"The Photographically Illustrated Book"
19 March - 30 May 2004: Barnard Taylor and the Press of Appletree Alley:
Lewisburg Imprints, 1982 - 2002
An exhibit in the Special Collections Library celebrates the publications of the Press of Appletree Alley in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, owned and operated by Barnard Taylor. The press closed its doors in 2002 with the printing of a bibliography that highlights the work of a printer/publisher who sought to meet the ideals of a truly private press.
For twenty-one years, Appletree Alley was home to the printing shop set up by Barnard Taylor in 1981. The Press of Appletree Alley was a vital center for promoting letterpress printing and relief illustration. It was a privately owned, independent, break-even establishment that enjoyed significant collaboration with Bucknell University. The books published by the press are now in the hands of collectors, libraries, and universities throughout the world.
Barnard Taylor established the press after many years spent as an artist and a graphic designer. His retirement as public relations director at the Geisinger Medical Center allowed him to become a full-time printer, and he set up his printing press in a converted two-car garage located on Appletree Alley. Taylor provided the creative and artistic direction for the press, attracting others interested in the book arts to work with him in the achievement of his vision. For each book, the content, layout, paper, typeface, and the approach to binding were chosen by him. As others--community members and student apprentices--expressed interest and were drawn into the work of the press, Taylor looked at the talents they brought and encouraged their artistic development in support of press activities.
The exhibit features thirty-six books from the holdings of Rare Books and Manuscripts, as well as wood engraving blocks, preliminary sketches, and mock-ups on loan from Barnard Taylor. The Special Collections Exhibit Hall is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m., and Sundays from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Informal Tour: Thursday, March 25, 2004, at 11:30 a.m.
New Rare Books and Manuscripts exhibition in the Special Collections Library: Barnard Taylor and the Press of Appletree Alley:
Lewisburg Imprints, 1982 - 2002
Our guest will be Barnard Taylor, the owner and proprietor of the Press of Appletree Alley.
Charles W. Mann Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts: April 12, 2004
"Of the Making of Many Books:
Book Design Yesterday and Today"
Monday, April 12, 2004
4:30 p.m.
The Foster Auditorium
101 Pattee Library
Our speaker will be Jerry Kelly, an award-winning freelance book designer, calligrapher, and printer. Before establishing his own business in New York City, he was designer and vice-president of The Stinehour Press from 1991 to 1999. His articles on typography and calligraphy have been widely published in books and journals. Kelly's illustrated lecture will include examples from his most recent production of books and exhibition catalogs, including Dancing by the Book, the catalog of the Malkin Collection of Early Dance, a gift in 2003 to the University Libraries from Mary Ann O'Brian Malkin.
The talk is the second in an annual series that honors the late Charley Mann, head of the Department of Special Collections for over forty years until his death in 1998. The series features lectures on topics relating to the book arts, including printing, illustration, and book design. The lecture series is funded by the Mary Louise Krumrine Endowment.
13 January - 29 March 2004: Family History: Preserving Pennsylvania
Heritage through Family Papers
A Historical Collections & Labor Archives Exhibit
Photograph of David Alexander Stuart and Nellie Jane Warne, who were married on August 18, 1909, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Only a few months later, on June 17, 1910, Nellie succumbed to typhoid fever at age twenty-four. She was one of eleven people to die of the disease in Bellevue, a suburb of Pittsburgh.
This exhibit features a wide range of family papers-historical documents created and received by members of a particular family-that document the history of various families, communities, businesses, and organizations with ties to Pennsylvania. In addition to illustrating collective memory and local history, family papers chronicle specific historical events and broad social, political, and economic trends in U.S. history. Materials included in family papers range from diaries, journals, photo albums, scrapbooks, correspondence, personal financial records, photographs, prints, certificates, and broadsides, to published and unpublished writings.
