This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Description of the Retreat, an institution near York, for insane persons of the Society of Friends is a volume by Samuel Tuke who was a Quaker and mental-health reformer in early 19th-century England. Tuke believed in this new…
Houghton Library Visiting Fellowships
Each year Houghton Library awards a number of short-term visiting fellowships in support of scholarly use of our collections. Fellows will also have access to collections in Widener Library as well as to other libraries at the University. Preference is given to scholars whose research is closely based on materials in Houghton collections, especially when…
New on OASIS for October
Finding aids for seven newly cataloged collections, and a preliminary box list for one recent acquisition, have been added to the OASIS database this month, including theatrical ephemera, correspondence of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, and a collection of 19th century board games and playing cards….
Faustian correction
One of the great joys of cataloging at Houghton is that surprises lurk everywhere. From the most innocuous description in a box list one can stumble across masterpieces, or sometimes even more interestingly, milestones on the path to masterpiece-dom. Last night I opened what I thought would be an early full score of Gounod’s Faust,…
New information about Emily Dickinson’s furniture
This past spring, Houghton Library collaborated with the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst and the North Bennet Street School in Boston to create exact reproductions of the writing desk and bureau originally in Emily Dickinson’s bedroom in the Homestead. Since 1950, the two iconic pieces have been part of the Emily Dickinson Collection at the…
Auspicious Debuts: Dear Liar
On July 31, 1957, a thin crowd at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium in Cambridge, Mass. listened as Jerome Kilty (Harvard ’41) and Cavada Humphrey read—or pretended to read—from the correspondence of George Bernard Shaw, “the well-known vegetarian,” and famed English actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Campbell. Perhaps some day, if you are very good and behave properly…
New Digitization Roundup, Part VI
With this post we’ve now caught up on Houghton’s digitization for the 2012-2013 fiscal year; look for future updates coming soon, and remember that you can click on the Digitization tag for all our blog posts on the subject. Highlights in this post include an expose of the 19th century impostor known as Princess Caraboo,…
Gigantic Bats in Space!
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Voyage dans la lune avant 1900 is an extraordinary French children’s book that is composed primarily of color lithographs by Herold & Cie., which are based on the original designs of A. de Ville d’Avray’s. Almost nothing about…
Myths debunked: Sadly, Theodore Roosevelt never rode a moose
Many of Theodore Roosevelt’s adventures seem like something out of a tall tale: he survived an assassination attempt; nearly died while exploring the Amazonian jungle; and became the first president to drive a car and fly in a plane; among many others. Despite having been a larger-than-life figure, this is one thing that TR never…
New Digitization Roundup, Part V
Another batch of new digitization has us nearly caught up! This week’s highlights include an illuminated medieval manuscript, early printed music, and the biography of a 19th century tattooed sideshow performer….