Yule and Misrule

With the holidays incoming, we're taking a moment to share some festive illustrations from the papers of J.J. Lankes. Lankes was a 20th century American artist who worked primarily in woodcuts like the ones shown here, and illustrated the writing of authors such as Robert Frost.

Both of the prints selected here refer to older folk customs associated with the end of the year. The first shows a costumed procession, including a man on a hobby horse, playing music and holding up greenery, accompanied by the words "Yule! Yule"!" This might be a representation of a mummer's play or a wassailing group, both raucous theatrical performances conducted in England around Christmastime.

The other print we've pulled out today is "My Lord of Missrule." This little jester would have appointed, likely from the lower clergy, as a sort of officiant for the Feast of Fools, a medieval celebration conducted on the 1st of January.

To check out these illustrations (and others!), ask for MS-1115 Box 7 Folder 6.

Captured!

We have lots of various captivity narratives in our collection. They are usually sensationalized stories set in New England--stories of terror designed to frighten and titillate. There is almost always a racially charged dichotomy set up between the "savage" and the "civilized" reflecting the pervading fears of the white settlers. We just acquired a new one that is both very different and still frighteningly similar. In this second edition of Bartolomej Georgijević's De afflictione tam captivorum quam etiam sub Turcae tributo viuentium Christianorum (Worms: excudebat Gregorius Comiander, 1545), the captive is a Croatian captured and enslaved by the Ottoman Empire. The same tropes appear: a good Christian is captured by a threatening non-Christian other and forced into servitude. 

Interestingly, Georgijević was also a talented linguist and the slender volume contains a basic Latin to Turkish lexicon and a short Croatian-Latin dictionary. The book took off, as so many captivity narratives did, and served as a highly biased account of Turkish culture at a time when Europe was both fascinated and terrified of that which lurked just to the East.

To take a look (it has seven wonderful woodcuts), ask for Rare DR481 .G46 1545.

Frankenstein on Stage

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein wasn't just a hit in the bookstores. Just a few years after its publication it was adapted in 1823 as Presumption! or the Fate of Frankenstein, and then again a few years later, in 1826, as The Man and the Monster! or, the Fate of Frankenstein. The two shows appear to have competed against each other for a period of time in London. We have a set of playbills for Presumption! from the Theatre Royal, English Opera House, on the Strand, starting in 1823 and running through 1827. Then we have the script for the 1826 production of The Man and the Monster! "as it is performed at the London Theatres."

Both the playbill and the script give us all kinds of information about the productions. The August 15, 1823, playbill for Presumption! states it is the 16th performance and they have added new scenes. By 1827 it has a whole new ending "comformably to the termination of the original Story" with a "schooner in a violent storm." Apparently you could keep them coming back if you just kept changing the play. The 1827 playbill has the dream double feature--the evening's entertainment opened with The Vampire!, the stage adaptation of another story conceived late one night on Lake Geneva, followed by Frankenstein.

The script gives us the original cast, instructions on costuming and the basic stage set, but most importantly it shows the actor who played the monster in costume, making this the earliest depiction of the monster.

When you come in to see them, be sure to ask for the 1831 edition Shelley's classic--it is the first time the Monster's image appears in the novel. You can see the script by asking for Rare PR5021 .M62 M3 1826. The Playbills are in MS-1414, Box 1, and the 1831 third edition is Rare PR5397 .F7 1831.

Springtime Dreams

In the winter of 1956, Robert Frost made inquiries about acquiring apple trees for his home in Ripton, Vermont. Ira Glackens, a farmer with an orchard in New Hampshire, was only too happy to provide:

It would be a signal honor for me to supply some scions to Robert Frost, -- I am almost tempted to write to Mr. Frost myself, so many years have I been devoted to his poetry. And he wrote, ‘Goodby and Keep Cold’, my favorite poem about Apple trees. 

I can offer, but not in large quantities in most cases, the following which you name; Red Astrachan; Porter; August Sweet (which is the same as Sweet Bough); and Sops of Wine (Sopsevine). A neighbor has the Old Peach, or Montreal Peach. I cannot supply the original Duchess, but only the later sub-variety, Red Van Buren. I do not have Gravenstein, as I lost both trees I set out.

