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.
Post contributed by Sarah Bernstein, Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Intern.
As someone who studies unorthodox and fringe medicine, I was incredibly pleased to find the large arrangement of unorthodox, fringe, strange, and frankly “quack” medicine within the Rubenstein Library. While the rich History of Medicine Collections includes classics of Western medicine like a first edition of Andreas Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica, a memento mori in carved ivory, and various microscopes (on permanent display in the Trent Room), I am glad to share that there are also patent medicine bottles, advertisements, and numerous writings and publications on alternative and unorthodox medicine. George Starr White’s My Little Library of Health is one such series of advice from a so-called “quack,” or an illegitimate and opportunistic, doctor.
The 1928 “little library” by White is a series of 28 books whose length ranges from 20–48 pages. While small, I would say that calling them “thumb-nail” editions is a little misleading; the books measure at 4.5 inches in height and near 3.5 inches across (3 ⁷⁄₁₆ to be exact) is far from what is considered a miniature book or thumbnail sized. The advertisement at the back for each book boasted that each book contained illustrations, sometimes in color, and provided White’s sound advice on “health building by natural living.” Each book could be purchased for 25 cents (now somewhere near $4.50) or, for 5 dollars prepaid (around $90 for us today), one could score for the entire set.
White was a proponent of chromotherapy, light therapy, and heat therapy. In My Little Library of Health he informed his readers about his research and strong belief in the healing properties of Ultra-Red Rays. Although White’s belief in chromotherapy began by viewing sunlight through oak leaves, based on his account in volume 27, his tests had revealed to him that artificial lights from electric lamps still produced healing effects. In fact, some electric lamps worked better than others. Why? Ultra-Red Rays, that White describes as “the ‘thermal’ Rays upon which all life depends,” more commonly known as infrared light. Based on these beliefs, White developed the “Filteray Pad,” a heat pad which generated Ultra-Red Rays and was meant to be applied to the affected area. The price for this cure-all device? A cool $35 (~$620-30 in 2024).
Figure of the Filteray Pad in Volume 28, page 14, of My Little Library of Health (1928).
White would go on to develop other light-based therapies and medical systems. In 1929, White was unflatteringly covered in the “Bureau of Investigation” section of The Journal of the American Medical Association (volume 92, number 15) for his dubious claim of medical schooling and his career in patent medicines. The article lambasted White and all of his medicines and cures. Along with the “Filteray Pad” there was “Valens Essential Oil Tablets” (sold during the 1918 Flu Epidemic for “Gripping the Flu out of Influenza”) and his methods of “Bio-Dynamic-Chromatic (B-D-C) Diagnosis” and “Ritho-Chrome Therapy” (light-based diagnosis and cure using multiple colored rays that were similar to other forms of chromotherapy; the “Electronic Reactions of Abrams” by Albert Abrams and Dinshah Ghadiali’s “Spectro-Chrome” device respectively).
The Bureau of Investigation (formerly the Propaganda for Reform Department) was created as an outgrowth from the Council on Chemistry and Pharmacy to specifically investigate, disprove, and inform the public about fraudulent nostrums and patent medicine. The effort was headed by Dr. Arthur J. Cramp, a passionate doctor who was highly critical of nostrums, patent medicines, and the lax regulations which enabled proprietors to label and advertise their products as legitimate medicines.
George Starr White was just one of many quacks that Dr. Cramp and The Journal of the American Medical Association investigated and denounced, and who are represented in the Rubenstein Library’s collections. While I would not advise anyone to turn to White for medical advice today, I would encourage people to think about illegitimate medical professionals like White—and the world that they operated in—in contrast to medicine and the medical system today. These quacks from the past can provide insight into how medicine is legitimized, the rise of the medical profession, and continuous efforts throughout history to seek and provide unorthodox care.
Page with a portrait of George Starr White signed “Youthfully yours” at the end of each My Little Library of Health (1928) book.
14 June 1850 resolution of the Joint Committee of the Library of Congress, Box 15, Wilkes Papers
Upon successfully passing the motion at their meeting in June 1850, the Joint Committee of the Library of Congress resolved to compel Charles Wilkes to “notify Mr. Pickering that the Committee think he was not authorized to devote his time” as a member of the United States Exploring Expedition between 1838 and 1842 to jotting notes for his book The Races of Man.[1] Nevertheless, Pickering published The Races of Man as the ninth volume of the multi-volume Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition in 1848, six years after returning from their voyage under the command of Lieutenant Wilkes. The committee’s resolution to Wilkes and Pickering is among the Wilkes Papers held by the David M. Rubenstein Manuscript and Rare Book Library, which generously funded my research at the library in the summer of 2023.
