Post contributed by Madeline Huh, Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Intern.
As this year’s Trent History of Medicine Intern, I was given the exciting opportunity to curate an exhibit for the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Room. I’m pleased to say that my exhibit, entitled “Defiant Bodies: Discourses on Intersex, 1573-2003,” is now open to the public in the Rubenstein Library. The exhibit explores changing dialogues around nonbinary sex and intersex identity over six centuries, from early modern medicine to 21st-century activism and (some of) the many interdisciplinary representations in between. There is also an online version of the exhibit, which you can explore here.
Thank you to all who have helped me during the process of creating this exhibit, especially Rachel Ingold, Meg Brown, Yoon Kim, and Grace Zayobi–I am very grateful for all your feedback along the way and your consistent willingness to engage in discussion with me on this complicated and important topic with such sensitivity.
“Defiant Bodies” will be on view from May 13, 2025 to October 4, 2025 in the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Room. I am so very excited for you to explore it in-person and online!
Post contributed by Will Clemmons, Duke Family Processing & Digitization Intern.
Figure 1: Arranging a subset of photographs donated to the Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans family papers.
When I visited Duke in 2018 with my family, this time to give my younger brother the opportunity to explore the possibilities of life at a top university, I never imagined that I would end up being the one in my family to play a part in this university’s history. Tar Heel basketball has always had my family’s support, but we never disrespected Duke. At the time of the tour, I was trying my best to avoid going on the traditional college route myself, and I certainly was not envisioning a future where I would be pursuing a master’s degree as a Tar Heel. But our best laid plans do not always work out in the way we envision them, often leading to paths far greater than we could imagine. I thus found myself in the summer of 2023 moving to UNC Chapel Hill to pursue a master’s degree in library science, with an emphasis in archiving, pursuing goals I never dreamed were possible.
I knew going into this Duke internship that I would enjoy the job of a processing archivist, but I did not know just how specialized the position was, as the Duke Family Processing & Digitization Intern. My past archival internships/volunteer work had been at smaller institutions that often had a solo archivist. Working with such a small staff meant the hats my bosses would wear, and would pass on to me, spanned the breadth of jobs an archivist can perform, from accessioning to processing, digitizing to describing. At Duke, I was tasked with only processing collections in the fall with Rubenstein Technical Services and digitizing collections in the spring, both tasks I had done before, but not at the level of specialization and detail that was allowed by the Rubenstein Library’s large size. During the fall semester I was essentially doing the job that any full-time processing archivist would do, just as an apprentice, so to speak, under Zachary Tumlin’s tutelage. Tumlin, the Duke Family Papers Project Archivist, was tasked with processing the many additions from Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans to her collection of family papers at Duke University, and I was hired to assist him. Our job was to establish physical and intellectual control of the donated materials and arrange, rehouse, and describe them for use by others. In the short term, we prepared a number of these objects for the digitization I would do at the Digital Production Center (DPC) in the Spring semester. Through this work I learned more than most about the Duke family, Mary Semans in particular, and her many children and grandchildren.
What makes Mary Semans’ donations so special are her ties to the founding Dukes. Being one of the last living Dukes to have known Benjamin Newton Duke, her maternal grandfather, Mary Semans had a wealth of Duke family history from Benjamin Duke to donate to the Rubenstein Library. For this reason, I was able to interact with objects with date ranges from the late 19th century up to the 2010s, specifically a large variety of photographic formats. Before working at Duke, I had never interacted with a tintype, one of the earliest democratic photography formats (meaning widely available to the public) that, while involving metals in photo processing, ironically tended to use metals other than tin. I was taught about the preservation of tintypes from talking with staff the Conservation Department, also learning how to keep them stored for long term preservation. The education I received through interacting hands-on with items that spanned such a broad period of history is a rare opportunity and will undoubtedly serve me well in my future archival endeavors.
Figure 2: Tintype featuring Benjamin Duke (upper left), Sarah Duke (upper right), Mary Duke Biddle (lower left), and Angier Buchanan Duke (bottom middle).
