In the cold of a New England winter, it is easy to feel sorry for one’s self as the grey clouds of January barely dissipate in the low light of February’s early gloam. Some believe that the best way to tackle winter is to embrace it, and so the Graphic Arts department offers for your enjoyment selections from the collection that reflect how our ancestors dealt with the snow and ice of winter by singing, sleighing and skating. We chose optimistic images on purpose – leaving the broadsides and songs about blizzards and frostbite and lost cattle for another day!
J.Henry Whittemore, composer, Footprints on the Snow, Detroit: Calvert & Co. Lithographers, 1866. The first stanza of this song records a young man stepping out after a snowfall and finding a woman’s footprints in the snow outside his door. Naturally, true love ensues! He sings: “I gazed with admiration on the trim and tiny marks, and felt within my bosom kindling love’s bewitching sparks,”Tintype of skaters, three unidentified women on ice skates in the studio, no photographer given, c. 1875. These three women thought an ice skating scene would make for an amusing photographic memento. Not so cold as shooting it outside on the real ice!Scene of Boston Commons in the snow, no photographer given, albumen on card, carte de visite, c. 1860. The city of Boston frequently trucked snow from the city streets to the Common. Here horses pull carts loaded with snow through the gates of the park.Stop Thief. For Aquila Cook of Bellingham, Massachusetts. Woonsocket, Rhode Island: Patriot Press, 1848. Question: Who would steal a sleigh, horse, harness and blankets in the middle of February? Answer: Someone with really bad cabin fever, perhaps!Locomotive in a drift, March 29, 1881, stereophotograph. Winona, Minnesota: Elmer & Tenney. The upper Mid-West trumps New England (or maybe this year we should say it trumps even the mid-Atlantic) when it comes to snow fall totals, but western-themed stereocards such as this one were very popular in New England homes. Schadenfreude, perhaps?Ice crystals, c. 1870, stereophotograph. Littleton, N.H.: Kilburn Brothers. Scientists used cameras to study ice, snow and frost patterns starting in the early 1850s.A Winter Scene, reward of merit for Miss Lucy Draper, engraving, c. 1840. This reward of merit was found in an 1837 grammar book.
Today’s university may be in need of a revolution of its own, what with its failure to create true interdisciplinary conversation and its isolation from the wider public. The late eighteenth-century college did not exist in such isolation from the people, though few colleges became hotbeds of revolutionary activity during the war like Queen’s College (now Rutgers University). Queen’s alone attracted soldiers and aspiring legislators like James Schureman and Simeon DeWitt. It also brought to its doors printers like Abraham Blauvelt, whose newspapers became a voice for a unique type of independence, one that linked printing and university life, in the later years of the eighteenth century.
Blauvelt has a small, unexceptional entry in the printers’ file: publisher of the Brunswick Gazette from 1789-1792; publisher, with Shelly Arnett, of the Guardian, from 1792-1793; graduate of Queen’s in 1789 and recipient of the A.M. in 1792. These well-chosen facts of Avis Clarke’s, though, provide a window into the early American world of education and independence.
Every Wednesday, a notice for trustee meetings would appear in Blauvelt’s paper, The Brunswick Gazette. Not just a sign of loyalty from a Queen’s College alumnus, the notices are a sign of the change in allegiance on the part of trustees themselves. On June 5, 1781, the Legislature of New Jersey altered the charter for Queen’s by request of its own trustees, now fully in support of independence under their soon-to-be president Jacob Hardenbergh. Trustees would now take an oath of allegiance to the United States instead of to the board itself. More significantly, though, the new charter stipulated that notices for trustee meetings be published in a New York or New Jersey paper, not just a New York paper alone.
One of the last colonies to get its own paper was New Jersey. Because of its dependence on New York and Pennsylvania, New Jersey did not get its own major paper, the New-Jersey Journal, until 1779. Published by Sheppard Kollock, it was one of the first papers in support of independence in the state. In 1783, Kollock had published The Political Intelligencer and New Jersey Advertiser with Shelly Arnett, Blauvelt’s partner at the Guardian ten years later. Kollock published the first independent newspaper in New Jersey, and he Arnett printed the first newspaper with a college imprint. Blauvelt in turn printed one of the first papers to help establish independence both for the New Jersey press, Queen’s College trustees, and loyalty to a new United States.
Further reference: Demarest, William H.S. A History of Rutgers College, 1766-1924. New Brunswick: Rutgers, 1924. Hixson, Richard F. The Press in Revolutionary New Jersey. Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1975. McAnear, Beverly. “College Founding in the American Colonies, 1745-1775” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 42, no. 1 (1955): 24-44.
