Remembering the Ladies

Detail from "The Woman's Advocate," 1855

At the July 4, 1818, anniversary of its founding the New York Typographical Society celebrated with one of its typical ceremonies. Since its establishment in 1809, the Society had commemorated its anniversary every year with an evening of toasts and odes dedicated to the art of printing. Those in attendance at the 1818 event toasted typographical societies, “forms firmly locked up and well justified,” Benjamin Franklin, “who, from a small capital, acquired a capital reputation,” and the Declaration of Independence, “the proof sheet of American sufferings.” They also toasted the “fair sex,” which deserved a place only as the “frontispiece of Nature’s great work–may they only grace the title of competent workmen.”

Yes, very funny. While the Society paid its respects to women, it also excluded them from its ranks throughout its short life as a wage regulating organization. The U.S. saw typographical societies, such as the New York, Franklin, Philadelphia, Albany, Baltimore, and Columbia typographical societies, come and go throughout the nineteenth century. Women could be considered as temporary replacements for striking workers, but they were not admitted as members until the International Typographical Union resolved to admit women in 1869.

Women had long been involved in printing, and union recognition was just one stage in their long association with the trade. They often worked as assistants to their better-known husbands, as household managers, and as keepers of finances. The names of some prominent female printer-businesswomen active during the colonial and early national periods might be familiar: Dinah Nuthead, the first woman to operate a press in colonial British North America; Ann Franklin, wife of James and sister-in-law to Benjamin and Colony printer in Rhode Island; Catherina Zenger, who continued operating her husband John Peter’s press after his imprisonment; Clementina Rind, the first female printer in Virginia, who printed Jefferson’s Summary View of the Rights of British America; and Lydia Bailey, one of the first female printers in Philadelphia and the subject of a recent book, Lydia Bailey: A Checklist of Her Imprints, by Karen Nipps. AAS does not exclude female printers, and our library is full of early American works printed and even owned by them, such as the receipt book once owned by Lydia Bailey and used by Nipps in her research.

So this July 4th, let’s toast the fair sex, who might sometimes be a second, but who are always a more perfect, edition.

The Bachelors’ Journal

AAS has a strong collection of American periodicals dating back to the 1740s, which often focused on a particular subject or advocacy.  Scattered throughout the stacks are serials focusing on topics such as religion, agriculture, temperance, crafts, abolitionism, vegetarianism, reform, anti-masonry, art, or women.

There is one periodical that is unlike any other in the collection, however.  The Bachelors’ Journal was published in Boston between April 24 and September 13, 1828, lasting just twenty-two issues.  It was edited by John W. Whitman, a lawyer and poet, and published by Samuel G. Andrews.  The purpose of this publication was to address the idle time of the unmarried man:

In married circles, the husband spends his leisure hours in domestic duties and cares – the married merchant finds the claims of his counting-house paramount to all others; but the single man, having a mine of leisure hours at his service, has no delight to pass away his time, unless to view his shadow in the sun, and descant on its quiet outlines – suffering his garden of intellect to be choked with weeds, for lack of an avenue whereby he can add to the stock of human literature.

The Bachelors’ Journal is filled with stories, poems, jokes, anecdotes, and commentaries mostly about the single life.  In one article the cry was “Divided we stand, united we fall.”  There are several pieces written by married men with tales of woe warning bachelors of what may be in store for them if they succumb to matrimony.  The editor was a poet, and he selected many poems with titles such as “The Broken Vow,” “Love and Time,” “Corporal Trim’s Advice,” and “The Fatal Kiss.”  There are no advertisements in this publication, but there are occasional promotions of theatrical productions that might appeal to the single man.  The overall theme of the publication is that the single man has many more options in which to partake and enjoy than the married man.

What is interesting is the year this periodical came out.  By 1828 there was a stirring of a women’s movement as they began to assert themselves more.  In 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women.  In the 1820s more periodicals were being published with women as a target audience.  They were beginning to insist on more rights rather than being treated as property.  The Bachelors’ Journal seems to be a reaction to this trend reminding single men what they don’t have to deal with while enjoying the single life.

The Bachelors’ Journal lasted just twenty-two issues.  After the last issue, it turned over its subscription list to the Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette.

