The Hammer of Witches

We've got an evil one this week, both in terms of a book's subject matter and its impact in the world. Back in the fifteenth century, European Christians were developing a new understanding of how Satan worked on Earth: that he could bestow demonic powers onto humans so that they could commit harm through magic and undermine faith in God. This, among other factors, prompted the prosecution of those accused of practicing this diabolic witchcraft and the onset of the European witch hunts. Lasting from approximately 1420 to 1780 but concentrated most heavily in the period of 1560 to 1640, the trials led to the execution of somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 individuals. 

One influence on these witch hunts was the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witches. We have a first edition, published in 1486 or 1487 in Speyer, Germany. Its authorship is somewhat contested but generally attributed to Henricus Institorius and Jacobus Sprenger, two Dominican friars. Institorius is the one who had practical experience persecuting the accused -- at one point in his life he claimed to have had 48 women executed. In terms of influence, it seems that the Malleus did a lot to formalize and disseminate the newer theories of diabolic witchcraft and structures for dealing with witches: its three sections are focused on 1) proving that witchcraft is real, 2) explaining how witchcraft operates and how it can be counteracted, and 3) how practitioners should be prosecuted. It also focused on witchcraft as something practiced by the lower classes and by women more frequently than men, which was certainly consistent with trends in who was prosecuted in most countries during the witch hunts.  

Our copy is pretty tidy, save for some staining on the initial pages and a few handwritten notes in the second section. The marginalia is intriguing -- we think we can pick out the words "exorcismus" and "rebaptismus." Certainly it seems like the reader was considering proposed treatments for the accused or their victims.  Whether or not they bought in, it's hard to say.

To look at the Malleus Maleficarum yourself, request Incunabula 170.  

Bloodletting for a Dim Future

When people think of the invention of moveable type and the start of commercial printing in the West, their minds usually go to monumental works like the Gutenberg Bible or the Nuremberg Chronicle, but the bread and butter for printers was in the production of more ephemeral documents. Single sheet broadsides far outnumbered weighty tomes, they just aren't the things that survived. One of the more common printing jobs was almanacs--handy guides that you could pin up on wall and then toss out at the end of the year. But these almanacs were not for farmers planning when to bring in the crops, they were usually more focused on a harvest of blood.

You see, medical bloodletting was an art directly tied to the astrological calendar and the movement of the planets. You couldn't just bleed someone any old time you felt like it--the stars had to align! This German almanac from 1484 gives you all the details. Just the top fourth of the page was a calendar. The rest prescribed the best times to let blood.

While the bleeding might help you keep healthy this year, things didn't look so good in the long run. Saturn and Jupiter were in an unusual alignment, an omen for sixty years of pestilence, wars and even the birth of a false prophet. Actually, thinking about that era, it was probably a pretty safe bet...

To see it, come to Rauner and ask for Incunabula 171.

Exhibit: "From Vision to Reality: The Appalachian Trail from Then to Now"

One hundred years ago, the first Appalachian Trail Conference was convened by the Federated Societies on Planning and Parks in Washington DC. According to the proceedings, the goal was to organize a "body of workers" to complete the construction of the Appalachian Trail. During the meeting, the Appalachian Trail Conference, later known as the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), was made a permanent body. Its purpose? To guide the completion and continuing care of the Appalachian Trail, an idealistic dream of Benton MacKaye in 1921 that had now become an improbable reality: 2,000 miles of nature trail that stretched across fourteen states as it hugged the Appalachian mountain range from Georgia to Maine. Over the last century, the ATC has provided stable leadership and a rallying point for those who agreed and still agree with MacKaye's long-held conviction that time spent in the outdoors could serve as a "sanctuary and a refuge from the scramble of everyday worldly commercial life".

"From Vision to Reality: The Appalachian Trail from Then to Now" looks back at the beginnings of both the AT and the ATC, explores the growth and change that have occurred along the Trail over the last one hundred years, and highlights the commitment and accomplishments of the Dartmouth Outing Club, one of many volunteer organizations that continue to keep the dream of a shared outdoors alive by protecting their portion of the Trail.

The exhibit will be on display in Rauner Special Collections Library's Class of 1965 Galleries in Webster Hall from September 15th through December 12th, 2025. It was curated by Dakota Jackson, Senior Director of Visitor Engagement at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, and Morgan Swan, Special Collections Librarian for Teaching and Scholarly Engagement at Dartmouth Libraries, with help from Kim Wheeler, Research & Learning Librarian at Dartmouth Libraries. The poster was designed by Max Seidman, Exhibits and Graphic Arts Designer at Dartmouth Libraries.

