It’s been a while since the latest post about new additions to Special Collections, so here are notes on items that have come in during the last month or two.

If forced to choose my single favorite category of books, I’d probably go with what you might call practical books: books that have a job to do in the world and get that job done. They’re not always pretty — sometimes they feature page after page of numbers and lists. Often they show signs of being roughed up, marked up and stored in less-than-ideal locations. 

One such class of items in our Updike Collection is books on print shop management, and the first two shelves of books in the image above are new additions in that category. The first shelf are transfers from our general, circulating collection. One of our sharp-eyed librarians noticed them in the stacks and asked if I was interested. I certainly was.

There were some type specimen books…

… and manuals on useful topics, like how to keep your Linotype machine running smoothly:

The second row of books are new purchases along similar lines, particularly handbooks for pricing a print job…

… and being a good printer/salesman:Row three offers a couple more purchases, from recently-published books for the Updike Collection…

… to an interesting children’s book/toothpaste advertisement…

… to a collection of items on roller skating …

… and a sammelband bringing together six very scarce short works published in Ireland in the nineteenth century. They’re mostly religious in nature, but included among them is an 1817 report published by the Belfast Saving Bank, which includes stories of exemplary savers who took advantage of the banks services:

Milliken, Don
OR #44

Correspondence is, at its best, an intimate gesture.

It is a pure idea
often direct and unrefined
It may also become
political,
psychological,
religious,
outrageous,
sentimental,
humorous,
horrific,
enlightening,
or indulgent

(Excerpt from an unpublished statement, 1984.  From Commentaries on the New Media Arts by Robert C. Morgan)

Open a box in the Don Milliken Collection of Correspondence Art and Related Materials and you will find zines, and postcards, and artists’ books, and newspapers, and stamp collections, and packets of stickers, photographs, letters, collages, and envelopes of all shapes from people all over the world.  This is one of the great things about correspondence art: the sheer variety of materials and themes that compile this worldwide art movement, emphasizing the inclusive participation of artists and amateurs in a variety of media through the use of the postal system.

The Northampton Herald
1982

Correspondence art, also called mail art or postal art, began in the 1960s.  While difficult to trace the origins of this movement, most sources agree that correspondence art began as a reaction to the commodification and commercialization of art.  In the competitive world of exclusive art museums and juried exhibitions, artists and amateurs sought to re-emphasize the joy of creating and experiencing art, and to create new paradigms for the art world focused on sharing and exchange.

Impossibilists #17
1982

Drawing upon the influences of Dada, an art movement reacting to the atrocities of World War I, mail art questions the political and social order of the day through the creation of a de-centralized, egalitarian, non-hierarchical network of participating artists, amateurs, political activists, and writers.

Stamps

Perhaps at the heart of this movement’s ethos is the desire to redefine and re-contextualize common everyday objects and functions.  Correspondence art claims the impersonal, invisible, and inexpensive network of the postal system as its own transporter of creative, intimate, and artistic interactions.  Postal stamps and rubber stamps are frequently incorporated into mail art, employing tools that often symbolize bureaucracy and formality.  Finally, the content of much correspondence art is a re-purposing of images and text from mass media publications, such as mainstream newspapers or magazines.

Many mail artists use pseudonyms, sometimes several, and often publications are the combined efforts of numerous artists.  Both of these practices blur the lines of Creator, instead emphasizing the content, the collaboration, interaction, and recycling of images, words, and ideas.

Lomholt, Niels
1985

Mail art requires an actual physical interaction between the receiver/consumer and the artists’ work.  In many cases, this interaction takes the form of opening an envelope, where both the envelope and the contents are the art, but so is the act of opening the envelope.  In this way, the art transgresses from purely visual/physical art to performance/interactive art.  The act of receiving art in the mail expels the distance between art and life, bringing the experience of art straight into the recipient’s home.

Ferguson, Frank
1979

In my opinion, this collection’s real value is not in the work of any one artist or publication, but in the way the collection as a whole communicates the network and community of international artists that share a common desire to connect and relate through art.  The numerous creators exhibited in this collection exemplify the shared spirit of the movement, the great sum of all the individual parts, while allowing us to witness the very collaborative, entwined, and inter-referential nature of so many of these works.

Milliken, Don
OR #161

Don Milliken, former Amherst College Curator of Visual Resources, was active in the correspondence art movement from the 1970s to the late 1990s as a creator and receiver of mail art.  He is internationally known for his publication OR and participated in numerous collaborative publications and exhibitions.

