I Thereafter...

 "It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!" These memorable words, as uttered by Daniel Webster during the Dartmouth College Case, have long since been enshrined in Dartmouth lore. However, while a great deal of academic literature has been written on the outcome of the case and its significance as a landmark Supreme Court Case, far less has been written about the proceedings of the case itself and the factors that created such an outcome. Throughout the course of my Rauner Fellowship, my main research focus is on the dynamics and relationships that existed between the various actors and political factors that exerted influence within the Dartmouth College Case. I hope that an analysis of this landmark case may provide greater insight into our modern conception of Constitutional legitimacy.

The research process has been simultaneously very exciting and very daunting. Having had very little prior experience working with special collections and archives, the work of approaching a project grounded in primary sources has posed several unique challenges. Working with handwritten letters and newspaper clippings is a far cry from the academic articles and government documents I am generally accustomed to. It is exhilarating to come across new pieces of information in these letters that may not even be found in existing academic articles written on this topic, but learning to decode the handwriting of these manuscripts has also given me a great appreciation for the difficulty of conducting such analysis.

During the past week, I came across a letter from Daniel Webster to Jeremiah Mason, a fellow lawyer, notifying him of their victory in the Dartmouth College Case. Embedded within this manuscript was what I suspected to be a crucial passage relating to the outcome of the case and Webster’s interpretation of their success. However, these important lines were clustered in four lines of indecipherable text at the end of the letter.

While the letter’s handwriting had started off neat and legible, it had quickly devolved over the course of its two pages. Although my advisor Mr. Carini had cautioned me early on about the difficulties of transcribing letters, I only came to finally appreciate and understand his words at this moment. After spending nearly an hour puzzling over these final lines, I passed the letter along to Mr. Carini and Mr. Satterfield in the hopes that their professional expertise would be able to shed light on these indecipherable lines. Together, we were able to piece together a few more words from the final lines of the letter, specifically the line, "Our Bench argument goes on. I thereafter…" However, we remained stumped as to what the last two lines of the letter were.

Despite having since revisited this letter repeatedly throughout the last few days, the final lines of Webster’s letter to Mason remain elusively out of reach. I've come to realize that this is just a natural part of the process of working with manuscript. I hope that as I continue to work with Webster’s letters, I will reach a point where I no longer have trouble with reading his handwriting. However, as a reader, if you think you've figured out what the last four lines of the letter say, please feel free to send us your thoughts!

To see the letter in person, visit Rauner Library and ask for Webster 819174.1. To see the photograph of an aging Daniel Webster, ask for Iconography 1649.

Posted for Weiling Huang '19, recipient of a Rauner Student Research Fellowship for the 2018 Winter term. The Rauner Student Research Fellowships provide full funding for a Dartmouth student to conduct research with primary sources during an off-term on a topic of their choosing. For more information, visit the fellowship's website.

Voices of Dissent: Dartmouth Feminists of the '90s

In the early ‘90s, two new publications emerged at Dartmouth. Both written by women, both claiming to be feminist works, the first was called Spare Rib, and the second Inner Bitch. Spare Rib arrived in newspaper form, with a slightly-bitten apple wedged inside the title. From the spring of 1992 to the winter of 1995, Spare Rib released at least 11 issues. The editors wrote, “Spare Rib is a manifestation of all that Dartmouth women have accomplished, the challenges that face us now, and the victories we hope to gain in the coming years.” Each issue contains interviews and editorials discussing the role of women in the College, as well as femininity in greater society. The writers at Spare Rib were passionate about feminism, and they presented their stance calmly and intellectually.

Open Inner Bitch. The zine’s mission statement speaks for itself:

Deep within you, beneath the strained smiles, the cordiality, the good grades, the conceding laughter, YOU HAVE AN INNER BITCH… Well, this whole rag is in honor of that Inner Bitch. We want to help her grow and become as strong and as bitchy as womanly possible. We want to give her the power to speak her mind. Because silence is a kind of death. It keeps a part of you dormant, like a leg that’s permanently fallen asleep. And it makes it easier for the next woman to get hurt, and the next and the next.

The writers at Inner Bitch demanded that women empower themselves. They wanted women to own their sexuality, ignore society’s wishes for straight hair and smooth legs, and defend themselves violently against men. In order to release one’s “inner bitch,” the zine prescribes everything from an “Inner Bitch Makeover” to “Top 10 Things to Do With a Severed Penis.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its aggressive hatred of men, Inner Bitch only ever circulated two issues.

