We found quite the variety, including 16th-century tomes on ichthyology, painted and written accounts of attacks on sailors, informative pamphlets for 19th-century children and for 20th-century navy men, and -- naturally -- a student's review of Jaws in the Dartmouth. He wasn't entirely convinced that it was worth all the fuss it generated, but we recommend you come by and read his thoughts for yourself.
Rauner Special Collections Library
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back Into Rauner...
Friday, June 20, 2025
The Angling Nudist
Among the many collections we acquired was a 96-box collection containing Stefansson's personal and professional correspondence over a 67-year period. We are always finding new gems within these boxes, and this week turned up another winner. On May 28 of 1935, Stefansson received an unsolicited request from Henry S. Huntington, the brother of an acquaintance. In it, Huntington says that he would like to come over and talk with Stefansson about "the Eskimos from the 'nudist' angle". After a period of profound silence, Stefansson eventually responded to Huntington on June 14th, admitting that the idea of "Eskimos from the nudist angle" had "somewhat startled" him and was likely the reason that he had taken so long to reply.
Huntington was a Yale graduate and Presbyterian minister who in 1933 had co-founded The Burgoyne Trail in Otis, Massachusetts, one of the country's first nudist colonies. His promotion of the lifestyle was firmly based in its health benefits and its ability to free people from obsessing about sex. When he met later with Stefansson in July, it was with an eye toward recruiting the charismatic public speaker to give a presentation at the International Nudists Conference in August of the same year.
However, despite Huntington's well-meaning intentions, the potential for negative PR was too great a risk for Stefansson. The explorer responded tersely to a series of initially unanswered letters from Huntington by saying that he had decided against participating "on the principle that there is no point in getting eaten by lions except for what you think is a supreme cause." Subsequent letters from Huntington are marked in pencil with "No Ans", suggesting that for Stefansson the conversation was over.
To hunt for similar gold nuggets with Stefansson's correspondence, request a box online from MSS-196 and then come to Rauner to start digging.
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Having a Ball (but No Dancing!)
In 1867, one trustee warned that in previous years "some of the young people danced at the close of the social gathering," causing some donors to withhold their gifts to Dartmouth. In his letter to Asa Dodge Smith, Zedekiah Smith Barstow emphatically concluded, "I am persuaded that it behooves us now to say that we will have no dancing at the close this gathering under out patronage." The stricture didn't last--by 1880, the invitation expressly states "Reception at 9:00. Dancing at 10:30."
So, everyone enjoy the Commencement festivities this weekend, and, yeah, it's okay to dance.
To see the tickets ask for the "Commencement Ball--Tickets" vertical file. Barstow's letter is MS 867420.1.
Friday, May 23, 2025
Dolphins, octopi, and bishop fish

First published in 1554, our copy of Rondelet's masterwork is the 1558 translation, L'Histoire Entière des Poissons (The Complete History of Fish), which remained a standard reference work on the subject until the early 19th century. Not remotely limited to fish, the book includes cephalopods, crustaceans, marine mammals like dolphins, and even less fishy aquatic animals like beavers. And unless you're studying the history of science, the woodcuts are the real stars here. The illustrations are fantastic, and there are a lot of them.

To look at L'Histoire, request it online (Rare Book QL41 .R7) and then come to Rauner to see it.
Saturday, May 17, 2025
Um, I have a lot going on that week...
There is a reason Mary earned the nickname "Bloody Mary." During her short five-year reign she attempted to reverse the Reformation and restore property back to the Roman Catholic Church. This, naturally, involved killing a lot of people, as sensationally documented in Foxe's Actes and Monuments of the Latter and Perillous Dayes (more commonly called Foxe's Book of Martyrs). This formal invitation wasn't to the kind of party anyone wanted to attend.
The intended guests didn't have to wait much longer in exile. Mary died two years later and Elizabeth I assumed the throne and made it safe for these particular nobles to visit court again.
We are still cataloging the letter, but we will put a link here when it is ready. It pairs nicely with our 1563 first edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs--just ask for Presses D334f.
Friday, May 9, 2025
Multiculturalism and Curriculum Reform at Dartmouth

