Albemarle Garden Club Celebrates 100 Years of Service

On November 19, 2013, the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library had the pleasure of hosting the Albemarle Garden Club’s 100-year anniversary celebration and business meeting. The Club’s mission is “to encourage the knowledge and love of gardening; to protect our environment through education and conservation; and to promote community development and restoration.” The library’s holdings include this illustrious group’s archival records, documenting its 100 years of service.

During the event, club members viewed a wonderful array of items documenting the club’s history, President Kim Cory presented the Special Collections Library with a check, and Historian Mary Pollock shared an amazing history of the organization.

Albemarle Garden Club members catch up before the program begins. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Albemarle Garden Club (AGC) members catch up before the program begins. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

AGC President Kim Cody present Special Collections Director Nicole Bouche with a check as Head of Research Services Heather Riser and AGC Historian Mary Pollock look on. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Albemarle Garden Club President Kim Cory present Special Collections Director Nicole Bouche with a check as Head of Reference and Researcher Services Heather Riser and AGC Historian Mary Pollock look on. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

AGC members present Special Collections Head of Researcher and Reference Services Heather Riser with a for her tireless work in assisting the club with their 100 Anniversary program. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

AGC members present Head of Reference and Researcher Services Heather Riser with a orchid for her tireless work in partnering with the Club on their 100th Anniversary program. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

AGC Historian gives a presentation of the club's 100-year history. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

AGC Historian Mary Pollock gives a presentation of the Club’s 100-year history. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Special Collections acquired the Records of the Albemarle Garden Club in 1987.  The records include meeting minutes, reports, yearbooks, handbooks, programs and miscellaneous letters from Club members as well as histories of the Club written by Elizabeth B. Gamble and Mary Stuart Cocke Goodwin. In 2013, the library obtained a second group of records from the club, including year-by-year histories, obituaries, awards, calendars, photographs, and miscellaneous materials.

First entry of the first minute book of the Albemarle Garden Club, 1913. (MSS 5520. Image by Petrina Jackson)

First entry of the first minute book of the Albemarle Garden Club, 1913. (MSS 5520. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Albemarle Garden Club year book, 193.  The year book features the club's programs, members, and other activities. (MSS 5520. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Albemarle Garden Club year book, 1934-1953. The year book features the Club’s programs, members, and other activities. (MSS 5520. Image by Petrina Jackson)

AGC members at work at , 1999. (Image by Petrina Jackson)

AGC members at work at Booker T. Washington Park, Charlottesville, October 1999. (MSS 15320. Image by Petrina Jackson)

We celebrate all of the great work the Albemarle Garden Club is doing in the community and look forward to its continued partnership with the Library!

Albemarle Garden Club, ()

Photograph of Albemarle Garden Club by Jen Fariello, taken at Morven on September 18, 2013. Morven is the birthplace of the Albemarle Garden Club and the site of the first meeting of the Centennial celebration.

ABCs of Special Collections: T is for…

Today’s alphabetical installation brings you the letter

The letter "T" written by Oldrich Menhart from Italic Handwriting by Tom Gourdie, 1955. (Z43 .G68 1955. Image by Petrina Jackson)

The letter “T” written by Oldrich Menhart from Italic Handwriting by Tom Gourdie, 1955. (Z43 .G68 1955. Gift of Willis W. Tompkins. Image by Petrina Jackson)

T is for William S. Tallman

William Staples Tallman (1906-1997) was one of two engineers who managed the construction of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Hired by sculptor Gutzon Borglum in 1929, he served as superintendent of construction from 1930 to 1935.  Tallman had also assisted Borglum on the North Carolina Monument at Gettysburg National Military Park; he also served as model for that monument’s lead figure. For the balance of his career, he worked as a potter and sculptor and in technical ceramics manufacturing. Our large collection of his papers includes extensive documentation of his work at Mount Rushmore.