Despite their obvious differences, Spare Rib and Inner Bitch engage in one dialogue. Both publications discuss the pressure of beauty standards, how media portrayal of women “perpetuates sexual inequality.” Both touch upon the issue of sexual assault, blaming “the boys of Webster Avenue” for making social spaces unsafe for women. And both Spare Rib and Inner Bitch encourage women to seek their own pleasure in bed, rather than merely satisfying their partners. The newspaper and zine explore many other topics, as well, each trying to guide women as they navigate Dartmouth’s intensely male culture.

Twenty years after Dartmouth became coeducational, the community was still unsure where women belonged on campus. The fact that these separate publications discuss so many of the same issues indicates that Dartmouth women still consistently grappled with sexism and inequality, throughout the 90’s and even to the present day. In Spare Rib and Inner Bitch, we see two opposite ways of writing about adversity: Spare Rib falls somewhere near the middle of political and social discourse, and Inner Bitch is far, far to the left. It’s up to you to decide which is more inspiring––cogent journalism, or an angry, hilariously graphic zine. To see for yourself ask for DC Hist LH1.D3 S63 and LH1.D3 I54.

Posted for Sarah Alpert '21

Digital Pioneer

Our first digital project, Script to Pixels, was a collaboration between Joshua Shaw, Pat Cope and the Special Collections Librarian Philip Cronenwett, who passed away last weekend. Inspired by Phil's checklist of medieval manuscripts, the project took Dartmouth into the brave new world of digitization. Amazingly, it is still an incredibly useful site today. We have given it a few updates and reskinned it a few times, but the site you see is essentially the work that Phil, Joshua and Pat did nearly twenty years ago.

Phil joined the Library in 1979 as Manuscripts Curator and later became Special Collections Librarian. He left an impressive legacy: he was instrumental overseeing the cataloging of almost all of our medieval manuscripts; acquired many important modern manuscript collections; and was instrumental in maintaining the tremendous depth of our polar collections. He came to Dartmouth as a medievalist, but caught the polar bug and acquired many of the most important manuscript items in the Stefansson collection. It was during his tenure that Special Collections moved from its cramped quarters in the Treasure Room of Baker Library into the newly constructed Rauner Library in the Webster Hall.

Phil's work shaped special collections in so many ways that he is here with us every day. He will be deeply missed by those who knew him.

Shrink-Wrapped History

It is indeed shocking to see the three large boxes brought up from the depths of Rauner. Once opened, the volume of the content engages you. 78 matted and shrink-wrapped engravings stored tightly like files in their separate boxes invite you to pick one up, then the next. The first may be a dramatic battle scene with combatants on horseback being thrust into the air or dramatically slain in the center of the scene with a full-fledged, incredibly detailed war in action in the background. You look closer and are impressed with the curve and shadow on the horse’s neck, and the telling facial expression on the main subject’s face. This is due to the fine detailing of the steel engraving process. You can see the fear in his eyes and the concentration in his muscle movement.

The next engravings are wildly different; a house with many windows and four nicely nurtured trees evenly spaced outside the front. More show ‘the capture of the king of Delhi’, the ‘blowing up of the cashmere gate at Delhi’, ‘Miss. Wheeler defending herself against the Sepoys at Cawnpore’ and the ‘outlying picket of the highland brigade at Benares’- a chilling image of cannons, soldiers and animals in the foreground with seven naked bodies hung from a branch in the background. Other than these theatrical action scenes, there are also images of locations, portraits of important figures, and two colorful, beautifully drawn maps relevant to the Sepoy Rebellion.

These engravings are part of Charles Ball’s British jingoistic retelling of the Sepoy Rebellion. Ball – a 19th century acclaimed British historian – wrote a seven part history detailing the Rebellion. The parts were issued separately from the maps and engravings with the intention that buyers would purchase them all and bind them into two separate volumes. His ‘histories’ of the rebellion many times depict popular rumors as fact and endeavor to render Indians as inferior and savage and British as courageous and triumphant.

The engravings, maps and books are now collector’s items, sold from relatively high-end auction houses. Our set of engravings was given by Wayne Broehl in 1994, who also donated other material related to wars particularly in Japan and India. He was a member of the Tuck School faculty and he also wrote a book called The Crisis of the Raj on the Sepoy Rebellion, which is available in Dartmouth’s libraries today.

Ball’s engravings have been used in many retellings, articles, scholarly journals, books and essays as media supplement to text about the Rebellion and this time period in India. His recounting of these events were of the first colonialist interpretations of 1857, revealing much about British attitude towards the Sepoy Rebellion and racist sentiments of the time.

