You are invited to attend a Recorder Concert presented by members of the Trinity Orff-Schulwerk Levels in the Special Collections Room of the Coates Library, Thursday, June 18 at 3:30 PM. Performers are 61 general music educators from across the country who are on campus for two weeks to study music and movement pedagogy. These teachers will be performing in small groups on various voicings of recorders. Repertoire will include music from the Renaissance, folk songs, and contemporary arrangements. This is the 15th anniversary of the Trinity Orff-Schulwerk course which is co-sponsored by the Music Department and the Office of Conferences and Special Programs.

–Diane Persellin, Department of Music

This week’s bad child of history comes from Meddlesome Matty, a 1925 volume that is chock-full of devilish youth doing misguided things: eating an entire plum cake, hoping people will admire a new ruffly dress, trying to steal an apple, throwing balls in the general vicinity of windows, fishing for fun instead of profit– all manner of atrocities.

One particularly dire warning focuses on Richard, a lad who often stops to “loiter and chatter” instead of diligently completing tasks. Here he is:

It’s obvious from this illustration that the goat is up to no good (and what goat isn’t?), but what did Richard do to deserve such a caprine intervention?

John Brown is a man without houses or lands;
Himself he supports by the work of his hands:
He brings home his wages each Saturday night;
To his wife and his children a very good sight.
His eldest son Richard, on errands when sent,
To loiter and chatter is very much bent;
And in spite of the care his mother bestows,
He is known by his tatters wherever he goes.
His shoes too are worn, and his feet are half bare,
And now it is time he should have a new pair;
‘Go at once to the shop,’ said John Brown to his son,
‘And change me this bank-note–I have only one.’

So Richard comes from a working-class family, likes to chat, and wears worn-out clothes? That doesn’t sound so bad…

But now comes the mischief, for Richard would stop
To prate with a boy at a green-grocer’s shop!
And to whom in his boasting he shows his bank-note:
Just then to the green-stall up marches a goat.
The boys knew full well that it was this goat’s way,
With any that passed her, to gambol and play:
The three then continued to skip and to frisk,
Till his note on some greens Dick happened to whisk:
And what was his wonder to see the rude goat,
In munching the greens, eat up his bank-note!
To his father he ran, in dismay, with the news,
And by stopping to gossip he lost his new shoes.

The saddest part of the story isn’t even narrated in the poem, it’s just illustrated at the end. Not only does Richard lose the money and his chance at new shoes–

But also, he gets spanked through the trap-door of his pajamas, next to a teeny-tiny bed. With what looks to be a conductor’s baton.

Consider yourself warned.

The award for Most Stunning Magician Eyebrows goes to:

Celeste Evans! Would you take a look at those amazing arches?

The August 1964 issue of The New TOPS describes her act thusly:

This tall statuesque and beautiful girl makes a stage appearance at the outset which is quite electrifying. As Celeste appears in an evening gown, minus the “sleeves, pockets and concealed hiding places” worn by the men of her profession, the sudden production of eight doves and a real live Toy Poodle adds still more bewilderment to an already baffling act.

As a natural complement to last week’s sky-themed Art//Archives, tomorrow Special Collections will have earth-themed visual research hours. 

We’ll be featuring books from our historic collections with fantastic images of glaciers, geological cross-sections, fossils (including a fossil elk), prehistoric flora, and water flow patterns.

As always, open research hours will be tomorrow (Tuesday) from 10:30 until 1:00. Special Collections is on the third floor of the library, at the top of the marble staircase. Please stop in!

Professor Snell.
In the tool shed.
With a piece of wood.

Things are already not what they seem:  Prof. Ebenezer Strong Snell (1801-1876, Class of 1822) was not a murderer, a murder did not take place in his tool shed, and he used the piece of wood as a door wedge.  So why does our title mention “murder,” and why would anyone save such an inconsequential-looking piece of cheap pine long enough for it to enter our archives?

The wood came to my attention some months ago when a patron asked for a document in the Snell Family Papers and the wood happened to be in the same box as the requested item.  It stuck right out of the file and poked at the box lid.  The file included a little card:

Click on image to see inscription.

