Lost and Found

We made a wondrous discovery right before the holiday break. In the late 1960s, Mark Lansburgh '49, donated several medieval manuscripts to the collection, among them two stunning leaves from a fifteenth-century Breviary. The leaves were documented in a catalog of Darmouth's manuscript holdings in 1971, but then disappeared. For at least 30 years we have been tormented by the Breviary. Was it sent back to the donor? Could it have been stolen? Is it somewhere right in front of us and we are missing it? We looked and looked and looked, but to no avail.

Then, this December while reshelving some rare books, one of our staff members noticed an unmarked portfolio in amongst our Shakespeare collection. He pulled it off the shelf and lo and behold, there were the Breviary leaves. They had been shelved incorrectly back when Special Collections still resided in the Treasure Room in Baker Library. Some have theorized that the manuscript had been tucked in with the Shakespeare collection in the Treasure Room so it could be pulled out to impress visitors as a colorful accompaniment to our First Folio, then forgotten. Whatever the reason, finding it was a Holiday thrill for us and for Mark Lansbugh whom we called immediately.

Beneventan Antiphony

Liber Glossarum

Two of the most celebrated medieval manuscripts in the Dartmouth College Library were donated by Mark Lansburgh. The earliest item among his gifts is a leaf of a Liber Glossarum circa 825; it is complemented by another ninth-century piece, a leaf of a Beneventan Antiphony that is perhaps the oldest known fragment containing musical notation found in the United States. Also included in the collection are a series of fourteenth-century accounts, bills, and receipts. The eclectic selection (music, a glossary, and the mundane merchant accounts) helps students piece together bits of medieval life for a deeper understanding of abstract descriptions they discuss in class.

If you want to see the long lost Breviary, come in and ask for Lansburgh 53.

Tight Lacing

"The human system is a curious and complicated machine, wonderfully wrought by the hand of nature, composed of various organs of different textures, whose natural functions are intimately connected with the enjoyment of perfect health." So opens Jeremiah Lyford’s 1832 thesis on Tight Lacing. Lyford, a medical student at Dartmouth Medical School, goes on to list some of the ill effects on the body caused by the practice of corseting or "tight lacing" prevalent in the early 19th Century. These include diminished lung capacity, which in turn leads to contaminated blood. He also notes that pressure is placed on the heart. The stomach is also affected leading to dyspepsia and heartburn, among other maladies. But it also has a negative effect on the external body. These Lyford states are "disgusting to all admirers of real taste and beauty. It disfigures the beautiful and upright shape, which nature has given to the body…"

As you read this thesis it becomes clear that, while Lyford is approaching this as a medical issue, he has a strong, personal objection to this practice. In concluding he states "The habit deserves the reprobation of a virtuous community; of every individual, who would be helped through life with an agreeable companion and who would see the youth and rising generation blooming and healthy."

This is an interesting perspective by a man of this period on a woman's fashion that would last into the early part of the next century. Lyford, and other medical students writing on this topic for their theses, open the door to some interesting research into male opinion and influence over women’s fashion in the Victorian period. Besides tight lacing, Rauner holds hundreds of medical theses (1797-1882) on a wide variety of topics, which, like tight lacing, lend themselves to historical or social research.

The theses have recently been the focus of a preservation project to disbind them to create better and easier access. This work has been done by the Library's Preservation Services Department. To learn more about this process and see images from some of these theses see Preservation Services blog post: A Look Inside: The Early Medical Thesis Disbound

Ask for DA-3, Medical Theses (1832) to see Lyford's thesis.  The images are from the Nellie Peirce Collection ML-19.

Dime Novels

Enormously popular and critically maligned, the dime novel was one of the first forms of mass culture in the United States. The Western adventure story dominated the dime novel industry in the 1860s and 1870s. Tales of the frontier, wherever it was – upstate New York, the Great Plains, or the California gold country – defined a mythical American identity. These “Books for the Million!” justified Western expansion with mail-order myths of violent transgressions, passionate romances, and thrilling rescues.

The captivity narrative – in which a white protagonist (usually a woman) is abducted by Indians, with whom she sometimes comes to sympathize – was a popular trope in Dime Novels. In Stanley Henderson’s Prairie Chick, or, The Quaker among the Red-skins (New York: Frank Starr, 1877), the protagonist is revealed to be the daughter of a frontiersman who chose to live among the Indians; united with her white half-sister, she moves East, “where she was easily persuaded to renounce her Indian habits and attire, and become a civilized being.”

Rauner has a large collection of 19th–century Dime Novels.  You can see Prairie Chick by asking for Dime Novel 160.

