A Farmer's Life

In addition to its many high-profile collections such as the Robert Frost Collection or the Stefansson Collection on Polar Exploration, Rauner Library also contains a number of fascinating smaller collections having to do with the surrounding environs of the college and the state of New Hampshire. One such collection is the Wesley Hunt Papers. Hunt was born in 1850 in Claremont, New Hampshire, about a half hour's drive south of Hanover. He tried his hand at an impressive number of trades over the course of his nearly ninety years of life, including farming, homesteading in North Dakota, working for the railroad, and serving as postmaster of North Charleston.

Over the course of his adventures, Hunt faithfully entered his thoughts into a series of daily diaries that span nearly fifty years. We're fortunate enough to have over thirty-three years' worth of those

journals, including transcriptions that were created by his daughter. They are fascinating to read. Most of the early entries include comments about the weather, the health of friends and family, and various church and social events. Hunt's short and to the point entry from October 16th, 1879, seems particularly relevant given the heat this week: "90 degrees in the shade: and seven to sleep in one room." As the years pass, Hunt's observations turn at times towards national news and events, demonstrating the importance of radio broadcasting to rural populations in the early 20th century. As a one-time small farmer, and son of a small farmer, Hunt was very interested in President Roosevelt's attempts to protect the farm industry from the effects of the Great Depression. His entry from January 6, 1936, simply says, "36 [degrees] cloudy. We did the wash. Supreme Court killed the A.A.A. [Agricultural Adjustment Act]. Roosevelt upset."

To experience what it was like to live day-to-day in rural New Hampshire over the course of several decades, come to Rauner and ask to see the Wesley Hunt Papers (MS-778).

Disorientation 1972

When the members of the Class of 1976 showed up on campus for their freshmen orientation in the fall of 1972, they were greeted with the usual enthusiasm that starts each year. Orientation is a time to introduce new students to college life, explain the workings of Dartmouth, and make some new friends. But in 1972, an underground group sought to shake up the feel-good experience with their very unofficial "Dartmouth Disorientation" guide. They make their intention clear right from the get-go:

Welcome! You are experiencing a week of Dartmouth "orientation." Before Dartmouth can begin to administer its four-year "education," you must be tested, photographed, registered, ranked, introduced, placed, and finally... accepted. We, the authors of this portfolio, would like to talk with you (not test you) and cooperate with you (not place you). As an initial contact we offer these pages..."

In classic '70s hipness, they go on:

Disorientation is often an enlightening experience. It is beautiful if it can help you discover a truer and more human orientation than you knew before.

What were they smoking? Maybe the truth! The articles inside offer a critique of the College on multiple levels but they mostly focused on the hypocrisies the authors saw in the college's obsession with money that created a complicit relationship with the military industrial complex and the CIA. But the deepest anger is directed at the Dartmouth Bubble. Quoting Mao, the authors launch into a series of diatribes against Dartmouth's insensitivity to the surrounding communities and exploitation of workers. It wraps up by saying "Let's get together! We will be at the Top of the Hop on Tuesday, September 26, 8:00pm."

The Valley News published an editorial that week fully endorsing the sentiments of the "group of long-haired former students." To see it, ask for the "Orientation" vertical file!

Into the Wild

The last few weeks of August on the Dartmouth campus traditionally signal the end of a full and exciting summer term for the Sophomore class. They also herald the impending arrival of a new cohort of first-year students, many of whom will choose to start their Dartmouth experience by embarking on a long-standing tradition called Freshman Trips. The Freshman Trips program was originally started by the Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC) in 1935 as a way of connecting with incoming students who had matriculated at Dartmouth specifically because of the Outing Club's reputation for outdoors adventure. The idea had begun in response to regrets voiced by graduating seniors who wished that they had known about the Club and gotten involved earlier in their college careers.

Initially, there were only a few dozen men who opted to participate; nowadays, hundreds of students sign up for a distinctly Dartmouth-style orientation to college life in northern New Hampshire. Given the high numbers of interested freshmen, the Trips program also runs a training regimen for the students who lead these green recruits out into the wilderness. Here at Rauner, we have the joy of assisting in their orientation each August by laying out a selection of materials related to the history of Trips. The DOC's archives here at Rauner are vast, and there is a lot of great stuff about Freshman Trips within the many boxes that constitute the collection. Trip Leader applications, participant surveys, menus, publications, maps, photographs, and many other interesting items underscore the long and beloved tradition of what is, for many freshmen, their first encounter with their alma mater.

To see materials related to Freshman Trips, come to Rauner and explore the records of the Dartmouth Outing Club (DO-1) or the Freshman Trips photo files.

The Winds of War

On this day in history, nearly seventy years ago, Margaret Mitchell died after being hit by a car in Atlanta on her way to see a movie. Mitchell's best-selling novel, Gone with the Wind, had first been published thirteen years previous, in 1936, and had made her a household name. For her efforts, she received the National Book Award for Most Distinguished Novel of 1936 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. More recently, Gone with the Wind has come under criticism for its promotion of "plantation values," its use of the N-word, and its perpetuation of myths about the Reconstruction era. The movie adaptation of the novel was similarly criticized upon its release, with one dramatist equating the film with Birth of a Nation. Despite its questionable representations of both the South and African-American people, the novel went on to sell over 30 million copies. A 2014 poll ranked it as one of the favorite books of American readers, second only to the Bible.

