In Memoriam: Albert H. Small

We at the UVA Library were saddened to hear of the death of Albert H. Small, former UVA Board of Visitors member, longtime benefactor of the Library, and namesake along with his wife Shirley of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. He was 95 years old.

Albert H. Small in the stairwell of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library in 2004, the year the library opened.

Albert H. Small in the stairwell of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library in 2004, the year the library opened.

Small served in the United States Navy during World War II and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1946 with a degree in chemical engineering. After this he began his long and successful professional career as a real estate developer, along with an equally notable career as a collector and philanthropist. His major collecting interest was in American history, and his philanthropic contributions of time, resources, and expertise were enormous.

Albert Small was much more than simply a namesake of the Small Special Collections Library. He gave generously to the library’s construction, but he also lobbied relentlessly on the University’s behalf when the plans to erect a new building first got underway. Former University Librarian Karin Wittenborg, who worked closely with Small as the new library was being conceived, praised his determination, noting that “Albert was an avid and persuasive advocate for a new Special Collections library when few others believed it would be built. If not for Albert’s commitment and support, it would not be here today.” University Librarian John Unsworth agreed, adding that “it could never have been done without Albert’s vision and industry.” And in addition to his central role in the creation of the physical building, Small donated to the new library the Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection, the most comprehensive holding of its kind related to the Declaration of Independence.

Photograph of documents on display in the Declaration of Independence Gallery

Reproductions of John Dunlap’s broadsides on display in the Declaration of Independence Gallery. As Curator David Whitesell notes, “Thomas Jefferson famously directed that his tombstone list only three of his many achievements. The Small Special Collections Library holds the archive for one: the University of Virginia. Hence we are profoundly grateful to Albert Small for entrusting to us his pre-eminent collection on a second: the Declaration of Independence.”

The Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection includes letters, documents, and early printings related to the Declaration and its fifty-six signers, including a number of letters written by the signers. A much larger number of broadsides and newspaper printings of the Declaration and a series of later printings reveal how the document became iconic as an expression of the rights and freedoms cherished by Americans. It also includes an early printed facsimile of the official engrossed copy of the Declaration, commissioned for engraving by John Quincy Adams, as well as the engraving itself, presented to the Marquis de Lafayette in recognition of his service during the Revolution and hanging in the Marquis’ bedchamber when he died. And it features the jewel of the collection, the Albert Small copy of the Dunlap Broadside, printed by John Dunlap of Philadelphia just hours after the final text was approved by Congress. The Albert Small copy is among the finest surviving examples of a Dunlap Broadside, and almost certainly belonged to George Washington. Highlights of the collection are on permanent display in the Declaration of Independence Gallery in the Small Special Collections Library. The pleasure his Declaration collection brought to the public is vividly recorded in the thousands of grateful comments inscribed in the Declaration Gallery visitors’ book.

Nineteeth and twentieth century trade catalogs from the Albert Small Trade Catalog Collection

From the Albert H. Small American Trade Catalogs Collection— this amazingly well-preserved set of commercial publications reveals fascinating details of daily life and business practices of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In December 2014 Albert Small donated to the Library a second magnificent collection: 3,400 American trade catalogs dating back to 1839. Formed over several decades of assiduous and imaginative collecting, the Albert H. Small American Trade Catalogs Collection is among the richest and most diverse of its kind. Its holdings document almost every conceivable aspect of American manufacturing, commerce, and consumption. These ephemeral and very rare documents are invaluable to UVA faculty and students in many disciplines as they seek to understand the artifacts of our past and study the world that they occupied.

Not only did Albert Small work tirelessly and give generously to realize the Library’s long-held dream of a world-class, purpose-built facility to house its priceless rare book and manuscript collections, and not only did he donate among the most priceless and rare of those collections, but once the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library opened in 2004, he remained deeply engaged with and committed to its mission. Library staff fondly remember his impromptu visits whenever business brought him to Grounds. Once he appeared just as an out-of-town group arrived to view his Declaration of Independence collection; the group was thrilled when Small himself graciously offered a guided tour! He was also instrumental in arranging for many distinguished guests to visit the library and view its remarkable holdings.

As noted above, Albert Small’s contributions to the Library, as varied and important as they were, are only a drop in the ocean of his philanthropy. His contributions to institutions preserving American arts, culture, and history were numerous and tireless. Those institutions include George Washington University, the National Gallery of Art, the National Archives Foundation, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Library of Congress, the National Symphony Orchestra, and many more. His awards were also numerous, including The National Humanities medal, given to him by President Barack Obama in 2009. Even at UVA, Small’s generosity was not limited to the Library, and the Small Special Collections building is not the only building on Grounds that bears his name — he also supported the renovation that created the Engineering School’s Albert H. Small Building.

Portrait of Albert H. Small in the Small Special Collections Library

Portrait of Albert H. Small currently on display in his namesake library.

Albert H. Small will be remembered at the University and beyond not only for his passion and devotion to history, but for his dedication to sharing that passion with others and collecting and preserving important resources for the education and edification of future generations. His desire to share the treasures of his Declaration collection with students and scholars made that collection an invaluable resource for teaching and learning at the University and beyond, and the prestige it lent our special collections became a catalyst for other collectors to donate related materials. We are all truly indebted to Albert Small’s vision and generosity and to the legacy he built.