Yet for all the attention on these college campuses, Dartmouth College rarely appeared in national accounts of these disputes. When it did, it was usually cited as a campus that had already "solved" the problem: Dartmouth, after all, had implemented a "non-Western" requirement starting with the Class of 1985. Even in Illiberal Education (1991)—a widely read book by Dinesh D'Souza '83 critiquing multiculturalism in academia written by a Dartmouth alum—the College is mentioned only briefly as an institution that paradoxically required a "non-Western" course for graduation, but not a "Western" one. This raises the question: what was actually happening at Dartmouth during this tumultuous era?
An answer can be found in the November 8, 1991 issue of The Fortnightly, a news magazine published by The Dartmouth, which offers a remarkable snapshot of a campus at a curricular crossroads. The entire issue was dedicated to the theme of multiculturalism, reflecting how seriously the topic was being discussed on campus. Each article opens with a variation of the same line: "Multiculturalism, a catchphrase of the '90s," "Multiculturalism has become the hip new watchword," "Multiculturalism has hit the ground running in Hanover." This repetition suggests both trendiness and urgency, a topic that has arrived and demands collective attention.
The following year, the College undertook a major curriculum overhaul under new president James O. Freedman. A strong advocate for liberal arts education and global learning, Freedman pushed Dartmouth to align itself with broader educational trends. A faculty-led Ad Hoc Curriculum Review Committee convened in February 1991 and recommended a new "World Cultures" requirement to "prepare its students for participation in and concern for the life of the entire planet." According to The Dartmouth, the proposal aimed to widen the curriculum's focus and incorporate more non-Western perspectives.

This structural change was subtle but strategic. By giving Western cultures their own dedicated categories, the new curriculum both expanded and rebalanced the distribution requirements. It repositioned U.S. and European traditions not as assumed defaults but as specific cultural domains to be studied alongside non-Western ones. In effect, it reframed the curriculum to deflect conservative critiques. As President Freedman told The Boston Globe, "We’re trying to preserve an emphasis on Western culture as we respond to concerns about multiculturalism."
Still, the shift was not without controversy. Critics raised concerns about the cost of curricular change. In the same issue of The Fortnightly, English professor Jeffrey Hart warned that "an undue stress on the study of non-Western cultures unavoidably leads to an undue de-emphasis of Western cultures." He also called multiculturalism a "passing fad." Another article, titled "Significant Anglo Exhibits Lost to Multiculturalism," echoed this concern, extending the critique beyond university curricula to museums. It lamented that "with our quest for racial equality and recognition of others' cultures, the past, as we and the previous generations know it, is facing destruction." These pieces revealed a common anxiety about the perceived erosion of Anglo-American traditions.
One of the most fascinating elements of the November 8 issue is how The Fortnightly positioned itself in the debate. Through strikingly uniform headlines and editorial framing, the magazine mirrored the national discourse while also signaling an acute awareness of the College’s place within it. Some pieces celebrated the expansion of literary canons, while others offered more cautious meditations on cultural literacy and the very purpose of a college curriculum, together reflecting a student body in the midst of its own cultural reckoning.
In hindsight, the 1991 debates about multiculturalism at Dartmouth were about far more than course requirements. They were debates about identity, institutional values, and the politics of knowledge. The "World Cultures" requirement didn’t abolish the non-Western category: it embedded it within a comparative framework that redefined what "multiculturalism" could mean on Dartmouth's terms. Whether this marked a genuine de-centering of the West or a strategic repackaging of it remains a matter of interpretation. As contemporary conversations about decolonizing education, inclusive syllabi, and global knowledge continue, this issue of The Fortnightly reminds us that the struggle over whose knowledge counts is not new.
Posted for Alice Kim '27, recipient of a Historical Accountability Student Research Fellowship for the 2025 spring 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.
Friday, May 2, 2025
To Those Who See
Frostic (1906-2001) is known for her nature-inspired printing, but she worked primarily in the metal arts during the early part of her career, running her own shop. That changed with the onset of World War II as metal became too precious to manufacturing to be used for art. With the closure of her shop, she joined the war effort by working in a factory that produced military aircrafts. But in search of a new medium, she landed on linoleum.
In addition to creating block prints on linoleum, Frostic bought and learned to operate a letterpress. Her own shop, Presscraft Papers, was born. It's the same press that produced our copy of To Those Who See some twenty years later. If you're as excited about the spring as we are, we recommend coming in to look at this little piece of a decades-long artistic career.
To see To Those Who See (ha), request Presses P925fto online and then pay us a visit.