During their time in the Pacific Ocean––including stopovers in the Tuamotu Archipelago, Tuvalu, Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii, and the Philippines––Pickering resolved to produce a classificatory schema of “all eleven races of man.”[2] At the start, he found “difficulty arose, in fixing in the mind, while passing from place to place, the relative shades of complexion” of the people the Exploring Expedition, or Ex. Ex., encountered during their voyage.
Fijian skin, for instance, upset English-speaker’s reliance on vision to discern race in the early nineteenth century. In May, 1840, Pickering looked through a spyglass from the deck of the Vincennes, the squadron’s flagship, toward a cluster of people gathered on the shore of Levuka, a town on the eastern coast of Ovalu, to obtain “evidence of the lightness of the Feejeean complexion.” Ovalu is one of the more than three hundred volcanic islands that make up the Fiji archipelago in the South Pacific.
At first, Pickering incorrectly hypothesized the group contained a mixture of “Malayan”, “Polynesian”, and “Negro” peoples rather than Fijians. Seeing people from afar thus proved to be inadequate for the purposes of collecting scientific facts concerning skin color in the Pacific Rim. Pickering improvised by terming them “purple men” on closer inspection. Ocularity and visibility, then, proved to be incomplete methods for knowing race.[3] So, Pickering concluded, his racial scientific program required collecting “more obvious distinctive characters” to serve as an evidentiary basis for his racial taxonomy. Some of these characters included notes on Papuan skin as “harsh to the touch, and the hair crisped or frizzed”, hearing Pa‘umotus “making a kind of purring noise”, and wincing at “the strong ill odour” of Fijians that “make them thoroughly disgusting to persons newly arrived.”[4]
“Organization for the Exploring Expedition”, Box 3, Folder 1, Wilkes Papers
Pickering’s inability to fully rely on vision matters for historians of science and the senses. Relying on prior analyses of race as a phenomenological apparatus, in particular the scholarship of philosophers including Sachi Sekimoto and Christopher Brown, I am investigating how the Ex. Ex. produced scientific ideas about race via the sensorium. What is at stake here is the place of vision and visibility in histories of science in the Enlightenment as hallmarks of modern scientific epistemology. Forms of visualization equipped what Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison term the disciplinary eye that lay at the ethico-epistemic foundations of contemporary science.[5] Yet, scientists like Pickering used hearing and ideas about noise, smell and notions of cleanliness, and mores around touch and taste, to articulate race as a scientific fact through the itinerary of the Ex. Ex. Put simply, ocularcentrism was too brittle an epistemological basis for the Ex. Ex. to taxonomize the various groups they “discovered” through their transpacific itinerary. Rather, the Ex Ex used olfactory disgust, sonic boundaries, and norms surrounding touch and gustation to classify Pacific Islanders as racialized others through the body and the senses.
Before the Ex. Ex. departed from Hampton Roads in 1838, Wilkes argued that the operation would prove to be “useful to the Navy, honorable to this Country, and highly advantageous to the Commercial interest of the Country” and to “Science generally.”[6] In his “Organization for the Exploring Expedition”, Wilkes did not propose sending a race scientist like Charles Pickering––who joined the Ex. Ex. as the scientific corps’s zoologist––along with the other “Scientifics” like the geologist James Dwight Dana, the botanist William Rich, or the artists Alfred Thomas Agate and Joseph Drayton.[7] The Wilkes Papers at the Rubenstein contain material on these figures, as well as the John Torrey Papers, which pertain to the Ex. Ex. Torrey––a botanist who did not travel with Wilkes––later classified the plant collections made by the scientific corps and prepared specimen catalogues as an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, and his papers contain letters with people associated with the SI like Spencer F. Barid, Joseph Henry, and Louis Agassiz. Torrey’s correspondence also contains letters from the phrenologist Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, and Josiah Nott, a leading race scientist of the antebellum era.
