Preserving Fraternity and Sorority Records: The Legacy of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Posted on October 21, 2013 by

Recently, I had the pleasure of facilitating a workshop on preserving historical records at the 2013 Fall State Meeting of Virginia – Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc (DST). The sorority, which was founded at Howard University, celebrates its centenary this year.

Each chapter is charged with collecting and maintaining its historical records: its charter, photographs, programs, news clippings, etc. The purpose of my presentation was to give them direction in doing just that, but moreover to share with them the importance of working with local libraries or archives who specialize in keeping such rich historical materials secure, safe, and accessible for the long run.

Preserving the Legacy workshop attendees, October 2013. The workshop was held at the Jefferson School City Center in Charlottesville. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Some of the attendees at the Preserving the Legacy workshop, October 2013. The workshop was held at the Jefferson School City Center in Charlottesville. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

At the University of Virginia, we are committed to collecting personal and organizational records of African Americans. We do not have a DST collection, but we do have materials in other collections that feature the sorority. For instance, the Records of the Office of the Dean of Students document the relationship among fraternities, sororities, and the University. It is in these records that you find correspondence from sorority presidents, event documentation, disciplinary records and more. Sometimes, you find real treasures.

Letter from Linwood Jacobs to Sheila Hardy, congratulating her on the founding of Kappa Rho Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta at the University of Virginia, 19 October 1973. (RG-18/2. Image by Petrina Jackson)

The U.Va. yearbook, Corks and Curls, which ran from 1888 to 2008, also provides a window into fraternity and sorority life.

Photograph of U.Va.'s Deltas from the 1975 Corks and Curls (LD. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

U.Va.’s Deltas from the 1975 Corks and Curls (LD5687 .C7. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Another place to look for sorority information is in the personal papers of its members, such as Alice Jackson Stuart. Jackson Stuart was a Delta from Richmond who was initiated in 1934 at Virginia State College (now University), the oldest Delta chapter in the state. She was a student at Virginia Union University, which did not yet have a Delta chapter.

Alice Jackson Stuart has the distinction of being the first known African American to apply to the University of Virginia or any white Virginia college for a professional or graduate degree, which she did in 1935. U.Va. denied her entry, and she questioned this judgement. The University’s response was that they denied her because of her race and “other good and sufficient reasons.” After her rejection, the state of Virginia passed laws that funded the tuition for African American students to study outside of the state instead of having them desegregate colleges and universities within Virginia. Jackson Stuart graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Arts degree in 1939. Almost seventy years after her rejection by the University of Virginia, her son, Judge Julian Towns Houston of Brookline, Massachusetts, gave her papers to the Special Collections Library in 2003. She finally “entered” the University.

Alice Jackson Stuart’s Delta Sigma Theta Sorority certificate, 1934. (MSS 12512. Gift of Julian T. Houston. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Alice Jackson Stuart’s sorority memory book, ca. 1934. (MSS12512. Gift of Julian T. Houston. Image by Petrina Jackson).

Although there is a lot to learn from items across our collections related to Delta Sigma Theta and other African American fraternal organizations, we hope to acquire records of local chapters and individual alumni, ensuring the preservation of their legacy for generations to come.

I would like to give a special thanks to Schwanzetta Aikens, Heritage & Archives Committee Chair of the South Atlantic Region of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and Charnette Singleton, South Carolina Chair of the South Atlantic Region of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., who were such warm and outstanding hostesses. I had a wonderful time!

This Just In: Scarlet Letters from the Backlog

Posted on October 11, 2013 by

Every Special Collections library has a number of mysterious boxes that for some reason or another have never been dealt with–gifts with mysterious provenances, duplicate copies, a collection that someone was working on but for some reason never finished, and so on. U.Va. is no exception, though we do pride ourselves on how small that backlog is, and how well-described our cataloged materials are.

Soon after starting this job, I was tasked, with my co-hire David Whitesell, to dig into the backlog. For many months now, we have each enjoyed tackling a box or two on a quiet afternoon at the reference desk, or whenever the temptation is too strong and more pressing work is set aside.

Much of the pleasure of curatorial work comes from the element of surprise–unexpected gifts, unexpected acquisitions opportunities, unexpected discoveries in the stacks, unexpected researcher projects, and so on. So I was thrilled to find one day recently, mixed with various unremarkable volumes in a box, two early copies of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. I was even more thrilled to discover that neither came near to duplicating the numerous early copies already in our collection.

Existing holdings in early printings of the novel accompanied by the two books that will soon join them on our shelves.The dull brown covers were, in their day, a mark of great prestige, since they were the signature of the highly regarded publishers Ticknor and Fields.

Seven existing Scarlet Letters accompanied by two volumes that will soon join them on our shelves. The dull brown covers were a mark of literary prestige, since they were the signature of the highly regarded Boston publishing house of Ticknor, Reed and Fields.

