Conservators at the Weissman Preservation Center have been busy preparing for Houghton’s upcoming exhibition, Shakespeare: His Collected Works, which marks the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death and opens January 19th. Their work often involves analyzing the material makeup of artifacts at high magnification to determine the best and safest course of treatment. Debora Mayer is Helen H. Glaser…
Historical Sheet Music Collections: a glimpse of paradise
Stepping briefly outside the Ward Collection, I have been working recently with Dana Gee on our “Historical Sheet Music Collections of Houghton Library and the Harvard Theatre Collection.” As Dana has reported, she has begun our survey and already we have found amazing treasures of music and printing. On a gloomy, rainy day such as…
American sheet music, early automobiles and women drivers
I’m pleased to introduce a few images from the Theatre Collection’s current Sheet Music project, beginning a series of posts with intriguing, entertaining and informative images. I’m working on a survey of a hidden collection, part of Harvard’s popular American sheet music holdings, and these early 20th century pieces are from a collection at Houghton…
“The Surrealist Miracle”
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. “Everywhere the hands, heads, eyes, arms and legs of millions are manipulated through abominable choreographics of obligations, restrictions, responsibilities, laws; life itself becomes inside out, upside down, flattened to the pastel walls of bureaucratic insensitivity—what is…
Baking Emily Dickinson’s Black Cake
The Emily Dickinson manuscripts are a cherished part of Houghton Library’s collections and while it is her poems and letters that are most often celebrated, we’ve lately been dwelling on the poet’s lesser known lines: “2 Butter. / 19 eggs. / 5 pounds Raisins.” Dickinson’s manuscript recipe for black cake, from which these lines come, was sent along…
A Yogi’s thoughts
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. This colorful volume is the work of Peter Max, a German artist, who dedicated this book to the brothers and sisters of the Integral Yoga Institute. The founder of the Integral Yoga Institute was Satchidananda Saraswati,…
Documenting an activist and his cause
The volume pictured here, C.K.C. – his book, chronicles the efforts of a little-known activist to establish international limitations on the opium trade. Charles Kittredge Crane (1881-1932) dedicated himself singly to this cause, which culminated in three League of Nations conventions held in Geneva: the first and second back-to-back in 1924 and 1925, and the third…
“A sense of happiness stole over him”
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Blackie, Fullerton & Co. was originally a bookselling firm founded in Glasgow in 1809 by John Blackie Sr., Archibald Fullerton, and William Somerville. They specialized in the sale of books in monthly or quarterly installments, mainly…
New on OASIS in December
Finding aids for two newly cataloged collections and a preliminary box list for a recent acquisition have been added to the OASIS database this month. Processed by: Christine Jacobson and Irina Klyagin Nicholas Daniloff papers (MS Am 2933) Processed by: Kristin Alexander Julia Marlowe collection of letters and photographs (MS Thr 1175) New preliminary box…
Examining “the Beat”
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. The arrival of the Beat Generation generated controversy, conversation, and in some cases literature; for some onlookers, though, it was mostly a source of opportunity. Hence Beatnik, which promises “an uncensored, unexpurgated exposé of the ‘Beat Generation’”,…