Apparently Prof. Charles H. Morgan (not Morhan – a typo by someone else) found the piece of wood in Snell’s house and gave it to –a guess– the archivist of the time, Peggy Hitchcock Emerson, who kept it with the rest of the Snell papers.  Morgan, a professor in the Art Department, moved into the Snell house in 1932, and the information about the wood came to him from the last caretaker of the last Snell to live in the house.

The inscription raised several other questions, including “why would anyone commemorate the murder with this piece of wood, or (for that matter), any piece of wood?”  and “who is W. W. Snell?

Neither Prof. Morgan nor Peggy Hitchcock had recourse to Google or to our digital newspaper archive to obtain answers.  A few simple search terms with these tools brought up plenty of information about John Caldwell Colt and his sensational murder trial.  Newspapers, including our local Hampshire Gazette, printed entire pages about the case and followed it from the victim Samuel Adams’ disappearance in September of 1841 to the discovery several days later of his body– stuffed in a pine box (a shipping crate) and loaded on a ship scheduled to depart for New Orleans — and then to the trial and conviction of his murderer in 1842.  At its simplest, the murder was about money: John Colt owed Samuel Adams money (they disagreed on the amount) for printing Colt’s work on bookkeeping.  Colt hadn’t planned to kill Adams on the day when the printer came to collect his money, but when the two argued and things went bad Colt murdered Adams with a hatchet. Colt then had to figure out how to clean up and dispose of the body quickly – hence the box in which he folded and tied the body in such a way that he could stuff it into a container that was said in court to measure 3’4″ x 1’10”  x 1’9″.  In Killer Colt, Harold Schechter writes that the box “had  been constructed by Colt himself, who assembled all the shipping crates for his books” (p. 108), and several witnesses mention seeing this particular box as well as the equipment Colt used to make them.

He got the box downstairs (not too big a box, not too big a body) and paid someone to help him get it to the wharf.

If the ship had departed with the body on board, Colt might have gotten away with it.  In fact, given that it took a week for keyhole witnesses (literally) to get the authorities’ attention, it’s a wonder he didn’t get away with it.  He was so close.  But things continued to go awry for Colt (not to mention Adams), and the ship didn’t leave on time.  Soon the contents began to smell.  The police, already alerted to the disappearance of Adams, came and pried the lid off the box.

From here events followed swiftly – the victim was identified, the suspected murderer was arrested, and the evidence was hauled away.  Including the box.

This much was clear and, in its way, straightforward and well documented. But still: why would Professor Snell have this piece of wood with such an inscription?  The answer (according to my theory) is in details from the small world that was Western Massachusetts in the early 19^th century.

  If the reader hasn’t already made the connection, murderer John Colt was the brother of repeating firearms inventor Samuel Colt.  In the late 1820s and into the 1830s their father, Christopher Colt, worked at a textile mill in Ware, Massachusetts, where John and Samuel spent at least a little time (mostly coming and going quickly) and where Sam acquired notoriety on July 4, 1829, by blowing up a raft on Ware Pond.  On that occasion things didn’t go quite as he planned (apparently a Colt family tradition) and the explosion drenched the villagers who’d gathered to witness the event.  The villagers were angry and Sam barely escaped punishment.

View of Ware, ca. 1880, from “History of Ware”

The town of Ware is right next to Brookfield, where Ebenezer Snell’s family lived (specifically in North Brookfield), so it’s very possible that the Snells heard about the Ware Pond event, as well as about the mysterious explosions in the woods around town that the villagers came to suspect were Colt’s doing.

