Moby-Dick, or, the Plurality of the Whale

“Call me Ishmael.” Even if you have never read Moby-Dick, chances are you know the first line and something about Captain Ahab’s obsessive hunt for the white whale. The plot and key characters have become part of our popular culture and are referred to by people who couldn’t tell you if Ahab survives his final encounter with the beast that took his leg.

One reason the novel has so thoroughly entered our popular imagination is because it is not really just one novel. Moby-Dick has been repackaged time and time again to serve multiple purposes and satisfy different audiences. It has been a muse for artists, a dry meditation on the human condition for students to suffer through, an exciting story of the sea, and an action story befitting of comic book heroes.

Our latest exhibition, Moby-Dick, or, the Plurality of the Whale --  a riff on the full title of the novel, Moby-Dick, or, the Whale -- opens this Friday, showcasing editions that span centuries, artistic styles, and even genres. We've blogged about our two first editions of Moby-Dick, but now we have a chance to showcase a larger portion of our Melville collection. From the first editions, to the famous Rockwell Kent illustrations (one seen above), to comic books and even a dinner plate, this show has something for all audiences.

This gif shows one of the editions that didn't make it. The gilt edges of this 1923 edition, when correctly manipulated, reveal a hand-painted scene of the harbor at Christiansted, St. Croix, in what is now the U. S. Virgin Islands. You can't view the image without bending the book -- and it would be horrible for the book to be kept like this for the next three months! 

Come see Moby-Dick, or, the Plurality of the Whale, on display from September 4 to November 15, 2015, in the Class of 1965 galleries on the mezzanine level of Rauner!

If you want to see the edition with the fore-edge painting, ask for Rauner Melville PS2384 .M62 1923c.

Be a Trip Leader

No, not a Merry Prankster, that is so 1960s. We are talking about the Dartmouth Outing Club Freshmen trips. They are in full swing right now--hikes out into the wilderness and close encounters with wildlife are a great way to transition students into a new life and build early friendships.

Each year close to 200 students lead the trips. This year, they are all coming into Rauner Library in groups of 10-15 to see a room filled with documents from the DOC records that show the history and development of the trips. This year's favorite piece is an application from 1991 to be a trip leader. The student added a cover letter apologizing for turning in his application late, then went on to elucidate his skills on the accordion and bag pipes. "I play a mean polka to Guns & Roses tunes and can play a hellish rendition of the Flintstones on the 'pipes. Of course I can play Dear Old Dartmouth on either instrument.  Might this aid in waking the sleeping freshmen come in handy to you?"  When asked on the application if he would be willing to have a faculty member along on the trip, he answered yes, that he could think of one English Professor who "loves this sort of pseudo-Hemingway adventure."

But it was his idea for the T-Shirt pictured here that must have won him a spot as a trip leader.

The history of the trips is well documented in the DOC Records (DO-1) which are available for inspiration here in Rauner.

Anatomy of a Dance Card

Less than one hundred years ago, dances were regimented affairs with a set list of songs. But how were you supposed to remember who you'd promised the third waltz to? Luckily, hosts would print up tiny booklets known as dance cards, listing the order of the dances and providing a little line to write down your partner's name.
The first time I saw a dance card, I didn't know what it was. We were looking through the membook Howard "Rainy" Burchard Lines (Class of 1912) in preparation for our sophomore summer parents' weekend tour (we've blogged about Lines and his connection to the Titantic before). Flipping through the pages, I noticed that he pasted in a series of little books with pencils attached. Most of them carried fraternity insignia, so I assumed they were address books. But when I opened one, I realized it was actually a memento from a college dance. Lines didn't seem to like to dance the two-step, as it was always crossed out.

Most dance cards contain the title of the event, the date, the location, a list of patronesses (or chaperones, usually married women or professors' wives!), the names of the planning committee, and of course, the list of dances with space to write down names. Some dance cards were probably planned before the evening began, as they were written in pen!

