Artists in the AAS Archive: August 2020

This week we continue our Artists in the AAS Archive series.  This installment offers a spotlight on four past fellows: poet James Arthur; poet and nonfiction author Christopher Cokinos; Cartoonist R. Sikoryak; and artist Stephanie Wolff.

This series is part of our celebration of the 25th anniversary of Artist fellowships at the American Antiquarian Society.  More information about these programs may be found at the following: https://www.americanantiquarian.org/artistfellowships.

James Arthur

James Arthur reads his poem “On a Portrait Bust in Worcester, Massachusetts,” written while he was a Jay and Deborah Last Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society in January 2018.

The poem was inspired by an anonymous marble portrait bust acquired on behalf on the Antiquarian Society in 1881.  “On a Portrait Bust in Worcester, Massachusetts” appears in Arthur’s second poetry collection, The Suicide’s Son, which was published by Véhicule Press in 2019.

James Arthur’s first book, Charms Against Lightning, was published in 2013. Arthur has received multiple fellowships including a Hodder Fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Travelling Poetry Scholarship, a Fulbright Scholarship to the Seamus Heaney Center in Northern Ireland, and a Visiting Fellowship at Exeter College, University of Oxford. He also teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

More information about James’  work and upcoming events may be found on his website: http://www.jamesarthurpoetry.com/.

Christopher Cokinos

When I was an undergraduate at Indiana University I was awed by the size and scope of the Main Library. I marveled at the huge foyer and the sprawling card-catalog. After I graduated, I had a couple of jobs in the library system and briefly considered a library science degree. Turns out, I loved libraries. Even after moving to Tucson, I returned to use the IU Library while I began to research the curious natural histories of extinct North American birds. That journey had started along the Kansas River when I saw what turned out to be a pair of black-hooded conures being chased by a hawk. They escaped the bird of prey just as they had escaped a cage somewhere—or perhaps they’d been deliberately released? In any case, as I learned about such exotic birds—they certainly don’t belong in Kansas—I discovered that a settler girl a century prior had stood more or less in that same spot and had seen native Carolina Parakeets, bright green and orange birds that had populated the eastern third of North America and were tough enough to endure snow storms. They were not, however, tough enough to endure human beings. They were extinct.

I was captivated by their story and, soon, those of other species, such as the Passenger Pigeon and the Ivory-billed woodpecker. Often returning to Indiana to visit family, I made trips to the IU library, borrowed a book cart and found reams of material on these creatures. But when I saw a notice in Poets & Writers for a creative fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society I knew I had to apply. I was stunned to be accepted. And delighted. There I would find gems.

Those summer weeks in Worcester were a mixture of discipline and awe. Each time I stepped in the reading room, I felt the gravity of the collections—all this history gathered, cataloged and shelved, the magic of knowledge kept. I worked harder than I had ever worked before, reading newspaper accounts of the flocks of Passenger Pigeons (millions and billions of birds darkening the sky for hours, even days) and lingering over the color illustrations in Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology. It was there he told of capturing an irate Ivory-bill and securing it in his hotel room, only later to find the bird had trashed the place. They are big woodpeckers, after all.

The greatest surprise should not have been a surprise. Many of these birds were consumed as part of the wild-game market, feeding not only local towns but distant, growing cities. The AAS librarians pointed me to the cookbook collection. It was there I found recipes for cooking Passenger Pigeons. It was there I learned that servants in Boston were tired of having to eat so much Heath Hen—the eastern subspecies of the Greater Prairie Chicken. The cookbooks made the lives of these vanished birds more real than anything else. They had been here, they had been taken for granted, they had been part of the domestic lives of countless of Native and European Americans. What I found at the AAS immeasurably enriched my book Hope Is the Thing with Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds. The AAS was so important to this project that, when the time came to do the book launch, it happened right there in the reading room where I had spent so many rewarding hours. I still have the mini-poster announcing the event.

But I just didn’t learn about extinct birds at the AAS. I learned to love archival work, recovering lost stories, forgotten voices. When I next wrote a book about meteorites and meteorite hunters, I delved not into a library but a couple of filing cabinets that then contained the papers of Harvey Nininger, a professor at a small college in Kansas who quit his job during the Depression in order to hunt meteorites. He changed the course of science. Working with disorganized files stuck in a tiny office was a far cry from the ritualistic work of encountering rare books, manuscripts and newspapers at the AAS. But the reverence I learned there carried over to my meteorite research and beyond.

Now writing a series of essays about the Moon, I have encountered the stories of female astronomers who worked against multiple obstacles as they attempted to chronicle possible, visible changes on the lunar surface, a highly controversial field even today. Sitting in the living room of one of the daughters of these astronomers, surrounded by papers, ephemera and photographs, I summoned the awe and discipline I felt at the AAS. This past year I even helped the University of Arizona Special Collections organize the papers of a pioneering lunar astronomer.

The fellowship at the AAS not only helped me write my book on extinct birds. It has paid forward as I continue dig into and savor the necessary art of historical nonfiction research: bringing to life on the page what is gone but must be remembered.

Christopher Cokinos is a Professor of English at the University of Arizona, where he teaches creative writing, science fiction literature and science-communication courses. He is the author of Hope Is the Thing with Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds and The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars, among other works. His co-edited anthology, with Julie Swarstad Johnson, Beyond Earth’s Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight, is forthcoming in October from the University of Arizona Press. He was a Visiting Fellowship for Historical Research by Creative and Performing Writers and Artists at the American Antiquarian Society in 1998.

Robert Sikoryak

I received an Artist Fellowship from AAS in 2006, to research Moby Dick as well as other works by Herman Melville. I’m a cartoonist who adapts classic literature and other texts into comics and graphic novels, in the styles of famous cartoons. Many of my short stories were collected in the book Masterpiece Comics, and I’m working on a sequel that will contain more Melville adaptations, including an extended Moby Dick retelling.

One of the pieces­ inspired by my fellowship experience was this parody comic book ad for the “Pequod Whaling Ship.” In addition to Moby Dick, it is inspired by an actual 1960’s comic book ad for a Polaris submarine model. It was first published in my book, Masterpiece Comics (2009).

Another was an adaptation of Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener drawn in the style of Scott Adams’ daily comic strip Dilbert.  An excerpt is shown here.  It was first published in the newspaper The Cartoon Crier (2012).

While my comics are irreverent and combine elements of high and low culture, they are also scrupulously researched and very faithful to their source materials.

Much of my time during the fellowship was spent researching the diverse subjects described in Moby Dick, such as whaling, indigenous peoples, and life in New England. Illustrated books and prints that were created in the mid 19th century were the most useful for my purposes. I made many drawings based on the illustrated materials that were available, and I continued to sketch out ideas for my narrative.

Here are some early notes and sketches for my adaptation.

The majority of my time was spent examining these non-fiction materials.  But I was also very struck by the many adaptations of Moby Dick created in the last 100 years, some of which were represented in the AAS collection. One amusing example was the book Moby Dick: Photoplay Title: The Sea Beast (1925). It features photographs from the silent film The Sea Beast, a very loose retelling of Melville’s book that radically diverges from his plot.  The story was transformed into a romance with a happy ending. Although I don’t take many liberties when adapting the plot of a particular novel, it’s always very instructive or entertaining to see how others do it.

In addition to the rare books and prints that were available, it was very inspiring to see other printed ephemera in the collection. In particular, I loved finding the tiny, hand colored comic strip pamphlet, The Adventures of Mr. Tom Plump (circa 1855). Beyond the charming drawing and irreverent text, it was a rather heartwarming find.  Comic books have often been seen as a disposable, trivial medium, so it was reassuring to see this fragile booklet preserved with the same care as the rest of the materials at AAS.

