Exhibit: Rauner Staff Picks!

One of the best perks about being a staff member at Rauner is seeing all the amazing things that come into the collections all the time. And another great perk is that every one of the Rauner staff members have expertise and interest in a wide variety of topics and we all love to learn from one another. This summer, we’re sharing that wealth of knowledge with you! We’ve all each selected at least one of our favorite items from the millions of individual items from our rare books, manuscripts, and archival documents and have added a few words about what makes these particular artifacts captivating for us. We hope you’ll enjoy getting to know our collections a little better and, in the process, learning a little more about the people who work here.

The exhibit is on display from July 2nd through September 4th in the Class of 1965 Galleries at Rauner Special Collections Library in Webster Hall. To learn more about the items on display from afar, visit the exhibit website.

Snow Job

When Dr. John Snow had the handles to London's Soho Broad Street public water pump removed in 1854 in an attempt to curb a cholera outbreak, he was exceeding his authority, but he was thoroughly convinced that the contaminated well was the cause. He had charted the cases on a local map and made the connection. The General Board of Health in London was not convinced. In their Report of 1854, they dismiss Snow and his theories. Commenting on the outbreak in Soho, they said:

In explanation of the remarkable intensity of this outbreak with very definite limits, it has been suggested by Dr. Snow, that the real cause of whatever was peculiar in the case lay in the general use of one particular well, situated at Broad Street in the middle of the district, and having (it was imagined) its waters contaminated with the rice-water evacuations of cholera patients. After careful inquiry, we see no reason to adopt this belief.

It took a while for a medical community, firmly wed to the miasma theory of contagion, to catch up with Snow. We have an extensive report from 1874 detailing the water supply of Great Britain. It includes a map of Soho displaying Snow's plotting of cases as well as a detailed diagram of the sewers near the Broad Street pump. I guess they eventually decided there was some merit to his ideas and perhaps the outbreak was not caused by a disturbance in the grounds of the "Plague Pit" that released a miasma across the city.

The Board of Health report is in the LCSF at RC133 .G6 A34, and the 1874 report with the maps is here in Special Collections at Rare TD257 .G73 1874.

Little Office with Bold Strokes

This edition of L'Office de la Vierge Marie (1619), or The Office of the Virgin Mary, was written by Pierre Coton, a French Jesuit who was more famously known during his lifetime as the confessor to King Henry IV and then later to his son King Louis XIII. The Office of the Virgin Mary, often referred to as the "Little Office", was the core of a genre of popular lay religious texts known as books of hours. It was a shortened version of the Church's official daily prayer or "Divine Office" that focused on the life of the Virgin Mary. By the 1300s all clergy were required to use it and this tradition continued until the Council of Trent removed this obligation in 1545; in fact, in Coton's edition he notes that it has been revised to reflect the changes instituted by the Council.

Still, despite any theological changes regarding the Little Office from the 1300s to the 1600s, it is clear from a brief examination of Coton's 1619 edition that one tradition continued with little interruption. The book is filled with gorgeous hand-painted illustrations of Mary and various saints, the colors leaping off the pages where brilliantly gifted artists have skillfully applied deft brushstrokes atop the printed engravings in work that is reminiscent of the height of late medieval manuscript book production.

To witness these vivid masterpieces, request Rare Book BX2024 .A1 1619 online and then come to Rauner to marvel at them in person.

Harsh Climates, Political and Otherwise

1816 was a weird year for Dartmouth. The state of New Hampshire took over the school, transforming it into a public university and making changes to the leadership and how it was run. Naturally, a lot of people within the College objected to this, resulting in the famous Dartmouth College Case. A few years later the case would be decided in favor of the College assuring its independence.

The takeover wasn't the only thing going on in 1816, however. The world was in the middle of its "Year Without Summer," a period of climate chaos caused by the eruption of a volcano in the Dutch East Indies the year before. The ash and gas released into the air was so extensive that it blocked light, causing global temperatures to drop and crops to fail. New England was not spared and the agricultural consequences around here were significant.

David Woodburn Dickey, Class of 1818, wrote a letter home on June 20th, 1816. He starts with a point of disappointed optimism -- "I was in hopes that by this time I should be able to inform you respecting the termination of the College difficulties but large bodies move slow" -- before going on to share his thoughts on both the situation at Dartmouth and the weird weather. David thinks that it's a good idea for the legislature to appoint Trustees to the board, one of the changes recently made by the state. He also spends time describing the great interest students are taking in the current situation. The news about the weather drives home that this isn't a typical June: "Within three weeks past there has been some remarkable cold weather, there was no snowfall here of consequence, but in Vermont and in this state further to the North there was considerable, Here was considerable ... frost for two or three nights, which did some injury though not so much as might be expected." 