And what happened to the editor, John W. Whitman?  He died in the 1830s (conflicting dates are given) leaving behind a widow.  Yes, he lived out the final years of his life a married man.

The Acquisitions Table: Fitch’s Geography for Beginners

Fitch’s Geography for Beginners, [1850-1858].

This handwritten textbook of geography is something of a mystery.  Heavily illustrated with original drawings and images clipped from publications, the text is divided into lessons with topics such as “About Travelling,” “About the Surface of the Earth,” “About Animals,” and “About Trees and Plants.”  The title, Fitch’s Geography… suggests that the text may have been written by George W. Fitch, author of several geography texts in the 1840s and 1850s.  Is this a mockup made by Fitch? Or a work created by a teacher or student?  It can be roughly dated by a map showing California (admitted 1850) as a state but Minnesota (admitted 1858) as a territory.

How to Impress the Modern Teen, or the Power of Poe

Recently my high-school-aged daughter was working on a final paper for her English class.  She was writing about Edgar Allan Poe, comparing the vault setting of “The Cask of Amontillado” with the quiet library used in the poem “The Raven.”  She asked me to proofread her paper and to check her bibliography (I was a bibliographer in a former life and she knows the limits of EndNote). As I read through looking for typos and extra commas, I casually mentioned that she might find it of interest that AAS holds copies of the first printings of both of these Poe works.  “The Raven” appeared under a pseudonym in The American Review in January of 1845. It was published shortly after under Poe’s own name in the Evening Mirror newspaper where it was picked up and reprinted by numerous papers across the country.  “The Cask of Amontillado” was first published in the November 1846 issue of Godey’s Lady’s Book which had a national circulation.

My daughter was unimpressed.  She asked if the copies we had were Poe’s own copies.  No, I replied, they were collected by the Society but they were never owned by Poe.  I countered with the fact that AAS also holds many early printings of Poe’s books, including his book on shells (The Conchologist’s First Book, 1839), and a first edition of The Raven.  Again, she was not that interested since these volumes were never owned by Poe himself.  I had to pull out my trump card.  “Well,” I said, “We also have a daguerreotype of Poe that he sent to a friend.  We even have the envelope he used to send it.” That did it – immediately we went to the computer to see the photo and the envelope.  Because Poe had touched this object it had resonance for a teenager interested in the author’s work.  “Cool,” she said, “That is pretty cool.”

Getting high school readers interested in American literature is a challenge.  I am lucky my child had a teacher who mixed up the classics with contemporary writing.  This week there was a piece on our local NPR station about the “dumbing down” of summer reading lists and classroom assignments where high schoolers are reading books intended for fifth-graders (http://www.wbur.org/npr/190669029/what-kids-are-reading-in-school-and-out).

While AAS does not generally serve a high school population in our reading room, we do offer considerable programming for K-12 teachers. We hear a lot from the participating teachers about the challenges of connecting students with historical material.  The language is tough, the dense writing style can be impenetrable, themes feel disconnected from today’s realities.  It takes a determined educator to venture down a path lined with writings by Melville and Wharton or Dickinson and Emerson.  As the distance seems to grow ever greater between Poe and his work and today’s fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, I am glad that we had a teacher who challenged his students, and I am glad that AAS had preserved a photograph and an envelope – objects which electrify the brain and visually relate to the man who captured the very basic idea of fear and uncertainty when he wrote:

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“‘Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door –
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; –
This it is, and nothing more.”

The Acquisitions Table: The Cider Maker’s Manual

Buell, Jonathan S.The Cider Makers’ Manual:a Practical Hand-Book, Which Embodies Treatises on the Apple; Construction of Cider Mills, Cider-Presses, Seed-Washers, and Cider Mill Machinery in General; Cider Making; Fermentation; Improved Processes in Refining Cider, and its Conversion into Wine & Champagne. Revised edition with additions.Buffalo:Published by Haas, Nauert& Co., 1874.

