Fun Origami

This one counts as one of the oddest books we have ever acquired. It is almost difficult to call it a book any longer. Technically, Fun Origami (New York: Sally Agee, 1988) is an "altered book." The artist folded, cut and painted each page of a book she found then laid in bits of cut fabric, interesting papers and even a few snippets of instructions to guide the reader. The final book no longer really functions as a codex. It is very difficult to turn the pages, and it won't close. It has turned into an explosive collage of New York faces, conversations, and political and social statements of the late 1980s: "Nelson Mandela"; "Music on Voyager from the sun blew a bubble between the stars"; "Oh my, so cool, oh my."

Sally Agee earned a BFA from Syracuse University, then became a teacher. After extensive travel, and spending 15 years raising her family, she revived her art career by taking art classes. She says of her own work:

If I must describe it, I think I would say it was divided into textile design, book art, fabric art, and collage. But there is a lot of over lap and mixing, and that is the way I like it. I could never narrow down my interests.

To look through Agee's altered artwork, come to Rauner and ask for Presses A32agfu.

Freak Winds

Souvenir booklet, 1938

Dartmouth dodged the bullet of Irene. For the most part the campus was spared any major damage, though the Dartmouth community is suffering. Neighboring communities were hit hard by the storm, and many staff and faculty are dealing with damaged homes, roads, and bridges. Even more are without power. For many, it was a pleasant surprise to arrive on campus yesterday after navigating through scenes of destruction to find the Green unscathed and awash with sunshine.

From Freak Winds

The campus did not get off so easily in 1938. "The Long Island Express" ripped through and tore out trees, damaged buildings and crippled campus just as the Fall term was about to begin:

Set in the midst of a shattered and desolate countryside, Dartmouth awoke this morning under serene skies to look on a pitiful spectacle of wreckage on its campus which nevertheless gave no index of the wide confusion and destruction surrounding Hanover and extending over the whole northeastern tip of the United States.

To learn more about the '38 Hurricane's impact on campus, ask for the Vertical File "Hurricane, 1938."

Pieces of Wood

We have a lot of pieces of wood in our collections. We never seek them out, they find us. That's because Dartmouth loves its trees, and when a particularly memorable tree goes down, students carry away bits as mementos. The scraps of wood represent much more than the tree, they evokes the students' Dartmouth experience.

No tree is more represented in our collection than the Old Pine. Struck by lightning on July 29, 1887, the Old Pine was severely damaged, then a wind storm in 1892 weakened it further. On June 23, 1895, the tree was cut down (the stump was treated, and still serves a ceremonial role in campus life) and students gathered bits of it as keepsakes. One piece was carved into a letter opener by a member of the class of '94. He later donated it to the College, and it now resides here in Rauner.

Last week we all watched the "Parkhurst Elm" fall victim to Dutch Elm disease. We noticed a few students walking away from the site with small pieces of wood. A ceremonial bonfire? Probably not, more likely we will see one of those bits of the Parkhurst Elm again in 40 or 50 years in another form. And it will be too cool to throw away...

To see the letter opener, ask for Realia 117.

What's with the arrow in his head?

In 1662, Joan Blaeu published his 11-volume Grand Atlas, Geographia. The frontispiece to the final volume depicted the New World in allegorical terms. America stands amid a scene of wealth and violence, her foot placed on the severed head of a European, an arrow shot clean through his skull.

What is that all about? We have used it for years in classes where we discuss the various components of the image--the Conquistador ushering in Christianity, the bars of silver, the exotic caiman-like lizard--but it was not until this spring that we acquired the key, the 1618 edition of Cesare Ripa's Nova Iconologia (Padua: Pietro Paolo Tozzi, 1618).

The Nova Iconologia was first published without illustrations in 1593, then with 151 images in 1603. This 1618 edition contains over 300 woodcuts with descriptions that were used by artists and poets to make abstract concepts like the passions, virtues and vices, and even places, concrete in form. The book influenced late-Renaissance artists and is an essential guide to the imagery of the time. America appears on page 353, looking very much like Blaeu's later frontispiece. The detailed explanation of the iconography reveals that the severed head is all that remains of a victim of the barbaric cannibals.

To see the Blaeu atlas, ask for Rare Book G1015.B48 1662.  For the Ripa, request Rare N774.R52 1618.