Cartoonist R. Sikoryak’s latest book is Constitution Illustrated, a graphic novel adaptation drawn in the styles of over 100 American comics from the past 120 years.  His earlier works include Masterpiece Comics, Terms and Conditions, and The Unquotable Trump. His illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, The Onion, and MAD. Sikoryak teaches at Parsons School of Design and The Center for Cartoon Studies. Since 1997, he’s presented his live comics performance series, Carousel, around the United States and Canada. He lives in New York City with his spouse, Kriota Willberg.

Sikoryak was awarded Robert and Charlotte Baron Fellowship from AAS in 2006.

Website: https://www.rsikoryak.com

Stephanie Wolff

In March of 2013 I arrived in Worcester ready to immerse myself in the world of an early 19th century woman. I was interested in the notations she kept about weather and agricultural life. Anna Blackwood Howell was a white woman of means who inherited a farm and fisheries in New Jersey on the banks of the Delaware River across from Philadelphia when her husband died in 1818. She was 50 years old. The AAS holds fifteen of her diaries written in almanacs between 1819 and her death in 1855. Howell used her almanacs to track the cyclical nature of the seasons and, as she writes, to “profit by the experience of the past year.” These almanacs would be my path to that farm on the river, to learn her story, and to explore the data she collected. Her words would lead my way.

My project Along the Banks of My River is a body of work that emerged from this research and includes artist books and textile pieces. Topics such as shad fishing, bees, and the river have been the focus of three artist books, with weather being a common theme through the project as a whole.

I find magic in working with primary source material in real life and not via a digital surrogate (though digital resources are very useful). It is a multi-sensory experience which contributes to the generation of ideas. You don’t know how the physical thing will touch you until you literally touch it. Reading Howell’s brief almanac entries activated her voice and invited me into her world and thoughts. Her handwriting, the worn paper, the mended bindings, the printed almanac articles—all these broadened my understanding.

The mended binding and addition of a loop at the top of Anna Blackwood Howell’s 1844 almanac. The Hagerstown Town and Country Almanack, for the Year of our Lord 1844: … Arranged After the System of the German Calendars. … Carefully Calculated for the Horizon of Maryland, but Will Serve for the Adjacent Stat. Hagerstown, Md.: Printed and sold by John Gruber, South Potomac street. Where German almanacks are also to be had., 1843.

The interaction with physical objects allows for a combination of sensory experiences: touch (soft/hard, worn/unused), smell (sometimes!), sound (the rattle of paper or pages turning), movement-action (sequences/functionality), size and scale (how it feels in the hand/relationship to another thing), materials or composition (repairs/ingenuity/resource scarcity/wealth). The structure of an archival item (an historic book, a toy, or other object) may lead me to borrow that structure for an artwork, adding meaning through form.

Raw primary source materials prompt questions. The search for answers can lead to discoveries, but often nothing definitive. The questions themselves are sometimes the most interesting. The research evokes reactions about the broader story, which in turn lead to possibilities for specific pieces. Are these workable? Which ones hold my attention? Ultimately, I am editor and interpreter. Models, sketches, and more investigations narrow the ideas down until one stands out, and the process of production begins.

The space between what is known from source materials and the questions that arise from their inspection is a place where my imagination likes to wander. It is where words, images, and feelings combine to transport me to a river’s edge at fishing time, or into the heart of a grieving mother. I continue to explore this space and follow where my imagination leads me.

Stephanie Wolff works with paper, text, textile, and the book form. Her current project explores themes of weather, history, and rural life. She was the Fall 2015 Helen M. Salzberg Artist-in-Residence at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University. In 2013 she was awarded a Creative and Performing Artists and Writers Fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society. Her artist books have won awards and been exhibited in the United States and Germany. They are held in numerous public and private collections.

Website: https://www.stephaniewolffstudio.com/

Instagram: @stephaniewolffstudio

 

“We are American citizens”: Remembering the Anniversary of the Fourteenth Amendment

The Colored Conventions was a series of national, regional, and state meetings held irregularly during the decades preceding and following the American Civil War.  At the 1853 convention held in Rochester, New York, delegates insisted citizenship was their birthright:

“By birth, we are American citizens; by the meaning of the United States Constitution, we are American citizens; by the principles of the Declaration of Independence, we are American citizens; by the meaning of the United States Constitution, we are citizens.”

These lines were often echoed and reprinted in the black press.  Of course, the idea of the abolition of slavery and black citizenship was nothing new in 1853 and it would take another fifteen years and the American Civil War before African Americans were granted citizenship.

On July 28, 1868, the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, and today we celebrate its 152nd anniversary. The amendment repealed the Taney Court’s infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) decision and ensured that state laws could not deny due process or discriminate against particular groups of people.

Those interested in exploring AAS collection materials for related items might best begin with the Subject Search “United States Constitution 14th Amendment“. But I might suggest we first take pause today before diving into catalog records or examining individual items.

Let us take a moment and read the words that were ratified today one hundred and fifty-two years ago. Let us reflect upon what they mean to us as individuals and as a nation and consider the struggles endured by black Americans then and now and recognize the achievements of those who came before us.

Amendment XIV

Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The Manuscript Poems of Phillis Wheatley at AAS

The curators at AAS connect audiences with objects, such as the manuscript poems of Phillis Wheatley. As some visitors to AAS know, the Society holds two original manuscript poems of Wheatley’s, “To the University of Cambridge” and “On the Death of the Revd. Dr. Sewall.” These items may be found in the AAS catalog here.

The AAS Manuscript Collections focus on four areas of collecting: papers of prominent New England families; paper and records of New England businesses, families, voluntary associations; New England diaries, and U.S. book trades history.  The Wheatley poems in our collections don’t fit easily into any of these categories. So how did they end up at AAS?

We are pleased to share a new video about the story of these poems, which you can watch below or on our YouTube channel!

Artists in the AAS Archive: New Series on the AAS Artist Fellowships

In April, we published an article in honor of National Poetry Month, entitled “Poets in the AAS Archive.” In this same thread, we are pleased to share our plans now to create a new series on Past is Present dedicated to our artist fellows.

This new series will spotlight the work of current and past fellows alike, highlighting their rich and diverse research projects and showcasing the wonderful work produced as a result of the fellowship they were awarded. When appropriate, artist contributions to “Artists in the AAS Archive” will not only be shared here but also on our YouTube channel and related social media.

The first artist fellows arrived at the American Antiquarian Society in the Fall 1995, and this year we will celebrate the program’s 25th anniversary. Creative and Performing Artist and Writers Fellows have included fiction writers, poets, playwrights, visual artists, sculptors, performance artists, and musicians, as well as non-fiction writers, documentary filmmakers, and journalists–anyone seeking to create original works based upon American history and present them to non-academic audiences and readers. We are proud of our fellows and the contributions they have made both to AAS and to their respective communities.  This fall, we plan to launch a new online exhibition and program dedicated to these fellows called Artists in the Archive: Twenty-five years of Artist Fellows at the American Antiquarian Society.

To help launch this new series and to set up the exhibition, today we are sharing the work of three artist fellows: Brece Honeycutt, David Mills, and Margaret Rozga.  In the videos that follow, the fellows share their work, their experiences at AAS, and their inspiration and methods.  We are delighted to share these wonderful artists’ work with you and hope you enjoy them!

