What's the German Word for Cheating?

While at Dartmouth, William Newton Johnston, Class of 1893, was an average student. He belonged to a fraternity and the telegraph association, and maintained the wooden cage where the baseball team practiced during the winter. During the second and third terms of his sophomore year at college, Mr. Johnston studied German, receiving an examination grade of 80 the second term and 90 the third term.

Perhaps his improved grades can be traced to this crib sheet. Measuring 55 cm long, it is a mere 5 cm wide, a very compact scroll attached to two small pieces of wood, easily rolled and unrolled in one's hand.

There is no indication in College records that the faculty ever noticed his crib sheet. Johnston left Dartmouth in good standing after two years to assume work on the railroad and later in business, ending his career as deputy insurance commissioner for the state of New Hampshire.

Ask at Rauner for Realia 509.

Skijoring

Skijoring is a winter sport that likely originated in Scandinavia.  The name comes from the Norwegian word skikjøring which means snow driving.  Participants in the sport are pulled on skis behind some form of conveyance.  This can be dogs, horses or even a motor vehicle.  While the practice probably developed as a method of traveling over the snow, it is now primarily performed as a winter sport.  Skijoring with dogs generally involves a single skier being pulled by one or more dogs.  When using horses, skijoring can either be a skier directing a horse or team of horses from behind, or a rider towing the skier much as a motorboat tows a water skier.

Skijoring became part of Dartmouth's Winter Carnival ski competition in 1916.  From images it appears that the races involved both the riderless form and the form with a rider directing the horse.  The races were sometimes conducted around the Green, but other times they took place on Tuck Drive or at Memorial Field.  Skijoring was part of the Carnival competition until sometime in the late 1930s. It was not a sport of the feint of heart: a note on the back of the image of Henry Doremus '36 wining the 1934 competition states that the other seven contestants fell before completing the circuit.

The Countess of Montgomeries Urania

This engraved title page depicting a temple on a hill in a sculpted landscape with formal gardens ushered readers into an equally remarkable book: Lady Mary Wroth's The First Part of the Countess of Montgomeries Urania (London: Printed for Joh[n] Marriott and John Gismand, 1621).  Wroth's Urania is thought to be the first original work of fiction written by an English woman.

Urania was written in imitation of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia by Wroth's uncle Sir Philip Sidney with a sprawling plot, hundreds of characters, allusions to members of the court, and a character based on Wroth's lover, the third Earl of Pembroke. When it was first published it caused such a scandal that Wroth sought to have it suppressed.

The book ends with another first in English literature: the first published sonnet sequence penned by an English woman.

For more on Lady Mary Wroth and her writing, see the University of Cambridge's Sidney Homepage.  To see Urania, ask for Rare Book PR2399.W7 U7 1621.  To see the inspiration, ask for Sidney's Arcadia, Rauner Hickmott 120.

Mount Vesuvius - March 12, 1850

In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.  In a letter to her mother dated March 12, 1850, Caroline Crane Marsh describes a contemporary eruption of Mount Vesuvius earlier in that year.  She first relates her impressions of the city itself "...visited the old cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum... wandered through the streets and houses of these once buried cities with strange and even overwhelming feelings... many a beautiful fountain and many a rich mosaic floor still bear witness to the taste and wealth of the former proprietors."

Caroline then writes of the eruption.  "On our return from Paestum we found Vesuvius throwing out more smoke and flame than usual and a day or two after we were told that a current of lava had burst forth from the side of the mountain...." She describes the ash fall as "like snow upon our carriage" and the lava flow as "a wall of fire from 10 to 20 feet in height moving slowly onward laying low in it's stately march the smiling vineyards and the stately trees."  Caroline sums up her experience with the conclusion "Never again do I expect to witness anything so awfully sublime."

Caroline was the wife of George Perkins Marsh (Dartmouth College Class of 1820 and envoy to Turkey, 1849-1853).  This letter forms part of a small collection which details her travels while in Europe and the Middle East.  Ask for Mss 001009 to read the rest of her account.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Intimate Diary of a Professional Lady was a publishing sensation in the 1920s. Penned by the experienced screenwriter Anita Loos, it chronicles the absurd life of a naive and dim-witted flapper as she rises through society. It has been reported that Loos was inspired to write the novel after watching a young woman of less-than-stellar intellect woo the great curmudgeon of the 1920s, H. L. Mencken.

Rauner Library is fortunate to have not only the first edition of this comic masterpiece but also Anita Loos' typescript copy of the 1926 Broadway staging.  It was scripted anew in 1953 for Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe.

"... kissing your hand may make you feel very very good but a diamond and safire bracelet lasts forever."

Come to Rauner and see it yourself by asking for Rare Book PS3523.O557 G4 1925.

Is this Cricket?

The earliest known image of Dartmouth appeared in the February 1793 issue of Massachusetts Magazine, illustrating a brief article on the College. The artist was Josiah Dunham, Dartmouth Class of 1789, then a preceptor at Moor’s Indian Charity School, and later to become a local newspaper editor.

However, it is possible that the image has another claim to fame. Thirty years ago, the College Archives received a request for a copy of the Dunham engraving from the curator of the Marylebone Cricket Club in London, who believed it might one of the earliest depictions of cricket being played in the United States or former colonies. At that time, he was not aware of anything in his collection that predated it. According to subsequent correspondence with the C.C. Morris Cricket Library at Haverford College, the American cricket archives there contain nothing earlier either. Although the playing of cricket in what is now the United States is documented in histories and newspapers back to the 1730's, the Dunham engraving of Dartmouth College might be the first visual proof!

The College Archives would be delighted to learn of an earlier likeness of the campus, or an earlier image of cricket in the United States or the thirteen colonies.

To see it yourself, ask for Rauner Iconography 399.

How to Enjoy James Joyce

In 1933, Random House challenged the obscenity ban on James Joyce's Ulysses. The controversial novel had been available since 1922 from Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Co. bookshop in Paris, but banned in the United States. The celebrated obscenity case was decided in December of 1933. Random House capitalized on the book's notoriety by issuing the first U.S. edition in January of 1934.

Fearful that readers would be intimidated by Joyce's "obscure" text, they provided booksellers with a handy flyer entitled "How to Enjoy James Joyce's Ulysses." It promised that the book's "thrilling" adventure would be neither "difficult to read" nor "harder to 'understand' than any other great classic." The advertising campaign combined with the book's salacious reputation to make Ulysses a best seller for Random House.

You can see the flyer by asking for Rare PR6019.O9U4 H6 1934.  For the 1922 Paris edition, with the original prospectus laid in, ask for Val 827 J853 X71.