See these and more works from the Don Milliken Collection of Correspondence Art and Related Materials in the Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the March for Jobs and Freedom (known as the March on Washington) in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963. Commemorative events are planned from August 21 – August 28, and may be followed at the anniversary Twitter account and  hashtag: #MLKDREAM50.
The original Washington march was attended by approximately 250,000 people, both African American and white. A quote from that day by Josephine Baker, the only official female speaker at the March on Washington, conveys something of the spirit of the occasion:

“You are together as salt and pepper, just as you should be; just as I’ve always wanted you to be, and the peoples of the world have always wanted you to be.”

On the same day as the March on Washington, Reverend Black, along with other black, white, and brown Texas civil rights leaders, participated in a sympathy march in Austin, Texas. This post is about that particular march.

The Claude and ZerNona Black Papers contain many audiotape reels, the majority of which have now been digitized through a Summerlee Foundation grant. One of these reels is pictured here:

We are very grateful that with the gracious permission of Mr. Greg Martin, Director of Operations, Border Media/KTSA Radio, we are able to stream this important audio that documents the Austin march, Austin Civil Rights March, Speeches, and Interviews, 1963.

This recording was produced by a reporter from KTSA Radio, San Antonio, Texas. The tape begins with an interview by the reporter with Bob Joiner of the Indignant White Citizens Council (IWCC). The recording also includes a fragment of a speech on Mt. Sequoyah, Arkansas; speeches by Reverend Claude W. Black, Jr.; Booker T. Bonner; Moses LeRoy; Attorney William J. Durham, Dallas, president of the Texas Council of Voters; and an interview with Booker T. Bonner (the total playing time is 39:18 minutes).

In an informative chapter by Martin Kuhlman titled “The Civil Rights March in Austin, Texas, 1963,” from the book Bricks Without Straw: A Comprehensive History of African Americans in Texas (see sources below), we get a clear sense of the Texas context of the Austin march. Then Texas Governor John Connally, well-known as a segregationist, presented opposition to the civil rights bill being proposed in Washington. The Democratic Coalition, comprised of African American, Anglo American and Mexican American leaders across Texas, was working against the poll tax and the rhetoric that Connally and other segregationists were using that encouraged “voluntary” integration. Reverend Black puts the point eloquently in this excerpt from his editorial, “The Decision Takers“:

“Voluntary integration leaves the Negro where he has always been – subject to the will of another man, for no other reason than the color of his skin. Voluntary integration compels the Negro to cultivate the favor of the white individual in an effort to receive those benefits that should be granted to him as a responsible citizen. It is at this point that the Negro citizen must weight the benevolent attitude of the white politicians. I am sure that many Negroes are weary, as I am weary, of those programs that require that I play the part of a second class man in order to survive in a white community.”

Included in the additional and many writings of Reverend Black available in our Digital Collections is a commentary with his reflections on the significance of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in Washington, D.C. as well as on the Austin, Texas Civil Rights March. His comments stress the ramifications for Negros who assume roles as leaders. 
Capitols, Washington and Austin, by Reverend Black, 1963

And, through the important film digitization work of the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) in Austin, Texas, there is also a video from the Gordon Wilkison collection, Civil Rights Demonstration in Austin, 1963, that provides visual documentation of the Austin march.

In this time of commemoration of civil rights marches in 1963 and the issues represented, we can also celebrate access to the historical documents that  make study of them and social justice movements possible, and our appreciation for archives, donors, and all those who safeguard the evidence of our diverse history.

Sources:
Celebrity Participation in the March on Washington. (08/28/1963). Boston, MA: WGBH Media Library & Archives. Retrieved 20 Aug 2013
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/march-bc109d-celebrity-participation-in-the-march-on-washington

Kuhlman, M. (1997). Chapter 9: The Civil Rights March on Austin, Texas, 1963. In, Bricks Without Straw: A Comprehensive History of African Americans in Texas (p. 153). Eakin Press (a.k.a. Sunbelt Media).  Retrieved 20 Aug 2013
(Permalink): http://libproxy.trinity.edu:80/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tih&AN=19177376&site=ehost-live

Texas State Historical Association, “Civil Rights.” Retrieved 20 Aug 2013
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/pkcfl

While I am certainly no historian, I took several history classes during university, and was fairly meticulous in ensuring the ‘History’ in the course title was prefaced with words along the lines of ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ rather than ‘political’ or ‘military’. This partiality toward the social & cultural aspect of historical research is likely why I find the micro-history to be particularly interesting – especially in terms of education.