 

Read Albert Small’s obituary in The Washington Post

 

 

Welcome Katie Rojas, our new Archival Processing and Discovery Supervisor!

Today we welcome Katie Rojas, our new Archival Processing and Discovery Supervisor. Katie joins the Special Collections Technical Services team and is responsible for the workflows associated with archival accessioning and processing. 

In her own words:

I hold a BA in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin and earned my MLIS with a concentration in Archives from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Previously, I was the Manuscripts Archivist at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the Archivist for the City of San Antonio Municipal Archives. I’ve lived my entire life in Texas until now, so my move to Virginia is an exciting new adventure! I love animals, hiking, running, gardening, cross-stitching, art, music, Halloween, and reading.

What was your first ever job with books or libraries?

I was a student library assistant at my high school library. I helped with circulation and reshelving and did a lot of shelf reading, which I actually enjoyed. This was one of the many early clues that I was destined for a career in libraries, though I didn’t figure that out until a few years later.

What was the first thing you collected as a child? What do you collect now? (oh, c’mon, admit it).

My answer is the same for both questions: Books! I’ve pared down several times over the years but I know I’ll always continue to acquire them, no matter how hard I try to stop myself.

Hopefully you’ve been roaming Grounds and Charlottesville a bit since your arrival. What’s your favorite new discovery other than Special Collections?

I love the gardens. I haven’t explored all of them yet, but I especially like that many of them produce edible fruit! I’m also fond of the ginkgo trees on Grounds.

Tell us what excites you about your job?

I’m excited about working with the team in Special Collections Technical Services to do reparative descriptive work. I consider myself an activist-archivist and feel strongly about the need for better representation in archives. I also really enjoy creating policies and workflows that make our work more efficient and more supportive of our patrons’ research needs.

Tell us something about Special Collections or UVA that is different from what you expected.

I’m getting used to saying “on Grounds” instead of “on campus.” I also wasn’t expecting the presence of secret societies. It’s intriguing to see their symbols painted on steps and other places!

If you could be locked in any library or museum for a weekend, with the freedom to roam, enjoy, and study to your heart’s content, which one would you choose?

Museo Frida Kahlo: Frida’s famous blue house in Coyoacán, which was turned into a museum by her husband, Diego Rivera, at Frida’s request. It not only contains Frida’s furniture and garden but also exhibits artwork and her fabulous clothing. I have been a Frida fan since I was a teenager. I even named one of my cats Frida!

Senator Carter Glass 1858-1946: The Good and the Bad

This post was contributed by Ellen Welch, Manuscripts and Archives Processor with reparative comments from Whitney Buccicone, Director of Technical Services and edits by Katie Rojas, Archival Processing and Discovery Supervisor, all staff of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

Note: Many years ago, the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia Library was fortunate to receive the papers of Senator Carter Glass, a Virginia politician for fifty years with international and presidential influence. His papers were recently reprocessed so that banking legislation could be kept together in one series and legislation and political content could be separated, allowing researchers to identify these parts of the collection more easily (revised finding aid now available). It is a large collection of 283 document boxes containing his original correspondence, legislative drafts, printed bills, newspaper clippings, and speeches. In reprocessing the collection, it has been fascinating to gain a glimpse of some of the major events in the nineteenth and twentieth century history through his eyes. This was sometimes daunting and illuminating at the same time.

Carter Glass sitting for portrait

Carter Glass 1858-1946 (Courtesy U.S. Senate Historical Office)

Carter Glass (January 4, 1858 – May 28, 1946) was born in Lynchburg, Virginia to Robert Henry Glass and Augusta Elizabeth Christian. He became one of the longest serving politicians of his time—Senator of Virginia from 1920 to 1946, nominee for President of the United States in 1924—and successfully drafted and oversaw passage of some of the hardest fought and heroic banking legislation in history: the Federal Reserve Act (1913) and the Glass-Steagall Act (1932). However, he also helped to create the racist 1902 Virginia Constitution that disenfranchised the Black vote in Virginia.

Childhood
Carter Glass was a small but raucous country boy. Older boys in the neighborhood thought that they could pick on him because of his size, but he would fight them off with stones—they quickly learned to leave him alone. He earned the life-long nickname of Pluck because he refused to be bullied. Glass was a white child of privilege, and it was during this time that the foundation of Glass’s racism was built and was further cemented when his childhood was suddenly cut short by the outbreak of the Civil War. He had to quit school and apprentice at his father’s newspaper to help his family. The Civil War and Reconstruction period had a profound effect on Glass, shaping his early political views based on his memories that outsiders and African Americans were taking over the state of Virginia and responsible for its impoverished conditions. In typical Glass verbiage, the young boy claimed he was going to grow up and shoot “dadgum” Yankees.

