For Men Lonely

For Men Lonely is a guide to twelve women's colleges on the East Coast that was written by three Dartmouth students in 1947 before the college went co-ed. The book was inspired by one too many uncomfortable nights in the Northampton jail (for lack of better lodging). It is filled with useful information for sketchy college men seeking college women, specifically: maps of campus; the locations and contact information for local florists, liquor stores, and nightspots; and a listing of the annual social event dates and curfew times for each college.

Some of the general descriptions contain moments of wry humor, such as this guide to the area near Bryn Mawr: "Most of the college crowd leaves Philly to the Quakers… and sticks pretty much to the suburban spots. If you know Philadelphia, you will too." Other entries are less endearing, such as a hopelessly misguided attempt to compliment Skidmore women by comparing them to racehorses at the local track.

One can only imagine the desperation that would drive a young man to walk up to the bookstore counter with For Men Lonely in one hand and money in the other. Thankfully, having a look at the book nowadays doesn't require you to navigate any morally questionable landscape. Instead, guide yourself to Rauner and ask for Alumni J7278f, complete with the authors' autographs on the flyleaf.

Hanover's Favorite Recipes

Dartmouth has long been a respected academic institution, rewarding its students with knowledge, new experiences and even some enjoyable social events. However, food may be the unsung hero of the Dartmouth experience. Hanover has created dozens of cookbooks over the last century, providing crucial instructions on how to feed the ever-hungry college student or Dartmouth-graduate.

The White Church Women's Association in Hanover published the first Hanover cookbook, Recipes, in Rauner's collection in 1928. The 1920's woman was more resourceful than the twenty-first century cook, with an entire section dedicated to the uses for sour milk. Still, quality and ingenuity can go hand in hand. I would personally advocate for the increased twenty-first century consumption of "Rinktum Tiddy" and a dessert called "Hermits," based on their names alone.

By the 1950s, Hanover had apparently taken a turn for the health conscious. The 1950 cookbook of Hanover’s Favorite Recipes, compiled by the Grafton Star Grange, dedicates a large section to weight control. While the "Eighteen Day Reducing Diet" and the "Body Building and Weight Gaining Diet" don’t exactly fit modern day nutritional guidelines, they show a college town increasingly concerned with their waistlines. The cookbook even contains a weight chart, showing the correct correlation between "Weight in Pounds (With Regular Clothes)" and "Height (with shoes on)."

In the 1960s, Dartmouth began to celebrate its perceived culinary expertise. The Dartmouth Women's Club wrote in the introduction of Favorite Dartmouth Recipes that, "much of the excellence that is Dartmouth is largely due to the fact that the wives and mothers of Dartmouth men are superb cooks." Viewing the recipes from the 1960s, a modern reader may question this claim. While many of the food creations in the 1961 College Town Cook Book and 1967 Tuck-Thayer Wives Club are likely delicious, a distinct handful would likely not agree with the stomachs of Dartmouth students in 2013. One major objection: the incredibly common use of Jell-O in any dish. From salads to meal loafs, gelatin seems to have been the go-to ingredient in Hanover and Dartmouth kitchens in the 1960s.

Cookbook creation has lagged in recent years. With coeducation, the College began to emphasize women's roles outside of wives, mothers and chefs. Nonetheless, there continue to be notable contributions to Dartmouth's cookbook collection. One such example is the Handel Society’s Culinary Notes, published in 1987. Each recipe in the book, published to support the musical ensemble founded in 1807, specifies not only the hometown of each recipe's author, but also his or her vocal part.

Posted for Kate Taylor '13
   

Introducing Edna St. Vincent Millay

Introducing a speaker is always tricky. You want to be witty and urbane, but at the same time honor the seriousness of the moment. All of the attention must be deflected to the honored guest, but if you give a bad introduction, everyone will remember. It is trickier still if you are introducing a great poet known for her attentive use of language while you yourself are famous for your way with words.

Among our small collection of the Papers of Aldous Huxley, is a heavily annotated, undated, draft of an introduction that Huxley once gave for Edna St. Vincent Millay. The draft shows Huxley's struggles to get the tone just right--making small changes like substituting "impetuous current" for "onrush" and revamping entire sentences then rejecting them altogether. His final version captures the force of Milley's poetry and then summons her to the stage:

Like the Elizabethans, she seems constantly on the verge of being swept off her feet by the impetuous current of her own eloquence; but just as it seems inevitable that she should fall, the headlong movement is miraculously transformed before your eyes into a figure of the Dance, into some beautiful gesture, entirely unexpected and novel, and entirely satisfying.

The same could be said for Huxley's introduction--a beautiful work in itself.  Come read it and see all of his changes by asking for MS 286, Box 1.

Erasable Pages

What's with the stained blank page? If you could feel it, you would also ask why it feels so odd.  It has a kind of waxy coating, feels a little like vellum, but not as supple, and it has streaks of old ink set into its scratched surface.

We often value our old books for the extensive marginalia left behind by generations of readers. The comments give us insights into how the text was received in other times and places. But not all readers wanted to fill their books with notations.

This copy of the Elsevier 1665 edition of Boccaccio's Decameron was highly portable, but the compact size left little room in the margins for notes. The solution was ingenious. At the front and back are two leaves very different from the rest of the paper in the book. These are erasable surfaces, where a reader could jot down notes as he or she read. The reader could then transcribe the notes into a commonplace book and, with a damp rag, rub away the comments. The book stays clean, the notes are captured, and there is space for further musings.