Learning about Mary Semans as a person would be sure to leave an impact on anyone. This heir to Benjamin Duke’s wealth did more than most with the wealth she was born into. As a philanthropist, she supported the university that bears her family’s name (with Duke being named after her great Grandfather) and the city in which it is situated. She did much to advocate for the people of NC nationally and internationally, earning the nickname “the unofficial First Lady of NC.” Her support for the arts, medicine, the disabled, and civil rights throughout her life is laudable. She was not unacquainted with grief, with her parents divorcing when she was around 10 years old and losing her first husband, with whom she had four children, at the young age of 28. Yet, she did not let this grief define her, marrying again, raising a total of seven children, and remaining vigorously invested in public life in Durham and NC until her death in 2012. I recall looking through numerous folders of photographs from trips to Europe in the 1990s that were not just sightseeing tours. Each trip was connected to the North Carolina School of the Arts’ International Music Program, designed to introduce students to the life of a touring musician while promoting North Carolina internationally. Even while traveling abroad, Mary Semans was committed to supporting the residents and the state of North Carolina.
Figure 3: Mary Semans, Duke alumna
The people in Duke Libraries who worked around me, and directly with me, imparted knowledge to me that will benefit me throughout my career. The team cohesion at the Digital Production Center (DPC) was evident from my first day this spring. Everyone in the DPC is dedicated to seeing their work reach maximum potential in efficiency and quality, utilizing the best in cultural heritage digitization processes. My work at the DPC saw me scanning artifacts from the Rubenstein Library’s collections, creating faithful digital surrogates for online teaching, learning, and research. In particular, I was able to work with courtship letters from 1935-1938 between Mary Semans and her first husband (Joe Trent), from processing in the Fall through to their digital existence with my work at the DPC. I felt very much at ease working at the DPC, knowing I had experts surrounding me that were eager to share their knowledge and ensure I had a successful internship. I could go on recognizing the talented individuals working in the DPC, but this is meant to be a relatively short blog post, so I will refrain for now.
Figure 4: Author at scanning station in the DPC.
I leave Duke University Libraries, more confident than ever in my abilities to enter the job market with the skills necessary to land me a full-time job in archiving. Duke has also left me with a stronger conviction that archiving is what I want to spend my career pursuing. I hope the reader understands the dedication of the Rubenstein Library’s staff and takes the time to browse their collections, many online (Duke Family Papers), perhaps in the process learning some about the founding family at Duke University and their significant contributions to the Durham area.
Post contributed by Ani Karagianis, Centennial Archivist.
Hello again! You may have noticed if you follow the Devil’s Tale with as much fervor as I do, that this is a continuation of a blog series on Civil Rights, a series that will end whenever somebody stops me. This blog post highlights one person who had simultaneously stayed in the Georgian East Campus and spent time in prison for her participation in the Freedom Rides.
They say well behaved women seldom make history. Joan Mulholland, in the eyes of a segregated Duke in 1959, certainly fit that mold. A woman who was deemed odd for not rushing a sorority would later become a crucial member of the Freedom Rider movement, and has advocated for civil rights all her life.
Joan’s story begins in Washington D.C. in 1941. She was born to working parents, a father from Iowa and a mother from rural Georgia. Joan spent her early years in Arlington, VA, which she claimed, according to a 2013 oral history now housed at the Library of Congress and part of the Museum of African American History and Culture, “was definitely the South, maybe not the Deep South, but everything by law and custom was segregated.”[1] Growing up in a Presbyterian church, Joan would later become annoyed at the perceived hypocrisy of the church preaching equality in a segregated town. The church became an early place for her growing interest in civil rights, starting with Black students attending her then all white church, a move that had to be kept secret to maintain the safety of both Black and white students.[2] Joan would later note that “as a Southerner, that we needed to change. And when I had my chance to do something, I would seize it”[3] after viewing the stark differences between Black and white schools.
Fast forward a few years, and Joan started to look at colleges. While Joan wanted to go to a small school in Ohio, her mother, “a product of her environment” pushed Joan towards Duke University, a school that, according to Joan, “was safely segregated.”[4] At this point (1959), Duke University was still two years away from desegregating the graduate schools, and three years away from desegregating the undergrad population. Duke students had begun advocating for desegregation in 1948, when members of the Divinity School sent around a petition calling for desegregation. Unfortunately, these early efforts and the efforts throughout the 1950s fell on mostly deaf ears in the Board of Trustees.
Joan Trumpauer from the 1960 Chanticleer yearbook. It’s digitized here!
