The PIDB is pleased to announce that Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States, Mr. Alex Macgillivray, will participate in the June 25th public meeting of the PIDB.  (Click here to RSVP to the public meeting.)

The President appointed Mr. Macgillivray in September 2014 to the position of U.S. Deputy CTO and in his role he focuses daily on a variety of key priority areas for the Administration, including Internet policy, intellectual property policy, and the intersection of big data, technology and privacy.

Mr. Macgillivray will discuss his thoughts on leveraging technology and talent in government to assist records management, data management and declassification.  He will offer commentary on the U.S. Digital Service, the National Action Plan, the Technology Policy Task Force and possibly other White House initiatives that focus on expanding access to government information through the use of technology.

Mr. Macgillivray holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a JD from Harvard Law School.  He is an internationally recognized expert in technology law and policy, most recently serving as General Counsel and Head of Public Policy at Twitter from 2009–2013.  Before joining Twitter, Mr. Macgillivray was for six years deputy general counsel at Google.  He is an actively practicing developer and coder, contributing to his ability to formulate creative and sensible technology policy and understand its ramifications.*

To RSVP to the PIDB’s June 25th public meeting, please visit Eventbrite and register to attend.

*Cited in White House Press release, dated September 4, 2014.

Equinox pressmark (designed by John Heins)

In 2010 the Library of America reissued all six of Lynd Ward’s “novels in woodcuts” (also called “novels without words”) in a two volume set. If you like graphic novels but have never read Ward’s work, these are a great introduction, and you can check them out from any of the Five Colleges libraries. If you like what you see, you can also visit the special collections at Amherst or Smith to compare the experience of reading one of the original editions. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst owns a second printing (from December 1929) of Ward’s first, and probably best known, wordless novel Gods’ Man. Even though it was first published a week before the Stock Market Crash, the book sold so well that it went through five printings by October of 1930, with a sixth printing in 1933, totaling more than 20,000 copies.

A copy of the 1929 edition (left) and the 2010 reissue (right)

Note the deliberate placement of the apostrophe in the title; as Ward himself explained:

And for what it is worth, you may also be interested in knowing that the first title I suggested for the book was “All art is useless.” The name we finally worked out, “Gods’ man,” using as it does the plural possessive, stemmed from the idea that it is usually phrased somewhat along these lines: the Artist is always the darling of the Gods.

This quote is from a 1958 letter from Ward to Irving Steingart, as noted by Perry Willett in his 1997 exhibition catalog The Silent Shout: Frans Masereel, Lynd Ward, and the Novel in Woodcuts. The personal papers of Lynd Ward are held by the Georgetown University Library, who have presented several excellent exhibitions of his work.

Ward’s fourth woodcut novel was published in 1933 by the Equinox Cooperative Press. Prelude to a Million Years: A Book of Wood Engravings is described this way by Ward, in an essay reprinted in the Library of America edition (p. 643):

I have always thought of Prelude to a Million Years as a kind of footnote to Gods’ Man, a sort of codicil that would acknowledge that changes had occurred and that these changes required an amendment to the earlier testament. It was a very limited statement, running to a total of only thirty blocks. Because it was a minor work it was printed directly from the woodblocks on a beautiful rag paper in a small edition. Prelude was the third publication of Equinox Cooperative Press, a group of young people, including myself, working in printing, publishing, and the book arts who wanted to do non-commercial books, just for the love of doing it. Each copy of Prelude was bound by hand and made with loving care.

The Amherst copy is in very good condition, and although this picture doesn’t do justice to the original cord-stitched copper coated spine, it does show the patterned boards that were designed by Ward and later used as the endpaper pattern in the Library of America edition.

The Equinox Cooperative Press published 16 books between 1932 and 1937. It was founded by Ward, his wife May McNeer (a journalist and author), Henry Hart (an editor at Scribners), and six others.

In all its decisions, Equinox was guided by a belief in the democratic process. The discussions of every basic point were wide-ranging, always completely frank, and often interminable. … In seeking a corporate form that would reflect this belief in the democratic way, we decided to organize as a cooperative. But we discovered that the laws governing cooperatives were sharply defined, with consumer cooperatives on the one side and producer cooperatives on the other. Since we were producers, we were incorporated as a producer cooperative. But since most producers are, in the nature of things, farmers, we became the only publishers in the history of Western culture who had to file annual reports with the New York State Department of Agriculture. — Lynd Ward, in the foreword to Henry Hart’s A Relevant Memoir: The Story of the Equinox Cooperative Press (1977).

