True North

In a few weeks, Roger Guenveur Smith will be bringing his solo show called "Frederick Douglass Now" to the Hopkins Center for two nights. In preparation for attendance, the 8th-graders from Crossroads Academy in Lyme, NH, will visit Rauner Library to explore copies of the Columbian Orator, an early nineteenth-century collection of political essays, poems, and other writings. Douglass, in his autobiography, notes how he found a copy of the Orator as a twelve-year-old and the impact that it had on his life. The editor of the Orator was a man named Caleb Bingham, who was a member of Dartmouth's Class of 1782.

In addition to looking at the Columbian Orator, the students will have a chance to look at a small volume of collected poetry called The North Star that was edited by John Greenleaf Whittier, an American Quaker poet and fervent abolitionist. The slim volume holds numerous poems from famous Americans, including John Quincy Adams, Whittier himself, and an anonymous poem by Williams Wells Brown, the first published African-American author. The name of the book is an acknowledgement of the North Star's symbolic representation of freedom for enslaved people who used it to find their way north through the wilderness.

To see one of our sixteen editions of the Columbian Orator, come to Rauner and ask for Alumni B513co. To see The North Star, ask for Rare PS595.S7 W5.

A Tale of Two Marios

In December 1970, director James Goldstone '53, signed on to direct a motion picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer entitled The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Jimmy Breslin. The screenplay had been written by Waldo Salt, who only a year earlier had won the Academy Award for his screenplay Midnight Cowboy. A key role in The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight was the part of “Mario” for which All Pacino had been suggested.

Goldstone met with Pacino on numerous occasions in January and February of 1971. During those meetings, Pacino was very interested in playing the role and he and Goldstone discussed possible actors to fill the remaining parts. According to Goldstone, Pacino felt that the role of “Mario” was the best role for him and his career. However, around the same time, Pacino was also asked to read for another part in a movie for Paramount Pictures. That movie was The Godfather by Mario Puzo - and the rest is movie history. Al Pacino became “Michael Corleone” and the part of “Mario” went to Robert de Niro.

It is interesting to note that The Godfather and the The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight were shot in New York City at the same time. While The Godfather production had to deal with pressures from the Italian-American community to excise words such as Mafia and Cosa Nostra from the script and Italian-American actors were pressured not to appear in The Godfather, The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight encountered no such problems according to a press release:

'As far as I know,' said director Goldstone, 'we had only one phone call which may or may not have amounted to pressure. Our casting director, Marion Daugherty, was called by someone who asked to see a copy of the script. Presumably it was a person connected with one of the Italian-American organization. The call was referred to Irwin Winkler, the producer. Apparently, it was never followed up. If it had been, the caller would have been told that we were not submitting the script for approval of any charitable organization… and we had no trouble with casting.'

The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight met with only lukewarm success when the picture opened in 1972.  The humorous story of incompetent Italian mobsters was generally panned by reviewers who felt that the actors worked way too hard at being funny and that the humor was too slapstick.  Most of them blamed the script by Waldo Salt and the loose direction by Goldstone.

If you would like to see the script for The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight and many of the other projects Goldstone was involved with including scripts for such television shows as The Outer Limits or Ironside, ask for MS-1073, James Goldstone papers.

An Obstetric View of Orozco

When Orozco first painted his famous murals in Baker Library, the reception was decidedly mixed in the national press. Some loved the murals (most notably Lewis Mumford in the New Republic), some marveled that a bastion of capitalism would commission a communist to decorate its library, and some just didn't quite know what to make of the murals. Modern Medicine, though, saw it all as a joke, and their use of the murals was so campy (and, well, dumb), we just had to share it.

They illustrated the section of their May 1934 issue devoted to the latest advances in Gynecology & Obstetrics with Panel 15, "The Gods of the Modern World." They renamed it "Childbirth of Ideas" and gave it the following caption:

The skeleton in labor, bedded on books & giving birth to another scholar, born with a mortar-board on his head (rather than a gold spoon in his mouth) is the sardonic obstetric conception of 51-year-old modern, "unmannered" Mexican muralist, José Clemente Orozco. Grim accoucheurs, supervising the perpetuation of their fleshless species, are pictured pundits of the chaotic modern world.

They must have thought themselves so clever--you can just see those old doctors chortling away.

As part of New Student Orientation, Saturday, September 8th, from 10:15-1:00, Rauner Library will be part of the Shared Academic Experience where students will visit the murals with Professor Mary Coffey and then come over to Rauner Library to see archival films, Orozco's original sketches from the Hood Museum, and examples of how the murals were received by Dartmouth students and alumni, as well as by fuddy-duddy OB-GYNs in the 1930s.

You can find a series of newspaper and magazine articles on the murals by asking for DL-34, Box 8865 and Box 6122.

Eastern Tales for Western Kids

Walking through the stacks in search of something to post to our Instagram account always reveals a something new and exciting. Just last week, while hunting for interesting books from the 80’s (of any century), I found The Silly Jellyfish, a children’s book from the 1880’s printed on Japanese crepe paper, or chirimen-gami. After a little digging, I found 8 more of these beautiful crepe-paper books,chirimen-bon, printed entirely on the intricately textured paper.

These translated Japanese fairy tales were originally printed by Takejiro Hasegawa beginning in the mid 1880s and into the early 20th century. He predominantly sold to a Western market as souvenirs and eventually exports. Each one is beautifully bound and illustrated. These publications were incredibly popular for children because they are more durable. The stories in our collections range from tales about goblins and ogres to crabs warring with monkeys. My favorite is The Boy Who Drew Cats, translated by Lafcadio Hearn, a fairy tale about a little boy who gets into trouble for drawing cats instead of studying, but his illustrations eventually come to life to defeat a giant goblin.

To read The Boy Who Drew Cats, just ask for Rare PZ8 .H35 B6 1898 cop. 2. For our other chirimen-bon, ask for Rare GR 340 .B38, Rare GR340 .O48, Rare PZ8 .H35 C6 1903, Rare PZ8 .H35 G6 1899, Rare PZ8 .H35 O4 1902, Rare PZ8 .M43 1896, Rare PZ8 .J27 no. 7b and Rare PZ8 .S56 1887.  For more incredible Instagram finds, check us out at https://www.instagram.com/raunerlibrary/.

Cringy Cool

The first response to an over-the-top Cosway binding is either, "Oh, it's beautiful," or, "Oh my God..." with a cynical shake of the head. They both work and, depending on my mood on any given day, I can go either way. Luckily, this week we cataloged a two-volume set of Dickens's Pickwick Papers with classic Cosway-style bindings incorporating portraits. The inside cover of volume one sports a miniature of the young novelist, while volume two shows him in his maturity. So, you can cringe at one and marvel at the other! While you react, you can calm your agitation by stroking the silk endpapers.

Come on in and take a look by asking for Sine  B767pos. Oh yeah, it also has an original Dickens signature tipped in.

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!