were executed by the state and murdered by vigilante groups. The Southampton Insurrection spread fear and hysteria across the South and as a result, Virginia and other Southern states passed harsh new laws that further restricted the activities of both slaves and free blacks.

Contributed by Edward Gaynor, Head of Description and Specialist for Virginiana and University Archives 

Horrid Massacre of Virginia: Just Published, an Authentic and Interesting Narrative of the Tragical Scene which was Witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia), on Mondy the 22d of August Last, when Fifty Five of its Inhabitants (Mostly Women and Children) were Inhumanly Massacred by the Blacks! (Broadside 1831. W377. Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History. Image by Digitization Services)

Horrid Massacre of Virginia: Just Published, an Authentic and Interesting Narrative of the Tragical Scene which was Witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia), on Mondy the 22d of August Last, when Fifty Five of its Inhabitants (Mostly Women and Children) were Inhumanly Massacred by the Blacks! (Broadside 1831. W377. Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History. Image by Digitization Services)

Photographs of Nat Turner's Bible and Cross Keys (showing old store house in which some of the insurgents were imprisoned), ca. 1900. (MSS 10673. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Photographs of Nat Turner’s Bible and Cross Keys (showing old store house in which some of the insurgents were imprisoned), ca. 1900. (MSS 10673. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Campbell letter

Letter from William Campbell to Col. Baldwin detailing the effects of the Southampton insurrection. The letter mentions Richard Drummond’s eleven arrested slaves and the Corps of Mounted Citizen Volunteers, 4 September 1831. (MSS 1441. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

I is for Iron

The Weaver-Brady family papers document what is to many, one of the more surprising aspects of slavery in Virginia: the use of slaves in heavy industry. William Weaver built a network of iron producing operations in the Shenandoah Valley that included two forges, two blast furnaces and nearly 20,000 acres of land from which his 170 slaves harvested iron ore and timber. Nearly every job at the forges–from the most skilled to the least–was held by slaves. Operations such as Weaver’s led the way in establishing industrial slavery as a viable future direction as agricultural needs declined.

Contributed by Edward Gaynor, Head of Description and Specialist for Virginiana and University Archives

A page, featuring "Negro hires" from volume 2 of Buffalo and Bath Forge and Furnace account books. (MSS 38-98-d. Coles Special Collections Fund. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

A page, featuring debits for “Negro hires” from volume 2 of Buffalo and Bath Forge and Furnace account books. (MSS 38-98-d. Coles Special Collections Fund. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

A page, featuring the time records for "hands" from volume 3 of the Buffalo and Bath Forge and Furnace account books. (MSS 38-98-d. Coles Special Collections Fund. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

A page, featuring the time records for “hands” from volume 3 of the Buffalo and Bath Forge and Furnace account books. (MSS 38-98-d. Coles Special Collections Fund. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Cover of Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge by Charles B. Drew, 1994. (F234 .B89 D48 1994. Coles Fund 1998/1999. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Cover of Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge by Charles B. Dew, 1994. (F234 .B89 D48 1994. Coles Fund 1998/1999. Image by Petrina Jackson)

That is all for “I.”  Come back in a couple weeks for the letter “J.” I bet you have a “J” in mind already!