This past week we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the opening of Rauner Special Collections Library. We kicked off the week with faculty panel discussions about research and teaching in Special Collections, then had a series of events throughout the week with our various library partners. We were delighted and honored to have Gina Barreca '79, the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, deliver our keynote address on Thursday.  In commemoration of Gina's talk, we acquired a truly great work: the first trade edition of Virginia Woolf's A R ..read more

One of the more interesting phenomena in reading archived correspondence is the realization that everyone’s discussing the same event without explaining what actually happened. The writers and the recipients know what they’re talking about and don’t need to summarize for some outside audience — they’re private letters after all. But as a result, a researcher can read pages and pages of reactions to something apparently significant enough to elicit commentary, all while missing out on the instigating incident. In looking through our collection of papers for the activist and philanthropist W. H ..read more

You might know her from Caravaggio’s famous Medusa, the face of Versace, the book,Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or some other adaptation of the ancient myth.  Medusa is ubiquitous, appearing in Greek and Roman literature (from Hesiod’s Theogony to Ovid’s Metamorphoses) and in architecture, metalwork, vases, sculptures, and paintings throughout history. Yet the most well-known portrayals of her all predictably converge upon one brief moment from her life’s story: her beheading and the use of her decapitated head by a man to petrify others. Medusa then becomes an apotropaic symbol wardi ..read more

Last weekend, Jews around the world gathered to celebrate the holiday of Purim, or the Festival of Lots. This joyous occasion, celebrated each year in the Hebrew month of Adar, celebrates the triumph of the Jewish community of ancient Persia against the threat of annihilation at the hands of the villain Haman. Jews traditionally celebrate Purim by dressing up in costumes, sharing baskets of treats and gifts with friends, eating delicious triangular hamantaschen cookies, putting on comedic plays (purimshpieln), and gathering in synagogue to listen to the Purim story read aloud from the Book of ..read more

While prepping for a class this Winter, we stumbled on an amazing 18th-century chart of prices. It has the typical merchandise you would expect for sale at a remote trading post: cloth, glass beads, shoes, guns, pots and pans, blankets, and other things you might need. But what makes this one so foreign, is that everything is priced in beaver pelts! A yard of broad cloth would run you two beavers, and a gallon of rum four. One blanket was six beavers, and a pair of cargo breeches three. It seems like a luxury, but two ivory combs were just one beaver. This system was put in place by the Hudso ..read more

Lizzie Jackson, in this letter from February 1853, paints an accurate depiction of someone suffering from depression.  Interestingly, though, she never names her affliction as depression. She calls it “the blues”--even putting it in quotes. Still, she describes the slower perception of time in a way that those who have experienced depression will understand all too well: “The days appear like weeks to me, and Sunday, I thought night never would come. I have wished a few times that I was with my dear Nat, I have thought of nothing since you left but you, I would give any thing that is ha ..read more

We recently acquired two humble yet fascinating little manuscripts that shed an impressive amount of light on the capitalistic and exploitative foundations of British colonialism: early 18th-century London grocery bills. Both of these folio pages supply a wealth of information about what England was bringing home from its colonies abroad for Great Britain's upper class. At the top of both invoices, grocer John Cosins boasts that he "sells the best coffee, tea, chocolate, [with] all sorts of Grocery at reasonable rates." In this circumstance, these superior groceries had been sold to Sir Thoma ..read more

Happy March! We're getting impatient for spring around here and are celebrating the changing seasons with a look at one of the smaller books in our Maurice Sendak collection. Chicken Soup with Rice is a children's book of months, part of the miniature Nutshell Library set. Not quite four inches tall, it lays out each month with a rhyme leading back to the eponymous dish. Here's this month's:In March the wind blows down the door and spills my soup upon the floor. It laps it up  and roars for more. Blowing once blowing twice blowing chicken soup with rice.      Th ..read more

Can we become more virtuous just by looking at portraits of illustrious people? Yes, we can! This is the claim of 16th century portrait books like the Illustrium Imagines (Images of the Illustrious), published at Rome in 1517. The printer’s preface points out that the noble Romans had portraits of illustrious people “in the halls and even in the very doors” so that “by constant recollection of them, not only in thought but by sight, their minds were encouraged and supported to emulate their glory.” Portrait books offered readers an edifying gallery of portraits in the palm of their hands. The ..read more

“[A] joint Halal-Kosher dining venture on campus … would significantly advance Dartmouth’s vision for its future.” 1999 was an important year in the history of food inclusivity at Dartmouth. President emeritus James Wright and the Board of Trustees introduced the Student Life Initiative (SLI) in February of 1999. The main goal of this initiative was to make Dartmouth’s campus more socially inclusive and welcoming, and administrative leaders found that centralizing dining and renovating campus dining facilities would help them achieve this objective. Jewish and Muslim student leaders similarly ..read more