Make it the Best Year Ever!

The Progressive Farmer in January 1942 urged farmers to make 1942 "The Best Year Ever." Considering what had happened only a few weeks earlier on December 7th, 1941, it seems to be an oddly placed show of enthusiasm. 1942 promised to be pretty bad for pretty much everyone, but The Progressive Farmer was ready to rally the farmers to the war effort.

The cover art, "The New Day and the New Year," is a reproduction of J. J. Lankes's painting "New Dawn." It depicts Robert Frost's farm in South Shaftsbury, another odd choice for the magazine. Frost may have been the most successful American poet of his generation, but he was never a very adept farmer. Lankes frequently worked with Robert Frost. He illustrated several of Frost's books and helped Frost create many of his famous Christmas cards.

"Vermont Dawn," silkscreen by J. J. Lankes

Whatever you thought of the past year, maybe it is best to take the advice of The Progressive Farmer and plan to make the next one the best year ever.

Rollo the Red-Nosed Reindeer

One of our favorite Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer related items in the collection is the list of possible names for Rudolph that Robert May '26 made while he was writing the story. It is a bit tough to imagine Reginald the Red-Nosed Reindeer (which was a finalist) now that Rudolph is so ingrained in our psyche. A lot of us have always been partial to the other near-miss, Rollo. That has a nice ring: Rollo the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

So, it was a bit of a shock when searching our collections for materials related to Franconia Notch we turned up Jacob Abbot's Rodolphus: A Franconia Story, "by the Author of the Rollo Books." The Rollo series was still very popular at the turn of the century, and it is hard to believe that young Robert May didn't encounter any of them as a child. Did he also read Rodolphus? Did the two names stick in his head just enough to make it onto his list and both reach the final choices? It is a stretch, but there is a chance. More likely it is just an odd coincidence. Still, it is fun to think that this book may have inspired, at least in name, May's legendary Rudolph.

To see May's list of names, ask for MS 630, Box 1. For Rodolphus, ask for Rare PS1000.A8 R54 1880. And here's another post about Rudolph!

The Enemy of all Civilized People

Dartmouth students over the years have produced scads of short lived journals. Most are venues for literary output, and some are devoted to specific causes. Surprisingly few have directly engaged in major issues outside of the confines of campus, but we just stumbled on one from the 1920s published by the "Round Table of Dartmouth College" that smacks of the witty, vaguely elite, cultural magazines of the time. It seems to be trying to emulate the American Mercury under H. L. Mencken, or maybe the early New Yorker.

Titled Tomahawk as a nod to Dartmouth's past mascot, it set out to "seriously but without solemnity publish informative and reflective articles on matters touching social well-being" to help determine "How liberal is a liberal college?" Their target is "the enemy of all civilized people, and it finds its expression in bigotry, muddle-headedness, and obscurantism: these are particular to no camp."  So, the presidential candidates all get equal treatment and there is a lament about how difficult it is to get conservative speakers relative to liberal or radical ones on campus. Tomahawk only lasted a year, but you can still read it here in the Library by a asking for DC HIST LH1.D3T6. It is a pretty interesting window (and counter to The Dartmouth) into the campus zeitgeist of the 1920s.

After break, on January 11th from 3:00-6:00, the Library will be holding an open house for students currently publishing journals and for those thinking of starting one. Who knows, with a little more support a journal like Tomahawk (hopefully with a better name!) might have thrived--we would have loved to see what it had to say when so many students were being radicalized on campus in the 1930s.

Wherefore Dartmouth College?

On this day, 247 years ago Dartmouth College was officially chartered. But how did a charity school housed in a poor minister's house grow into something so grand as a college?

The story begins in the winter of 1766 when Eleazar Wheelock sent Samson Occom and Nathaniel Whitaker to Great Britain to raise funds for Moor’s Indian Charity School. In their absence, Wheelock was in Connecticut attempting to get a charter for the school to improve its legal standing.

At first, Wheelock was stymied because the colony of Connecticut was itself incorporated. Under English law at the time, one corporation could not charter another. Because of this, Wheelock began to look further afield. He considered sites in New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. The officials from all of these colonies were more than interested in hosting Wheelock’s school and they plied him with offers of money, land and prestigious positions.