In the last couple of years, we’ve been replacing our old, analogue microform reader-printers with new digital microform scanners. We’d like to show you why researchers like them so much.

Microform workstation with Indus 4601-SL scanner.

Microforms still have to be used by researchers, as we have hundreds of reels of film and thousands of fiche and aperture cards. These new scanners provide fast and convenient viewing and saving of images.

The workstations can be used with many styles of microform and will also scan to file or scan to print.

The scanners will work with all these different styles and colours of fiche, aperture card and film.

The scanners produce crisp, high-resolution scans and will scan in colour, greyscale or bi-tonal. Images can be cropped and rotated. Scans can be saved in common formats like PDF or TIFF.

Screenshot from a fire insurance plan.

The workstations have a wireless internet connection, so saved scans can be sent through email or dropped into cloud storage, as well as copied to a flash drive. Note that if you keep a copy of a work that is under copyright to a party that is not the City of Vancouver, you are responsible for obtaining permission of the copyright owner for publication. You may use the copy for fair dealing purposes covered by the Canadian Copyright Act, such as private study.

The scanners are attached to 27” monitors to provide a readable full-screen view of maps, plans and other large-format originals.

If you have used one of our microfilm scanners, we’d love to hear your feedback!

As part of our efforts to digitize photographic and moving image records related to World War I and World War II, we recently digitized a series of British Photographs from World War I (1914-1918) and made them available in our online catalog.

This series of photographs taken by British photographers depicts the military activities and personnel of several nations during World War I, and includes subjects such as major military campaigns of the war showing the marching of troops, living conditions in the trenches, transportation and communication problems, food supply movement, human misery behind battlefield experiences, as well as the homefront commitment.

These public domain records are being digitized through a gift to the National Archives Trust Fund with the goal of making them more accessible for everyone to use, from teachers and local community groups, to museums and filmmakers.

Some highlights include:

A.S.C. Women at Work. National Archives Identifier 16577208

The irrepressible Australians at Anzac. An Australian bringing in a wounded comrade to hospital, circa 1915. National Archives Identifier 533106

King George of England visits American Cemetery near St. Quentin Canal, France. National Archives Identifier 16576501

Today in Special Collections, we are exploring a new addition to the Napoleon Collection which led catalogers on an interesting research journey. Recently, a book titled The Historical and Unrevealed Memoirs of the Political and Private Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, printed in 1821, found its way into Special Collections’ Napoleon Collection. While the text itself contained riddles about the author’s identity and the source’s authenticity, it also contained a letter addressed to the book’s previous owner, Proctor P. Jones, who donated the book to FSU. The text and letter led Cataloger Elizabeth Richey to consider the possibility of fabricated memoirs and how to catalog such things.

At a quick look, The Historical and Unrevealed Memoirs of the Political and Private Life of Napoleon Buonaparte looks like a normal memoir. However, a closer look at the memoir from a cataloger’s perspective raises questions about its accuracy, which leads to the question of how do we catalog a possibly fabricated book?

Elizabeth recognized some possible hints that made her question the memoir’s authority and accuracy. For example, the book’s publisher is listed as “Is only to be had of the author, No. 27, Cirencester Place, Portland, Place, April 1821″, while further research shows that the book was printed by Fargues of Berwick Street, Soho.

Even more interesting is the attributed author of the text: Mademoiselle R. d’Ancemont. After much research and exploration, Elizabeth and other catalogers could not locate any information about this mysterious author; instead, she found evidence that this author may have used a pseudonym. This was supported by a letter found in the book. The writer of the letter argues that due to two references within the text, the memoir was written by “Dangeais”, not R. d’Ancemont. He continues to argue that this name may also have been a pseudonym, and that we may never know who the true author is. Without the author’s real name and background, we are left to wonder if the author is a reliable writer.