In my last post (“The Acquisitions Table: Matters Bibliopegistical“) I promised a curious story of synchronicity. Readers may recall Curator of Graphic Arts’ Lauren Hewes’s January 27 entry “Slate, before the hype” about writing slates in the AAS collections. (If you didn’t read it, go ahead and do so now. I’ll be here when you come back.)
(You’re back? Good. I’ll continue.) Lauren drafted her post on the 26th, and I read it late that afternoon. Less than two hours later, and before the post was put up, I got an e-mail from one of our bookseller friends, Ian Brabner, offering AAS this curious home-made slate.
What we have here is a pair of covers and spine, probably from an old account book, to which someone has attached a piece of cardboard treated with a black coating. The covers bear the handwritten date 1811, but we think the piece of cardboard was probably manufactured a few decades later.
Of course we wanted it. What I like most about this item is that a small piece of sponge is attached to the book to serve as an eraser. Someone made this for personal use, or perhaps for the use of a child. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, but it offers an evocative glimpse into nineteenth century writing technology.
Since we’re on the subject of slates, here’s another one: This one, also made of treated cardboard, is much smaller and is in our manuscript collection of papers of the poet and editor Frances Sargent Locke Osgood (1811-1850). It came housed in a paper enclosure with this note: “The Slate on which Frances S. Osgood used to write after speech failed and the last word ‘Angell’ (which was addressed to her husband S[amuel] S[tillman] O.) is there as she wrote it.” Osgood’s last word is still visible on the upper part of the slate. What does it mean? I’m not sure. A religious sentiment? a near-death experience? a pet name for someone?
Thursday, February 25 – 7:30 p.m. at the American Antiquarian Society Researching and Writing African American Biography: The Life of William Wells Brown
by Ezra Greenspan
Prof. Greenspan’s illustrated talk combines two stories: a narrative of the life of the most prolific and pioneering African American writer of the nineteenth century, and an account of a biographer’s journey to present that life to a twenty-first-century public.
Brown personified the American Dream. Born into slavery and locked into illiteracy until his escape at age 19, he became an internationally renowned antislavery activist-writer who resided and traveled widely across the northern United States and the British Isles. Over the course of a life devoted to personal and collective reform, he wrote a series of remarkable books that includes the first African American novel, the first printed African American play, the first African American travelog, the first African American panorama displayed in Britain, and the first history of African American military service in the Civil War. This talk will present this remarkable life story via an account of a year-long, ongoing research journey to retrace the course of Brown’s life and gather material for a comprehensive biography.
Dogs. Some people love them, others hate them. Regardless, there is just no getting around the fact that the lives of humans and dogs have long been intertwined. Depictions of dogs were painted on cave walls by early man and just last week images of “First Dog” Bo (the Obama’s Portuguese water dog) playing in Washington D.C.’s record snow fall were sent around the world via the Associated Press.
This week, the city of New York hosts the 134th Westminster Dog Show, bringing together an international selection of canines and their breeders and handlers. Westminster started in 1877, just at the tail-end (sorry!) of the American Antiquarian Society’s collecting range. However, the presence of dogs in many pre-1877 graphic materials in our collection shows American interest in man’s best friend indisputably pre-dates the invention of the formal dog show.
Dogs have long held symbolic meaning in prints, representing fidelity in wedding or patriotic images, or showing cowardice with tail between the legs in political cartoons. Once you start looking for them, you see them everywhere. Dogs deficate, urinate and vomit in dozens of political cartoons and social sartires ( such as David Claypool Johnston’s Panacea Mania — detail at right). Capitalizing on the cuteness or hero factor, they also often appear in advertising material, helping American merchants sell everything from sewing needles to hats (see the trade card at left for Boston hatter H.D. Tregear where a dog bravely attempts to rescue his owner’s chapeau).
For this posting, however, we are looking at images of actual dogs, not the more common symbolic or fictional dogs. Therefore, for your viewing pleasure (or if you detest dogs – to your great dismay) and in honor of the biggest dog show in the world, we have selected a handful of photographs and drawings of actual pets from the Graphic Arts department, starting with a daguerreotype of Nero, a dog once owned by the Barton family. A mixed breed, Nero sits attentively on the photographer’s table, isolated from his human owners, but perhaps focused on them (or on a bit of chicken or liver like his counterparts in Madison Square Garden this week). Daguerreotype exposures could be lengthy, so the fact that Nero could hold the pose long enough to stay in focus is impressive. Additionally, the Bartons thought enough of the dog to pay extra to the photographer to have his collar hand-tinted with gold paint.