The exhibit includes selections from the following Historical Collections & Labor Archives collections: the Boal Family Papers, 1830-1940, which trace eight generations of Boal Family members, some of whom still reside in the Boal Mansion in Boalsburg; the Cleveland Family Collection, ca. 1650-1990, which highlight the involvement of Cleveland Family patriarchs in education, religion, philanthropy, and abolitionism; the Harrington Emerson Papers, 1848-1931, which recount the life of Harrington Emerson, a businessman, investment counselor, industrial engineer, proponent of scientific management, efficiency publicist, and consultant to foreign governments; the Porter Family Papers, 1890-1943, which illuminate the life and family of Albert L. Porter, a newspaper reporter and editor who was born in 1873 in Scottdale, Pennsylvania; and the Stuart Family Papers, 1676-1996, which describe the life of a family changed by the Civil War and central to the founding of Memorial Day in Boalsburg.
Family History: Preserving Pennsylvania Heritage through Family Papers is on display in the Special Collections Library Exhibits Hall, 104 Paterno Library, from January 13 through March 29, 2004. Exhibits Hall hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
30 October 2003-30 January 2004: Dancing by the Book: European Dance and Dance Notation from 1531 to 1801, will feature books from the Mary Ann O'Brian Malkin Collection of Early Dance. Ms. Malkin, a Penn State alumna and a longtime donor to the University Libraries, recently donated the collection to Rare Books and Manuscripts.
The Rare Books and Manuscripts division of the Eberly Family Special Collections Library is the recipient of an extraordinary new collection of books, the Mary Ann O'Brian Malkin Collection of Early Dance, 1531-1804. The collection includes books on the history of European dance, its dancers (both amateur and professional), and on the development of dance notation.
The items range from self-consciously splendid fête books to humble learn-how-to-dance manuals. Some of the books are elaborately illustrated, and some set forth both the dance steps and figures of the dance and its appropriate music. Many of the books feature illustrations of sumptuous costumes and stage sets. Others give instruction in good posture, graceful attitudes, and genteel behaviors. There are even horse ballets, scored for vast numbers of trumpets and drums. Most of the early books in the Malkin Collection were written both by and for professional dancing masters (hence the plain, workmanlike bindings in which many of them appear). Many of these books are of considerable rarity, because the originals were "used up" by their owners during the course of their work.
Feuillet's Choréographie (1700) represents the earliest printed record of the system of dance notation variously ascribed to Pierre Beauchamp, Louis, Pécour, and Feuillet himself, and now generally known as the Beauchamp-Feuillet system. In 1706 John Weaver adapted this system of dance notation for English use in his Orchesography. The highly successful Feuillet system forms the basis for later systems by Magny, Rameau, and others, and it appears in books published in several European countries and languages during the 18th century.
The exhibit will be on display in the Eberly Family Special Collections Library through January 30, 2004. The Special Collections exhibit room, 104 Paterno Library, is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and on Sundays from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Mary Ann O'Brian Malkin is a native of Altoona, Pennsylvania. She received a B.A. from Penn State in 1937 and did graduate work at Columbia University and NYU from 1941 to 1948. With her late husband, Sol. M. Malkin, she edited and published AB Bookman's Weekly, the leading publication of its kind, for more than two decades. The journal had influence well beyond that of a trade journal; the Malkins' role in linking libraries to the book trade was pivotal and widely acknowledged.
As a modern-day patron of the dance, Mary Ann Malkin is a founding member of the New York City Chapter of the Dance Masters of America. She also has assembled the most significant collection of early dance books in private hands. It was only after Sol and Mary Ann sold AB Bookman's Weekly in 1972 that she began to collect books that deal with dance notation ("chicken tracks," as she describes notation)--the art of describing dances on paper by means of characters, figures, and illustrative signs. Since then she has amassed a wealth of terpsichorean materials on the history of European dance, its dancers, and on the development of dance notation. Systems of notation are like visual dictionaries of the elements of dance, which translate the dancers' movements into signs that permanently preserve the dance. Some notation systems are almost like small stick figures; others are nearly complete abstract.
Prominent rare-book dealer Bennett Gilbert has written, "Mary Ann built her collection with so many of the difficult attributes good collecting requires: thinking ahead of the pack, having a novel point of view, making friends with dealers, and taking it seriously enough to make sacrifices for your priorities. She's a very remarkable--and tough, and smart, and fun--person." Regarding Mary Ann's collection, Gilbert adds, "She has--and Penn State is the recipient of--the finest possible collection."