As a result of questionable information in the book as well as doubts about the author and publisher, the writer of the letter believes the entire book may be “a fake.” In the letter, the writer states that he thinks the memoir is “completely fabricated”, as was the case for many memoirs written during this period. He and other researchers go as far as to believe that the entire text is not only a fake, but also a fake originally created in English, not a French to English translation as the title page suggests. Other catalogers and researchers seem to share this opinion about this mysterious text. Whether or not the book is a “fake”, it still belongs in Special Collections since it provides insight to this historic era and is a perfect example of a potentially fake memoir.

This interesting find illustrates the amount of time and research a cataloger must devote to cataloging all resources. Without proper information and detailed records, it is difficult for library users to locate sources. Sometimes, the item itself does not present enough information for a proper record. In some cases, particularly with older and donated books, catalogers are lucky enough to find outside sources of information within a book, such as the letter found within this book. In either case, Special Collections catalogers strive to make accurate records so that the collections rare and interesting items can be found and explored by FSU students and faculty.

In mid-June, we’re just entering school vacation season, which means a few things: sunburns, beach trips, ice cream trucks, complicated daycare/camp logistics, and, of course, bored children engaging in mischief. For example, take a look at this guy:

Master Jacky here is on his school holidays, and he is “bored to death”. He’s already read all the books in the house, flopped around on the couch, and peered through whatever that vase-on-a-stick-thing is.

What’s a kid to do? The answer to that query is deftly illustrated in “Young Troublesome”, a veritable mid-19th century montage of the shenanigans of a bad child of history.

Master Jacky begins his misdeeds by playing sports inside the house, much to the horror of a guy carrying an enshrouded dinner tray:

He  encourages the other children in the house to join him in his tomfoolery, although he does, thankfully, have the forethought to put an elegant cushion at the bottom of this banister to soften their landings:

(Notice the distressed adults at both the bottom and the top of the stairs.)

He develops new, filthy habits (and no, he isn’t vaping):

He even drags his visiting schoolmate into the fray, which is so shocking that it causes a woman in a bonnet to throw her scissors into the air, increasing the ambient danger by at least 75%:

Gosh! Is there anything Master Jacky wouldn’t do?

Nope, I guess not. Here’s my advice to those of you with bored children flopping around your house and peering through vases on sticks: do NOT show them this book, historically accurate and educational as it may be, or you may find yourself with a gang of indoor-cricket-playing rascals and/or with ash and charcoal marring the backs of your pristine white knee socks. Try the community pool instead.

This week’s magician is taken from the cover of the December 1932 issue of The Linking Ring.

Here’s Jesse Lybarger inside a vignette with playing cards, coins, a bird in a cage, balls, the devil emanating from a radio tower, and the Angel of Death with lightning bolts radiating from the hood of his robe.

The latter’s a little hard to see, so here’s a close-up, enhanced for extra green-ness:

Lybarger was an Ohio native and sewing machine salesman; his magical claim to fame is that he sold the first known routine involving sponge balls in 1925 (although Al Cohn, known as the “Sponge Ball King”, claimed to have invented the prop nearly 20 years later; Robert A. Nelson invented the “sponge rabbit” in mid-1940s).

Next time you’re enjoying a magic trick involving sponge balls, don’t forget to thank Jesse J. Lybarger.

Walking the concrete sidewalks of New York City, you might not spend much time considering the wildlife that shares the five boroughs with you. New York has a diverse bird population, both resident and migratory. In this episode of New York: A Portrait in Sound, you will hear from bird watchers, ornithologists and biologists on New York’s birds and their haunts. Discover the passion and dedication of these 1960s New York City birders.

It is easy to forget that grassy hills, meadows and marshes once dominated the land that is now an urban mecca. But despite all of the asphalt, concrete, steel and glass that compose the New York of today, pockets of veritable nature still exist in the city. Roland Clement, then staff biologist at New York’s Audubon Society, later to become vice president of the organization, reminds us in this episode that a good diversity of plant life will support and attract a variety of bird life, and there are still a good many natural areas for birds to inhabit in New York.

John F. Kennedy (originally Idlewild) Airport, exterior with marsh in foreground. New York City, 1956-62.

