The Poetry of Mary Tallmountain

This Monday is Indigenous Peoples' Day here in the United States, a day that celebrates and honors Native American peoples, their histories, and their cultures. The holiday originally began in South Dakota thirty years ago this October and has been formally adopted by numerous towns and cities across the nation since then. This year, we're celebrating by promoting our issues of a South Dakota publication, The Blue Cloud Quarterly, that almost exclusively features poetry by Native American authors. The Blue Cloud Quarterly was published by the Benedictine Missionaries at Blue Cloud Abbey in Marvin, South Dakota, for over thirty years and primarily consists of poetry chapbooks by Native American authors. In fact, it was the first publication of its kind to do so, and at least one scholar has posited that the Quarterly had a significant influence on the resurgence of Native American literary production during the latter half of the 20th century.

Here at Rauner, we have a run of issues from 1977 through the final issue in 1988. These chapbooks are an exciting opportunity to hear the indigenous people of North America speak about their experiences in their own words. One such poet was Mary Tallmountain, whose poetry fills the final issue of the Quarterly. She was born in Nulato, Alaska, in 1918, to the Athabascan tribe. At the age of six, Tallmountain was separated from her family and her people and taken to Oregon by an adoptive white family, where she was abused and molested by the head of the household and forbidden from speaking her own language. As an adult, she began writing with a passion and published numerous works that dealt with the themes of Native and Christian spirituality and the interconnectedness of nature.

Tallmountain died in 1994, but not before founding the Tenderloin Women Writers Workshop in 1987 that supported local women in their attempts to express themselves through the written word. To read some of Mary's words, and learn more about her experiences and those of many other Native American poets, come to Rauner and ask to see Rare PS509 .I5 B59.

Butchering a Tree

We just picked up a nice guide for timber merchants from 1823. It contains everything you need to know to go into the timber business--the qualities of different types of wood; how much lumber of different types you can expect to get out of a tree of a certain diameter; a history of the use of wood in building; and a section on the "principle pieces of timber used to build a seventy-four gun ship of the line."

But what struck us most about the book was the hand-colored lithographs illustrating the cuts you can get from a tree. They look like those butchering guides you see for hogs and cattle, but in this case the tenderloin is the "keel piece."

To see the Timber Merchant's Guide, ask for Rare SD557.G9 1823.

Still in the News

Originally published in the New York Packet in March of 1788, Alexander Hamilton's Federalist 65 and 66 were compiled along with the rest of the "Federalist Papers" in April and May of that year and published in two volumes by J. and A. McLean as The Federalist: A Collection of Essays in Favour of the New Constitution. The McLeans only printed 500 copies, but even that proved to be far too many for the market. Today, it is one of the most sought after first editions in American political history because it so clearly lays out the original intent of the framers of the Constitution.

The world is paying particularly close attention to Federalist 65 and 66 right now because that is where Hamilton defined the power of the Senate in matters of impeachment. You can come in and see his original words in their first compiled form by asking for McGregor 56.

In the News

Recent happenings in the news made us remember an odd little relic in the collections: a ticket to Andrew Johnson's impeachment hearing in the U.S. Senate on April 29th, 1868. The blue printed ticket seems like it may not have been used; the stub is detached, but still present. We are not sure if the owner of ticket 729 bothered to show up or if the bearer managed to keep both portions of the ticket.

It is accompanied by a letter from James G. Harvey, an attorney in White River Junction, to Colonel F. C. Churchill of Lebanon dated June 29, 1912. The letter starts out simply enough with Harvey telling the Colonel that he is happy to give him the ticket for his collection--he says he has been carrying it around in his pocket but keeps forgetting about it when he sees him. Then, after some niceties, Harvey exclaims: "What a mix up in politics. What is the country coming to I wonder."

Well, that sent us back into the news from that era to see how politics could ever be mixed up and just what was imperiling the country. The front page of the seemingly flourishing New York Times for June 29, 1912, tells the story. The Democratic convention was in its 10th ballot and still no nominee had been chosen. The convention was in Baltimore in the summer and it was blisteringly hot. Eventually Woodrow Wilson won the nomination on, get this, the 46th ballot! Wilson went on to win the Presidency later that year.

If you are interested in seeing the Johnson impeachment ticket and accompanying letter, ask for MS868279

The Wine Hills of New Hampshire

This week, Rauner Special Collections Library's reading room is abuzz with independent student explorations of numerous and various maps of the American continent from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Tasked by Professor Paul Musselwhite to identify a location of interest and then track how its representation changes over time, the Dartmouth students have been poring over musty old tomes in the hopes of finding a small portion of the world that captures their interest enough to write a paper about it. Some of these students have even ventured beyond the cart of curated materials and have requested books that extend their knowledge of the Americas beyond what was shown to them in an earlier class session here in Special Collections.