Perhaps the best of 19th-century American cider manuals, Buell’s is an important reference for all interested in reviving this most American of thirst quenchers. Coming home dragging at the end of a hard workday? Buell has the solution: “Cider is exactly the food suited to a tired condition” as “it satisfies the more interior parts of the system.” But beware misnomers: Buell very carefully distinguishes between the various liquid products that can be derived from apples, including cider, cider vinegar, apple wine, apple Champaign, and apple juice. Makes you thirsty, doesn’t it? Fortunately, Buell includes practical discussion and diagrams for “The Grater Mill,” “Portable Mill,” “Buell’s Improved Screw-press” and finally “The Model Cider Mill, and how it should be constructed.”

Thou Shalt Not Miss “Mining for Minerals: The Pull of the West”

On Saturday, June 22, AAS will hold an interactive workshop for educators entitled Mining for Minerals: The Pull of the West that explores the search for gold and silver in the west and the impact that it had on immigration, economic development, the environment, Native Americans and social interactions. Led by Middlebury College professor Kathyrn Morse, the daylong program will explore a variety of materials from the AAS collections providing rich context to literary works by Mark Twain and Brete Harte.  The day will include a variety of methodologies for educators to use these materials in multidisciplinary ways and thus enrich history, language arts, visual studies and literature classes.

Among the many items that will be studied during this workshop is this lettersheet, “The Miner’s Ten Commandments,” which reimagines the Ten Commandments God handed to Moses in the Old Testament as advice to people seeking gold in California.  Published in San Francisco by J.M. (James Mason) Hutchings in 1853, “The Miner’s Ten Commandments” was an enormous success selling 97,000 copies in one year alone.

This lettersheet is in fact stationary as the verso contains faint blue lines to guide the reader in creating his own missive presumably addressed to loved ones back home.  Those back home are acknowledged at the end of the satirical text with these lines: “A new Commandment give I unto thee — if thou hast a wife and little ones, that thou lovest dearer than thy life — that thou keep them continually before thee, to cheer and urge thee onward until thou canst say, ‘I have enough — God bless them — I will return.’”

We still have openings in this workshop and encourage you all to come find your fortune in intellectual riches at the Mining for Minerals: The Pull of the West workshop on June 22.

Picture this!

How can images help make the past more accessible to students? If you are an educator looking for ways to enrich your classroom teaching, consider an upcoming workshop at the American Antiquarian Society—Picture Perfect: Nineteenth-Century Women in Words and Images. The Center for Historic American visual Culture (CHAViC) at AAS is sponsoring a one-day interdisciplinary workshop designed to help K-12 educators develop strategies for using historical images in conjunction with texts by nineteenth-century women authors.  How can a political cartoon depicting the effects of the fugitive slave law help students grasp the powerful influence of a Harriet Beecher Stowe novel? How can an engraving of a frigate provide a window to the significance of an Emily Dickinson poem? What does a lithograph of an Osage woman (pictured left) have in common with the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder? Come to the workshop to find out!

Participants will have the rare opportunity to examine and learn firsthand from AAS collections, and they will leave well-armed with knowledge and activities to take back to the classroom. Lead scholar Laura Smith from the University of New Hampshire along with AAS staff will guide participants in interpreting historical images and how to use them in concert with texts frequently taught in K-12 classrooms.  The day will include two workshops using primary sources. The first will examine the many roles of women in nineteenth-century America, while the second will focus on influential female writers and how images can help students find those writings more accessible.

For more information and details on how to register click here.

The Acquisitions Table: Sketches from Nature

Brown, Frances.  Sketches from Nature, for My Juvenile Friends.Cleveland: Mrs. H.F.M. Brown; Cincinnati: Longley Brothers; Boston: Bela Marsh, 1858.

This is a remarkable collection of short stories that were clearly the product of the reformist press that flourished in Boston, Cincinnati, and Cleveland shortly before the Civil War.  Although the wood-engraved illustrations look quite conventional–here is a picture of a May Queen being “crowned”–the text is anything but conventional.  In the short essay on “Girls’ rights,” Mrs. Brown exhorts her young readers, “You have rights, and it is time you were looking them up.  … You have a right to learn, to cook, to wash, to make shirts, to skate, to swim, to roll the hoop, to fly the kite, to laugh till your soul is brimful of mirth, and your lungs full of air.”