(Balthazar Korab/Library of Congress)

The salt marsh of Jamaica Bay is considered a birder’s paradise. Wetlands like those at Jamaica Bay, once perceived as coastal wastelands, have since been recognized as vital and vibrant ecosystems threatened by urban development. The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, located adjacent to JFK Airport, plays host to over 300 bird species, including the Peregrine Falcon, Snow Goose and Great Egret. At the time this episode was recorded, the airport had been operating for almost 15 years already, but the noise of the engines and toxic runoff from planes were just a couple of the many trials Jamaica Bay has suffered since the turn of the 19th century.

Even in Central Park, bird watchers can spot a great variety. In the raw interview tape for this episode, Clement discusses the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count – an annual event where volunteers record and count birds observed in their area and report to the Audubon Society. The Count was first done in 1900 as an early conservationist effort and Central Park was one of 25 locations that participated. This year, 57 species were spotted in Central Park in the kickoff event of  New York City’s 115^th annual Count.

Clement, who passed away just this past March, was a major player in wildlife conservation. During his tenure with the Audubon Society, he committed himself to banning the use of the pesticide DDT, which thins eggshells, threatening exposed bird populations. Below, you can listen to three clips from the raw interview with Clement: one regarding the Empire State Building and the 1963 World’s Fair beacons; the second responding to a question about the birding community’s “lunatic fringe”; lastly, a comment on the importance of Jamaica Bay.

The Lights of the City and Migrating Birds

The Extreme Lengths to Which a Birder Will Go

The Future of Jamaica Bay

Annual convention, American Ornithologists’ Union held at the American Museum of Natural History, 1935

(Charles F Allen/Library of Congress)

On June 12, 1982, 33 years ago today, as many as one million people gathered in New York City’s Central Park making it, at the time, the largest political demonstration in American history. The march and rally were to mark the United Nations Second Special Session on Disarmament which had begun several days earlier.

In the morning there were speeches near the U.N. at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza followed by a march across town to the Great Lawn in Central Park for an afternoon of speeches, entertainment, music and rallying. Among those addressing the crowds were nuclear freeze campaign organizer Randall Forsberg,  activists Dr. Helen Caldicott, and the Reverend William Sloane Coffin, Jr., union leader Victor Gotbaum, former Congresswoman Bella Abzug, and City Council President Carol Bellamy. The performers included Jackson Browne, Peter, Paul and Mary, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Joan Baez.

WNYC News Director Marty Goldensohn orchestrated the station’s live coverage of the event with help from Robert Krulwich and direction by Karen Frillman and more than a dozen reporters and engineers from a rented Winnebago at the Central Park Sheep Meadow. Gathering tape and interviews in the field were Peter Freiberg, Andy Lanset, Terry Johnson, Tod Shapera, Johanna Cooper, Jerry Hatch, Janica Hurwit, Margaret Howard, Leslie Peters and Myles Gordon. Additional production help came from Karen Pearlman, Sara Fishko and David Rapkin.  The post event documentary (above) was called Voices of Disarmament and was broadcast on WNYC in the days following the great march and rally.. Unlike most coverage of the event, the production was a documentary record of the marchers rather than the famous voices from the stage.

The American jazz composer Ornette Coleman died today at 85. Coleman was one of the founders of free jazz, a 1960s movement that played with dissonance and abrasive sounds. He released more than thirty records over the course of his life,ranging from Free Jazz and The Shape of Jazz to Come in 1959 and 1960 to his 1972 composition for jazz ensembles and orchestras, Skies of America. In 2007, he received a Pulitzer Prize for his album Sound Grammar.

Ornette Coleman spoke with WNYC’s Tim Page on Meet the Composer in 1985, above. In between selections from The Shape of Jazz to Come and Of Human Feelings, he discussed his mixing of musical styles, drew comparisons between Bach and Charlie Parker, and expressed his frustrations with ideas like keys, chords, and genres.

He described keys as “clichés” that steered people away from music. As for genres, he told Page, “To me, everyone in the Western world uses the same notes, they just use them in a different way, you know, to create what they call their style.”

Instead, he saw genres as interchangeable, and even skill as a matter of taste. All composers were essentially equal, Coleman argued—the only difference was whether or not you liked what they composed.

“Basically,” Coleman told Page at the end of the interview, “I think everyone has a potential of being a composer.” They just had to create, “something they haven’t heard that they want heard.” 

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.

