Today is World Digital Preservation Day!

Today we celebrate World Digital Preservation Day, which occurs on the first Thursday of every November. The day is meant to celebrate digital preservation and raise awareness of the challenges inherent in the task of recording human memory that exists in a digital format.

An interesting case for digital preservation exists in the Charles Furlong papers (Mss-197). Charles Wellington Furlong was the first American to explore the southernmost part of the Americas, the interior of Tierra del Fuego, in 1907 and 1908; we've blogged about him before. While there, he made wax cylinder recordings of the Onas and Yahgan peoples talking and singing. Obviously, there is no easy way to play a 100+ year old wax cylinder recording in the modern world. Even if there was, it is possible that the fragile, decaying media would only have one play left before it disintegrates, so one had better be prepared to capture the audio when it is being played. There is also a chance that the attempt at playing the item would destroy it before any audio could be heard.

Instead of potentially damaging the wax cylinders by playing them, we sent them to a specialist who digitized the recordings by taking extremely-high resolution photographs of the cylinders using a laser, and then played the digital file from the high-resolution digital images! Although the audio quality is scratchy and echoey, the recordings can now be heard.

The digital files for this collection include hundreds of files, including exotic file formats like .bri (used for 3-D modeling) and .trk files (used for workflows tied to proprietary and unique software packages). However, the images of the cylinders are also saved as more accessible .jpg and .tif files while the audio recordings are also available as .mp3 files. We have made all of the files, like this one for example, available online to researchers. The files are checked for viruses, re-built from scratch (in a process called recharacterization), and given a checksum by Preservica, our digital preservation system, which also synchronizes the files with our description system. 

In honor of World Digital Preservation Day, a lighthearted look at the world of intangible zeroes and ones is available by way of a physical object: a photocopied zine! They are available at Rauner Special Collections, the circulation and welcome desks of Baker-Berry library, and the Book Arts Workshop. If you'd like to examine an actual wax cylinder, come to Rauner and ask to see one from the Charles Furlong papers (Mss-197).           

                    

The Outsiders

Outsider: a person who does not belong to a particular group.

What does it mean to be an outsider? For the women who arrived at Dartmouth in 1972, it meant stepping foot on a campus that wasn’t created for them. How do you find a safe space in a place you’re not wanted? For some women at Dartmouth it was found in a journal, a room, and a shared sense of isolation.

By the early 80s, women still lacked a support system, and despite other schools already having implemented a Women’s Resource Center, Dartmouth still hadn’t given these women solace by providing a place for “organizing programs and speakers for the community, providing information and referrals, centralizing diverse women’s groups, and supplementing academic women’s studies programs” (Womyn’s Review). Despite the absence of support, women used a room in Robinson Hall and considered this the ‘center.

In 1981, the unofficial ‘center’ became a refuge—an outsider’s sanctuary. A journal sat on a table, inviting women to write down their thoughts. In the very first entry of this journal, a student writes:

“This room has become my haven from the madness and cynicism of the world. I come here sometimes when I feel an intense desire to be alone and read a book, or when I’m feeling lonely and introspective…”

Recurring themes in most of these entries were loneliness, pain, and isolation. With the option to remain anonymous, these women wrote about the struggle of being a woman at Dartmouth. One student in particular wrote about her frustration with counseling at Dartmouth:

“I am angry that counselors at Dick’s House aren’t interested in dealing with my pain of being a woman at a place like Dartmouth or listening to me discuss my joy/confusion/pain of being involved with women or my struggle to be politically active. Instead, they would rather ask how many orgasms I had with my male lover and whether I always wanted to be a sex object to my father.”

Throughout my research, I’ve noticed the strong association between feelings of isolation and its negative effects on mental health. For women, this isolation at Dartmouth was both physical and emotional. The lack of support systems—both institutional and social—created the feeling of being outsiders, leaving these women to fend for themselves on a campus not made for them. One woman describes the journal as“a selfish present to myself- I was feeling depressed and came up here to write…”

These reflections by women students during coeducation show how women at Dartmouth were left battling not just with external hostility, but with the internal toll of their isolation. The unofficial Women’s Resource Center—and the journal within it—became a place where they could at least begin to tackle the loneliness and frustration that came with being left outside of the main bubble.

To read the journal, ask for DO-61, Box 6591 at Rauner Library. To read the Womyn's Review, request D.C. History HQ1101 .W6692.

Posted for Arielenny Perez '26, recipient of a Historical Accountability Student Research Fellowship for the 2024 fall 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.

Happy Sukkot! / Chag Sukkot Sameach!

This year, the Jewish holiday of Sukkot begins at sundown on October 16 (Tishrei 14 in the Hebrew calendar.) If you're not sure what Sukkot (pronounced "soo-coat") is, Rauner happens to have a text that explains it in vivid, poetic detail. Written by Henry Ware, Jr., and published in 1837, "The Feast of Tabernacles: A Poem for Music" is set in ancient Jerusalem during the Temple period on the final day of Sukkot. Ware prefaces his poem with a short "Advertisement" in which he lays out his intentions for writing the poem and explains the holiday for a gentile audience:

The Feast of Tabernacles was one of the three great festivals of the Jewish people... It took place in the autumn, at the gathering-in of the corn harvest and the vintage, and continued for seven days; during which time the people dwelt in booths, formed of branches of trees, to commemorate their ancestors' dwelling in tents in the wilderness.

Though Ware writes in the past tense, Sukkot still is very much a major Jewish holiday that takes place in the harvest season and involves temporarily living in a sukkah or booth.

"The Feast of Tabernacles" describes the scene at the Temple on Sukkot, with the ancient Israelites waving symbolic plants, burning incense, and preparing an animal sacrifice:

Wave the willow and the palm !
Bow the knee, and chant the psalm !

Throng the holy altar round !

Bid the lofty courts resound !

Now let the morning sacrifice begin !