Moving forward, my aim is to produce a phenomenological account of the Ex. Ex. that provides insight into the formation of the racist ideas that undergirded Indian removal and Manifest Destiny via the senses. Like Sachi Sekimoto––who argues that “race constantly renews its material presence through latching onto our bodily felt, sensorial experiences, making itself feel-able and sensible and therefore ‘natural.’”––I claim that the narratives produced by the scientific corps and the naval personnel of the Ex Ex justified beliefs in American Indian and Polynesian “savagery” in Jacksonian America.[8]
[2] Charles Pickering, The Races of Man: And Their Geographical Distribution (London: H. G. Bohn, 1850) 2nd edition, 2.
[3] Charles Pickering, The Races of Man: And Their Geographical Distribution (United Kingdom: John Chapman, 1849), 146-147.
[4] Pickering, The Races of Man, 3; Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, vol.1, 324; Walter Lawry, Friendly and Feejee Islands: A Missionary Visit to Various Stations in the South Seas in the Year MDCCCXLVII, (United Kingdom: C. Gilpin, 1850), 79-80.
[5] Lorraine Daston, and Peter Galison, Objectivity (Princeton: Zone Books, 2007), 48, 148
[6] Wilkes Papers, Box 3, “Organization for the Exploring Expedition”
[7] William Reynolds, Voyage to the Southern Ocean: The Letters of Lieutenant William Reynolds from the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 (United States: Naval Institute Press, 1988), 3.
Post contributed by Rachel Ingold, Curator for the History of Medicine Collections.
In September, the Rubenstein Library partnered with colleagues in the Natural and Engineering Sciences (NSE) for an open house event. While our Engineering Exposition targeted students, faculty, and staff from Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, all were welcome to attend.
Faculty from the Engineering School examine works on engineering from the 16th and 17th centuries! Photo by Deric Hardy.Robin Klaus, graduate Intern in the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History talks with a student about the toothpaste testing device found in the Consumer Reports archive. Photo by Janelle Hutchinson.
Items from a variety of collecting areas within the Rubenstein Library were available for visitors to examine and handle. Some highlights included
And much more! So much more! Including this video from the Consumer Reports lab.
Examples of 18th and 19th century microscopes that visitors were encouraged to handle and try out! Photo by Deric Hardy.Examples of moveable books from the History of Medicine Collections and samples of 3D printed anatomical manikins made from items in our collection! Photo by Deric Hardy.Pages from an anatomical flap book where the flaps can be lifted, as shown on the right, to reveal detail about the human body. Photo by Janelle Hutchinson.
We look forward to our continued partnerships with colleagues across the Library and campus. Let us know what you might like to see at our next Engineering Exposition!
Post contributed by Robin Klaus, Graduate Intern, Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History.
During the golden age of circuses in America, a circus performer-turned-advertiser named Bert Cole offered a unique marketing opportunity: banner advertisements draped across the sides of circus elephants. Cole capitalized on the massive spectatorship of the circus, as well as the elephant’s identity as a symbol of the spectacle, to transform elephants into walking billboards promoting retailers, services, and consumer goods of all kinds. The Rubenstein Library’s Bert Cole Collection archives this circus side hustle—a fascinating episode in the history of American advertising that provides a glimpse into the auto industry boom of the early twentieth century.
Background: The Turn-of-the-Century Circus
The traveling circus was a ubiquitous cultural presence in the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century. Upcoming shows advertised months in advance with eye-catching posters plastered on every surface in town—brightly colored images of wild animals and scantily clad performers advertised the eroticism, exoticism, and danger to come. “Circus Day” became an unofficial holiday as stores closed, schools cancelled, factories shut down, and enormous crowds gathered to watch the free parade and attend the show.
The turn-of-the-century circus owed its success to a unique combination of social and economic factors. The construction of a transnational railroad network after the Civil War accompanied the Western expansion of the nation (ten new states were admitted to the Union from 1889-1912). Circuses relied on these routes to transport their shows to small towns and urban centers, also taking advantage of new markets across the growing nation. Meanwhile, industrialization brought advances that transformed the economic landscape—incomes increased, costs of living decreased, and the number of hours in a standard workweek was its lowest in decades. Newfound time and discretionary income led to the rise of national leisure culture, also accompanied by an explosion of consumer goods, services, and mass media advertisements for them.