Carte-de-visite photographs became popular in the 1850s, and several in the Society’s large collection include dogs. A portrait by Boston photographer John Adams Whipple of Henry H. Sturgis features a terrier mix resting atop a table while his owner leans casually against a pillar. Miss Anna Ball of Worcester took her setter to the studio of Charles Claflin and the dog slept on the floor while Anna posed in an elegant dress (image at top of post). Neither of these photographs include the name of the dog, although the Sturgis card has been annotated to include the name of the human sitter’s future wife (I wonder if she and the dog got along!).
Drawings and paintings of specific pets are also found in the collection. The lithographers Louis Maurer and Charles Crehen as well as several members of the Johnston family often included dogs in their more generic hunting and farm scenes. In order to capture the dogginess of these fictional creatures, all of these artists made sketches of their own dogs which are now part of the AAS collection. Scattered across the Society’s drawing and artists collections, these images feature relaxed and tolerant beasts, all of which were probably used to being studied carefully by their owners.
Bringing a pet to a photo studio or making a drawing may not tell us all that much about their specific owners (“Those Bartons, they must have been real dog people!”), but given the visual record, both practices were widespread. This does say something about Americans and their dogs. Historical examination of pets is being undertaken by numerous scholars (see Katherine Grier’s Pets in America, a History, University of North Caroline Press, 2006; or recent papers on animals and children presented by Brett Mizelle of California State University at Long Beach). We’ll let the scholars discuss the social and historical ramifications of owning a dog in America before 1877 – for now, we are happy to mark the opening of the 2010 Westminster Dog Show with this blog post. And in the interest of full disclosure: I’ll be rooting for the poodles but we also have strong feelings about pugs, springers, and greyhounds here in the Graphic Arts department. May the best dog win!
In 2010, the Graphic Arts department will be evaluating and re-housing its collection of nineteenth-century valentines. We have over 3,000 of these lacy, be-flowered paper objects and they are being sorted to provide better access for readers. Due to the high number and complexity of each object (some have moving parts, accompanying envelopes, etc., while others require elaborate folds) the project will be spread out over multiple calendar years. These items call out for individual blog entries, so expect a few!
One area of the collection of particular importance is the manuscript valentines. These were handmade notes sent to a spouse, friend, or relative. They are often decorated with elaborate calligraphy, word puzzles, or watercolor drawings. The earliest dated manuscript valentine in the collection is a folded puzzle that was made in 1832. Other manuscript valentines in the collection, including a handwritten poem by Lucinda Prentice for her cousin (at left & dating from before 1825) pre-date this example, but, as their sender did not choose to include the date in their salutation, they are temporarily relegated to the “not dated” portion of the manuscript collection (let this be a lesson to us all – always date your correspondence!).
As I have been processing the manuscript valentines, examining and foldering each item, I am struck by how many missives include human hair. There are locks of hair, whole ringlets, and impossibly small looped braids of hair. Poetic verses such as: “Remember me when this lock you see,” and “This lock of hair I once did wear,” appear frequently with accompanying hair decorations glued, sewn and pasted down in all sorts of creative ways.
All of these “hairy Valentines” caused me to think about how the perception of human hair has shifted over the centuries. If I suggested to my eleven year old that she make a decoration out of her hair to send to her best friend or grandmother, I am fairly certain that the response would be, “Mom, that’s gross!” And I am not at all sure what my own reaction would be to opening a letter and having a curl fall into my lap – I imagine there might be shrieking involved.
But in the 1840s and 1850s, hair was used for all sorts of craft projects, with periodicals like Godey’s Ladies Book offering design suggestions for homemade jewelry, buttons, and even elaborate hair pictures for framing. The Society’s miniature collection features a likeness of Andrew Craigie, Jr. in a locket case backed by intricately woven hair. The daguerreotype collection includes several images of the Barton family (including the famous Clara at a young age) with scraggly lengths of hair pinned inside the cover of each case. Hair occasionally turns up in books, too, such as the curl pressed into an 1845 New England primer in the Society’s collection, which is accompanied by the inscription: “My youngest brother’s locks.” The business side of the hair market is documented elsewhere in the collection, including a c. 1806 trade card for a Salem jeweler who states, “Hairwork neatly executed,” and a 1870s broadside from New York with wholesale prices for “human hair and hair goods.”