Fire the rich censer ! Let the incense rise

In rolling clouds of fragrance, till it fill

The Holy Place

Another book of ours includes depictions of some Sukkot customs. Printed by the Stinehour Press in 1995, Maḥzor = Mahzor Corfu is a partial facsimile of an illustrated 18th century prayer book produced by the Jewish community of the Greek island of Corfu, containing the liturgies for the three major festivals (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot) and Shabbat. It also contains some charming illustrations of Sukkot scenes. On the left is a man holding a lulav (palm, willow, and myrtle branch) and etrog (citron). On the right are four men sharing a meal under the thatched roof of a sukkah.

To see "The Feast of Tabernacles," come to the reading room and request Smith J pam.vol. 35:12. To see Maḥzor = Mahzor Corfu, request Presses B667mahz

Finding John Rae

John Rae was one of the more controversial figures in the history of Arctic exploration. Working for the Hudson Bay Company, he explored and mapped vast regions of the Arctic, which should have made him a hero. But he developed habits the British found disturbing. He started dressing like the peoples indigenous to the North and he even learned to make temporary shelters using ice and snow--like the people who LIVED there and knew what they were doing! The British preferred to bring their own ways into a new environment and maintain proper decorum even if it often meant death.

But it was Rae's discovery and reporting of the remains of the John Hope Franklin party that really got him in trouble. He found clear evidence that the party had perished but also that they had done the unthinkable and resorted to cannibalism. When he reported this back to England, the press first sensationalized his claims, then turned against him. How could we trust this suspicious character who lives like a savage? Charles Dickens lead the charge--ridiculing and lampooning Rae to ensure that the truth he found would remain in doubt.

We have two very special maps in our collection hand annotated by Rae. They chart his discoveries and document his incredible achievements. They also show a man holding grudge, quietly raging against the world that would not acknowledge his rightful place in the pantheon of great explorers.

To see the maps, ask for Stef G3270 1878 .S7 (pictured above) and Stef G9780 1855 .G7 1876.

A Slaver's Schematic

Much is known about the British and American abolitionist pamphlets and newspapers that circulated in Europe and North America during the early 1800s. One example, abolitionist Thomas Clarkson's 1808 schematic of the slave ship Brooks, depicted enslaved Africans crammed together in the hold like cargo containers without any room to move. That infamous engraving appears frequently in publications, presentations, and exhibits about the Middle Passage.

Here at Rauner, we have a publication, Affaire de la Vigilante (1823), with a similar engraving that was made by Charles-Philibert de Lasteyrie. De Lasteyrie was a founding member of the Society of Christian Morality, a group that started in 1821 with the aims of abolishing the slave trade, improving the conditions of French prisons, and providing aid to refugees, among others. Although this pamphlet is anonymous, it's a safe bet that it was written by a member of the Society, if not by de Lasteyrie himself.

Affaire de la Vigilante documents the capture of La Vigilante, a French slaver, by the British Navy on April 1, 1822, off the coast of Africa. The 345 enslaved people on board were liberated and then escorted to Sierra Leone. France had banned the slave trade in France itself in 1818, but would not require the same for French colonies until 1848. One scholar has suggested that France's lack of zeal in pursuing anti-slavery legislation for their colonies was because, in their minds, they connected the ban of slavery at home with Napoleon's defeat.

To explore a rare French abolitionist pamphlet, and to examine the schematic of La Vigilante, come to Rauner and ask to see Rare HT985 .A32 1823.

"I am now confused": The Complexity of Divestment

The student protest movement against apartheid in the 1980s was arguably one of the most memorable events on campus during the latter half of the 20th century. Most people who know of the movement understandably associate it with the attack on the student-built shanties on the Green during the early hours of January 22nd, 1986. That assault, and the national news attention it raised, was a flashpoint for the Dartmouth community about whether college divestment from companies doing business in South Africa would have an impact on apartheid or not. Three and a half years later, Dartmouth had completely divested itself of business connections to companies still working within the apartheid regime. A few years after that, apartheid in South Africa was eradicated.

Although 1986 was a significant year for Dartmouth in terms of anti-apartheid protest, discussion and debate over divestment as a meaningful lever for global political change already had been occurring on campus for several years. On January 21, 1980, the Student Council passed a resolution calling on the college "to divest itself of and join the boycott of all investments in firms with commercial ties to apartheid in South Africa." Optimistically, the Student Council's resolution envisioned this process concluding by May of 1981.

Three years later, divestment had not occurred but the topic was still of interest to the Dartmouth community: on May 17th, the Tucker Foundation sponsored a debate on divestment between Dartmouth professors Hoyt Alverson (Anthropology) and John Hennessey (Economics/Tuck). According to an account published by the Dartmouth, both speakers emphasized that they were "appalled" by the white minority government in South Africa but they disagreed on the most effective way to eliminate it. Alverson argued in favor of making a statement against South African apartheid through the College's investment policies; he pointed out that the country was a product of Western investment and therefore we are responsible for its current state. He also argued that US business investment in the country had not made life better for Black residents because it was primarily capital and not labor-based. Moreover, Alverson emphasized that US investment was used as justification for the continuation of the racist system of governance. Although Dartmouth alone would likely not have a measurable effect on US or South African policy, Alverson believed that the gesture would matter if other institutions also participated.

Hennessey countered by claiming that divestment is virtue-signaling and an empty gesture. He argued that selling off Dartmouth stock in those companies would simply make those shares available for purchase by someone else who might not be as concerned with the state of South Africa: "To divest is simply to give up the right to vote and participate in company policy formulation." Instead, Hennessey recommended that the college put pressure on those companies to change their policies and on Congress to regulate those businesses more strictly. He then asked, "What is moral purity? Does it mean refusing to touch all money with any South African ties?"