The Second Edition Advertisements

The Scarlet Letter was a huge success from the moment it was published. Released on March 16, 1850, the first edition of 2,500 copies sold quickly. On April 22nd, the second edition was released. It also comprised 2,500 copies, and is easily identified because it includes an additional preface by Hawthorne, in which he responds to criticisms of the famous essay that prefaces the novel, “The Custom House.”

Our three cataloged copies of the second edition vary dramatically in condition and paratexts. All but one have bookplates, and all three have advertisements. The publishers added to each copy a multi-page advertising insert variously titled “New Books and New Editions” or “A List of Books Recently Published,” all beginning with the publisher’s Longfellow list. The three copies have inserts dated March 1850 and May 1850 (in two copies).

Notably, the newly unearthed copy has an advertising insert dated October 1849, which is the earliest insert of any copy of this novel in our collection. Presumably, the insert was lifted from a stack of old leftovers, since the book could not have been bound before the spring of 1850.

The images below show a variety of advertisements from the first three editions of the novel, all published in 1850.

Detail of the advertisement in one of our copies of the first edition. (PS 1868 .A1 1850. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Catlin. Photograph by Molly Schwartzburg)

Detail of the advertisement in the soon-to-be-added copy of the second edition. (Uncataloged. Photograph by Molly Schwartzburg)

Detail of the advertisement in one of our copies of the third edition, the first to be printed from stereotyped plates, and which appeared in September, 1850 (A 1850 .H39 S3a. Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History. Photograph by Molly Schwartzburg)

An 1854 impression

The other volume found in the backlog is unquestionably unique to our collection, as the only standalone copy of the novel we own with an imprint date of 1854 (a collected works edition we hold is also dated that year). It is printed from the stereotyped plates produced in late 1850 for the third edition. The only 1854 printing, it totaled 500 copies, and brought the total number of copies of the novel’s American standalone editions alone to 10,300.

So, Hawthorne fans and bibliographers, we encourage you to come by in a few weeks when these new additions have been cataloged, snugly housed, and added to the shelves alongside their brethren!

Our new second edition, on the left, and third edition, 1854 printing, on the right. The yellowed slips in the book show how long these have waited for their moment in the sun (and in Virgo, our online catalog). The origins of these volumes are lost to the sands of time.

This Just In: Growing the Gothic

Posted on September 19, 2013 by

Regular readers will know of our fondness for the English Gothic novel, and our pride in the recent bequest of the Maurice Lévy Collection of French Gothic (described in two recent blog posts). We have now acquired a key edition—the rare first edition in French (Lausanne, 1787) of William Beckford’s Vathek—which nicely links the Lévy Collection with its progenitor, the unparalleled Sadleir-Black Gothic Novel Collection housed under Grounds in the Small Special Collections Library.

Title page of the second published edition (and the first printing of the original French text) of William Beckford’s Vathek. Lausanne: Isaac Hignou, 1787. (PR4091 .V39 1787)

One of the earliest, and now one of the most widely read English Gothic novels, Vathek has a complicated textual history. In a very important sense it is not even an English novel, for when Beckford composed the text in 1782, he did so in French! Indeed, Beckford never prepared an English translation of his best known work. Rather, most readers have encountered Vathek in the English translation (or in translations of this translation) prepared by the Rev. Samuel Henley, sometime professor at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The first page of the Rev. Samuel Henley’s translation, from the first edition of Vathek, published under the title, An Arabian Tale. London: J. Johnson, 1786. (PR 4091 .V4 1786)

Born in 1745 in Devon, Henley was recruited in 1770 for the faculty of William and Mary, where he taught moral philosophy. Popular with his students—who included James Madison and James Monroe—Henley also formed strong friendships with prominent Virginians such as George Wythe and Thomas Jefferson. The looming clouds of war prompted Henley’s return to England in 1775, where he accepted a teaching position at Harrow School. By 1783 Henley had entered the intellectual circle of William Beckford, who entrusted him with translating the as yet unpublished Vathek into English. But Beckford, distracted in part by a scandal which necessitated an extended sojourn in Switzerland, insisted that Henley’s version remain unpublished until he saw fit to publish the original French text.

And for comparison, the first page of Beckford’s French text, as it appeared in the Lausanne, 1787 edition.

Disobeying Beckford’s wishes, Henley instead sent his translation to the press. Published in London in 1786 as An Arabian tale, Henley not only concealed Beckford’s authorship but pretended that the work was translated from an “Arabick” source. When the news reached Beckford in Lausanne, he was furious. Placing the original manuscript in the hands of a Swiss friend, Beckford directed that his French be corrected where necessary and the text rushed into print. The latter request was easier to meet than the former: the novel was published early in 1787 at Lausanne as Vathek, but with Beckford’s faulty French little improved. Today the Lausanne edition is very rare and, because Beckford’s manuscript no longer survives, remains our closest witness to the text as originally written. In subsequent editions, Beckford continued to tinker with both the French text and Henley’s translation, creating an interesting challenge for the textual editor.