The combination of internal political turmoil and external climate upheaval at Dartmouth must have made for a really strange student experience. David's letter seems to take things more or less in stride, but the circumstances appear extraordinary from here. To see the letter yourself, ask for Mss 816370. 

 

Double Consciousness

We have talked a little about Charles Eastman, Class of 1887, in a past blog post in relation to the Osage and his work for the Department of the Interior, but this week we found a very cool connection we didn't know existed. In 1911, Eastman was invited to the "First Universal Races Congress" to represent the American Indian. Eastman spoke on the tensions between integration into white society verses a preservation of cultural values and beliefs. He seemed to come to the conclusion that both were possible--perhaps as a direct result of his own life story where he lived a rich life by keeping a foot in both worlds.

What knocked us out was this picture on the pages listing the speakers. There's Eastman staring right at W. E. B. Du Bois. They both addressed the Congress in the same session so they must have hung out together. Another interesting tidbit from the day, in attendance (though not a speaker) was the not-yet-famous (and-not-yet Mahatma) lawyer from Johannesburg, Mahondus Gandhi.

For the next month (June 2026) there is a great exhibit devoted to Eastman in our lobby. Stop by and take a look! After that, you can see the program pictured here by asking for Eastman's Alumni file. The proceedings from the First Universal Races Congress are out at the LCSF so they are easy to get to by requesting them in the catalog.

The birth of "A.I."

Although Dartmouth is often noted as the birthplace of BASIC programming language, not as many people realize that it is also where Artificial Intelligence was created as an academic discipline. In the summer of 1956, a six to eight week workshop met on the top floor of the Dartmouth Mathematics Department. The workshop was the brainchild of Dartmouth Assistant Professor of Mathematics John McCarthy, who had coined the term 'artificial intelligence' in a proposal that he submitted along with Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon, now known in the field as some of the "founding fathers" of the discipline.

The summer session was less of an intensive conference and more of a rolling series of talks and meetings, with a varying cast of characters in attendance at any given time. Some of the topics that were discussed included the rise of symbolic methods, systems focused on limited domains, and deductive systems versus inductive systems. Unfortunately, because the event wasn't formally sponsored or organized by the college, we don't have a lot of archival documents related to the workshop. However, what we do have has been digitized and is available for exploration online. To see a pdf of the original proposal, visit the Office of Communications' finding aid online (DA-29, Box 2898, Folder 27). You can also look through the vertical file on Artificial Intelligence. Both folders can also be looked through in person at Rauner.

The Brothers Brock

Edmund and Mary Ann Brock had seven children, all born between 1868 and 1879. Each of their four sons and at least one of their daughters were artistically inclined and came up during the Golden Age of Illustration, an era well-represented in our illustrated collections.

Charles Edmund, the eldest, was a prolific illustrator of magazines, literature, and the like. One estimate has him providing illustrations for about 270 books during his career. The next oldest, Richard Henry, also worked in magazine illustration but seems to have spent his career focusing on painting landscapes. Thomas Alfred, the third son, is less well-known than his brothers and his work had a more scientific bent, appearing in textbooks and journals of geology, paleontology, and so on. And Henry Matthew, the youngest son, was closer to Charles in focus and output, working in both books and magazines, with illustrations for over 500 books to his name by the time he died in 1960.

The Brocks had three daughters and significantly less is known about them. That said, Katharine Alison attended the same Cambridge School of Art as her brothers and — like her brothers — won some prizes for her work there. She did not have a career in art as they did; instead, she took care of her parents' household, was involved in local fundraising and church events, published some poetry, and eventually married and started her own family. We can’t say if she had any interest in becoming an artist professionally — there were a few successful female illustrators working at the time, but she did not join their number. 

We bring the prolific Brocks up because of those illustrated collections mentioned previously. Charles and Henry are both well-represented in our printed works, but we also have a rather exciting collection of original art by various artists including Charles, Henry, and Richard. It's satisfying to go through the work of these brothers, noticing the similarities and differences in their styles, and enjoying a window into illustration as a trade and a family business. 

To see the originals, request boxes from MS-1447.