Not too long after the pond incident, Samuel Colt was hustled off  to Amherst Academy (or perhaps “back” — it’s unclear when he first attended the school).  If Ebenezer Snell didn’t know about Sam Colt from the latter’s days in Ware, he certainly came to know him in Amherst.  Snell had attended Amherst Academy himself and taught there later (1822-25).   By the time Colt got there, Snell was a professor at Amherst College, just a block away.  Although we don’t know for sure when Colt arrived in Amherst, we know when he left: shortly after July 4, 1830, when Colt and classmate Robert Purvis* stole Ebenezer Mattoon’s Revolutionary War cannon (a weapon with a long history of town escapades), dragged it up to the Amherst College campus, and scared the frocks off students and professors.  A newspaper comment from a few weeks later and a diary entry from the following year document the occasion and the excessive “huzzaing”:

“Hampshire Gazette,” July 7, 1830

Excerpt from the journal of J. A. Cary, Class of 1832. This entry from July 3, 1831: …The day tomorrow is to be [observed] by religious exercises. Our last anniversary will long stand recorded in the annals of Hell, & may this be as long remembered in the records of Heaven. Last year the “consecrated eminence” was surrounded by the mists & fogs of the region of darkness, but in this it has been refreshed by the dews of heaven. A year since & the roar of artillery, I doubt not, & the cheers & shouts of the ungodly were echoing and reechoing from the dark caverns below, in this many of those same voices are lifted up to God in praise, and in “humble grateful prayer.”

In another bizarre twist in the “six degrees” way, the incident was recounted to Samuel Colt biographer Henry Barnard years later by none other than Edward Dickinson, Emily Dickinson’s father, which makes one think the poet too might’ve heard about the Colts, maybe across the dinner table.  Edward Dickinson’s letter was published in “Samuel Colt: Arms, Art & Invention,” but two sentences mentioning Snell and confirming his awareness of the incident were omitted.  That part is provided here courtesy of a transcription from the staff at the Wadsworth Atheneum, where the original is located (the word “instance” in brackets below is my suggestion for an illegible word):

Amherst July 22, 1864

Hon. Henry Barnard

My dear Sir,

 Your letter of yesterday is just rec’d. I well recollect the main incidents of the celebration enquired about; tho’ I never before knew that the celebrated Hartford Sam. Colt, was the hero of that occasion.

A young wild fellow of the name of Colt of Ware, was a member of our Academy & joined with other boys of Academy Lodge, on College Hill, in firing cannon, early in morning of 4th July. (The day of the week, I can’t tell.)

Some of the officers of College interfered & tried to stop the noise. Colt, as Prof. Fisk [probably Professor Nathan Welby Fiske, father of Helen Hunt Jackson] ordered him not to fire again, and placing himself, as the story was told, the nest day near the mouth of the gun, swung his match, & cried out, “a gun for Prof. Fiske.” & touched it off – the Prof. enquired his name – & he replied, “his name was Colt, & he could Kick like Hell” – He soon left town, for good. This was the account given at the time – & has after been repeated here.

I met Prof. Snell, directly after receiving your letter, and as he was here, at the time, I enquired of him about it. He recollects Prof. Fiske relating to him, the [instance? i.e. “story” or “occasion”] of his being on the ground, & saying that the [instance?] started by some of the boys, that he, Prof. Fiske, tried to straddle the gun, was not true. So, I think I have given you about as it was. I am always happy to hear from you, & to meet you.  With kind regard & esteem, I am very truly yours, Edward Dickinson.”

So when in 1841-2 the Snells read of the trial of John Colt for the murder of Samuel Adams, they would have had personal memories of the Colt family, both because of Sam Colt’s notoriety in Amherst and because of the proximity of the Snell and Colt families in neighboring towns.  And there was yet another reason the murder would’ve shocked them: they knew the victim, probably very well.

According to the “History of North Brookfield,” Samuel Adams, John Colt’s victim, was also from North Brookfield.  He appears just before “ADAMS” in the center of the image below.**

Rev. Thomas Snell, father of Ebenezer, ca. 1845

The Snell family knew the Adams family because Rev. Thomas Snell, Ebenezer’s father, led the church in town for 64 years, from 1798-1862, and Benjamin Adams, Samuel’s grandfather (d. 1829), was a deacon in the same church.  Thomas Snell said of Benjamin Adams, “At the time of my settlement, no member of the church had so much influence in ecclesiastical affairs as Dea. Adams.  He was a good judge of preaching, and a man of uncommon attainments for one who enjoyed no greater advantages.  At this time he was  the only member of the church who would take part in a religious meeting” (History of North Brookfield, page 485).  Benjamin’s grandson Samuel was also in the same age group as some of Ebenezer’s younger siblings, so they may have played or been in school and church together.  The “W. W. Snell” — William Ward Snell — of the inscription on the wood was born in 1821, so to him Samuel Adams would’ve been an older boy by a decade.

