Sophisticated Traveler

There are seemingly few things more incongruous than the work of illustrator Edward Gorey and a magazine called the Sophisticated Traveler, filled with advertisements of escapism for the elite upper class of the 1980's. So, imagine my surprise upon finding just that in Rauner Special Collections.

"Being Brave Abroad" and "Back Home" by Edward Gorey feature four captioned cartoons each. The pictures show snapshot moments of white elites navigating the world around them. In "Being Brave Abroad," under the caption, "Ordering the spécialité de maison without even asking what it is," one image shows a man and woman in a sea-side restaurant being served a plate of black sludge with red tentacles creeping out of it. Gorey's mockery becomes evident when one notices the small shelf of human skulls behind the couple. The joke takes on two forms: one that a member of the upper class would laud themselves for simply trying something new without asking what it is; and the other, that maybe this couple should have asked, in case the skulls are a product of the dish.

Flipping through the pages of the magazine can give a taste of the very world that Gorey pushed against in these illustrations. The advertisements feature smiling, predominately white couples boasting about their escape to the "exotic" places pictured. One of my favorites ads declares "How to feel on top of the world while travelling around it," and offers the simple solution of Black and Decker's travel hairdryer set. I had no idea it was that easy!

Time gives us a lens to see the absurdity and deeply problematic delusion of the upper class "living the fine life," and Gorey's illustrations provide that same lens. The ability to compare Gorey's perspective positioned within the pages of the magazine, and ours, outside of the magazine and the time that bore it, can allow us to better understand how we can push against the pictures of perfection in our own magazines. Or, simply enjoy wondering what the editors were thinking in including cartoons that mock their own magazine.

To become a Sophisticated Traveler yourself--or to enjoy mocking one--ask for Illus G675bei and Illus G675bac.

Posted for Lucy Morris '14

The Faithful Ten

John Wingate Weeks began his campaign in 1904 to represent Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives. A retired Army captain and veteran of the Spanish-American War, Weeks began his political career as an alderman in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1899 and became mayor of the city in 1903.

Having made a fortune as a banker, co-founding the Boston financial firm of Hornblower and Weeks in 1888, Weeks had all the money he needed to run for higher office. In the days before direct primaries, a candidate had to be nominated in a district convention. Weeks seemed like the right candidate for the job.

Almost immediately an active working group of his devoted friends formed to support his election. The group met regularly and became known as the "Faithful Ten" after the title "The John W. Weeks Campaign Luncheon Club" was found to be lacking in conviction. The group was comprised of William F. Garcelon, Jesse S. Wiley, George S. Bullard, Eben D. Bancroft, William M. Flanders, Henry N. Sweet, Seward W. Jones, Edward W. Baker, Charles E. Hatfield and James E. Shaw and was instrumental in Weeks's election to the House with an overwhelming majority.

John Weeks served four terms in the House before moving on to the Senate in 1913. During his time in Congress, Weeks pushed key banking and conservation legislation including the Weeks Bill (which allowed for the creation of National Forests) and the Forestry Bill (which insured federal protection for migratory birds). After failing to win re-election in 1918, Weeks retired to his house in Mt. Prospect, New Hampshire. In 1921 he was asked back to Washington to serve as the Secretary of War under Presidents Harding and Coolidge.

To learn more about John Wingate Weeks ask for ML-1, The Papers of John Wingate Weeks and The Life of John Weeks by George C. Washburn.

Sgt. Allen Scott Norton

Veterans day is a day when we remember those served, as well as those who paid the ultimate price. In the end, though, it is just that: a day. It is vastly more important that we go a step further, that we try to remember the deeds and the lives that made our way of life possible. The best way to do this is to talk with veterans, to engage in an ongoing dialogue with those who witnessed history first hand. Unfortunately, we are witnessing the last of our World War Two veterans pass away, and Our First World War veterans are no longer with us. Where we cannot discuss history with first-hand witnesses, we must turn to the words and pictures they set down in their diaries and scrapbooks. As luck would have it, Rauner Special Collections Library holds a treasure trove of such items.

