"But he is now free"

We just had one of those "discovery" moments. We put that in quotes because the only reason we could make the discovery was because an archivist long ago did a great job of cataloging a letter. She or he probably "discovered" it, we used their work to rediscover it. Anyway, none of us knew about it. It's quite a story. In the Fall of 1839, a person fleeing bondage from a plantation in Alabama found his way to Hanover on the way to Canada. He caused a sensation on campus, and the local abolitionist group persuaded him to come to the chapel to talk about his experiences.

Luckily for us, Lemuel Chandler Spofford, Class of 1839, wrote about it in a letter to his brother from October 10th, 1839. His sympathies are clearly with the abolitionist movement, and the rhetoric he uses to describe the runaway slave is indicative of the Northern sensibility--filled with pity for the enslaved person and an abhorrence to the cruelties of the institution of slavery. He writes:

There was a pitiful object passed through this place a fortnightly since. A poor runaway Slave who had thrown off his shackels of Slavery and was makeing his way through a land of freedom to a land of freedom. At the request of the good Abolitionists he went into the Chapel and told his pitiful tale in the presence of 400 or abouts that. He carried the marks of Slavery which were arguments that could not be decried one was a very crooked leg which had been broken by his mistress while she was in a rage at him. His master he said was good he never whipped but once he said with 110 lashes because he forgot to tie the horses. "A good Master" I should think. He was carried from here to Canada by the friends of the poor Slave but come near being taken he went into a tavern where he saw two men whom he saw in Alabama but he is now free.

He has no name in this letter. His identity is that of a runaway slave.

To see the letter, ask for MS 839568.

The Other Declaration of Independence

In 1876, Americans celebrated the centennial of the Declaration of Independence in grand fashion. For six months, millions of visitors flocked to Philadelphia to visit the Centennial Exhibition, a showcase for the nation’s growing industrial strength. And on July 4, thousands gathered in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the Declaration had been signed, to hear the document read aloud by U.S. Senator Richard Henry Lee, and to listen to orations by various dignitaries commemorating the momentous event.

Suffrage leaders, understanding the symbolism of the occasion and the mass media attention it would bring, had prepared for this moment. Together, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Matilda Joslyn Gage of the National Woman Suffrage Association had drafted a Declaration of the Rights of the Women of the United States. “The history of our country the past hundred years has been a series of assumptions and usurpations of power over woman, in direct opposition to the principles of just government,” the Declaration declared. The document went on to “arraign our rulers,” listing the rights denied women as “articles of impeachment” against them.

Perhaps not surprisingly, when the suffragists asked to read their Declaration at the Independence Hall ceremonies that July 4, they were denied permission. Undeterred, they read it anyway and passed out copies to the crowd. While their staged defiance did not garner as much media coverage as the event itself (many reports failed to mention it), several newspapers did cover it. After the event, Anthony made sure that the Declaration circulated far and wide (see Mss 876419 Susan B. Anthony letter, at Rauner).

The Declaration is a reminder that it was both radical ideas and radical actions that defined the suffrage movement.

To view Rauner’s copy of the Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States, ask for Rare Book HQ1236 .D44 1876.

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.