By Michael Austin, Manuscript Cataloger, Houghton Library In my first post on Houghton Library’s holdings from the Castañé collection of documents and objects relating to European conflicts of the 20th century, I focused on two particularly poignant items: a ration card issued to a young Polish girl early in the Second World War and an…
All Work but Some Play: Jaret Berman, Houghton Library, and the School-to-Work Program
By Vicki Denby, Manuscript End Processor, Houghton Library For the sixth consecutive year, Houghton Library had the opportunity to hire a paid intern from the Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School (CRLS) to learn about our work by helping with collections end-processing, which among other activities includes labeling and housing items. Through the School-to-Work program,…
Accessing Archives in the 19th-Century Atlantic World
By Derek Kane O’Leary I have everywhere found Archivists the least competent of human beings to judge of the character or value of historical papers; and if I had not been favored with the aid of higher powers, both in Paris and London, my enquiries would have been to little purpose. There Archivists look upon…
Collections Now Available for Research: December, 2018 and January, 2019
Houghton Library is pleased to announce the following collections are now described online and accessible in the reading room. Carl Chiarenza papers (MS Am 3177) – processed by Adrien Hilton Nabokov family papers (MS Russ 140) – processed by Magee Lawhorn and Irina Klyagin Harvard Theatre Collection dance scene photographs (TCS 36) – processed by…
The Castañé Collection Series: “One: ‘Miscellaneous Items’”
By Michael Austin, Manuscript Cataloger, Houghton Library The Castañé collection, donated to Houghton Library in 2015 by Spanish businessman and collector José María Castañé, comprises over 10,000 items documenting the major conflicts of the 20th century involving European powers. Papers, photographs, and realia from the Second World War are most strongly represented, followed by material…
Houghton Library Renovation
A message from Thomas Hyry, Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library. I am pleased to announce that we will undertake a major renovation of Houghton Library with the goals of modernizing our research and teaching facilities, expanding our exhibition and display capabilities, and improving physical accessibility and visibility. Enhancements will include a new gallery space…
Surprises and Suddenness in Edward Lear
By Noreen Masud, 2018–2019 Houghton Library Visiting Fellow/Eleanor M. Garvey Fellow in Printing and Graphic Arts, and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Durham University. She works on topics including aphorisms, culinary leftovers, flatness, and hymns in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. Owls and Pussycats going to sea, Old Men with beards full of birds, Pobbles…
Beauty and Cliché in an Anonymous French Manuscript Score
By Joseph Gauvreau, Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature. Joseph was a summer 2018 Pforzheimer Fellow in Harvard Library. Working closely with Christina Linklater (a Houghton music cataloger and keeper of the Isham Memorial Library in the Loeb Music Library), he reported a number of Harvard’s music manuscript holdings to RISM. Joseph’s essay is published in…
Collections Now Available for Research: November
Houghton Library is pleased to announce the following collections are now described online and accessible in the reading room. Moll Flanders Memorial Collection of Trade Cards of Enterprising London Businesswomen, circa 1980-2018 (MS Eng 1801) – processed by Melanie Wisner Collection of Marbled Papers, circa 1945-2005 (52L-1152) – processed by Melanie Wisner Hermann Hagedorn Papers,…
An Intimate and Symbolic Bond: Quentin Roosevelt, the Great War, and American-French Relations
By Vincent Harmsen, 2017–2018 Houghton Library Visiting Fellow and recipient of the William Dearborn Fellowship in American History. Mr. Harmsen holds a master’s degree in history from the Sorbonne University, Paris. November 19, 1918 would have been the twenty-first birthday of Quentin Roosevelt, son of Theodore Roosevelt. However, Quentin had died in France a few…