AAS’s own “Dr. Phil”

On a sunny Sunday morning in May, Tufts University held its 2012 commencement exercises.   The event was of particular significance to us at AAS because among the recipients of honorary degrees was AAS’s own Philip J. Lampi, who has spent more than four decades compiling early electoral data.  Mostly on his own time and at his own expense, Phil spent years visiting courthouses, town halls, and libraries to transcribe election returns for the entire country for the period from 1787 to 1825.  In the process, he has transformed the understanding of politics and elections in the early republic. A partnership between AAS and Tufts University, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, has resulted in the New Nation Votes database which makes this valuable data available to all.

After years of quiet and patient labor, Phil has gained a considerable amount of recognition, including this most recent and most public honor from Tufts.  His work was lauded in an article by Jill Lepore in the New Yorker in 2007. Last year, he received the first ever Chairman’s Commendation from NEH; Phil’s work is also the centerpiece of the Summer 2012 issue of Journal of the Early Republic, which includes articles by Phil and four other noted scholars of American electoral history.

We’re proud to be Philip Lampi’s colleagues.  Congratulations, Phil!

New Program for the Public a Hit

Take some history buffs, students, teachers, museum professionals, an enthusiastic and well-known scholar, and some wonderful materials from our collections and what do you get? A great inaugural Hands-on History Workshop! Last Saturday we presented “Worcester and the American Revolution,” led by Ray Raphael, to a diverse group of interested, informed, and eager participants.

We thought it was a resounding success, but if you don’t believe us check out the article in the Telegram & Gazette, which features quotes from many of the participants and sums up the day.

We’re already thinking about our next one, so please contact us if you’re interested or if there are any particular topics you’d like to see in the future. We hope to see you there!

Left: Participants working closely with Ray Raphael. Right: Three generations of the same family working together.

The Acquisitions Table: Trapper’s Last Shot

Booth, T.D. after William T. Ranney. Trapper’s Last Shot. Cincinnati, Ohio: T. D. Booth, for the Western Art Union, 1850.

Based on a painting by the American artist William T. Ranney, who was well-known for his images of Texas pioneers, woodland trappers and rugged landscapes, this engraving was originally offered as a members’ premium by the Western Art Union in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1850.  This organization was founded in 1847 to promote and cultivate the arts in the Midwest.  The engraving was the last to be issued by the group, which published a total of three large framing prints between 1847 and 1850.  It is also the last in the set to be acquired by the American Antiquarian Society. Discussions with AAS member James N. Heald last year resulted in a generous contribution from the Richard A. Heald Foundation to assist the Society in acquiring impressions of all known prints published by the various American art unions, with acquisitions to be made in honor of Georgia B. Barnhill.  We already hold a complete set of prints issued by the American Art Union (New York), the Cosmopolitan Art Union (New York) and now, the Western Art Union (Cincinnati).  Ranney’s image proved to be very popular with the American market.  It was reissued as a lithograph by Currier & Ives in the 1850s, and as a wood engraving in Harper’s Weekly in 1867.

The Acquisitions Table: The Fairy Grotto

“Aunt Abbie.” The Fairy Grotto. [Green Bay, Wisconsin: Advocate Press. Robinson Brothers & Clark, 1877]

This charming volume is a true orphan, apparently the sole survivor of its kind.  Printed by the local newspaper in Green Bay, Wisconsin, it presumably was meant to be decorated by the purchaser.  The hand-done illuminations in this copy are only partially completed, and it contains the dedication: “This little story is affectionately dedicated to all my dear neices and nephews, East and West, by their loving Aunt Abbie.”

Summer Series of Workshops for K-12 Educators

We’re starting to gear up for our summer series of K-12 professional development workshops! If you’re an educator and haven’t yet had the chance to attend one of our workshops, now is the time to do it. We have some great topics and interesting scholars joining us, not to mention the library materials.

For those who have not attended our workshops before, each program will feature a lecture and discussion with a prominent scholar followed by hands-on workshops where participants get to work directly with AAS library collection materials. We round out the day by sharing materials, resources, and methodologies on how to apply the content and materials with students in the classroom. Intended to be interdisciplinary, these workshops will appeal to educators from many different subject backgrounds, so be sure to take closer look at each program description!