The Small Special Collections Library possesses two copies of the London, 1786 edition. One is in a fine binding with distinguished provenance. The other, rather shabby copy is even more interesting, for it bears the contemporary wood-engraved label--by Thomas Bewick, no less!--of Humble's Circulatign Library in Newcastle.

The Small Special Collections Library possesses two copies of the London, 1786 edition. One is in a fine binding with distinguished provenance. Despite its rather shabby appearance, the other copy is even more interesting, for it bears the contemporary wood-engraved label–by Thomas Bewick, no less!–of Humble’s Circulating Library in Newcastle.

Curating Yoko Ono

Posted on September 9, 2013 by

Anyone who has ever curated or installed an exhibition of books and manuscripts knows that these materials are inherently impossible to exhibit effectively. While paintings and sculpture are created with the intention of exhibition, most of the artifacts we hold are not. Visitors can only see one page of any multipage document, and artifacts that were made to be held in one’s hands and experienced intimately are relatively far away, usually behind glass. Curators are always looking for ways to transcend these difficulties. We hem and haw over writing lengthy descriptions in labels. If we have funds, we create high-quality facsimiles of hidden pages or even a “page-turner” digital facsimile of the complete artifact.

Who knew effective display could involve smashing china cups to smithereens?

Here is the curator, hard at work. (Photo by Alicia Dietrich)

I have just finished installing our latest exhibition, “Magazines Unbound: Periodicals as Art 1942-1983.” This project reveals an unexpected strength in our collections: magazines conceived of as formal artistic experiments in and of themselves. Most of the magazines displayed are gatherings of paper or even objects into folders, envelopes, and boxes, rather than bound as books. This makes them, in some ways, ideal for exhibition.

The 1950s west-coast Beat magazine Semina displays beautifully, since most of its contents are loose sheets. Shown are most of the contents of Semina 8 being prepared for exhibition (PS 580 .S45, Marvin Tatum Collection of Contemporary Literature. Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

But two of the magazines–Aspen and S.M.S.–were venues for conceptual artists in the 1960s, who had a penchant for works of art that remain incomplete without the participation of the reader or viewer. Among the objects included are records and audio and video tapes that need to be played, instructions for writing a poem, templates for boxes that need to be glued together, and a paper doll and candy-wrapper that need to be cut out. What’s a curator to do?

I chose to let all the works stand incomplete with one exception: Yoko Ono’s “Mend Piece for John,” shown below.

Yoko Ono's *****. From S.M.S. 5 (October 1968).

Yoko Ono’s “Mend Piece for John,”. From S.M.S. 5 (October 1968). (N1 .S15, University of Virginia Library Associates Fund. Image by Molly Schwartzburg)

A tube of glue is wrapped with a poem, and attached to a plastic bag with a satin ribbon. Inside the bag is a set of typed instructions:

Take your favorite cup.

Break it in many pieces with a hammer.

Repair it with this glue and this poem.

The poem wrapped around the tube of glue in Ono's piece.

This poem comes wrapped around the tube of glue in Ono’s piece with a rubber band. After unwrapping it to be sure I knew what it included, I took a quick snapshot for reference purposes before carefully rewrapping it. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

How could I resist? A friend was visiting from out of town, so we went out to The Factory, my favorite antique mall out in the Shenandoah Valley, where we selected two cheap but visually appealing teacups. “But wait,” you say. “Didn’t the instructions specify that it be ‘your favorite cup’?” Well…let’s just say I wasn’t ready to make that kind of sacrifice for work. It was still a pretty profound experience.

We prepared to destroy the teacups in my front yard. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

No tortillas were harmed in the making of this artwork. But it only took one try to shatter each cup. This was the fun part.

No tortillas were harmed in the making of this artwork. It only took one blow to shatter each cup. This was the easy part. (Photo by Alicia Dietrich)

The glueing was fun at first, and then we realized how long it was going to take. We had to sit very still holding each piece for at least 15 or 20 minutes before we could safely let it go. So we sat, talked, glued, talked, and mended. It was wonderful. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

Here’s the final view of the item in the exhibition, with all the other materials in S.M.S. 5. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

I can’t say that visitors to the exhibit will understand the piece fully just because they can view its final result in the cases. But my friend and I discovered that the process itself, even modified, was wonderfully meditative. There is something about mending a cup, slowly and deliberately, that is itself healing, we discovered. Even if the cup is no longer usable. I’ll look forward to taking these results back home after the exhibition comes down.

You can view Ono’s piece in the exhibition “Magazines Unbound: Periodicals as Art 1942-1983” in the First Floor Gallery until January 5, 2014.

This Just In: Summer Beach Reading, Part II

Posted on August 29, 2013 by

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 19^th-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)

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)

As the 19^th 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)

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)

Another unusual late 19^th-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)

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.

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—19^th-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 19^th-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.