Joan attended Duke for a year—1959-1960. Durham proved to be a great place for Joan to build on her growing desire to make things right, and North Carolina was a good spot for the growing Civil Rights movement. Not long after four students from North Carolina A&T in Greensboro integrated their lunch counter at Woolworth’s, Joan and some other white students attended sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Durham with students from North Carolina Central University.
Article from the July 2, 1960 edition of the Durham Herald about sit-ins at the S.H. Kress Store.
More news coverage of the Kress Store sit-in, including a list of students who participated.
[1] Mulholland, Joan Trumpauer, Interviewee, John Dittmer, and U.S Civil Rights History Project. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland oral history interview conducted by John Dittmer in Arlington, Virginia. 2013. Video. https://www.loc.gov/item/2015669178/.
Post contributed by Madeline Huh, Trent History of Medicine Intern.
A couple weeks ago, Rachel Ingold, curator of the History of Medicine Collections, and I were setting up for a library instruction session in the Rubenstein that included some materials relating to midwifery, labor, and childbirth. One of these books discussed what were known as “monstrous births” during the medieval and early modern period, which sparked a discussion about Mary Toft, an 18th century woman infamous for tricking doctors into thinking she had given birth to rabbits.
Mary Toft was a 25-year-old poor, illiterate servant from Surrey who became pregnant in 1726 but apparently miscarried in August 1726 after an encounter with a rabbit. Around a month later, in September, she claimed that she was still pregnant, and her family called upon the obstetrician John Howard to watch over her in her apparently pregnant state.
According to Howard, Toft soon gave birth to several animal parts, including a cat without a liver, a rabbit’s head, the legs of a cat, and nine dead baby rabbits. The story of her miraculous births reached the press and spread around England, and consequently the King of England dispatched two men to investigate the situation, one of whom was surgeon-anatomist Nathanael St. Andre. St. Andre wrote an account of Toft’s alleged supernatural births called A short narrative of an extraordinary delivery of rabbets (1727), a copy of which is held in the Trent Collection within the Rubenstein Library’s History of Medicine Collections.
The title page of Nathanael St. Andre’s A short narrative of an extraordinary delivery of rabbets.
St. Andre describes the circumstances under which Mary claimed to remain pregnant after miscarrying:
“The account she further gave of herself, was, that on the 23rd of April last, as she was weeding in a Field, she saw a Rabbet spring up near her, after which she ran, with another Woman that was at work just by her; this set her a longing for Rabbets…The same night she dreamt that she was in a Field with those two Rabbets in her Lap, and awaked with a sick Fit, which lasted till Morning; from that time, for above three Months, she had a constant and strong desire to eat Rabbets but being very poor and indigent cou’d not procure any. About seventeen Weeks after her longing, she was taken with a Flooding and violent Cholick pains, which made her miscarry of a Substance that she said was like a large lump of Flesh…she did not perceive her self to grow less but continued with the symptoms of a breeding Woman” (23-24).
St. Andre then goes on to discuss Toft’s secondary labor and her subsequent birth of rabbits as it was told to him by Dr. John Howard.
St. Andre’s narrative about Toft’s miscarriage and animal births is indicative of a broader cultural fascination with monstrous birth in early modern Europe. Broadly, a monstrous birth is defined as an animal or human birth involving a defect that renders a child so “malformed” as to be considered monstrous. Deformed tissue, incompletely separated twins, ambiguous sexual development, or irregularly shaped children, which we would now in many cases attribute to genetic or chromosomal causes, all fell under the general umbrella of “monstrousness.” In the early modern imagination, monstrous births could be religious omens, signs from God, or evidence of supernatural influences. But perhaps more interestingly (to me, at least), monstrous births were also seen as indicators of a mother’s morality, or rather, a lapse in her morality. Private gynecological “disasters” and abnormalities of birth were highly public and sensationalized affairs within communities that often reflected poorly on a mother’s social and sexual reputation.
For example, when Margaret Mere gave birth to a deformed child in 1568, her neighbors attributed it to her wanton sexual behavior and accused her of having sex out of wedlock. Agnes Bowker’s alleged birth of a cat in 1569 led to the slander of her sexual propriety and resulted in concerns about the consequences of such an abnormal birth for the community as a whole. Both cases highlight the tendency of neighbors and community members to condemn mothers who miscarried or gave birth to “monstrous” children and the sense of anxiety that pervaded communities in the aftermath of gynecological disaster.
