Nothing to Write

While looking for books to use for a class
We found a long poem about a vain Lass,
"Nothing to Wear," poor rich girl, a pity.
It rhymed, of course, and was oh so witty.

Then we found the sequel, a parody
Titled "Nothing to Do" by "a Lady"
About an idle young man whose life was a bore.
Both poems a hit, the public wanted more.

Next came a volume, so slender and neat
T'was a spoof on a spoof, "Nothing to Eat!"
One by one, this doggerel did appear
And all were written in just the same year!

So come see them, read them, and you will learn
That life is best lived with something to earn.

Nothing to Wear (New York: Rudd and Carleton, 1857), Val 816B974 T7
Nothing to Do (New York Wiley & Halsted, 1857), Rare PS2014.H16
Nothing to Eat (New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1857), Rare PS991.A1 N63 1857

Soviet Data Visualization

We recently acquired a portfolio of Soviet economic illustrations from 1932. If that sounds dry, bear with us while we explain. The Struggle for Five Years in Four captures Soviet economic progress through isotypes --  an abbreviation for the International System of Typographic Pictorial Education (ISOTYPE). In the 1920s, members of Vienna's Social and Economic Museum developed a system where a symbol of a fixed size is repeated to signify difference.

In The Struggle for Five Years in Four, the isotypes speak to the "crisis in the leading capitalist countries." In the early 1930s, it seemed as though the communist state had figured out something that the capitalists had not: capitalist countries faced breadlines, riots, and high unemployment rates, while the USSR's industrialization brought economic prosperity.

The foreword is brief, stating that "the following charts tell their own story." Each page displays the colorful economic advances of the Soviet Five Year Plan, compared to the (typically black) isotypes representing the tsar's reign.

From the seemingly quotidian (rubber overshoes, granulated sugar) to the ground-breaking (collectivization of peasant farms, state medical aid, vacation), the portfolio aims to demonstrate the massive advances of the communist state. Of course, the propagandistic booklet does not explore the more controversial reforms or the backlash against Soviet policies. We're curious whether the statistics are accurate, but that's a whole research project.

To see the portfolio, ask for Rare Book HC335 .S78 1932.

Do You Know What You're Singing?

This state song of Kentucky is performed at the start of the annual Kentucky Derby.  But, do you know what it is you are singing?  “My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!” was originally written for minstrel singers. The song is narrated from the perspective of a slave who is being sold south because his Kentucky plantation master has gone bankrupt. All of the other slaves on the plantation are sent to freedom, but this slave sings that he will long for his “old Kentucky home” when he is sold to a southern plantation.

Stephen C. Foster's family supported slavery, but some scholars now argue that he changed his views on slavery in the early 1850s, which makes this suggestion that the southbound slave will fondly miss his Kentucky enslavement very puzzling. Also, it’s a minstrel song, intended for white actors to sing in blackface – anything but progressive.

So what was Foster thinking? He was originally from Pittsburgh, but he frequently visited his cousin, John Rowan, and his wife, Ann, at their property in Bardstown, Kentucky. It was at this Kentucky farm that Foster gained his first-hand exposure plantation life. Foster’s song was released in 1852, the same year as the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  Foster initially entitled the tune “Poor Old Uncle Tom, Good-Night!” but finalized the title to “My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!” as we know it today.

So as you sip on your mint julep on Saturday, ponder the irony of your “Old Kentucky Home.” To see the sheet music, ask for William/Watson SF 30.

Posted for Regan Roberts '16.

Commerce and Communism

Patronage is complicated. It's especially complicated when you're a member of a Mexican communist artists' collective but you live in a capitalist society, so you need money to continue your quest to inspire revolution.

Enter Mexican People, a portfolio produced around 1947 by the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP, the People's Graphics Workshop). The TGP was established in 1937 by a group of Mexican leftists who wanted to create art that reflected the daily struggles of the Mexican people.

Leopoldo Méndez, "Grinding Maize"

In 1947, the TGP faced a crisis -- they needed money, and they turned to the United States. Associated American Artists was an American gallery established in 1934 to provide affordable art to the middle class, primarily in the form of prints such as lithographs. The TGP created Mexican People, a portfolio of twelve signed lithographs, for an audience in the United States that was hungry for "authentic" images of Mexico.

As students in Professor Coffey's art history class on Mexicanidad (Mexican Identity) pointed out last week, Mexican People creates an ambivalent vision of Mexico. Are the images of backbreaking work (quarrying, grinding maize, rolling logs down a river) celebrating the culture of Mexico and the indomitable spirit of Mexicans? Or are they a critique of capitalism?