Gallery Talk: February 26, 2004
Please join us for the next in a series of informal gallery talks on Special Collections exhibition topics on Thursday, February 26, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Staff members of the Historical Collections & Labor Archives will lead tours of the exhibit, Family History: Preserving Pennsylvania Heritage through Family Papers, which features a wide range of family papers--historical documents created and received by members of a particular family--that depict the history of various families, communities, businesses, and organizations with ties to Pennsylvania. In addition to illustrating collective memory and local history, family papers document specific historical events and broad social, political, and economic trends in U.S. history. Materials included in family papers range from diaries, journals, photo albums, scrapbooks, correspondence, personal financial records, photographs, certificates, and broadsides, to published and unpublished writings.
Jim Quigel, Head of Historical Collections & Labor Archives, will interpret the Harrington Emerson Papers, 1848-1931, which chronicle the life of Harrington Emerson, an industrial engineer, efficiency publicist, proponent of scientific management, and consultant to foreign governments. Jane Charles, Associate Archivist, will discuss the Cleveland Family Collection, ca. 1650-1990, which highlights the Cleveland Family's involvement in education, religion, philanthropy, and abolitionism. Jane also will examine the Porter Family Papers, 1890-1943, which illuminate the life and family of Albert L. Porter, a newspaper reporter and editor from Scottdale, Pennsylvania. Michelle Dzyak, Archives Assistant, will talk about the Boal Family Papers, 1830-1940, which trace eight generations of Boal Family members, some of whom still reside in the Boal Mansion in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. Aaron Rottner-Schumacher, Archives Assistant, will describe the Stuart Family Papers, 1676-1996, which narrate the life of a family changed by the Civil War, and central to the founding of Memorial Day in Boalsburg.
For more information, call (814) 865-1793. The Special Collections Library's Exhibits Hall, 104 Paterno Library, is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and on Sundays from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. during the fall and spring semesters.
Fall Semester 2003: Recognizing our Progress Along the Path: The 20th Anniversary of the Formation of the Equal Opportunity Planning Committee
Gallery Talks: Mary Ann Malkin will give an informal gallery talk on Friday, October 31, at 4:00 p.m. in the Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library. Please join us for this rare opportunity to meet with the collector.
July 14, 2003-October 29, 2003: The Painted Photograph. Selections from the B. & H. Henisch Photo-History Collection
Gallery Talks: Tuesday, August 12, at 10:00 a.m., two speakers will lead us on tours of our current displays.
Heinz Henisch, professor emeritus of the history of photography, will guide us through "The Painted Photograph." From the earliest days of the daguerreotype, photographs were often hand-colored, but towards the end of the 19th century, technical advances made it possible for photographers (often itinerant) to re-photograph and enlarge pictures of clients and their ancestors. These enlarged photographs were then “gone over” with charcoal, crayon, watercolor, or even oil paint, and hung conspicuously in stairways and corridors, displayed in inexpensive imitation of the painted portraits that for centuries had graced the houses of the rich and powerful. If the final results did not look quite like fine paintings, they did nevertheless serve almost as well as a support for family pride and affection.
The photographs currently on display--all recent gifts of Heinz and Bridget Henisch--add to an already large number of overpaintings (perhaps the largest in any collection) in the B. & H. Henisch Photo-History Collection. A related exhibit of painted photographs is on display in the B. & H. Henisch Photo-History Collection Exhibit Room, located in 201A Pattee Library.
Jim Quigel, head of Historical Collections and Labor Archives, will then speak about the rich legacy displayed in "Historical Warp and Weave: Pennsylvania’s Clothing and Textile Workers," which documents the history of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, the Pennsylvania Joint Board-Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and the American Federation of Full-Fashion Hosiery Workers. Thematic cases highlight company paternalism within the representative mill town of Reading, Pennsylvania, with its large-scale hosiery knitting industry, dominated by the Berkshire Knitting Mills. During the 1930s the Berkshire Knitting Mills was the scene of union activism and strikes as the Full-Fashion Hosiery Workers organized workers and determined piece rates for a highly skilled and politically active work force.