But let’s get back to that piece of wood in the Snell Family Papers. What is this piece of wood?

Accounts of the trial of John Colt reveal that the lid of the pine box containing Adams’ body went missing:

In court testimony about the missing lid a police officer remembered that the prison watchman had offered to show him the box.  The officer’s testimony “suggested that at least one man with access to the lid — Watchman Patrick — understood its value as a curio” (Schechter,  p 178).  Later, however, another watchman said that he had used the lid to build a fire on a particularly chilly night.  He offered the helpful (if suspiciously superfluous) detail that the lid had smelled “strong” when it was burned (Schechter, p.184).  Either way, the lid was gone, apparently for good.

Given the relationship between the Snells and those involved in the case (the Colt and Adams families), I wonder, then, whether the piece of wood that one Snell inscribed and another kept and used as a wedge for decades is in fact a piece of the missing lid.  I think that Ebenezer’s brother William Ward Snell somehow came into possession of that piece of wood, possibly through a member of the Adams family or a mutual connection of the Colts and the Snells.  In 1842, William Snell was a young man of 21 or 22 perhaps fascinated by a murder trial involving a victim he knew personally.  Like whoever took the lid, probably dividing it into several pieces, Snell would’ve viewed the segment as a souvenir of the crime or a memorial of the victim. But why does it appear among brother Ebenezer’s possessions?  I can’t answer that question (yet), but I do at least know that brother William moved out west and may have left some of his possessions behind, and I know too that Ebenezer himself wasn’t above a bit of rubbernecking at murder.  His memoir of a trip in August of 1827 reveals that he witnessed the hanging (a botched one, apparently) of Jesse Strang for the murder of John Whipple — the “Cherry Hill murder”:

[Last section, after describing his discomfort during trip from Northampton to Albany] “This lameness prevented my walking about the city as much as I had wished; indeed, I did but little more than attend the execution of Strang, the murderer of Whipple. He was hung, on Friday, August 24 in the valley, or rather, in the deep hollow near the jail in Albany. An immense concourse were present to witness a spectacle of a nature too horrid to be witnessed a second time.”

Ironically, Colt’s hanging never took place — not on the day indicated on the wood or any other day.  Instead, on November 18, between about 2:45 and 3:45 p.m., when he was left alone, John Colt stabbed himself to death in his cell.  When officials came to take him to his 4:00 p.m. execution, they discovered him lying on his cot with a knife in his chest.  The Snells would have known the appointed hour of Colt’s hanging and inscribed the piece of wood – the piece of the lid – on that day.  The news of Colt’s suicide would have taken at least a day to reach Amherst, more likely longer (it’s in the Hampshire Gazette on the 22^nd), when it would have been odd – the emotion of the moment having passed – to erase or correct the inscription.  Either way, Colt was dead on the 18^{th —} unless one believes the rumors…

If you look closely at the piece of wood, you can still see the nail holes where the piece was tacked down.  In Colt’s confession he describes how the box originally had only a few nails, not enough to keep a body secure, so he purchased additional nails and then stood on top of the box to force the body into its tidy package: “I had to stand on [Adams’ knees] with all my weight before I could get them down.  I then nailed down the cover.” (Edwards, Story of Colt’s Revolver, p 169; reprinted from Colt’s confession in “Authentic Life of John C. Colt”).

From one day to the next, you never know what you’ll find in the archives.

New York Sun, Jan. 30, 1842

_________________________________

* Contrary to the information on his current Wikipedia page and other sites, abolitionist Robert Purvis didn’t attend or graduate from Amherst College, he attended Amherst Academy.  The two schools are often confused.  However, students at the Academy were allowed to attend lectures at the College, so it’s quite possible that Purvis attended lectures here.

** Newspaper accounts of the case put Samuel Adams in Providence, Rhode Island, but he may have gone there to begin his career, perhaps through connections with his older sister Eliza Sackett, who lived in Providence.