In her 2007 publication Love Entwined: The Curious History of Hairwork in America, author Helen Sheumaker writes, “Revulsion, squeamishness, curiosity and sometimes a sentimental cooing: these have been the principal responses to hairwork that I have encounters in the years I have researched its history” (p. vii). The valentines are no exception, having elicited grimaces, gasps and questions from researchers and staffers as they pass by my work space where the valentines are spread out for examination. So, this coming Valentine’s day consider our ancestor’s acceptance of human hair as token of affection and make your own decision on what to include in a card for your Valentine. My family and friends will all hopefully stick with flowers and chocolate!
Henry Box Brown (b. 1816) escaped lifelong slavery in Virginia by shipping himself in a box (with the help of white and African-American abolitionists) to Philadelphia in 1849. One of the few primary sources detailing his breathtaking escape to freedom is the children’s book Cousin Ann’s Stories for Children. Written in 1849 by Quaker abolitionist and pioneer female physician Ann Preston (1813-1872), her account conveys in simple but deft language, Brown’s death-defying journey:
The box was three feet long, two feet eight inches deep, and twenty-three and a half inches wide. Then, he got a kind man to send word to a trusty friend in Philadelphia, that the box would be sent on the cars to Philadelphia on a certain day. On the top of the box was written in large black letters, ‘this side up with care.’ When it was nearly time for the cars to start, Henry took a bladder of water, some biscuit, and a large gimlet, and got into his box. Then a man nailed down the top, and porters took the box to the cars, thinking … that it was a box of goods. It was very hot in the box, and Henry could hardly breathe, there was so little air. But he made up his mind to die rather than make a noise … Part of the way he travelled by water, and when the box was put on the steamboat, it was placed so that Henry’s head and back were down … He lay in this way, while the boat went twenty miles, and it nearly killed him. He staid in his little box-house twenty-six hours; but could not eat any of his biscuit, and instead of drinking the water, he used it to bathe his hot face.
Thankfully, Henry survived, and he emerged out of his box at the home of an abolitionist. His jubilant emergence is captured in this wood-engraved illustration from Cousin Ann’s Stories, as well as in a political cartoon, and two broadsides held at AAS. Brown, himself, described his journey in the Narrative of Henry Box Brown, first published in Boston in 1849.
Ann Preston concludes her story about Henry Box Brown with a profound comment on the meaning of true heroism:
We call people heroes who do something that is brave and great, and Henry is a hero.
Henry Box Brown’s story has been told to a whole new generation of young readers by writer Ellen Levine and illustrator Kadir Nelson’s evocative picture book Henry’s Freedom Box (2007), which was named a Caldecott Honor Book. Levine and Nelson skillfully convey the sadness and hope of Henry’s story, and the book provides an incisive introduction to the historical understanding of American slavery for today’s children.
Just in time for your winter viewing pleasure (who needs football?), the Graphic Arts team is pleased to announce that an inventory of the European Political Print Collection is now on-line and is fully illustrated. Have a look:
This is the latest work by our Graphic Arts Assistant Jaclyn Penny, who inventoried, described, re-foldered, and digitized (for reference only) the collection of just over two hundred objects. These are complicated prints and an image really is worth a thousand words. The written descriptions are fantastic though, and we have a pdf for key-word searching (try devil, or Paine, or dog). The images are all 150 dpi, so you can enlarge and zoom in to read the small text and see all the gory details (including paper texture and plate tone, for those who are really passionate about such things).
But why does AAS even have European Political Prints, you ask? Well, the bulk of the collection illustrates Europe’s perceptions of the emerging colonies, the Revolutionary War period, and the War of 1812, so these objects offer a valuable comparison to the American political prints — allowing for a two-way conversation of cartoons and social satires.
So, give the pigskin a break and do a key word search on pig or on Patriot (no Saints or Vikings, alas) and enjoy!
We have two more items this week. Both have to do with book binding, one as a subject, one as an exemplar.
Bradford, John. The poetical vagaries of a Knight of the Folding-Stick, of Paste Castle: to which is annexed, The history of the garret, &c. Gotham [i.e. Newark, NJ?]: Printed for the author, 1815.
A rare copy in original printed boards of an extraordinary and little-known verse collection. Although published anonymously, the book’s copyright was taken out by one John Bradford, who worked as a bookbinder in New York City from 1809-1819. Indeed, the first section consists mostly of poems about bookbinding—one of the very, very few instances of bibliopegistical poetry in all of Western culture. The poems include “This World’s a Huge Bindery,” “Receipt for Binding a Book,” “The Binder’s Curse,” and “An Enigmatical List of Binder’s Tools,” consisting of 34 devilishly difficult verse riddles. Here’s a simpler one that this curator managed to solve:
The two ninths of one who commences a suit,
O—U. G—and the eleventh of a hot biting root.