Women played a significant role in Pennsylvania’s clothing and textile unions, and the exhibit features two prominent political activists, Congresswoman Julia Maietta and union organizer Min Matheson. Matheson’s fight to organize the employees of the "Runaway Garment Shop" in northeastern Pennsylvania remains one of the most inspirational labor stories of the 20th century.
Through June 30, 2003:
"She Taught Me to Blush:"
The Friendship of Marianne Moore and Kenneth Burke
Marianne Moore (1887-1972) had a writing career that spanned more than six decades and included the rare triumph of winning poetry's "triple crown" of major awards--the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Bollingen Prize--for her Collected Poems (1951).
In addition to her work as a poet, Moore was the editor of the prestigious literary magazine, The Dial, from 1925 until the magazine ceased publication in 1929.
Kenneth Burke (1897-1993) was a rhetorician whose criticism and theories had a major impact on many American writers and thinkers in the mid-twentieth century. A prominent intellectual in New York literary circles beginning in the 1920s, Burke was a poet, essayist, reviewer, novelist, translator, social commentator, and writer of short stories. He was also friend and confidante, inspiration and motivator, of a star assemblage of American figures. The intimate nature of his correspondence and the level of interchange that Burke customarily elicits from his correspondents reveal his powers of friendship and intellect, and his correspondence with Marianne Moore--in which he helped shape The Dial's philosophy--is no exception.
The exhibit is largely drawn from the files of the Kenneth Burke Papers, purchased by the University Libraries from Burke himself in 1974. The materials were selected, researched, and installed by Clare Sigrist, a Bednar Intern in Rare Books and Manuscripts and a senior in Penn State's Department of English. The exhibit is displayed in conjunction with a Penn State conference on Marianne Moore (held on March 28 and 29), organized by Robin Schulze, associate professor of English and the editor of Becoming Marianne Moore: The Early Poems, 1907-1924 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
25 March 2003:
Lecture: "Utopian Literature and the Creation of Personal and National Identities," by Lyman Tower Sargent
On Tuesday, March 25, 2003, the University Libraries will sponsor a lecture by Lyman Tower Sargent, Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, on "Utopian Literature and the Creation of Personal and National Identities." The lecture will be held in the Foster Auditorium, 101 Pattee Library, at 4:00 p.m.
The lecture commemorates the naming of the Arthur O. Lewis Utopia Collection in the Special Collections Library. Arthur O. Lewis, Associate Dean Emeritus of the College of the Liberal Arts and Professor Emeritus in the Department of English, is the author or editor of many books on aspects of utopianism, including Of Men and Machines (1963), American Utopias: Selected Short Fiction (1971), and the Arno Press series of reprints of American utopias (most of which were reprinted from Penn State's holdings). Professor Lewis is responsible for the creation of Penn State's Utopia Collection, which now numbers over 2700 titles and is valuable for the study of communal societies, fabulous voyages, fictional utopias and dsytopias, and the work of utopian theorists.
In his lecture, Lyman Tower Sargent will argue that in our world of "identity politics" and the ever-changing creation of what Benedict Anderson, in discussing nations, called "imagined communities," utopian literature is central to the understanding of such identities because it is often an aspect of their creation. The content of these identities changes over time, and utopian literature is regularly both an agent of change and a reflection of those changes.
Professor Sargent is the editor of the journal Utopian Studies and the author or editor of many books and over seventy articles in the fields of utopian thought, politics and literature, recent normative political thought, and American political thought. He was most recently the co-editor of the catalog for the exhibit Utopia: The Quest for the Ideal Society in the Western World (2000), shown at both the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the New York Public Library. He has been a visiting professor at The Universities of Exeter and East Anglia, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He has also been a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
All are invited to attend!
12 December 2002-31 May 2003:
Photographic Expressions of Political Culture:
Selections from the B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection
The apotheosis of Presidents Lincoln and Washington, carte-de-visite from the
Jay Ruby Collection on the Photographic Representation of
Death, 1840-1993.
This exhibit, which illustrates photographic expressions of political culture, opens on December 12 in the B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection Exhibit Room. Photography served as a vital means of capturing the manifestation of political culture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The eclectic groups of photographs featured in this exhibit document the many ways in which people viewed and reacted to public affairs during these tumultuous times.