Censoring the Censor

 Anthony Comstock was a man with an obsession and that obsession was vice. He started the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (N.Y.S.S.V.) in 1873, which acted more or less as you might guess, lobbying for laws that would enforce a specific moral code for the public and then making sure that code was followed. Not long afterwards, the Comstock Act was passed, which made it explicitly illegal to distribute obscene matter via the U.S. postal service or other carriers. Comstock himself had a broad view of what should be considered obscene and so his targets ranged from literary works like The Decameron to nude paintings like Chabas' "September Morn" to even medical texts with remote references to sexuality and sexual health. During his career, he claimed to have arrested at least 3,800 people and to have driven at least fifteen to suicide.

Why are we bringing up such a truly unpleasant man, who saw immorality everywhere and thought that the arts were often just a cover for filth that would corrupt the public? Well, it's because we have a letter of his in the collections. In it, he addresses the Brooklyn Eagle, a daily newspaper which ran from 1841 to 1955, which apparently ran a piece stating that Comstock considered himself entitled to open people's mail and to enter the houses of citizens in the course of his duties. This seems to have made Comstock rather mad and, as this letter looks like a draft rather than a final product, we can see him self-censoring his cattier remarks. A digression is struck out in which he asks if there has been any change in management at the Eagle, as has the inquiry "Now sir, why cannot I be accorded fair play in your paper?" About a quarter of the text ends up being crossed out.

He leaves in his assertion that the editor will surely agree that "we have enough impure and unclean men and women at the present time" and that it is "not improper to repress, and keep from debauching the minds of the children" the materials which make them unclean. And the letter itself is typed on the N.Y.S.S.V. letterhead which presents an image summarizing his general position tidily: a man in simple clothes, being handcuffed and led away while another, dressed as a gentleman, tosses books into a fire.

To read Comstock's drafted letter, ask for Mss 886271.  

  

Will that be Cash or Beef?

When Hanover decided to erect a new meeting-house in 1794 it needed to find a way to pay for it. The meeting-house would serve many uses: a church, a place for important speakers visiting town, a venue for political debate. It was to be the focal point for the life of the town separate from the College that had come to dominate. In classic New England fashion, they allowed select pews to be claimed for a set amount of money or goods. Pledging to purchase a pew would let you assert your family's status at every church service and every town event.

What struck us were the options for how to express your support. Cash was always welcome but, if you were a person with forested land, you could also pay with lumber or, if you were without means, each day's labor on the building went into your account. And, well naturally, there was the option to pay with commodities: beef, pork, and grain were welcome payment. This broadside issued in 1794 by Dartmouth's first librarian, Bezaleel Woodward (who was on the select board at the time) spells out the payment options so Hanover's citizens could pledge their resources. And a select few could claim their pews of distinction.

To see it, ask for Broadside 001501.

Learning to Lead

On June 8, 1863, concerned members of Philadelphia's Union League gathered to listen to a talk by George L. Stearns, an abolitionist and leading figure in the North's efforts to recruit Black soldiers. The Confederate Army was growing closer and closer to the "Birthplace of America", and Stearns emphasized the need for Black citizens to bolster the ranks of the Union Army. His words found purchase with the well-to-do members of the League, who immediately gave their support for the formation of three Black regiments in Pennsylvania. The next challenge was to find qualified white officers to train and lead these troops; the predominant belief was that these new recruits would require leaders of exceptional sensitivity and intelligence because of their lived experience of Southern and Northern racism and oppression.

Despite this concern about emotional intelligence, the selection board failed 47% of the applicants for the officer positions because of their lack of a modicum of training in tactics and military logistics. The fix, as the board saw it, was the establishment of the Free Military School for Applicants  for Commands of Colored Troops in December 1863. The Free Military School was not meant to mirror West Point, but instead to 'teach to the test' so that applicants who had previously failed the selection board review process would be equipped with the military training necessary for them to pass a second attempt. By March 1864, the School had received 1,691 applications and accepted 843 of the candidates; 422 of those applicants actually attended the school. Although there were some initial successes, the School was shuttered after only a year of existence. The core issue for its dissolution was ongoing drama that centered on Thomas Webster, the chair of the school's Supervisory Committee, and his disagreements with both the War Department and his own Committee members.

