What is this Book?

Here is a curious book. It contains multiple sets of engraved plates from the 18th century, mostly by Pierre-Alexander Aveline. The plates constitute different series of views of Paris and its surroundings. There is no title page, and there is no indication that it was ever issued in its current format.

So, why does it exist?  We had a theory that it may have been some kind of sample book. Like a catalog in a shop where plates were housed. A tourist could look through the book and select an image to have printed to take home as a memento of his or her trip to Paris. But then we saw a description of a similar book of engraved plates that described it as a source book used in an artist's studio. Need a good Parisian backdrop? Take a look at the book of engravings and select one to work into your painting.

It is a pretty compelling explanation for the existence of a book like this. Ours has been rebound, so it lacks some important evidence of use, but it could well be a reference work of visual culture for others to sample. This is not yet cataloged, but you can see it by asking for it at our desk. The magic number we need to find it is 10110446. We welcome your theories!

Set your Sundial for Success

Here in Special Collections, we have a lovely little volume written in 1687 by Richard Blome titled The Present State of His Majesties Isles and Territories in America. This book, along with Ogilby's America, had a profound influence upon British emigration to the American colonies. Numerous maps of various islands are painstakingly reproduced in beautiful engravings, including a decent one of New England.

Despite the fascinating cartographic efforts that the book contains, our favorite detail is found on the very last page of the text itself (before the list of other books that the seller is trying to hawk). An engraving of various sundials demonstrates to the reader how to properly align their garden sundial, depending upon which of the British territories they live in. New England, Barbados, Jamaica, Virginia, and Carolina all have different instructions for alignment. As we move into February, when the days are growing longer, if not warmer, it's interesting to reflect on how important the sun was for early settlers for more than just heat and light.

To see Blome's book, come to Special Collections and ask for Rare E162 .B65 1687.

"To Pearson"

We have blogged about our man Charles "Stubbie" Pearson '42 a couple of times and we also featured him in one of our Hindsight is 20/19 podcasts. We just love his story. It is moving, funny, and in the end, heart-wrenching. He was captain of the football and basketball teams (took them to the Final Four!), valedictorian, and seemingly all around great guy. He died over the Pacific in WWII. You can get his whole story here.

One of the things that gets us every time is the poem "To Pearson" his classmate and Air Force comrade, James M. Idema wrote after the war and published in the prestigious Poetry Magazine. Here is the first stanza:

You'd never in a million years have guessed
Heor Pearson wrote fatuous verses to the stars,
And--tall, generous, brooding, loving, clumsy--
Laughed and made them paper balls to pitch.

Want more? Go to the Poetry website.

Creepy-Crawlies

If you like old tomes and creepy-crawlies, then do we ever have the book for you. In preparation for an anthropology class on bestiaries, we discovered an edition of Jan Swammerdam's Historia Insectorum Generalis that was printed in 1685. Inside, a cornucopia of detailed engravings of insects are lovingly tipped in. The high quality of the images is almost reminiscent of Vesalius's anatomy of the human body, which makes sense once one learns that Swammerdam initially trained as a physician. In fact, his love of insects derailed his father's plans for him to become a wealthy and prominent doctor. In anger, his father withdrew financial support and Swammerdam was forced to practice medicine in order to make enough money to continue his entomological research.

In 1669, Swammerdam published his Historia, which disproved the prevailing Aristotelian perspective that insects were inferior creatures which lacked any sort of internal anatomy worth mentioning. Additionally, Swammerdam argued that insects came from eggs instead of spontaneous generation, which was a widely-held Christian notion at the time. Swammerdam is today often cited as ushering in a natural theology that took hold in the 1700s, wherein the glory of God was revealed by careful scientific examination of his various creatures. He also was an innovator with regard to scientific techniques for working with scientific specimens, both insect and human.

To explore the amazing world of insects contained within the first Latin edition of Swammerdam's work, come to Special Collections and ask to see Rare QL463 .S8.

A Little Plainer Mr. Emerson

Dartmouth students in the 19th century had a habit of tweaking the sensibilities of their nervous professors. The school was a factory for missionaries, members of the clergy, lawyers, and teachers--not exactly the most radical professions of the time--and the faculty were strict and conservative in their views of culture. So, in 1838, the Dartmouth Literary Societies invited the bad boy of the American intelligentsia, Ralph Waldo Emerson, to speak at their Class Day celebrations.

On July 24th, 1838, Emerson stood before the class and orated on his Transcendentalist views. God is not found in the Bible but in Nature! Blasphamy, scandal! He also threw in a critique of education in America that was not particularly flattering. Worse yet, the speech occurred just nine days after Emerson delivered his scathing Harvard Divinity School Address that shook Harvard, the Unitarian church, and American thought in general.

