Friday, April 16, 2010

SS Dartmouth Victory

A photograph of a ship at dock.One of the 534 Victory ships built during World War Two, the SS Dartmouth Victory was hull number 169.  Construction was carried out by the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation and the ship was launched on February 15, 1945.  After final completion on March 17, 1945, the SS Dartmouth Victory served as a cargo transport for the remainder of the war.  The ship was later taken over by American President Lines and renamed the General Arthur.

Victory ships were designed as fast cargo transports and were built in large numbers to offset losses caused by German submarines. Due to slow initial delivery, though, the Victory ships saw most action in the Pacific.

Shown here are the SS Dartmouth Victory's launching and the Dartmouth alumni who attended the event.  Ask for the "Dartmouth Victory (SS)" photo file to see additional images.

A photograph of a group of men posed at an outdoor event.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Hamlet in Images

A series of woodcut images including the figure of a queen, a woman's face, and a man with a sword at his belt, combined with printed text from Hamlet.Shakespeare is enacted in many different ways: traditionally as stage production, but also adapted for movies, novels, and other media. But, in Dorothy Stewart's 1949 book, Hamlet, we have a production of Shakespeare as image and text. Stewart "condensed" the play and paired its text with stark woodcut images to tell the story.  Revolutionary for its time, the book more closely resembles a graphic novel than the text of a play.

Can a book be a performance? It appears so. The woodcut characters act out their parts, hold up scrolls, spiral into nightmares or sink, drowned, just under the water. After reading Stewart's production, you feel you have seen Hamlet, or at least a version of it.

To see it, just ask for Rauner Presses P588s.

A figure pulls the crown from the head of another figure on the ground, as several others watch. The images are accompanied by blocks of printed text.