The Family that Reads Together

It has long been known that reading aloud confers numerous benefits upon not only the reader but the listeners. Doing so can expand the vocabulary of the reader and the listeners as well as strengthen the bond between them and spark creativity and imagination. In young children, reading aloud can help them lengthen their attention spans, improve their listening skills, and stimulate cognitive development. Reading aloud, especially within the context of a family, allows children and adults who aren't literate the chance to hear stories and gain knowledge that they otherwise would not be able to access.

In our society today, we are fortunate to have access to any number of texts, whether because of the ubiquity of digital content online or local public libraries. But several hundred years ago a book was a precious commodity whose cost was beyond the means of most working-class people, and texts were regularly passed down as heirlooms from one generation to the next. If a family in19th-century America was fortunate enough to own even one book, it was probably a Bible. And so if the members of a family in 19th-century America read aloud to each other, it was probably from the family Bible.

However, this could potentially pose a problem. Christian parents may have wanted their young children to read aloud from the word of God, but they didn't necessarily want them to read every word aloud. Sex and violence abound in the Old Testament, in particular, and it is hard to think of anything worse than having to explain to little Timmy what "loins" are during a family read-a-thon. Thankfully, in 1809 Mark Coffin wrote and distributed his Index to the Bible, an indispensable tool for parents seeking to avoid "considerable embarrassment" from the inadvertent reading aloud of "expressions rather improper to be read in mixed company". Coffin bravely spent months combing through the Bible in order to identify and document every unseemly word. His resulting index flagged every questionable chapter so that parents could relax during their children's nightly reading from the Holy Scripture. As you might have guessed, the entire Song of Solomon is a no-go.

To reverse-engineer an exhaustive list of naughty Bible verses, come to Rauner and ask to see Chapbook 51A.

The World's Fair and the (Display) Case of the Missing Manuscript

1876 was a critical juncture in the country’s history. 100 years after the Declaration of Independence and a mere eleven years after the Civil War, racial and regional tensions ran deep, shaping the celebrations and the future of the nation’s identity. Philadelphia’s Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official world’s fair held in the United States, was at the center of these disputes. Attended by nearly one-fifth of the U.S. population, the exposition served as a stage for collective memory, pride, and underlying discord.

While my research was initially intended to look at the centennial year as a whole, I eventually chose to focus on Dartmouth’s unique connection to the Centennial International Exhibition. The Rauner Library’s incredible collection provided me with a unique link to this historic event. Using Dartmouth as a focal point allowed me to explore the broader tensions of the centennial on a more personal, localized level, while also giving me insight into the administrative effort required to organize such a monumental fair.

Pictured here is the title page and index to an otherwise missing historical sketch of Dartmouth College, commissioned by the Bureau of Education for an exhibit at the fair. It was prepared by John King Lord, Dartmouth class of 1868 and faculty member. Similar sketches were requested from a variety of educational institutions and many of them still exist in full today. However, despite letters discussing plans to print 300 copies of Dartmouth’s sketch, a complete copy of Lord’s work does not exist.

If the index is presumed to be accurate there were over 150 pages of text. This, in conjunction with the College’s thorough communication with the Bureau of Education and the existence of sketches from other schools, hint at the massive effort required to prepare for the exposition — both public officials and private individuals like Lord worked to make the Centennial International Exhibition shine.

My favorite part of this project was definitely my time in the Rauner Library. Trying to read 19th-century cursive and combing through old editions of The Dartmouth gave me a new appreciation for the intricacies of archival research — it’s an amazing experience to conduct research on such a tangible level. If you’re curious about Dartmouth’s connection to the centennial, please stop by Rauner and check out the exhibit "Dartmouth at the Nation's Centennial"!

