Hike the Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian trail is the brainchild of Benton MacKaye who came up with the idea while working on projects related to regional planning for the United States governement. In 1921 he published an article titled "An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning" in which he outlined the four chief features of the project: the trail, shelter camps, community groups, and food and farm camps.  MacKaye saw the project as a way to "establish a base for a more extensive and systematic development of outdoors community life."

This map is an early sketch of the proposed route from Mt. Washington in New Hampshire to Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina. MacKaye suggested a "'long trail' over the full length of the Appalachian skyline, from the highest peak in the north to the highest peak in the south."

A guide to the MacKaye family papers is available online.

Jonathan Wolken, 1949-2010

Jonathan Wolken '71, one of the founding members of the Pilobolus Dance Theater, passed away on June 13th at the age of 60. Here at Rauner, we were lucky enough to work with Jonathan and get to know him over the past few years as we took in the Pilobolus archives. In memory of Jonathan, we have mounted a small exhibit in our reading room drawn from the papers of the dance company.

"Pilobolus (crystallinus) is a phototropic zygomycete - a sun-loving fungus that grows in barnyards and pastures. It grows on a stalk as a small bladder, pressurized by cell sap and topped with a tiny black cap filled with spores. When time and Pilobolus are ripe, this entire sporangium is blasted off with incredible force and the little spore bags can shoot over a cow like clowns out of a cannon. It's reported that the acceleration - from 0-45 mph in the first mm of flight - is the second fastest in nature."

Like the fungal spores, the Pilobolus Dance Theater burst forth on the dance scene in the mid-1970s.  During their first full year, they toured the college circuit with stops in New York and some smaller arts venues. By 1978 they had appeared on Broadway, been featured in Time magazine and performed on PBS’s Dance in America series.

Pilobolus developed out of a class project in Alison Becker Chase's Drama 54 class, "Dance," in Spring 1971. Among the original group were Jonathan Wolken '71 and Robert (Moses) Pendleton '71. Robby Barnett '72 and Michael Tracy '73 joined shortly afterward, and in 1973 Alison Becker Chase and Martha Clarke joined the company as its first female members.

Pilobolus was founded with a quasi-utopian spirit bent on an egalitarian and community-based notion of creative expression. The group sought to blur gender lines and create cooperatively in an atmosphere of shared vision. On one level, the company appears to be a counterculture response to conservative social mores, but Pilobolus's daring use of weight and physicality goes beyond suggesting sexual freedom to create oppositions and dynamic movements that fundamentally challenge gender roles in dance and in society.

Learn more about the Pilobolus Dance Theater Archive or read about Pilobolus performances at the Hop this week.

Print or Manuscript?

Quick, what is this? An early example of printing or a late-medieval manuscript?

The answer is a little complicated. The words were printed in 1476 from movable type by Jacobus Rubeus in Venice, that's just seven years after print was introduced to that city. But the printer did not see his role as usurping the whole of book production. In fact, just like the manuscript scribes, he consciously left space for an illuminator to complete his printed page.

We are fortunate to have two copies of this particular printing of Leonardo Bruni's Historia Florentina, one printed on vellum and illuminated, the other printed on paper without the finishing work. Note in the image of non-illuminated copy that a small "m" was placed in the opening as a guide letter for the illuminator.

The two copies point to the gradual transition that took place after the introduction of movable type.  Printers created books that fit with the aesthetic and expectations of their market. Illuminated printed books are common in the incunabula period (from 1455 to 1501), but become very rare in the 16th century when printers relied on woodcut initial letters to complete their texts.

To see them, ask for Incunabula 135 and Lansburgh 36.

Thomas Orde-Lees

Thomas Orde-Lees was the storekeeper on Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. His diary is a log of events from March 1915 to April 1916 and was used in part by Shackleton in his book South. The diary includes an account of the loss of the Endurance and the subsequent journey in small, open boats to Elephant Island where Orde-Lees and other members of the expedition waited for Shackleton's return.

The page shown here contains one of many illustrations in the diary. This drawing is from the October 18, 1915 entry: "the ship was heaved up suddenly and violently and immediately rolled over slowly onto her side until she lay on her port side."