To see the engravings, ask for MS-790. The shrink wrap is not a good idea from an archival standpoint, so we will be removing it!

Posted for Sophia Linkas '21

Phebe Ann Jacobs

Preparing for a class this week, we dug into the life of Phebe Ann Jacobs, a slave once owned by the wife of Dartmouth President John Wheelock. We knew a little bit of the story from some student research a few years ago, but we got a little more serious and found a tantalizing story--naturally filled with gaps.

Phebe was born into slavery around 1785 in New Jersey. At the age of seven, she was given to John Wheelock's wife, Marie, to be a servant and help care for her daughter (also named Marie). Little Marie and Phebe grew up together, one as master, the other as servant. When Marie married William Allen, the president of Bowdoin, Phebe went with her as her slave. She was later emancipated, probably at the time of Marie's death, and continued to work, as a washerwoman for Bowdoin students. "Mrs. T. C. Upham" chronicled some of her life in an abolitionist pamphlet published by the American Tract Society that was subsequently used as source material by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

In William Allen's papers, we found a few casual mentions of Phebe. Both in letters from Marie to her husband when she was away. In each case she gives him instructions to impart to Phebe. If Upham's account is accurate, she appears to have been more than just a servant, and she remained close with Marie's children, though we know that Phebe moved away from the Allen family, and set up her own home after she was freed.

There is a bigger story to tell, and now that Phebe is on our radar, we hope to find other fragments of her life.  You can read more about her by asking for DC History E185.97 U76. To see the letters that mention her, ask for MS-916, Box 1, folder 11. There is also a letter written by John Wheelock recounting the trip to New Jersey when Phebe was given to Marie, but, tellingly, there is no mention of anything so insignificant as a slave girl.

Lost Their Marbles!

Paper marbling is a beautiful and tricky art form that is often used to create endpapers for book binding. The marbled design is made by floating paint on the surface of water and running a comb or other tool run through it to create the specific pattern. Some marbling is even made by blowing through a straw to manipulate the paint! A sheet of paper or fabric is then laid across the top of the water to absorb the colors.

Coming in a wide range of colors and designs, marbled endpapers are a great surprise treasure to find in a book. And the addition of a marbled paper makes a book more unique; like tie-dying a shirt, no two endpapers will come out exactly the same, even if they are made using the same colors and pattern.

We have one book in our collection that includes several marbled papers, but not as part of its binding; this is a book about marbled papers, titled The world's worst marbled papers : being a collection of ten contemporary San Serriffean marbled papers showing the lowest level of technique, the worst combinations of colors, and the most inferior execution known since the dawn of the art of marbling. Containing only 10 marbled papers, the book also includes a lengthy introduction about the art of marbling, as well as the author’s alleged journey through San Serriffe in search of marbled beauty. The book is definitely intended to be satire – San Serriffe isn’t even a real place, after all. But it does provide a backward account of the elements of marbling that make it so popular; the combinations of colors and the intricate designs are not only aesthetically appealing, but also a marvel of artistic creation.

Actually, many of the endpapers in this book aren’t entirely unattractive, even if they are maybe a little less impressive than many of the more complex or skillfully executed works of marbling. Some, though, really are terrible color combinations and abysmal technique, resulting in some ugly endpapers. To see some marbling that actually captures the height of the art, check out our Instagram account @raunerlibrary on #marbledmondays! To see The world's worst marbled papers ask for Presses B532mow.

In Flew Enza

On September 22, 1918, young Clifford Orr wrote home to his mother about the first weeks of his Freshman year at Dartmouth. In his four-page letter, he complains of the lack of a writing desk, invites her for a visit to watch the "Fresh-Soph" rush (a fairly brutal hazing ritual), and talks about how his math class is going to be "fierce!" He even includes a hand-drawn map of campus. It is a lovely letter from a clever, chatty son to his mother.

Orr mentions that some students are worried they might be coming down with the Spanish Influenza. The epidemic that started one-hundred years ago this March killed between fifty and one-hundred million people worldwide and was particularly devastating for people in their early twenties, so this was a serious matter. Orr appeared undaunted, unless he was using humor to hide his fear, or perhaps just trying to keep his mother from worrying. Making light of it, he scribbled out a little verse for his dear mother's enjoyment:

I had a little bird and his name was Enza,
I opened the cage and Influenza.

Orr actually became sick with the Spanish flu later that year, but survived. He went on to have a successful career as a writer for the New Yorker. His letters home are a treat. You can see them all by asking for MS-532, Box 1.