To see it, ask for Rare Book NE2314 .A8 1947. 

Concord to Fitchburg

We made a cool connection this week of two seemingly unrelated pieces that speak to each other. Naturally, we have a first edition of Thoreau's Walden: or, Life in the Woods (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854). That was no surprise, but we wanted to contextualize it for a class. There are the other transcendentalists, sure, and we have a lot of material in our White Mountains collection about experiencing nature in the 1850s. But then we remembered the railroad that Thoreau "rails" on as a kind of ungodly beast of the industrial revolution.

Some quick work on Google, and we knew it was the Fitchburg Railroad Company whose line from Concord to Fitchburg defiled Walden Pond. Then we checked the collections and found we have the original proposal from 1842 to establish the line, with predictions on usage, benefits to western Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. The rail line seems like a pretty good idea from that perspective--a nice counter to Thoreau's disgust.

We also have annual reports from the Fitchburg Railroad Company from the 1840s and 1850s, so we can get a good idea of the annual traffic that rumbled by the pond and shook Thoreau's cabin. Incidentally, Thoreau objected to the train not just for disturbing the beauty of nature, but also for being a slow way to travel. He reckoned that it would take a day's work to earn the money to take the train from Concord to Fitchburg. So, you could work all day Wednesday to earn the fare, then take the train the next morning and be in Fitchburg by noon on Thursday.  Or, you could just set out walking on Wednesday morning and get to Fitchburg that evening--you would beat the train by 18 hours and have had a much better day!


To see Walden, ask for Val 816 T391 Y515. The Fitchburg Railroad Company prospectus is Chase Streeter New Eng F 5 3, and the annual reports are Chase Streeter New Eng F 5 1.

Oh Yeah, Cervantes

Last week libraries and the press were celebrating Shakespeare to mark the 400th anniversary of his death. It was hard to miss: Dartmouth made a film of a class using our First Folio; we mounted an exhibit on Hamlet; the New York Times published an "obituary"; and the Folger Shakespeare Library continued its tour of First Folios across the country. What we did miss, though, was astounding (at least for a bunch of Special Collections librarians). The day before, April 22nd, marked the 400th anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes. Alas, nobody came in last week to marvel over our amazing Don Quixote collection.

So, slightly shamefaced about missing the actual day, we try to make amends with these awesome images from the first illustrated edition of Don Quixote (Madrid, 1674). We don't have a first edition of the first volume from 1605--our earliest printing of the novel is from 1607--but we have just over 1000 books in our "Quixote" collection that spans the novel's publication history. You used to be able to do this goofy keyword search (dare we call it Quixotic?) branch:branchwqui in our old catalog, to see the whole list, but now you'll want to just search the catalog.

Sure, Shakespeare is still a big deal, but the author of what most consider to be the first modern novel deserves some snaps too!

To see the first illustrated edition, ask for Quixote PQ6323.A1 1674.

It's a Sailor's Life for Me

Here at Rauner we've recently acquired a wonderful little manuscript from the late seventeenth century that fits nicely with one of the many classes that come through our doors every term. MSS 683430 is an apprenticeship indenture from England that was created during the reign of Charles II. An apprenticeship indenture was an arrangement whereby a minor, usually twelve to thirteen years of age, was contractually bound to a master craftsman by his parents or guardian who paid the master to train the young man or woman in a particular craft while providing for his or her basic needs.

Typically once the apprentice reached the age of twenty-one, he or she was released from their legal obligation to their master. Although quite common in England from the twelfth century onward, the apprenticeship model began to fall out of favor in the eighteenth century with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which introduced wage labor and therefore made it difficult for skilled craftsmen to set up their own independent shops.

This particular indenture, signed on July 30, 1683, binds Thomas Barker to Richard Hains of Stepney

to learn the mariner's trade for the usual duration of seven years. The wavy top edge of the indenture is deliberate and was common for legal documents of the time. Once an indenture had been completed and signed by a Justice of the Peace, it was then cut down the middle in a distinctive pattern to create a unique two-piece puzzle that could be reconstituted on demand to confirm its authenticity. Typically, the apprentice's parents or parish church would hold one copy and the master would hold the other which was meant to ensure fair dealing. Our indenture was most recently employed in Carl Estabrook's "Britain and the Sea" history class, where students were able to examine it firsthand.

To explore the indenture yourself, come to Rauner and ask for MSS 683430.