My favorite dance card, from the 1914 Dartmouth Senior Ball, contains a little mirror, perfect for checking your teeth before the the last polka.While some dance cards are elaborately decorated with gilded crests and encased in leather, others consist of a single sheet of paper.

Our collection likely contains hundreds of dance cards, scattered through students' scrapbooks (known as "Mem[ory] Books"), the records of fraternities and other student organizations, and files concerning annual events, such as Winter Carnival, Junior Prom or Commencement. The cards in this post came from the "Dances, Balls and Cotillions" Vertical File and are mementos of: Commencement Ball (June 1902), the Dartmouth Hotel Ball (February 1884) and the Senior Ball (June 1914). Come to Rauner to see this file or the Mem Book for Howard Lines '12.

John Hale Chipman '19 Papers, 1917-1919

Many American college students crossed the Atlantic to volunteer in the war effort before the US had boots on the ground in France. From among these men, a group of Dartmouth students joined the American Field Service (AFS). Traditionally, these soldiers drove ambulances for the AFS, but some volunteered for a different path. Due to a shortage of munitions truck drivers at the front, the French Army requested American volunteers to join the French Army and drive these trucks. John Hale Chipman '19 and other Dartmouth students rose to this challenge and served the French Army for a six-month tour from June to November of 1917.

Chipman recorded this experience in a diary, which he sent home to his friends and family. He later compiled a scrapbook of his entire service, which included a tour in Italy driving ambulances for the American Red Cross and then his training as an artillery officer in the French Foreign Legion. His final days of service were spent in active duty as an officer of France in Belgium. Chipman represents a unique story of Dartmouth. His well-documented diary and photos give a detailed glimpse into one Dartmouth man’s war experience.

The diary, in which he wrote almost every day of his first six-month tour, details his complete routine. Included in his notes are morning calls that turned into 14-hour shifts of driving to combat zones, but also lazy days spent at the local YMCA performing music with French and American comrades. Chipman endeavored to provide a complete picture of his war experience, a difficult task given the circumstances, but one he completed with style. His scrapbook, which he compiled later, allows the reader to look into the places and people of war-torn France and Italy through the eye of a young American. Included are: pictures of massive German artillery pieces, photos of POW's, a dashing picture of Chipman in his French officer's uniform with fellow Dartmouth grads, and some very touristy photos of famous Italian sites taken on leave. Chipman's complete records certainly provide an experience in itself for any reader, well worth the time it takes to read every word and look at every photo.

To see John Chipman's diary and photo album, ask for MS-1229 at Rauner. To read a selection of his diary online, visit Dartmouth College Library's Library Muse blog.

Posted for Jake (Lewis) Lee '16, HIST 62 class.

John Buell's Last Will and Testament

This past week we acquired two related manuscripts that speak volumes: the Last Will and Testament of John Buell of the Mohegan tribe, dated July 12, 1745, and the execution of his estate from July 11, 1746. In July of 1745 Buell had just become a part of Captain Adonijah Fitch's company in King George's War. He was among the many members of the Mohegan tribe to join the English in the French and Indian wars. These documents are a witness to the uncertainty of his fate as he headed from Connecticut to Cape Breton.

There are a lot of ways to look at Buell's Will. It shows the influence of European colonial law on tribal culture, especially for a "Christianized" Indian. It also documents one Mohegan's worldly possessions and debts as well as his thoughts on their distribution upon his death. He splits his estate between his "squaw Luce Johnson" and his daughter Lydia, while asking for their protection in a troubled time.

But there is a curious addition. The wages he is about to earn as a member of Fitch's unit are to go toward his debts to Jonathan Trumble, and it is Trumble who signed off on the final disposition of the estate. This calls into question the motivation for joining the war and writing his Will. Was he forced into the military to help pay his debts? Or, was the Will written at the self-interested insistence of Jonathan Trumble who wanted to ensure any money Buell earned would go first to pay his debts? Or, should we take it on face value? He says his Will is written "knowing my own Mortality & The Danger into which I am Going."