Contributed by Molly Schwartzburg, Curator

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A photograph of William Tallman and Ivan Houser, an assistant sculptor for Gutzon Borglum,  studying a scale model of Abraham Lincoln produced in preparation for the monument’s construction (ca. 1927, photographer not identified). (MSS 12129. Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)

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This photograph shows, from left to right, assistant sculptor Hugo Villa, sculptor Gutzon Borglum, two unidentified workers, and engineer William Tallman.  A note on the back of the photograph describes the image as follows: “Inspection of work according to ‘points’ near the eye’” (ca. 1929-1930, photographer not identified). (MSS 12129. Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)

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A drawing of the George Washington sculpture from a notebook kept by William S. Tallman from 1929-1932. The notebook contains diary entries, correspondence, lists of supplies, measurements, and diagrams from the Mount Rushmore project. (MSS 12129. Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)

T is for Celia Thaxter

Celia Thaxter, the nineteenth century American poet and story writer, grew up on and around the coast of New Hampshire. In her middle age, she became hostess of her father’s hotel on Appledore Island, and hosted many of the important writers of her time, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Whittier, Sara Orne Jewett, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. They in turn welcomed her into Boston’s literary world as a favored poet. A search of our online catalog shows 28 records relating to Celia Thaxter.

Contributed by George Riser, Collections and Instruction Assistant

(PS3012 .D7 1879. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Cover of the first printing of Drift Weed, 1879. (PS3012 .D7 1879. Image by Petrina Jackson)

(Image by Petrina Jackson)

An autographed note and photograph of Celia Thaxter, 1890. (MSS 6994-d. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Image of Petrina Jackson)

T is for the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo 

Nicholas Philip Trist, Chief State Department clerk (and former secretary to Andrew Jackson and husband of Jefferson’s granddaughter Virginia), was appointed by President James K. Polk to negotiate a treaty to end the war with Mexico. While in Mexico, Trist ignored a recall from Polk and continued negotiations with the Mexican peace commissioners. The treaty was concluded at the city of Guadalupe-Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. On his return to the United States, Trist was dismissed from the State Department for insubordination and the government refused to reimburse his expenses until 1871. The terms of the treaty ceded an immense amount of Mexican territory to the United States including present-day California, Arizona, and New Mexico and parts of Utah, Nevada, and Colorado.

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

Letter draft from Nicholas Trist to James Buchanan, 1847 (Image by Petrina Jackson)

Letter draft from Nicholas Trist to James Buchanan, 1847 (MSS 5096-a. Deposit of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Extract from the note of the Mexican Commissioners, September 6, 1847. ()

Extract from the note of the Mexican Commissioners, September 6, 1847. (MSS 5096-a. Deposit of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Letter from Nicholas Trist to Commodore M. C. Perry, January 18, 1848.

Letter from Nicholas Trist to Commodore M. C. Perry, January 18, 1848. (MSS 5096-a. Deposit of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Newspaper clipping on the Mexican War peace settlement ()

Newspaper clipping on the Mexican War peace settlement (MSS 5096-a. Deposit of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Image by Petrina Jackson)

That concludes the the letter “T.”  We can’t wait to show you the fantastic collection highlights when we feature “U”.

On View Now: We Are U.Va.

On January 22nd, the University Library hosted “Life@ UVA: On-Grounds Experiences of People of Color,” a panel discussion to commemorate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The panelists described their experiences at U.Va. from the perspective of students, non-faculty and faculty employees.

Life@U.Va. On-Grounds event flyer, January 2014. (Image by Petrina Jackson).

Life@U.Va. event flyer, January 2014. (Image by Petrina Jackson).

In conjunction with the panel discussion, the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library has on view, the mini exhibition, We are U.Va.

Mini-exhibition We Are U.Va., January 2014. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Mini-exhibition, We Are U.Va., January 2014. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Drawing on University Archives holdings, this exhibition features some of the organizations, publications, and activities of University’s diverse student population.

Undergraduates from the College of Arts and Sciences from the 2008 issue of Corks and Curls. (LD5687 .C7 2008. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Undergraduates from the College of Arts and Sciences from the 2008 issue of Corks and Curls. (LD5687 .C7 2008. Image by Petrina Jackson)

We are U.Va. is on display on the first floor lobby of the Small Special Collections Library/Harrison Institute from Tuesday, January 21st until Friday, January 31st.

We hope you come and see it!