Here at Rauner, we have several editions of Mitchell's novel. One of the most interesting, at least to me, is a deluxe Japanese edition printed in 1952. This edition was bound in sheepskin, limited to a print run of one thousand, and meant to capitalize on the publicity surrounding the arrival of the movie adaptation in Japanese theaters that same year. The book is housed in a cardboard box that has a reproduction of a still from the movie pasted onto its cover. In addition to the deluxe copy, other cheaper editions were sold in Japan leading up to the screening of the film. In the box with our edition, there are facsimiles of correspondence written by representatives of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Tokyo; the letters indicate that, as of October 1952, more than three million copies of the novel had been sold and that people were waiting in long lines to get advance tickets to the show. In a nod to the challenges of translation across cultures, a postscript notes that the Japanese version interprets Rhett Butler's mention of a nightcap as referencing an actual sleeping hat and not a stiff drink.

Initially, it seems a bit strange that Japan would be so interested in a movie about the American Civil War. However, as journalist Tony Horowitz notes in his 1998 book Confederates in the Attic, both ninteenth-century Georgians and twentieth-century Japan had to rebuild themselves after being "ravaged by war."

To see the autographed first edition of Gone with the Wind, come to Rauner and ask for Val 817 M694 R21 copy 2. To see the 1952 Japanese deluxe edition, ask for Val 817 M694 R211. To see the MGM screenplay of the movie adaptation, ask for Scripts 21.

Dorm Beautiful

Long before the Dartmouth Plan created a sense of general chaos for student housing, dorm rooms could be a multi-year commitment. If you really wanted to, you could move into a room and stay for several years. Since rooms were only marginally furnished, students could adorn them with any furniture they could afford. For some students with the ways and means, customizing their rooms became an obsession that denoted their class status. These were gentlemen in the making!

Case in point, young Gail Borden ‘26, moved into a new room his sophomore year and didn’t leave until he graduated. Heir to the fortune of Borden Dairy, he opted for one of the most expensive spaces on campus. 20 Massachusetts Hall was a corner room with a separate bedroom and its own sink and toilet. But it was a mere shell before Borden started decorating: leather-bound furniture, book shelves with rare and finely printed books, an overhead lantern, what looks like a kind of wet bar (it was the ‘20s though…), and a Navaho rug on the wall. It was such a stunner of a room that the popular House Beautiful featured it in an article about the fine decorating tastes of several Dartmouth students. Under Borden’s care, 20 Mass became “the fitting room of a connoisseur of fine books and a very well-read student of literature.” The maple desk is 100 years old and the mahogany drop leaf table was picked up at a local antique shop. The hanging lantern is a Paul Revere. For you book lovers who read our blog (we know who you are), he has a 17^th-century Holinshed on his shelves as well as his personal copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer! Don’t we all?

To see pictures of Borden’s room as well as hundreds of others, ask for Iconography 851. To see the issue of House Beautiful, ask for DC History NK2117.B4 W348.

Activist Librarian

We started this blog way back in September 2009. Our first blog post was on Naked Lunch, and we were excited to see it get a few dozen hits over the course of a month. Since then, we have blogged 872 times, and last week our total page views shot over 500,000. We saw it coming, and about six weeks ago, we started a betting pool among library staff: the closest guess to the date we hit half a million would win a blog post in their honor. We had a tie, both Julie McIntyre in Library Acquisitions and Joe Montibello in the Digital Library Technology Group guessed August 2nd. Today's post is in their honor.

For Julie and Joe, we look back at a time when Assistant Librarian Alexander Laing took steps to make Dartmouth a more inclusive, open environment. For many years, Dartmouth had a quota on how many Jewish students it would admit. It was a policy that many people on campus found abhorrent but one that was supported by President Ernest Hopkins. When Hopkins announced his retirement, Alexander Laing tried to take advantage of the moment to nullify the policy as John Dickey assumed the presidency. In a resolution brought before the faculty on November 26, 1945, he asked the faculty for something that sounds so simple:

To reaffirm its respect for that portion of the Charter of Dartmouth College which forbids the exclusion, by the Trustees of the College, of 'any Person of any religious denomination whatsoever from free and equal liberty and advantage of Education or from any of the liberties and privileges or immunities of the said College on account of his or their speculative sentiments in Religion and of his or their being of religious profession different from the said Trustees of the said Dartmouth College.'

The resolution went on to affirm the right of the College to assign quotas for geographical distribution or legacy students, but reject any that were based on religion or race. But it was not so simple to the faculty. They were unwilling to impinge on the new President's authority, and punted on the resolution. In a classic bureaucratic move, they referred it to the Committee on Admissions and the Freshman Year.

The full story is a complicated one. You can read more about the resolution and its reception in Laura Barrett's 2017 MALS thesis, "Defining Dartmouth: Exclusion and Inclusion at Dartmouth College 1917-2017." To see the resolution, ask for the Minutes of the Faculty Meeting, Dean of Faculty Records, Box 4227. You'll find it on page 112.

A Medical Journey

George Rice was a member of Dartmouth's class of 1869 and one of the first African-American students to enroll in Dartmouth in the 1800s. Rice came to Dartmouth from a preparatory school in Massachusetts. The son of a steamship steward, Rice knew before he arrived in Hanover that he wanted to become a physician someday. Given that minorities were few and far between on Dartmouth's campus even in 1869, it's hard to imagine the hurdles and challenges that Rice faced over a hundred years earlier.

Eventually, he would graduate and move to Paris to begin his medical education after being rejected by Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons because of his race. In 1874, he graduated from the University of Edinburgh with the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Master in Surgery. Rice went on to practice medicine for over fifty years in Great Britain, primarily in Sutton, Surrey. He served as the public vaccinator for Sutton, Cheam, and Carshalton until the year before his death in 1935.

To learn more about George Rice, or to explore other stories of minority students from Dartmouth's past, come to Rauner and ask to see the alumni files of any of the college's past graduates.