The documents are now here in Rauner and open for research use. We would love to know more about John, Luce, and Lydia Buell and Jonathan Trumble.

A Rare Edition of Austen’s Emma

Two hundred years ago, Jane Austen’s novel Emma was first published in London in December 1815 (with the date 1816 appearing on the title page). Next year, in 1816, the prominent Philadelphia publisher Mathew Carey decided to issue a reprinted, cheaper edition for the American market.

Only six copies are known to remain of this first Austen novel to be published in America—and one is here at Dartmouth! Although this copy has been at Rauner since it was donated in 1972 as part of a 601-item collection, its existence has been unknown to Austen scholars until now.

This Emma was owned by Jeremiah Smith (1759-1842), who served as chief justice of New Hampshire and, briefly, as governor of the state. Smith's copy of Emma conveys that he was both a careful and a curious reader. He kept track of when he bought the volumes, from whom, and what he paid.  He also wrote in notes, gleaned from periodicals and encyclopedias, about Austen, her life, and her works. (Emma, like all of Austen's novels published in her lifetime, did not identify her by name as its author.) Most delightfully, Smith evidently read Emma with pen in hand, correcting the printers' errors—which were many. That Smith's interest in and appreciation of Austen continued is clear from the presence in his collection of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park, all of which he subsequently purchased in English editions.

Like Smith's, each of the surviving copies of the Philadelphia Emma has its own stories to tell of owners and readers. The New York Society Library recently featured its copy, which is annotated in pencil by nineteenth-century readers, in an exhibition and blog post. Goucher College in Baltimore, where I teach, is preparing an open-access digital edition of our own well-traveled copy. Other copies are held at Winterthur Library, Beinecke Library, and King's College Library of the University of Cambridge. To see Dartmouth's copy, come to Rauner and ask for Smith J PZ3 .A93.

Posted for Juliette Wells, Associate Professor and Chair of English at Goucher College, editor of Emma for Penguin Classics (2015), and author of Everybody’s Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination (2011).

All Those Things They Don't Talk about in Normal Books

Zines: tiny, usually self-published, heavily illustrated, pamphlet-books that explore issues of identity, politics and labor. It's a "magazine" without the "maga," according to one of the zines in our collection. A lot of people come to Rauner to see our gold-edged, leather-covered books, written and read by the rich and famous--don't get me wrong, I love those too--but zines are the antidote for too much gilt. We have a selection of zines from the early 2000s that cover some of the following topics: black punk rockers, queer hookup culture, female fishermen in Alaska, a strike in a Tyson chicken slaughtering factory, and the situation of Israel and Palestine. Most of these are black and white, made on photocopiers and distributed for a few dollars an issue.

Our zines are like confessions, whispered embraces about cultures that some of us belong to, or privileged views into identities we don't share. For example, Shotgun Seamstress (No. 2) describes itself as "a zine by and for Black punks, queers, misfits, feminists, artists & musicians, weirdos and the people who support us." An essay by Brontez Purnell, titled "why i will be a riot grrl till the day i fucking die," details Brontez's discovery of Riot Grrl music while a teenage in small-town Alabama--"THIS WAS WHAT MY LIFE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE." The essays, interviews and graphic work in Shotgun Seamstress create a tiny capsule of Black punk culture.

Some zines are almost indescribable. A tiny zine (No Snow Here, No. 11), barely four inches square, details the author's struggles with the impact of an abuse relationship, beginning with a demand: "All the times you started to say it then stopped yourself because it was too hard speak now." The rest of the zine dissolves into grainy black and white images, snatches of poetry and prose.

Zines are meant to be held closely and examined, each reference sliding over your head or lodging in your heart, almost like cross-sections of a diary. Come to the Reading Room and settle yourself with our zine collection from the Booklyn Artists Alliance (Rare Book Z286.Z54 B66 2000Z).