Brece Honeycutt

In our first video, Brece Honeycutt discusses her experiences with the AAS collection and her process from research and note-taking to conception and development as she creates both sculpture and installation pieces. One of her interests lies with plants and how they been written about historically. Here, Honeycutt shares stories about some of the works she examined, as well as her ideas on and work with weeds and weavings. She also offers a glimpse inside her studio and fieldwork.

Brece Honeycutt, a 2019-2020 William Randolph Hearst Fellow for Creative and Performing Arts at the American Antiquarian Society, discusses the process of applying for a fellowship, researching at the American Antiquarian Society and making artwork in her studio. During her Fellowship, she examined over 140 books and collections, yet it was the unexpected viewing of Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio by Howard Jones and family that led to her current studio work based on materials used by birds when constructing their nests.

More information about Brece Honeycutt’s work maybe found on her website: http://brecehoneycutt.com/.

David Mills

The next video is an excerpt from a reading performed by poet David Mills. In this clip, David reads his original poem “The Cooper of Sandwich,” from his chapbook After Mistic, published by New Feral in 2020.

During his William Randolph Hearst Foundation fellowship in 2019, David researched slavery in antebellum New England—focusing on Massachusetts and on New York City, where the country’s oldest and largest slave cemetery is located. Here, he discusses his writing career and how the American Antiquarian Society introduced a more focused archival aspect to his writing. David previously received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and Breadloaf. He also wrote the audio script for the Macarthur-Genius-award-winner Deborah Willis’ national museum tour and exhibition “Reflections in Black: 100 Years of Black Photography”, which was exhibited at the Whitney, Dallas, and Getty West Museums. He also worked on a play commissioned and produced by the Juilliard School of Drama and recorded two poems for ESPN.

 

Readers may watch David’s entire video, featuring an introduction and two additional poems by clicking here.

Margaret Rozga

Margaret Rozga reads “Jessie: The Bodisco Wedding, Georgetown 1840” from her book Pestiferous Questions: A Life in Poems resulting from her 2014 Robert and Charlotte Baron Fellowship here at AAS.

Jessie Benton Frémont (1824-1902), the book’s central figure, faces the troubling questions of race, gender, class, American expansion, American exceptionalism, and love as they shape not only her life but our history and national identity. Politically astute, disparaged as a woman who didn’t know her place, faithful to a difficult marriage, privileged, sometimes questioning privilege, a product her times, and forward-thinking, she emerges both as a public figure and private person in these poems. The book, Rozga’s fourth, was published by Lit Fest Press in 2017 and helped pave the way for her selection as 2019-2020 Wisconsin Poet Laureate.

More information about Margaret Rozga’s work maybe found on her website: http://www.margaretrozga.com/.

Centennial America: Celebrating the Fourth with the Great Buildings of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition

It will probably come as no surprise that the Fourth of July is one of our favorite holidays here at AAS! In recent years, AAS staff has written about a number of topics on the holiday. We’ve written about how AAS founder Isaiah Thomas celebrated in 1814 in the midst of the War of 1812; we’ve shared Ohio judge and congressman Elnathan Scofield’s eighteen toasts dedicated to the holiday; and we’ve examined how the Declaration of Independence was disseminated throughout the colonies.

July 1776 Broadside Printing of the Declaration of Independence by Ezekiel Russell of Salem, Massachusetts-Bay

This year, we wanted to go big! And it’s difficult to imagine a celebration bigger than the one honoring the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration. (1876 also marks the unofficial cut-off year for our collections, although many of you already know that we have items that go well beyond that!) America is a diverse place, and every town and city has its own rich history celebrating this holiday. As readers might guess, in 1876, Philadelphia was the site of one of the biggest celebrations in the country.

Since this post falls between the start of summer and the Fourth of July holiday weekend, we also wanted to start off our summer the right way, too!  While it’s too early to know what this season holds for us all, summers often bring in fairs, carnivals, and other community events. Is there an event bigger than the World’s Fair?

The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 was the first official World’s Fair to be held in the United States. Held in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, from May 10 to November 10, nearly 10 million visitors visited the Exposition! The opening ceremony was attended by President Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia along with 186,272 people–110,000 entered with free passes.

Centennial America (below) is one of the lithographs commissioned for the exhibition. Created by Armstrong & Co. Lithographers from Boston, this design depicts a group of portraits and American history vignettes. George Washington is centered on the lithograph. The signers of the Declaration of Independence appear above him, and the 1876 Exhibition Main Building is pictured at center just below our first president. The revolutionary scenes depicted here include the the Boston Tea Party, the Battles of Bunker Hill and Lexington, and the surrender at Yorktown.

There was too much printed material produced for the event to adequately display here, but we wanted to share a few items from our collections that really showcase the size and space of the exhibition. We hope these images offer our readers a wide scope impression of the exhibition setting and serve as a kind of walking tour through 1876 summer celebrations.

The first image (below) depicts a panoramic bird’s eye view of the exhibition’s construction. Not only can you see the progress of the fair’s buildings, you can also see all of Philadelphia.  If you look carefully in the foreground, you’ll see men and women staring out from the observatory tower.  We hope you’re not afraid of heights! The subsequent image, designed by lithographer Louis Prang, sometimes called “the father of the American Christmas card,” shows how the entire expanse of the exhibition grounds looked once completed.

As you can see, the site was huge! More than 200 buildings were constructed for the Exposition. To make sure guests paid for admission, a fence was erected around the grounds; it spanned nearly three miles long. The map of the site was produced by Van Ingen & Snyder, publishers, of Philadelphia. It identifies all of the major buildings of the Exposition and also shows the bird’s eye view angle in the upper right-hand corner. Beautiful as the map may be, some might also notice that it lacks a legend that offers some sense of the scale.

There were five main buildings in the Exposition. They were the Main Exhibition Building, Agricultural Hall, Horticultural Hall, the Machinery Hall, and the Art Gallery. Can you find all of these buildings in the map?

This is where our tour really begins. The set of five lithographs that appear below were actually commissioned by the Centennial Board of Finance two years before the Centennial Exhibition even began. These exquisite prints were used for publicity and fundraising. Louis Aubrun was the artist who created the original lithographs of the buildings, and Philadelphia printer Thomas Hunter produced multiple prints that were sold separately as souvenirs for this future tourist attraction. To give you a sense of scale, each of the images below measures about 43 x 58 cm (or about 16 x 22 inches). These images were quite popular and were later used for other event memorabilia, including souvenir handkerchiefs and scarves!

Fourth of July that year must have been quite the spectacle!  In his description of the holiday festivities, J. S. Ingram, author of The Centennial Exposition, describes a crowd of 50,000 people gathering at Independence Square. Four thousand seats were arranged for invited guests, and an additional 10,000 people participated in a parade that morning. Of the parade, he writes,

The great military parade, the finest, ever seen in Philadelphia, came gloriously marching down Chestnut Street early in the morning, their colors glowing and their bright bayonets gleaming in the sunlight, while music from many a splendid band filled the air with its inspiriting strains.

Ingram’s full descriptions of the Exposition and the Fourth of the July celebration are available here. Despite these impressive numbers, July was actually one of the poorest attended months! That’s largely due to a heat wave that hit the city; for ten consecutive days, temperatures reached 100 °F. As the weather cooled in the fall, attendance numbers surged.  The average daily attendance in September rose to 94,000. October saw an average of 102,000 attendees each day, and November 115,000.

These landscapes offer us a glimpse inside one of the biggest summer celebrations of 1876, an event that arrived after another time of turmoil and unease in this country. While both our Fourth of July celebrations and summertime activities might look a little differently this year from prior year’s, the images here (and the Exposition itself) signify hope and optimism and remind us that looking for amusement and confidence about the future might be as easy as taking a walk and enjoying the natural and human-made landscapes . . . or opening a good book.