One such book is William Hubbard's Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians. Printed in 1677, this handsome little volume is the locus for a puzzling map mystery that has

confounded scholars for centuries. Little did the student know when she requested it that she would open a can of cartographic worms. Hubbard's book was printed in New England and in London, and each edition contains a map of New England. Here is where the trouble begins, for the American map is the first known to have been published of the English colonies of North America, and lists the "White Hills" of New Hampshire, now known to us as the White Mountains. However, the English map, while very similar, refers instead to the "Wine Hills." While perhaps a supernatural premonition of the sorts of activities that have happened far too often on campus, this designation is an obvious factual error. The enigma for map scholars, however, is whether or not these two maps were made by the same engraver and which of them was made first.

To see one of the earliest perspectives of New England, come to Special Collections and ask to peruse McGregor 79.

Feast and Famine

Here in Special Collections, we're fortunate enough to have one of the world's best collections having to do with polar and cold region exploration. The Stefansson Collection is named after its original owner, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a lecturer at Dartmouth College who himself was an Arctic explorer in the early 20th century. Many people know about the numerous smaller collections that reside under the broad umbrella of the Stefansson Collection, such as the papers of Ada Blackjack, Admiral Robert Peary, or the diary of Thomas Orde-Lees, quartermaster and machinist for Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated Endurance expedition.

However, not many people know about the sizable collection of Stefansson's correspondence that we have here at Rauner Library. Later in life, Stefansson became a public intellectual of sorts, at least when it came to anything having to do with Arctic exploration or indigenous communities within the Arctic Circle. He lectured widely across the country and, as a result of his popularity, was often sent letters by people seeking his approval or authentication for their own various books, projects, or speaking tours. Sometimes, he responded positively, supporting the petitioner's project. Often, however, he filed their requests, or the information they wanted him to validate, in a correspondence file titled "Fakes (Popular Errors & Misconceptions)."

Stefansson's correspondence is arranged by year and then alphabetically, so we have many many
"Fakes" files. One of my personal favorites is a letter sent to him in 1927 by a Mr. Earl Sims of the law firm Weltner & Sims based in Atlanta, Georgia. In his
letter, Sims takes to task one Dillon Wallace, a fellow lawyer who wrote a best-selling book about a failed exploratory trip through Labrador. On the trip, which happened in 1903, Wallace's partner Leonidas Hubbard took ill and died of starvation, while Wallace was able to make it out alive. The book, published in 1905, took hold of the popular imagination. However, some people, Mr. Sims among them, took issue with the book. In his letter, Sims questions the validity of basic claims made by Wallace (for example, whether or not the two explorers had an axe along with them) as well as a very important detail related to the issue of starvation. Sims catalogs the copious number of fish that Wallace claims they caught and consumed during their period of so-called "famine." Sims concludes, rather tartly, that he is "prepared to believe that Hubbard may have died of over-eating, but not that he starved to death."

To read more about various fakes, falsehoods, and popular misconceptions about the Arctic, come to Special Collections and ask to see a Fakes folder from the Correspondence of Vilhjalmur Stefansson (MSS-196).

Our Favorite Box

The book that has been inside this box is pretty important, but today it is all about the box. You see, in 1913, the members of the all-male book collecting club in Cleveland, the Rowfant Club, pooled together to present their outgoing president, Willis Vickery, a gift: a copy of Shakespeare's first folio from 1623. That is a hell of a gift, and it needed a proper presentation. So the old boys at the club had a box made at the Rowfant Bindery.

The box is a work of art all by itself. Stamped on the green morocco spine is:

Shakespeare

First Folio

1623

That makes it look damned impressive on a bookshelf. Then, when you open it up, you see ornate gold-stamped doors that remind you again, "Shakespeare, First Folio, 1623." Got it, the box is holding the first folio.

Swing those doors open, and you enter the silk-lined reliquary for the most revered book of English literature. Gold stamped on the sides are the names of each member of the Rowfant Club that contributed. Nice touch, they each get a kind of forever association with the book!

The Rowfant Bindery only lasted four years (1910-1914), but it did some fabulous work and this box may be their crowning achievement. It stands alone as a masterpiece in binding work, but for anyone using this copy of the first folio it also creates a sacred aura by building layers of cultural trappings the reader must traverse to reach the book within.

One Easter egg for those looking: the Rowfant Club emblem is twice stamped on the box: a gopher holding a candle holder. Each member of the Rowfant Club has his own candle holder that they use to claim their spot during their dinners. When a member dies, the Club puts a snuffer over the candle holder and places it on a shelf in their old mansion in Cleveland. The candle holders remain, snuffed, as a reminder to all of the living members of their attachment to the club, but also their own mortality. But here, the emblem of the candle is commemorating a book that they found to be immortal.

To take a look, ask for Hickmott 1.