Carter Glass setting type for newspaper

Carter Glass, publisher of the Lynchburg Daily Advance

Newspaper Career 
From a young age, Carter Glass wanted to become a reporter for his father’s newspaper. At age thirteen, he apprenticed for the newspaper and read books from his father’s library to augment his formal education. Glass had an impressive vocabulary which he used to his advantage throughout his career. Father and son shared the same political thinking but worked at different newspapers, often sparring with each other on specific issues much to the entertainment of the local Lynchburg public. One day his father stormed into his son’s office after reading an offensive article in the newspaper, saying “Where did you get that?” Young Glass responded that he kept a scrapbook. “You wrote that about three years ago.” His father turned and stomped out of the office, snorting as he went, “I have no respect for a person who keeps a scrapbook.”

Scan of Official Ballot, General Election with Carter Glass on ballot

Voting ballot for Senator Carter Glass

Political Career 
Following his success in the newspaper business, Carter Glass turned his attentions to politics. After hearing a speech by William Jennings Bryan in 1896, he was moved by Bryan’s oration and felt called to enter politics as a delegate in the 1901-1902 Virginia Constitutional Convention. He was a strong supporter of fiscal conservatism and states’ rights. A Southern Democrat, a Jeffersonian, and a supporter of segregation and Jim Crow laws, Glass served as a United States Senator from Lynchburg, Virginia starting in 1920 and was re-elected every term (running mostly unopposed) until his death in 1946. Many of his supporters have said that, at 5 foot 4 inches tall, his speeches and political prowess made him seem larger than life. Glass is described as having a ready wit, a combative personality, and a caustic tongue that spared no feelings—yet he was easily offended by any criticism of his positions, and often responded vindictively and meanly. Carter Glass thrived under the support of President Woodrow Wilson, but felt challenged under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was opposed to many of Roosevelt’s policies and needed to balance his convictions with diplomacy to preserve his relationship with the President.

Virginia Constitutional Convention 1901-1902

Pamphlet from Virginia Constitutional Convention 1901-1902

While Carter Glass is well-known for his banking reforms, it is not as well publicized that, as a member of the Virginia State Senate from 1899-1902, he led the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901-1902 that produced the Virginia Constitution of 1902 and placed severe new restrictions on voter eligibility—specifically targeting African Americans voters. The Virginia Constitution of 1902 instituted a poll tax and a literacy test to determine voter eligibility.

When questioned as to whether these measures were potentially discriminatory, Glass exclaimed, “Discrimination! Why that is exactly what we propose. To remove every [African American] voter who can be gotten rid of, legally, without materially impairing the numerical strength of the white electorate.”

Indeed, the number of African Americans Virginians qualified to vote dropped from 147,000 to 21,000 immediately— and until the 1965 Voting Rights Act, discriminatory practices such as the poll tax and literacy tests continued in Virginia and other southern states.

Banking legislation
Glass was appointed Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency in 1913. He played a major role in the establishment of the U.S. financial regulatory system, which was strongly supported by Woodrow Wilson. Their goal was to remove power from the bankers and place it in a separate agency to supervise the banks. His influence is reflected in the current structure of the Federal Reserve System today, which consists of twelve regional Reserve Banks and the Board of Governors in Washington, D. C.

Glass believed that the bankers kept finding ways around the banking legislation—and that this is what caused the stock market crash in 1929. After the crash, Glass-Steagall legislation focused on more bank regulation, separating investment banking firms and commercial banks and creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation).

Carter Glass on the cover of Time Magazine

Carter Glass on the cover of Time Magazine (June 9, 1924)

His banking reforms earned him gratitude across the country, landing him on the cover of Time magazine twice, and many universities bestowed him with honorary degrees. Glass had a way of speaking out of one side of his mouth; after he successfully fought for the Federal Reserve Act, President Woodrow Wilson marveled at what Glass would be able to do using both sides of his mouth!

In 1918, President Wilson appointed Glass Secretary of the Treasury, where he marketed Victory Liberty Loans for World War I debts.  He was also a representative for the peace talks after World War I and was determined to keep loans out of negotiations.

Photograph of Carter Glass with poster for Victory Loan program: "Bring Them Home"

Photograph of Carter Glass with poster for Victory Loan program: “Bring Them Home.” (Library of Congress: Harris & Ewing Collection)

Glass had suffered from ill health throughout his life, and usually walked on tip toes because he believed that would help with his indigestion. He was often so ill that he travelled between the hospital and Capitol Hill to stay ahead of the fight on banking legislation. He died in his hotel apartment in Washington, D.C. on May 28, 1946. History remembers Carter Glass as the Father of the Federal Reserve Act, but today we also consider his role in the 1902 Virginia Constitution that disenfranchised every black voter in the state. Historian J. Douglas Smith cites him as “the architect of disenfranchisement in the Old Dominion.” In the late 1920s, Harvard University named their business school, Glass Hall, after his achievements in banking, but in 2020 they changed the name to Cash House for James Cash, the first African American tenured professor at Harvard.

Carter Glass was the one of the most influential politicians of his time, yet at the beginning of his young life, he noted, “after the fullest deliberation I have cheerfully concluded that I was not cut out for a politician.” At 88 years of age, he still refused to retire from the Senate even though he had not attended the Senate floor proceedings for years. At many points during his political career he claimed that he would have been happy to stay at home on his farm, buying his jersey cattle, and yet he never gave up his public service until death took it from him on May 28,1946.