This Just In: Architectural Publications

Frontispiece to William Robinson's Proportional Architecture; or, the Five Orders. London, 1736.  (NA2810 .R65 1736)

Frontispiece to William Robinson’s Proportional Architecture; or, the Five Orders. London, 1736. (NA2810 .R65 1736)

U.Va. has long been famous, not only for its Thomas Jefferson-designed Academical Village, but also for its highly ranked academic programs in architecture, architectural history, and landscape architecture. Supporting these programs has been a priority for the U.Va. Libraries, and strong collections are to be found in the Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library as well as under Grounds in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. Following is a sampling of our recent acquisitions in the field of architecture.

Given the thousands of books amassed by Thomas Jefferson for his personal libraries, it has never been practicable for U.Va. to replicate these collections. Since 1956, however, we have endeavored to reconstitute a small subset: the fine arts books that Jefferson selected for the original U.Va. Library collection (only 17 of which survived the 1895 Rotunda fire), plus the architectural titles found in Jefferson’s personal libraries. These total 130 in all, as fully described in William B. O’Neal’s checklist, Jefferson’s Fine Arts Library (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1976). With substantial support from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and other sources, the U.Va. Library has managed to acquire copies of no fewer than 112 of the 130 titles— only 18 to go! (For the curious: our desiderata are O’Neal numbers 9, 11, 12, 16, 17, 31, 41, 43a, 50, 61a, 62, 65, 70, 74, 77, 79, 103, and 125b.)

Title page, with 1829 purchase inscription, of Zachariah Jess's Compendious System of Practical Surveying. Philadelphia, 1814.  (TA544 .J59)

Title page, with 1829 purchase inscription, of Zachariah Jess’s Compendious System of Practical Surveying. Philadelphia, 1814. (TA544 .J59)

From time to time we search the Internet for available copies of O’Neal desiderata, and last month we were able to tick no. 57—the Philadelphia, 1814 edition of Zachariah Jess’s A Compendious System of Practical Surveying—off our list.  A copy of this edition was included in Jefferson’s final personal library, formed following the 1815 sale of his earlier library to the United States government. We know this because Jefferson’s remaining books were sold at auction, in Washington, D.C., in late February and early March of 1829; the printed auction catalog lists a copy of Jess as lot 414. An Internet search revealed a nice, reasonably priced copy being offered for sale by, of all places, a Nevada antiques shop. Intriguingly, the book was described as bearing a March 13, 1829 purchase inscription—could this possibly have been Jefferson’s own, untraced copy?! The purchaser, George D. Tolle, had indeed lived near Washington, D.C. in the mid-1820s, but further investigation revealed that he had relocated to Kentucky by 1829. A Jefferson provenance, alas, is unlikely.

Everything in proper proportion: a plate from William Robinson's Proportional Architecture; or, the Five Orders. London, 1736.  (NA 2810 .R65 1736)

Everything in proper proportion: a plate from William Robinson’s Proportional Architecture; or, the Five Orders. London, 1736. (NA 2810 .R65 1736)

Even if not once owned by Jefferson, 18th-century architectural pattern books and manuals are of special interest to us. In an age when most structures were designed, not by architects per se, but by master builders and skilled amateurs (such as Jefferson), the books they drew upon for inspiration remain useful primary sources. William Robinson’s Proportional Architecture; or, The Five Orders; Regulated by Equal Parts, containing 32 leaves of engraved text and diagrams, was first issued in 1733. We recently acquired a fine copy of the second, pocket-size, edition of 1736, to which was added a 15-page letterpress glossary of architectural terms used in the work. With this book as a reference, a builder would know how to size architectural details in any of the five architectural orders. Robinson’s work remained sufficiently popular to merit a reissue in 1759.

Plan and elevation for a "meetinghouse" by Asher Benjamin.

Plan and elevation for a “meetinghouse” by Asher Benjamin.

Greenfield, Mass., architect Asher Benjamin published the first original American architectural pattern book in 1797. The first edition of his profoundly influential (and very rare) Country Builder’s Assistant still eludes us, but recently we were able to acquire a copy of the 1798 second, expanded edition published in Boston. Benjamin’s work offered in its 37 engraved plates far more detail than in Robinson’s earlier handbook, and it was rapidly embraced by local builders. Indeed, many early 19th-century private homes and public buildings either designed by Benjamin or clearly based on his pattern book can still be found throughout New England. Benjamin soon relocated to Boston, where he published several other pattern books.