In a letter written to Hoyt Alverson after the debate, Professor William Dougan (Economics) concisely summarized the two perspectives: "You do have the 'symbolism' argument in your favor, and it is formidable. Hennessey's point, which is valid, is that in opting for a symbolic gesture you are forgoing an opportunity to exert more substantive if less visible effects." At the conclusion of the debate Fred Berthold, the acting Dean of the Tucker Foundation, likely spoke for many people when he said, "About three weeks ago I was an ardent advocate of total divestment....I am now confused."

To see documents related to the debate, including the letter from Dougan to Alverson, come to Rauner and ask to see the "Debate on Divestment folder from the Records of the Vice President and Treasurer (DA-2, Box 7880, "Debate on Divestment").

Exhibit: Bloody Books - Pulp Fiction in Victorian England

This exhibit presents the panoply of cheaply printed serial fiction that flooded the literary markets in early Victorian England. The British working class, increasingly literate and increasingly urban, represented a new market for reading material that catered to their interests and was affordable.

In response, savvy publishers began to print cheap magazines, long serials, and novels in parts during the 1830s and 1840s that were aimed initially at working-class men and then later at a juvenile audience. These texts were almost unwaveringly sensationalist and derivative in terms of content, often plagiarizing popular Gothic romance novels or summarizing lurid tales of true crime, ripped straight from contemporary newspaper accounts. These provocative and violent stories often sold for a mere penny an issue, and British society initially used a blanket term to describe the exceedingly popular but highly ephemeral genre: "penny dreadful".

The exhibit was curated by Morgan Swan and the poster was designed by Sam Miles. It will be on display in the Class of 1965 Galleries in Rauner Special Collections Library from September 16 through December 13th, 2024.

Exquisitely Stenciled

This book is so cool, we can't believe it. It is a liturgical guide for feast days produced in the Benedictine monastery of Ambronay in 1740, and it is neither print nor traditional manuscript. Instead, the entire text was created using stencils on vellum. If you look closely, you'll see every letter is cut to make it hold together for inking. Imagine the work that went into creating this!

Extra interesting for us is that the illuminated decorations were never completed. That allows us to see the process they employed to create the book--sketching out the decorations, then carefully filling them in. It is another case of a devotional book being created as an act of devotion. Stunning, inspirational, and a joy to handle.

                                            

Come in and ask for Codex MS 003530 to experience it for yourself.

A Dartmouth Professor's Horror Story

In 1934, Alexander Laing (1903-1976), a former Dartmouth English professor and educational services director, co-authored and edited a Depression-era book of gothic horror titledThe Cadaver of Gideon Wyck. Incredibly, the book reimagines both the President and Head of the Medical School at a small rural New England college as corrupt practitioners of the occult who perform secret experiments on unsuspecting townspeople while attempting to convince the scientific community to accept their parapsychological delusions.

Set at the fictional "University of Maine," Laing makes no apologies about the book being inspired by his experiences as both a Dartmouth student and faculty member. Given Dartmouth's history, naturally there is also a subplot involving a state legislator threatening to defund the college. The January 21, 1934, New York Times book review called the work "gruesome," "shocking," "grisly," and an "enthralling mystery yarn told with the skill of a master." It reportedly sold 200,000 copies and was a bestseller. The late-stage-Art Deco frontispiece of The Cadaver of Gideon Wick is also remarkable. It is illustrated by Lynd Ward, who would go on to become well-known in his own right for The Biggest Bear, among other works. The details of the etching accurately depict events of the book.

In a March 1934 edition of The Plowshare, Laing described himself as a former poet whose "first post-college job, in Wall Street, lasted two weeks." "For four years… [he] has held a kind of roving commission on the Dartmouth faculty, teaching no classes, but working informally with undergraduates interested in the arts." He goes on to say "[p]oetry… is still his profession, despite the necessity for supporting his family by more remunerative avocations." Laing mentions nothing about the identity of his secretive co-author, and nothing more would be known for the next twenty-five years.

Upon the 1959 publication of an edited version of The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck the mystery author was revealed to be Dartmouth alum Dr. George Young McClure '25. He passed away December 18, 1960, in Fayetteville, N. C., where he was chief pathologist at the Veterans Administration Hospital. According to his obituary in the November 1961 issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, McClure felt that the nature of the books might hurt his medical career, which included researching polio with the New York Department of Public Health and cancer research at Memorial Hospital in New York City.

To see a first edition of The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck from 1934, come to Rauner and ask for Alumni L144c. We also have copies of the 1960 and 1962 editions as well as the Alexander Laing papers (ML-77). Box 43 in particular contains dust jackets and other ephemera related to Laing's writing career.

"Students Ducked at Hanover Fire"

At Rauner, we have some collections of letters that Dartmouth students wrote home from college over the years, and they give an interesting look into what was on the students’ minds in those times, including their perspective on events. One of these students, Frank Whitcomb, class of 1911, wrote to his sister Helen about a fire in Hanover and how he thought it had been misrepresented in the news.

On the night of October 13th, 1910, the Tavern Block on Main Street in Hanover caught on fire. The Hanover fire department rushed to fight the fire. Various Boston newspapers (the title of this post is the headline from the Boston Journal) reported that hundreds of students also rushed to the scene of the fire and fought to hold the nozzle of the fire hose, until the firefighters had enough of the interference and sprayed the students with the hose to keep them away. However, Frank Whitcomb (among other students) took issue with this account, explaining that the students who showed up at the fire were simply “too eager to assists the volunteers,” so the firefighters needed to use the hose to make more room. He also pointed out to Helen that “the hose which did the most of the work of putting the fire out was manned by two students.”

The events that unfolded should have been simple enough, but how the story was told depended on who was telling it. This event prompted The Dartmouth (whose account Whitcomb agreed with) to publish an article calling for a system to ensure truthful reporting of College news.

To read Whitcomb’s letters, come to Rauner and ask for MS-1438. (Or, ask about our other collections of student letters!)