For more information about Carter Glass:

Sources:

Juneteenth in Virginia: Keeping the Celebration Going

We mark Juneteenth 2021 with this guest post from Daniel Bachman, Madison County artist and independent scholar interested in the folk histories of the Virginia experience.  

Photograph of Emancipation Day in Richmond, VA April 3, 1905: African Americans walking en masse in street parade

Photograph “Emancipation Day, Richmond, VA April 3, 1905” / 37.102.P.018421 from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection, Collections of Henry Ford.

 Although we now celebrate Juneteenth as Emancipation Day, historically, black Virginians honored April 3 & 9. Local historian Bessida Cauthorne White writes, “April 3, 1865, was the day that the City of Richmond fell to the Union Army, a military operation brought about largely through the efforts of African-American troops. April 9 was Emancipation Day in Lynchburg and in King William County, marking Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.” In 1866, Richmond designated April 3 as Emancipation Day, which remained a major holiday for black Virginians in the city until they were suppressed during the Jim Crow era.

Tappahannock, however, held a large annual Third of April celebration through the mid-1950s. White writes, “A typical Third of April began with a parade through the streets of Tappahannock…Following the parade and a lunch break, the festivities resumed with a formal program in the Essex County Courthouse. There was always an inspirational featured speaker…Some of the older residents remember that a play was given on the evening of the Third of April during the early part of the twentieth century.” Local residents recalled that the annual celebration in Tappahannock was “our day, the one time that we took over the town.'”

“The fact that Black folk were able to keep the celebration going through the rise of Jim Crow, through the Great Depression, and through two world wars says much for the tenacity and perseverance of the African-American citizens of the area, and should not go unnoticed. It is ironic that a celebration that marked the fall of the City of Richmond was sustained in Tappahannock, but not in Richmond.”

 

-Bessida Cauthorne White, “History of the Third of April Emancipation Celebration in Essex County, Virginia,” Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical & Historical Society, 1994.

 

 

 

 

This Just in: The Lewis M. Dabney, III Papers

We are proud to announce the acquisition of a major collection of the papers of Lewis M. Dabney, III, the late scholar of American literature and Professor of English at the University of Wyoming. Dr. Dabney is best known for his magisterial 2005 biography, Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature, and a large body of scholarship on Edmund Wilson.

Lewis M. Dabney, III, undated, courtesy of Elizabeth Dabney Hochman

The UVA Library is now home to three groups of Dabney’s papers: his voluminous and meticulously prepared Wilson archives; a small set of materials documenting his book on William Faulkner, The Indians of Yoknapatawpha (1974); and a collection of papers of Dabney’s mother, Crystal Ray Ross Dabney, documenting her romantic relationship with John Dos Passos in the 1920s.

The earliest letter from Edmund Wilson to Lewis Dabney in the collection (Box 12.7). The correspondence begins with answers to Dabney’s questions about a  school periodical from Wilson’s youth, and moves on to many other topics.

Dabney’s heavily annotated copy of William Faukner’s “The Bear” (Box 19), used in his research for “The Indians of Yoknapatawpha.”

Each of these groups of materials individually has significant connections to existing collection strengths at the library: the Faulkner materials join our more than eighty archival collections related to Faulkner, and the Crystal Ross-John Dos Passos collection is an essential complement to the Papers of John Dos Passos. Edmund Wilson’s profound reach across American literary modernism means that Dabney’s research files for this project will have important links throughout the archival collections in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. We are grateful to Dabney’s family for choosing the University of Virginia as a home for these materials: his widow Sarah Dabney, daughter Elizabeth Dabney Hochman, and son Lewis M. Dabney IV (CLAS 1992).

An example of the tantalizing folder headings in just one box of the collection. Dabney worked with a professional archivist to organize his papers in the years leading up to his death in 2015.

Dabney’s scholarship on Edmund Wilson began while he was still a graduate student and came to know Wilson personally. It includes not just the biography but major editions of Wilson’s work, including The Portable Edmund Wilson; The Edmund Wilson Reader; The Sixties: The Last Journal, 1960-1972; and Edmund Wilson: Centennial Reflections. He also edited two Library of America volumes, Edmund Wilson: Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1920s and 30s, and Edmund Wilson: Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1930s and 40s.

File copy of a letter from Dabney to Malcolm Cowley, from an extended correspondence on the structure and contents of Dabney (ed.), “The Portable Edmund Wilson,” 1978 (Box 3.48).

Wilson looms large in the history of twentieth-century literature and culture, and it is no surprise that Dabney’s biography was the work of a lifetime. The biography will never be surpassed due to the access Dabney achieved to the living record of Wilson’s life: his files hold his communications with Wilson himself and Wilson’s friends and colleagues, including figures such as Malcolm Cowley, Donald Hall, and Lionel Trilling; also present are transcripts from his interviews with eminent literary figures such as Wilson’s one-time wife Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Hardwick, Svetlana Alliuyeva, Isaiah Berlin, Elena Wilson, Roger Straus, and others; in some cases, cassette tapes of the original interviews are present. Much of this material remains unpublished. Dabney’s notes from the interviews offer a taste of Wilson’s dramatic romantic and literary relationships, and like the rest of the collection, offer valuable insight into the biographer’s process.

