Budd Schulberg, Class of 1936

"I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am…" proclaims Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy, the protagonist of Budd Schulberg's Academy Award winning screenplay On the Waterfront. However, director Elia Kazan originally was "not insane about Brando." In a letter to Schulberg he states that, "in my opinion he is quite wrong." A sentiment he repeated to Brando in an undated letter.

Schulberg, a boxing aficionado, was born into a famous Hollywood family in 1914. "I am known, alternately as the son of B. P. Schulberg, the producer, the brother of Sonya Schulberg, the young novelist and the son of Mrs. Ad Schulberg, the European agent," he once said early on in his career. However, by the time he died in 2009 at the age of 95, he had left his own mark on the literary and show business world.

Budd Schulberg published his first novel in 1941, What Makes Sammy Run?, against the advice of his father. B. P. Schulberg worried that his son’s scathing fictionalized account of a ruthless social climber in Hollywood hit too close to home. The book was a success, but after its publication Schulberg was promptly fired by Sam Goldwyn.

During WWII Schulberg served with the Office of Strategic Services and was attached to John Ford’s film unit. The unit was in charge of collecting and recording film for a documentary about Nazi atrocities for the Nuremberg trials. Needing to identify prominent Nazis in the films, Schulberg was assigned to pick up Hitler's documentary filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl.

Schulberg at the Watts Writer's Workshop

After the war Schulberg returned to Hollywood where he continued to be a diverse author of short stories, articles, fiction and nonfiction books, as well as a writer of teleplays and screenplays. In 1965 he co-founded the Watts Writer's Workshop, in response to the devastation he had seen left behind after the infamous riots in Los Angeles. With branches from Long Beach to San Francisco, the workshops provided a springboard for the Frederick Douglas Creative Arts Center in New York City, which is still active today.

To learn more about Budd Schulberg's life, career and his writing process ask for MS-978.  A finding aid for the collection is available.

Dartmouth Hall

Dartmouth Hall was built between 1784 and 1792 to replace College Hall, which had fallen into disrepair. The process took so long because of problems with funding. The final building was somewhat smaller than that envisioned by Eleazar Wheelock, though it was still a massive building for its day. The final structure stood 175 feet long by 52 feet deep. As Scott Meacham notes in his book Dartmouth College: An Architectural Tour, Dartmouth Hall was the College. It served as dormitory, classroom, library and museum. Later, in 1829, a chapel was also added. In addition, it also served as a place to hide the townspeople’s cows, a form of protest devised by the students who did not like having them pastured on the Green. In 1895 the architects Lamb & Rich added electric lights and steam heat, though this proved to be the building's undoing.

In February 1904, Dartmouth Hall burned to the ground in a matter of minutes. The cause of the fire was found to be faulty wiring. The building was rebuilt with gifts from alumni. The final cost of the reconstruction was about $100,000. One request for donations distributed by Dartmouth Trustee Melvin O. Adams '71 states, "This is not an invitation, it is a summons." Adams' letter gives a sense of the importance the alumni attached to Dartmouth Hall. By October of the same year, the cornerstone for the new building was laid. William Legge, the sixth Earl of Dartmouth, a descendant of the British nobleman for whom the College is named, came to the campus for Dartmouth Night to participate in the ceremony. The new Dartmouth Hall was built as a replica of the original building, though it differs in some significant ways. The exterior is brick instead of clapboard, the building was enlarged slightly and some architectural details were changed. The rebuilding of Dartmouth Hall took two years and it was not until 1906 that it was open and ready for use.

In 1935, the upper floors of Dartmouth Hall caught fire again. Since the insurance company paid $79,000 for the cost of the damage, the Board of Trustees decided to gut the entire building and make it 100% fireproof, a process that required the application of steel and concrete to reinforce the interior of the building. In the end the fireproofing cost the college another $200,000. The funds not covered by the insurance came from alumni donations.

Today, Dartmouth Hall serves as an academic building as well as an icon of the College's early years.

Ask for the following Vertical Files to learn more: Dartmouth Hall Fires and Rebuilding; Dartmouth Hall (Old); Dartmouth Hall Bells; and Dartmouth Hall Clock.

And these Photo Files for images: Dartmouth Hall 1, 2, 3 and 4; Dartmouth Hall Fire (1904) and Reconstruction 1 and 2; Dartmouth Hall Fire (1935) and Reconstruction; Dartmouth Hall Interior; Dartmouth Hall Laying Of Cornerstone; Dartmouth Hall (Old) 1, 2, 3 and 4; Dartmouth Hall Opening (February 17, 1908).

The Story of a Puppet

The story of Pinocchio is one that is familiar to many people, in part, thanks to the 1940 Disney film. But even before Disney, The Story of a Puppet, or the Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi was an international success.

First published in serial form by Collodi (whose real name was Carlo Lorenzini) in Italian from July 1881 to January 1883, the book was not originally intended for children. In its first form, Pinocchio died by hanging at the end of 15 chapters. Collodi’s editor urged the author to change the ending, resulting in chapters 16-36 in which the Fairy with the Turquoise Hair rescues Pinocchio, resulting in an ending more suitable for children.

The story first appeared in book form in 1883 and quickly became a best seller. Unfortunately, Collodi died in 1890 and did not get to see his story become an international success. Here is a recently acquired first English edition of the book. As with many children’s books, first editions, particularly first printings as this is (indicated by the title and illustrated half title printed in black and red), tend not to survive their early owners, making them particularly rare.

This edition of Pinocchio will be joining several other copies already in our collection and will provide an interesting contrast to later interpretations. Pinocchio tells the story of a marionette who wishes to be a real boy. Populated with fairies, talking crickets and other fantastical creatures, this book is another of the many “secret gardens” created by early children’s authors.

