Exhibit: "Reading Sentences: Prison Libraries and Literature"

Beyond punishment for social wrongs, imprisonment has long functioned to silence or remove voices from the public forum. As we have seen with figures from Cervantes to Martin Luther King Jr., however, prison can also give inmates copious time to articulate their thoughts and the fame or notoriety necessary to draw attention to them.

This exhibit examines both the literature consumed and produced by prisoners as well as the evolving depiction of the prison in popular culture. Its scope spans hundreds of years and thousands of miles, from the chivalric romances dreamed up by imprisoned knights (and aspiring knights) of the medieval and Renaissance eras to the cheap, sensational prison dramas peddled to the working classes and the reformist prison library catalogs whose titles sought to educate and equip inmates with secular knowledge and employable trade skills in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century New England. It highlights the electrifying prison manifestos of several prominent civil rights leaders and concludes with contemporary artist and children’s books which grapple with the psychosocial impact of incarceration.

The exhibit was curated by Sophie Chadha, Edward Connery Lathem '51 Special Collections Fellow at Rauner Special Collections Library. The poster was designed by Chadha and Max Seidman, Exhibits and Graphic Arts Designer for Dartmouth Libraries. It will be on display in Rauner Special Collections Library's Class of 1965 Galleries from April 6 through June 19, 2026.

Wealth of Nations at 250

We have a lovely first edition of Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations published 250 year ago in March of 1776. A lot happened that year and the Enlightenment was having a pretty dramatic (one might say revolutionary) impact across Europe and into the colonies. Oddly, it had never occurred to me to think of Wealth of Nations as a product of the Enlightenment until about ten years ago when a faculty member in the Economics department asked me to talk about the book next to Diderot's Encyclopédie. At first I was confused, then it all made sense.

You see Adam Smith was one of the book buyers for the University of Glasgow and he persuaded the university to invest in the acquisition of Diderot's epic project to create an encyclopedia that would wrest control of knowledge from the church and the monarchy and put it into the hands of anyone literate and able to gain access to his encyclopedia. Smith would have been an avid consumer of the work, so is it any wonder that his first and most famous example of the division of labor came right out of the Diderot's project? You can look at Wealth of Nations alongside the fabulous illustrations of pin manufacture presented in volume 4 of the plates of the Encyclopédie. This is old news to anyone well versed in the history of economics, but for me it was an enlightening experience that made me rethink the rise of capitalism.

To see the first edition of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ask for Val 330.1 S643i 1776. For Diderot's Encyclopédie, ou, Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers you'll want Rare AE25 .E53 (ask for volume 4 of the plates).

The Road to Redemption

On a Tuesday in May of 1831, President Nathan Lord of Dartmouth sat down at his writing desk to pen an awkward letter to Reverend Jacob Cummings, a member of Dartmouth's class of 1819 who was a friend of Lord's and the minister of a small congregation in Stratham, New Hampshire. Cummings had written to Lord to inquire about a recent incident involving Daniel Clark, a member of the class of 1834 and a Stratham boy. Lord began by telling Cummings that although he was "unwilling to give pain", he felt "obliged to correct [Cummings'] impressions" about the story that Clark had told him.

The facts of the case, as per a faculty investigation, were as follows: that several nights earlier, a sizable group of pious and concerned young students had gathered at 1am before the front door of local resident Mr. Holton, whose home was known to be a den of ill repute; that they had peaceably gained access with the intention of relocating the ladies of the night from the establishment; that Mr. Holton had drawn a knife and threatened them when they tried to enter a back room; and that when they had finally been able to enter said room, they had discovered Mr. Clark hiding within. The investigation resulted in Clark's suspension from the college for a year.

Apparently, soon after being dismissed from the college and returning home, Clark had entreated Cummings to intercede with Lord on his behalf; the young man claimed that he was merely out for an evening walk to get some exercise and stopped for a rest at Holton's without realizing the nature of the dwelling. Lord's incredulity is palpable as his letter lays out Clark's story in detail: a casual stroll down the darkest road in Hanover at one in the morning followed by a random visit to an unknown residence? Nearly two hundred years later, one can almost feel the force from Lord's eyes rolling. The president ends the letter by openly acknowledging Clark's intellectual gifts and his potential, expressing his hope that Clark will repent of his sins, and praying that the young man will return to Dartmouth to finish his studies after a year's suspension so that he may "yet become a blessing".