The 1951 ‘Oedipus Mac’ article: A student response to the Korean War

If you had opened up a copy of The Dartmouth one afternoon on April 29th, 1951, you would’ve seen the headline “Oedipus Mac: A Modern Tragedy” in the editor’s section. But, the article wasn’t telling the story of the mythical Greek king of Thebes. Rather, you would know that the “Mac” in the title referred to General Douglas MacArthur, who had a hero’s homecoming the week before in New York as a beloved commander in World War II, but now more importantly in Korea. The article read like a satire and a personal attack on General MacArthur, scandalizing many of its readers and causing them to scrutinize the publication’s student Editor-in-Chief, who was also a veteran. While it was typical to adhere to the patriotic anti-communism of the 1950s, this student response to the Korean War reveals that at Dartmouth, Cold War language was used to interpret and describe issues beyond the ideological matter of communism, bringing seriousness and backlash within the campus discourse.

The Korean War is often historicized in terms of Cold War geopolitics and as an ideological confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. However, there is growing literature on the fragmented reactions to the Korean War and the different versions of “anti-communism” that were becoming increasingly embedded in social norms, which heavily depended on the local contexts and memories of WWII. For instance, historian Masuda Hajimu has written about how the Korean War served as a catalyst for the materialization of the Cold War for millions of ordinary people while before, he argues, it was a genuinely imagined reality that only existed because people believed it did. Along these lines, what I’m interested in is how the local context of the U.S. university campus (Dartmouth’s in this case) responded to the Korean War as a site of overlapping intellectual and policy activity, which was typical of universities in the 1950s, in addition to being a site of student culture and dissent.

The sociopolitical atmosphere of the early 1950s makes the “Oedipus Mac” article — which was published under Editor-in-Chief Ted Laskin ‘51 — quite audacious in the context. In the satire, both MacArthur’s policies and character were criticized, at one point stating, “as long as he had command in Korea, the U.N. realized that there would never be peace, because MacArthur was the Far East Caesar who dreamed of empire from Hawaii to the Ryukyus Islands.” It went on to call out MacArthur’s belief in “the White Man’s burden and its corollary, the slave psychology of orientals” and referred to “the treatment of Negroes under his command,” citing Thurgood Marshall’s report for the NAACP. It’s clear that besides condemning the U.S’ involvement in Korea, the editor(s) of The D were more interested in critiquing General MacArthur as an individual, despite his national popularity. Furthermore, the references to MacArthur’s racist attitudes and discrimination in the U.S. military indicate that topics such as civil rights, which are often expressed as “domestic” issues and viewed as separate from Cold War thought, actually had much to do with this response to the war in Korea.

Certain alumni were outraged by the article, and many even decided to write to President Dickey complaining about it. One alum in the class of 1909 wrote a letter to the editor of the Alumni Magazine, expressing his “rage and disappointment” not only towards Ted Laskin, but also towards the college administration for failing to prevent the taint to Dartmouth’s name. He questioned, “can Dartmouth men take pride in recent news stories which indicate an active sympathy with Russian Communism?” This reaction is confusing at first as The D article didn’t reference “Russian Communism” at all. However, this alum’s response can be well-contextualized in the emerging notion of “common sense” in 1950s American society, which was that communists, socialists, and leftists were all under the control of Stalin; and with the onset of the Korean War, this perspective crystalized. The growing advocacy for civil rights and labor rights were also perceived to be destabilizing existing social norms and hierarchies, further inflaming and conflating American “anti-communism” (Masuda 2015). In this way, we can see how a critique of General MacArthur, during a time when the U.S. was at war in Korea, was reduced to a “sympathy for Russian Communism” through the logic of one reader. 

By examining this specific incident, it becomes clearer that we shouldn’t understand discourse on the Korean War simply in terms of Cold War geopolitics. One’s local environment and identity need to be considered when historicizing how the Korean War was “experienced”. For example, many African American veterans of WWII condemned the racism and inequality of the very institutions that individuals like General MacArthur defended (Suri 2009). Within the context of Dartmouth’s campus (and I suspect on more college campuses), responses to the Korean War were never about the mere question of condemning or supporting communism, despite the incredible effort by policymakers, administrators, and ordinary people to paint the issue as such. President Dickey ended up writing his own piece for the Alumni Magazine’s June 1951 issue in response to The D’s article and the alumni complaints. In response to that, Ted Laskin wrote a seven page letter directly to President Dickey. What I find fascinating is that this campus saga was ultimately triggered by a student response to the Korean War. And surprisingly, with each letter of criticism towards the student behind the article, it becomes increasingly clear that they did not quite stem from confidence in the American Cold War ideals, but more from an insecurity regarding the institution’s reputation and the ideology it claimed to uphold.

To read the original article and the documents surrounding this controversy, drop by Rauner to look at our copies of The Dartmouth and the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine and ask for DP-12, box 7110, "Criticisms and Suggestions - The Dartmouth."

Bibliography:

Hajimu, Masuda. Cold War Crucible : The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674735941.

Suri, Jeremi. Henry Kissinger and the American Century. Cumberland: Harvard University Press, 2009. doi:10.4159/9780674281943. 

Posted for Rachel Kahng '25, recipient of a Historical Accountability Student Research Fellowship for the 2024 Summer 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.

Rauner Exhibit: "Creating and Preserving Culture: The Evolution of African American Theater"

During the Spring term of 2024, Dr. Monica Ndounou, Associate Professor of Theater, taught the second iteration of her highly successful course, “Curating Black Theater” (THEA 10/AAAS 32). This class provided its students an opportunity to learn about Black theater history, scholarship and practice in the U.S. and abroad. In the process, students helped develop ideas and curated exhibits that represented a range of formats and platforms. As social media and academe become interdependent in the 21st-century digital era, the course enabled participants to imagine and implement exhibits for the museum as a digital and onsite space where national and international contributions to developing black theater can be shared with the larger public.