Mother and monstrous child both became sources of fear and dread beyond the immediate community through the representation of monstrous births in pamphlets, broadsides, and other relatively cheap printed materials accessible to a broad audience. One example of this is a little pamphlet called Signes and wonders from heaven (1645), also in the Trent Collection, which reports on several supernatural events including a discovery of witches, a cat that gave birth to a monster, and a monster born in Ratcliffe Highway. Public fascination with abnormal animal and human births created a popular demand for these types of publications.
Pamphlets discussing monstrous births like this one were popular among the English public.
Sometimes, the sensationalism that came with a monstrous birth was desired and even pursued by women, which seems to be the case with Mary Toft. Toft and her family seem to have perpetuated the story that she had given birth to rabbits to exploit some of the benefits of fame and money associated with faking a monstrous birth.
As the intern for the History of Medicine Collections, I’m currently working on an exhibit which will open later in the spring–not on monstrous births, but on a tangentially related topic–and the idea of monstrous births has emerged several times throughout my research. I’ve found the representation of monstrous births interesting not only for the way that early modern sources depict the relationship between mother and monstrous child but also for the way that they publicize these sorts of obstetrical events and inspire a sense of terror. I always enjoy learning about strange moments in the history of women’s health, and the case of Mary Toft is certainly one of these.
Post contributed by Ani Karagianis, Centennial Archivist.
As a continuation of my series, I have decided to highlight Duke students and their activism around Civil Rights. Likely inspired by the Greensboro sit-ins, Duke and NC Central students joined in their own civil disobedience, participating in sit-ins at Woolworth’s and Kress in Durham and boycotting local theaters.
In the early 1960s, some Duke students took part in Civil Rights movements and organized as such on the campus. One example was the Human Relations Coordinating Committee, creating a group that was interesting in human relations and race relations. In this document, found in our Student Activism Reference Collection, box 1, co-chairman Lucia Brunn calls for the creation of a newsletter for their committee.
Lucia Brunn, from the Chanticleer yearbook, 1960.
Within this document is a note received by a Duke Divinity student, Edward Opton Jr, who picketed Durham theaters. Here’s his call to action:
Feeling the Cold War vibes, his notes about nations choosing between “Democracy and Communism” does feel more than a bit pointed, considering the idea that some people viewed Communism as a greater threat than the racism in their own backyards.
Opton also asked for some support from the Divinity school administrators, hoping for an increase in faculty participation, as found in this letter from the Divinity School records, box 29.
Opton and Brunn were just a few motivated members of the Duke community committed to advancing the cause of civil rights. Stay tuned for more!
Post contributed by Ani Karagianis, Centennial Archivist, Duke University Archives.
[A small exhibit related to this blog post can be viewed near the Perkins Library service desk for the next month.]
Recently, the Rubenstein Library put up a small exhibit about the Greensboro Woolworth Sit-ins in February 1960. Since I participated in the creation of the exhibit, naturally, I wanted to look more into the early sit-ins and other movements of the early 1960s. It is here where I can say that there is a Duke angle to some subsequent events after the sit-ins. Duke angle #1: Professor William Chafe of the history department. Bill Chafe, who wrote a great book that I was able to devour during the holidays (Civilities and Civil Rights) interviewed three of the four members of the Greensboro Four: Ezell Blair Jr. (known as Jibreel Khazan), Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond. Rather than having me write about their interviews and their experiences of the sit-in, I have provided the readers with some snapshots of them speaking about their experiences in Greensboro, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and the Woolworth sit-ins. These oral histories can be found in box two of the William Chafe Oral History collection.
Some good soundbites courtesy of these interviews:
Jibreel Khazan (labeled as “Jabriel Kajan”, 1974, speaking about his youth NAACP council and providing a little background of the idea behind the protest:
Joseph McNeill, 1978, reflecting on the movement the role of the Greensboro community:
David Richmond, 1972, providing a breakdown of the day’s plans:
Post contributed by Baylee Staufenbiel, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Florida State University.