Lord's prayers were ultimately answered, though perhaps not quite in the way that he would have hoped. Clark did repent and return to Dartmouth to finish his studies. Several decades later, he was elected to represent New Hampshire in the United States Senate where he served from 1857 until 1866. In contrast to Lord, who was well-known for his support of slavery, Clark was a staunch abolitionist who gave eloquent speeches denouncing slavery as well as supporting suffrage for all men regardless of race. His colleagues in the Senate held him in such high regard that they elected him president pro tempore for the Thirty-Eighth Congress (1865-1866).

To read Nathan Lord's frank assessment of a youthful Daniel Clark's indiscretions, request MSS 831317.1 online and then come to Rauner.

A Most Weird Look

A couple of years ago, we were lucky enough to be near the path of totality for a total solar eclipse. Upper Valley residents may have dealt with traffic and crowds, but a jaunt north of about 56 miles would get you in range of something quite spectacular. Today we're looking at a pair of artifacts from someone who traveled much, much further to see the same kind of event. In August of 1896, a total solar eclipse took place that was visible from parts of Russia, Japan, and northern Scandinavia. A group of British astronomy enthusiasts identified that last location as their best bet and made plans to head for Vadsø, Norway, near the northernmost point of that country where it converges with Sweden and Finland. Vadsø was about 1,600 miles away as the crow flies. 

This excursion included one Lawrence Neville Holden, a lifelong amateur scientist and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. We have his diary and photo album from the trip, so we have record of his great disappointment when the weather that day was overcast:

"As it was obviously no good trying to use telescopes everyone stood up & looked round. The scene was most curious. It was light enough to read print & the time on my watch & the lamps which we had lighted to record observations by were certainly no required. No stars could be seen even with our field glasses which we used, in the few clear patches of sky. We could see right across the fjord & the hills there had a blue black light over them, further away we saw hill tops lit up with a bright light & there were probably outside the line of totality. The temperature fell about 3°. The color of the sea did not change but at one place just beyond Vadso pier we saw a great glittering caused it was said by fish jumping out of the water. Round about us nothing appeared out of the ordinary but the whole landscape had a most weird look, & it was quite a different darkness to night. Then like a flash almost light came back & the long looked forward to Eclipse was over & the result of all our preparations was 'absolute failure' in every way."

The photo album is a bit less dour, filled with pictures of party members, the landscape, the locals, and the group's scientific instruments. There are two photos taken during the eclipse itself and while they aren't particularly compelling to look at, the  film's exposure is undeniably different than that of the other daytime shots. This was probably cold comfort to Holden, who said that afterwards "everyone had a long face & the disappointment was very keenly felt."

The next total solar eclipse will be this August, almost exactly 130 years after Holden's disappointing excursion. Totality will miss the United States entirely, but will reach parts of Greenland, Iceland, Spain and Portugal. The next one to reach Vermont and New Hampshire won't be until 2079.

To see Holden's diary and album, ask for Stef Mss-296, Box 1, or check out the scans attached to the finding aid. 

 

 

 

 

 

Ticknor's View of Dartmouth

We have been posting to this blog regularly for nearly 17 years. For a long time it was twice a week, but then we switched to once a week. So, we have made a lot of posts. That's why we couldn't believe it when we realized we had never posted about this amazing image in our collection. It was purportedly drawn by a young George Ticknor when he was eleven years old and a student at Dartmouth (yes, really--he graduated in 1807 at age 16). His father was an early graduate of Dartmouth and a major donor, and his grandfather lived nearby in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

The caption says:

This view of the principal buildings of Dartmouth University is humbly inscribed
to the Honorable John Wheelock, Esquire, L.L.D. President by
George Ticknor, Delineator
and Member of the Sophomore Class, aged eleven years.