[answer: PLOUGH]
One of the two inserted engravings depicts the Knight of the Folding-Stick, a fantastical creation fashioned from binder’s tools. The book concludes with “The History of the Garret,” a facetious prose history of Newark, NJ. Purchased from L. & T. Respess. NEH Challenge Grant Fund.
~ David Whitesell
Headley, Joel Tyler, 1813-1897. The sacred mountains. New York: Baker and Scribner, 1848.
A recurring theme of these reports has been the extraordinary creativity shown by the designers of American publisher’s cloth bindings, especially ca. 1847-1852. During this brief period binders focused particularly on the cloth substrate, employing striped cloths, cloths color-printed with decorative patterns, even cloths bearing custom-printed illustrations. This publisher’s binding in almost mint condition adds another highly unusual cloth variant—one not previously documented in the AAS collections. The diagonally ribbed cloth has been woven from white and blue threads. In other words, the binding is made from denim! The fabric’s rough, washed-out surface, however, does not show the elaborate gold-stamping to advantage, perhaps explaining why denim bindings did not catch on. Purchased from Mark Craig. Michael Papantonio Fund.
~ David Whitesell
Finally, stay tuned for next week’s report from the acquisitions table. I’ll have a rather remarkable piece of synchronicity to show you.
The American Antiquarian Society is almost 200 years old. I guess that’s not entirely shocking, given that “Antiquarian” is in our name, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that when we were founded there were no functional steam-locomotives, no sewing machines, no modern matches. Napoleon was still fighting his way across Europe. Even “The Star-Spangled Banner” had yet to be written.
While I think you’ll agree we look very good for our age, two centuries of continuous collecting has given us a few wrinkles. Not everything is exactly where it started. In fact, the various stages of arrangement and cataloging of our collections provide a complete, if eccentric, history of librarianship and cataloging technologies.
Searching for collection material can feel like an archeological dig through layers of accumulated cataloging. You hit strata from multiple centuries working backwards in time. Level 1: digitized products. Level 2: online records. Level 3: microform. Level 4: a unique cataloging system. Level 5: handwritten card catalogs. Level 6: lists of collection material. Level 7 (and this is the most tenuous of all): the back recesses of a librarian’s mind. As the AAS Librarian reported on October 23, 1829:
The number of volumes now in the library exceeds eight thousand, and these are rendered almost useless from the fact that there are only two or three individuals who are acquainted with their arrangement or contents, and perhaps no one who can at all times find the book called for.
It may sound daunting, but this historical evolution is actually one of my favorite parts of working at AAS. It puts our collections on a human scale, since we are all slowly evolving.
Once you’ve worked here for a while, the weirdness wears off. You don’t have to consciously struggle to remember each unusual term. In fact, it becomes increasingly difficult to recall which words are common parlance, which are specific to “library people,” and which are AAS originals (which as you will see is a category onto itself). Here are some examples off the top of my head, in no particular order.
Things in the AAS Reading Room (other libraries may have these too):
1. Book Snakes (hint: here’s a picture of them in their natural habitat)
2. Trucks (seems like they wouldn’t fit in the building, but have you seen our dome? — it could be the new Thunderdome)
3. Cradles (for those sleepy researchers)
4. Fellows (they’re jolly good)
5. Call Slips
AAS Neologisms:
1. Cataloging campers (do they get to sleep over?)
2. Red sleeve (sounds cheerful, if somewhat lacking as a garment)
3. The Buff (which appropriately enough goes in a red sleeve to cover it up)
4. Pink Slip (given the scary recent unemployment figures, it’s not as bad as it sounds)
5. Stacks, Locked Stacks, & Stack D
6. Exit Passes
Most of the foregoing are merely amusing, but other terms can really benefit your research.
AAS Collection Names(most are abbreviations and so pretty easy to figure out, but they sometimes sound funny):
1. Lithf, Lithff, and Lithfff as well as Engrf, Engrff, Engrfff (sounds like a stuttering problem)
2. First Eds
3. Bibs (I thought we weren’t supposed to have food in the library)
4. CS5 (an American version of the MI-5)
5. Classed Collections (where are the gendered collections?)
6. Pams, Misc Pams, Dated Pams (way too many folks named Pam)
7. Dated Books (a bibliophile’s dream)
8. Digital Evans (Why didn’t they ask Digital Evans?, for the Agatha Christie fans among us)
9. Shaw-Shoemaker (which sounded vaguely like a Native American name to me)
Imaginary Places at AAS (my personal favorite, you may come across these figments in the card catalog):
1. First Eds Room
2. Map Room
3. Alcove B, or F, or D
Book Terms:
1. The Gutter (get your mind out of there!)
2. Chain Lines (sounds a little scary)
3. Provenance (sadly not the region in France, but almost as cool)
4. Ghosts (a term that seems to haunt the library)
The fascinating stories behind these odd terms will be periodically revealed in posts on Past is Present, as the fancy strikes us. Hopefully, it will strike once a week. Our ultimate goal is a comprehensive AAS Glossary (hey, a girl can dream). While some of the above terms are common to many libraries, our definitions will be sprinkled with a generous dose of AAS history. After all, our 200th birthday is coming up soon so now is a good time to brush up on your AAS trivia to impress your friends and relatives.