William Smith, Jr. to Eleazar Wheelock, May 26, 1767

In 1767, William Smith, a prominent New York lawyer and a member of the Governor’s Council, wrote to Wheelock in an attempt to persuade him to locate his school in Albany. In his letter, he mentions that the people there will give £2,300 and would be pleased to see the school made into a university or college, with Wheelock at its head. This appears to be the first mention of the possibility of the school becoming a college. Wheelock turned this offer down because his relationship with the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy had soured, and he could not anticipate many Indian students coming to the school from the Albany area. But, one has to wonder if this did not alter his aspirations.

Wheelock to Woodbridge, November 12, 1768

The next prominent offer came from Massachusetts in 1768. In his letter to Wheelock, Timothy Woodbridge suggested that the Governor of Massachusetts would be interested in making the school a college. In his response Wheelock noted his reasons against locating the school in Massachusetts, chief among them is that there was already a good college in the colony. This appears to be first time there is an indication from Wheelock that he had ambitions to make his school into something greater.

Wheelock, always a bit of a wheeler-dealer, had been corresponding with the newly appointed Governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, throughout his negotiations with the other colonies. Wentworth was as anxious as any to locate an institution of higher learning within his colony. When Wheelock first proposed using the term “college” in a draft of the charter in 1769, Wentworth did not balk. He readily added the wording to the Royal Charter he granted for the founding of Dartmouth College in December of 1769.

Charter Draft, December 13, 1769

However, this change in the school’s status flew in the face of Wheelock’s stated intentions. Occom was less than impressed when he returned to the colonies to find that his efforts to raise money to save the souls of his native brethren had been hijacked. In response he wrote Wheelock a scathing letter in which he pointed out that Wheelock’s school had become too grand for the poor Indian.

While the two men patched up their differences in the long run, Occom never set foot on the Dartmouth campus. Eventually Occom came to the conclusion that Native Americans and European Americans could not coexist and he devised a plan to move his family, and many Christian Indian families, to Oneida country. In 1789, just three years before his death, Occom and his wife finally moved to the newly formed Brothertown community in upstate New York.

Celebrity Catalogers

Picture People Magazine in the 19th century... then banish that image from your mind as quickly as you can and take a look at Photographic Portraits of Living Celebrities (London: Maull & Polyblank, 1856-9). There are no glam shots here, and no airbrushed beauty graces these pages. The collection of photographs with biographic sketches tends toward the academic and political. There are a few names you might recognize on the list like Faraday or Cruikshank but for the most part these are not the folks we think of as celebrities today.

Pictured here is Richard Owen, striking a very goth pose with what looks like a crocodile skull. Owen had many accomplishments, but his primary claim to fame was a thirty-year stint as the cataloger of the anatomical collection of the Royal College of Surgeons. He gives us hope that someday rare book catalogers will be all the rage. Or, perhaps our time has passed...

To take a look, ask for Rare TR681.F3 M285 1859.

"Rendezvous of all Sin"

If you are a little too enchanted with Holiday "cheer," we've got just the book for you: Samuel Ward and Samuel Clark's A Warning-piece to All Drunkards and Health-Drinkers (London: Printed for the Authors, 1682). Temperance works are not that uncommon, but this particular one comes with "Above one hundred and twenty sad and dreadful examples" of the evils of drink, as well as twelve illustrations showing various ways people have died under the influence.

Driving (in this case, a horse) is not recommended... nor is swimming.

And, should you choose whiskey, be sure not to drink it on the rocks!

For a sobering experience, come in and ask for Rare HV5047 .W37 1862.

The Medieval Hereafter

For those living in the Middle Ages, death was a constant presence: Plague, famine, war, and a lack of medical knowledge all contributed to high mortality rates among European medieval society, especially for those living in cities. Consequently, much of life was occupied by thinking about and preparing for death. The Church provided hope through its promotion of the afterlife, although the path to that blissful eternity was a narrow one. At the Final Judgment, upon the return of Jesus Christ, many souls would be forced into the mouth of Hell instead of being ushered into paradise. Given the inexorable approach of death, and the concerns of the living about what might come afterwards, many artists and authors from the Middle Ages to the present day have attempted to represent the lives and deaths of saints and sinners as well as imagining what life after death might entail.