With the film industry still in its infancy (the “golden age of Hollywood” was during the 1930s and 40s), circuses became the preeminent form of mass entertainment—and the circus elephant played an essential role. The actual production of the circus relied on labor that elephants performed; only elephants had the strength to raise the masts of the largest circus tents, for example, or dislodge heavy circus wagons when they became stuck in mud. The elephant was also visually significant as a symbol of the American circus; everyone agreed that a show could not be a circus without an elephant. Consequently, the circus elephant was a mainstay in the cultural imagination of early-twentieth-century America.
Collection Spotlight: Elephant Advertising and the American Auto Industry
Photographs from the Bert Cole collection document how Cole leveraged the popularity of the circus and the elephant as a potent cultural symbol to develop a hallmark advertising strategy. Little is known about Cole, but circus route books (much like theater playbills) reveal that he was a drum corps member for the Walter L. Mains Circus in the 1890s. The collection’s earliest photograph dates from this era (1897), likely when Cole began experimenting with elephant advertisements while still primarily a circus performer. Banner ads from this early period tend to feature specific sales promotions (“Worsted Suits from $6.87 to $12”) or directly associate the client with the elephant icon (“Webster’s Market Owns This Elephant Today”). As time went on, the advertisements began to include more traditional signage with product slogans and recognizable branding.
By the early 1920s, Bert Cole had an official advertising job with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. Collection photographs show that Cole started to promote his elephant billboards as an actual system of advertising around this time. “Cole System N.Y.” appears at the bottom of a banner advertisement from 1921, becoming just “Cole System” by 1923.
Bert Cole with elephant advertisement, “Cole System N.Y.” at bottom, 1921Bert Cole with elephant advertisement, “Cole System” at bottom, 1923
The collection documents a range of consumer goods and services advertised by the Cole System, including flour brands, furnaces, banks, and retail stores. Cole even dabbled in political advertising, as seen in a Republican primary campaign ad for George H. Milemore for County Judge—a rider, presumably the candidate himself, sits atop an elephant with a banner declaring that Milemore, “will win by a mile or more.”
Elephant campaign advertisement for George H. Milmore for County Judge, circa 1910s.
Interestingly, the most popular category of elephant advertisements in the collection are those for cars, tires, and auto shops.
Lou Moore, a clown with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, wears a car tire while riding an elephant advertising General “Jumbo” Tires in Cincinnati, OH, circa 1920.
In fact, nearly half of the brands and products in the collection relate in some way to the American automobile industry—frequently appearing as partnerships between local dealerships and national brands. Car companies appearing in the collection include Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford, Hupmobile, Oldsmobile, Star, Studebaker, and Willys-Knight.
Unlike other products advertised on elephants, collection photographs show that new car models were often staged alongside their elephant ads on circus grounds, showcasing the industry’s latest designs to a massive audience.
Bert Cole (right) and Lou Moore (top) with a Willy’s-Knight ad and automobile at the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus in Hutchinson, Kansas, 1912.
The collection also includes several letters from satisfied clients—all motor company executives expressing their enthusiasm for the incredible reach of Cole’s elephant advertising. One wrote, “The idea is original and novel and I have never heard of any method of making a direct appeal to such a large number of people as is possible for $112.00 with your show.”
Letter from a Hudson and Essex Motor Car dealership in Portland, Maine, 1920
An identifiable market trend within an advertising platform as niche as circus elephants speaks to the dominance of the American automobile industry at this historical moment. Annual automobile sales in the United States rose from 130,000 vehicles in 1909 to over 2 million in 1920. As industry production and advertising shifted their focus from initial demand to replacement demand, novelty became an important selling factor; car companies concentrated on annual model changes and product innovations to compete with the emerging used car market—evidence of which can be seen throughout the Bert Cole collection.
For more insights into the unique intersection of circus mania, advertising history, and the American automobile industry in the early twentieth century, see the collection at Duke University’s Rubenstein Library.
Dassbach, Carl H. A. “The Social Organization of Production, Competitive Advantage and Foreign Investment: American Automobile Companies in the 1920s and Japanese Automobile Companies in the 1980s.” Review of International Political Economy (Autumn 1994) 1, no. 3: 489-517.
Davis, Janet. Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Langlois, Richard N. and Paul L. Robertson. “Explaining Vertical Integration: Lessons from the American Automobile Industry.” The Journal of Economic History (June 1989) 49, no. 2: 361-375.
Nance, Susan. Entertaining Elephants: Animal Agency and the Business of the American Circus. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
Post contributed by Michelle Wolfson, Research Services Librarian for University Archives.