Ask for Stefansson Manuscript 185 to see the entire diary, which includes a typewritten addendum detailing some of the conditions on Elephant Island.

Fifty Years and Counting, the Class of 1960

In the fall of 1956 the Class of 1960 matriculated as the largest class in the College’s history to that point. While they participated in all the usual activities (Bonfire, Tug of War, Gauntlet) there were some things that made the experience of the last “50s” class different from that of their predecessors. Some were unremarkable (the Nugget Theater raising its price to 65 cents for a movie) while others changed the face of the College forever (the long threatened, and much anticipated, construction of a performing arts center—the HOP—was finally begun).

During their time in Hanover they also saw a major change in the College’s academic calendar with the institution of a three-term structure. A petition of the students and faculty in their junior year showed that the majority of both bodies were in favor of coeducation. In response the Committee on Educational Policy voted to study the possibility, though it would take another twelve years before that dream would become a reality. Visiting hours for dorms were extended, but this didn’t make up for the lack of women on campus.


While Skiing, Basketball and Football claimed major prizes (NCAA championship for the first and Ivy League championships for the last two) fraternities faced a harsher reality. In response to an Inter Fraternity Council decision in 1954, all fraternities had to remove discriminatory membership clauses by April 1960. Many fraternities chose to break with their national affiliates over this policy, changing the face of the College forever.

Through all this the Class of 1960 persevered, and in June graduated, just as the Class of 2010 will this Sunday.

Curious to know more about the Class of 1960 and their experience of Dartmouth? Come see an exhibit of materials from the Archives on display in Rauner Library, Friday June 11 through Sunday June 13 in Room 109.

What to Wear to Commencement

Reports differ on exactly when Dartmouth students began wearing caps and gowns, but the tradition appears to have been firmly established in 1892 after at least a couple of years of discussion.  According to The Dartmouth of Jan. 5, 1892 (v. 13, no. 8, p. 116):  [The class of] "Ninety-two has voted to wear the cap and gown during commencement week.  This is the customary English academic dress and has been that of the commencement speakers at Harvard.  Recently the dress has been adopted by nearly all of the eastern colleges as the dress of the whole senior class for longer or shorter periods.  These colleges include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst and Williams.  Some have adopted the dress for the whole year, some for the spring term, but the majority for commencement week alone.  The dress will certainly be comfortable and inexpensive and add dignity to our commencement exercises."

The Dartmouth Ph.D. gown, designed in the early 1960s, is made of a dark green (Dartmouth green) faille with a green pine tree motif embroidered on both sides of the front at lapel level on the black velvet trim.  The three bands on the arms (denoting Ph.D.) are of black velvet, the hood is black with blue velvet trim and dark green lining, and the hat is wide brimmed of black velvet (Beefeater) with a gold tassel.

You can examine the Dartmouth Ph.D. cap and gown by requesting Realia 106.  For more information about the history of academic dress and what all of those colors, hoods, and trimmings mean, see An Academic Costume Code and An Academic Ceremony Guide, from the American Council on Education.

Best wishes to all Dartmouth graduates!

Customs and Occupations of India and Ceylon

In January 1844, the Rev. Daniel Poor, Class of 1811, sent a package to his classmate the Rev. William Cogswell. At that time, Cogswell was a professor of history at Dartmouth and a member of the Northern Academy of Arts and Sciences, an organization established in 1841 to provide an opportunity for Dartmouth students, faculty and local ministers to exchange their "views on great and important subjects."

Rev. Poor spent his life as a missionary and educator, primarily in Ceylon. His package to Rev. Cogswell contained a selection of several items which he felt would be of interest including a grammar of the Tamil language, issues of The Morning Star (a newspaper published by the American Mission Press in Jaffna), a Tamil geography, and a volume of "native paintings." This volume contains over 90 original watercolors and depicts people of various occupations and castes in India and Ceylon.

Poor's gifts were held within the Northern Academy's library which was taken into the general Dartmouth Library collection upon the Academy's dissolution in 1904.

Ask for Rauner Codex 001971 to see the original watercolors.