On behalf of everyone at AAS, please have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

For Further Reading:

Ingram, J. S. The Centennial Exposition. Philadelphia: Hubbard Bros., 1876.
McCabe, James D. The Illustrated History of the Centennial Exhibition. Philadelphia: National Publishing Company, 1876.
United States Centennial Commission. International Exhibition, 1876, Official Catalogue. Philadelphia: Published for the Centennial Catalogue Co. by J. R. Nagle, 1876.

Above Us Only Sky: A Close Look at Light and Space in the AAS Conservation Lab

Much of my bookbinding life has been spent in cramped, overheated, and windowless rooms hidden away in a basement. It generally comes with the territory. The old AAS conservation lab was certainly an improvement to such experiences, and I’ll always hold fond memories of my time there.  After all, it was home.  While so much time and energy was spent there, I shed no tears when the last cart of materials was wheeled out of the room, and the door shut.

When the architects asked us about our hopes and vision for the new lab space, my desires were simple: light, space, climate control, and updated equipment of course . . . and maybe a comfy ergonomic chair? Those architects delivered on every account! A perfect combination of functionality and aesthetic, the new conservation studio is a space designed for the modern age. Outfitted with five workstations, state-of-the-art specialized equipment, and a chemical treatments room, it is a streamlined and spacious facility that will accommodate more staff and interns than ever to help process, preserve, and make collection items safe and ready for use.

It was exciting to watch this complex project unfold, from the initial floor plans to its construction to finally moving in. Babette Gehnrich, our Chief Conservator, worked closely with Lis Cena of Sam Anderson Architects to create both a beautiful and functionally efficient space. (A closer look at this process is available here.) It was the perfect collaboration, merging art and science–much like conservation! When the time came, I staked out my new bench with pleasure – cozily nestled in the corner (with two windows), my own little penthouse suite. As you can see (below), the new conservation studio and lab are magnificent!

As part of the renovation, a new climate-control system was installed to ensure the preservation of the Society’s extraordinary collections, which date back to the seventeenth century. The expansion also created the opportunity to update new tools and to add new state of the art equipment. Now, we can now perform multiple functions (washing, drying, leather consolidation, making paste and solutions, cutting mats, custom designed enclosures, mold remediation, binding books . . . this list could go on forever) with safety, ease and efficiency.  As great as this equipment is, however, the lab’s most impressive elements are its space and its light. 

Our new conservation studio is filled with gorgeous light. A lofty cathedral skylight crowns the new space with extra height and natural northern light. We have an entire wall of windows next to our work stations, which we can modulate throughout the day as needed with light filtering shades and the latest in LED light technology overhead. I no longer require my humble task light to see what I’m doing. Having this generous and multi spectrum of light is ideal for the exacting conservation work we do, making subtle color matching and paper mending much easier. It’s also a joy to be able to look up from my detail-oriented work and connect with what’s happening in the outside world, whether that’s storm clouds, the summer sun, or the first snowflakes of winter.

In addition to all that natural light, our new lab has space . . . a lot of space. Having enough room to spread out and work on large, multiple projects is the greatest luxury and one we will never take for granted. Upon moving in, the AAS exhibition Beyond Midnight: Paul Revere was one of the first projects worked on by Conservation Department. Using every available counter and tabletop, we frequently wondered how we’d ever managed in the small space we occupied before the renovation. I’m currently working on our atlas collection, and this new space certainly helps working with materials like these, which become surprisingly expansive when unfolded.

And, of course, I love to show off this new space!  When staff and visitors enter the studio, I always enjoy watching that first moment when they take in the room, looking skyward and all-around.  Their eyes light up, their shoulders go down, a smile arises.  They breathe just a little more deeply. 

A Trip Around the World with Nellie Bly

Working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed me the opportunity to explore the AAS catalog in fun new ways. Inspired by my family’s board games, which have been stacked in the living room since our transition to remote work, one recent search led to our games collection. While many of the games piqued my interest, the Game of Round the World with Nellie Bly fascinated me more than the others. I recognized Bly’s name from history lessons long ago, but I could only recall a handful of details about her life as a journalist. The onset of cabin fever and my longing to travel beyond the front porch prompted me to learn more about the famous Nellie Bly, who inspired the game, and her adventures across the globe.

Nellie Bly was the pseudonym of Elizabeth Cochran (1864-1922), a newspaper journalist who became somewhat of a celebrity during the late nineteenth century after writing various investigative reports for the New York World. Her name became even more recognizable when she took her trip around the world in 1889.

Early in her career, people took note of Bly and her writing. Around the age of 16, Bly became upset after reading an article in the Pittsburgh Dispatch. The article claimed that women were only good for having children and taking care of the home. Bly showed her distaste for the article by writing an anonymous letter to the editor of the Dispatch. Much to Bly’s surprise, the editor published a notice that not only asked the anonymous writer to come forward, but also offered a job writing at the newspaper.

Cover image on the game board, McLoughlin Brothers, 1890.

Bly accepted the position and adopted the pseudonym suggested by her editor. But Bly quickly tired of her position after continually being asked to write about gardening, cleaning, and other domestic activities for the women’s pages. Unafraid of traveling to new places alone, Bly decided to leave Pittsburgh in 1886 for New York City in hopes of finding better writing opportunities. 

After months of unsuccessfully searching for work, Bly managed to talk her way into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. As a reporter, she often placed herself in risky situations to get a good story. For one assignment, Bly feigned insanity to get into the women’s asylum on Blackwell’s Island to reveal the abuse and neglect the patients experienced. Her reports brought the public’s attention to the mistreatment at the asylum and led to major reforms.

In 1889, Bly challenged herself to make a trip around the world in less than 80 days. She was determined to beat the time of Phileas Fogg, the main character in Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. When Bly first proposed the idea to her editor at the New York World, he doubted her. He believed a man would be a better fit for the trip since he would not require a chaperone and would not be prone to bring loads of luggage. With her determined spirit, Bly somehow convinced her editor that she was capable of completing this assignment and began preparing for the trip. From the start, she mocked her editor by packing everything she needed in just one bag! Bly and her single bag can be found on the front of Game of Round the World with Nellie Bly and in a preliminary print for the game.

Bly’s trip officially began on November 14 when she boarded the Augusta Victoria steamship in New Jersey and headed across the Atlantic Ocean towards Europe. Just as the board game suggests, bad weather made some of Bly’s trip across the sea a rough one, and she even became seasick.

A close-up of Jules Verne watching over Bly’s expedition in the upper-right hand side of the game.

One week later, Bly arrived in England and met a correspondent from the New York World. The man explained that Jules Verne, whose portrait is depicted on a corner of the game board, and his wife wanted Bly to visit them at their home in Amiens, France. Although this unexpected excursion added time to Bly’s journey, it was an offer she could not refuse.  The couple welcomed Bly into their home with open arms and were excited to hear about her travel plans. Verne even brought Bly into his study and showed her a map of Phileas Fogg’s route that he had marked out himself.

After a short but delightful visit, Bly continued on her journey. Large portions of the trip were spent on steamships and trains. While her schedule didn’t allow her to stay in one place for very long, at each stop Bly tried to take a walk and meet some of the local people. Bly’s voyage continued into Egypt, where she visited cities such as Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez. Whenever possible, she sent written reports of her observations back to the New York World by telegraph and by ship. During the interims between her stories, her editors published articles about the places she would be visiting next to keep readers interested. Stopovers included Yemen, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore.

