This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select, on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017. In September of 1966, Hunters Point, a predominately black neighborhood in San Francisco, erupted after the murder of sixteen-year-old Matthew Johnson by…
Hemingway’s Writing Makes a Different Sort of Mark
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select, on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017. I’ve consistently been fascinated by traces left behind by producers, owners, and readers of books in the Houghton Library collections. Most famously…
The Goddesses Among Us
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select, on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017. At the time of his death, Professor John M. Ward (the donor of our Ward Collection) was writing a book on…
Collections Now Available for Research: July
Houghton Library is pleased to announce that the following collections now have descriptive finding aids and are available for research in the library’s reading room. Alan Ansen Papers, circa 1938-2006 (MS Am 3104) – processed by Adrien Hilton Duke Atteberry Joke Collection, 1920-1960 (MS Thr 1627) – processed by Melanie Wisner Emerson Family Photographs and…
From Fan Mail to Farsi: How Fan Support Made A Book Relevant
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017. Fan mail is not usually considered worthy of exhibition. In the Gore Vidal Papers, the letters of celebrities live amongst those of literary…
A century of John Milton Ward
Today, John Milton Ward, the donor of the Harvard Theatre Collection’s Ward Collection, would have been 100 years old. Having spent most of my formative Harvard years working with him, I’d like to take a moment to share some thoughts on this auspicious occasion. I began working for John Ward in 2002, so his professor…
The Road to Revolution
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017. I have handled thousands of magnificent objects over my thirty-plus years as a rare book cataloger, but nothing comes close to finding this…