It all seems kind of incredible that a thing like this would exist, but it all checks out. We know Ticknor was a child prodigy and that when his father sent him to Dartmouth to study he specifically asked John Wheelock to look after him since he was still so young. It is dated July 1803. Ticknor was born in August 1791, so the age is correct, and when we checked the "Catalogue of Officers and Students at Dartmouth University" from October of 1803, George is listed as a member of the Sophomore Class. We don't see any reason to doubt it. We particularly love the detail in the bottom right corner of what we guess is John Wheelock with a dog while someone nearby swings what may be a cricket bat.

To see Ticknor's drawing, request Iconography 001317 online through the catalog and then visit our reading room.

Sammelband Sociology

In our opinion, sammelbands are one of the most curious books to be found in Special Collections libraries the world over. Derived from the German word "Sammelbänd" meaning "collected group", these texts can be comprised of any number of smaller discrete publications that have been bound together to form a single volume. What makes these books intriguing is that the selection and organization of the individual publications within the sammelband has almost always been done by a private individual and not, for instance, by a publishing house seeking to divest itself of lingering back stock by putting an unpopular text together with a more saleable one (something referred to as a "bound-with" in the book world). Unlike "bound-withs", each sammelband is a unique object whose unifying concept was born out of the mind of its creator and whose purpose and value is therefore intextricably bound up with the values and interests of that person.

Recently, while conducting research for a religion class on the Essene community, we came across a sammelband consisting of the rules and regulations of no less than twenty-eight different civic-minded fraternal organizations in Dover, New Hampshire. These publications span the years from 1838 to 1887 and provide a fascinating window into the life of town-dwellers in 19th-century New England. Dover during this period grew from a town of around 6,000 people into a city that was a leading national textile producer and had doubled in population by the end of the 1800s.

The small society pamphlets in the sammelband reflect the needs and concerns of the growing city. The bylaws of seven private firefighting companies are included, along with two documents that standardize the protocol for medical treatment and regulate the fees associated with different medical services by physicians in the area. The book includes the bylaws of organizations established to better the lives of mill laborers, such as the Sovereigns of Industry (1874) and the Knights of Labor (1887). There are rules for the Sons of Temperance (1863), St. Thomas Episcopal Church's parish (1877), and the Dover Public Library (1885). And there are booklets related to a wide variety of fraternal organizations both well-known and somewhat obscure, including the Masons and the Knights of Pythias, among others.

The booklets by themselves are valuable ephemera, shedding light on communal self-governance during the rise of mill towns and city-based industrialism in 19th-century New England. Bound together, as a sammelband, they also provide a clue into the interests and mindset of someone living in Dover at the time.

To explore the twenty-eight books in one, request NH Dover 1838b via the online catalog and then come to Rauner.

Mapping Ancient Rome

We just acquired a stunner of a book: the 1532 edition of Marco Fabio Clavo's Antiquae urbis Romae cum regionibus simulachrum [A Model of Ancient Rome and its Regions]. The book has a crazy history. The Renaissance piqued interest in ancient Rome in Europe and there was a desire to map the city as best they could. Raphael was particularly interested and may have played a part in the creation of the original plans for the book. It was first printed in 1527 right before Charles V's army went rogue and sacked Rome, destroying nearly the entire initial print run. Then the author died, the printer disappeared, and the author's nephew was left to try to pick up the pieces and get the book out. Five years later, our edition appeared.

The book is a series of woodcuts that show the growth of ancient Rome from a small city with four hills into the famed walled city of seven hills.  In addition, each region is detailed, though certainly not in a way that would give you directions to Pliny's house. The images are more like stylized infographics, giving you a feel for how big each region was. My guess is that in 1532 they didn't have a very keen sense of historical Rome's actual appearance, so they just made representations that seemed reasonable. It would be fun to compare these maps with the representations we have now after 500 years of purposeful and accidental archeology have uncovered more and more of the ancient city.

To see the streets that Caesar and Cicero roamed (Romed?) ask for Rare N6920 .R347 1532.