The current student-curated exhibit at Rauner Library is one facet of the experiential learning component of the class, which also included a visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., interactive engagement with the African American Museum of Performing Arts in Chicago, and a conversation with Sharon Washington, Tony-nominated playwright, actor, and member of Dartmouth’s Class of 1981. Sponsors of the course included: Rauner Special Collections Library; the Department of Theater, The African and African American Studies Program, the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact; the Division of Institutional Diversity and Equity; the Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life, Dartmouth Libraries, and the Hopkins Center for the Arts.

This exhibit was curated by the members of Associate Professor Monica Ndounou’s “Curating Black Theater” class (THEA 10/AAAS 32) during the Spring 2024 term: Aidan Adams ‘24, Ivie Aiwuyo ‘26, Tamonie Brown ‘24, Julia Cappio ‘27, Makayla Charles ‘27, Godwin Kangor ‘27, Noah Martinez ‘27, Kambrian Winston ‘26, and Justine Zakayo ‘25. It will be on display in Rauner Special Collections Library's Class of 1965 Galleries from July 8th, 2024, through September 28, 2024. Learn more by visiting the exhibit website.

Rambling Boys and Ballads Migrant

In 1889, William Butler Yeats published his poem "Down by the Salley Gardens," based on a half-remembered song he'd heard sung by a woman in the village of Ballisodare, Ireland. The general consensus is that the song was probably the folk ballad "Rambling Boys of Pleasure" (Roud Index 386). The earliest identified versions of "Rambling Boys" in print are dated from the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. However, our collections have a curious instance of this song that dates even earlier. 

Joseph Goffe was a New England minister and member of Dartmouth's Class of 1791. We have a few manuscripts connected with him -- primarily letters and sermons. We also have his 1783-85 notebook where young Goffe did some accounting for the labor and costs of building a new sawmill in Bedford, N.H. At the back of this notebook Goffe transcribed a few songs, one of which is "Rambling Boys." The manuscript is discussed by the Vermont-based ballad collectors Helen Hartness Flanders and Marguerite Olney in their 1953 book Ballads Migrant in New England, as well as in modern folk song indexes. As far as we can determine, Goffe's notebook represents the oldest surviving version of the song. 

The intentional collection and recording of folklore gained momentum in the 19th century, influenced in part by nationalism and concerns that the lore of rural people, passed along by oral tradition rather than in writing, would be corrupted or lost in a rapidly changing world. While this premise was flawed and led to a lot of questionable academic practices, it also led to a mass recording of beliefs, crafts, music, and other ways that people engaged with their world. Goffe recording "Rambling Boys" at the back of his sawmill ledger established a small fixed point -- how one version of this song went at this specific time, and that a teenage boy liked it well enough to write down the words. 

To see the manuscript, ask for Mss 783626. To see Ballads Migrant, ask for Alumni Alcove F9296bal.

John Locke Corrected

Independence Day seems like a good time to take a look at our first issues of John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The Declaration of Independence is, after all, an attempt to actualize Locke's philosophy and turn it into a revolution. We have three variants of the first edition of Human Understanding--one printed with two upside down letters "S" on the title page. The "S" looks a little weird, but your brain can't quite figure out why until you look at the other variant and you realize an "S" isn't really symmetrical in most typefaces.

The really cool thing about the copy with the correct "S" orientations is that all of the errata have been carefully corrected in manuscript. Each mistake as identified on the errata sheet has been crossed out with a corresponding manuscript correction in the proper place in the book. Because these same corrections, in the same hand, appear in other copies in other libraries, we are pretty sure they were done by the original publisher. For the upside down S copy, there is one correction we believe to be in Locke's hand.

Now here is the weird thing--we didn't know we had the copy with all of the corrections. It showed up during a big shelf reading project we are doing. Somehow a lot of our "copy 2" books vanished from the catalog and we are (re)discovering treasures in our collections.

To see the corrected issue, ask for Val 121 L793eb copy 2. The upside down "S" issue is Val121 L793eba.

No Such "Thing" as a "Game"

The 1951 Dartmouth-Princeton football game was rough from the start. But its infamy didn't begin to cement until the second quarter, when the star quarterback of Princeton's undefeated team suffered a broken nose and a concussion. Later, a Dartmouth player's leg was broken. Players and spectators began accusing the other side of playing dirty well before the game had ended. Once the battle on the football field was over, it resumed in the media: The Dartmouth, the Daily Princetonian, even the New Yorker. No one could agree what had happened that day—but they had all seen the same game, hadn't they?

Psychology professors Albert Hastorf and Hadley Cantril, of Dartmouth and Princeton respectively, decided to test that very question. In what would become a classic study in social psychology, they showed a group of Dartmouth students and a separate group of Princeton students the same film of the game. Students were asked simply to note any infractions they observed. On average, Dartmouth students attributed approximately four infractions to each team. Princeton students agreed that their own team had committed about four infractions, but they saw Dartmouth make nearly ten. The study even mentions a Dartmouth alumnus who viewed a copy of the film and insisted parts must have been cut out, as he literally "couldn’t see the infractions he had heard publicized." From this, Hastorf and Cantril concluded that "there is no such 'thing' as a 'game' existing 'out there' in its own right which people merely 'observe.'" In other words, no, not everyone had seen the same game.

This was all very nice for Hastorf, Cantril, and the future of psychology, but not everyone enjoyed the aftermath of the game so much. Poor President Dickey, who was busy trying to recover from strep throat, received a deluge of angry, disappointed, supportive, and occasionally bewildered letters from alumni of Dartmouth and Princeton alike. Hiding in one of the two folders full of such letters, we have a familiar telegram from Norris E. Williamson '26:

Preview of Princeton movies indicates considerable cutting of important part please wire explanation and possible air mail missing part before showing scheduled for January 25 we have splicing equipment.