As a historical research approach, micro-histories are best known as the history of everyday life. Supporting Ralph Waldo Emerson’s claim that, ‘There is properly no history, only biography’, micro-histories delve into the story and experiences of individuals likely living on the margins of society, events, or places, and how these give insight into macro-history.

The beginnings of the microhistorical approach is credited to the political and cultural debates concerning the social sciences in the 1970s and 80s, where we saw a shift toward focusing on social (rather than economic or political) factors.

The first published micro-history was Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms: the Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller (1976). Ginzburg used trial records to examine the beliefs of an Italian heretic, Menocchio, from Montereale Valcellina, during the Spanish Inquisition.

French historian Emanuel Le Roy Ladurie once claimed that there are two distinct groups of historians: parachutists and truffle hunters. The micro-historians are clearly the truffle hunters, and the macro-historians, the parachutists, in the world of historical research. This is a very long-winded way of saying: archives are essentially the holy-grail for the micro-historian. From letters and diaries, to wills and deeds, archive stores are replete with the seemingly minute details of everyday life that provide a glimpse into the individual lives that can represent a particular period of history. While these aren’t necessarily the histories of Kings, Queens and political leaders, they can be used as a catalyst for exploring wider issues and themes of a given point in history.

Our NUWT collection is a perfect opportunity for classes of ‘truffle hunters’ to learn about twentieth century European history from the individuals and events of a specific organisation’s experience. While students explore the letters, social invitations, and photographs of equal pay activists such as Ethel Froud, they are also accessing material on subjects as wide ranging as Soviet Russia, Fascism and Germany, the plight of the Suffragettes and post-Second World War social policy.

Example: the effects of war on everyday life… advertisements urging families to conserve gas and electricity following the Second World War (photo reference UWT/D/268)

Suggested Reads For the Micro-Historical-Minded…

Micro-histories tend to focus on the individual. While that ‘individual’ is often an actual person, topics can range from a substance (Mark Kulransky’s Salt: A World History, 2002); an animal (Robert Sullivan’s Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants, 2004); or even hygiene (Katherine Ashenburg’s The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History, 2007).

I’ve just ordered Victoria Finlay’s ‘Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox’, which is all about paints, and how they’ve been invented, discovered, traded and used via Amazon.co.uk

And with that, I hope everyone enjoys their Bank Holiday! (An accompanying copy of a micro-history to read is optional, I suppose.)

Further Reading & Citations

What is Microhistory? Via UVic
Deconstructing Grand Narratives via A Canadian Curriculum Theory Project
Microhistory.org

Tagged: microhistory, social history

Hogarth Press edition of TS Eliot’s The Waste Land. Photograph: Bonhams

A first edition of The Waste Land published by Woolf’s Hogarth Press has been sold to St Andrew’s University. Read the article – here








‘A rare UK first edition of T.S. Eliot‘s poem The Waste Land, hand-set by Virginia Woolf – who “had difficulty with the typography” – has been bought at auction by the University of St Andrews for £4,500 after being donated to Oxfam.’

Sales such as these can draw attention to interesting aspects of the poem itself. For example, Lydia Wilkinson, books specialist at auction house Bonhams, notes that:

“Woolf had difficulty with the typography because of the way Eliot would write, the rhythm and space used in his poems, and she had a bit of trouble getting the typeface right.” 

This type of detail, considering the already acknowledged influence that The Waste Land’ had on texts such as Mrs. Dalloway, can cause us to reconsider the “rhythm and space” in Woolf’s novels.


See more Eliot related content on this blog – here
And more on Woolf – here

From the Telegraph

Interview in the Telegraph with the author’s son Kits Browning which discusses some of the source material for the novel including du Maurier’s life and some interesting documents. It also notes that there is a new adaptation in the pipeline! Read the full interview here.






Some excerpts: 

‘”Very roughly, the book will be about the influence of a first wife on a second,” wrote Daphne du Maurier in her notes. “Until wife 2 is haunted day and night… a tragedy is looming very close and crash! Bang! Something happens.”

[…]

If it’s good enough for Elvis, it’s good enough for you and your child – On the birthday of the city’s first female Health Commissioner, we honor Dr. Leona Baumgartner and the New York City publicity campaign for the polio vaccine.