A close up of vignettes representing Bly’s journey across the Mediterranean Sea, through Suez Canal, and eventually into port at Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, Bly discovered that she wasn’t the only woman racing around the world. Cosmopolitan magazine had recently sent out journalist Elizabeth Bisland on a similar trip with the hopes that she could beat Bly’s time. Bly wasn’t flustered by the competition and stayed focused on her own trip and goals. While Bisland made her way along a similar route, Bly continued forward to her next stop Yokohama, Japan, where she explored the city’s streets and enjoyed watching families fly kites outside their homes. Again, Bly couldn’t get too comfortable; she was about to enter the last leg of the expedition.

After nearly two weeks at sea, Bly arrived in San Francisco on January 21 (two days behind schedule) and raced back to New Jersey. On January 25, 1890, an enormous crowd of people welcomed Bly home from her trip around the world. She completed the journey in 72 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes, beating Bisland and Verne’s protagonist.

As much fun as it is to play (and to win) the game, I’m sure it’s nothing when compared to the excitement and pride that Bly must have felt that day. She had accomplished her goal and proved to the world that women could do much more than just household duties.

A close up of the center of the board game, depicting Nellie’s return home.

The McLoughlin Brothers publishing firm distributed Game of Round the World with Nellie Bly in 1890 during the height of Bly’s fame. According to the firm’s product catalogs from the period, basic versions of the game sold for 30 and 50 cents and an enlarged edition cost $1.00. Although the game was advertised alongside children’s books and toys, it was described as “pleasant amusement for old or young.” Two to four players used spinners to determine moves and tried to beat opponents by circumnavigating the board the fastest. As players moved small wooden pieces around the board, they got a sense of the places Bly went and the experiences she had during her trip. In addition to the McLoughlin Brothers copy, a paper cut-out version of the game appeared in a January 1890 issue of the New York World when Bly was still traveling. It is no wonder that the McLoughlin Brothers company sold this game based on Bly’s adventures. In an attempt to make money, advertisers attached Bly’s name to a number of items and went as far as naming a racehorse and train after her.

Bly was an inspiration back in 1890, and she continues to be one today. Over a century later, Bly’s ambitious trip reminds me that life can be as entertaining as a board game if you take risks and step outside of your comfort zone. Of course, I couldn’t venture very far at the time this was written, but I did have access to countless pieces of history through the AAS catalog. Little did I know that one click into the catalog would take me on a journey through Bly’s life and on a trip around the world with her.

Further Reading

Around the World in 72 Days: The Audacious Adventures of Nelly Bly. Christine Lesiak and Mel Bucklin. WGBH Boston Video, 2006. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/world/#film_description

Bly, Nellie, Elizabeth Bisland, and Matthew Goodman. The Race Around the World. Lakeside Press, 2015. Housed at the American Antiquarian Society.

The Caribbeana Project

Luke Henter is a senior in the History Department at Princeton University. He studies 19th and 20th century international history, with certificates in the History and Practice of Diplomacy and Creative Writing. He has also worked at the Princeton Historical Review and is a member of the Community Service Interclub Council at Princeton.

As a newcomer to the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), one thing becomes immediately clear after spending time in the archive stacks: I had a much higher chance of getting lost in there than I did actually finding what I was looking for. This is the inevitable result of building such a substantial archive over such a sustained period of time. Another inevitable outcome of having such a sizable collection is that it always contains something new and surprising, something I wasn’t expecting to find.

AAS is known for its “collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, music, and graphic arts material printed through 1876 in what is now the United States,” but AAS’ collections are not limited – either by content or geography – to the United States or even to North America, and there is a rich collection of Caribbeana housed in the archive that deserves more attention. This dynamic collection forms the basis of The Caribbeana Project, a new AAS digital exhibition.

For an institution with a national mandate, it might seem incongruous for the American Antiquarian Society to hold such a wide-ranging collection, but the stories of North America and the Caribbean are intertwined. The AAS collections reveal that the study of each region is, in fact, complementary to, not separate from, the other. The items compiled for this project reveal the interconnectedness between the Caribbean and its people and the larger Atlantic World, visible in histories, trade, science and literature, religion, politics and law. The collection here includes travelogues from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, essays that describe the natural histories of the islands, and items that document the horrors of the Slave Trade and movement towards revolution and abolition.

The Caribbeana Project is not meant to be a complete account of every Caribbean-related item in the AAS Catalog. Such an account would be a monumental task. Instead, the exhibition advances two distinct claims. First, the Caribbean is an important and often overlooked aspect of North American history. Second, AAS’ collection of Caribbeana is rich and wide-ranging, and it is important to recognize these aspects of the AAS catalog.

The initial list for exhibition in this website was compiled from several bibliographies (Cundall, Cave, and others), as well as the AAS catalog. Then, I perused each one of the items, noting its characteristics and content. The Caribbeana Project makes it possible to sort these items by several characteristics, from date printed to place of publication. The highlight of the website is, however, a list of collections that groups the items by thematic focus, placing each item next to others that address similar questions. Reviewing these collections allows readers to see how different authors in different regions and different times considered the same general questions related to the Caribbean.

The process of creating this exhibition was neither simple nor straightforward. I am grateful to the PICS Internship Program for supporting this internship and making this great experience from last summer possible. I also owe a great deal to Elizabeth Pope, Curator of Books at the American Antiquarian Society, whose support and assistance have been invaluable and constantly appreciated as an internship supervisor.

The Caribbeana Project is meant to be both an inspiration and a resource. It has been the basis of an incredibly rewarding summer project, full of exciting breakthroughs and inspiring discoveries. I am grateful to both PICS and AAS for giving me the support and time to realize this project and make it a reality. I look forward to hearing, and seeing, how Caribbeana at AAS continues to grow and flourish. It is my hope that these resources prove as inspiring to future researchers at AAS as they have to me this summer.


Project Link: https://www.americanantiquarian.org/caribbeana/

For Further Reading:
Cave, Roderick. Printing and the Book Trade in the West Indies. Pindar Press, 1987.
Cundall, Frank. Political and Social Disturbances in the West Indies: A Brief Account and Bibliography. Institute of Jamaica, 1906.
Goslinga, Marian. A Bibliography of the Caribbean. Scarecrow Press, 1996.
Jordan, Alma and Barbara Comissiong, ed. The English-speaking Caribbean: A Bibliography of Bibliographies. G.K. Hall, 1984.

When Times are Tough, AAS Gets Going . . . on Transcription!

Staff at AAS have been sad and frustrated about Covid-19’s effects on our researchers, fellows, and fellow cultural institutions. Despite this hardship, we’ve been able to find some joy in our days and to feel connected to the collections we love by working on a staff-wide transcription of the first AAS donation book.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the first donation book, it includes a list of all of the Society’s acquisitions between 1813 and 1829. Most of items in the list are written in our founder Isaiah Thomas’ own hand. It includes many artifacts from indigenous populations that were deaccessioned over the years, as well as all of the books, pamphlets, and manuscripts that we received during that period.

We started working on this project not long after we all began working virtually from home. The transcription project was intended to give staff something to work on in gaps between other tasks and help them feel connected both to each other and to the collections from which we are separated. And what better way to feel connected to the collections than to work with this amazing foundational document!

Two staff members transcribe each page of the donation book and, when the project is complete, we will reconcile the two transcriptions and produce one final, solid transcription. Once completed, we will post these transcriptions online. Digital images of the donation book are already available online here. Already 15 staff members have worked on the project, completing 120 pages from the donation book (that’s 240 pages of transcription!)