At Rauner, we're currently displaying an exhibit that explores representations of death and the afterlife, chiefly from medieval and early modern sources. The exhibit was curated in conjunction with the New England Medieval Consortium's annual conference, held here at Dartmouth College on November 19th. From now through January 27th, come visit Rauner's Class of 1965 Galleries and see breathtaking illuminations from our medieval books of hours, fascinating printed books made only a few decades after Gutenberg, and various representations of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, arguably the most important work about the afterlife that has ever been written in Western culture.

Cuba Libre

The recent death of Fidel Castro, controversial politician and undeniable revolutionary, and the impending regime change here in the United States started us thinking about Cuban-American relations and a relatively recent acquisition of ours. In the past, we've blogged about three fascinating items from our collections that are connected to Castro's revolt against the Batista regime in 1959. For today's post, we go back nearly a century earlier, to a series of wars for independence in Cuba that ultimately started the complex and often contentious relationship that now exists between Cuba and the United States.


In 1868, after nearly four centuries of European rule, native Cuban planters and their slaves revolted against their Spanish masters. Led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a sugar planter, a motley army of recently-freed slaves and native sons of Cuba took up arms against the forces of the Spanish Governor-General. Although the revolutionaries initially made great strides, the Spanish forces pushed back with a war of extermination, eventually settling into a rhythm of pitched battles that essentially resulted in a long-running stalemate.

Gil Gelpi y Ferro's Album historico fotografico de la guerra de Cuba, published in Havana in 1872, is a beautiful work of Spanish propaganda written just after the peak of the continuing conflict. Gelpi y Ferro was a Spaniard who had moved to Cuba in 1864 to work at a newspaper in Havana. His large and elegantly bound volume is filled with numerous full-page photographs that have been tipped in between descriptions of people, places, and battles. These images convey a sense of inevitability about the downfall of the rebels while emphasizing the harmony and unity of the royalist population.
However, despite Gelpi y Ferro's optimistic assessment of Spanish might, the war wasn't even halfway finished when his book was published. Finally in 1878, the Pact of Zanjón was signed, signaling an end to hostilities without a clear winner to the conflict. One of the positive results of what came to be called the Ten Years War was that slavery was abolished in Cuba in 1886. However, independence for Cuba was still a dream long deferred. It wasn't until two additional wars of independence had been fought, and the United States had been drawn into war with Spain in 1898 over the sinking of the USS Mainein Havana harbor, that Cuba was finally able to establish its freedom in 1902.

To see Album historico fotografico de la guerra de Cuba, ask for Rare F1785 .G43 1872.

An Immigrant Story

Thanksgiving, the most American holiday, is, at its root, a celebration of immigrants making it in the new world. The story of the first Thanksgiving is a romanticized history of a past that so many people would love to hold as true: a group of immigrants come to a new world seeking a better life; they are helped by the established residents; and a feast is thrown to celebrate survival and the promise of future prosperity.

So, for this Thanksgiving, we turn to more promises: some of which turned out well, and some that did not. In the mid-nineteenth century, hundreds of books and flyers were produced to lure new immigrants to America. Areas in the Plains and the West wanted to boost population, and the industrial Midwest was hungry for cheap labor. In our collection are three guides to help the immigrant settle in America, all offering the enticement of economic prosperity. The 1848 Emigrant's Hand-Book for the United States opens with the U.S. Constitution, then systematically outlines all of the regions of the United States. Iowa as it is in 1856 is a "gazetteer for citizens, and a hand-book for emigrants." It contains extended descriptions of each town in Iowa, the qualities of the soils throughout the state, and is dedicated to those abolitionists committed to keeping Iowa free soil.

But the little pamphlet produced by a Dubuque, Iowa, real estate office best captures the spirit and the hyperbole of the time: Iowa, the "Great Hunting Ground" of the Indian; and the "Beautiful Land" of the White Man": Information for Immigrants (Dubuque: John Taylor, 1860). It boasts that "the quantity of good land entered in Iowa is so much greater than is required by the resident population" and can be obtained for as low as a dollar per half acre but will increase by "ten to twenty percent" annually. The climate is conducive to good health, there is timber land, plenty of water, excellent soil, good schools, and easy access to the markets via six railroads. Buy now, settle the great land, and become prosperous and free in "The Queen State of the West." Despite the motives of the publisher, you can see him playing into some of the same tropes of the original Thanksgiving story: it elides the troubled relationship between the "Indian" and the "White Man" to envision a land of opportunity where community is built and individual freedom is valued for everyone. Not always the truth, but a story retold each year as we feast.