‘”The Crippler” is coming for your child!’   The idea that a hideous monster in the form of a disease could attack the vitality of the nation’s youth was a familiar story line to movie-going audiences in 1950s America.  The Foundation for Infantile Paralysis had launched a brilliant campaign to raise money for poliomelytis research; the “March of Dimes” asked every American to mail one dime to the White House to be part of the cure.  Then, in April of 1955, the announcement that Americans had been waiting for came: Dr. Jonas Salk had successfully created and tested a vaccine for polio.  The Foundation continued its publicity blitz, this time encouraging parents to bring their children in for the series of three doses of the vaccine.

Although the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was a private organization, it relied heavily on state and municipal health departments to spread the word and provide vaccinations.  No urban health department was larger that that of New York City, which had historically been at the forefront of many innovative programs.  Nor was any health department led by a more exuberant public figure.  Dr. Leona Baumgartner, M.D., Ph.D., was appointed Heath Commissioner in 1954 (she served until 1962) by Mayor Robert Wagner, becoming the first woman to hold the title.

Dr. Baumgartner was born August 18, 1902.  She began her career at the New York City Department of Health in 1937, and, as a trained pediatrician, she quickly rose through its ranks via infant and maternal health.  A consummate master of public relations and communication, she made extensive use of radio and television to reach the residents of New York City with her health education messages, often assuming the tone of an aunt giving advice to a first time mother, particularly in her radio addresses. She made many public appearances each year as commissioner and wrote numerous articles in popular magazines with national readerships. She also recorded several “Campus Press Conferences” for WNYC, during which student reporters from Hunter College, Columbia’s School of Journalism, Fordham University and New York University interviewed her. 

One of Dr. Baumgartner’s major projects was to ensure that as many New Yorkers as possible received the polio vaccine. Although at the time the general public had an almost blind faith in medical science, their trust was tested in 1955 when Cutter Laboratories in California released batches of the vaccine containing a virulent strain of live poliovirus, an error which eventually left eleven children dead and hundreds paralyzed.  Her job as health commissioner was to educate, gently cajole and reassure the public that the vaccine was safe and effective.  (Interestingly, Dr. Alexander Langmuir, the man who identified the source of the outbreak in the Cutter incident, would later become Dr. Baumgartner’s second husband).

To calm public fears, Baumgartner used a no nonsense, common sense tone in her radio broadcasts.   As a public health professional, she relied on statistics but she was careful never to make unfounded speculations; all her assertions were grounded in scientific research, all the while stressing what the public could do to improve its own health.   Since school age children had been the major targets of the vaccine campaign, she focused on older teens, young adults and those under the age of forty.  She wanted to start “a conspiracy with young people to round up their parents” for polio shots, describing the polio vaccine as “the finest Christmas present you can give your family.”   To this end, the Department of Health ran a “holiday family special,” from December 26-28 1956 – free polio vaccines shots at all of the City’s twenty three district health centers.   No proof of income was required.

The icing on her polio public relations campaign cake was a photograph carried by newspapers of Dr. Baumgartner standing next to Elvis Presley while he received his polio vaccine – fit for a king!

Since I began my archival studies degree, I have been keen to get some hands-on experience. This summer, the City of Vancouver Archives took me in for a three-month internship.

On my first day, archivist Chak Yung introduced me to fourteen boxes of records from City Stage Theatre, which I would process over the next month. I was fortunate to be assigned a fonds with a diversity of materials. The City Stage fonds includes textual records (such as correspondence and play scripts), newspaper clippings, promotional materials (such as colorful handbills, posters, and programs for plays), stage plans, Playhouse magazines, reel-to-reel audio tapes, and approximately 500 (mostly professional black and white) photographs.

A sample from the City Stage Theatre fonds – Playboard magazines, reel-to-reel audio tapes, box office reports, and sheet music from a theatrical production. Photograph by Mel Leverich.

It was a pleasure to be assigned to the City Stage Theatre fonds, as it documents a fascinating part of Vancouver’s theatre history. City Stage Theatre was a professional theatre company based in Vancouver that operated from 1972-1986 and was founded and managed by Ray Michal, a passionate advocate for theatre in this city. In its early days, the theatre was located in a converted donut shop at 591 Howe Street where they offered short shows over the noon hour for the downtown business crowd and local residents. As Michal explained in an interview, “we wanted to break some of the preconceived notions of what going to the theatre was all about … You could just walk up to the shop, and buy an hours’ worth of theatre. Just like you could walk up to the deli and get yourself a corned beef sandwich” (AM1560-S6-F50).