This is the very telegram Hastorf and Cantril quote in their study as "one of the most interesting examples" of the phenomenon they were studying! Williamson was planning to show the film to his fellow Denver alumni, at least one of whom was so distraught over the news of the game that he could not sleep at night. Executive Officer Edward Chamberlain was eager to oblige his friend "Norrie." At the bottom of the telegram is a scribbled reply to Williamson, which Chamberlain would later convey over the phone:

Print whole when sent from here to you via a Printing group—what parts do you think were cut. Can’t understand it. Eddie.

It appears Chamberlain was able to assure Williamson that the tape he had been sent was intact. Later, Williamson would write back to inform Chamberlain that "a good many experts" had viewed the film, and "they all agreed that it was a good game and not as reported in the papers." But whose perspective can we really trust?

To read more impassioned letters about this historic football game, visit Rauner Library and ask for DP-12, box 7114.

More than a Monster: Medusa as a Mutation

For those of you who have visited Rauner to see the exhibit on display right now, “More than a Monster: Medusa Misunderstood,” you might now realize the nuance in Medusa’s myth and have sympathy for her tragic backstory: while many know her as the monster with snakes for hair, she was a woman raped, blamed, and weaponized. However, this Mindy Belloff artist's book adopts the “Monster Medusa,” only referenced as "the Gorgon," as a metaphor for her mother’s breast cancer.

In a way, Medusa in this monstrous metaphor makes sense in that the snakes in her hair are similar to the “fibrous mass” of the cancer: the line “snake hair multiplying” references the growing cancer cells. Belloff also calls Medusa an “insidious mutation,” which mirrors the cancerous cells’ mutative behavior.

In addition, the author adopts Medusa’s paralyzing nature–a central aspect to Medusa’s myth–in this metaphor. In the beginning of the book, the author’s mother, the cancer victim, is also the Gorgon’s or Medusa’s victim. However, Belloff indicates a turn towards the middle of the book: “Yet it is I who becomes immobile / paralyzed by the mythic gaze / helpless to save her from this fate.” Both the cancer patient and her loved ones become victims to the Gorgon’s “paralyzing gaze,” speaking to the fact that all suffer in different ways when someone we love falls ill to such a frightening disease. Cancer seizes many as its victims.

On one hand, in these ways Medusa as the “mythical tormentor” in this story makes sense, but the author does not seem to root the metaphor much in myth beyond the serpentine imagery and the paralyzing nature of both Medusa and cancer. The author frequently refers to the cancer as “the Gorgon’s eye” in the singular yet the illustrator depicts the cancer with multiple eyes, morphing eyes and multiplying cancer cells as one. The artist even portrays Medusa with multiple eyes–a creature more reminiscent of the giant Argos (given the nickname “all-seeing” for his thousands of eyes) or even a mutated cyclops of some sort. So you may still be wondering: why does Belloff ultimately chose Medusa over thousands of mythological monsters? 

Maybe it’s the familiarity of Medusa’s myth, or the fact that she started out human and becomes a mutated female, similar to how cancer slowly takes away one’s life. Maybe the author picked a female monster for a cancer that predominately impacts women. Regardless, this author certainly decided to embrace Medusa’s monstrous side in a powerful metaphor and story about her mother’s cancer.

Come into Rauner to view the Medusa exhibit on display in the Mezzanine until June 28th. To request Belloff’s book, ask for Presses I68bec

Cornelia Meigs: A Wildly Successful Experiment

Cornelia Meigs. The Recipient of the Newbery Medal in 1933 for her children’s book Invincible Louisa, a biography of Louisa May Alcott. Even if you were to Google her, her accomplishments as a fiction writer and English professor dominate. What you might not know about her is that Meigs was also a dedicated cryptographer who decoded enemies’ messages during WWII. Rauner holds many of Meigs’s cryptography workbooks, lesson plans, letters, and applications from this time in her life.

With the increased need for manpower and military men in WWII, women were encouraged to take their place in the production line and step outside the bounds of traditional domestic work. Countless women stepped up and worked behind the scenes (and on the battlefield), helping the U.S. bring back a victory, too. And they did this work not just in factories; women flew planes and became cryptographers like Meigs.

Yet, even with this need for workers, Meigs’s example shows that women at the time still faced pushback. In December of 1941, Meigs applied for a job as an Information Specialist in the Research and Writing department, as she was an English professor and a writer. In 1944, already an experienced cryptographer, she applied under the Bureau of Facts and Figures. However, she checked the “Male” box for gender on the application form. Given that cryptography is fundamentally a profession focused on small details, it’s difficult to believe that she made such a blatant error and reasonable to suggest that she is responding to the discrimination she certainly faced as a woman entering a field traditionally dominated by men.

One particular document from her training, “The Introduction to the Cryptography course in the Navy for Students,” provides insight into cultural attitudes towards women taking over male tasks, such as cryptography. The second paragraph calls Meigs’s cryptography class “experimental” and ends with the statement that “cryptanalytic work has usually been done by men in the previous years. Whether women can take it over successfully remains to be proved…”

However, Meigs proved that women can, indeed, succeed as a cryptographer: she completed the class and became a talented crypto-analyst during the war. We have many of her exams, all with high marks; as shown by this featured test, Meigs frequently earned a perfect score. 

Meigs can inspire women who, even today, face pushback as they break into predominantly male spaces. Between her Newbery Medal and her cryptography work, Meigs shows us that women can–and did–do it all.

To see Meigs’s cryptography coursework, ask for ML-41, Boxes 28 and 29.