Dabney’s notes from his multi-day interview with Wilson’s friend Adelaide Walker in 1984, heavily annotated (Box 7.29)

Dabney’s notes from interview with Elizabeth Hardwick regarding Wilson and Mary McCarthy’s relationship, 1984 (7.21)

Among the materials in the collection is Dabney’s prized typescript copy of Edmund Wilson’s journals. This copy was one of two made at the request of Wilson’s longtime publisher Roger Straus since Wilson’s handwriting was apparently nearly indecipherable.  Straus gave one copy to Dabney, and the other resides with Wilson’s papers at the Beinecke Library at Yale.

The William Faulkner and Edmund Wilson portions of the collection will be made available to researchers as soon as they have been processed.

Crystal Ross and John Dos Passos

 At the time of his death, Dr. Dabney had recently completed a draft of a book on the relationship between his mother and John Dos Passos. The two were briefly engaged in the 1920s, and remained friends their entire lives. Dabney’s family are publishing the book, and once it is released this portion of the collection will become available to scholars. When that happens, we will post again to this space.

If you have questions about any portion of the Dabney papers, please contact curator Molly Schwartzburg at schwartzburg@virginia.edu

 

National Teacher Day: Ralph Cohen, Walter J. Kenan Professor of English at UVA 1968-2010

This post in celebration of National Teachers Day (May 4) was contributed by Ellen Welch, Manuscripts and Archives Processor at the Small Special Collections Library. 

The Ralph Cohen papers and New Literary History records were transferred from the University of Virginia English Department to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library where I had the opportunity to process the collection and make them available to our patrons. The collection reveals the extraordinary knowledge of Ralph Cohen as an English professor and founder/editor of the New Literary History journal. I have thoroughly enjoyed processing the collection. One of my favorite things is that, through his papers, Ralph Cohen is still teaching anyone who uses this collection. His research notes are the barebones of his lectures and they are extremely thorough and educational. Another thing that really comes across in his papers is how much Ralph Cohen cared about individuals, about society, and how he wanted to find meaning in everything that he knew and then to share it. I would like to celebrate him on National Teacher Day!

photograph of Ralph Cohen

Ralph Cohen, Walter J. Kenan Professor of English at UVA 1968-2010

Ralph Cohen (1917-2016) taught English literature for more than sixty years including 42 years at the University of Virginia as the Walter J. Kenan, Jr. professor of English (1968-2010). He also taught at City College New York, UCLA, and James Madison University. He was born to Polish immigrant parents in Paterson, New Jersey on February 23, 1917. Dr. Cohen was a scholar of Eighteenth-Century British literature and Philosophy. He was among the most eminent critical thinkers and educators of twentieth-century America. His preternatural ability to illuminate and account for diverse positions on theory at professional conferences was legendary. His innovative concept of technology led to the establishment of the Cohen Center for the Study of Technological Humanism at James Madison University. He focused his teaching and research on criticism, genre, literary theory, and history. His celebrated transactive classroom strategies frequently attracted colleagues and devoted students to his courses. He taught and mentored many generations of students, preparing them for lives and careers as teachers and scholars. He maintained contact with many of his students and made recommendations supporting their teaching, fellowships, and tenure positions throughout their careers. Cohen was a dedicated teacher who really cared about literature and his students. This letter is an example of the kind of impact that Ralph Cohen had on one of his many students:

Letter from a student thanking Ralph Cohen (September 23, 2013)

Letter from a student thanking Ralph Cohen (September 23, 2013)

Cover of New Literary History, Spring 1973

Cover illustration for an issue of the New Literary History. The theme for this issue is Ideology and Literature. Each issue of the NLH had a theme and articles were submitted around that theme.

In addition to being a dedicated teacher, Ralph Cohen founded the international scholarly journal, New Literary History in 1969 as a new type of academic journal devoted to exploring literary and cultural questions and defining literary terms that could be debated among literary theorists. University of Virginia President, at the time, Edgar F. Shannon gave Cohen three years to make the journal successful as part of the Sesquicentennial Celebration at the University. At the end of the third year, there was no question about the success of the journal. It was the first literary journal of its kind because it was founded on the new idea that literary study could be properly pursued only through understanding its interrelations with other disciplines such as art, music, science, anthropology, religion, sociology, psychology, and philosophy. Major literary and art critics from the United States and Europe had contributed articles, including the historian Hayden White, the scientist, Stephen Jay Gould, the music critic, Leonard S. Meyer, and numerous women artists and scholars, such as Patricia Stone, Rachel Trickett, Barbara Hernstein Smith, and Joan Weber. This interdisciplinary approach to literary history also showed how literary history was helpful to understanding aspects of everyday life, culture, and society. Following this idea, Cohen created the Commonwealth Center for Literary and Cultural Change in 1988 at the University of Virginia, which he directed from 1988 to 1995. The interdisciplinary research center, Cohen wrote, “had as its primary aim the study of change and continuity in individuals and institutions in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences.”