During my recent research visit to the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, I had the opportunity to work with the Duke University’s extensive holdings on medieval and early modern medicine. The highlight of my trip was Latin MS 182, a copy of the Pantegni Practica, a foundational medical text traditionally attributed to Constantine the African. The Pantegni is particularly significant as it one of the most comprehensive and well-known texts to synthesize Greco-Roman and Arabic medical knowledge. The Practica is interesting as it was never completed by Constantine. Various copies appeared, but current scholarship is unsure of the provenance of the additional chapters. The Rubenstein’s copy has some of these chapters that may have been compiled or written by his pupil Joannes Afflacius, who’s attribution is given to the accompanying treatise Liber Aureus. Figure One shows the table of contents of the Rubenstein’s Practica (33r).
Figure One: Pantegni Practica, 33r, Latin MS 182, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
As I worked with the Pantegni Practica, I really began to think about the roles of translators, manuscripts, prints, and productions. Constantine’s contribution to the spread of Arabic texts is undeniable. I have begun to think locations like Monte Cassino and Salerno as more than places of translation and transmission of texts. They are nodes for the establishment of epistemic authority. The texts, knowledges, and individuals that came from these locations constructed what would become medical and anatomical practice throughout the medieval and early modern periods.
The reliance on authoritative voices continued with my exploration of early modern sources. For example, in “On the Liver” (Sec. A Box 183, 1654-1677, England), I saw a compelling look at how seventeenth-century physicians balanced classical authority with contemporary anatomical findings. A Latin paragraph detailing liver striation was followed by an extensive English letter discussing Hippocrates, Galen, and early modern physicians’ beliefs about the structure and function of the liver. Shown in Figure Two, this text demonstrates the enduring influence of ancient medical models, even as new anatomical observations complicated long-held theories. The discussion of Rufus of Ephesus (70-110 CE) and Schenckius (likely Johannes Schenck von Grafenberg, 1530-1598) reinforced how early modern practitioners continued to situate their work alongside pre-existing medical authorities. The letter references humoral theory mentioning the relative temperature of the liver as well as the questions about its role in conception (notably Galen saw the liver, heart, and brain as the seat of the natural, animal, and vital souls respectively). As my research is focused on perceptions of the uterus, reading a meditation on the function of a specific organ further suggests that understandings of the internal body were constantly in flux, even for a well discussed structure like the liver.
Figure Two: “On the Liver,” David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University
My time at the Rubenstein Library was an incredible privilege. The collection provided invaluable access to texts that shaped medieval and premodern understandings of medicine and the body. Engaging with these manuscripts firsthand enriched my assessment and evaluation of these texts in my current research project. I am deeply grateful to the Rubenstein staff, curators, and archivists who made this trip possible.
Please join us for our next Trent History of Medicine Event, a symposium celebrating Remarkable Stories of American Black Surgeons in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries.
Speakers include:
Jill L. Newmark, “Without Concealment, Without Compromise: Black Civil War Surgeons”
Margaret Humphreys, “Searching for Dr. Harris”
Todd L. Savitt, “Entering a ‘White’ Profession: African American Physicians in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries”
Jill L. Newmark is an independent historian and former Curator and Exhibition Specialist at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. She has curated numerous exhibitions and written several articles on African American medical personnel who served during the American Civil War.
Margaret Humphreys is the Josiah Charles Trent Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine in the School of Medicine at Duke University, as well as Professor of History, Professor of Medicine, and affiliate with the Duke Global Health Institute. A specialist in the history of science and medicine, she has focused her research and publications primarily on infectious disease in the U.S. and the American south, as well as the history of medicine during the American Civil War.
Todd L. Savitt is an historian of medicine with a particular interest in African-American medical history. He is professor in the Department of Bioethics and Interdisciplinary Studies in the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University.
There is no registration required. The event will be recorded.
Sponsored by Duke University History Department, the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine, and the History of Medicine Collections in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
An archive like that at Duke University can be approached from numerous angles. Professors might partner with the Rubenstein Library to encourage student engagement with materials that are relevant to their courses. Students might flock to the reading room to fulfill requirements for a paper. Researchers from across the world might visit the Rubenstein’s collections to identify sources that pertain to their independent studies. There is also the possibility that people might visit the reading room out of pure curiosity, stumbling in search of rare books, letters, and artifacts that are simply “cool” to them. I found myself in this category while perusing the catalog for a topic that could be reflected well in an exhibit, and I was pleased to see how a streak of curiosity can lead down a rabbit hole of literary exploration.
Beginning my quest by analyzing works celebrating an anniversary year, I found myself in the middle of a pastoral tale full of drama, love, and a surprising amount of sheep, as known as Thomas Hardy’s fourth novel, Far from the Madding Crowd.