Singing the Song of Himself

Walt Whitman was never shy about self promotion. He famously wrote anonymous reviews of his own Leaves of Grass (think what he could have done on Amazon...) and made sure Emerson's quote, "I greet you at the beginning of a great career," was stamped on the spine of the second edition. Here we see him singing the song of himself by selling his books with a poster he had printed for booksellers. Not a lot of copies survive, but we are fortunate to have acquired one recently. We were particularly excited to see him trumpeting his recent "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," which he calls the "Commencement Poem delivered at Dartmouth College." That is sort of accurate, as we have chronicled in a previous post, he came to Dartmouth to deliver a poem in 1872, but it was at the invitation of the students on Class Day, not actually at Commencement. They paid him $17.50 but he made some hay from the honor in this advertisement.

So many typefaces! So much hype! So expansive! So Walt Whitman!

Stop by and take a look by asking for Broadside 001475. And there is plenty more if you are into Whitman!

 

Shark!

"Men who know most about sharks are the men who fear them the least... landlubbers will believe any shark story they hear, provided it is gory enough." In March of 1944, the U.S. Navy issued an illustrated pamphlet called Shark Sense, filled with information for the unfortunate sailor who might come into contact with sharks in tropical waters. The main gist of the piece is to assure readers that sharks are highly unlikely to actually attack uninjured humans and to offer some general facts about the animals. The problem with that latter part is that, according to Shark Sense, scientists just haven't devoted much attention to understanding them yet. 

The publication pads its sparse but sensible advice with legends of the shark's supposed ferocity, culminating in an account of the development of the first horror film to feature them. This apparently resulted in "an epidemic of shark pictures," a funny idea to consider thirty-one years before Jaws would be released. Our copy was apparently sent from its writer, Roark Bradford, to George Matthew Adams 1931. His inscription reads "Dear George: This is the little number I did for the Navy about our long-toothed friends of the briny -- Brad."

To read Shark Sense, ask for Val 817 7273 W5.

A Pirate Looks at 400

In April of 1831, Charles Gibbs came clean while awaiting his execution by hanging at Ellis Island. One of the last American pirates of the Caribbean, Gibbs was not actually his real name. Instead, his real name was James Jeffers, and he had been born in Newport, Rhode Island in the late 1790s. Over the course of his short but perversely productive career in pirating, Gibbs claimed to have been involved in the murder of nearly four hundred people. His rationale for so many killings? The sentence for piracy was the same as that for murder, so there was no point in leaving any witnesses behind.

Gibbs' death row confession was preserved by his eager biographers in the form of a chapbook published in Providence soon after his death. In this slim volume, titled Mutiny and Murder, Gibbs reels off an astonishing resume: He claimed to have served on the USS Hornet and USS Chesapeake during the War of 1812, then later became a privateer on the schooner Maria before mutinying against his captain and taking control of the vessel to become a full-fledged pirate. After his villainous crew was decimated by the USS Enterprise in 1824, Gibbs escaped and had further adventures farther asea, first as a commander with the Argentinian Navy during the Cisplatine War and then later as a member of the Barbary Corsairs. Finally, however, his deeds caught up with him. He was captured on Long Island in 1830 after participating in yet another mutiny.

The saga of Gibbs' sordid life was extremely popular well into the mid-19th century: the public displayed a horrid fascination with his sensationalist stories of treachery on the high seas and roving adventures around the globe. As one might expect from a sailor, however, most of Gibbs' confession turned out to be nothing more than one tall tale strung along after the next, the last laugh of an inveterate ne'er'-do-well.

To read the last yarn of one of the last pirates of the Caribbean, come to Rauner and ask for Rare G537.G44 M8.

A Swingin' Green Key

In the Spring of 1946, Dartmouth was trying to get back to normal. World War II had transformed campus into a training ground for Naval officers and the usual cycle of student life had been utterly disrupted for four years. But with the end of the War, there was a desire to bring back old traditions. One of the first to return was the Green Key Prom so they did it in style by bringing in one of music's biggest stars and among the greatest jazz composers of all time. None other than Duke Ellington regaled the students and their dates in Alumni Gym. As The D reported it:

Dartmouth has been waiting a long time for this one, and tonight Dartmouth will be amply repaid for waiting, when Dartmouth and Dartmouth's girl circle the floor or stand and sway to the mellow golden flow of Hodges' sax or the throaty warble of Kay Davis or the rippling ivories of The Duke himself.

It was a return visit for Duke Ellington and his Orchestra. They had played Green Key in 1937 as well, but this one was special--the specter of war was lifted and folks were ready for party.

To see the coverage, come in and ask for the May 4th, 1946, issue of The Dartmouth.

Theatre of the World

What did the world look like in 1592? Abraham Ortelius's Theatrvm orbis terrarvum, or, Theater of the world attempts to answer that question. Cited as the first true modern atlas, Theatrvm was initially  published in 1570 in Antwerp, the richest city in the world at the time. Earlier compilations of maps did exist, but this work's combination of the best available maps with textual description lacked precedent.

Our edition is the 19th, with Latin text and a whopping 134 maps. Each map was printed from copper plates engraved by the Antwerp artist Frans Hogenberg and his assistants. While not reflective of global geography as we now know it -- there are, for instance, only five continents in Ortelius's world -- they are a massive artistic achievement, hand-colored and decorated with allusions to Classical and biblical events. We particularly recommend the maps of the Holy Land, Ancient Egypt, and Iceland (which has the best sea monsters).

Ultimately, this book is worth checking out for the title page alone. It features allegorical representations of the five known continents as women, and those images are just as fraught as the modern viewer might expect. We'll draw your eye to the smallest figure on the page -- only a bust of a woman where the other four have complete bodies. This is Terra Australis or Magellanica, the unknown but plenty theorized continent to the south. Europeans would not reach the (already inhabited) Australian continent until 1606, after which the idea of yet another unknown southern continent would persist until the discovery of Antarctica in the 19th century.

To take a look at Ortelius's world, ask for Rare Book G1006 .T5 1592.