To see Iowa from 1860, ask for McGregor 175. The Emigrant's Hand-Book is Rare E161.E5 1848, and Iowa as it is in 1856 is Rare F621.P23 1856.

Arctic Nights

The nights are getting really long as we approach winter. One of the nice things about having a huge polar research collection, is that whenever our northern climate starts to wear on you, there are plenty of harrowing stories in the collection about places much colder and much darker through the winter. Today we stumbled on a northern version of A Thousand and One Nights. But in the polar regions, one month-long night will do the job for a pretty long story.

Arctic Nights' Entertainments (London: Blackie and Sons, 1935) recounts the life and adventures of August Masik as told by him to Isobel Hutchinson over 25 days of darkness. Born in Estonia, "Gus" took to the seas as a young man. His travels took him into the arctic regions where he decided to stay, but he never settled. His life is full of harrowing journeys across the ice. A colorful storyteller, it is tough to judge when he is dead serious and when he is exaggerating for effect. But, if the Hanover winter gets to you, come into Rauner: Masik's tales will warm you up.

You can see the book by asking for Stefansson Alcove F 909 .M38.

Looking Ahead - A.D. 2001

Norwich Public Library's book club visited Rauner for a session in September to take a look at materials on the development of science fiction as a literary genre. Many of Jack London's works were brought out for this session as his novels employ similar schemes that one can find in current science fiction stories, and thus are considered the predecessors of the science fiction genre. One of these works is a short story titled Relic of Pilocene, which was first published in Collier's Weekly Journal of Current Events in 1901. Though the story does not explicitly employ scientific inventions and technology, it does reference paleontology and its spirit of the wilderness adventure works in a similar way to the Star Wars movie series, imaginatively exploring the unknown world. In fact, Relic of Pilocene goes well with this volume of Collier's Weekly in that this volume was dedicated to recapitulating technological developments of the 19th century. The articles in this volume demonstrate technological developments in many areas such as transportation and communication from 1801 to 1901.

The most remarkable page in this volume was this imaginary illustration of what the technology in 2001 would look like. Frederick Strothmann, an American illustrator known for his World War I propaganda poster "Beat back the Hun with Liberty Bonds," drew this image with a caption that says "Broadway, New York, as it may appear a hundred years hence, when modern inventions have been carried to their highest point of development." In his drawing, Strothmann includes many subtle and not-so-subtle clues about what he thinks will be commonplace at start of the 21st century.

In some ways, it seems like our technology has reached its highest point. We do have skyscrapers that loom over the skyline, and wireless telephones do allow people from across the world to stay in touch. Though not exactly identical to Strothmann's vision, floating trams do exist in underground or above-ground versions in big cities across the world. The United States doesn't have submarine lines to Europe but underwater tunnels do exist in parts of the world, like that between the United Kingdom and France. Though not by hot air balloon, people, and mail, were able to travel by air well before 2001.

At the same time, some other projections are far from accurate and, in fact, we still believe that a few of these will be realized in the future. Some people still fancy the idea of compressable food tablets that provide all the nutrition we need without having to have a full meal, and some do argue that it could be possible in the near future. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if we will ever be able to restore youth by electricity, though it sounds very tempting!

Take a look at other cool illustrations printed in this volume by asking for London PS 3523 .O46 R45 1901.

A Break with Reality

Never has a text seemed more relevant than this particular one does today. Entitled "A Secret Worth Knowing: A Treatise on the Most Important Subject in the World, Simply to Say, Insanity," this 95-page pamphlet was written by Green Grimes, an inmate of the Lunatic Asylum of Tennessee in 1846. In this fascinating little book, Grimes recounts his experiences that led to what must have been a psychotic break. After his father remarried when Grimes was fourteen, his older brother, Grimes's only confidant and protector, was driven away from the house by the new wife. On the brother's journey to his new apprenticeship with a local parson, he drowned while crossing a river. This initial trauma was followed by many other significant events which ultimately led to Grimes's breakdown and admittance to the insane asylum. In the introduction, Grimes notes that his goal for writing this book is twofold: to be a practical resource for others and to raise a small amount of money to provide for his five orphaned children.

