In our recent investigations of Houghton’s historical sheet music collections, I ran across an unusual score of the anthem God Save the King. The score included an unfamiliar verse by Mr. Sheridan at the bottom of the first leaf, and I couldn’t find the imprint recorded anywhere (though frequently libraries don’t catalog their sheet music…
This is a political newspaper/This is not a political newspaper
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. During the blossoming of the counterculture movement of the late 1960s, San Francisco saw the formation of an anarchist collective: the Diggers. Taking inspiration (and their name) from the 17th century English Protestant radical group which…
Historical sheet music collections: Dancing Downton-style!
Some terrific dance music for a grey Wednesday – some genteel, early-Downton-Abbey era numbers, and some a bit more scandalous:…
New on OASIS in January
Two new finding aids have been added to the OASIS database this month: Processed by: Irina Klyagin Robert O’Hearn set designs (MS Thr 1236) Processed by: Jennifer Lyons Twentieth century American and British theater programs (MS Thr 1194)…
Magnificent vellucent!
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. This collection has been especially rich with volumes by Charles Baudelaire who though most famous as a French poet was also an art critic, essay writer, and translator of Edgar Allen Poe. La Fleurs du Mal,…
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,…