Posted for Madeline Fisher ‘27

P. S. If you miss the exhibit, you can always come in and ask to see the John King Lord papers (MS-562).

"Pretty Thoroughly Browned Off"

We've posted in the past about the 1945 controversy over Dartmouth President Ernest Hopkins' comments regarding Jewish quotas in college admissions. This week we ran into the thoughts of one alum in particular. John Martin Mecklin, Class of 1939, became a war correspondent in Europe in the last years of World War II, and his letters make for some pretty stupendous reading. Not one to mince words, Mecklin says that Hopkins' words have him "pretty thoroughly browned off":

"I had been aware, of course, that there was such a policy, but to say so for publication showed incredibly bad taste. In thinking about the thing it has occurred to me that Dartmouth never has made its position very clear on exactly what it represents. I'm tempted to reply to the next appeal for donations to the alumni fund simply by mailing them a clipping of the president's remarks. As a matter of fact this clinches something I've been considering for a long time---that if I ever have a son I won't send him to Dartmouth. 

There's no place in the world today for an educational institution unwilling to face the fact that an entire new philosophy of life has been born in this war. I don't know what Dartmouth is doing about the war and revisions in its curriculum---nothing has been said about that in any of the alumni communications I've seen---but I'm skeptical that it will be big enough to face the challenge. This war and its terrible climax in the atomic bomb has put before us the simple choice of making the values we say we represent stand up or of suicide. I didn't learn about values in Dartmouth, not the ones that count and I'm beginning to suspect the learning simply wasn't available there.

I didn't understand freedom of speech, for instance, until I came over here and saw what happens when it doesn't exist. I learned about equality of opportunity in Germany, not in Dartmouth. I learned about economics in starving Berlin, not in Hanover. Perhaps it's impossible to understand such things as a student, but I don't think you have to be as dismally ignorant as I was. Of this I'm certain: the war caught Dartmouth 100% unprepared either for it or its repercussions. Will Dartmouth be caught unprepared for the peace in the same way? Hopkins' latest pronouncement certainly indicates that the answer is yes."

This is in a letter to his parents, by the way. The updates Mecklin sends home during his time as a war correspondent are filled with thoughts along these lines, a combination of sharp observations about other people alongside seemingly unaware references to his own prejudices. After all, to him the quotas weren't an issue until acknowledged publicly.

To read this and other letters, ask for ML-28 Box 2 Folder 24.

When Adam Delved and Eve...Swam?

If you're a long-time reader of our blog, then you've heard us enthuse about books before. As we explained in a previous post, 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.

Our incomparable Rare Book and Manuscript Metadata Librarian has recently catalogued an exciting number of chapbooks in our collections that previously weren't publicly discoverable. One of them is a charming little work called Metamorphosis; or, a Transformation of Pictures, with Poetical Explanations, for the Amusement of Young Persons that was printed in 1819 in Philadelphia and sold in New York. Our favorite detail about this particular chapbook is its folded pages that reveal different images and tableaus when they are flipped open or closed in the proper order. First, Adam from the Bible appears on the scene next to a suspicious-looking tree. When you flip the top panel up, Adam's upper body turn into Eve and the tree now contains a serpent talking to her.

This is where things get weird, though, because when you flip the bottom panel down, Eve turns into a mermaid. Lest we dwell on that particular metamorphosis for too long, the chapbook quickly show us a lion that turns into a griffin that turns into an eagle stealing a human baby to have for dinner. While no one would accuse this chapbook of narrative coherence, it is a lot of fun to play with. To explore it for yourself, come to Rauner and ask to see Chapbook 137

The Toilet

If you looking to improve yourself in the New Year here is a handy guide by the author of the Suit of Armour that we blogged a few weeks ago. While that book was for boys finding their way into manhood, this one, The Toilet, is directed to young ladies trying to mature into a life that is true and good. Be thankful you didn't grow up in the 1820s...

Like the Suit of Armour, this book uses clever flaps to uncover the nature of good character, but rather than plates of armor, it is focused on all of the accoutrements of a young lady's toilet. So, a lovely image of a box of rouge superior to any sold in Paris opens to reveal "modesty" which, with its accompanying blush, makes for true and honest rouge. A bottle of a "universal and genuine beautifier" uncaps and turns out to be "Good Humour." You get the idea. All of the artifice of makeup can be naturally expressed through the most excellent virtues of a true lady.

To take a look ask for The Toilet by Stacey Grimaldi (Rare BJ1681 .G86 1821).