After recounting his own story, Grimes goes on to describes many examples of insanity that he has

encountered or heard about during his lifetime, delineates the process by which people go insane, and then takes great pains to differentiate between insanity and "idiotism." Throughout his work, he attempts to encourage his readers who have family members suffering from mental illness by providing advice about how to care for and watch over their loved ones. Finally, he concludes by saying, "There is, perhaps, nothing short of the goodness of God that can effect a final cure of my disease. I am perfectly resigned to His will, and await his final coming and decision with hope."

To examine this subject, please come to Rauner and ask for Rare RC464 .G756 1846.

One War, Different Stories

As I was looking for materials for a session with the World War I history course, I found this serial publication in our Rare Book Collections. Témoignages de notre temps is a compilation of about 200 photographs taken during World War I which had been censured by the French government during the war. Produced by the "Société Anonyme les Illustrés Français," this is the first issue of the bi-monthly serial. The photographs have come from various entities in different countries across Europe, ranging from an archive to an individual who fought in the war. The preface notes that these photos were originally taken for the purpose of documenting the reality of the war. The anonymous editors urge the readers to see beyond the heroic and glorious image of war that the French government had publicized. According to the preface, one of the editors worked for the French government's censorship department during the war, which allowed a certain level of access to many of the censored photos and documents. However, in most cases, attempts to publish these materials were frustrated as the French government was still reluctant to make them available for public even after more than a decade.

The magazine is divided into different chapters which attempts to debunk myths on specific aspects of the war that the French government had created through its censorship. Though it would be great to take a look at them in this post, some of the photos were just too gory (for instance, a trench full of ripped apart cadavers) so I have intentionally excluded them from this post.

In the first chapter, the magazine dispels the myth that the French and German soldiers on the front held a deeply-rooted hatred towards one another. Like in these photos, French and German generals stand side by side to chill or visit an injured soldier together.

Though it was strictly forbidden for soldiers from the Allies and the Axis powers to force prisoner to contribute to their military efforts, it was not rare to spot German prisoners of war working in a French munition factory or vice versa.

Another type of frequently censored photograph were those of the soldiers from the French North African colonies. The French government did not want to give an impression that the African soldiers were part of the war efforts, especially on the front.

The magazine continues to break down the binary of the devil German and the righteous Allies by showing more humane side of the enemies. Rather than being tortured by atrocious German prison keepers, the British prisoners of war play cricket in the German prison camp.

African prisoners of the war casually cruise down the streets of Berlin.

The wartime press coverage of Paris often times hid the ugly aspects of the reality to convince people that France was in good shape. But these photos tell the story of wartime Paris that the government strove to hide.

Parisians were not always as poised as the government portrayed them to be. They ransacked stores with foreign-sounding names, though most of them were businesses operated by French citizens.

Though the government would have hated to admit it, the Parisians also suffered from bomb strikes and shortage of food supplies.

The rest of the chapters explain Axis propaganda; marine warfare (it was the first war that submarines were used for military purpose); and the arts of espionage.

Reading this serial publication made me wonder what was the contemporary public's reaction to these photos. Would they have been appalled that the government had been hiding some aspects of the war? Or maybe, it already was not so much of a "secret" despite the government's efforts to make them so.

To look at the publication yourself, ask for Rare Book D501 .T46 No. 1 1933:Mai in our reading room.

1916 Election Day Music

This is just so troubling, while supporting a cause that's so right. In the presidential election of a hundred years ago, women still did not have the vote in most states. With the election in the news, it was a good opportunity to push yet again for women's suffrage. Good idea--long overdue. But the message this 1916 popular song conveys is not exactly liberating.

The woman's role is clearly defined in the image: at home, raising the family, smiling to the world. The rhetoric of the chorus then places the woman as a man's helpmate and little more:

She's good enough to love you and adore you,
She's good enough to bear your troubles for you;
And if your tears were falling today,
Nobody else would kiss them away.
She's good enough to warm your heart with kisses
When you are lonesome and blue,
She's good enough to be your baby's mother
And she good enough to vote with you!

