Finding aids for five newly cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month: Processed by: Irina Klyagin Guy Sheppard costume designs, sketches and caricatures (MS Thr 1310) Processed by: Jennifer Lyons Modern American theater programs (MS Thr 1138) Randall Thompson music scores (MS Thr 1202) Photographs of theatrical performers and sets (MS Thr 1248)…
Benzedrine for Breakfast
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Benzedrine for Breakfast is the autobiography of Noreen Price, who lived quite an unconventional life. Born in South Africa by accident because her Dutch mother missed the boat while visiting relatives there. Noreen was schooled in a…
Write Me In!
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Dick Gregory is an African American comedian, political activist, humanitarian, and nutritional consultant. His political comedy was groundbreaking for its take on race relations and other social injustices during the civil rights movements of the 1960s….
Full freedom, not an inferior brand
The centerpiece of Houghton’s current exhibition, Shakespeare: His Collected Works, is a life-size poster from the 1943 Broadway production of Othello starring Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson was the son of an escaped slave who became his generation’s most outspoken defender of civil liberties. A graduate of Rutgers and Columbia Law School, he was a distinguished athlete,…
Male impersonators in early 20th century American sheet music
In the aughts and teens of the 20th century, a few female vaudeville performers, British and American, had great success with male impersonation acts. In performance, they sang romantic love songs (as boys or young men), comic songs and bragging songs. Here are a few examples of their songs as published sheet music. Florence (or…
Watch out for Vipers
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Manual medico-legal des poisons… is a curious French text that appears to be primarily about the legal aspects of poisoning. It also includes instructions on how to treat snakebites, the bites of rabid animals, as well…
Houghton Library Fellowships for Harvard Undergraduates
Last summer we hosted the first three Houghton Library undergraduate fellows in their work as they wrote an opera, recorded podcasts, and filled gaps in the literature with archival research. Now, in partnership with the Harvard Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships and their Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program (SHARP), we are looking forward to a new cohort…
Romance gone bad
The Historical Sheet Music Collections have plenty of love songs – songs about flirting, courtship and weddings. But there are also songwriters who understand the opposite end of the romance spectrum, from the perspectives of the ones done wrong. Here are six amusing examples just in time for Valentine’s Day. Never introduce your bloke, to…
“A New Standard of Laziness”
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Tuli Kupferberg’s 1001 Ways to Live Without Working is a handbook, political satire, and collage all-in-one. Nestled between the actual 1005 point list are newspaper advertisements, photographs of protest, slave sale notices, and other pieces of…
Tickets on the Royal Dime
Houghton’s latest exhibition, Shakespeare: His Collected Works, marks the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death. Here is a closer look at one object on display. Actress and royal mistress Nell Gwyn began her career in the theatre selling oranges for sixpence. By 1676 she had retired from the stage and born Charles II two sons, yet she…