Facade of the riding academy designed by Jean Baptiste Metivier, from Grund-Plane, Durchschnitte und Facaden nebt Details der Reitbahm und Stallungen. Munich, 1836.  (NA8340 .M48 1836)

Facade of the riding academy designed by Jean Baptiste Metivier, from Grund-Plane, Durchschnitte und Facaden nebt Details der Reitbahm und Stallungen. Munich, 1836. (NA8340 .M48 1836)

One may not think to consult our Marion duPont Scott Sporting Collection for architectural publications, but in fact it includes a small but significant holding of early works relating to the design and construction of equestrian facilities. The most recent (and now the earliest such publication) to be added is the only recorded copy of Jean Baptiste Metivier’s Grund-Plane, Durchschnitte und Facaden nebst Details der Reitbahm und Stallungen (Munich, 1836). Born in Rennes and trained as an architect in Paris, Metivier (1781-1853) spent most of his career in Munich, where several of his buildings may still be seen. This, his third and final publication, is a portfolio of 14 large lithographic plates depicting plans, elevations, and architectural details for the riding school and stable buildings commissioned by the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis.

Architectural detail from Metivier, Grund-Plane ... Munich, 1836.  (NA8340 .M48 1836)

Architectural detail from Metivier, Grund-Plane … Munich, 1836. (NA8340 .M48 1836)

ABCs of Special Collections: S is for

Happy New Year!  We are glad to return with the newest installment of our alphabetical series.  As promised, we are starting 2014 with the letter

Flowered Letters--8 lines Pica from The Roman Italic & Black Letter Bequeathed the University of Oxford by Dr. John Fell, 1951. (Z116 .T95 V.26 1951. Image by Petrina Jackson).

“S” from Flowered Letters–8 lines Pica face from The Roman Italic & Black Letter Bequeathed the University of Oxford by Dr. John Fell, 1951. (Z116 .T95 V.26 1951. Image by Petrina Jackson).

S for Senape, Antonio

Very little is known of Antonio Senape, a prolific pen and ink artist, except that he was likely born in Rome in 1788.  A rare bound sketchbook, housed in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections, was owned by Senape and contains sixty of his original drawings. The drawings take the viewer on a tour of Italian markets, ancient ruins, and sailing ships, many with the active volcano, Mt. Vesuvius, looming in the background.

Donna Stapley, Assistant to the Director

Antonio Senape's pen and Ink drawing from  from (MSS 15135. Gift of Mrs. Joseph Wood. Image by Donna Stapley).

Pen and Ink drawing from Antonio Senape’s sketchbook, n.d. (MSS 15135. Gift of Mrs. Joseph Wood. Photograph by Donna Stapley).

(Photograph by Donna Stapley).

Pen and Ink drawing from Antonio Senape’s sketchbook, n.d. (MSS 15135. Gift of Mrs. Joseph Wood. Photograph by Donna Stapley).

(Photograph by Donna Stapley).

Pen and Ink drawing from Antonio Senape’s sketchbook, n.d. (MSS 15135. Gift of Mrs. Joseph Wood. Photograph by Donna Stapley).

(Photograph by Donna Stapley).

Pen and Ink drawing from Antonio Senape’s sketchbook, n.d. (MSS 15135. Gift of Mrs. Joseph Wood. Photograph by Donna Stapley).

S is for Snead & Company

Snead & Company was established in Louisville, Ky. in 1849 as a supplier of decorative and architectural cast iron. By the turn of the 20th century, the company’s focus turned to providing large research libraries—including the Library of Congress, Widener Library, and the British Museum—with structural elements to construct and equip book stacks. Angus Snead MacDonald, the long time president, was responsible for moving the company to the forefront of library design and was himself one of the major contributors to the open, modular plans that dominated research library architecture in the post World War II years.

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

(Image by Petrina Jackson).

Cover of a Snead & Company Pamphlet, n.d. (MSS 9325. Image by Petrina Jackson).

(Image by Petrina Jackson).

“Sending books from delivery desk station” University of Cincinnati Library, Cincinnati, Ohio, n.d. (MSS 9325. Image by Petrina Jackson).

(Image by Petrina Jackson).

