All posts by Will Hansen

Bingham Center, New at the Rubenstein Library, Rare Books

New Acquisitions: Scenes from the Life of St. Catherine

In June and July we’re celebrating the beginning of a new fiscal year by highlighting new acquisitions from the past year. All of these amazing resources will be available for today’s scholars, and for future generations of researchers in the Rubenstein Library!  Today’s post features a remarkable addition to the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture. Check out additional posts in the series here.

The Library has acquired a rare incunable (item printed from moveable type in Europe before 1501), the Legenda de Vita S. Catharinae by Frater Petrus, published in Strasbourg on April 6, 1500.  It tells the story of St. Catherine of Binding of Legenda Vita de s. Catharinae, Strasbourg, 1500Alexandria, one of the most popular and important saints in late medieval Europe, and an enduring icon of women’s learning.  She was said to have won a debate with the Roman emperor’s elite philosophers over the value of Christianity, leading to her imprisonment and torture on the breaking wheel, now often called the Catherine wheel.

This edition includes seventeen beautiful woodcuts attributed to the artist known as the “Master of Terence,” who worked frequently for the book’s publisher, Johann Grüninger. The copy now in the Rubenstein Library, just the third known copy in an American institution, also features a contemporary binding with elaborate tooling and a brass clasp, and extensive rubrication both in the text and bordering the woodcuts.  It will reward a variety of research approaches, from literary scholars interested in book history and the popular medieval genre of saints’ lives to those working in women’s history, religious history, and art history.

New at the Rubenstein Library

New Acquisitions: Tarzan, Batman, and Alien Invaders, En Français

CorreaWarWorlds1In June and July we’re celebrating the beginning of a new fiscal year by highlighting new acquisitions from the past year. All of these amazing resources will be available for today’s scholars, and for future generations of researchers in the Rubenstein Library! Today’s post features new items in the Library’s Negley Collection of Utopian Literature and its comic book collections. Check out additional posts in the series here.

One of the most influential books in science fiction history, H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, was an immediate sensation upon its publication in 1898.  Famously adapted for radio, film, and television, the work received perhaps its most beautiful visual interpretation in the limited edition of Henry Davray’s French translation, La Guerre des Mondes, published in Brussels in 1906 with stunning illustrations by Henrique Alvim Corrêa.

The book features 32 plates as well as over 100 illustrations within the text.  Corrêa, a Brazilian painter and illustrator who lived in Belgium for most of his life, captured the intensity, grand scope, and wonder of Wells’s vision of interplanetary invasion in his atmospheric, energetic compositions.

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tarzan1Another new acquisition demonstrates, in a different format, the burgeoning global appeal of genre fiction adapted to visual form in the twentieth century.  A complete run of 293 issues of Tarzan, a comics series published in Paris between 1946 and 1952, features the adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s famous creation in vivid color.

The first 71 issues also feature a French adaptation of the newspaper comic strip featuring Batman, La Chauve-Souris (The Bat), by the famous French science fiction illustrator, René Brantonne.   These American adaptations ran alongside comics adaptations of French classics such as Les Miserables.

The Rubenstein Library now holds the only known copy of this periodical in the United States, which appears to be very rare in institutional holdings even in France.

A French adventure of Batman and Robin. dressed as Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette.
A French adventure of Batman and Robin. dressed as Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette.

 

History of Medicine, New at the Rubenstein Library

New Acquisitions: Unique Depictions of the Human Body

In June and July we’re celebrating the beginning of a new fiscal year by highlighting new acquisitions from the past year. All of these amazing resources will be available for today’s scholars, and for future generations of researchers in the Rubenstein Library! Today’s post features a new collection in the Library’s History of Medicine Collections. Check out additional posts in the series here.

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The History of Medicine Collections has acquired two anatomical fugitive sheets, elevating our holdings to now include ten of these magnificent items. Anatomical fugitive sheets are single sheets, similar to broadsides, that are printed on one side. Illustrations of the human body accompany text that was written in Latin, and later in the vernacular. Dating from the sixteenth century, this pair of fugitive sheets, titled Viscerum hoc Est Interiorum Corporis Humani Partium Descriptio and published in Antwerp in the sixteenth century, includes hand colored illustrations with accompanying text in Latin.