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

Posted on August 23, 2013 by

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)

Revealing the Mountain Communities of the Blue Ridge: Emmanuel Episcopal Church provides significant Digitization Grant

Posted on July 25, 2013 by

This week we feature a guest post from Special Collections staff member in Public Services, Margaret Hrabe:

The Small Special Collections Library is proud to announce our successful application for a seed grant to begin to scan our holdings of the periodical Our Mountain Work in the Diocese of Virginia. Published from 1909 to 1954 by the Board of Missions of the Diocese of Virginia, this periodical documents the founding of Episcopal mission churches and schools in the Ragged and Blue Ridge Mountains of Central Virginia by Frederick Neve, Archdeacon of the Blue Ridge. Our Mountain Work is a uniquely rich resource for the study of communities that were little documented at the time. The periodical’s writers had intimate contact with individuals and families who were otherwise extremely isolated. Many of the magazine’s issues predate the establishment of the Shenandoah National Park in 1933, an act that displaced hundreds of families and eradicated many small mountain communities.

Our Mountain Work, v. 1, no. 1 (BV2575 .O813. Image by Petrina)

Our Mountain Work, v. 1, no. 1 (March 1901). (BV2575 .O813. Image by Petrina Jackson)

The grant of $3000 comes from the Endowment Fund of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Greenwood, Virginia. The Emmanuel Endowment Fund Board annually administers grants in “furtherance of exclusively religious, charitable or educational purposes.” We are grateful to the Board for its support and look forward to having this unique resource made available beyond the underground walls of Special Collections.

Emmanuel Church today. Photograph by Margaret Hrabe)

Emmanuel Church, 2013. (Photograph by Margaret Hrabe)

U.Va.’s holdings of Our Mountain Work in Special Collections total 370 issues of the over 400 that were published and comprise the largest single collection available to researchers. Smaller collections reside at the Virginia Theological Seminary’s Bishop Payne Library and the Virginia Historical Society. Special Collections will begin the scanning project in early Fall of 2013. The images will be placed in the University of Virginia Library’s digital repository accessible through the online catalog VIRGO.

Frederick William Neve

Frederick William Neve, born in the county of Kent, England, was educated at Merton College, Oxford, and ordained a deacon in 1880 at the abbey church of St. Albans. In 1888, the vestries of St. Paul’s (Ivy, Va.) and Emmanuel (Greenwood, Va.) Churches asked Neve to come to Virginia to serve the needs of their congregations, and he accepted. Neve served as the rector of Emmanuel Church from 1888 to 1905 In 1890, Neve built his first mission church in the Ragged Mountains, St. John the Baptist. Ten years later, he began supporting a teacher at Simmon’s Gap, an isolated community in the Blue Ridge Mountains. This was the beginning of his work with the mountain inhabitants that eventually embraced seven Virginia counties and became the Archdeaconry of the Blue Ridge. As editor of Our Mountain Work, Neve made possible this window in time to the history of Central Virginia during the first half of the twentieth century.

Frederick William Neve, undated (MSS 791. Image by PetrinaJackson)

Digitization as Preservation

Over the years, U.Va.’s holdings of Our Mountain Work have been accessed by researchers both local and distant for their religious, social, educational, and genealogical significance. Recently a researcher from Northern Virginia requested photocopies of over 800 pages from the periodical—a request which Special Collections had to decline due to preservation concerns. Many of the original issues have small tears and nearly all were initially folded; consequently, there are crease marks and separations at the folds on a large number of issues. These preservation issues prompted Special Collections to apply to the Emmanuel Endowment Board for funds to scan the paper issues, so that all interested researchers will have access to these documents without producing further damage to the delicate originals.

This image reveals some of the conservation problems inherent in these ephemeral issues of the magazine. _Our Mountain Work_ 1.3 (November 1911) (BV2575 . 082. Photograph by Petrina Jackson).

This image reveals some of the conservation problems inherent in these ephemeral artifacts. _Our Mountain Work_ 1.3 (November 1911). (BV2575 . 082. Photograph by Petrina Jackson).

Beyond Our Mountain Work

Emmanuel Church and Frederick Neve are well-represented in the holdings of Special Collections beyond Our Mountain Work. The Papers of Emmanuel Church (MSS 10731, etc.) were initially deposited in Special Collections in 1987 and contain parish registers, 1885-1983; vestry books, 1909-1977; Woman’s Auxiliary minutes, 1871-1972; and financial statements, 1976-1977; written and oral histories. With these are also parish and church service registers of Holy Cross Mission, 1912-1942, a mission church established by Neve near Batesville, Va. Three collections of Neve’s personal papers (MSS 9115, MSS 9970,-a-b, and MSS 10505) give an even more in-depth view of the outreach mission work done by this extraordinary individual.

This Just In: “Billy” Cook’s Verse Chapbooks

Posted on July 18, 2013 by

Front cover of Cook’s Fremont: a poem (Salem, Mass., 1856) bound with The Eucleia (Salem, Mass., ca. 1865) (PS1378 .C7 1865; Robert & Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund)

Special Collections is world renowned for its printed and manuscript holdings of American literature, amassed through purchase, gift, and the happy receipt of several substantial collections, most notably the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Deposited at the University of Virginia Library in 1960 and gradually given to the Library over the next three decades, the 250,000-item collection comprehensively surveys American literature in all genres from ca. 1775 to 1950. On its arrival the Barrett Library was rather awkwardly arranged in terms of “major” and “minor” authors—distinctions which of course lose meaning as literary reputations wax and wane and as scholarly interests shift.