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Bilbo tells his nephew Frodo, “It’s a dangerous business… going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” The same might be said for visiting the subbasement of Strozier Library; it’s a dangerous thing, because you never know what new projects you might stumble upon. In this case, it was six boxes of uncatalogued dime novels stuffed unceremoniously into Hollinger boxes. Where did they come from? How long had they been here? Although we seemed to have more questions than answers, we knew we wanted to get these items stored properly and cataloged so that they would be available to researchers. And so, I was given the opportunity to rehouse and process my very first archival collection. Now, I would like to (re)introduce the Dime Novels Collection!

“Dime novels” is the term given to mass-market fiction publications from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, which really ranged in price from five to twenty cents. They are essentially the American equivalent of Great Britain’s “penny dreadfuls.” Dime novels revolved around themes of action, adventure, and crime, sometimes drawing on contemporary and historical events like the American Indian Wars and the Revolutionary War. Some come in a magazine-sized format, others as thicker, twenty cent pocket-sized editions. While they were never prized for their literary excellence, dime novels were a widely popular form of entertainment and continued to remain popular among collectors, inspiring periodicals like Dime Novel Roundup, a collector’s guide.

Although dime novels can be cataloged as books and given individual call numbers, the FSU Dime Novels Collection has been kept together as a collection. While a single dime novel might be an object of interest to a researchers studying depictions of Native Americans in popular literature or turn-of-the-century graphic design, the collection is also valuable as a whole. Along with the dime novels, I found handwritten note cards with titles and check-marked lists of issues owned, which bear testament to an unnamed collector. These sorts of notes give us a sense of how the dime novels were used and what importance they held. The value of the collection as a whole, as it was developed by its collector, would be lost if the dime novels were separated and cataloged individually.

Because they were designed to be cheap, mass-produced, and temporary, dime novels have often not survived over time or survived in poor condition. The FSU Dime Novels Collection has some serious condition issues. The acidity of the paper has made the novels extremely brittle, and this was exasperated by less-than-ideal storage conditions. Now, each dime novel has been placed in an archival-quality plastic sleeve, grouped according to titles, and stored in acid-free boxes. The smaller, pocket-sized dime novels were stored upright in individual folders separated by dividers in a Hollinger box. Pocket-sized novels with loose or detached covers were given additional protection from a card stock enclosure.

To find out more about this collection, view the Dime Novels Collection finding aid, which includes an additional description of the collection and list of titles included.

Back in the 1830s, Horace Selwyn decided something that children have been deciding for centuries: No more homework! No more adults telling me what to do!

Yes, that’s right, Horace decided to be his own master. After all, he was almost 13, and he was tired of being treated like a baby.

Since these were the days before Minecraft, the newly-liberated Horace decided to go visit a farm– despite his father’s advice to stay home because of gathering rainclouds. And we all know what happens when you ignore your father’s good judgment:

By the time that Horace and his companion arrived at the farm, they were soaked to the skin; to add insult to injury, they found the countryside to be boring when the weather’s poor. Horace spent the day moving things around the farmhouse and feeling “lonesomeish”.

What did this rainy excursion teach Horace? Nothing, apparently, because soon after arriving home, he decided to build a gunpowder volcano on a hillside above a military parade. His brother reminded Horace of their father’s exhortations not to play with gunpowder without his special permission (didn’t I read about that on a parenting blog somewhere?), but Horace, being his own master, just told his brother to stand back.

Horace’s brother, being both cautious and obedient, hurried home to fetch their father and bring him to the hillside; they arrived just in time to hear “a loud noise like the explosion of a cannon, and a wild piercing shriek”.

Yikes! Because this is a Victorian-era children’s book, i.e. a book from the times when children could still travel alone to farms and withstand gruesome storytelling, Horace is found “with his legs torn and bleeding, prostrate on the ground, covered with smoke and sand”. Swooping in to the midst of tragedy, his father carries him home, where he spends many weeks in bed recuperating from his injuries before he can again walk and play.

And what did Horace learn this time? While lying in convalescence, he spells it out for the reader: “Oh! How could I be so foolish as to suppose I had the wisdom, judgment and knowledge of my father.–But I never wish to be my own master again–no, never, never!”