Emerson gave the Literary Societies a little present when he was here: an inscribed copy of the first edition of his Nature published two years earlier. His copy was placed into the Social Friends' Library then became part of the Dartmouth Library in the late-19th century. The book was well read. On the inside flap are notes from various readers and there are bits of marginalia throughout as curious readers tried to puzzle out Emerson's prose.

But the best comment comes right at the end. The frustration of a confused student is expressed in his scrawl across the bottom of the final page: "A little plainer Mr. Emerson." If you want to learn more, listen to our Hindsight is 20/19 podcast episode for the 1830s.

To see the book, ask for Val 816Em3 T614.

Branding with a Bang

Most of us today have heard of the retail clothing outlet Abercrombie & Fitch, most likely because of a string of nationally publicized controversies including sexualized advertising to teens, the sale of t-shirts displaying racist and offensive slogans, and a statement in 2006 by then-CEO Mike Jeffries that Abecrombie & Fitch clothing is only for "good-looking people." Although this statement is offensive for its elitist and exclusionary stance, it's also in keeping with the organization's founding vision. In 1892, the Abercrombie Company opened its doors in the Tribeca neighborhood of lower Manhattan, bent on catering only to an elite clientele. Instead of teen clothing, however, the company's focus was on a different sort of lifestyle: sporting and excursion goods for the wealthy and well-to-do. Abercrombie Co. was an outfitter for expeditions by Theodore Roosevelt, Richard E. Byrd, and Ernest Hemingway, among other notables.

Abercrombie became Abercrombie & Fitch in 1900 when Ezra Fitch, a wealthy lawyer and avid client of the store, bought a major share in the company. Fitch eventually bought out Abercrombie in 1907 and pursued his vision for the company by making it more accessible to the public and not just to high-brow, would-be explorers and adventurers. To that end, he published the company's first mail-order catalog in 1909. Fitch quickly became known as an innovator and, under his leadership, the company flourished. Here in Special Collections, we have a letter written by Ezra Fitch to Vilhjalmur Stefansson in 1908, soon after Fitch took the helm of the company. Stefansson, a rising star in the field of polar exploration, was ostensibly preparing for his five-year ethnological survey of North American Central Arctic coasts. For that excursion, he needed a rifle, and so he visited Abercrombie & Fitch. In the letter, Fitch continues a conversation that must have begun in person at the store: he provides Stefansson with specifications for a Mannlicher-Schönauer rifle, which was very popular at the time with big game hunters (including Ernest Hemingway, who mentions the rifle in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber).

To see the letter, come to Special Collections and ask for MSS-196, Box 2, folder 27.

A Plan for World Peace

On July 9, 1917, Vermonter Belno Marsh Whelden enlisted as a private in the Machine Gun Infantry. For the next two years he would serve on the front lines in France. Whelden was one of the 4.7 million Americans who served in World war I. He was also lucky, because he got the chance to come home alive. Whelden was a member of Dartmouth College's Class of 1921. At Dartmouth, he was an avid fan of the track team and member of Phi Gamma Delta. After graduation, Whelden attended the Tuck School for a short time, before taking a position with Stetson Shoe Company in New York City. In 1925, he returned to Vermont and went into the family hardware business.

Whelden was never able to forget what he had seen during World War I and became an ardent proponent for the need of world peace. In 1945, he took matters into his own hands. In the report for the Class of 1921's 25th Reunion, he writes:

I am still on the losing end of the fight for World Peace, as I am an out and out World Government man. I have worked out my own plan for World government, based on an approach for the viewpoint of the individual who fights the wars and not from the viewpoint of nations who manage and operate same.

In 1945, Whelden sent his 147-page plan, entitled World Trusteeship of Life and the Means of Life, to Senator Tom Connally, a member of the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations. Whelden enclosed a message reading:

I enclose herewith my suggestions of a way to lasting peace. I have submitted it to no other group anywhere. You are the men who will make the peace …. Will you please read it today – now – before you go to San Francisco. I stand ready to come to Washington on a moment’s notice, if you wish to talk to me.

Whelden believed that his education at Dartmouth under President Hopkins contributed to his desire to take action. In his class letter, he continued:

Hoppy told us in ’16 when he took over that his thesis of the liberal college was to teach young men how to think and not what. … If we as people don’t damn soon cut out the fol-de-rol, flim-flam and bluff we are perpetrating at this moment, and really get down to the task of leading this tired old world or ours into the ways of peace by carrying out into the world the heritage that is ours as a nation of freeman under law, then the next war which is too far away, will wind up our life, and Dartmouth College, its Alumni Fund and its endowment won’t be worth a damn, and there won’t be any more reunions, because there won’t be anyway of getting there except in foot or canoe, the way old Eleazar got there and maybe we’d all be a helluva lot happier if that was the case anyway.

I do not know if Whelden was ever called upon by Senator Connally to speak in Washington. However, if you would like to read his plan, come to Special Collections and ask for MS-157.