“Snead book conveyor–delivery room station with unloading carrier.” University of Virginia, n.d. (Image by Petrina Jackson).

(Image by Petrina Jackson).

“Snead standard stacks. Reference room of the Vatican Library.” Vatican City, Italy, n.d. (MSS 9325. Image by Petrina Jackson).

S is for Gary Snyder

American poet Gary Snyder met Allen Ginsberg when they both read at the Six Gallery event in San Francisco in October 7, 1955, thus cementing his identity with the Beat poets and writers. He was an influential member of the San Francisco Renaissance before moving to Japan to study Zen Buddhism in 1955. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Turtle Island in 1974, and is also well known as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist.
A search of our online catalog shows 61 entries for Mr. Snyder dating from 1946.
Shown here is a first printing of Riprap and a broadside titled “Siberian Outpost” that he made on the occasion of a visit to Brown College at the University of Virginia in 2010. The broadside was printed by Josef Beery.

George Riser, Collection and Instruction Assistant

(PS3569 .N88T8 1974. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Image by Petrina Jackson).

Back cover of Gary Snyder’s Turtle Island. Photograph by Frederic Brunke. (PS3569 .N88T8 1974. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Image by Petrina Jackson).

Cover of Gary Snyder's Riprap, 1959. (PS3569 .N88R49 1959. Image by Petrina Jackson).

Cover of Gary Snyder’s Riprap, 1959. (PS3569 .N88R49 1959. Marvin Tatum Collection of Contemporary Literature. Image by Petrina Jackson).

Snyder_Siberian Outpost

“Siberian Outpost,” written by Gary Snyder. Woodcut by Josef Beery, 2010. (Broadside 2010.S58. Courtesy of Gary Snyder. Image by Petrina Jackson).

We hope you enjoyed the “S” selections. See you in two weeks when we feature the letter “T.”

Patron’s Choice: The Life and Times of A. J. Weed

This week, we are pleased to feature a guest post from researcher Charles Morrill. Mr. Morrill is an independent scholar researching the creation of Thomas Jefferson’s polygraph by Charles Willson Peale and John Isaac Hawkins. He is also a guide at Jefferson’s home, Monticello.

Contemporaries called Arthur J. Weed the “shop man” of the University of Virginia physics department, but he was much more. True, he was a machinist, a woodworker, and also a photographer, but he was even more than those things as well.

He was a scientific-instrument maker from upstate New York who often lived in the basement of Rouss Hall, the building that housed the university physics department in the years between the great wars of the last century. He could make, machine, or build just about anything. For years he quietly worked to advance physics; medicine; and frequently on his own time, and with his own money, the science of detecting earthquakes.

He came up with a type of strong motion seismograph used by the U.S. government for many years, and machined the precise parts that allowed U.Va.’s physics department to do important work in the 1930s.

The students called him “old Weed,” but never to his face. He came to U.Va. around 1920, a slender, middle-aged man who sported a “Mr. Chips” head of white hair and round glasses that probably made him look Edwardian by the standards of the Jazz age.

He didn’t seem to mind.

Arthur J. Weed at work.( Digital image from glass plate negative by University of Virginia Digitization Services.)

Arthur J. Weed at work.(MSS 12558. Digital image from glass plate negative, by University of Virginia Digitization Services.)

In fact, Weed seems to have been as amused by the students as they were of him. He once told Professor Frederick Lyons Brown that students used to measure the acceleration of gravity by dropping a brick down an open stairwell at Rouss Hall and timing it with a stopwatch.

“But,” said Weed. “This practice was discontinued when one boy became flustered and dropped the watch and tried to time it with a brick.”

He loved photography and cats. He worked for the university hospital too, taking high-quality microscopic images so students could learn the processes of disease.

And he loved the university itself, constantly photographing its buildings, sporting events, and graduations. He seems to have stuck with glass-plate negatives for most of his life. Special Collections has nearly two hundred photographs taken by Weed, nearly a hundred on extremely fragile thin glass plates: cats, the lawn, his wife Emma, more cats, vacations, and always another shot of the Rotunda in the spring, in the summer, in the fall, and in the winter.