Title page verso to William Cook, The Eucleia: works (Salem, Mass., ca. 1865) (PS1378 .C7 1865; Robert & Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund)

This week’s post highlights one of these “minor” authors—William “Billy” Cook—whose work deserves wider recognition. The son of a ship captain and a lifelong resident of Salem, Mass., Cook (1807-1876) studied at Yale before his ambitions were checked by physical and mental illness. Back in Salem he conducted a private school for some years, where his students studied Latin, Greek, and mathematics (at which Cook excelled). He also studied for the ministry and conducted religious services at his home, though Cook never advanced beyond the rank of deacon. Beloved for his eccentricities and known locally as “Reverend,” Cook was for decades a fixture of Salem life.

Back cover of Cook's The Ploughboy, part third (Salem, Mass., 1855) and front cover of his The Telegraph, or Starr-banner song (Salem, Mass., 1856); both bound with The Eucleia (Salem, Mass., ca. 1865) (PS1378 .C7 1865; Robert & Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund)

Back cover of Cook’s The Ploughboy, part third (Salem, Mass., 1855) and front cover of his The Telegraph, or Star-banner song (Salem, Mass., 1856); both bound with The Eucleia (Salem, Mass., ca. 1865) (PS1378 .C7 1865; Robert & Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund)

Finding himself jointly summoned in the early 1850s by the Muses of Poetry and Art, Cook began composing verse in which Salem and its residents, contemporary political events and figures, and various philosophical themes loomed large. Unable to afford the services of a commercial printer, Cook salvaged some worn type and a small cast-off jobbing press from a local newspaper office. With this equipment Cook could print only a page or two at a time, but time was a commodity he had in abundance. Over the next two decades Cook issued nearly 50 broadsides and poetry chapbooks, the latter hand-stitched by Cook in printed wrappers or bound in decorated cloth covers. Many were illustrated with Cook’s charming woodcut illustrations, which were typically heightened with pencil (mostly to correct uneven inking) and sometimes in colors. Because Cook often assembled and hand-bound his chapbooks in customized collections, his works exist in many variants.

Many of Cook's woodcut illustrations (this one heightened with pencil) are useful contemporary depictions of Salem street scenes, such as this view of Liberty Street. William Cook, The Columbia (Salem, Mass., 1863) (Barrett PS586 .Z93 C673 C6 1863)

Many of Cook’s woodcut illustrations (this one heightened with pencil) are contemporary depictions of Salem street scenes, such as this view of Liberty Street. William Cook, The Columbia (Salem, Mass., 1863) (Barrett PS586 .Z93 C673 C6 1863)

Strictly speaking, one might classify Cook’s works as examples of “mendicant verse,” a not uncommon sub-genre of 19^th-century American minor poetry. Cook supplemented his modest income by peddling these chapbooks on Salem’s streets and to the increasing number of visitors who sought out his singular company. Late in life Cook took up painting, establishing a gallery in his home on Charter Street which attracted a new generation of visitors and chapbook purchasers. Although it would be stretching a point considerably to compare him with, say, William Blake, Cook is undeniably a fascinating practitioner of “folk” or “outsider” art.

Frotn cover of Cook’s The Columbia (Salem, Mass., 1863) (Barrett PS586 .Z93 .C673 C6 1863)

At one time it was not hard to find Cook’s ephemeral publications in New England, but today these are rarely encountered. Until recently the Clifton Waller Barrett Library could boast of holding only 13 Cook chapbooks. Now we have added ten more, increasing our holdings to approximately half of Cook’s recorded oeuvre. Fortuitously, all ten are gathered in one of Cook’s nonce collections, entitled The Eucleia with special added title page, hand bound by Cook in a remnant of striped cloth with woodcut title block stamped on the front cover. As far as we can tell, nothing has been written about Cook since 1924, when Lawrence W. Jenkins’s short article and checklist appeared in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. Perhaps by having now gone “under Grounds,” Billy Cook will soon receive the attention he deserves.

Front cover of William Cook's nonce collection of some of his works, The Eucleia: works (Salem, Mass., this copy assembled ca. 1865)

Front cover of a William Cook nonce collection containing ten chapbooks, The Eucleia: works (Salem, Mass., this copy assembled ca. 1865). Cook bound this copy in a “publisher’s binding” covered in a striped cloth remnant with woodcut title stamped in red. (PS1378 .C7 1865; Robert & Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund)

Patron’s Choice: Language Battles in the Douglas H. Gordon Collection of French Books

Posted on July 11, 2013 by

This week we are pleased to feature a guest post from Nicholas Shangler, Lecturer of French at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

Dr. Shangler graduated with a Ph.D. in French from the University of Virginia this past May 2013. While in graduate school, he worked with rare books as a student employee in Digital Curation Services at the University of Virginia Library, and while doing so, found a series of books by Henri Estienne that would become central to his dissertation work.