Autumn 1999 cover of New Literary History: Papers from the Commonwealth Center for Literary and Cultural ChangeNew Literary History is now in its fifth decade and has become an award-winning journal with its impact resonating around the globe. The journal has introduced numerous thinkers from France, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Russia, China, and elsewhere to an Anglo-American academic audience. In turn, New Literary History became the first English language literary journal to be translated into Chinese. Cohen included many diverse voices in the journal to represent more people with different perspectives. This diversity included women, minorities, and people from different cultures from many parts of the world. University of Virginia President Emeritus and University Professor John T. Casteen III, noted that the journal “has served a dual purpose: it has been both the touchstone for the community of scholars of literature within this one university and a global forum for wide-ranging scholarly discussion and debate among writers and critics in every place and of every persuasion.”

Ralph Cohen founded the Commonwealth Center for Literary and Cultural Change at the University of Virginia in 1988. He published the papers written by the Center in the New Literary History Journal. The addition of these articles made the New Literary History a quarterly journal.

Ralph was known among graduate students as one of the hardest working senior faculty, not resting on his international reputation but still racking up book after book, article after article. His students truly appreciated him. At UCLA and at the University of Virginia since 1968, Cohen attracted a following of graduate students, humorously called “Cohen-Heads” in the days of the “Cone Heads” on Saturday Night Live, to courses entitled “Genre,” “Theories of Literary History,” “Classic to Romantic,” and “Problems of Literary Theory.”

Even though Ralph Cohen was an editor of a preeminent theoretical international journal of the only one of its kind in the world, and a director of the University of Virginia Commonwealth Center for Literary and Cultural Change, Cohen considered himself first and foremost, a teacher. Ralph Cohen died on February 24, 2016 at 99 years of age. To learn more about Ralph Cohen’s legacy, view UVAToday’s In Memoriam or watch the October 14, 2010 interview at James Madison University where he talks about books and New Literary History. 

Four Festive Seasons: Kwanzaa

Four notable annual winter festivals with similar secular and religious origins often coincide in December. Today, we celebrate a comparatively new holiday, Kwanzaa (1966 A. D.)—or “First Fruits,” a week-long celebration of African and African-American cultural heritage.

Alongside Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, and Christmas, these diverse festive holidays evoke time-honored universal values through feasts, gift-giving, decorations, worship, and music. This presentation of select festival holdings in the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library is curated by Reference Librarian Regina Rush with contributions by Research Archivist Ervin Jordan and will continue over the holiday season to rekindle treasured holiday memories—and optimism—during these stressful times.

Kwanzaa Is A Way of Life That We Celebrate!, is the creation of Amos Kennedy, a renowned African American printer, book artist and paper maker. Kennedy is most noted for using his printed posters as a medium to voice his social and political commentary. This beautifully adorned 56 x 76 mm miniature book is crafted in an accordion style fold with African Kente cloth covering each board.

The text is flanked on each side by Ghanaian Adinkra symbols of the Akan People. To the left of the text is the Adinkra symbol Bese Saka, which translates as “a sack of cola nuts” and represents abundance, wealth and unity.  The cola nut was a major cash crop in Ghana before cocoa became the main cash crop. The heart-like Sankofa symbol on the right is from the Twi language of Ghana and translates as “go back and get it,” reminding us of the past as a guiding force in planning the future.

Amos Kennedy, Kwanzaa Is A Way of Life That We Celebrate! York, AL: Amos Kennedy, 2000. 
McGehee Miniature Book Collection in the Small Special Collections Library (McGehee 00899)

 

 

 

Four Festive Seasons: Christmas

Four notable annual winter festivals with similar secular and religious origins often coincide in December. Today, we celebrate Christmas (336 A. D.) which commemorates the Nativity of Christ and is probably the world’s most celebrated event.

Alongside Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, and Kwanza, these diverse festive holidays evoke time-honored universal values through feasts, gift-giving, decorations, worship, and music. This presentation of select festival holdings in the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library is curated by Reference Librarian Regina Rush with contributions by Research Archivist Ervin Jordan and will continue over the holiday season to rekindle treasured holiday memories—and optimism—during these stressful times.

Christmas Eve

Although unsure of its exact origin, food historians agree eggnog originated from the British medieval drink “posset,” a hot milky ale. Eggnog has become an American cultural culinary staple for the Christmas holiday seasons since it was brought to the colonies in the 1700s. Search online for “eggnog recipes” and the results will exceed 18 million hits! Ranging from alcoholic and non-alcoholic to a cooked eggnog recipe, the basic ingredients include some variant of the following: milk, cream, sugar, whipped eggs whites, and egg yolk.

Real Egg-Nog From Ice Cream recipe

Ice cream in egg-nog?!

