Special Collections & Archives at Wesleyan University
A place for news and information about rare books, manuscripts and university archives.
Leith Johnson Love those silly internet cat sites? Adorable kitties getting into trouble have been around forever. Here’s one of many too-cute-to-be-true images from Oliver Herford’s Rubáiyát of a Persian Kitten (New York: Scribner’s, 1922, c1904). This sweet little stray wandered off the library’s weeding list into a safe, new home in Special Collections & Archives, already … Read more
In the SC&A vertical files, there is a nice selection of images of Van Vleck Obersvatory, one of which I came across this week. It’s undated, but judging from the landscape, I would estimate that the photograph was taken sometime in the 1920s or ’30s. That’s the iconic Douglas Canon in the foreground. You can … Read more
Here is the photograph of the John Wesley Club in the 1965 Olla Prodrida. Look familiar? Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper: (Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giampietrino-Last-Supper-ca-1520.jpg)
The pick this week is our new exhibition, John Cage Writes, that opened on Monday, December 3rd. It focuses primarily on the five books influential experimental music composer, writer, and artist John Cage wrote that were published by Wesleyan University Press: Silence (1961), A Year from Monday (1967), M (1973), Empty Words (1979), and X … Read more
I needed to examine images of the 1993 commencement ceremonies in response to a reference request and I encountered this shot. I like the colors and the mortarboards against the sky, and it reminded me that for this year’s seniors, there’s just one semester to go.
A patron asked to see our first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, 1855.
A researcher emailed about an unsigned sculpture that she strongly suspected was created by long-time Professor of Art John Risely. With her description and a several digital images as guides, I located this newspaper article, which shows the work in question (the tall piece on the far right), confirming the researcher’s supposition.
This week, a patron requested to see the SC&A copy of Krazy Kat by George Herriman with an introduction by the avant-garde poet E. E. Cummings (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1946). For the uninitiated, Krazy Kat was a bizarre, existential comic strip that involved a clueless cat (the title character); Ignatz Mouse, whose … Read more
As I was reviewing a box of presidential papers, I came across several folders of documents from 1956 and 1957 relating to the possibility of creating a “separate coordinate liberal arts college for women offering opportunities for teacher training” on the site of the State of Connecticut-run Long Lane School on the southwestern edge of … Read more
Our pick of the week is this 1803 insurance contract covering the schooner Resolution. A patron was interested in Benjamin Williams, then-president of the Middletown Insurance Co. At the time this document was signed, Middletown had a thriving seaport—it was one of the largest ports on the east coast—although in just a few decades, due … Read more