With the approaching anniversary of the First World War, a few gems in the broad collection of materials stand out. Unbeknownst to most Dartmouth students, our college played an important part in the war. Before America's entry, Dartmouth sent the Dartmouth Ambulance Corps to France, where they valiantly contributed to the war effort. As a result, the first American to die in the First World War was a Dartmouth student. Upon America's entry into the war, Dartmouth raised a regiment of the Dartmouth Fusiliers, tearing up the athletic fields to build a full-scale trench system for the young men to drill in.

Many albums in Rauner are filled with these jovial pictures of training and parades. Others depict the voyage to France or the destruction wreaked by German artillery. One small group of items stood out among these, more poignant than any image.

Sgt. Allen Scott Norton, a Dartmouth student, diligently kept a small and neat diary, complete with many photographs and very much typical of those in the Rauner collections. Unlike many others, his diary is not finished. Sgt. Norton's mother learned of his death when a letter she sent her son was returned, stamped, "Deceased." A local newspaper reported that the family had yet to learn any further details. Later, they would receive a brief letter informing them of their son's death, and a small picture of the crude wooden cross that marked his final resting place. After the war, another letter was sent, informing them that the cross had been replaced with a stone marker, and providing them with a picture of the vast field of similar headstones, each representing on of his fallen comrades.

Clockwise from the top left: A letter to Sgt. Allen Scott Norton from his mother, stamped "Deceased." This is how the family first heard of their son's death in WWI. A postcard of the cemetery in which Sgt. Norton was buried. The official telegram noticing his family of his death. A photo that accompanied the official telegram to his family, depicting his makeshift wooden grave marker.

I think these four objects commemorate service better than any day can.

Posted for Sandor Farkas, a '17 from Western Massachusetts. He is enrolled in ROTC and his passion for military history manifests itself in the American War of Independence reenacting and diorama making he does in his "free" time. 

Mystical Text

Preparing for a class this week, we came across a tantalizing manuscript that we know little about: a Sufi devotional text created in the mid to late 18th century. It takes the same form as most Islamic manuscript prayer books of the time. It is in a wallet binding with the text framed in gold. Glossed instructions and comments radiate away from the text at angles defined by blind pressed grid lines. Decorative floral patterns luxuriously fill the empty spaces to create a surprising and satisfying page layout.

But this text has something special. About a third of the way through the prayers, there is a two-page illuminated spread. Two images of a rose set into an intricate border mirror each other.  When the book is closed, they come together as a single rose, complete only when not seen. The opening, so different from the rest of the book, offers a moment to ponder Sufi mysticism: it encompasses light/illumination, unity/division, and a completeness that cannot be seen--only experienced in the mind.

To see it, ask for Codex MS 001883.

In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower

In January of 1776, in the midst of the Revolutionary War, Eleazar Wheelock, the founder and first president of Dartmouth College wrote to Captain Asa Foot regarding the purchase of a cheese and a Negro. Lest there be any doubt about Wheelock's intent, he states "as to the Negro, I don't know when I shall be able to pay for him…"

While it should come as no surprise that Dartmouth College was founded, in part, on the backs of slaves, it is not something that gets discussed on a regular basis. Nor is Dartmouth alone. Craig Wilder's new book Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities brings out the role that American colleges and universities have played in aiding and abetting the institution of slavery. Wilder's research specifically mentions Dartmouth and it is important to note that Wheelock owned at least eight or nine slaves. When he came to Hanover to carve the College out of the wilderness, he brought some of these slaves with him and it seems likely that they performed much of the hard labor needed to clear the land and establish the College.

Dartmouth's complex relationship with slavery does not end with Wheelock. In the 1830s Dartmouth had both an Abolitionist Society and a Colonization Society, while at the same time sporting a pro-slavery president, Nathan Lord.

