b) they were in the last episode of Game of Thrones season 6
The reality is that lots of books used to be chained to their shelves simply to stop readers nicking them. Books were valuable and expensive before the age of mass printing!
This particular volume is a 1616 edition of Seven Treaties by Richard Rogers, just spotted on its way back from a visit to the reading room.
A recent episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Revisionist History, delves into the unfair dismissals of black teachers after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Gladwell pieces together a narrative drawn extensively from archival sources, including oral histories from Duke University Library’s collection: “Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South.”
Gladwell explains that as school systems consolidated, white educators kept their teaching or administrative positions and black educators were fired in many cases or pushed out through marginalization. The National Education Association (NEA), as an advocate for the fair hiring practices of educators, drew attention to this inequity through the dissemination of reports, lawsuits, and statistics for decades after the ruling. The archives of the NEA are held by GW Libraries Special Collections and contain details of this injustice.
After our NEA Archivist, Vakil Smallen, heard the episode he immediately went to the collections to look for further original documentation of what Gladwell described. He found many sources and over the next few weeks we will share examples on our Tumblr.
What follows are some of the examples of the mistreatment endured by educators of color in the Louisiana public school system documented in this 1970 report:
Former administrators being demoted to teaching or janitorial positions in newly integrated schools.
In one case, an elementary school principal with 27 years of experience was asked to teach a subject he was not certified in and he was later terminated on the grounds that he was unqualified to properly instruct on this subject.
Some accounts detail former principals being reduced to offices in closets or given menial tasks such as being put in charge of attendance or distributing textbooks instead of leading schools.
Black teachers were far less likely to receive the school assignment of their choice and had to accept assignment to an unwanted school or quit.
Black teachers were instructed that they could not discipline white students for misbehavior.
Images above:
1. Photograph taken from the December, 1967 issue of the Southern Education Report.
2. Report Snapshot: Sample text from the NEA’s report on Desegregation in Louisiana
3. Headline taken from the Oct. 6, 1968 issue of The Advocate, a Baton Rouge based paper serving the entire state.
The James Smith Noel Collection has just installed a new exhibit, “Ethnobotany: The Influences & Delights of Botanicals.” Ethnobotany is the field of study pertaining to the relationship between people and plants. We invite all to venture through the lens of social botany and its cultural influences through some of the collection’s rarest materials, including a flower arranging game from the 1860s and a collection of hand-colored botanical prints from the 1700s. This exhibit, located on the third floor of the Noel Memorial Library at Louisiana State University Shreveport, will be up from April 4 to July 1.
Today we bring you an 1809 English language edition of Jocelin’s Life and Acts of Saint Patrick. Jocelin of Furness (active 1175-1214) was a Cumbrian Cistercian monk and hagiographer. John de Courcy (1150-1219), an Anglo-Norman lord and conqueror of what is today Northern Ireland, and Tommaltach Ua Conchobair (ca. 1150-1201), archbishop of Armagh, commissioned Jocelin to write a biography of St. Patrick. What at first glance seems to be an unlikely alliance between a foreign Norman knight and a native Irish prelate was in actuality a strategic power move. The territories of Armagh and Dublin were rivals for political and religious dominance in Ireland at the time, and both de Courcy and Ua Conchobair had a vested interest in promoting Armagh as the diocese founded by St. Patrick himself. In fact, Ua Conchobair is listed as one of the coarbs (Gaelic heirs) of the patron saint of Ireland.
Evidently, the Dublin-based Hibernia Press did not take the pro-Armagh/anti-Dublin bent of Jocelin’s hagiography too personally when they reprinted this version in 1809. In fact, they enhanced the Cistercian monk’s text with a re-engraving of an illustration featured in Thomas Messingham’s 1624 Florilegium insulæ sanctorum; the facsimile frontispiece shows three of the principal Irish saints: St. Columba, St. Brigid, and, of course, St. Patrick, who quite literally takes center stage.
As a parting piece of trivia, the legend of St. Patrick’s expulsion of snakes from Ireland can be traced to Jocelin’s version of the saint’s biography (see passage above). This is why Messingham depicted St. Patrick with snakes fleeing at his feet. May the snake-free luck of the Irish be with you today!
Images from: Jocelin of Furness. The life and acts of Saint Patrick … Dublin: Hibernia Press, 1809.