For as long as I have worked at the Rubenstein Library, I have heard about the Test Kitchen—staff members trying out recipes from our collections and experiencing the complete surprise or regret of trying the tastes of a simpler time.
When I joined the Rubenstein as a full-time staff member (I was an intern before), I thought it would be a safe time to dip into the archives and get cooking. Loving the #girldinner trend, I gathered as many cookbooks that seemed to fit that particular bill, such as The American Girl Cookbook, The Barbie Party Cookbook, and The Political Palate: A Feminist Vegetarian Cookbook (all from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture). I also pulled from University Archives the Law Dames records, 1951-1973. The Duke Law Dames was an organization mainly made up of law student wives (though it was also open to women law students and wives of the law school faculty and alumni) and the records contain two member-made cookbooks.
Example of a #girldinner, which are, essentially, a bunch of snacks that you maybe put on a charcuterie board if you are feeling fancy. The centerpiece of mine is a cinnamon cranberry goat cheese. Also loads of sugar.
Again, feeling safe as a full-time staff member, I decided it would be perfectly fine to subject my taste testers to…the asparagus cream mold.
The unfortunate photo I sent in the group chat to entice the team to come to the official cutting and tasting of my first Test Kitchen/#girldinner experiment. That is Cool Whip and mayonnaise. Together. Ready to be mixed up.
This simple dish needed only four ingredients (Cool Whip, mayonnaise, gelatine, and canned asparagus) and minimal time. Perfect for a busy gal who wants to entertain new friends on an unassuming Monday afternoon.
The asparagus flopped out as I cut into it. It was equally terrifying and unappetizing, and I am pretty sure I screamed.
The first observation from the small but supportive group that had gathered was that the color of it was…unexpected. It looked in color and texture a bit like tofu, which many of us are big fans of, but we were not big fans of the canned asparagus that flopped out as I cut the cream mold into bite-size chunks. The asparagus had floated down to the bottom of the dish, like a mysterious and dangerous deep-sea creature lying in wait.
I still feel sick just looking at these photos.
Three of us (out of maybe ~70 people) tasted the asparagus cream mold. It was described as “shocking”, “special”, and “wild”, three adjectives I pictured in explosive bubbles on a poster featuring the latest 1950s movie monster, The Asparagus Cream Mold. For me, the asparagus taste was overwhelming, while a coworker found the mayonnaise flavor to be prevalent. 0/10, do not recommend you put on a charcuterie board and serve to your besties.
Would the cream mold have tasted better garnished with tomatoes, radishes, and cream cheese? I somehow doubt it.
Luckily, right above the asparagus cream mold recipe was the recipe for Bing cherry/Coca-Cola salad. (Have I mentioned we are in the salad section of the cookbook?? We are so healthy.) The very next week, to clear the palates and memories of my coworkers, I made this, another quick and minimal-ingredient dish. I did not have Coca-Cola in my fridge, so I went with the Wild Cherry Pepsi that I did have because who can say no to extra cherries? (Some people might say ‘no’ to Pepsi and I would not blame them.)
The leftover cherries are still in my fridge, front and center when you open the doors, and I obnoxiously shout, “Bada Bing! Cherries!” each time.
I attempted to make the Bing cherry/Coca-Cola salad into a more appealing shape, on a prettier dish (as if that was the main problem with the previous recipe). At least six people participated in the official taste test, and we were all surprised with how it was actually…good? I do not think we would have been as surprised if we did not have the asparagus monstrosity to compare it to, because how can one go wrong with a salad made of Jell-O and soda? Mostly we were all wondering how the pineapple would taste, as we had some self-proclaimed canned pineapple-haters (barely noticeable!) and how the pecans fared (the texture they provided was nice!). It was declared by some to be a bit too sweet (but it’s salad!) and it was not as tasty the next day (when two of your taste-testers were actually kind of craving it??).
Say it with me now, “Bada Bing! Cherries!”
The Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen: Once again, up and running to provide both regret and surprise from the archives.
The History of Medicine artifacts collection presents such a unique opportunity to work with material sources in the history of medicine. In the same way that there is a difference between viewing manuscripts through photographs and seeing them in person, there is something striking about being able to hold an object that you have only read about in books and pamphlets. In my training as a historian, I have been largely trained and relied on primary sources in the form of written materials. It is precisely because of this that I have been thrilled to be able to view and work with the History of Medicine artifacts collection.