What is our staff finding so interesting about this book? Lisa Sutter, one of our acquisitions assistants, noticed a reference to an account of a mermaid whose existence was verified by three people. In a donation of Mather family material, Lisa also found a story about a woman who swallowed two bullets that eventually emerged from her flesh. (Cotton Mather (1663-1728) was known for his studies of medicine and wrote about this story.)  Curator of Children’s Literature, Laura Wasowicz, was struck when one of the pages she was transcribing listed of a book that she had cataloged not too long ago, Porny’s Syllabaire Francois (1810), and its donor, Henry H. Cunningham of Montreal.

Researchers at AAS have also found the donation book endlessly interesting, and we consider it to be one of the staples of research at AAS. Peter Onuf, a recent Distinguished Scholar in Residence, used the donation book to study early American antiquarianism; Megan Walsh, a past NEH fellow, has used the donation book to understand early woman donors and collectors; and Christine DeLucia, another past NEH fellow, has used the donation book to understand the collection and ultimate deaccessioning of early American indigenous artifacts. We can’t predict  how this transcription will be used in the future, but we are excited about the possibilities!

On the first page of the donation book Thomas lists several items: the donation book itself; a Chinese passport, which we recovered in the collections when working on the miscellaneous manuscripts rehousing project a few years ago; and a palm leaf from Malaya with writing from the Malayan leader at the time. Perhaps most importantly, Isaiah Thomas’ library appears as the first item in the donation book. Thomas conveyed his library to AAS with a deed of conveyance that appears in the back of his own personal manuscript library catalogue. The entry appears so humble, but, when our former director Marcus McCorison transcribed Thomas’ personal library catalogue, it came to almost 700 pages of transcription. This generosity combined with humility is what made Thomas such a good leader of the Society.

One can also look to our current leader, AAS President Ellen Dunlap, who despite being unbelievably busy during this time of crisis, has signed up for and completed 15 pages of transcription. She has been very supportive of this project which is helping the staff to look back at and connect with our early history and with the library collections. She is giving so much to the library and staff on the verge of her retirement just as Thomas gave everything he treasured to AAS at our founding.

Revering Revere: Designing the Catalog for Beyond Midnight

When AAS was tasked with creating the physical catalog for Radiant with Color & Art to coincide with the opening of the McLoughlin Brothers exhibition at the Grolier Club in 2017, the focus was (at least from the design perspective) on the eponymous color and art. We tried to frontload the design of that catalog to reflect and reproduce the quality of color achieved by Brothers’ printing successes. An earlier blog post reflected on our design process for the McLoughlin catalog.

We tried to apply that same formula last year when we were staring down the assignment of translating an exhibition into a catalog. Part-essay and part-illustrated checklist, the resulting exhibition catalog is softcover, 8.5 x 10” in its final trim size with 104 perfect-bound pages. It features ninety-two total images, seven of them bleeds. The design of the catalog was less about pigmentation and more about pragmatism.

Beyond Midnight: Paul Revere is about capturing the nominal Revere as the “producer” whose raw materials’ list reads like a litany for eighteenth-century creative work: prints, tools, copper, lead, silver, mortar, wedding rings and church bells. Indeed, Revere’s work seemingly reached every area of early American culture during the revolutionary period, from extraordinary political events like the Stamp Act protests and the Boston Massacre to everyday items like Psalm books, tea sets, book plates and currency. The catalog is like the exhibition, infinitely more than just “Revere’s Ride.” The five essays by Jennifer Anderson, Lauren Hewes, Robert Martello, Nancy Siegel, and Nan Wolverton are generously illustrated with material used in the physical exhibition, and the checklist of the exhibition further showcases Revere in his many hats: as revolutionary, maker, networker, and legend.

A survey of Revere’s print material shows he is a master in using tight spaces; he could maximize even the most limited of canvases. Looking at his body of engravings also shows him as an artist pushing both physical and political boundaries. And because Revere can borrow ideas like the best of them, we tipped our design-hat and, in turn, borrowed some of his ideas to use in the catalog, from the double columns to the close-fitted page. This feature was the one we co-opted for the print version of the catalog and is best seen in the page for Nancy Siegel’s essay “The Work of Art and the Art of Work” (below), which shows Revere at his finest in the illustrated Joseph Webb trade card (left page). In the copperplate engraving, Revere seems to be saying (and there is no source to confirm this, but to this designer’s eye it is obvious), “You want my signature Chippendale with text AND every ware illustrated in the shop as a border AND you expect it to still look good!? Pass my lodestone. And here, hold my bottle of dried tea leaves.”

This catalog, like the McLoughlin one, was offset printed by Puritan Capital in Hollis, New Hampshire on their Komori Lithrone G40 press. In a conversation with our printing representative, Richard Denzer, we were told of the press’s ability towards quality of the print-image, as well as its commitment to saving energy and resources. This is something, upon reflection, we feel would have been important to the ever-practical-Revere. The paper we went with for Beyond Midnight is an 80# accent opaque white text, with a coated soft cover. With some of Revere’s more rugged engravings and plates, it mimics the originals held at AAS and elsewhere. Indeed, the name Revere is bound up with the idea of copper, so reproducing this was important to us. This paper choice also reflects beautifully the copper pieces and other physical objects, seen in the plate of the Boston Battery. The first time we held a hard copy of the book, this page took our breath away.

It was also important that the catalog include Revere’s signature prints. Full pages are devoted to prints like the Boston Massacre scene and his “Westerly View of the Colledges [Colleges] in Cambridge New England” (seen below), and the catalog offers a double-page spread for the 1766 engraving “A View of the Obelisk.” For fonts, we went with the ever-technical choices, set in STIX and Helvetica, as well as American Scribe for decorative purposes.

A print-copy of the catalog is available at our distributor, Oak Knoll Books. And when the physical exhibitions re-open at the Worcester Art Museum and Concord Museum, their gift shops will be happy to get a copy in your hands.

Something Old, Something New: Updates on the Program in the History of the Book

In his October 1983 report to the Council, former AAS President Marcus A. McCorison outlined the founding of the Program in the History of the Book (PHBAC), an ambitious initiative that set out to unite four areas of the Society’s work: collections, scholarship, fellowships, and publications. 

In the same 1983 report, John Hench, then assistant director for research and publication, listed a wide scope of activities under the new program, including an annual lecture series, new workshops and seminars, and a host of publications. Among these publications, Hench described,  “A newsletter [that] will keep scholars informed of activities of the Program and of similar work elsewhere . . .”  This newsletter was soon titled, The Book.

Published from 1983 to 2008, The Book served as the chief means by which PHBAC communicated with its various constituencies about the Society’s annual summer seminars, the annual James Russell Wiggins Lecture, and the progress of the five-volume series A History of the Book in America. It also served as a venue for the publication of essay reviews and substantive pieces on research collections and on research in progress. The collection is not only an important marker in the Society’s institutional history, it is also a valuable resource for the development of the History of the Book as a field of study.

This spring, The Book newsletter was digitized in its entirety.  Each issue is now available online in two formats: as a web-based flipbook and as a downloadable PDF. 

This collection is available here: https://www.americanantiquarian.org/book-newsletter. 

Virtual Book Talks

One of the latest activities of PHBAC is the Virtual Book Talk. This series showcases authors of recently published scholarly monographs, digital-equivalents, and creative works broadly related to print history and culture. During each installment, an author speaks about a recently published work and responds to audience questions. Programs can include an informal lecture around major points of the work, discussions of the archival research or creation and publication process, and readings from published texts. Programs typically last 45 minutes to one hour long. At the present, they will be streamed live on the Web and recorded for posterity. These programs are free but require advanced registration. 