***

During my first semester of graduate school, I quickly realized that I needed a part-time job. Serendipitously, Digital Curation Services was seeking someone to assist with the digitization of the Gordon Collection, an impressive holding of primarily sixteenth century French books, at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. I didn’t know it then, but that job would influence the course of my graduate career and beyond, leading me to specialize in Renaissance literature. The digitization process involved perusing the books in the Gordon Collection, selecting one, and scanning it page by page. Although admittedly tedious at times, the process allowed me to spend hours each day becoming acquainted with fascinating materials more profoundly than I ever would have otherwise. Many of the works are not exactly canonical, affording me a richer experience of Renaissance French culture and literature than I’d previously been exposed to in classes.

A section of the Gordon Collection of French Books stacks. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

A section of the Douglas H. Gordon Collection of French Books stacks. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Douglas H. Gordon bookplate. (Photograph of Petrina Jackson)

One curious work that I spent some time considering was Deux dialogues du nouueau langage françois (1578) by Henri Estienne. It intrigued me with its descriptions of French words being chopped in half and “stuffed” with Italian words (inserted between the two ends of the original French words). What?! Then the author claimed that the French language descended from Greek, not Latin. Clearly this guy was crazy. I put it down and chose other works to digitize. But apparently it stuck with me. Five years later, while drafting my dissertation prospectus on French language innovation in the Renaissance, I recalled these strange dialogues. I returned to Special Collections and paid Monsieur Estienne a visit.

Deux Dialogues (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Henri Estienne’s Deux Dialogues du Nouveau Langage Francois, 1578 (Gordon 1578 .E78. Douglas H. Gordon Collection of French Books. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

France and Italy experienced a mutual cultural and linguistic intertwining beginning in at least the early medieval period. The influence of the Italians intensified with the marriage of the French prince, Henri II – son of François I – to Catherine de Medici, in 1533. The ascension of Henri II to the throne in 1547 brought increasing numbers of Italians not only into France, but into the folds of the French Court. Many courtiers embraced the growing Italianism and affected a language heavily characterized both by Italian words and by French words recomposed so as to incorporate fragments of Italian. However, a number of prominent voices discouraged their French countrymen from having anything to do with the Italians, urging instead greater respect for French national culture. Among those who began to protest against the intrusion of Italianism in France, and particularly with regard to language, a certain Parisian printer distinguished himself by his fervor and for his compelling articulation of the argument in support of the purity of French.

Henri Estienne (1528-1598) was destined to participate in the battle over language. The son of Robert (1503-1559), a renowned printer and scholar, Estienne developed from a young age a curiosity and love for languages and books. He mastered Latin, Greek and Italian, and devoted a significant amount of work to translating, editing, publishing and/or collating essential classical texts. During the final two decades of his life, from the mid-1570s until his death, Estienne undertook two original editions of the Greek New Testament accompanied by his own critical commentary.

Henri Estienne’s polemic against the Italianized French employed by French courtiers appears in three separate but related works. Together they form a sort of trilogy, each attacking various aspects of the central problem. The first, Traicté de la conformité du language françois avec le grec (1565), denies the superiority of Italian by belittling its roots. Estienne claims in his preface that the Italian language owes a far greater debt to French than does French to any Italian heritage. He supports his argument by advancing the idea that French descends directly from Greek and has more in common with Greek than any other language. Since everyone universally recognizes Greek as the greatest language in history, French must therefore be the second greatest. Italian, on the other hand, is but the paltry progeny of Latin. Estienne decries the recent linguistic inventions of the Italianizing courtiers and instead longingly praises the true French language “pure and simple, showing nothing of artifice, nor of affectation: that which Sir Courtier has not yet changed according to his tastes, and which has nothing borrowed from modern languages” [“pur et simple, n’ayant rien de fard, ni d’affectation: lequel monsieur le courtisan n’a point encore changé à sa guise, & qui ne tient rien d’emprunt des langues modernes.”] (Estienne, Conformité, preface, Vvo)

(Typ.E77 1565E. Stone Typography Collection. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Henri Estienne’s Traicte de la Conformite du language francois auec le Grec, 1565. (Typ.E77 1565E. Stone Typography Collection. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Estienne continues the attack where he left off with the 1578 publication of the Deux dialogues du nouueau langage françois. The book opens with a series of poems that set the stage for the debate to follow. In the first of the two dialogues, Estienne posits an exchange between a character named Celtophile (“lover of France”), whose role is to prosecute the case against the Italianized French, and Philausone (“lover of Italy”), who frequents the Court and is charged with defending the practice. Naturally the jury is rigged in favor of Celtophile, with the accused found guilty even before the opening gavel. The two interlocutors find themselves at an impasse at the close of the first dialogue. They agree to reconvene the next morning to continue their discussion, and to go together to consult a third party, Philalethe (“lover of Truth”). Over the course of the second dialogue the topic of their argument gradually progresses to whether French or Italian, considered separately rather than in their blended form, is the greater language. Once Philalethe joins the conversation he promptly dismantles all of Philausone’s reasoning, according an unconditional victory to the French language. Still, Philausone refuses to concede. The book ends with Philalethe promising to demonstrate further the dominance of the French language at a later time.