John Pointer describes the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, that appeared in England’s night sky on March 6, 1715/16. He states that their appearance was a “very surprizing phænomenon” that far south in Europe. His description of the Aurora Borealis is as follows:
“In the North-West was observ’d a small cloud…having something Particular in its Colour. After some little time it began to labour and curl, and make many extraordinary Motions and involving Turns within itself. In 5 or 6 Minutes…it separated itself into long and broad Streams of Light, Coruscation, or Fulgor, issuing out of the aforesaid darkish Cloud…resembling the Beams of the Sun Setting in a drizling Evening…”
Pointer describes the scientific reason for the Aurora Borealis as “nitrous and sulphoreous particles being exhal’d in thin Vapours by the Heat of the Sun, and other Stars into the Middle Region, were by Degrees condens’d by circumambient Clouds together with the Coldness of the Region, till at last they became a strong compacted Body”. According to the Aurora Forecast at University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Aurora Borealis occurs when the Sun’s electrically charged particles enter Earth’s atmosphere and hit molecules and atoms of gas, usually oxygen and nitrogen.
Images from:
Pointer, John. A rational account of the weather, shewing the signs of its several changes and alterations, together with the philosophical reasons of them … Oxford: printed by L. L. for S. Wilmot…, 1723.
During the late 1800s, the Toilet Mask Company marketed their Madame Rowley’s Toilet Mask as a way to beautify and preserve a woman’s complexion. This advertisement advises women to wear the mask at least three times per week while sleeping. It claims that the mask is superior to cosmetics and that it can permanently remove all blemishes. The toilet mask may or may not have worked as advertised, but, the ad includes several unattributed quotes that vouch for its effectiveness.
Images from:Godey’s Lady’s Book, August 1890 Issue
Gilbert Abbott À Beckett (1811-1856) was an English journalist and playwright who wrote for the Illustrated London News andPunch, the latter being a weekly humor and satire magazine. His Comic History of Rome was illustrated by John Leech, another employee of Punch.
This frontispiece shows a shepherd, who is surprised to find Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, and Remus, his twin brother, with their adoptive wolf mother. The other photos show historiated initials, which begin each chapter. These initials show a puppet in the shape of an ‘R’, Brutus with the letter ‘B’, and Asclepius, the ancient Greek god of medicine, with the letter ‘I’.
Images from:
À Beckett, Gilbert Abbott. The Comic History of Rome. [London]: Bradbury and Evans, and Co. …, [1852?]
Edward Francis Burney (1760-1848) was a British illustrator and portraitist born to a family of artists. His illustrations were featured in a 1791 edition of his cousin, Fanny Burney’s novel, Evelina.EdwardBurney included satire and wit in many of his illustrations and was influenced by the British artist and satirist, William Hogarth (1697-1764).
This Burney illustration, Degenerate Bees, is featured on the title page of Elegant Extracts. His original sketch includes the quote “tis industry our state maintains”. This book includes a different quote. Beneath the illustration on the title-page is a quote from the Roman poet Horace’s Satires, “studio fallente laborem.” This phrase roughly translates in English to “enthusiasm deceives hard work.” The idea is that hard work doesn’t seem so bad if you enjoy it, like children educating themselves through “useful and entertaining” renditions of the classics.
Image from:
Elegant Extracts: Or, useful and entertaining passages in prose, Selected for the Improvement of Young Persons: being similar in Design to Elegant Extracts in Poetry. London: Printed for J. Johnson…, 1808.
Egyptomania: Modern Fascination with Ancient Egypt
January 10 - March 31, 2022
Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
European enthusiasm for Ancient Egypt was renewed with Napoleon’s invasion of the region and with the 1822 translation of the Rosetta Stone. These events led to greater research and exploration of Ancient Egyptian architecture and artifacts, as you can see in our latest exhibit of books, photographs, and maps from the 18th-20th centuries. Come visit the Noel Collection to see evidence of European explorations, exploitations, and archaeological excavations of Egypt.
Image from: Views in Egypt, , from the original drawings, in the possession of Sir Robert Ainslie, taken during his embassy to Constantinople by Luigi Mayer (London: Printed by Thomas Bensley… for R. Bowyer, 1805.)