Besides being incredibly rare—these are the only known copies of these sheets—the sheets are noteworthy for many reasons, including the depiction of the human body using three-dimensional flaps that lift to reveal internal organs, as the title suggests.  This particular pair of fugitive sheets has lost most of its flaps. While the male figure only retains a fragment of one flap, the female figure retains one full flap of the inner organs in entirety. Such loss is common since most of these fugitive sheets date to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and were printed as single sheets.

Theories abound as to who would own such items. Were they created for physicians, barber surgeons, or the lay person wanting to know more about the human body? Were they hung in apothecaries, medical university classrooms, or the gentleman’s library? Any sheets that remain today are incredibly rare and worthy of study and analysis. These appeal not only to the medical student who wants to see what inaccuracies exist, but to those interested in the history of science, printing history, and art history.

Post contributed by Rachel Ingold, Curator, History of Medicine Collections.

Hartman Center, New at the Rubenstein Library

New Acquisitions: Advertising Aucas

Auca for a Barcelona bookstore, 1937.
Auca for a Barcelona bookstore, 1937.

In June and July we’re celebrating the beginning of a new fiscal year by highlighting new acquisitions from the past year. All of these amazing resources will be available for today’s scholars, and for future generations of researchers in the Rubenstein Library! Today’s post features a new collection in the Library’s Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History. Check out additional posts in the series here.

Since being banned as a tool for gambling in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the auca has become one of the cultural touchstones of the Catalonia region of Spain.  Aucas are a kind of comic strip with a standardized format of panels (often 48, or another multiple of four) accompanied by rhyming verse.  The Hartman Center recently acquired a collection of more than fifty of these original broadsides, all produced and distributed for the purposes of advertising products or communicating a service. Aucas were traditionally used for communication of religious, literary, or civic information, but advertisers saw the value in taking the broadside format and using it for commercial purposes.

Auca for an insecticide containing D.D.T., Tarragona, ca. 1960.
Auca for an insecticide containing D.D.T., Tarragona, ca. 1960.

The numerous examples here of aucas published in Barcelona or nearby cities in the Catalan language during the 1940s and 1950s, run counter to the accepted belief that the Franco regime had completely suppressed the Catalan language. As these aucas show, the language still had a public presence (and perhaps the Regime tolerated its use in this particular fashion because the aucas were intended to generate commerce, which Spain desperately needed).

Events, Exhibits, History of Medicine

The Henkel Physicians Exhibit at the Medical Center Library & Archives

Dates: July 15, 2013-August 24, 2013 (NLM exhibit); July 15, 2013-October 31, 2013 (MCLA/Rubenstein exhibit)
Location: Medical Center Library & Archives (see below for details)
Online Exhibit Companion: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/digicolls/henkel/
Contact Information: Jolie Braun, jolie.braun[at]duke.edu; Beverly Murphy, beverly.murphy[at]duke.edu

Advertisement for products sold by the Henkel physicians, from the Shenandoah Valley newspaper, 7 September 1877.
Advertisement for products sold by the Henkel physicians, from the Shenandoah Valley newspaper, 7 September 1877.

The Medical Center Library & Archives is excited to announce its new exhibit, “The Henkel Physicians: A Family’s Life in Letters.” Produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the exhibit traces the daily lives of a family of physicians in the Shenandoah Valley during the nineteenth century, serving in their community, on the battleground, and in the nation’s courts of law. 

The Medical Center Library also collaborated with the Rubenstein Library on an exhibit to complement the NLM display. “From the Rubenstein Collections: The Henkel Family Physicians” features rare books and manuscripts along with materials from the History of Medicine Collections.  It includes letters written by the Henkels, books and broadsides published by the Henkel Press, and nineteenth-century medical instruments and artifacts.

The NLM Exhibit will be on display through August 24th on Level 3 of the Medical Center Library & Archives. The Medical Center Library and Rubenstein collaboration will available through October on Level 1. To learn more about the Henkel family and nineteenth-century medicine, visit the NLM’s digital companion to the display.

Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections, New at the Rubenstein Library

New Acquisitions: Family Letters from the Segregated Armed Forces

In June and July we’ll celebrate the beginning of a new fiscal year by highlighting new acquisitions from the past year.  All of these amazing resources will be available for today’s scholars, and for future generations of researchers in the Rubenstein Library! Today’s post features a new collection in the Library’s John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture.  Check out additional posts in the series here.

The Dykes Family Letters are an intimate exchange of correspondence between two African American servicemen during World War II. Nearly 40 letters from Private Leo Dykes, 5th Marine Ammunition Company to his brother Lawyer Dykes of Akron, Ohio describe his experiences serving from Camp Lejeune, NC to San Francisco to the Asian Pacific Islands from 1943-1945. The collection is augmented by a separate batch of 26 letters from Corporal Benjamin Peavy, 51st Aviation Squadron, to his sister Hattie Dykes, wife of Lawyer Dykes, while stationed at the Greenville Army Flying School in Greenville, MS from 1942-1944.

Letter from Private Leo Dykes to Lawyer Dykes, 1 January 1944.
Letter from Private Leo Dykes to Lawyer Dykes, 1 January 1944.

The letters are an exceptional display of the close familial ties shared by both men to their relatives back at home during a time of war. Though neither Dykes nor Peavy saw active duty during the war, the two share their experiences serving as African Americans in a still segregated military.

Post contributed by John Gartrell, Director, John Hope Franklin Research Center.

 

 

Archive of Documentary Arts, From Our Collections, New at the Rubenstein Library

New Acquisitions: Icons of Civil War Photography

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In June and July we’ll celebrate the beginning of a new fiscal year by highlighting new acquisitions from the past year.  All of these amazing resources will be available for today’s scholars, and for future generations of researchers in the Rubenstein Library! Check out additional posts in the series here.

Some of the most celebrated, recognizable, and graphic images of the American Civil War come from Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War and George N. Barnard’s Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign, both published in 1866. Among the most important pictorial records of the conflict, together they shed a stark light on the destruction witnessed during the war and its aftermath. As legendary examples of early American photography these albums also help us to understand the history of documentary photography and the emergence of the widespread documentation of war.  Look for a feature on these important new additions to the Library’s Archive of Documentary Arts in the next issue of RL Magazine!

Alexander Gardner, "President Lincoln on Battle-Field of Antietam," 1862.
Alexander Gardner, “President Lincoln on Battle-Field of Antietam,” 1862, from Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War.
George Barnard, "City of Atlanta no. 2," from
George Barnard, “City of Atlanta no. 2,” from Barnard’s Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign.

The Rubenstein Library is grateful to the B. H. Breslauer Foundation for their generous support of the acquisition of Gardner’s Sketch Book.

Post contributed by Kirston Johnson, Curator of the Archive of Documentary Arts.

Bingham Center, From Our Collections

New Acquisitions: Artists’ Books by Women

In June and July we’ll celebrate the beginning of a new fiscal year by highlighting new acquisitions from the past year.  All of these amazing resources will be available for today’s scholars, and for future generations of researchers in the Rubenstein Library! Today’s post features additions to the collection of artists’ books by women in the Library’s Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.  Check out additional posts in the series here.

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Image courtesy of Nava Atlas.

Dear Literary Ladies by Nava Atlas. New Paltz, New York: Amberwood Press, Inc., 2010. Edition of 15. Gift of the author.

According to Atlas, “this artist’s book fancifully poses questions on writing and the writing life, with the replies derived from classic authors’ letters, journals, and autobiographies. Reaching back to answer contemporary questions with voices from literary history reveals the timeless concerns and challenges of writers, with a particular emphasis on these issues from a female perspective.” The book was also produced in a trade edition.

Skirt Book: Made in the USA by Julie Mader-Meersman. 2010.

This unique artists’ book is made in the form of a skirt with custom fabric printed with scans of country of origin tags from clothing. Booklets made from fabric remnants and original textile tags are sewn on around the garment.