The Pressure of Light

Ever think that you can feel the sun's rays beating down? While that impression may be illusory, visible light and all forms of electromagnetic radiation actually do exert pressure on a surface.

First predicted by James Maxwell in 1871, experimental evidence for the phenomenon wasn't produced until the turn of the century. The Russian physicist Peter Lebedev was the first to measure this radiation pressure and announced his findings in 1900 at a conference in Paris. The measurement was independently confirmed by two Dartmouth researchers in 1901 - Gordon Ferrie Hull and Ernest Fox Nichols (later President of the College, 1909-1916). Pictured here is the apparatus used by Hull and Nichols in their experiment, including the Nichols radiometer, which is now in the Smithsonian.

Hull and Nichols were apparently unaware of Lebedev's findings until after their discovery which they first published in an article titled "A Preliminary Communication on the Pressure of Heat and Light Radiation" in the November 1901 issue of The Physical Review (conclusive evidence was published in The Physical Review in July of 1903).  In a later article in The Astrophysical Journal, they wrote that "Unfortunately the proceedings of the Paris Congress did not reach the writers, nor any intimation of the methods or results of Professor Lebedew's work, until after the publication of their own preliminary experiments."

Left to Right: E.F. Nichols, J.A. Brown, G.F. Hull, 1903

Rauner holds Gordon Ferrie Hull's papers which include correspondence, photographs and other material about his work with Nichols on radiation pressure, as well as Hull's later work in ballistics during World War I. In addition there is correspondence between Hull and various scientific notables, including Ernest Rutherford, George Hale, and Robert Milliken.

To read more about radiation pressure, ask for the Hull Papers (ML-47).  A guide to the collection is available.

Stefansson's Son

Alex Stefansson

In 1908, arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson set out on his second expedition. He hired an Inuit woman named Fanny Pannigabluk to travel with him. On March 10, 1910, Pannigabluk gave birth to a boy. Alex Stefansson was never acknowledged by Stefansson as his son, however, people of the arctic community who knew about the relationship between Stefansson and Pannigabluk, never doubted Alex's paternity.

Stefansson remained in the arctic until 1912 living with his Inuit family. He returned to them once more during his 1913-1918 expedition. During Stefansson's lifetime the paternity question remained a rumor. However, after his death in 1962, it garnered attention once again. Stefansson's wife Evelyn, a notable author of arctic books in her own right, who had married Stefansson in 1940s, felt it was "regrettable that only a few months after Stef's death a matter based on hearsay rather than evidence should be brought up for the first time." According to her "Stef did not believe that Alex Stefansson was his son."

Vilhjalmur Stefansson

Frank Stefansson

Based on photographic evidence and intensive research gathered since his death, Alex Stefansson's paternity is no longer questioned by Stefansson scholars. For Evelyn the revelation came in 1976, when in response to a picture of Alex Stefansson's son Frank she wrote: "The picture of Frank Stefansson is stunning evidence to me that Alex was Stef's son. For the first time a feeling of conviction arrived. It is the set of the mouth and the tip of the nose, the dimpled chin, and the shape of the head,--the family resemblance is inescapable and is so much stronger in the grandson than the son, strangely enough."

To read the correspondence or learn more about Evelyn Stefansson Nef's life and work as an author and philanthropist ask for Stef MSS-99.

Exquisite Corpuscle

What started as a Surrealist parlor game, the exquisite corpse has become a favored medium for book artists. Originally the concept was a word game: lists of words sorted into their parts of speech could be assembled and reassembled to create surprising new meanings, confusion, and profundity. With the Surrealists, the idea became visual and the codex was the ideal format to build bodies and shapes.

U.B.3 (Ultra Bio 3) is an exquisite corpse that features eight interchangeable lithographic images by David Lantow. While the corpse has a head, body and feet, it looks a little like a germ, a fungus, or even an alien. But in the wake of Deepwater Horizon, it evokes memories of  tar balls washing ashore in the Gulf of Mexico and crude oil clinging to dying wildlife. The text morphs from "This Quiet Fellow"  to finally rest at "Our Global Addiction." Along the way there are an additional 510 possible combinations, some serene like "Sweet Velvet Situation," some more sinister like "Tricky Plastic Monster."  Of course, if you want, you can have a "Sweet Plastic Addiction" or a "Tricky Velvet Fellow."

Come enjoy the game by asking for David Lantrow's U.B.3.