Our first guest is Derrick R. Spires, Associate Professor of English and affiliate faculty in American Studies, Visual Studies, and Media Studies at Cornell University. Spires specializes in early African American and American print culture, citizenship studies, and African American intellectual history.  His first book, The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early United States (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), won the 2020 Bibliographical Society/St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize and the 2019 M/MLA Book Prize. He is a General Editor for the Broadview Anthology of American Literature and serves on the editorial boards of American Literature and Early American Literature.

In The Practice of Citizenship, Spires examines the parallel development of early black print culture and legal and cultural understandings of U.S. citizenship, beginning in 1787, with the framing of the federal Constitution and the founding of the Free African Society by Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, and ending in 1861, with the onset of the Civil War. Reading black print culture as a space where citizenship was both theorized and practiced, Spires reveals the degree to which concepts of black citizenship emerged through a highly creative and diverse community of letters, not easily reducible to representative figures or genres.

Questions about the event may be directed to Kevin A. Wisniewski, Director of Book History and Digital Initiatives, at kwisniewski@mwa.org. To register for this event or to find out more about similar online programs, please visit: https://www.americanantiquarian.org/virtual-programs

 

 

Black Self-Publishing: A New AAS Research Project & Resource

Black Self-Publishing is a new collaborative research project from the American Antiquarian Society. The core of this site consists of a list I developed of books self-published by black authors within the scope of the American Antiquarian Society’s collecting period (origins to 1876). Studying self-publishing, occasions when an author pays for the printing of his or her text, opened a window into the world of early African American print, revealing both a diversity of genres and authorial motivations for publishing. Although the narratives of Fredrick Douglass or Harriet Jacobs are probably the most popular to readers today, self-published texts by black creators compiled in this project encompass everything from a hotel-keeping manual to a speech on the “larceny of dogs.”

The project on self-published African American titles started as a spreadsheet and finished as an online exhibit using Omeka. By presenting this working list on a prototype site, AAS hopes to encourage new forms of collaboration among scholars, students, community members, bibliographers, teachers, and more. (Watch this video to see how you might engage with this project!)

Within my first few weeks at AAS, I received a crash course on the history of printing in America and was amazed at the complexity of the printing process: making paper, setting the type, inking and pressing sheets, and sewing together the pages. I began to learn how to analyze the materiality of a book.  During my internship, I examined chain lines (the prominent, wide-spaced, parallel lines in laid paper), gatherings (a group of folded sheets), and the slightest break in a letter on the page. At times, I felt like a slightly obsessive printing detective, solving historical mysteries while bending over books with a tape measure to compare the height of letters, excited about my type spacing discoveries.

AAS’s emphasis on the history of printing also contributed to my research. One of my greatest triumphs was uncovering the identity of the mysterious “Enterprising Publishing Company” listed on the imprint of several books on my list. Were they really a publishing company? I was determined to find out. After looking with no success in lists of newspapers, I made a breakthrough using Readex’s African American Newspaper database through the AAS website: I discovered that the Enterprise Publishing Company was the only black job printing office in Washington, D.C., from 1876 to 1881. Their claim that “that colored printers are the ‘boss’” remains one of the most memorable quotes from my summer.

Other special finds (seen below) include The Experience of Rev. Thomas H. Jones, Who Was a Slave for Forty-Three Years (1868), A Sketch of the Life of Okah Tubbee (1848), and Lunsford Lane; Or, Another Helper from North Carolina (1863).

When my supervisor Elizabeth Pope and I journeyed over to the section in the reading room for bibliographies on Afro-Americana, I received a big shock. While Elizabeth showed me a bibliography for black writers related to the military, a bibliography of black New England writers, and a list of titles held by the Library Company of Philadelphia, I wondered why the bibliographies on Afro-Americana were so sparse and specific. (The methodology section of website lists the sources I consulted for the Black Self-Publishing site.) Although important work has been done on the topic, especially by black bibliographers in the early twentieth century, the deeper I researched into this project, the more I wished for a complete bibliography of Afro-Americana to guide my research. What I was able to pull together over one summer is nowhere near a complete bibliography, but I hope this project serves as another resource that leads towards a more complete and accurate account of books published by black authors. (A larger bibliographical project on all Black authors is now being undertaken by the Black Bibliography Project based at Rutgers and Yale.)

As I read more bibliographies and added their findings to my list, I became more familiar with the names of many early African American writers. I picked several to research further, and, after a short time, they began to feel like good friends. Looking into the stories of these authors was one of my favorite parts of the project; their stories were fascinating, and it felt like I was able to contribute to scholarly knowledge using the editions of their books at AAS. One author, the spiritualist medium Paschal Beverley Randolph, who prolifically self-published books for 20 years, started to feel like he was following me around.  Serendipitously, when I visited with a book dealer in Connecticut, Randolph’s book was the first I pulled off the shelf. And, even better, it was one AAS didn’t have in its collections!

The summer was full of exciting discoveries, from locating books to add to my list to closely working with the AAS collection. I’m excited to see how the black self-publishing project will be used in the future, and I’m so grateful for everything that my summer at AAS has taught me.

In the summer of 2018, Sadie Van Vranken was an intern at the American Antiquarian Society as part of the Princeton Internship in Civic Service (PICS) program from Princeton University. She created an Omeka website about self-publishing by early American black authors that incorporated her own research with that of others.

Reporting on the Battle of Lexington, 1775: Fake News and the Massachusetts Spy

May 3rd is an important date for both the American Antiquarian Society and the community of Worcester. On that date in 1775, Isaiah created the first object printed in this community: his newspaper the Massachusetts Spy. In this issue, he described the Battles of Lexington and Concord. While Thomas was present at those battles, his account is far from an objective one and in this video, I examine and provide some context to this document.

This is also one of the few objects in our collection for which we have a life-size paper facsimile, and we have often used this in our K-12 programming. Both teachers and their students have enjoyed being able to touch and read it as one might have in the eighteenth century. The Society has a number of digital resources for educators both related to this item and to many other aspects of American history and culture before the twentieth century.

These can be accessed here: https://www.americanantiquarian.org/k-12-resources.

Poets in the AAS Archive: Readings and Reflections

In 1995, the Society welcomed its first class of a new kind of fellow. They were the Creative and Performing Artist and Writers Fellows, and they included fiction writers, poets, playwrights, visual artists, sculptors, performance artists, and musicians, as well as non-fiction writers, documentary filmmakers, journalists anyone seeking to create original works based upon American history and present them to non-academic audiences and readers. Initially, this program was funded by the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund and is now supported by endowments created by Robert and Charlotte Baron, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and Deborah and Jay Last.

These fellows added immensely to the intellectual mix under the generous dome of Antiquarian Hall and benefited from and contributed to the lively conversations with AAS staff, academic fellows and the lay scholar alike over the past quarter century. Many have also created and produced powerful, imaginative, and beautiful works which we shall celebrate in the coming months in a program we are calling Artists in the Archive: Twenty-five years of Artist Fellows at the American Antiquarian Society.

We start our series in honor of National Poetry Month with the work of three fellows. In these videos, we meet the artist, hear about the inspiration and methods of their work and then hear them read one or two of their poems created under their fellowship.

“Snow Globe (April, 18, 1775) Revere Speaks” by Catherine Sasanov

Written from the perspective of Paul Revere, trapped forever on his Midnight Ride, the poem meditates in part on an incident with an enslaved child mentioned in the Society’s Hugh Hall Papers, 1718-1743. Sasanov juxtaposes Revere’s story with that of the hanged man Revere will forever be riding by: Mark, who after murdering his enslaver in 1755, is executed, gibbeted, and hung by the side of the Cambridge Road.

