Harvard Library joins Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies and the Department of the Classics to celebrate the birthday of Greek poet Nikos Gatsos and the launch of the Gatsos Translation Project. Harvard Library’s 2018 acquisition of the archive of avant-garde Greek poet and lyricist Nikos Gatsos (1911–1992) has been widely celebrated by the Harvard…
Harvard Theatre Collection’s Lincoln Assassination Playbills
By Matthew Wittmann, Curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection Rather unfortunately, an evening performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865 is perhaps the most remarked upon theatrical event in American history. Harry Hawk, who played the “cousin” character Asa Trenchard, delivered this risible line in Act II: “Don’t know the manners…
The Legacy of Harold Terrell at Houghton Library
By Peter X. Accardo, Scholarly and Public Programs Librarian As part of our observance of African American history month, Houghton Library has taken an opportunity to research and reflect on the life and work of the library’s first African American colleague, Harold M. Terrell, Jr. At a time when the Harvard College Library employed very…
Introducing Houghton Library’s New Digital Archivist
By Monique Lassere, Digital Archivist, Houghton Library Hi, everyone. My name is Monique and I am Houghton Library’s new Digital Archivist! I started working at Houghton in May 2020. My job sits within the Manuscript Section and revolves around the born-digital collections Houghton acquires in the form of media like hard drives and floppy disks,…
Cosmic Visions: Illuminating Dante’s Divine Comedy
By Madeleine Klebanoff O’Brien Last summer I conducted independent research at Houghton Library through Harvard’s remote Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program undergraduate fellowship. Inspired by Houghton’s collections, I created an allegorical map of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The Comedy follows Dante through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. It is a cosmography, a “total vision” of…