The first workshop, “Mining for Minerals: The Pull of the West,” will take place on Saturday, June 22. The day will be led by Kathryn Morse, associate professor of History at Middlebury College, and will explore the economic, environmental, racial, political, cultural, and social transformations put into motion by mining ventures and the subsequent settling of the West. Mining drove rapid economic growth in California and Nevada, along with environmental transformation, native dispossession, and, in some cases, violent social conflict.  Gold and silver miners struggled through their labors with the meanings of hard work and wealth—and the tenuous connections between them—in an industrializing economy.  These themes will be examined using a wide range of interdisciplinary sources, including cartoons and other visual materials, miners’ letters and newspaper accounts, and the literary works of Bret Harte and Mark Twain.

“Picture Perfect: Nineteenth-Century Women in Words and Images” will follow on Thursday, June 27. This interdisciplinary workshop will examine historic visual representations of women in conjunction with selected texts by nineteenth-century women authors, many of whom are cited in curriculum frameworks.  Through this juxtaposition of words and images we will explore notions of gender, reform, and women’s roles. Teachers of history, English language arts, and visual arts alike will find the texts and images useful tools in the classroom as they address topics such as anti-slavery reform, women’s roles and the domestic environment, Indian removal, and westward migration. The lead scholar for the day will be Laura Smith, a lecturer in English at the University of New Hampshire, where she teaches courses in American literature and English teaching methods.

The series will round out with “Writing History” on Monday, August 19. Led by John Demos, Bancroft Prize winner and author of The Unredeemed Captive and other popular and influential historical works, this workshop will examine the process of creating and writing historical narratives, as well as some ways in which this process can be used to enrich both History and English classrooms. Throughout the day we will explore the nature of historical writing, discussing topics such as choosing a subject, forming a cohesive structure, putting a story in a larger historical context, developing a voice, finding the significance of a narrative, and the role of emotion in writing and reading history. The hands-on workshops will discuss writing techniques, tactics for culling evidence from primary sources, and strategies for teaching writing in the classroom, including connections to the English Language Arts and History Common Core standards.

So whether you’re a History, English Language Arts, Visual or Media Arts teacher, or just interested in any of the topics above, be sure to join us for one or all of the programs! All workshops will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the fee for each workshop is $60. (Worcester Public School teachers can attend for at no charge due to grant funding.) This fee includes pre-readings, materials, refreshments, and lunch.  You can register by calling 508-755-5221 or online at http://www.americanantiquarian.org/k12workshop.

Timing Redux

The Past is Present posting for April 8th about timing told of a volume of a periodical that got away from AAS despite the urging of Marcus McCorison.  This was the National Magazine published in Richmond, Virginia and Washington D.C. in 1799-1800 by James Lyon.  He was a Vermont printer who fled the state.  Mr. McCorison wrote a bibliography of early Vermont imprints and was very interested in the career of this printer.  For several years he never let me forget I missed acquiring that volume and sent me photocopies from catalogs when it was listed.

The good news is the volume is now here!  After his death, many people contributed to a Marcus McCorison fund so we could acquire important materials in honor of him.  In particular we wanted to acquire items that coincided with his interests.  AAS used some of the McCorison fund to purchase this volume.

This purchase is doubly appropriate because it was acquired from William Reese, a close friend of Mr. McCorison.   They first met when Mr. Reese was an undergraduate student at Yale in 1973.  Since then they have shared many a book, a drink, and stories. I also wish to thank Mr. Reese who gave AAS a generous discount for the purchase of the National Magazine.  His continued support of the institution is deeply appreciated.

The Acquisitions Table: Blossom and Fruit

Blossom and Fruit. A Choice Collection of Hebrew Texts for Jewish Public and Private Instruction=Tsits u-Feri. Compiled and published by Julius Katzenberg.  New York: Industrial School, Hebrew Orphan Asylum, 1882.

AAS certainly has Hebrew texts geared to Christian divinity students, but this text is geared to the needs of Jewish children and youth.  AAS has just one other children’s book printed by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Industrial School, which was a gift book printed as a fundraiser for Mount Sinai Hospital.  Books like Blossom and Fruit reflect the emergence of a vibrant middle class Jewish community in nineteenth-century New York.