To help us reach this goal, we invite our Past is Present readers to join us as co-editors. The OED created a massive linguistic team by harnessing the power of individual readers and so can we! When you think of another good example of an odd library term (from AAS or elsewhere), or if you see something in the lists above you’re particularly curious about, let us know and we’ll try to post on those first.
Better yet, feel free to comment on this post with your own definitions — the snarkier the better! I am confident you all will come up with some truly witty definitions to replace my corny one-liners.
There is something fitting in one librarian coming to the aid of another. The mystery surrounding the New York Times 1964 claim that the Adams family celebrated July 4, 1776 with “Green turtle soup, New England poached salmon with egg sauce and apple pan dowdy,” found a resolution with the detective work of New York librarian Beth Chamberlain. She pointed out that the Times article sounded remarkably similar to the American Heritage Cookbook (Simon and Schuster, 1964), but with one key difference: it was the “Adamses’ neighbors in Massachusetts” who served the menu (page 406).
There are still no answers as to what the Adamses themselves ate on July 4th. The American Heritage Cookbook refers to a June 23, 1797 letter from Abigail in Philadelphia to her sister Mary Cranch in Quincy, MA. She writes of the long hours associated with being the President’s wife,
To day will be the 5th great dinner I have had, about 36 gentlemen to day, as many more next week … then comes the 4 July which is a still more tedious day, as we must then have not only all Congress, but all the gentlemen of the city, the governor and officers and companies, all of whom the late president used to treat with cake punch and wine.
The letter, held in AAS’s Abigail Adams manuscript collection, is followed by a confirmation on July 6th that the Adamses followed Washington’s generous practice, and guests called on the first lady in her drawing room only “after visiting the president below and partaking of cake, wine & punch with him.” Abigail suffered the same situation the following hot summer, and she complained on July 3, 1798, “Tomorrow will be 4 July, when if possible I must see thousands. I know not how it will be possible to get through, live here I cannot an other week unless a change takes place in the weather.”
Correspondence to her sister Mary, running from 1784 to 1816, forms the bulk of our Abigail Adams Letters. Among the first items in the collection is a letter from July 6, 1784 written aboard the ship Active, that suggests an Independence Day feast was the last thing on her mind. As Abigail sailed towards her husband in Europe, she wrote,
I have had frequent occasion since I came on Board to recollect an observation of my best friend’s, “that no being in nature was so disagreeable as a Lady at sea,” and this recollection has in a great measure reconciled me to the thought of being at sea without him.
The July Fourths spent in Europe, as recorded in these letters, indicate the day had not yet become an event in Abigail’s mind. In 1788 both John and Abigail were focused on the recent wedding of their daughter Nabby. In 1789, her days were so busy visiting friends that she apologized for the delay in writing her sister.
The first acknowledgement of Independence Day comes from New York on July 4th, 1790,
A memorable day in our calender a church belonging to the Dutch congregation is this day to be opened and an oration delivered. This church was the scene of misery & honor, the prison where our poor Countrymen were confined, crowded, & starved during the war & which the British afterwards destroyed.
In Abigail’s letters to Mary, one finds a chronicle of the growing recognition of the Fourth of July as a holiday of importance. But there are few clues as to Abigail’s culinary preferences. Based both on our collection of letters and the digitized ones provided by the Massachusetts Historical Society, food it seems held only a minimal place in Abigail’s consciousness, at least as recorded by her correspondence. Much more important was the company she kept while dining.
With the pending release of Apple Computers’ tablet computer and the surrounding press and discussion, it seemed like a good time to review the precursor to it all, the humble school slate. The Antiquarian Society has several nineteenth-century slates in the games collection, including one with multiple pages, patented in 1867 and bound like a book. These small objects were used in schools for spelling and mathematical exercises and featured a surface that could support erasure and re-writing. Some were made of actual stone slate, others, like the one pictured here, were paper or paperboard treated with a slate-infused pigment. The selling points for a good-quality school slate might be recognized by today’s computer-savvy consumer: the size of the writing surface, the portability of the object, and the durability over time. Most salesmen’s texts and advertisements promote these qualities. At rates of $1 to $2 per dozen, the school slate was cheap enough that it was widely disseminated and used by thousands of school children across the country.