Political culture encompasses the histories of public events and private experiences that represent the collective expression of the beliefs, values, and symbols of a political system. The attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors of people throughout the world influence their politics, forming intricate patterns that together create rich, meaningful stories. The images included in this exhibit depict conflict, patriotism, sociopolitical action, and the public opinion of leaders (both venerated and despised), and reveal how the power embedded in political culture unfolds, igniting every idea, individual, and institution in its wake.
Grasshopper Plagues that devastated rural areas
in Kansas, carte-de-visite from the Heinz K. and Bridget A. Henisch
Collection of the History of Photography, 1842-1995
The exhibit primarily features photographs from the Heinz K. and Bridget A. Henisch Collection of the History of Photography, 1842-1995. Also included are photographs from the Jay Ruby Collection on the Photographic Representation of Death, 1840-1993, and the Fred Lewis Pattee Papers, 1863-1950.
The B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection Exhibit Room is located in 201A Pattee Library. For further information, call the Department of Special Collections at (814) 865-1793. The exhibit will run through May 31, 2003.
Contact: Jane V. Charles
11 November 2002 to 31 January 2003:
Rare Books and Manuscripts Exhibit:
Wood Engravings of Barry Moser
Barry Moser doesn't describe himself as an artist, but rather as a bookman. He is also a master book designer, illustrator, publisher, virtuoso wood engraver, painter, author, teacher, lecturer, and proprietor of the Pennyroyal Press in North Hatfield, Massachusetts. Moser has illustrated or designed almost two hundred titles, including Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, which won the National Book Award for Design and Illustration in 1983.
In 1996 Moser began work on The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, named after his Pennyroyal Press and the Caxton Company, which was the financial backer of the project. In 2000, the University Libraries' Special Collections Library received a copy of the deluxe edition of this book, number 8 of 30 copies, as a gift from the estate of a long-time supporter of the Libraries, the late John Hastings. Printed on handmade paper and bound in vellum in five volumes, with additional volumes that contain a suite of prints and archival material, the set is the complete Old and New Testaments of the King James Version of the Bible and is illustrated with 231 engravings by Moser. It is the only Bible published in this century that has been fully illustrated by one artist.
The exhibit includes selections from the deluxe edition of The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, as well as Moser's books, broadsides, and portfolio engravings from Rare Books and Manuscripts' holdings.
For further information, call the Special Collections Library at (814) 865-1793, or e-mail sks@psulias.psu.edu.
A lecture by Barry Moser
Retaining the Power of Image:
Thoughts on Illustrating Books
Tuesday, November 19, 2002, 4:00 p.m.
Foster Auditorium, 101 Pattee Library
Sponsored by the Mary Louise Krumrine Endowment for the
Charles W. Mann Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts
Illustration is a great deal more than adding pictures to a book. In his illustrated talk, Moser, widely recognized as one of the most important illustrators and wood engravers of the era, asserts that illustration, like sculpture and painting, can transcend its medium and become an object that can move the minds and hearts and spirits of human beings, and thus can be an art of equal value.
Moser asserts that, unlike painting and sculpture in their purest forms, illustration does not stand alone, an object unto itself, needing no further justification. Illustration is an art of collegiality, as is theater and architecture. It stands in intimate relationship with literature and theology and science. Illustration, when it is well practiced, can take a story from where it is to where it isn't. Historically it has done the same for scientific tracts, and by visual exegesis and hermeneutics, it can do the same for sacred texts.
The talk is the first in an annual series that honors the late Charles W. Mann Jr., head of Special Collections for over forty years until his death in 1998. The series will feature lectures on aspects of the book arts, including fine printing, illustration, book design, and bibliography.