This printed recipe for “Real Eggnog from Ice Cream” was laid in a 1926 edition of The Physiology of Taste, or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. First published in France in 1825, this classic work on all things gastronomical examines the intersections of food and culture. Brillat-Savarin’s wisdom and witticisms regarding food and its importance in society still resonates with modern gastronomes of today, which brings us back to the egg-nog and ice cream recipe. Was it worthy to share such a sacred space in this canon of gastronomy? Try it and see!

Recipe for Real Egg-Nog from Ice Cream

This clipping was found in the 1926 edition of The Physiology of Taste, or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.

“To Make Real Egg-Nog from Ice Cream” a clipping found in The Physiology of Taste, or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1926.(TX637 .B86 1926)
Gift of Clarence Wagener

A Christmas Carol

Some of the traditions and festivities of Christmas as we know it today would not be celebrated without the influence of our British cousins across the pond. Sir Henry Cole invented the Christmas card in 1843, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert popularized decorating Christmas trees in homes during the holiday season. And, of course, it goes without saying that Christmas is synonymous with Charles Dickens!

The culture that surrounds the Christmas holiday today is a direct correlation with his 1843 classic A Christmas Carol: family-centric holiday feasts, decking the halls, and even Ebenezer Scrooge’s promise to “honour Christmas in my heart and keep it all the year.”

In 1983, the Small Special Collections Library acquired a small collection of Charles Dickens miscellany (MSS 10562). The collection includes a liquor flask used by Dickens when he toured America, correspondence, and a portable desk, both pictured below. Our holdings also include several editions of the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol.

 

Charles Dickens' portable writing desk

Charles Dickens’ writing desk and quill

Charles Dickens' flask

This Liquor Flask was used by Charles Dickens during his travels in the United States

Charles Dickens began writing A Christmas Carol October 1843. It was published December 19, 1843. A Christmas Carol , 1843. First edition 1st issue, with original covers (E 1843 .D53)

Written by children’s book author Mary Packard, this Advent calendar was created around the Christmas classic A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Housed in a pictorial glazed paper fold-out “book,” this Advent collection of miniature Christmas ornaments are meant to be read one per day. The 24 booklets follow the chronology of Ebenezer Scrooge’s journey from “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner” to a man who “knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”

Mary Packard. Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Story Book Set & Advent Calendar. New York: Workman Publishing, 1995. (McGehee 05770 no.1/24)
The McGehee Miniature Book Collection

A Christmas Carol, an advent calendar of miniature books (cover)

From the McGehee Miniature Book Collection, this book’s cover folds out to reveal 24 booklets and as Advent calendar journey of Ebenezer Scrooge.

A Christmas Carol, an advent calendar of miniature books (interior)

Inside the book, 24 miniatures follow the chronology of Ebenezer Scrooge’s journey from “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner” to a man who “knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”

Good Night, John-Boy

The Small Special Collections Library holds a small but rich collection of the late Earl Hamner Jr.’s archives. A Virginia native and Emmy-winning television writer and director during the 1970s and 1980s, Hamner’s collection includes a first edition of his 1970 novel, The Homecoming: A Novel about Spencer’s Mountain, the final shooting script for the 1971 film The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, and television scripts for three mid-1970s episodes of The Waltons. The novel, drawn from Hamner’s childhood experiences growing up in Schuyler, Virginia during the Great Depression, was the impetus for the film. Originally airing on CBS on December 19, 1971, the movie was so popular that it spun off a series, “The Waltons,” which aired on CBS in September 1972 and became wildly popular, lasting nine seasons.

Earl Hamner, The Homecoming, 1971, Typescript (MSS 10380) and “Waltons” Television Scripts, 1975 (MSS 10380-b).

First page of film script for "The Homecoming" DVD of the movie "The Homecoming: A Christmas Story,"

 

Four Festive Seasons: Winter Solstice

Four notable annual winter festivals with similar secular and religious origins often coincide in December. Today, we celebrate Winter Solstice (10,000 BCE), also known as Midwinter, has been observed by a variety of cultures throughout much of recorded history.

Alongside Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanza, these diverse festive holidays evoke time-honored universal values through feasts, gift-giving, decorations, worship, and music. This presentation of select festival holdings in the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library is curated by Reference Librarian Regina Rush with contributions by Research Archivist Ervin Jordan and will continue over the holiday season to rekindle treasured holiday memories—and optimism—during these stressful times.

Winter Solstice

In 1927, British publisher Faber and Gwyer (later Faber and Faber) introduced a series of illustrated poetry poems written by various major authors and illustrated by prominent artists of the period. Contributors to The Ariel Poems series include Thomas Hardy, T.S. Eliot, and Edith Sitwell. T.S. Eliot’s 1927 poem Journey of the Magi was number eight in this series and written shortly after his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism. Marketed as Christmas cards, each pamphlet featured a writer who wrote about Christmas or a seasonal theme. Published in two series, the first run consists of 38 pamphlets published between 1927-1931; the second series was published in 1954 with only 8 issues.