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32 Big Pictures: A bound series of hand cut collages about Barbie by Dana F. Smith. San Francisco, California, 2011.

The images in this book were originally created from magazine collages overlayed on the pages of an over-sized Barbie coloring book. According to the artist, “it was created as a painstaking labor of love and reveals untold ways that Barbie is interlaced with modern American culture.”

barbiemakeover
“Barbie’s Makeover.” Image courtesy of Dana F. Smith.

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian, Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.  

 

 

 

 

Human Rights Archive, New at the Rubenstein Library

New Acquisitions: Human Rights in the New World

In June and July we’ll celebrate the beginning of a new fiscal year by highlighting new acquisitions from the past year.  All of these amazing resources will be available for today’s scholars, and for future generations of researchers in the Rubenstein Library! Today’s post features a key early work in the development of the concept of human rights.

Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican friar and one of the first Spanish colonists in the Caribbean, is best known today for his exposé of the horrifying treatment of indigenous peoples by Spanish settlers during the first decades of colonization.  First published in a 1550s series of tracts in Seville, the tracts represented the first argument for the rights of American Indians to be treated as fellow human beings, the first argument for the abolition of slavery in the New World, and one of the first attempts to appeal to a universal code of human rights.

The tracts, especially the sensational details of torture, abuse, and murder, spread throughout Europe as evidence of the Spanish abuse of power in the New World.  The Library’s new acquisition is the first Latin translation and first illustrated edition of Las Casas’ text, entitled Narratio Regionum Indicarum per Hispanos Quosdam Devastarum Verissimi…,  published in Frankfurt in 1598.  The work features a powerful series of eighteen copper engravings by Theodor de Bry, depicting abuses of the native peoples.

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Image courtesy Dorothy Sloan Books.

De Bry never visited the New World, and the images can be seen as prime examples of the “Black Legend” of sensationalistic, anti-Spanish (and anti-Catholic) propaganda used to curb the might of the Spanish empire.  This edition of the work of Las Casas advocating for basic human rights for the native populations of the Americas was wildly popular and influential, thanks in part to the images, which retain some of their original power to shock and provoke thought about the treatment of the original inhabitants of the New World.

casasburning
Image courtesy Dorothy Sloan Books.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

New at the Rubenstein Library, Rare Books

A Birthday Present for Walt Whitman

ExtraIllFrontBoardresizedToday, 31 May 2013, is the 194th birthday of Walt Whitman.  The Trent Collection of Whitmaniana in the Rubenstein Library is one of the largest collections of Whitman’s manuscripts and printed works in the world.  Just in time to celebrate the Good Gray Poet’s birthday, a beautifully “wrapped” new addition to the collection is available for research.

From an otherwise unremarkable edition of Whitman’s Prose Works, the copy newly arrived at the Library was lavishly extra-illustrated and expanded into two leather-bound volumes by an early owner, with the addition of 26 autograph letters and manuscripts and one hundred portraits and views.  Extra-illustration, also known as Grangerization, involves the addition by a collector of separately produced items such as portraits and manuscripts to a printed text.  Controversial today because it involves dismantling and transforming books, the practice was quite popular in the nineteenth century; this example is from the early twentieth century, perhaps the 1920s.

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Added title page and frontispiece etching of Whitman in Prose Works.

Many of the added items are of interest, including a manuscript slave deed and letters by Whitman friends and notables such as John Burroughs, John Swinton, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and General William T. Sherman.  Most importantly for Whitman scholars, the first volume contains a page of Whitman’s manuscript notes on the Quaker preacher Elias Hicks.   The manuscript had fallen into three pieces due to being folded into the binding; thanks to the work of Conservator for Special Collections Erin Hammeke, it has been repaired and remounted.

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While we cannot say with certainty who created these extra-illustrated volumes, the second volume bears the bookplate of Mary Young Moore, a Papal countess for whom a high school on Staten Island, New York is named.  Given the connections of both Whitman and Hicks to New York City, this manuscript fragment may have especially appealed to Countess Moore.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections, Rubenstein Library.