In 1976, City Stage relocated to 751 Thurlow Street where they constructed a 150-seat theatre. They expanded capacity to produce full-length plays, present evening shows, and tour productions. City Stage’s aim was to produce good-quality contemporary theatre that was relevant and accessible to their audience. They produced comedies, musical theatre, and more earnest plays with a political or ethical angle. City Stage’s productions included provocative plays such as David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Christopher Durang’s Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You. They hosted Charles Gray and the Black Arts Theatre’s production of Ntozake Shange’s experimental choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, and they rented the theatre space to the Vancouver TheatreSports League in its early days. One of their more popular shows, Piaf, Her Songs, Her Loves, starred Joëlle Rabu, who made her acting and singing debut in her role as Edith Piaf.

A close-up of a page from the script of the City Stage production “Piaf, Her Songs, Her Loves”. Photograph by Cristen Polley.

As I described and re-housed the City Stage fonds, its story was re-told to me through the records. The correspondence and other textual records reveal City Stage’s commitment to affordable professional theatre in the heart of the city, the success of their productions, as well as their struggle to maintain a non-profit theatre in downtown Vancouver. The photographs depict actors on stage and include headshots. The promotional materials are striking examples of print design in the 1970s and early 1980s.

To preserve the records over time, I re-housed them in acid-free folders and Hollinger boxes. Some of the material required extra care. I housed the negative photographs in frozen storage and filed the photographs in individual acid-free envelopes that have passed the PAT (Photographic Activity Test). The newspaper clippings were separated from adjacent records with acid-free folders to prevent cross-contamination. I opened folded stage plans and placed them in flat oversize storage.

Dramatic records – City Stage Theatre records stored in acid-free folders inside Hollinger boxes. Photograph by Cristen Polley.

After the City Stage records were described and re-housed, my fellow intern Mel and I spent a week in the conservation lab with Sue Bigelow. I cleaned, humidified, and flattened a Townley and Matheson architectural plan that had been wrapped tightly on a wooden dowel. The humidifying chamber was like a gentle spa treatment for the rolled maps, which flattened nicely after humidification and were then placed in flat oversize storage. In the lab, I had the chance to clean surface dirt from fragile lantern slides and glass plate negatives, my favorite type of photographs. I also spent part of a day with volunteer Kathy Kinakin, who taught us how to make a clam-shell box with a sink mat to protect large glass plate negatives in storage.

In the lab, I performed a Beilstein test on some of the plastic sleeves that enclose the City Stage Theatre press clippings. The test was to determine if the plastic contains chloride, which is an additive in plastic that damages the records as it degrades over time. A green flame looks flashy but is positive for chloride.

After our time in the lab, Mel and I worked together under the supervision of Glenn Dingwall for three weeks to update the authority records for the City of Vancouver’s Community Services and Planning and Development Services Groups. In order to create a complete picture of the evolution of these administrative bodies, Mel and I consulted the City’s organizational charts, City Council meetings minutes, and records created by the departments that are held in the archives.

For one week during my internship, Jill Teasley and Megan Schlase taught me all about the resources that are available to researchers in the reading room and online. I responded to research requests and spent a busy Friday working at the front desk, signing in new researchers and retrieving material from the stacks.

Digitization is an important component of current and future archival work, as it protects the records from repetitive handling and enables greater public access. To learn more about the process, I spent part of a day with Mandy Roddick, the digitization technician who taught me how she digitizes photographs, textual records (Council meeting minutes), and oversize material (maps).

Towards the end of my internship, I got to fire up the Studer, a handsome reel-to-reel audio playback machine, so that I could listen to and appraise City Stage’s audio recordings. I loved winding the tapes through the Studer, watching the wheels spin and hearing disco music, vintage advertisements, and haunting sound effects crackle through the speakers.

Loading up the Studer with a reel-to-reel audio tape. Photograph by Mel Leverich.

Many of the tapes were spliced together to create a soundtrack for plays. Some of the original splices were quite fragile and would snap when played, so I gained experience splicing together broken tape on the Studer’s handy splicing block.

Repairing an original splice in a reel-to-reel audio tape. Photograph by Mel Leverich.