Frost’s response is enthusiastic: “Your letter fills my hibernation with springtime dreams…” The two go on about his aspirations for apple trees, more thoughts on different varieties, and the best way to get new trees started and producing fruit early.

To read the whole of this correspondence, ask for MS-1178, Box 15 Folder 1. To read the first appearance of "Good-by and Keep Cold" in print, ask for MS-1178, Box 32 Folder 17.

The First Bartender's Guide

Drinking has been around pretty much forever, but it took some time before anyone got around to creating a guide for the budding mixologist. In 1862, the publisher Dick & Fitzgerald stepped in to fill the void with How to Mix Drinks, or, The Bon-Vivant's Companion. It has one of those title pages that tells you everything--practically a table of contents. There is an introduction that carefully distances the author, Jerry Thomas, from advocating for the consumption of ardent spirits, but the details inside, as well as the illustration of the sot with a muse emerging from a bottle tell us otherwise.

There are lots of great recipes, but we were taken by the list of other publications of the firm with titles like: Hard Words Made Easy; The Mother's Medical Advice; The Art of Conversation; The Ladies' Guide to Beauty; and Every Woman her own Lawyer. Dick & Fitzgerald created a self-help wonderland for the young and naive seeking to make their way in the world. But perhaps the most fitting companion volume to How to Mix Drinks is the must-read Blunders in Behavior Corrected, because, you know after you've been drinking, you might need to correct the blunders in your behavior.

The binding is a stunner, and this particular book resides in our Bindings Collections. Just ask for Bindings 178 to see it.

The Devils at Dartmouth

“This play is based upon historical fact.” So begins the text of a program we found recently for a play written by John Whiting and produced by Dartmouth in 1974. “The Devils,” itself an adaptation of a book by Aldous Huxley, tells the story of the Loudun possessions, in which a 17th-century convent of nuns claimed en masse that they were being possessed and harassed by demons. These declarations led to the trial and execution of a local priest, Urban Grandier. Huxley’s book asserted that the accusations against Grandier were motivated by the Mother Superior’s own personal obsession with him.

Huxley’s book (and John Whiting’s play) served as the basis for a controversial 1971 film also called The Devils. Rendering the story as an epic drama filled with sexuality, violence, blasphemy, and a depiction of the Catholic Church as deeply corrupt, The Devils was largely panned, heavily censored, and condemned by the Vatican as “an insult to cinema” and “a crude lynching of the Church of yesterday, of today, of all time, as a political instrument of oppression."

As such, we’re a little surprised to find that the play, though somewhat separate from the film, was put on at Dartmouth three years later. Notably, and perhaps as part of an effort to create something more careful in its depiction of the Church, the program thanks multiple members of the clergy for their assistance with the play. The director’s note consists, in its entirety, of a quote from William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, which had been adapted into its own controversial film the year before. The director, Robert Pridham ’74, stated “I know it sounds like we’re climbing on the ‘Exorcist’ bandwagon, but I’ve actually wanted to do this play since my freshman year, which was before the ‘Exorcist’ was even published.”

It’s difficult to find much more information, with the exception of some photos from the production and a couple of favorable reviews in the Dartmouth student newspaper. When referenced there, the film is described only as “widely hailed.”

To see the program for “The Devils” and a press release, ask for DA-694 Box 4082 Folder “The Devils.” To see photographs, ask for DO-60 Box 6560 Folder 9. If you want to do a deeper dive, you can find our copy of Whiting’s play (Williams/Watson PL4413) and Huxley’s book (Huxley BF1517.F5 H8 1952). If you want to see the film, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

On Ribs and the Bible: The Implications of Christianity and Colonialism for Native Women

“I find very great Profit by having the other Rib join’d to my Body for it hath taken away all my Housework from me. But I had very hard spell geting it up here Rocks and Hills almost broke it into Peices two or three Times”.

Eleazar Wheelock created Moor’s Charity School in 1754. The goal for this school is apparent through Wheelock’s writings - the objective was to “civilize and Christianize” the Native American students as well as make them instruments of Christ, but also of Wheelock. The instruction of this school focused on Native young men and taught them reading, math, and geography, as well as putting them to work on his farm. Around the late 1750s, Wheelock concluded that when the Native men left his school they would resume the path of a ‘savage’, he had to figure out a way to keep them from turning Indian.

