Each year, Houghton awards visiting fellowships to support scholars whose research requires the use of Houghton collections. We are pleased to announce the awarding of 21 fellowships for the 2012-13 fiscal year:…
Houghton’s Primeros Libros
The Houghton Library recently digitized several books to be added to the digital library Los Primeros Libros de las Américas: A Digital Library of 16th Century Colonial Mexican Imprints. Starting in 1539 with the first book of the Americas, Breve y mas compediosa doctrina Cristiana en lengua Mexicana y castellana (of which no copies survive),…
Burlesque beauties
What makes a good burlesque striptease dancer? As former performer Jane Woods aka “Shawna St. Clair” from the Golden Days of Burlesque Historical Society would say one who “…learned the art of removing her costume, inch by inch, slowly and sensuously, with smoothness and grace. She never lost the beat of the music, nor forgot…
You’ve Got Mail: “Excuse the Unpoliteness of a Printed Letter”
A new acquisition in in the Early Modern Books and Manuscripts Department shows the inner workings of what one might think of as the 18th century precursor to Craigslist: the Universal Register Office. The Office was founded in 1751 by Sir John Fielding, the blind magistrate who played a crucial role in creating London’s first…
You’ve Got Mail: “We return on the maiden voyage of the Titanic”
One hundred years ago this week, Harry Elkins Widener, Harvard class of 1907, wrote this letter to his friend and advisor Luther Livingston. He begins: “Just a few lines to tell you I am about make a quick trip to England. We sail on Wednesday at 1 a.m. on the Mauretania and return on April…
Harvard Library Bulletin articles featured
We are pleased to report that the March-April issue of Harvard Magazine draws on two articles recently published in the Harvard Library Bulletin. The Treasure column, “Orderly Living,” draws on Professor Jeffrey Hamburger’s study of Houghton Library MS Typ 590 in HLB 21:1-2 (2010, published in July 2011). Hamburger’s essay on a previously unpublished Regimen…
You’ve Got Mail: Letters from the Ward Collection
The John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward Collection of the Harvard Theatre Collection is comprised of thousands of books, scores, librettos, playbills, illustrations, and ephemera relating to public performances that incorporate music in an essential way, such as ballet, opera, social dance, pantomime, operetta, and burlesque. The letters in the collection offer a particularly quotidian…
New on OASIS in March
Finding aids for 11 newly cataloged collections, and preliminary box lists for two recent acquisitions have been added to the OASIS database this month, including TV and movie stills, scores from Hasty Pudding Club productions, Gilbert & Sullivan correspondence, and more….
You’ve Got Mail: To effect positive public change
As International Women’s Day was originally celebrated on the last Sunday in February and March brings us Women’s History Month, it seems fitting to highlight a letter in Houghton’s collection emanating from a woman’s pen. The indefatigable Mrs. Julia Ward Howe was so much more than simply the author of The Battle Hymn of the…
Three upcoming lectures at Houghton
Houghton Library is pleased to announce three upcoming lectures in March and April. On Monday, March 5, Ken Pennington, Professor of Ecclesiastical and Legal History, Catholic University of America, will lecture on “Reading the Ius Commune: The Secrets of Roman and Canon Law Manuscripts.” This lecture is co-sponsored by the Program in Medieval Studies and…