My summer internship at the archives began in late April during the last of the spring rains and ended in early August as the wild blackberries started to ripen. Over those three months, I am grateful to have worked side by side with Mel, a wonderful fellow archivist in training. On our breaks, we watched baby eagles from the nest nearby and tracked down Major Matthews’ cat’s fur in the stacks. I am also very grateful to City Archivist Heather Gordon and the entire staff who provided me with just the right balance of professional guidance and independence that I need to make my way as an archivist.

My favorite record in the archives – a tuft of Jack’s hair. Jack was one of Major Matthews’ beloved cats. Photograph by Mel Leverich.

Editor’s note: Cristen is a Dual Master’s of Archival Studies/Library and Information Studies candidate at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies (University of British Columbia).

In a previous post, I discussed a recent book printed in an ink which could only be seen in ultraviolet light. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that many of the books printed in the hand press period also have “hidden artwork” that we can view in normal spectrum light. I’m referring to watermarks – designs, including words, dates, and images, that are created during the papermaking process.

Handmade paper in Europe was made on rectangular wooden molds (or, British spelling, moulds) covered with fine wire. For all the details, I recommend the excellent site European Papermaking Techniques 1300-1800 by Timothy Barrett at the University of Iowa Center for the Book. Additionally, here is a video, made in 1976 at Hayle Mill in England that shows the steps of making paper by hand. The Green family produced paper this way at Hayle Mill from 1813 until 1987. Pay particular attention to the sheets being formed on the molds by the vatman, and removed from them by the coucher (pronounced “coocher”), beginning at the 3:15 mark. Watermarks are explained at 4:30 and again at the 6 minute mark.

While attending a recent class at Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, I had a chance to examine a teaching model of a paper mold, created by Timothy Moore:

Image from Timothy Moore Bookbinding Tools website

In the detail below, if you look along the tops of the wooden ribs, you’ll see wire wrapped around each laid wire, securing the surface to the frame. These stand proud of the main surface, causing the paper fibers to be slightly thinner at those points, and creating the lighter “chain lines” you can see in many of the examples below. The section with straight wires in the lower left corner of the picture creates “laid” paper, while the mesh in the upper right (that looks like window screen) is used to make “wove” paper. Because the mesh covers the chain lines, they are invisible in wove paper. This was a later development, invented in the 1750s, but not in common use until the 1780s.

The Rare Book School version of the mold includes their lion logo added as a watermark:

Of course, with that big hole in the middle, the teaching mold can’t actually be used to make paper, but a similar one made this sheet, in which you can see the chain lines running vertically, as well as the lion watermark:

Watermarks are relatively easy to see in person, but can be difficult to reproduce, especially when covered by printed text. Early studies of watermarks such as those by Briquet (1923) and Churchill (1935) used a method of tracing, which is not always accurate, and can potentially damage the original. A method utilizing beta-radiography was developed in the 1950s, but it is costly in both time and materials. In the 1970s Thomas Gravell developed the “DYLUX method” for reproduction of watermarks, utilizing a special light-sensitive paper developed by Du Pont.

Tracing method example: a page from Briquet’s Les Filigranes (ASC x20.676 B773f.2) – note that parts of Briquet have been shared online in this database

Beta-radiography example: A 1966 Christmas card from paper historian Allen Stevenson, in the teaching collection at Rare Book School in Charlottesville, Virginia

DYLUX method example: a page from Gravell’s American Watermarks (SC Oversize TS1115.G7 2002) showing examples from the Ames Mill of Springfield, Massachusetts – also see The Thomas L. Gravell Watermark Archive

Digital photography, using appropriate backlighting, will probably become more prevalent in the future. I’ll close with a couple of examples from our collections, which I captured with the decidedly low-tech aid of a swing-arm lamp and an extra pair of hands. I also (very unscientifically) boosted the contrast and lowered the brightness using Photoshop. This made the colors very inaccurate, but increased the visibility of the watermarks. (Click on images for larger versions)

Bear (image turned sideways) – from Archimedous tou Syrakousiou… (Basel, 1544) (ASC x488.1 Ar25 1544)

Pot (the round white spots above and to the right were caused by drops of water during manufacture, and are called “Vatman’s tears”) – from A Body of Divinity… by James Usher (London, 1648) (ASC x230 Us7b)

Arms – from Britain… by William Camden (London, 1637) (ASC xRBR 17 1637 C1)