Where did all that slate come from? Before the Civil War, slate was mined in New York, New England and throughout the Mid-Atlantic states. As the population moved westward, slate deposits were recorded and mined right the way across the continent to California. Also used as a roofing and paving material, slate was in high demand through about 1900.
Let’s keep thinking like those executives at Apple. What about the market? In the nineteenth century, school slate manufacturers tried to capture market share in several ways. They created decorative frame styles to appeal to customers, they sold their slates directly to schools to get children used to them (sound like a familiar strategy?), and they offered accompanying items like chalk pencils, cleaners, and rubberized tips to protect the corners of the slate. To help create demand, schoolbook publishers often included in their texts sections designated as “for the slate,” which include suggestions for teachers and students to improve their hand writing, mathematical calculating skills, etc.
So, go ahead and enjoy your tablet computer (or the tablet that belongs to the student in your life)! Now you know that you are following in the footsteps of American consumers well before your time, folks who wanted a smooth surface to write on during class. Just remind your kids to be gentle with their new technology and not to be like the “naughty boy” in the 1845 gift book illustration pictured here. In a fit of pique, he has apparently thrown his slate to the floor of the schoolhouse and it lies there, broken in a million pieces. Alas, there is no evidence that manufacturers ever offered extended warranties on nineteenth-century school slates!
This week we feature two items acquired by AAS in recent months. What they have in common is that our copies are the only ones known to exist. Given the age of these items (they were printed in 1795 and 1815 respectively) and given the fact that generations of bibliographers have labored to identify and locate every book, pamphlet and newspaper known to have been printed in the United States when these were published, it may seem strange indeed that we could acquire two such items during the same quarter. However the fact is that although we know a great deal about what was printed in this period, new discoveries are not that uncommon. We always have pleasure in getting things we don’t already have, but that pleasure is much greater when things come into the building and we find that they seem to be unique copies.
They’re still out there, and that makes the search all the more exciting.
The singers pocket companion. Being an abridgement from Arnold. Containing concisely the rules of psalmody: to which are added a number of pages with blank lines that music may be written by any who wish to select from the various collections now published. Southwick [MA?]: Printed and published by J. Langton, 1795.
A newly discovered early American music book, apparently published in Southwick, MA. If so, it is by several decades the earliest Southwick imprint. Like other music books, the text and ruled pages are oblong in shape and entirely engraved. The title page is signed “J. Allen”—presumably the Boston engraver Joel Knott Allen, who engraved other music books at this time—hence this work may also have been printed in Boston. “J. Langton” may be Job Langton (or Langdon), an early settler of Southwick. The Preface states: “The design of this publication is to furnish Schools with a concise system of RULES for SINGING with Blank lines for the purpose of inserting TUNES at every ones pleasure. The advantage of this will appear in saving a great expence to Learners; and in giving Masters opportunity to introduce in their schools tunes of their own choice.” This copy bears a contemporary inscription: “Moses Andrews Singing Book January 19th AD 1795,” and the 44 pages with blank lines are entirely filled with manuscript music in a contemporary hand. Purchased from Savoy Books. Hugh Amory Memorial and General Library Acquisitions II Funds.
~ David Whitesell, Curator of Books
True American (St. Clairsville, OH). Apr. 6, 1815.
AAS has acquired the only known issue of this title. When Clarence Brigham published History and Bibliography of American Newspapers 1690-1820 in 1947, he had located references to this newspaper, but no issues could be found. In 1961 he published a supplement in the AAS Proceedings, but he still had not located a copy. This issue turned up in a box of uncataloged miscellaneous issues given to AAS by the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis. It confirms most of the information that Brigham gathered from secondary sources.
~ Vincent Golden, Curator of Newspapers and Periodicals
Recently the Graphic Arts staff at the American Antiquarian Society posted its latest illustrated inventory, a complete listing of political and social engraved satires from the Charles Peirce collection (yes, that last name is spelled correctly! Peirce, not Pierce!). You can have a look by following this link http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Inventories/Peirce/
Like many collections here at the Society, the Peirce collection is amazing and rare and wonderful for many reasons. It includes the only known copy of James Akins’ (1773-1846) sharp-witted cartoon The Philosophic Cockwhich depicts Thomas Jefferson as a rooster and his slave Sally Hemmings as a hen. There are rich social satires by the English engravers Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) and George Cruikshank (1792-1878) that lampoon everything from fashion to dentistry in the early nineteenth century.