You may have noticed that our SearchArchives database looks a little different. For example, the information for a full record is in a more compact form, reducing the amount of scrolling you’ll have to do.

Screenshots of identical dimensions show the dramatic difference. The old version is on the left and the new one on the right.

The software has recently been upgraded to version 2.1 of AtoM. Most of the changes in the updated version affect how things are handled behind the scenes. Besides the example above, there are other changes that affect users:

Improved search times. Updates to the search index have reduced the time it takes the database to respond to your search query.

Searchable subject and place terms. There is a search box that appears on the Browse Subjects and Browse Places pages that allows you to search for specific terms, rather than just browse them.  Be sure to hit the magnifying glass symbol (indicated below) to search.

Search results for subject term “building*”.

Better list of search results. There has been a change to the results algorithm that will give you results in a slightly different order.

Results of searching for “dog”. The old version is on the left and the new one on the right.

We are anticipating further improvements to our SearchArchives database with the AtoM 2.2 release later this summer.

New York is a city ruled by pedestrians and rife with public transit options. You don’t need a car to get around New York, and driving in the city is considered a skill all its own, requiring agility often coupled with aggression. But once in a blue moon you will see a driver who truly enjoys their ride, even on the streets of New York City – the vintage car motorist.

New York City has its share of automobile enthusiasts, and this video made two years ago by Petrolicious Productions gives a quick look into what it’s like to own and drive a vintage car on city streets in the 21^st century. This episode of New York: A Portrait in Sound gives us a glimpse into this same world in the early 1960s.  Skilled mechanic Ernest Gleisner talks about the willingness to get your hands dirty to maintain a classic car. Bronx-born enthusiasts Scott Bailey, founder of the magazine Automotive Quarterly, and Ralph Stein, author of several books about classic cars, can be heard as well.

World’s Fair 1939-1940 American Jubilee Auto Parade

(New York World’s Fair/New York Public Library)

 While this episode is dominated by male voices, women have also made their mark in the American automotive world. Beverly Rae Kimes began her career as an automotive historian working as an editorial assistant at Bailey’s magazine, where she was later promoted to editor in the 1970s – the first female editor in automotive publishing. “Behind every great car is a great story,” Kimes said, and during her career she wrote 15 books about cars and was a member of Classic Car Club of America as well as editor of the Club’s magazine until she passed away in 2008.

New York City once hosted its own antique car run up Fifth Avenue, where antique car owners could take pride and pleasure in taking their automobiles out for a spin in the heart of Manhattan. The garage where Gleisner worked at 553 West 51^st Street is now the home of the Irish Repertory Theatre, and the Fifth Avenue antique car run is no longer an annual event, but you can still glimpse the occasional classic on these city streets and enthusiasts still participate in runs and meets in New York. The Antique Automobile Association of Brooklyn hosts an annual car show at Floyd Bennett Field in June. Also, Citroen co-sponsors a Bastille Day rendez-vous of the classic french car, an event in its 16th year this July, with an official route running from Washington Heights, down Broadway and up Third Avenue.

Hot rods line up at Bay Ridge, Brooklyn car show, part of the 44th Annual Ragamuffin Parade, 2010

(emilydickinsonridesabmx/Flickr)

In this article our Exhibition Assistant, Ian Mackintosh, writes about the new additions that have been added to the exhibition since it began its tour around Scotland.

Since Hosts and Champions was first exhibited at the Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow during the 2014 Commonwealth Games we have had some major new additions to our Commonwealth Games Archive. This material has been donated by the families of Sir Peter Heatly and Mr William Carmichael. Both of these gentleman were involved with the Scotland team in a variety of roles including competitor, judge, Team Manager and administrator. Now that the exhibition has moved onto the Dewars Centre in Perth we have extra display cases available where we have the opportunity to display some of these new items.

Sir Peter Heatly’s long and distinguished association with the Commonwealth Games is reflected in the material which has been donated by his family. The items, which include clothing such as Team blazers, ties and badges, cover his time as a competitor in the 1950s (when he won gold medals for diving in 1950, 1954 and 1958) and his later career as Team Manager and administrator.