Eugenics Exposed: Peering into the Eugenics Record Office's Archives

In the early 20th century, eugenics—or the study of optimizing reproduction to promote “favorable traits” in a human population—took root throughout the United States. The scope of projects relating to the promotion of eugenical philosophies—ranging from forced sterilization to encouraging reproduction between “more fit” individuals—influenced policies and projects at governmental, social, and scientific levels. While most principles regarding eugenics have now been proven false and based in discriminatory principles, they were an active area of study and concern for many decades. Consequently, the public interest in the discipline during this time created several unique programs centered at better understanding familial genetics and heritability.

One of these projects, created by the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Eugenics Record Office (ERO), was the “Family-Tree Folder”. The ERO branded itself as “a repository of eugenic data, with an ‘analytical index’ to allow the study of the hereditary transmission of the ‘inborn traits’ of American families.” (EugenicsArchive) The organization built this archive, containing massive amounts of data, through the general public’s completion of voluntary surveys. Questionnaires were mailed to interested parties, who input detailed demographic information about their family members and then sent their data to the Eugenics Records Office for indexing and storage. This personal data was then used for eugenical research projects until the closure of the ERO in 1939.

A Dartmouth professor, William B. Unger, took interest in the study of genetics and heredity. As an employee of the College for 40 years, from 1925-1965, he taught coursework in zoology. His archives housed in the Rauner Library, however, demonstrate a close personal interest in genetics not reflected in his academic research or teaching. A search revealed a copy of the “Family-Tree Folder” he had completed for his own relatives.

This booklet, sent to him on January 12, 1923, consisted of several components. The first was a pedigree chart aimed at tracking marriages, births, and deaths. Beyond explicit familial relationships, the chart also recommended tracking some of the “hundreds of mental, physical, and moral traits which characterize different families”—including traits like “‘leadership’, ‘talent in vocal music’, or ‘alcoholism.’” This pedigree chart was accompanied by an individual analysis card, where each family member was tracked over 62 characteristics. These included genetically-related traits, such as chronic diseases or hair color, and more subjective traits. Examples included “strength, quality, or register in singing,” any talent in “craftsmanship, carpentry, masonry, or stone cutting”, or “nervous peculiarities - excitability; fretfulness; cruelty conceit; self-depreciation; holds a grudge.”

Close analysis of materials like this reflects the nature of the evidence used to support the claims of the eugenics movement. While some elements of the field eventually translated into legitimate practices—such as genetic counseling, a term coined by Dartmouth alumnus Sheldon Reed '28, referring to risk assessment for genetic and inherited conditions like cystic fibrosis—many data points were collected using practices not scientifically backed, on traits subjectively assessed with little genetic correlation. The ERO, however, largely relied on this mode of data collection to fill their archives. Other materials in the papers of William Unger—including a separate survey titled “Record of Family Traits”—utilized identical practices to collect evidence.

The eugenical ideas of the early 20th century have largely been disproven, as their foundations often lie on scientific racism and pseudoscientific methods. Closer analyses of “scientific tools,” such as Unger’s Family-Tree Folder, reveal why the data used to prove once certain conclusions has crumbled under increasing scrutiny. Nonetheless, projects like these informed policies that were used to discriminate against and often physically harm communities of marginalized identities nationally for decades. In hindsight, history serves as a reminder of the perils that arise when bigotry masquerades as science.

To review William B. Unger's eugenical data, come to Rauner and ask to see MS-833, Box 3, Folder 102.

Posted for Manu Onteeru '24, recipient of a Historical Accountability Student Research Fellowship for the 2024 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.

Munchausen on the Cheap

If you're reading this blog on the regular, then you likely know what a penny dreadful is. We've got a bunch of them as a result of a significant acquisition made a few years ago. But have you ever heard of chapbooks?

Chapbooks were cheap and ephemeral publications made to fill a demand for reading material by the working class who, while increasingly literate, could not afford to purchase a book outright. Chapbooks were an important means of disseminating popular culture as well as improving literacy rates. In England, roving peddlers called chapmen would depart from London or other printing centers with their bags full of these flimsy, poorly made books and sell them all over the countryside.

The subject matter was always widely accessible, usually centering on popular tales of love and loss, adventures both historical and fictitious, or humor. Traditional ballads and poems were also crowd-pleasers and often would be read or sung aloud at taverns and alehouses. Chapbooks also could be abridgements of well-known novels or other works of literature, condensed for quick consumption. Here at Rauner, we have a chapbook version of Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvelous Travels that was printed in Derby in the early 1800s. Although the original novel was written by German author Rudolf Erich Raspe in 1785 and runs well over a hundred pages, the chapbook is an efficient 21 pages in length and purports to tell only "the most interesting part" of the Baron's adventures.

To see the chapbook, come to Rauner and ask for Rare G560 .B37 1830z.

25 Years of Rauner Library

This past week we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the opening of Rauner Special Collections Library. We kicked off the week with faculty panel discussions about research and teaching in Special Collections, then had a series of events throughout the week with our various library partners. We were delighted and honored to have Gina Barreca '79, the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, deliver our keynote address on Thursday. 

In commemoration of Gina's talk, we acquired a truly great work: the first trade edition of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own from the Hogarth Press that includes the iconic dust jacket designed by her sister Vanessa Bell. We already had the fancy limited edition first printing, but the trade edition is really far more important. After all, it was the one people actually read and that spread the Woolfs' ideas about women writers and the social conditions necessary for writing success.

Also out all week was Mario Puzo's 1965 portable Olympia typewriter on which parts of The Godfather were composed. We invited students and other visitors to type up a message. It was an offer that many could not refuse. In fact, it was such a hit, we plan to leave it out in the reading room for a few more weeks if you have an urgent missive that needs that certain special delivery.

To see the new A Room of One's Own, ask for Rare PR6045.O72 Z474 1929b. For Puzo's typewriter, ask at the desk. When we move it out of the reading room it will be in Box 55 of Puzo's Papers (MS-1371).