A place for news and information about rare books, manuscripts and university archives.
If you follow our picks of the week, you may remember a very similar image to the one above from a pick made last September. At the time, I didn’t know if or how the photograph was used, but as you can see, a slightly different shot was featured on the cover of the February … Read more
A researcher was interested in photographs of The Highwaymen, a group of Wesleyan undergraduates who hit the top of the pop charts with their single, “Michael (Row the Boat Ashore)” in 1961. (You can read more about them here, here, and here. ) We have a number of good shots, including a series of contact … Read more
In the course of pulling sample materials for a presentation to Prof. Ron Schatz’s Exploring Middletown’s History (HIST171) class, I came across this aerial view of downtown Middletown found in the SC&A “Middletown, Photographs, Main St.” vertical file. Main Street runs diagonally from top left to bottom right, and Court and College Streets are running … Read more
An association for the establishment of a rural cemetery in Middletown was organzied on July 3, 1850. It purchased property known as Indian Hill. The association charged Dr. Horatio Stone with laying out the grounds. The cemetery was dedicated on Sept. 30, 1850, and among the participants were the mayor, other city officials, clergymen, prominent … Read more
A researcher wanted to know if SC&A holds music programs for concerts performed during the Civil War era so he could analyze the compositions played. In the Wesleyan Music Dept. Records, four such programs are found, including the one shown above.
What is a broadside? It’s another term for a poster, but often with more words than pictures on it. I’ve been cataloging a small stack of broadsides printed during and after the American Revolutionary War. Here are two proclamations printed as broadsides — one from the governor of Connecticut, Jonathan Trumbull, in 1777, and a … Read more
The Great Blizzard of 1888 is legendary throughout New England, and it remains the benchmark by which all subsequent storms have been measured, including the one that will probably be known as the Blizzard of 2013. Paralyzing the East Coast from the Canadian Maritime Provinces to the Chesapeake Bay from March 11 to 14, the … Read more
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)