Far from the Madding Crowd as it appeared in January 1874 for Cornhill readers.
In January 1874, Thomas Hardy obliged Sir Leslie Stephen, editor of Cornhill Magazine, by publishing his novel serially for Cornhill readers to enjoy. Describing his work as a story involving “a young woman-farmer, a shepherd, and a sergeant of cavalry,” Hardy set forth on a yearlong adventure of watching the public and critics receive his novel before him (Hardy 1928, 125). Later that year on November 23, 1874, Hardy saw the publication of his work in its entire form. While reading the novel, which is an experience in and of itself, is where some people end their journey down this Victorian English path, the Rubenstein’s holdings allow for a much deeper dive of Hardy’s process to and through publication, from an exploration of his title to the aftermath of the story in his wake.
While we can give Hardy credit for the storyline and characters that emerge in his novel, the title must be attributed to another prominent figure in English poetry, Thomas Gray. Hardy’s use of Far from the Madding Crowd is a direct reference to Gray’s 1751 poem, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, where Gray writes:
“Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.”
The Rubenstein is home to various versions of Gray’s poem, many of which include illustrations to accompany the famous line later used in Hardy’s title. An 1850 edition includes illustrations by R. S. Gilbert, depicting two adults and two children in their home, with one woman gazing into the distance while the other helps a child to read. An 1861 edition includes an image, created by E.V.B. and engraved by William Meason, depicting angels in their robes. An 1887 edition includes illustrations by Alfred Woodruff, centering the focus on a cemetery, with plants overtaking the emerging gravestones on the stanza’s partnering page. An 1899 edition pictures a cottage set off from a path, surrounded by the sky and vegetation. While Gray’s poem was published nearly a century before Hardy’s birth, the Rubenstein’s holdings create the space to imagine how Hardy may have seen the poem for the first time, and how its presentation led him to use one of Gray’s lines as the title for his work.
Illustrations from two editions of Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 1899 (left) and 1861 (right).
Jumping further down the rabbit hole of this investigation, I then pulled two books by Florence Emily Hardy, Hardy’s second wife, with the hope of learning more about the historical context surrounding Hardy’s process of creating and publishing Far from the Madding Crowd. The first of the two books, The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, which covers his life from 1840 to 1891, is where the drama began to unfold. While published under Florence Hardy’s name with an understanding that Hardy himself contributed much of the work, the reception of this book has been contested by some scholars in the field. Some believe that Florence altered much of the text from its original form, a topic covered thoroughly by Michael Millgate in The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy, which was published with Hardy’s name after Millgate edited the work to resemble Hardy’s final version. Other scholars in the field have responded to this controversy, such as Tim Dolin in the 2007 article, “The Early Life and Later Years of Thomas Hardy: An Argument for a New Edition,” calling for Florence Hardy’s text to be reinstated as a credible account. Regardless of the criticism for Florence Hardy’s Early Life, the work presents additional information on Hardy’s writing practices as his novel continued to be published serially in Cornhill.
“So Hardy went on writing Far from the Madding Crowd—sometimes indoors, sometimes out—when he would occasionally find himself without a scrap of paper at the very moment that he felt volumes. In such circumstances he would use large dead leaves, white chips left by the wood-cutters, or pieces of stone or slate that came to hand. He used to say that when he carried a pocket-book his mind was barren as the Sahara” (Hardy 1928, 127).
Florence Emily Hardy’s 1928 publications on the life of her husband, Thomas Hardy.
Duke University is also home to additional texts that provide understanding to the world that Hardy lived in and how it was brought to life on the page. One book in particular, Hardy’s Wessex by Hermann Lea, showcases the real places that served as inspiration for Hardy’s setting, including images to better understand the farmland and lifestyle in Far from the Madding Crowd.
Hermann Lea’s descriptive work on Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, published in 1913, reprinted in 1928.
The Rubenstein also houses a few of Hardy’s papers in their archive. While they do not speak directly to this novel’s anniversary, they include some of Hardy’s correspondence and an etching of him completed by William Strang, an artist and printmaker who worked with other notable figures like Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Now 150 years old, Far from the Madding Crowd is a story that continues to see itself adapted and discussed. You may have read it in an English course, watched it unfold on-screen, or never heard of the sheep-filled tale before now. No matter the case, Duke Libraries has just enough copies for you to join the fun of guessing who Bathsheba Everdene will marry in the end!
