A place for news and information about rare books, manuscripts and university archives.
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
An inquirer emailed this week looking for information about her great grand-uncle, Ralph Lockwood Crandell ’12. We discovered he was quite active in campus clubs and groups, including the Corpse and Coffin Society. Our pick of the week is the photograph above, which appeared in the 1912 Olla Podrida.
This photograph taken in 1930 of the Varsity Club is our pick of the week. It comes from one of our student assistants, Abbey Francis. She writes: The Quest For The Mystery Sweater Last week, I received an unusual research request from Leith Johnson, the University Archivist here at Special Collections & Archives. I was … Read more
Osmon Cleander Baker attended the Wesleyan Academy (now Wilbraham Academy) in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, from 1827 to 1830. He was a member of the Wesleyan University class of 1834, although he didn’t graduate with his class, perhaps due to illness. The collection contains some notes from his time at Wesleyan and correspondence. The subject of this excerpt, … Read more