The Wheelock Passport

This document, which is much more impressive when you see it in real life since it is quite large at 26.5 x 27 inches, is John Wheelock's passport.  Though actually a letter of introduction, it served a similar purpose to today's modern document and contains the signatures of George Washington and congressional members representing twelve of the thirteen colonies, all of whom supported John's mission to Europe to raise additional funds for the fledgling college.

Washington's Signature

The "passport" actually starts with the story of Eleazar Wheelock's first trip to the old world.  The elder Wheelock had initially supplemented his income as a minister by tutoring and had taught an Indian student named Samson Occom who eventually went on to become a minister in his own right.  Buoyed by this success Wheelock devised the idea that he could Christianize the "heathen" by training select native boys for the ministry. 

In 1765 he sent Occom, in the company of another minister, Nathaniel Whitaker to England to raise funds so that he could start a school.  People flocked to see Occom preach and his performances must have been impressive because the trip was a resounding success as Occom and Whittaker collected about £12,000 - the approximate equivalent of $1.3 million dollars in today’s money.  They reported £9494 raised in England and another £2529 raised in Scotland - though the Scottish money was never actually received.  The money allowed Wheelock to begin the process of creating the institution that would in 1769 become Dartmouth College, which he named after one of the most generous English donors, Lord Dartmouth.

John Wheelock

Unfortunately, John Wheelock’s venture was not as well favored.  He and his brother James set out for France and on arrival in Paris met with Benjamin Franklin who was polite, but less than happy to see them.  Franklin was just arranging for a large grant in aid from the French government and did not want to damage his prospects.  He packed the Wheelock brothers off to the Netherlands as quickly as he could, where they managed to raise some funds, but the burgeoning peace agreement between England and the U.S. and its potential damage to Dutch trade prevented the level of giving they had hoped for.  They next traveled to England where their reception was cool, but polite. While a few people were willing to give to their cause the takings were minimal. 

On the return voyage their ship sank in a storm off the coast of Cape Cod and all the money, instruments and documents they were carrying were lost causing John’s detractors to claim that the trip barely paid for itself.  The irony is that despite this early set back, John Wheelock, who is a bit of a villain in the history of the College, brought Dartmouth to financial solvency for the first time in its history before he died.

Ask for Mss 781681 to see the "passport."

The World of Tomorrow

The 1939 New York World's Fair, "Building the World of Tomorrow," was a grand spectacular celebrating progress. It optimistically looked forward to a future where science and technology would usher in a world of ever growing prosperity and peace. World War II, concentration camps, and the atomic bomb would chill this notion, but in 1939, as the Great Depression waned, the fair's theme resonated with the American public.

This souvenir peepshow created by Elizabeth Hale and the famous type designer Warren Chappell, offers the viewer a glimpse of the utopian future: the fair itself. The book's structure allows it to collapse then fold out like an accordion to create depth.

Come take a peep by asking for Rare GV1525.H3 W6 1939

Association Copies

Sometimes a book is exciting not so much for its contents but because of its past: the places it has been or the hands that once held it. This copy of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (London: John Murray and John Mayor, 1830) is in our collections not because it is a particularly rare edition, but because its bookplate makes it highly collectable: it belonged to Charles Dickens.

In other cases, rare editions, valuable in their own right, take on a magical quality because of a simple bookplate or signature. Here is Henry James' copy of the first edition of Swift's Gulliver's Travels (London: Benj. Motte, 1726), and William Morris' copy of The Story of the Moste Noble and Worthy Kynge Arthur (London: Wyllyam Copland, 1557). While it is easy to think of Morris enjoying Malory, it is more challenging to imagine how Dickens read Bunyan or James dealt with Swift.

You can see them all by asking for Val 826D55 FB9 (Bunyan) Rare PR3724.G7 1726c (Swift), and Rare PR2043.W5 1557 (Malory).

...And a Polar New Year

George W. Rice sounded hopeful in his diary on January 1st, 1882. As photographer to the 1881-1884 Lady Franklin Bay Expedition lead by Adolphus Greely, he had just finished "an excellent New Year's dinner" of turkey. It had been a relaxing day. He noted that many of the party took "a siesta... as they were somewhat exhausted from marching the Old Year out and the New One in."  The 31st had been "a cool and pleasant day--the evening was given over to Bacchus and Terpsichore."  "Cool" is relative: he recorded the temperature at 34.1 to 46.2 degrees below zero.

Greely's Lady Franklin Bay Expedition is one of the most harrowing on record. Only seven members of the party survived after a series of disasters left them stranded in the arctic. Rice's daily diary continues until August 2nd, 1883. Later that week, Greely ordered the men to abandon all unnecessary items (including this diary) in an attempt to reach Littleton Island where rescue was more likely. Rice survived until April 1884, two months before a rescue party reached the seven survivors.

To see the diary and learn more about Rice, ask for Stef MS 186.