Amongst the many marvelous and unexpected items in the collection, from amputation sets and bone saws to carved ivory manikins and elaborate anatomical flap books, I found myself drawn to the multiple British nineteenth century medicine chests within the collection. These stately century solid wood boxes contained custom glass bottles, fitted to each box’s measurements, with some still filled with powders and liquids. Going through them was nothing short of opening a time capsule and a treasure chest at the same time.
Medicine chests like these can provide a window into the past to understand not only nineteenth century medicine, but global, local, and cultural developments as reflected in the items in these chests and the existence of these chests themselves. There are some medicine chests that are smaller than others, with a variety of cork-stoppered bottles, and were likely meant to be portable and used while traveling. Other medicine chests are heavier and equipped with preparatory tools and medical instruments. These large medicine chests were meant to be stationary, within homes or on ships. In England, both types of medicine chests emerged in the context of newfound social and physical mobility for the Victorian public.
Advertisement from the back of a book within the Rubenstein Library collection, How to Live in Tropical Africa (1912) by John Murray, for a travel medicine chest made of metal.
Regardless of whether they were meant for travel or to be stationary, the existence of these chests speak to the common practice of self-healing, an anticipated absence of a physician, an expected level of medical literacy, and an interest in maintaining one’s own health. These chests are more similar to our contemporary medicine cabinets and in the household, functioned less like a first aid kit or a form of triage support. Rather than immediately, and always, calling upon a doctor, people would often utilize herbal and botanical knowledge to create remedies at home to alleviate and treat their ailments before turning to a physician. And what exactly did people use as medicine?
In one “home medicine chest” there are bottles of Ipecacuanha (Carapichea ipecacuanha) in various forms. Ipecacuanha is a slow growing plant native to Central and South America that has a long history in British medicine as to treat dysentery, poisoning, fever, and colds. It was commonly prepared as syrup of ipecac, or simply “ipecac,” which would be used to empty the stomach to combat poisoning. Ipecacuanha was also used in Dover’s Powder, a bottle of which also appears in the same home medicine chest, which was a mixture of powdered ipecacuanha, potassium sulfate, and powdered opium as a pain reliever and to treat fevers and colds by inducing sweating.
Mention of ipecacuanha and rhubarb to treat dysentery in an American second edition of William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine (1774) held in the Rubenstein History of Medicine Collection.
The same home medicine chest also contains multiple instances of rhubarb: tincture of rhubarb, one simply labeled as “Rhubarb,” and the other specified as “Powder of Turkey Rhubarb.” While today rhubarb may conjure thoughts of confectionery sweets and strawberry and rhubarb pie, rhubarb has historically been prized for its medicinal properties and was highly sought after. Rhubarb itself refers to a species of plant, Rheum palmatum, that native to parts of western China and northern Tibet. It was used to aid in cases of indigestion and as a laxative.
Similarly to ipecacuanha, rhubarb and its various preparations can reveal the rich history and practice of herbal and botanical medicine that persisted into the nineteenth century. Despite both of the plants being non-native to Britain, where these chests were created and their clientele were located, ipecacuanha and rhubarb were popular and common treatments utilized throughout the nineteenth century. The prevalence of ipecacuanha and rhubarb not only serves as an indication of the widespread use of purgative medicine during that era but also hints at the emergence and growth of industries, trade networks, and international relationships necessary for the accessibility of these medicinal plants.
Katie Carithers was an Archival Expeditions fellow in Spring 2023. Archival Expeditions introduces Duke graduate students to teaching with digital and physical primary sources. Each student partners with a Duke faculty sponsor to design an undergraduate course module that incorporates primary source material from the Rubenstein Library’s collections tailored to a specific class taught by that faculty member.
Katie’s excellent course module, as well as previous modules created through the program and program information, can be found on the Archival Expeditions website.
Archival Expeditions is generously funded by the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, Ed Balleisen.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
Katie Carithers.
I am a third-year doctoral student in the English Department here at Duke, and I am also pursuing a Certificate in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. My research interests are located at the intersection between Victorian Studies and contemporary postcolonial, feminist, and queer theory. Currently, I am thinking about how nineteenth-century novels figure consenting, desiring, and gendered subjects and how those notions transform across the nineteenth century.
