In a newly-acquired photograph album that belonged to the family of Theodore Roosevelt, we discovered this delightful, undated, image of a Roosevelt family jack-o-lantern, sitting on the porch at Sagamore Hill. The pumpkin seems to be sporting not only a pince-nez, but also a handsome mustache, suggesting that perhaps it’s in costume. [Heather Cole, Assistant…
Curiosities of Chinese Medicine
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Médecine et pharmacopée en Chine is comprised of three volumes that are each bound with colored cord inside an illustrated paper cover. Published in early 20th-century France the volumes appear to explore medicine and pharmacology in China. Each…
Houghton Acquires an Astronomical Rarity
One of the strengths of our collection is in the history of astronomy, and particularly an outstanding collection of the works of Johannes Kepler. So I’m very pleased to announce that we have just acquired the rarest work in Kepler’s bibliography, Ad Rerum Coelestium Amatores Universos … De Solis Deliquio. This slim volume documents an…
Virtually Dickinson
We are very pleased to announce the launch of the Emily Dickinson Archive, http://edickinson.org, an open-access site that brings together nearly all of Emily Dickinson’s extant poetry manuscripts. A collaborative effort across many institutions, the resource provides readers with images of manuscripts held in multiple libraries and archives, and also offers an array of transcriptions…
You shall not Pass!
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Lowell Thomas was an American writer, traveler, and broadcaster that is often known as the person who made Lawrence of Arabia famous. This graphic depiction of an Afghan man is from the dust jacket of Beyond Khyber Pass…
Where can you purchase a handsome notecard for $2?
Houghton Library, that’s where! 10 new notecards added in the lobby carousels Staff, Readers, Fellows and Friends… in your travels through the Houghton collections, please keep images (this can be images of text too) in mind as possible candidates for future notecards. Dark images tend to not reproduce well and we try to pick images…
New Digitization July-September 2013
Here are the complete works and collections we’ve digitized in the last three months. Highlights include programs from the Ballets Russes, a 16th century manuscript map of the Mediterranean, and the typescript of a play by Henry James….
It’s a dog’s life
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Stephen Huneck was not only an American author but a carving artist, painter, and furniture maker. Originally from Sudbury, Massachusetts he began working in wood when he lived in Rochester, Vermont. He was ostensibly discovered when an…
Contributing Data for Greater Understanding
On Monday of last week Dr. Cristina Dondi, one of the contributors to the six-volume Catalogue of Printed Books in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library (Bod-Inc), principal investigator of Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI), and, Secretary of the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL), spoke at Houghton library on her current research…
Liquid Courage
“Liquid courage” takes on a particularly tame form in German dance folios dating to the Weimar Republic. Tea steeps in the titles of social dance serials such as Zum 5 Uhr Tee (To Five O’Clock Tea), Zu Tee und Tanz (To Tea and Dance), Zum Tanz-Tee (To the Dancing Tea), and Tanztee und Tonfilm (Tea…