A hundred years later, Americans have their first opportunity to vote for a woman as a major party candidate. Progress for sure. But Lord knows what we will think a hundred years from now about the rhetoric of this campaign season.

To learn the tune and read the rest of the song, ask for Rauner Sheet Music SC 4077.

Shall We Dance?

It is the Day of the Dead, perfect for highlighting the recent acquisition of Imagines mortis (Cologne: Apud haeredes Arnoldi Birckmanni, 1557). It will warm your heart on a gray November day. The fifty-three woodcuts are based on Hans Holbein's famous Dance of Death series, but here are presented more in the form of an emblem book with each image captioned with a verse. Death shows no favorites, and comes for all: some seem quite willing to go, while others fight.

This is also a good opportunity to let you know about an upcoming conference that the Library is co-sponsoring: Lives and Afterlives in the Middle Ages: The 43rd Annual New England Medieval Conference on November 19th,. We will have an exhibit with more medieval and early modern death later this month.

To see Imagines mortis, ask for Rare N7720.H6 I434 1557.

Dartmouth Night Greetings

It is the Friday of Homecoming weekend, known locally as Dartmouth Night. There are plenty of alumni around (in fact members of the Class of 1957 are assembled in one of our classrooms as I write hearing a presentation by the College Archivist), and the bonfire will be set ablaze in a few hours. Before the Dartmouth diaspora could follow the events on social media, those unable to come to campus would often send telegrams to be read out to the crowd.

We have a batch of over one hundred telegrams from 1955-1959. The Dartmouth Club of New Jersey sounded like cold warriors by congratulating Dartmouth for its "exemplary leadership among liberal arts colleges in a free world." While in western Oklahoma the focus was on beating Harvard the next day. In Omaha, the mood was far more serious:

"We join with Dartmouth men everywhere to reaffirm our common faiths and beliefs in the principles that have mad Dartmouth the greatest of all liberal arts colleges. All Dartmouth men are entrusted with many heritages and traditions, as well as responsibilities and privileges. We are counting on you to learn well, and apply yourself diligently, that you may add to, perpetuate, and honor the glory that is Dartmouth's. God be with you tonight, tomorrow, and always."

A handful of students who happened to be in Leningrad that evening on a university exchange program chose a simple, "Vodka toast to team for victorious year."

You can see the whole batch by asking for MS 9559490.3

The Old Pine

The Old Pine with Bartlett Tower

For homecoming this week we brought out one of the most ungainly objects in the collection: our sizable fragment of the "Old Pine." If you check out our Instagram, you can see the it in the reading room alongside the staff members who moved it (though they are only inches taller). We also have smaller artifacts carved from other bits of the Old Pine, but this one really stands out.

There is a handwritten label on the chunk 'o pine that gives a little history of the tree: it was struck by lightning in 1887 and split so only a portion was left standing. The remaining half was done in a few years later, in 1892, by a "tornado." The Dartmouth called the storm "a heavy gale," so there may be a bit of hyperbole in the tag.

We expected to see some angst in The Dartmouth over the tree's demise, especially considering the trouble people took to keep fragments of it, but the report was not only unsentimental, it was downright disrespectful to Dartmouth's old trees:

The heavy gale of June 14, which destroyed and damaged many of the shade trees here, called attention to the fact that there are a number of large trees about our campus, venerable with age; but owning to repeated disaster, no longer ornamental. These trees, we think, should be removed at an early date, and new trees set out in their places. The usefulness of the old is past, and the new should be immediately given a chance to develop itself into fit companionship of the other noble trees about the green.

I wonder what they thought of some of the older faculty and the seniors about to graduate!

You can see the Old Pine in the reading room for another week, then we will lug it back upstairs.

What makes you happy?

A box of Belgian chocolate, a glass of wine at the end of a long day, beautiful weather... the list goes on. Henry Monnier, a French playwright, caricaturist and actor in the 19th century, compiled his lithographic prints into a monograph titled Les Petites Felicites Humaines, depicting various aspects of life that bring joy to humans. Each lithographic plate is attached to a small piece of paper to bind the book. According to Monnier, what makes us happy differs, depending on how old we are.

When you are a little baby, toys, candies and putting on pants are all you need to be happy.