Interested in reading more on the topic of Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd? “Far from the Madding Crowd at 150: Seven Reflections” includes writings from a group of Victorian scholars, all focusing on a different aspect of the text and bringing forth their unique perspectives on Hardy’s work.
Works Cited
Gray, Thomas. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. London: Printed for the Guild of Women-Binders, 61 Charing Cross Road, W.C., 1899. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
Hardy, Florence E. The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1891. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1928. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
Post contributed by Madeline Huh, Trent History of Medicine Intern, MSLS student at UNC Chapel Hill.
I’ve been working as the History of Medicine intern at the Rubenstein Library for a little over a month now, and in my short time working here, I’ve had the opportunity to look at some truly remarkable materials–from the gorgeous illustrations of Elizabeth Blackwell’s A curious herbal, to handwritten notebooks by nineteenth-century Japanese physicians, to an atlas of midwifery from 1926. And, of course, I’ve also had the chance to look at fascinating historical artifacts like the 16th century Scultetus bow saw, an 18th century trephination kit, and a very intriguing little box of pills labeled as “female pills.”
One of my favorite books I’ve encountered so far has been the Gynaeciorum, an encyclopedia of obstetrics and gynecology compiled in the 16th century by Conrad Gessner and Hans Kaspar Wolf. It is the first gynecological encyclopedia to be published, and I was surprised to discover that an entire book was dedicated to this topic in the 16th century. The Gynaeciorum combines the works of several different ancient and medieval medical authors who wrote about women’s health. A few of these include Trota, a twelfth-century female physician and medical writer; Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn ʻAbbās al-Zahrāwī, one of the great surgeons of the Middle Ages; and Muscio, the author of a treatise on gynecology from ca. 500 CE.
The subject matter of the book often goes beyond what we generally think of as the realm of gynecology and obstetrics, exploring neonatal and pediatric inquiries as well. One section asks, “What should be the first food that we give to an infant?” The provided answer is, “Something like bread–that is, crumbs poured into honey-wine, preserved fruit, or milk, or perhaps a drink made of spelt, or porridge” (Gynaeciorum, 79–translation from Latin is my own). Other inquiries discuss menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum health.
I was also very intrigued to find the first printed edition of Muscio’s Gynaecia at the back of the book, printed in Greek no less, which struck me as unusual. In medieval Europe, it was more common for Greek works to be translated and disseminated in Latin, rather than the other way around. Literacy and interest in Greek in the west decreased during this period before a revival of interest in Hellenistic culture and language occurred during the Renaissance. I did a little research on the medieval manuscript transmission of Muscio, and what I discovered was a very convoluted story of translation, retranslation, and misattribution.
According to Monica Green, a historian of medieval medicine and women’s health, Muscio (who is also known as Mustio in some places–not to be confused with Moscion, who is another ancient medical writer entirely) originally wrote a treatise on gynecology in Latin around 500 CE known as the Gynaecia. This was probably a translation and paraphrase of the Greek Gynaikeia by the physician Soranus of Ephesus who was active around 100 CE. Muscio’s work was copied into several manuscripts in western Europe during the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries, and his work was popularized later in the Middle Ages, eventually being translated into French, English, Dutch, and Spanish. But intriguingly, Muscio’s treatise on gynecology was also translated into Greek within the Byzantine Empire. Finally, in 1793, the Greek translation was retranslated back into Latin by Franz Oliver Dewez! I can only wonder how close (or far) Dewez was to Muscio’s original language and phrasing.
All of this was fascinating to learn. Looking at the edition of Muscio in the back of the Gynaeciorum, we see that Gessner and Wolf, who were working in the 16th century, have chosen to present it in its Greek form. I wonder, then, did Gessner and Wolf know about the manuscript transmission of this text and that it was originally written in Latin? I assume they did, based on the fact that we see a Latin preface to Muscio’s Gynaecia included at the very beginning of the Gynaeciorum. So did Gessner and Wolf include the Greek version in the book to appeal to contemporary interest in Greek language and literature, or for another reason? And what information about women’s health and childbirth has been lost or misinterpreted in the process of translation and retranslation? My deep dive into Gessner, Muscio, Soranus, and the transmission of gynecological texts has left me with even more questions than I started with.