The Winter Solstice (cover)

Cover of The Winter Solstice

The Winter Solstice, written by poet Harold Monro and illustrated by poet/artist David Jones was the thirteenth of the first Ariel Poems series. This poem’s four stanzas are accompanied by two illustrations: a black and white illustration on the cover; another in color. The shadings of black around the perimeter of the color illustration represent the long bleak winter days to come. The center of the drawing embodies the warmth and celebratory “eat, drink, and be merry” overtone that follows a successful harvest. Images of a burning yule log and the gathering of wood and other provisions hint at the needed preparations to survive the cold months ahead. The streaming rays of sun in the background let the revelers know warmer and more fruitful days will follow this midwinter night.

Interior illustration, The Winter Solstice

The poem is accompanied by an illustration by David Jones. Like solstice, the dark and long, bleak winter scenes are juxtaposed by warm and celebratory “eat, drink, and be merry” overtones that follow a successful harvest. A burning yule log and the gathering wood and other provisions hint at the needed preparations to survive the cold months ahead.

The Winter Solstice, a poem by Harold Monro

Marketed as Christmas cards, each pamphlet in The Ariel Poems featured a writer who wrote about Christmas or a seasonal theme. Harold Monro wrote The Winter Solstice, published in 1928.

 

Harold Monroe with drawings by David Jones, The Winter Solstice, number 13 in The Ariel Poems. London, Faber & Gwyer Limited, 1928. (PR6025 .O35 W54 1928)
From The Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature

Four Festive Seasons: Happy Hanukkah!

Four notable annual winter festivals with similar secular and religious origins often coincide in December. Winter Solstice (10,000 BCE), also known as Midwinter, has been observed by a variety of cultures throughout much of recorded history. Hanukkah (165 BCE), the Jewish “Festival of Lights,” is observed over eight days. Christmas (336 A. D.) commemorates the Nativity of Christ and is probably the world’s most celebrated event. A comparatively new holiday, Kwanzaa (1966 A. D.), “First Fruits,” is a week-long celebration of African and African-American cultural heritage.

These diverse festive holidays evoke time-honored universal values through feasts, gift-giving, decorations, worship, and music. The symbolic significance of ancient and modern ritualized traditions strengthens bonds of family, friends, and community. Conversely, their multi-billion-dollar seasonal commercialization inherently boosts the global economy.

This presentation of select festival holdings in the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library is curated by Reference Librarian Regina Rush with contributions by Research Archivist Ervin Jordan and will continue over the next two weeks to rekindle treasured holiday memories—and optimism—during these stressful times.

Hanukkah

Craftswoman Barbara Schuckman has been making modern, one-inch scale collectible dollhouse miniatures since 1978. This world-renowned artisan’s body of work, known simply as “By Barb” includes such items as miniature books, dinnerware, ceramic decorative plates, artwork for holidays and celebrations, and a Judaic-inspired miniature line which features collectibles celebrating Jewish Holidays. Chanukah Story is a tiny, 25mm collectible that tells the history surrounding the Jewish holiday Hanukkah. The book consists of 12 unnumbered accordion fold pages, and the cover is illustrated with the image of a menorah. This collectible, handcrafted by Barb in 1974, is part of the McGehee Miniature Book Collection.

Barb, The Chanukah Story, 1974. (McGehee 07817)
McGehee Miniature Book Collection

Chanukah Story

The Chanukah Story, a miniature book in the McGehee Miniature Book Collection, given by Caroline Yarnall McGehee Lindemann in memory of her husband, Carden Coleman McGehee, UVA 1947

Chanukah Story interior page

The lighting of the menorah in The Chanukah Story.

 

Written by Lenore Cohen in 1963, Came Liberty Beyond Our Hope: A Story of Hanukkah is aimed at a young adult audience. The story recounts the history which surrounds the festive Jewish celebration of Hannukah. This 26cm, 44-page book is encased in a robin-egg dust jacket that shares the same illustration as the book cover.
The beautifully illustrated plates by Hungarian artist Georges Gaal accompanies the text of the story.

Lenore Cohen, Came Liberty Beyond Our Hope: A Story of Hanukkah, 1963
(BM695 .H3 C6 1963)

Came Liberty Beyond Our Hope

The cover of Came Liberty Beyond Our Hope with an illustration by Hungarian artist Georges Gaal.

Came Liberty Beyond Our Hope

An illustration of the lighting of the menorah in Came Liberty Beyond Our Hope, illustrated by Georges Gaal.

 

Rich with visual imagery, this three-dimensional montage tells the story of Hanukkah in pop-up book form. Writer Sara Freeland and illustrator Sue Clark explore the events and many traditions that surround the festive Jewish holiday. The book includes a pop-up menorah, latke recipes, and a paper dreidel that can be assembled. Hanukkah! A Three Dimensional Celebration is part of the Brenda Foreman Collection of Pop-up and Moveable Books in the Small Special Collections Library.

Sara Freedland, Hanukkah! A Three-Dimensional Celebration, 1991. (PZ92 .F6 H38 1991)
Brenda Forman Collection of Pop-up and Movable Books. 

Hanukkah! A Three-Dimensional Celebration

A pop-up menorah in Hanukkah! A Three-Dimensional Celebration.

Hanukkah! A Three-Dimensional Celebration

The legend of the Maccabean Revolt in Hanukkah! A Three-Dimensional Celebration.