The staining shows at least one reader was actively using the erasable pages to record thoughts, what they were, we will never know.

Ask for Presses E52bo.

Postcards from the Green

The first postcard ever sent was in Austria in 1869, but it took a few years for the trend to catch on in the United States. The U.S. Post Office issued its first postcard in 1873. However, it was not until 1907, when postcards were allowed the divided back for a message and the address on one side and a full picture on the other, that postcards hit their "Golden Age." As photographic technology improved, postcards gained the ability to showcase the daily lives of the senders. At Dartmouth, postcards have been used throughout the years to promote the college, give family back home and idea of what is happening, or simply to let someone know they are missed. Looking at Dartmouth postcards over time shows how much has changed in Hanover in the last century - and what has stayed the same.

Viewing old postcards, it is easier to spot changes at Dartmouth than what has stayed the same. The first Ledyard Bridge, for example, was built in 1859 and bears little resemblance to the current uncovered bridge. The view of campus was very different, with more tress and lacking a number of notable buildings. However, some landmarks, such as Webster Hall (which now houses Rauner Library) and Baker Library, built in 1928, remain the same. A 1932 postcard of the Tower Room bears a photo that looks like it could have been taken in 2013. Often, the biggest changes in iconic areas such as the Green are the people. In some postcards, the changes are minute, such as different clothing styles or cars. The most starkly divergent postcard in Dartmouth's collection is from World War II, bearing a photo of military men in uniform arrayed in formation on the Green in uniform, with Baker Library and Webster Hall in the background.

Perhaps the most revealing postcard in terms of changes at Dartmouth is not a photograph, but instead a miniature poster from 1916. Nate, the author and a member of the class of 1920, wrote his father "This is a miniature of the poster that all Freshmen must buy." The poster addresses, "Ye Puny Prodigals of Prep-school, Ye Pups of Ignorance, Ye Illiterate Imbeciles:" in other words, the freshman class. The class of 1919 lays forth twelve rules for the class of 1920 to follow, including the need to wear a "cute green cap with a monstrous white button" and to "never short-cut across the grass." While the college no longer allows such hazing of freshmen, Nate's writing on the postcard is similar to that of a quick e-mail home. He requests curtains for his dorm room windows, asks how everything is at home and of course tells his father of all the work he has to get done before his vacation Friday. Check out Dartmouth's postcard collection to see the evolution of other aspects of Dartmouth, from fraternity houses to Winter Carnival, in 3 1/2 by 5-inch tidbits.

Ask for Rauner Iconography 1523 to see all 1400 plus postcards.

Posted for Kate Taylor '13

Civil War Diary

The Civil War is one of the most influential and defining moments in American history. However, in the lives of the men fighting the war, the war was a daily struggle – not just in battle, but also marching for miles, finding food and writing letters home. The diary of Henry S. Muchmore highlights the minutia that made up the everyday life of a Civil War soldier. Muchmore was an enlisted soldier in the 11th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry, Company G. His diary entries are only a few words long describing what he did that day, the weather or important occurrences. Muchmore's diary covers January 1, 1863 to June 10, 1865, when he returned home to New Hampshire.

Reading early entries, one almost cannot tell he is at war. On January 7th, 1864, he visits two friends in the 12th New Hampshire Regiment. On the 16th, he writes the weather is "cold as greenland." However, as he travels south, Muchmore’s diary signals the approaching battles. In June and July, he was involved in the Vicksburg campaign. A turning point in the Civil War, the Vicksburg campaign allowed General Grant to gain control of the last Confederate-controlled section of the Mississippi River. The micro-view of the operation is less grand. Muchmore grants the ripeness of blackberries and the quarts picked the same detail as the numbers killed and wounded in Jackson in mid-July. In the battles of Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House, Muchmore had less time to pick berries. Though inconclusive battles, with heavy losses on both sides, Wilderness and Spotsylanvania were part of the Grant's final push towards victory. Muchmore is minimalist as always in these entries: he only had room to record miles marched, the number of dead or wounded and the repeated "hot." The Battle of Cold Harbor continued the trend of battle-driven entries, broken up by a few entries to record miles marched. Cold Harbor was a bloodbath for the Union, and one of the final victories of the Confederate army. Grant would go on to write in his memoirs, "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made… No advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." Muchmore's diaries lack the analysis of Grant's reflections, but notes 4 killed and 17 wounded.

Due to illness, Muchmore's duties decreased in November 1864. In the year 1864, he traveled 1874 miles, wrote 34 letters and received 33. Entries from January to March 1865, primarily on chopping wood, represent a much-deserved break. Muchmore returned to capture the city of Petersburg in 1865. On April 9, 1865, he records Robert E. Lee's surrender. His next entry, on the 14th, he states "President shot." Muchmore continued serving in the military for two more months. He arrived home at 5 PM on June 10th, having been away for two years, nine months and five days.

Ask for Rauner Mss 863101.3 to see the diary.

Posted for Kate Taylor '13

A Beautiful Manuscript

Today, we thought we would just treat you to a moment of beauty. These images are from a manuscript Book of Hours produced in Florence in the late 15th century. It is on uterine vellum made from the skin of unborn sheep or calves, and was illuminated in Attavante's atelier. Each miniature is a lovely Renaissance painting that fits in the palm of your hand.

Come see it by asking for Codex Manuscript 001054, and there is a little more information on our "Script to Pixels" website.