Wheelock began to admit young Native women into his school in 1761. Hannah Garrett was a Pequot resident and student at the school from 1763 to 1766. Based on Wheelock’s intention and goal for his female students to marry to “...prevent a Necessity of their [Native male students] [from] turning savage in their Manner of Living…”, Garrett was the only successful student. In this post, I will discuss one of the only remaining accounts about Hannah Garrett and deconstruct the gender and religious stereotypes placed upon her, as well as how she navigated these factors. The lens through which we’re viewing her is that of her husband David Fowler since her accounts are greatly limited.

At the time of their marriage, Garrett was around 17 years old while Fowler was around 30 years old. Fowler had succeeded in finding a wife, however, Garrett was the third woman who attended Moor’s Charity School that he tried to marry. Fowler wrote to Wheelock in search of a wife whom he could take on missions; Fowler had his hopes set on Amy Johnson. He wrote: “I know you love her as much as you do me, all she desires will be given… (if Mr Wheelock, Don’t love my Rib as well as my whole Body”. The reference to her as a Rib is a Biblical allusion to Genesis 2:22-23.

²² And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. ²³ And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

By referring to Johnson as “my Rib” he describes how he believes his wife should act – as a fixed extension of himself. The visual of the rib is a staple that Fowler held onto during his search for a wife and its prominence in his writing is a testament to the Christian influences of Wheelock. 

After Fowler had moved on from Johnson, he set his mind on another female student at Moor’s Charity School, Hannah Pyamphcouh. He wrote to Wheelock “If she won’t let her Bones be joined with mine. I shall pick out my Rib from your House”. He’s determined to follow Wheelock’s plan and marry a Native woman. His use of words like “pick” and “rib” objectifies the woman he wants to marry, creating a bond that ultimately engulfs his partner. In the end, Hannah Pyamphcouh doesn't marry him and Fowler is forced to look for a new rib.

A short time later, in a letter to Wheelock after Fowler has left for his mission with his new wife, Hannah Garrett, Fowler writes:

“I find very great Profit by having the other Rib join’d to my Body for it hath taken away all my Housework from me. But I had very hard spell geting it up here Rocks and Hills almost broke it into Peices two or three Times”.

The language used is objectifying while also lacking compassion and a sense of companionship. From this moment on, Fowler almost exclusively refers to her as his wife or rib. By not calling her by name, he exerts ownership over Garrett: there’s no autonomy in a rib as it serves to protect and support the body of which it’s a part. In the same breath, however, Garrett is forever cementing her name in history and is now attached to her husband's legacy. This begs the question of what it says about women in that period and how they were valued in their communities. Garrett was made to move between the culture of her tribe to adapt to the often demanding and demoralizing pressures of Wheelock’s school.

The juxtaposition between Garrett being successful and the struggle for autonomy brings up the question of how Garrett viewed her experiences. Returning to the biblical verse, God took the rib out of man to make woman, removing her from the inner workings of man. They’re still united but God gave her form, no longer assigning her to the role of supporter and protector. The line “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” adds to this commentary because it’s saying that the woman’s bone and flesh are the same as the man’s. However, given the context of the time and views on women, the phrase “my” in the verse allows for the assertion of beliefs of how a woman should act and how they should serve their male counterparts. In Fowler’s letter to Wheelock, he writes the phrase “joined to my Body” which takes on the meaning of ownership instead of realizing partnership, inadvertently moving away from the message of God to fulfill a socially constructed gender role reinforced by religion. Although no pieces of writing authored by her exist today, she still survives in history and her life is an example of the complex effect of colonialism and the spread of Christianity in the 1700s and 1800s.

To read the letters quoted in this post, visit Rauner Library and ask for Mss 766652.2, Mss 765302.2, and Mss 766313.1; or read the letters about Amy Johnson and Hannah Pyamphcouh on the Occom Circle website. For a compilation of letters like these, see The Letters of Eleazar Wheelock's Indians by James Dow McMcCallum. To read about Moor's Charity School in Wheelock's own words, request A Plain and Faithful Narrative... (1763).

Posted for Sydney Hoose '25, recipient of Historical Accountability Student Research Fellowship for the 2023 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.