He captured Monticello in its first few years as a public museum before much restoration. Weed did his part for that effort too. That’s how I found out about him.  In 1922, he restored Jefferson’s polygraph, or copy machine, for U.Va.

The University of Virginia's polygraph, which is on long-term loan to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. (MSS ****. Image courtesy of Monticello.)

The University of Virginia’s polygraph as it looks today, almost a century after Weed’s restoration work. The polygraph is on long-term loan to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and is seen by nearly a half-million visitors yearly on the house tour. (Image courtesy of Monticello.)

“The polygraph has just been restored to a working condition in the workshop of the Rouss Physical Laboratory at the University of Virginia by the mechanical A. J. Weed,” the Washington Post reported on May 28, 1922.

UVA subsequently loaned the machine to Monticello in 1947. It remains on view for visitors in Jefferson’s “cabinet” or study.

Weed lived in more humble surroundings, and stuck to a simple bed in the basement of Rouss Hall. He apparently commuted home to Washington D.C. on weekends until the early 1930s when he and his wife Emma bought a house on 17th Street in Charlottesville.

And it was in the depths of Rouss Hall that Weed worked to perfect his great love: the strong-motion seismograph.

Though seismographs had been around for decades in Weed’s time, instrument makers tended to make them ever more sensitive. Trouble was, if an earthquake actually took place next to such a device it could not record anything meaningful. At the suggestion of an engineer he’d heard at a lecture, Weed worked at devising instruments tuned to “hear” and record strong vibrations on the theory that they might be of use to those who designed bridges and buildings in earthquake zones.

He was, of course, absolutely right.

“Mr. Weed has designed an instrument easily portable and capable of making an accurate record of stresses and strains in a building shaken by a quake,” the Associated Press reported on May 4, 1932. “It is set with a hair trigger that releases with the first tremor. For the next two minutes a record of the quake intensity is traced upon a smoked glass plate.”

Weed also worked on his own larger more sensitive seismographs, some taller than an adult person, wonderful pieces of machine work and theory, one bedded deep in the ground beneath Rouss Hall.

Weed and one of his seismographs, undated. (MSS ****. Digital image from glass plate negative by University of Virginia Digitization Services.)

Weed and one of his seismographs, undated. (MSS 12558. Digital image from glass plate negative, by University of Virginia Digitization Services.)

The early 1930s saw Weed working with U.Va. Physics Professor Jesse Beams to develop the ultracentrifuge described by both in Science magazine (June 10, 1931). Looking like some gleaming child’s top on steroids, the instrument ultimately spun a half-million revolutions per minute. Years later Beams took the idea to the Manhattan Project during World War II as one method for separating different types of uranium.

Both Beams and Weed posed for photos with their device in the 1930s. One, the intent young professor, the other his machinist and something more.

On April 15, 1936, Weed gave a lecture titled “Some Experiments With Soft Cast Iron Magnets”  at the University’s Physics Journal Club in Rouss Hall, where he’d spent some of the best years of his life.

He finished speaking, collapsed, and died of apparent heart failure.

The University buried him in a lovely quiet spot at the northeast corner of its cemetery. Emma moved back home to upstate New York but lies in Charlottesville next to Arthur today. No one got around to engraving the date of her death on their headstone.

By the 1960s the U.S. government had phased out most Weed strong-motion seismographs in California. One or two may remain in museums.

Someone once said we stand on the shoulders of giants and I think that’s true. But, I also think it’s true that we stand on the shoulders of quiet photographers and cat-loving machinists with a passion to build and to help.

Arthur Weed, **** Weed, and a furry canine friend at home, undated. (MSS ****. Digital image from a glass plate negative, by University of Virginia Digitization Services.)

Arthur Weed, Emma Weed, and a furry canine friend at home, undated. (MSS 12558. Digital image from a glass plate negative, by University of Virginia Digitization Services.)

Patron’s Choice: Finding Buried Treasure in Edward Le Roy Rice’s “Monarchs of Minstrelsy”

This week we are pleased to feature a guest post by Jessica Showalter. Showalter was a Lillian Gary Taylor Fellow at the Harrison Institute in 2013. She is a doctoral candidate in the Literature & Criticism program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Below, Jessica explains why she ended up spending two weeks of her fellowship studying two books that she had expected to peruse for perhaps an hour.