The book is on display in the Rauner Reading room right now, but you can always see it by asking for Rare PQ4712.L4 A713 1892.

Cultivating Secret Gardens

Which did you like better, the book or the movie? Whatever your preference, you probably assume that film adaptations of books have some authorized relationship to the original version of the story. But this wasn’t always the case.

Nowadays it is astonishing to think that writers would not have the rights to control how their creative work is adapted. Many bestselling authors routinely negotiate the film rights to their novels before they are published. Copyright law is firmly in favor of authors retaining the rights to their creations, and Congress has repeatedly extended copyright protection (in the United States, it is currently the life of the author plus seventy years for most works) every time it has come up for renewal in recent decades.

The contemporary protection of international copyright in this sense is only about a century old. Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of The Secret Garden (1911), was instrumental in advocating for authors’ rights to retain control of how their novels and characters are adapted. Her bestselling novel Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), while protected at the time in the United States, was adapted into a play in London without her permission. Burnett was angered by this unauthorized use, and successfully sued to retain control of her creation. The lawsuit set a precedent that led to stronger laws protecting creative works from piracy and unlicensed adaptation. So nowadays, when you see a movie or a play that’s been adapted from a novel, trust that the original author had some say in how the work was presented – thanks in part to Frances Hodgson Burnett.

“Cultivating Secret Gardens: Frances Hodgson Burnett and Children’s Fiction” was curated by Laura Braunstein and Jay Satterfield and will be on display in the class of 1965 Galleries until August 31, 2011.

The exhibition is mounted in conjunction with “100 Years of The Secret Garden: A Centenary Conference,” July 29-30, 2011, at Dartmouth College. For more information, go to The Leslie Center for the Humanities event site.

A Picture of Dorian Gray

An inscribed first edition

As the name suggests, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is, in large part, about a picture. But, the first two publications of the story were not illustrated. That is not too surprising. Any self-respecting illustrator would have to shy away from depicting the painting Wilde describes as it takes on Dorian Gray's many sins through life.

The first printing of the story

We have many editions of the book, but only one where the illustrator tried to capture the painting at the end of Gray's life. For those who have read the book, the illustration is entirely unsatisfying. It can't hold a candle to the horrors we imagine.

Lucille Corcos's 1957 illustration for the Limited Editions Club

More successful are the illustrators who dabbled around the edges of the story to capture the mood without forcing the reader to face a concrete manifestation of the supernatural painting.

Henry Keen's illustration for 1925 The Bodley Head edition

J. E. Laboureur's Paris edition from 1928

To see the Pictures, ask for: Val 826 W64 U51; Val 826 W64 U512; Presses L629wip; Illus K25w; and Illus L114xw

Pass (on) the Corned Beef

A member of the Hunt family recorded her distinct preference for desserts in a ledger book from the mid 1800s. Her recipe book has survived among the papers of five generations of the Hunt Family of Northampton, Massachusetts. Among dozens of newspaper clippings and handwritten notations are recipes for coconut macaroons, orange cake, cream pie, and ice cream. In addition to recipes, the book’s owner pasted in a number of practical household tips and popular remedies, including advice on silver polishing, pest prevention, freckle removal, and even goldfish husbandry. Dishes like Nottingham pudding, potted shad, and rice snow may be strange to today’s cooks, but familiar favorites like chicken salad, corned beef, and chocolate cake are also included.

One member of the cook’s family would not have approved of the corned beef. In addition to being a noted abolitionist and station master on the Underground Railroad, Seth Hunt (1814-1893) was a vocal vegetarian. He wrote a number of newspaper opinion articles on the benefits of a meat-free diet, proclaiming in one case: "Nature, in unmistakable language written on the anatomical structure of man, declares that his natural diet is derived from the vegetable kingdom, embracing the wonderful varieties of delicious fruits, glowing with rainbow hues and heavy with ambrosial juices; thus at once delighting the eye and regaling the taste." Hunt published vociferously on a variety of topics, and Rauner has clippings from many of his articles. It's documents like the recipe book, though, which give us a fuller picture of the quotidian life of a 19th-century New England family.

Both the recipe book and Seth Hunt’s newspaper clippings are part of the Hunt Family Collection at Rauner, which encompasses materials spanning nearly two hundred years of New England history. Ask for MS-1173.

Chime the Hour

Baker Library is one of the signature sights in Hanover.  Modeled after Independence Hall, the library stands high above the rest of the campus.  Housed in the tower, which was specially designed for them, is a set of sixteen bells, the largest of which weighs almost three tons.  The bell tones span an octave and a half (with a missing E flat) and carry on a tradition of marking the hours and class times.

Raising the bells to the tower, 1928

The bells were originally controlled by a mechanism similar to that used in a player piano.  A set of paper rolls (over 1,000 at one point) were created with holes punched in them.  As the rolls were fed through the controller, air was forced through the holes, which in turn made or broke electrical connections to the bell strikers.  The pattern encoded on the paper translated into the tune played on the bells.  Though the bells are controlled by a computer these days, the process is essentially the same pattern based method.

A view of the control room from 1980.

Tune selection has always been a matter of interest and the bells have been known to peal out everything from the Alma Mater to the Beatle's Yellow Submarine to the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark.  The main limitation to what music can be successfully played is a physical one - immediate repeats of a particular note are not possible.  This made some requested songs, such as the Rolling Stones' You Can't Always Get What You Want, sound less than ideal.

To learn more about the bells, ask for the vertical file "Library - Tower (Bells, Weather Vane, Clock)."  More images can be found in the photo file "Library - Baker - Bells."