Our Exhibition Assistant, Ian Mackintosh, with the display of material from Sir Peter Heatly’s collection he created for the exhibition in the Dewars Centre, Perth.

On retiring from competing Sir Peter became manager of Team Scotland and received gifts such as stone ware mugs in Perth, Australia, in 1962 and a plaque from the organisers of the 1966 Games in Kingston, Jamaica. As a member of the organising committee of the 1970 Edinburgh Games Sir Peter received many gifts from visiting nations and was also presented with a silver plated tankard and salver for his committee work. These are just some of the items that we have chosen to display as part of the exhibition.

While the exhibition was in Irvine from March to April 2015, we were contacted by the family of Mr William Carmichael. They had a collection of items that Mr Carmichael had collected as an Administrator for the Scottish Commonwealth Games Team and the Great Britain Olympic team. We have gratefully accepted this material and it has proved to be a treasure trove of Commonwealth Games history. Included in the collection is a roll of Clan Edin Tartan from the 1970 Edinburgh Games. This was the first time that a tartan had been commissioned especially for the Commonwealth games. A hand-made mascot for the Scottish team is also included, not, however ‘Wee Mannie’ who we have written about before.

The Edinburgh 1970 mascot which joined our touring exhibition in Irvine!

Other items include pennants that were designed for the 1950, 1954 and 1970 Games. The Carmichael Collection also has a large selection of badges which he collected over the years. Mr Carmichael was also an international wrestling judge and he attended the London 1934 Empire Games in that capacity. His judge’s badge for this competition is part of the display in Perth. It is one of the earliest exhibits that we have in our collection. These are just some of the many new items we are able to display in Perth and we are grateful to the Dewars Centre for the opportunity to exhibit this additional material.

A selection of the Commonwealth Games memorabilia collected by Willie Carmichael which has been donated to the archive.

The exhibition will be on display in Perth until Saturday 27^th June. Why not pop into the Dewars Centre and take a look at this fascinating slice of sporting history?

When you look at the cover of this September 1967 newsletter from the Boston chapter of the Society of American Magicians, you may think to yourself (which is to say, I certainly thought to myself), “one of these things is not like the others”.

Adrift in a sea of slightly mischievous men wearing ties (and the occasional tidy wife), we see this peculiar duo (or trio, if you’re counting the duck):

Arthur “Milo” Brandon and Roger Coker, both Ohio natives, toured with their comedic magic act from the 1950s until the 1990s, which is a darn impressive run. They performed in nightclubs, theaters, fairs, hotels, and on television, including an appearance on The Tonight Show. An article in the August 1971 issue of Genii refers to them as “the Laurel and Hardy of magic”, describing their slapstick humor and vaudeville style. The same article also notes that, at least in 1971, they traveled with 2,000 pounds of equipment, including 50 pounds of “outlandish maharajah’s outfit”.

Speaking of outlandish maharajah’s outfits, I would be remiss to publish a blog post featuring two white men in fabulously exaggerated and bejeweled turbans without touching–however briefly–on the topic of Orientalism in the stage magic tradition. While it’s rather too complex to condense into a blog post, I do want to note that magicians in the European tradition have been incorporating imagery from the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa since at least the Middle Ages, adding intrigue and allure to their acts by playing off of Western stereotypes of the “exotic” East. Milo seems to be comically riffing off of said intrigue and allure, judging by his bushel-basket-sized headwear, in a multi-layered interplay of cultural signifiers.

Adam Silverstein, a University Research Lecturer in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at The Queen’s College, Oxford, has some interesting observations about the overlap between magic shows, the study of Islamic history, Orientalism, popular preconceptions, and the culture of expertise. For a more in-depth cultural criticism of Western portrayals of Eastern cultures, with a focus on imperialism and power dynamics, I recommend Edward Said’s book Orientalism.

Now, not at all speaking of outlandish maharajah’s outfits: apparently all of Milo and Roger’s ducks (and I imagine there were many in a 40+ year career) were named after Vice Presidents, and lived in the pair’s bathtub wherever their show happened to take them. Yes, these were world-class ducks.