I applied to the Archival Expeditions out of an excitement to work with the Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Papers. In April 2022, Rubenstein announced that the collection was now open to researchers, and this fellowship seemed like a wonderful opportunity to engage such an expansive and heterogenous collection in a way that would allow the archive to shape the project. I think that my faculty sponsor, Gabriel Rosenberg (History and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies), was similarly excited by the possibility of exploring this archive, not knowing what would be in the collection, and letting the collection inform where we would go with the module.
What is the focus of the course module you created and what did you learn from the experience of designing it?
The module was designed for an “Intro to LGBTQ Studies” course. Since Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick is often considered one of the founding thinkers of queer theory and LGBTQ studies as a discipline, this collection opened numerous pathways to think about central concepts as well as field formation (and transformation) over time.
Ultimately, the module revolves around one of Sedgwick’s seminal monographs, Epistemology of the Closet, which students will study in the class. Over the course of the module, students will encounter a range of archival artifacts—from teaching material and grant proposals to letters and marginalia—that span the creation and reception of Epistemology.
In addition to being able to spend time exploring the collection, one of my favorite aspects of the fellowship was its emphasis on pedagogy. Given the constraints of a module, I could focus on the reasoning behind each part of the lesson plan and modify as the semester progressed. As a fellow, I had the opportunity to shadow archival visits, workshop the conceptual plan for in-class activities and assessments, and receive feedback on the lesson plan and worksheets. The structured opportunity for that kind of attention to pedagogy was immensely valuable.
Meetings with my faculty sponsor as well as with Brooke Guthrie (Rubenstein Research Services,) Seth Anderson (Duke Learning Innovation), and Laura Micham (Director of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture) were especially instrumental.
Also, since archival visits are usually already different from a regular class session, the module encouraged experimenting with activities and projects in its design, which was fun to think about!
What do you hope undergraduate students will gain from the experience of working with archival sources like the Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick papers?
The overall goal of the module is for students to use these archival materials to situate Sedgwick as a thinker within a cultural history. Through the selected archival materials, students will encounter Epistemology as thinking and writing that is in progress and in dialogue with other scholars and writers. And not just academic writing! There are zines, newspaper clippings, comics, and other written/visual artifacts. The aim is that, by close reading these materials, students will analyze how the taking up of sexuality as an analytic framework is tied to authorial and historical politics — and how that this is true for Sedgwick as well as scholars of LGBTQ studies today. I think that can help students reflect on the kind of questions they want to animate their own work and how they perceive their own writing in relation to their current moment.
Hopefully these archival artifacts will also showcase disciplinary formation as students encounter LGBTQ studies as something that is in the process of being thought of as a discipline, which may help highlight how that disciplinary formation is continuous and ongoing even now.
What did you enjoy about working with the Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick papers and what were some of your most interesting finds?
There’s such a range of the kinds of materials. Everything from written materials like drafts, letters, notes, and syllabi to textiles, collages, photographs, and other artwork. The collection continually surprised me! There were days when I would have no idea what the inside of a particular box would look like until I was unwrapping its contents.
For my research, I primarily focused on the first twenty or so boxes in the collection, which include teaching materials, research, and professional correspondences as well as artifacts pertaining to specific monographs. What struck me when reading through these different documents is the presence of Sedgwick as an artist and poet as well as scholar and teacher. That inseparability is apparent in Sedgwick’s published work, and it’s really interesting to see how the archive also cultivates that sentiment.
One of my favorite finds was a notebook that comprises a typescript for “The Warm Decembers.” Stanzas are repeated and reworked and rewritten. I personally loved coming across drafts, writing in-progress, or different iterations of a piece. For example, there are notes on Proust and different sets of binaries that then are described in a grant proposal for Epistemology of the Closet and later in the book’s introduction.
Edited typescript of “The Warm Decembers.”
Would you recommend the Archival Expeditions program and, if so, what advice would you offer to future fellows?
Absolutely! I think Archival Expeditions offers a unique opportunity to develop archival research skills and pedagogy. It’s also a great way to become much more familiar with the collections at Rubenstein. I learned about collections that I hope to work with in the future for my own research.
My advice for future fellows would be to let the archive alter and shape what you are going to do! It’s necessary to come in with a plan, but there are so many resources and parts of collections that you may discover during research that can lead to exciting new places.
Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University