Catherine Sasanov was a 2016 Robert and Charlotte Baron Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society. She is the author of Traditions of Bread and Violence (Four Way Books, 1996), All the Blood Tethers (Northeasten UP, 2002),and Had Slaves (Firewheel Editions, 2010).

“And so you walk, Sassamon” and “John & John, At the Gathering of the Praying Indian Congregation at Natick, Confessions to be Heard, 1654” by Robert Strong

Robert Strong, poet and founding column editor of “Poetic Research” at Common-place.org, reads two poems from Bright Advent, the book resulting from his 2009 William Randolph Hearst Fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society.

Bright Advent engages the 17th century translation and publication of the Bible into Algonquian in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the missionary work of the puritan “Apostle to the Indians” the Reverend John Eliot, and the linguistic brilliance of the native translator and Harvard student John Sassamon—the events, characters, and forces that led to King Phillips War in 1675. Bright Advent was awarded the Marie Alexander Poetry Series prize and published by White Pine Press in 2017.  Previous books include Puritan Spectacle, Joyful Noise: An Anthology, the chapbook Brethren, and the conceptual fiction Manufact Hologram.

“Graveyard, Monticello” and “Route 1 North, Woolich, Maine” by Tess Taylor

Both poems appear in her first book, The Forage House (Red Hen, 2013). Taylor recently had her poems featured in the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Words 7 Pictures at the Museum of Modern Art. She is also the author of Rift Zone (2020) and Work & Days (2016).

Here, Taylor discusses her career as a poet who works in archives and how the American Antiquarian Society helps foster that special work. Tess Taylor was a 2006 Robert and Charlotte Baron Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society.

 

 

“Don’t Expose Me”: The Beecher-Tilton Scandal of New York

Maggie Panteli is pursuing a BA degree in History and is graduating May 2020 from Clark University. During the summer of 2019, she worked part-time as a Readers’ Services Page and as an assistant in the Graphic Arts Department cataloging stereographs. Her favorite cataloging job was working with the McLoughlin illustrations. Her time at AAS has strengthened her commitment research and learning.

Traditional history classes can sometimes skip over some of the juiciest stories in American history. One of the most lurid and salacious stories of the nineteenth century is the Beecher-Tilton Scandal that rocked New York City in the 1870s. In 1870, Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton confessed to her husband, Theodore Tilton, an author and abolitionist, that she had been romantically involved with their church reverend and close family friend Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe. The Tiltons separately joined Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights, New York, in the early 1850s and were married there in 1855 by Beecher. Beecher and Theodore Tilton became close friends in the late 1850s through their civil rights work and remained close until the early 1870s when the affair became public.

The trio initially agreed to keep the affair quiet, but in 1872 Ms. Victoria Wodhull, the infamous woman’s suffrage activist, published a sensational article in Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly demonizing Beecher, mainly for his lack of morals and hypocrisy. Woodhull, who Beecher had criticized earlier for her “Free Love” advocacy and radical politics, is thought to have used the knowledge she gained from her friendship with Theodore Tilton to expose Beecher for his deceitful behavior. In her article, Woodhull proclaims, “[T]hey [those that make the rules] act upon the new doctrines while they profess obedience to the old . . . organized hypocrisy has become the tone of our modern society. Poltroon, cowardice, and deception rule the hour.”

Woodhull adds that letters had been sent about Tilton, and there were rumors that he had been violent throughout the marriage, possibly even causing his wife to have a miscarriage, and that he had kept her locked up in their house. Throughout the article, Woodhull refrains from speaking ill about Mrs. Tilton; however, she does boldly call out Beecher’s transgressions and hints to rumors she had heard, or made up for the sake of a sensational article.

At the time this article was published, Beecher and the Tiltons continued to keep as quiet as they could about the affair. However, in July 1874, Theodore Tilton publicly accused Beecher of seducing his wife and committing adultery. In response, Beecher set up a Plymouth Church investigation to look into the affair. The investigation found that Beecher was innocent, but public opinion and frustration led Theodore Tilton to sue Henry Ward Beecher for “criminal conversation” (adultery) and “alienation of [his wife’s] affections,”’ in late 1874.

Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, carte-de-visite, ca. 1875.

The civil case began in January 1875 and captivated the nation. While Beecher and Tilton both spoke at the trial, Elizabeth Tilton was unable to to do so because of spousal immunity. According to Richards Wightman Fox, in Trials of Intimacy, Elizabeth’s exclusion from the trial had little impact on the ruling because she was prone to changing her responses about the affair and was considered “untrustworthy”. At the end of a six month trial, the jury could not agree, and Beecher was finally acquitted. In 1878, Elizabeth Tilton issued her last confession that she did indeed have an affair with Henry Ward Beecher.  At the time, it was still interpreted as a rumor or untrue at the time.

While there is a large amount of information available about Henry Ward Beecher, Theodore Tilton, and Victoria C. Woodhull, Elizabeth seemingly vanished from the public eye after she passed away in 1897. Despite being publicly defamed and pushed to the sidelines, she maintained a starring role in a drama-filled court case. Nevertheless, historians have focused on the famous men involved in the case and overlooked its most mysterious and interesting character: Mrs. Elizabeth M. Richards Tilton. After the trial ended in 1875, Theodore Tilton moved to Paris, France, leaving behind his family and friends. Elizabeth was forced to move back in with her mother in Brooklyn with her two youngest children. Little else is known about her life in those years after the trial ended. Even the American Antiquarian Society, which boasts a wide variety of both cataloged and uncataloged artifacts directly related to scandal, possesses only a single, non-political cartoon image of Elizabeth Tilton.

Through my unique position this summer at the American Antiquarian Society, as both a reference page and a graphic arts cataloger, I was able to conduct research and create records for uncataloged artifacts in the vast graphic arts collection. This included the only “picture” (actually only an artist’s rendering) of Mrs. Tilton, as well as a number of carte de visite, political cartoons, and portraits of Mr. Tilton and Mr. Beecher. Additionally, I was able to catalog a portrait of Victoria C. Woodhull and a fabulous political cartoon flip card of Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton.

The flip card is titled “Don’t Expose Me” and it has a printed image of Mrs. Tilton standing among a garden with her hands in a dance position. Her skirt is not completely glued to the paper, and, when it’s lifted, Mr. Beecher stands under the skirt with his arms lifted in surprise.

Handling objects like these and looking closely in an attempt to accurately describe them during the cataloging process provided an opportunity to experience how printing, photography, and cartooning was used during the trial, which is often described as the largest “he said, she said” argument of the late 19th century in America. Studying events such as the Beecher/Tilton scandal and using ephemera and published trial material (also available at AAS), can contribute to understanding the cultural norms of America during the late 19th century. Now that they are cataloged, all these artifacts are findable and available for research purposes to anyone who comes to the American Antiquarian Society or uses the General Catalog. Perhaps more information about the life of Elizabeth Tilton will be uncovered and written about in the future.

For Further Reading:

Fox, Richard Wightman. Trials of Intimacy: Love and Loss in the Beecher-Tilton Scandal. 1st ed., University of Chicago Press, 1999. Housed at the American Antiquarian Society.

Woodhull, Victoria C. “The Beecher-Tilton Scandal Case: The Detailed Statement of the Whole Matter by Mrs. Woodhull.” Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly , 2 Nov. 1872, pp. 9–13. Housed at the American Antiquarian Society.

McDivitt, Campbell, & Co., Law Publishers, No. 79 Nassau Street. Theodore Tilton vs. Henry Ward Beecher, Action for Crim. Con. [I], [II], V, VII, and XVII-XVIII, 1875. Housed at the American Antiquarian Society.