I suppressed a squeal when I opened Copy 1 of Edward Le Roy Rice’s Monarchs of Minstrelsy (1911). The book is a 350-page early history of minstrel shows, the ubiquitous nineteenth-century pop culture phenomenon which combined song, dance, and comic sketches based on racist stereotypes. The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library holds two annotated copies of Monarchs of Minstrelsy. Although I had examined a digitized copy on Google Books a few months before coming to Charlottesville, I figured the annotations might be worth a glance.

Newspaper clippings pasted into the front matter of Monarchs of Minstrelsy. (PN2071 .B58 R52 1911, Copy 2, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas M. Valentine. Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)

Newspaper clippings pasted into the front matter of Monarchs of Minstrelsy. (PN2071 .B58 R52 1911, Copy 2, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas M. Valentine. Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)

Imagine my surprise when I surveyed the extent of the annotations—the books resembled scrapbooks. Newspaper clippings about minstrel performers were crammed into any available white space. Many of these newspaper stories were new to me, even though I had examined minstrelsy-related articles in digitized nineteenth-century newspaper databases. Many newspapers have not yet been digitized, and may never be.

One clipping told the story of Charlie Bensel, a minstrel performer who was shipwrecked in Peru en route to California during the Gold Rush. Finally arriving in San Francisco with only his banjo, Bensel exchanged music for food until he found a job in the mines. Later, Bensel started a minstrel company that toured China. Another clipping about the minstrel William Blakeney reported that he performed in Australia, India, Japan, the South Seas, and England during the 1870s. These kinds of stories helped my quest to track down the international routes of traveling minstrel performers for a chapter in my dissertation, Hemispheric Minstrelsies: Race, Nation, and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Performance.

In addition to pasted-in newspaper clippings, these copies of Monarchs of Minstrelsy were peppered with penciled notes supplementing the book’s biographies of minstrel performers. The book’s unidentified owner visited the graves of many of these minstrels to fact-check Rice’s biographies. For instance, a note on page 15 in Copy 2 edits the famous performer Frank Brower’s birthday—according to his tombstone, he was born November 30th, not November 20th.

•Image 2: An annotated page of Monarchs of Minstrelsy. (PN2071 .B58 R52 1911, Copy 2, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas M. Valentine. Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)

• Image 2: An annotated page of Monarchs of Minstrelsy. (PN2071 .B58 R52 1911, Copy 2, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas M. Valentine. Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)

Sometimes, these marginal notes describe the condition of the gravesites, noting whether they were well-kept or neglected and overgrown. In cases where visits were impractical, the book’s owner corresponded with cemetery managers via mail and inserted the correspondence in one of the copies of the book. One letter from 1913 confirms the location of Charles Backus’ grave in Rochester, NY; another letter from 1915 confirms the burial of Harry (Henry) B. Macarthy in San Francisco. Copy 1 even includes a letter from the American Consul in Moscow about the performer Charley Sutton Leman’s burial.

Correspondence regarding the burial of Harry B. McCarthy may be found pasted into the front matter of Monarchs of Minstrelsy. (PN2071 .B58 R52 1911, Copy 2, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas M. Valentine. Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)

Correspondence regarding the burial of Harry B. McCarthy may be found pasted into the front matter of Monarchs of Minstrelsy. (PN2071 .B58 R52 1911, Copy 2, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas M. Valentine. Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)

The scrapbooked clippings and penciled annotations provided many minute details that will enrich my dissertation research, and as a whole the two books pushed me to speculate about how history is made. The book’s owner did not just passively read these accounts but engaged in fact-checking and revision, creating a personalized historical record. The marked up copies of Monarchs of Minstrelsy preserve a snapshot of a messy, contested history in progress. Plus, these scrapbooked copies reminded me of the importance of consulting physical texts in addition to electronic resources. Yes, a digitized copy allowed me to prime my research from home, but the Small Special Collections Library’s two idiosyncratic copies offered unique information, while also illuminating how just one reader repurposed a book according to his or her own objective.

The cover of one of the two heavily annotated copies of Monarchs of Minstrelsy in Special Collections. (Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)

The cover of one of the two heavily annotated copies of Monarchs of Minstrelsy in Special Collections. (Image by Molly Schwartzburg.)