Once you become a young adult, happiness becomes something more dynamic and interactive as it involves other people. A wild mistress, along with love songs, makes a youngster happy, as well as outspoken and honest friends would. Young folks don't abide by the established rules and wisdom, nor do they waste their time mulling over their future and wealth. Monnier notes that as a young man, he was so carefree and cheerful that he had enough energy to climb up the wall of a building, all the way to the sixth floor!

As time passes, restless spirit and vigor fade away and are replaced by more practical values. Bonuses, beautiful courtyards and house interior decorations will make you content in the middle ages.

When you become even older, nothing makes you more blissful than your family. Family holidays, dinners and little children will brighten up your day.

As a resident of Hanover, NH, what struck me the most was this last plate with an illustration of a several men gathered around a heater. What else can bring more bliss to your life than resting beside a warm heater on a cold day?

You can look at the lithographic plates yourself by asking for Rare Book PQ 2366 .M42 P43.

Minority Rules

Usually voting means that the majority rules, but not always. Sometimes organizations operate on consensus, meaning that everyone agrees on something before it moves forward. It sounds so nice and friendly in theory, but in practice it has often been used to exclude. One person's strident opinion can override the will of the rest.

This ballot box that was once used by the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity was the mechanism for assuring unanimous consent at the fraternity. New members were elected through a secret ballot using a specially designed box. On one side were black and white marbles, with a small hole connecting to the other side. Each member of the fraternity would place his hand in the box, select a white or black marble, and push it through to the other side. When the voting was complete, the members opened the other side of the box. If all the marbles were white, the new member was accepted, but, if there was a single black ball, the member was rejected. Ironically, this system where a minority could veto the majority was part of a system of institutionalized racism that could easily exclude any member because of his race or religion.

One racist in the crowd was all it took.

This system was phased out in the 1950s and 1960s as the Dartmouth fraternity system worked to end the practice of blackballing prospective members based on race or religion.

To see the ballot box, ask for DO-37, Box 13146. It is cool and frightening at the same time.

Roy J. Snell

Scanning the shelves of the Rare Book collections you see lots of authors you know and revere along with noted titles in first editions. It all drips of fame and oozes cultural capital. But there are two full shelves that are more puzzling: they contain over seventy books by Roy J. Snell. If you are wondering who Snell is, you are not alone. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry, and we have devoted over six feet of shelf space to his books!

It turns out Snell churned out adventure books for boys and girls. His books competed with the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series among others, and he got great distribution and solid sales. According to our Rare Book guide, the Snell books were given to the College in 1955 by Snell and the Friends of the Dartmouth College Library to be included in our substantial "Juveniles" collection.

As far as we can tell, we are one of the few places in the world with a complete collection of his novels. If you are searching for an overlooked popular author to write about, we have you covered. To find his books, search the catalog for "Snell, Roy J."

Garden for the Rose

An amazing new book just came into our collections: Sensuite le jardin plaisance et fleur de rethorique (Paris: Jehan Trepperel and Jehan Jehannot, ca. 1515). This "Garden of Pleasure," is a collection of 15th century French poetry complied to serve as a kind of theatrical reading. Read or sung out, the verses would have carried its original readers on a journey through courtly love. It is the perfect companion to our Roman de la Rose manuscript.

The compilation is especially important for being the first to print many 15th century French poems. Included are Christine de Pisan, Charles d'Orléans, and François Villon among others.

Come in and enjoy the garden by asking for Rare PQ1307.J3 1502z.

Autumnal Attire

The fall colors are popping and we are not likely to see many days with temperatures in the 70s until Spring. So, it is time to pull out the fall wardrobe. We are a bit fusty in our fashion, so we'll go with 1899.

Our guide is Gentlemen's Attire, Described and Illustrated, Autumn & Winter 1899-1900, from Lothrops, Farnham and Company. We will need a "proper sack suit" and fashion demands diagonal serges for daily wear.

For slightly more formal occasions, the three-button cutaway is a must.

And, if we head out later, our evening dress has to be the latest style.

Don't forget, it is going to get cold soon, so we will top it all off with a "Very Stylish" overcoat!

To see all of the latest 1899 fashions ask for Rare HF6161.C44 L6.