Happy Winter Solstice! This map shows winter constellations visible in Great Britain. Here are some of the featured constellations along with their affiliations to Greek mythology:
Cetus the whale (Cetus is a sea monster killed by Perseus)
Andromeda, who is in chains (she is chained to a rock to be eaten by Cetus, but she is saved by Perseus, her future husband)
Perseus, holding Medusa’s head (he is the son of Zeus and Danaë, the slayer of Medusa and Cetus, and the husband of Andromeda)
Auriga, holding a goat (he is often a charioteer)
Orion the hunter, holding a lion skin (he is the son of Neptune and is placed in the stars by Diana after she accidentally kills him)
Image from:
James Middleton’s A celestial atlas containing maps of all the constellations visible in Great Britain… London: Whittaker and Co. ; Norwich: Jarrold and Sons, 1846?
This woodcut tail-piece shows the mythological figure Atlas. In the original Greek telling of the tale Atlas, a titan, was sentenced to forever hold up the sky after taking part in the titans’ war against the Olympian gods. Over time, Atlas’ portrayal changed; instead of holding a celestial sphere on his shoulders, he was depicted holding the earth. The term atlas to refer to a bound collection of maps probably dates from the sixteenth century.
Image from: Robert de Vaugondy, Gilles. Atlas Universel. Paris: Chez les Auteurs, Quay de l'Horloge du Palais, Boudet Libraire Imprimeur du Roi, Ruë St. Jacques, 1757.
These endpapers are found in a prize binding for a book published in 1890. The book was given to a student at St. Paul’s School in London in 1906. Like many prize bindings, the book is bound in calf leather and includes the emblem of the school and a bookplate for the student. The back cover includes the bust of John Colet, who founded the school in 1509.
Images from:
Mahan, A. T. The influence of sea power upon history : 1660-1783. London : Sampson, Law, Marston & Company, 1890.
Please join us for a virtual talk presented by *Making the Renaissance Manuscript* curator Dr. Nicholas Herman on Thursday, June 18, 2020, 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. EST. Through this talk sponsored by Friends of Lehigh Libraries, Dr. Herman will examine the making of the hand-written and hand-illuminated book during a time of great political, religious, and technological transformation in Europe and will conceptualize the recent collaborative exhibition that opened in the Kislak Center back in February. Follow the link to register for this free event: http://ow.ly/5PbO50A8fxx
The night before the invasion — dubbed Operation Overlord — Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, British General Bernard Montgomery and other leaders gathered in Portsmouth, a port city on the English Channel, for a last briefing on everything from the weather to the terrain. One of the key presenters was U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Charles Lee Burwell, a 27-year-old Harvard graduate who, while being “scared to death,” nonetheless delivered a short talk on the tides and the thousands of star-shaped steel barbs called “Czech hedgehogs” that the Germans had dropped just offshore to wreck landing crafts.
The map Burwell and others were using for this top-level briefing was spectacular: a one-of-kind, three-dimensional model of Utah Beach, the code name for beaches near Pouppeville, La Madeleine, and Manche, France. The top-secret model, made of rubber on two 4×4 sections, depicted the beach and the interior pastures sectioned off by those hedgerows, a geographic feature that obstructed lines of sight and created conditions for deadly, close-quarter combat. Later that night, Burwell took the model aboard transport ships, showing the commanders and troops the same raised maps of the terrain they would see for the first time in a few hours.
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge’s first poetry collection, ‘Fancy’s Following’, which was handwritten by the poet for her friend, Lucy Violet Holdsworth […] was made before it was later issued privately by Daniel Press in 1896, and in fact, it was this small white book which led to the publication.
Holdsworth’s cousin, Monica Bridges (nee. Waterhouse) was married to the Robert Seymour Bridges, Britain’s poet laureate from 1913 – 1930. Holdsworth planned for the book to be left out for Bridges to take notice and when he did, he asked to meet Mary to encourage her to publish her work.
Coleridge agreed, but with the stipulation that it was published under the pseudonym ‘Anodos’ in order not to disgrace her family name by acknowledging she was the author.
It wasn’t until four months after her death in 1907 that a book of two hundred and thirty-seven of her poems was finally published under her real name, and by that time, it proved so popular that it was reprinted four times in just six months.
Information:Newcastle University, Special Collections
