This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Sometimes it is uncanny how we find materials in the collection that relate to popular culture right now, this week in fact. I recently watched the new Netflix series Stranger Things, a nostalgic 1980s show which features isolation tanks and…
Houghton Incunable finds its Mate after Two Centuries
Not long ago, Houghton Library acquired a copy of the first half of an edition of the works of Thomas Aquinas printed in Basel by Michael Wenssler in 1485 (Inc 7508) – the first half, I say, because the collection was issued in three parts, of which the second itself consisted of two parts, and…
Quite a card: Raymond S. Wilkins’ sheet music artist card files
Isn’t it always the way, that once one begins opening boxes, all kinds of surprising things appear. This was certainly the case with our recent Hidden Collections grant, to survey all of our historical sheet music collections. Our sheet music had for years been shelved in an end-of-Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-warehouse-y kind of situation, awaiting the time and…
Pict Ale
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. As the title suggests this is an entertaining read on the history, legends, and facts regarding beer along with clever illustrations. The self-proclaimed “beer king” Alan Eames covers everything from the invention of beer, drinking habits of…
Nineteenth-Century Bound Sheet Music Volumes Part III: Thomas J. Kiernan volume of American vocal music, circa 1843-1871
Of the nearly four hundred bound sheet music volumes held in Houghton, many were owned by the same person – there are at least seven owned by Edith Forbes Perkins, for example, and over a dozen by Catharine Dean Flint. Just as interesting, however, are single volumes, one of which is highlighted below….
Nineteenth-Century Bound Sheet Music Volumes Part II: Souvenir of the Confederacy
Most bound volumes in our collection that are about one inch thick contain between thirty and forty individual pieces. This volume, unassuming as it is, contains ninety three….