In 1982, Dave Sear, the host of WNYC’s Folk Music Almanac invited folk singer Jean Ritchie to play at Spenctertown Academy. The concert featured Ritchie singing both a cappella and with her signature instrument, the Appalachian dulcimer. Listen to the above clip of Ritchie performing “Shoemaker’s Song” from her 1971 album Clear Waters Remembered. 

Ritchie appeared numerous times on WNYC throughout the years, and was a well-known musician in the New York folk scene. She shared stages with Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, and others. Ritchie received the Rolling Stone Critics Circle Award in 1977 and was a recipient of an NEA Heritage Fellowship in 2002. 

Many thanks to Dave Sear for providing the audio. Listen to the full concert below.

The theme for this week’s Art//Archives Visual Research Hours is: The Sky.

Come check out a constellation (sorry) of astronomical books. We’ll be here on Tuesday from 10:30 until 1:00.

Today’s impeccable science comes from the 1841 volume A Treatise on Domestic Economy, for the Use of Young Ladies at Home, and at School.

This book has some great advice (eat your vegetables, remember to bathe, don’t drug your babies when they start crying), some dubious advice (treat arsenic poisoning with huge quantities of sugar water, wake up at dawn if you want to be a good American, don’t let babies wear hats), and some downright bad advice (don’t read books unless you want to be mentally ill, and don’t give books to smart children unless you want them to experience “suffering, derangement, disease, and death”).

Our treatise, in the section on healthful food and drink, talks at great length about warm and stimulating beverages. For instance: don’t give your children a lot of sugary coffee (check!), don’t drink too much caffeine if you’re prone to nervousness (check!), and don’t drink very hot tea unless you want all of your teeth to fall out (huh?).

The warning against excessive steaming tea isn’t too far out in left field, as there have been numerous studies noting that scaldingly-hot caffeinated beverages in enormous quantity can cause health problems ranging from esophageal cancer and prostate cancer to bone brittleness and skeletal fluorosis. That said, the book’s Impeccable Science stems from its taking this reasonable premise to a completely illogical conclusion.

This stern warning begins by describing how, obviously, “if any person should hold a finger in hot water, for a considerable time, twice every day, it would be found that the finger would gradually grow weaker”. (I’ll admit that I haven’t tested this to see if it’s true.)

If you haven’t been too derailed by the image of giving your finger a daily hot water bath, you’ll notice that what follows is somewhere between xenophobic, dentally questionable, and outright incorrect.

The frequent application of the stimulus of heat, like all other stimulants, eventually causes debility. If, therefore, a person is in the habit of drinking hot drinks twice a day, the teeth, throat, and stomach are gradually debilitated… It has been stated to the Writer, by an intelligent traveller, who visited Mexico, that it was rare to meet an individual with a good set of teeth; and that almost every grown person, he met in the street, had only remnants of teeth. On inquiry into the customs of the country, it was found, that it was the universal practice to take their usual beverage almost at the boiling point; and this, doubtless, was the chief cause of the almost universal want of teeth in that Country.

Dear so-called “intelligent traveller”: I’m not sure where you found and surveyed an entire country’s worth of toothless Mexicans, and even if you did encounter some dental atrocities in your travels, your scientific approach is, at best, a fine example of illusory correlation.

Now I’m going to go drown my sorrows in a cup of black tea. Don’t try to stop me.

Ms. Nellie as she was often called, was one of the the first graduates of the Florida Female College, the year after Florida State College was changed from a short lived co-ed college to a women’s college due to The Buckman Act. Florida Female College was quickly renamed to the more fitting Florida State College for Women until 1947 when it became coeducational again and named Florida State University. Nellie spoke at the her graduation on Pestalozzi: His Influence on Public Education. She was married to Charles King, a teacher, principal, and superintendent of education for Jackson County, Florida. She was a prolific writer, and her over 1,000 letters and postcards describe her experiences in Tallahassee and surrounding areas, her relationships with family and friends from high school until 1940.

November 19, 1905

My Dear Charlie,

…You ought to be here to see all these girls. I think there are eighty-five in the dormitories, and you can imagine how much noise they make sometimes. In the whole school there are one hundred thirty-three girls, and how do you suppose we answer the roll call? Mr. Kettle the secretary, gets up and says “roll call,” and then the girls say 1-2-3 and so on to 133.

December 3, 1905

My Dear Charlie.