Keeping Philalethe’s promise, the following year – 1579 – Henri Estienne published De la précellence du langage françois, which he dedicated in the preface to King Henri III. Though this work stands as a sequel to the Dialogues, Philalethe disappears and Estienne offers the book in his own voice using his real name, opening with a poem entitled “H. Estiene aux François.” Here he broadens the scope of his attacks, no longer limiting himself to rebutting the use of Italianisms at Court. Alluding to his own Conformité, he reiterates his claims of the self-sufficiency of French with regard to other languages, particularly Italian. Most of Estienne’s logic is unsound. He persists in relying upon his fallacious etymologies relating French to Greek, that he first sketched out in the Conformité, and then states that any words that seem equivalent between French and Italian are the result of Italian borrowing, rather than a common Latin heritage.

(Gordon 1579. E78. Gordon French Book Collection. Image by Digitization Services )

Henri Estienne’s Project du Livre Intitulé De la Precellence du Language Francois, 1579. (Gordon 1579. E78. Douglas H. Gordon Collection of French Books. Image by Digitization Services )

Estienne ridicules the changing pronunciation of certain words, and presents his vision of the resulting confusion of words and objects in ways that give his reader to understand the gravity of the situation. For instance, in the Dialogues, he condemns the changed pronunciation of oi into e. The examples that he chooses – including “françois” (Frenchman) to “français” and “roine” (queen) to “reine” – underscore the danger of allowing the courtiers’ language to insinuate itself into the formerly pure French. Not only does the new form of the word for “queen” risk signifying a frog instead, but the pronunciation of the very word indicating national belonging is changing.

Such a world is unstable and proved frightening to Estienne. Estienne suggests even from the outset that the new words and those who are using them in new ways are already changing France itself. The Dialogues opens with the poem, “The Book to the Readers” [“Le Livre aux Lecteurs”], which offers the warning that there are those for whom “in everything novelty is beautiful, / So much so that they are making us a new France” [“en tout la nouveauté est belle, / Tant qu’il [sic] nous font une France nouvelle”] (Estienne, Dialogues). These worries transcend a mere discussion of language, and extend into the realms of politics and society. Estienne’s works suggest that changes in language will precipitate changes in reality. Although his focus is ostensibly linguistic, his motivations spring from deep political concerns about the future of his native France.

I suppose Henri Estienne would be relieved to know that the French language I was studying when I discovered his works in 2004 ultimately survived the encroachment of Italian. His works and the many others of that era housed in the U.Va. Special Collections are all perfectly comprehensible to French speakers of today, despite the occasional variation in spelling and usage. However, browsing current French-language social media posts online, I suspect that there would still be fodder aplenty for a reincarnated Estienne to pen yet another series of polemical treatises, though the target would no longer be Italian. As it happens, in 1964, René Étiemble published Parlez-vous franglais?, a work linking patriotism and linguistic purism in which he approvingly references Estienne and cites passages from the Précellence du langage françois. Indeed, these old rare books continually prove to be far more relevant to modern ideas than one might first imagine.

Nicholas Shangler (Photograph by Sarah Reynolds-Shangler)

This Just In: Summer Beach Reading Edition

Posted on June 27, 2013 by

The following miscellany of recent book acquisitions is intended, not for those basking and basting on a sandy beach, but for those who prefer the cool, calm, and comfortable surroundings of the Special Collections reading room under Grounds. Take a break from tanning and pay us a summer visit!

Plate 13 in William M. Woollett, Old homes made new: being a collection of plans … illustrating the alteration and remodelling of several suburban residences (New York: A. J. Bicknell & Co., 1878).

A new addition to our extensive architecture holdings reminds us that architecture can be a process of renovation as well as creation. In Old homes made new (New York: A. J. Bicknell, 1878), Albany, N.Y. architect William M. Woollett offers remodeling advice to American homeowners. Stuck with a New England saltbox, Federal mansion, Greek Revival temple, or Gothic Revival embarrassment? Through before-and-after floor plans and exterior views, Woollett shows how to update one’s ancestral family home to the then-fashionable Queen Anne style. The work closes with exterior photographs of a mid-18^th-century home in Ridgefield, Conn. that Woollett had transformed into a Victorian showpiece. Architectural historians, historic preservationists, and others charged with reverse-engineering historic structures may find Woollett’s approach illuminating.