To learn more about Wheelock and the College's early relationship to slavery, come to Rauner and request any of the manuscripts listed below:

• 757157 Bill of sale, William Clark to Eleazar Wheelock; for "Ishmael, being a servant for life"
• 760276 Bill of sale, Peter Spenser to Eleazar Wheelock; for "Negro manservant named Brister"
• 761477 Bill of sale, Timothy Kimbal to Eleazar Wheelock; for "a certain Negro man named Sippy" [name mis-transcribed, but unclear]
• 762313 Bill of sale, Ann Morrison to Eleazar Wheelock; for "a Negro man named Exeter…a Negro woman named Chloe…and a Negro male child named Hercules.
• 765554.2 Occom to Wheelock; re: needs use of Negro and oxen
• 768675 Benjamin Bill to Exeter; re: complaint that Exeter abuses his wife
• 768675.1 Benjamin Bill to Wheelock; re: complaint against Exeter
• 769240.1 Theodora Phelps to Wheelock; re: lending one of his slaves
• 769365 Jacob Johnson to Wheelock; re: death of his Negro
• 769474.2 Eleazar Wheelock to John Wheelock; is going to Albany for his health and taking Brister along to wait on him
• 772167 Buckingham to Wheelock; re sale of slaves Nando and Hagar
• 773306 Wheelock to Captain Moses Little; will buy slave Ceasar for £20
• 775157 Wheelock to John Hubbard; agrees to pay Thomas Devine's debt and obtain release from imprisonment. Devine to be indentured to Wheelock. [likely white indentured servant, but not clear]
• 775673 Wheelock to Gideon Buckingham; Owes the one hundred pounds expected from the addressee and is in difficulty because he cannot pay the money. Offers to give Nando 20 acres of land and his freedom if heirs agree to send him and Hagar to writer who thinks God is displeased at the heirs for allowing Nando to treat his wife as he has.
• 776128 Eleazar Wheelock to Asa Foot; "procure the cheese and send it along with the Negro if that may be done with safety"…"and as to the Negro, I don’t know when I shall be able to pay for him"
• 779252.6 Wheelock will; which leaves all interest in his servants to his son John; to his servant boy Archilaus his freedom when he reaches the age of 25 years and if he is judged to be of good moral character, and also gives him 50 acres of land in Landaff or some other of his outland
• 786424 "Chloe, Negro of Hanover;" issues a complaint that Andrew Boynton has stolen a shirt off her fence

Always With You

If we wanted to we could assemble an amazing cabinet of curiosities. Here is a favorite example. This is the entire text of the Koran executed in a miniature Arabic hand on a parchment scroll that is only 3 inches wide and 48 inches long. It can only be read with the aid of a magnifying glass, and rolls up small enough to be worn as an amulet.

The scroll, which was produced in 1101 A.H. (1689 A.D.), leaves off the titles of the 114 Suras and elides any indications of the verses to concentrate the text into as small a package as possible. Other than some gold leaf, all of the decorative elements are created by leaving gaps between words. Creating this manuscript was almost surely an act of devotion demanding tremendous patience and skill.

It is amazing.  Ask for Codex MS 689940. We have a magnifying glass you can use.

"Don't Fail to See It"

Before the novels and the Pulitzer, Edith Wharton made her mark by writing about garden design, interior decoration and what constituted good taste. Her first published book was The Decoration of Houses (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897) in which she tastefully railed against Victorian decorating sensibilities and advocated for the use of more open spaces that emphasized the room, not the furnishings.

Wharton's next non-fiction work was a lavishly illustrated book about the architecture and surrounding gardens of Italian villas aptly named Italian Villas and Their Gardens (New York: Century, 1905). The book included numerous drawings and photographs, primarily by Cornish Colony artist Maxfield Parrish. In Rauner's collection of Parrish's papers are correspondence with Wharton about the book as well as some of the original plate negatives used as inspiration for his illustrations.

One particularly interesting letter "sums up" Wharton's impressions of the various villas in Florence. The Villa Medici gets a nod of approval - "Open certain days. Don't fail to see it." The Villa Albani is dismissed as "Hard to see and not worth while." The Villa d'Este in Tivoli is "Wonderful of course. Always open." Entries on other sites contain additional information about permits, whom to obtain them from and when to visit to avoid complications due to school calendars or other potential hazards.

Ask for ML-62, box 3, folder 43 to read the correspondence and Illus P249wha for the first edition of Italian Villas. The negatives are extremely fragile and are housed in Box 13 of the Parrish collection. A guide to the Parrish collection is available.