We had a very pleasant Thanksgiving, and had a delightful dinner, then held a little informal tea that night, and the girls all danced. Then Mrs. Bates invited us to her room and we had a little spread. You know we had lots of fun, all sitting around on the floor, singing songs, reciting, etc. 

Heritage Protocol & University Archives acquired Nellie’s letters, as well as photographs and memorabilia as a recent gift from Leora Pruitt King, Florida State College for Women alumna Class of 1942.

Facial Goniometer, mid-19th century. Collin, Paris [OB2015.009]

We recently added an interesting item to our Objects Collection, an instrument called a facial goniometer. This came to the Archives from our colleagues at the Beneski Museum of Natural History. The object offers a bit of insight into the local popularity of anthropometery in the 19th century – that is, the practice of compiling a wide variety of measurements of the human body, most often in the support of various scientific or pseudoscientific theories of anthropology.

A goniometer is any device that measures angles. A facial goniometer is specifically concerned with calculating the angle of the face from the jaw to the forehead. This instrument was introduced in the mid-19th century by anthropometrists. This particular goniometer bears the maker’s mark “Collin, Paris.” Adolphe Collin was a well-known surgical instrument maker in Paris from the 1860s through the 1930s.

Facial Goniometer. Illustration from Samuel George Morton, Crania Americana (Philadelphia: J. Dobson, 1839), 252.

George Morton, in his Crania Americana (1839), provides a detailed description of how a facial goniometer is meant to be applied to measure the facial angle of the human skull. First, three basal pieces (A) are affixed snugly around the sides and front of the specimen, while a thin vertical piece in the middle (K and L) sort of straddles the nasal bone. Then the vertical limb D is allowed to fall back to touch limb K, and a degree measurement is made on the angular scale.

Illustration from Morton, Crania Americana, p. 250.

Today’s googly-eyed bad children come from Childe Harold’s A Child’s Book of Abridged Wisdom (San Francisco: Paul Elder and Co, 1905).

What, exactly, were imps and young degenerates doing around the turn of the 20th century? If Harold’s book is any indication, they were pulling lion’s tails, treating chickens with cold disdain, learning bad words from the dictionary, and staring at adults. (One might argue that such outrageous misbehavior merits a book of full-length wisdom rather than the abridged version, but that’s a discussion for another day.)

Here are a few of Harold’s miscreant youth:

Speak gently to the little birds.

Do not impede their flight

By putting salt upon their tails,

For that is not polite.

Don’t throw your kitten down the well,

Nor yet your little brother.

It is not good for him; besides,

I’m sure ‘twould vex your mother.

(Incidentally, the belief that you can catch a bird by putting salt on its tail dates back to at least the sixteenth century. That said, just because it was persistent does not mean that it was polite.)

Let’s have a close-up of the terrible brother-tosser:

Cat: alarmed. Mother: alarmed. Little brother: extremely alarmed. Botanically mysterious flowers: possibly alarmed, definitely attentive.

Harold’s book stands out from most of the other bad-child-themed books featured here, inasmuch as nothing particularly tragic happens to any of the young rascals. Instead, the message of the book is simple and clear: don’t do it. Just don’t. It’s bad. You don’t want to be bad, do you? Nope, I didn’t think so.

This week’s magician, Hermann Homar, was a Kansas native who, after traveling the United States, settled in Chicago, where he performed as “The Wizard of the West”.

The April 1957 issue of M-U-M: Magic, Unity, Might offers a meandering profile of Homar, describing his childhood passing out handbills so that he could get free admission to travelling shows, his adult life as a brakeman on the Santa Fe Railroad, and some lean years touring with a magic show during the Great Depression. (His truck was repossessed en route to Fort Worth, forcing him to put his magic supplies into storage until he earned enough money to continue his journey.)

A favorite tidbit about this Wizard of the West: as a boy, he taught himself how to do magic tricks using books from the public library. (We approve!)

If you’re not yet convinced that Depression-era magicians were tough as nails, listen to this: Homar played a date in Dallas immediately after breaking his right wrist. He brought along a “young friend” to help him get dressed, but his plaster cast didn’t inhibit him from performing the Linking Rings along with the rest of his tricks (although he did recall the show being “less peppy” than usual).

Hermann Homar: a tough, tough wizard.