When money is THE object: one way to select a spouse in the Antebellum South, as explicated in S. S. Hall, The bliss of marriage: or, How to get a rich wife. (New Orleans: J. B. Steel, 1858)

But the nest must be built before it can be renovated. Populating that nest is the subject of S. S. Hall’s rare and unusual Bliss of marriage: or, How to get a rich wife (New Orleans: J. B. Steel, 1858). In some respects similar to the many courtship guides published in Antebellum America, Hall’s work is in other ways different in claiming to be written for a Southern audience. A New Orleans attorney (and not the prolific dime novel writer “Buckskin Sam” Hall, as often claimed), Hall based this work on three years’ “personal experience and general observation.” After offering advice such as “Marry no woman who sleeps till breakfast,” Hall devotes most of the book to the art of marrying well, and well-to-do. At the end is a 15-page appendix of nearly 400 wealthy “unmarried young ladies and gentlemen”—the former identified only by initials, the latter by full name—residing in various Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky towns, with their estimated net worth. One wonders how successfully Hall followed his own advice.

Title page to Wänskaps och handels tractat emellan Hans Maj:t konungen af Swerige och the Förente staterne i Norra America … = Traité d’amitié et de commerce entre Sa Majesté le roi de Suède et les Etats-unis de l’Amérique septentrionale … (Stockholm: Kongl. Tryckeriet, 1785)

To the McGregor Library of American History we have added the rare Swedish printing (Stockholm, 1785) of the landmark 1783 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Sweden and the United States. In September 1782, with the American Revolution drawing to a close, Congress empowered John Adams, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and Benjamin Franklin to negotiate peace with Britain. At the same time Franklin was appointed minister to Sweden, and he quickly entered into discussions with his Swedish counterpart. A treaty was concluded on April 3, 1783, and ratified by both countries later that year. Sweden thus became the first neutral country to officially recognize the United States. The treaty’s text is printed in parallel columns in Swedish and French, with Congress’s act of ratification appended in English.

A detail from one of the massive (53 x 36 cm.) engraved plates in André François Roland, Le grand art d’ecrire. (Paris: Chez Esnauts et Rapilly, [between 1777 and 1791]

Summer is no time to dredge up dreary memories of primary school penmanship class, but we can’t resist pointing out that the history of handwriting and calligraphy are strongly represented in Special Collections. At a recent auction we were able to acquire several very rare 18^th-century French, Italian, and German penmanship manuals, thereby adding significant depth to our holdings. Penmanship instruction was long the province of writing masters, some of whom published manuals for their students’ use. Typically these consisted of engraved plates reproducing examples of the master’s penmanship. Some plates would demonstrate how to hold the quill pen and execute the basic strokes, others would illustrate the various hands, and still others would advertise the master’s expertise, particularly his command of hand in which texts and even elaborate images were drawn without once lifting the pen from paper. These writing books were often published on demand, with students customizing their copies by selecting from among the available engraved plates, hence copies are rare and tend to vary in content. Shown here is a detail from Le grande art d’ecrire, which features the work of André François Roland, a Parisian writing master active in the mid-18^th century. The U.Va. copy, in its original blue paper wrappers, contains 31 plates and was issued sometime between 1777 and 1791. Other copies are known issued as early as 1758. This work is extremely unusual for its large format, with plates measuring 53 x 36 cm.

[Harvey Newcomb], The “Negro pew”: being an inquiry concerning the propriety of distinctions in the House of God, on account of color. (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1837)

Another spring auction added several anti-slavery and abolitionist works to Special Collections, including a fine copy in its original publisher’s binding with printed cover label of Harvey Newcomb’s The “Negro pew”: being an inquiry concerning the propriety of distinctions in the House of God, on account of color. Published in Boston in 1837, Newcomb’s book advanced the abolitionist movement a step further by confronting Northern prejudice against African Americans. Taking as his starting point the common practice of restricting where blacks could sit in church, Newcomb marshals many arguments to support his thesis “that every man is entitled to be esteemed and treated according to his social, moral, and intellectual worth.”

P. T. Barnum (er, Petite Bunkum) and General Tom Thumb make the acquaintance of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, in The autobiography of Petite Bunkum, the showman. (New York: P. F. Harris, 1855)

The great American showman P. T. Barnum makes innumerable cameo appearances under Grounds in Special Collections’ rich holdings relating to 19^th-century American literature and culture, hence we were happy to acquire a rare Barnum parody. In 1855, just before financial reversals added further notoriety to his name, Barnum published a best-selling autobiography “written by himself.” The book was quickly and affectionately parodied in The autobiography of Petite Bunkum, the showman (New York: P. F. Harris, 1855), also (and anonymously) “written by himself.” “In these pages I have adhered to the truth as closely as might suit my purpose,” Bunkum allows, before relating his comical rise to fame and fortune. Of the supporting characters, only General Tom Thumb retains his full name. Others receive a modest fig leaf—Joyce Heath (for Joyce Heth, billed as George Washington’s 160-year-old nurse), Jenny [Lind] the Swedish Nightingale, the Fudge Mermaid, the Whiskered Woman—and all are caricatured in image as well as in word.

It’s 5 p.m. and we must close for the day, but perhaps there’s still time for the beach?

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library

Notes from Under Grounds

Category Archives: Uncategorized