Our web resource for this collection features an introduction written by 2009 Last Fellow Allison Stagg (University of London) documenting her research on how the Peirce album was used in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Peirce, a bookseller, compiled the album then rented it out for parties – see the image Twelfth Night by Cruikshank (Folder 40) for a group of Brits using a set of prints in a similar manner. We have also illustrated Peirce’s newspaper advertisements documenting the album, which Allison found in the course of her research.
What you will not learn from this great new finding aide is the way the album was originally found by the donors. In a compelling little essay titled “All I wanted to do was put the vacuum cleaner in the closet,” the donor, Edith Fisher Hunter, describes how she discovered the somewhat-tattered, portfolio-sized album among a large group of books from her spouse’s multi-generational family library. The books had been boxed up and shoved into the hall closet under the stairs during various moves and renovations in the 1798/1810 family farmhouse.
Until 1990, the boxes had been competing for space with the vacuum cleaner and tubs of Christmas decorations. One muggy August day, while trying to cram the vac into the closet, Edith decided enough was enough. She pulled everything out and began sorting. The results: two boxes of material relating to bookseller and relative Charles Peirce were put aside, including the album of caricatures. It all eventually made its way to AAS, much to our pleasure. “The closet in the hall is delightfully empty,” Edith wrote in her conclusion, “The box of Christmas decorations fit into the closet very nicely as does the vacuum cleaner!” The moral of this tale could be – It is never too late to tackle spring cleaning. Or, for those of us who lack acute housekeeping motivation – Clean out the closet to avoid dealing with the dust and dog hair on the rugs. Yep, I admit it. I’d rather lose myself in twelve boxes of early American imprints than push the Hoover!
Background: The books in the AAS collection began appearing long before a comprehensive cataloging system. Building on the foundational donation of Isaiah Thomas’ personal library, members sent books to the Society, and according to the letter transcribed below, at times also removed them.
Item: A letter from AAS member and prominent Worcester lawyer William Lincoln to statesman and AAS member John Davis written August 16, [1829].
Found by: AAS-NEH Fellow Mary Beth Sievens, Associate Professor of History, SUNY-Fredonia.
Two or three weeks since, in pursuance of an understanding with the members of the Antiquarian Council, I took from the Antiquarian Library three or four volumes which I considered as so indecent and vile that they should not be kept by a decent Society or read by any respectable person.Among them were “Wilkes Essay on Women” and “Rochesters Poems.”I took them, for the purpose of burning them and brought them home, and, unfortunately left them in a drawer in my chamber, intending to purge the earth of such polluted shapes of conception on the earliest opportunity. Still more unfortunately, I left them covered with my clothes, in the drawer when I removed—I cannot express to you the mingled feelings of shame and sorrow I have [felt] this evening on finding all of them missing—I would not for slight consideration be suspected of having such works of damnation in my possession—still less of keeping the accursed trash for my private study—and least of all of being accessory to its circulation.I ask it as a special favor that you will remove them and keep them safely in your own own [sic] most safe deposit until I can consign them to a more secure resting place.
Obliged to be absent early in the morning and coming like a thief, by night, I have no other means of communication than pen and paper afford or I should personally and bodily express to you my grief for the consequences of my carelessness in this matter.Baldwin will confirm my story, and exonerate me from the disgrace of having ever begged, bought or stolen this base coinage of prostituted genius.
Good Night Dear Sir, and accept the assurances of the unqualified regard of respect of your distressed friend
William Lincoln.
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PastIsPresent Postscript: The AAS archives do not reveal how John Wilkes’ “Essay on Women” or the Earl of Rochester’s Poems might have arrived in the stacks. Lincoln would have been consoled to learn that today the library no longer collects such items — that is, books published in Britain instead of the United States. But he would undoubtedly be horrified to learn of our recent acquisition of American risque literature: twelve 19th century translations of the work of French novelist Paul de Kock.
Prof. Greenspan’s illustrated talk combines two stories: a narrative of the life of the most prolific and pioneering African American writer of the nineteenth century, and an account of a biographer’s journey to present that life to a twenty-first-century public.
Louis Maurer 
Headley, Joel Tyler, 1813-1897. The sacred mountains. New York: Baker and Scribner, 1848.
ined in New York, New England and throughout the Mid-Atlantic states. As the population moved westward, slate deposits were recorded and mined right the way across the continent to California. Also used as a roofing and paving material, slate was in high demand through about 1900.