Here at Rauner, we have a copy of the pamphlet that was printed in December of 1863 to solicit applications to the Free Military School. The document was written by Thomas Webster and lists the qualifications necessary for application, including the following crystallization of the Selection Committee's core ethos: "No talents, no zeal, no sympathy for the colored race, unless attended with military knowledge, and power to command men in battle, can avail; and no amount of presence or number of testimonials of influential friends will answer the purpose; the applicant must give reasonable evidence of his ability to command."

To see our copy, request Rare E540 .N3 F72 1863 online and then come to Rauner.

Two Shootings, One Mistake: The Cost of Leniency in Dartmouth’s Boom Boom Lodge Debacle

Colloquially known as the Boom Boom Lodge incident, the fatal shooting of graduating student Joseph Maroney in 1920 unsettled Dartmouth College in ways that administrators would have preferred to avoid. From the obvious displeasure of the student body to the criticism in the news to even some scrutiny from the government, the whole debacle was pleasant for none.  The shooter, Albert Meads, was hardly an unknown given he had previously been involved in the supposedly accidental death of Norman F. Arnold in 1916, a casual “misfiring” of a gun in the dorm halls they said. Accounts of the 1920 incident, both in Dartmouth histories and in contemporary press coverage though, simplified the Maroney shooting into a quarrel over liquor prices in the Prohibition era. This neat framing conveniently leaves out the awkward fact that Maroney had been sober for more than a year and that there was no grand thief-in-the-night tale. The more uncomfortable part of this story concerns not just the tragedy of 1920, but Dartmouth’s earlier decision to allow Meads back on campus after Arnold’s death, which, in hindsight, reads as a heavily misjudged decision. 

After Maroney’s death, correspondence between President Ernest Martin Hopkins and former faculty member Frederick Adler revealed how uneasy many already were about Meads’ presence. Adler, who had taught Meads himself, condemned Meads’ character in no uncertain terms, and Hopkins admitted that it was “a pity beyond measure that Meads should ever have returned to the College campus.” He assured Adler that Dartmouth would take “no action, direct or indirect, to temper the law’s course in this matter.” Hopkins’ comments acknowledge, if indirectly, that Meads’ readmission had been an error and perhaps one that now looked far more consequential than it had in 1916. More than that however, it strikes one as quite odd that, in opposition to the past, the law would operate as per normal and perhaps there was more than meets the eye to how Hopkins handled the first shooting.

The surviving correspondence on the case is equally notable for how much energy was devoted to Dartmouth’s public image. From friends, alumni, and occasional influential onlookers, Hopkins received a steady stream of offers of legal advice, reassurance about alumni opinion, suggestions on how to manage rumors about alcohol on campus, and more than a few invites to what could be viewed as emotional-support-and-friendly-catch-up golf. In a letter to the Associated Press, he expressed reluctance to make any public statement unless it was necessary to protect Maroney’s reputation, separating Dartmouth as an institution from Meads as an individual. “Among the exceptions there will be men potentially dangerous to the welfare and reputation of the group as a whole,” he wrote.

Even in 1920 though, some observers accused the college of mishandling the situation. One letter claimed that Dartmouth had sided with Maroney because of his “popularity”, using Meads as a convenient scapegoat and expediting his removal from campus before commencement. Hopkins, in private, rejected the idea, insisting that Meads had already benefited from extraordinary leniency after the Arnold shooting but did concede that perhaps it was a mistake to have let Meads roam free. His tendency to bootleg alcohol for instance, was a well known campus and administrative fact. 

What emerges from this all is a picture of an administration attempting to balance accountability with the instinct for institutional self-preservation. The Maroney case prompts a few difficult questions: Why was someone who killed another student, accidental or not, allowed to return to campus with little supervision? How much weight did Dartmouth place on its reputation compared to student safety? More than a century later, those questions still feel uncomfortably familiar, especially following the events of the past year. As such, Dartmouth’s 1920 tragedy remains more than just a curious episode of college lore; it serves as a reminder of how institutions manage crises. Unfortunately for the colleges, it's not always with the clarity or foresight they would like or wish to claim.

To read this and more correspondence about the Meads-Maroney shooting, request DP-11, box 6766, folder 17 at Rauner Library.

Posted for Erica Mao '28, recipient of a Historical Accountability Student Research Fellowship for the 2025 summer term. The Historical Accountability Student Research Program provides funding for Dartmouth students to conduct research with primary sources on a topic related to issues of inclusivity and diversity in the college's past. For more information, visit the program's website.