October 1-December 31, 2002:
Through the Lens: Photographic Selections from the
Historical Collections & Labor Archives
Carte-de-visite, from the William C. Darrah Collection of Cartes-de-visite, 1860-1900
Our collections illustrate, through evolving photographic techniques and processes, the cultural uses of photography and the ways in which this art form was employed for a wide variety of purposes, including journalism; propaganda; advertising; artistic self-expression; chronicling sociopolitical action and historical events; and documenting family history. Henry Fox Talbot developed the negative-positive process for printing images on paper in 1839. That same year Louis Daguerre invented the daguerreotype, an image formed on a sheet of silver-plated copper treated with iodine and developed with warm mercury vapor.
Since then several other types of photographic formats have emerged, including calotypes (1840); salted paper prints (1841); cyanotypes (1842); albumen prints (1850); opalotypes (ca. 1850); panotypes (ca. 1850); tintypes, also called ferrotypes (ca. 1850); stereocards (ca. 1850); cartes-de-visite (1854); ambrotypes (1854); ivorytypes (1855); carbon prints (ca. 1870); gelatin dry plates (1871); gelatin silver prints (1873); platinum prints (1873); cabinet cards (ca. 1860); nitrate film (1889); autochromes (1904); safety film (ca. 1930); and polyester film (ca. 1945), which still is used today for most roll, movie, and sheet film. Color photographs, which Eastman Kodak introduced during the 1930s, are based on the chromogenic print: a print made from a color transparency in which the print material has at least three emulsion layers of silver salts sensitized to one of the three primary colors of light.
Photographic equipment also has evolved over time, beginning with the camera obscura, an oblong box fitted with an adjustable lens on the outside and a mirror on the inside, which projects images up onto a ground-glass screen on top of the box. Other types of equipment include stereoviewers, which capture images in 3-D, many versions of lightproof boxes fitted with glass lenses, and today's digital cameras. In addition to the wide range of photographic formats, three different types of cameras are featured in the exhibit: the No. 1A Pocket Kodak Camera, which first appeared on the market in 1905; the Mignon, or Vest Pocket Camera, which German inventor Heinrich Ernemann manufactured between 1915 and 1920; and the Kombi Camera, a combined camera and graphoscope, introduced in 1892. The exhibit also features a stereoviewer, ca. 1845.
Post-mortem photo, 1934, from the Jay Ruby Collection on the Photographic Representation of Death, 1840-1993
Selections from the following Historical Collections & Labor Archives Collections are included in the exhibit: Bassett Family Photographic Collection, 1880-1900; Lane E. Carpenter Photographic Glass Plate Collection, ca. 1900; William C. Darrah Collection of Cartes-de-Visite, 1860-1900; The Eighth Air Force Archive, 1942-present; Heinz K. and Bridget A. Henisch Collection of the History of Photography, 1842-1995; Robert Joyce Photographic Collection, 1952-1967; Fay S. Lincoln Photographic Collection, 1920-1965; Henry Popp Collection, 1850-1950; Jay Ruby Collection on the Photographic Representation of Death, 1840-1993; William Scranton Papers, 1952-1978; and the United Steelworkers of America Archive, 1917-present.
Contact: Jane Veronica Charles
April 19-November 20, 2002:
Cases of Character:
Selections from Photographic Case Art
in the B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection
An exhibit in the B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection Exhibit Room, opening April 19, highlights daguerreotype case design, a significant secondary art form that developed a life of its own in the last half of the 19th century.
One of the earliest needs of the photographic trade was to guard the delicate surface of daguerreotypes from abrasion and dust, and to permit the images to be conveniently handled. The design of such protective covers rapidly became a new form of craftsmanship, especially when thermoplastic "Union" cases (made of a mixture of soot, finely ground sawdust, and wood resin) were introduced in the early 1850s. This material not only lent itself to mass production but was also capable of accepting a variety of decorative imprints of great delicacy. Such cases looked more as if they had been made out of fine ebony than out of artificial (and cheap) materials, and daguerreotype cases became small works of art. Among the pictorial themes used by case artists were notions and images derived from literature, mythology, famous paintings, patriotic sentiments, religious symbolism, and the social scene. Once the daguerreotype cases had established their popularity, they began to be used for other forms of photographs (ambrotypes, tintypes, opalotypes) and were treasured as valuable objects themselves.
Although thermoplastic was the material most often chosen, there were other delightful variations. The exhibit features examples of cases covered in leather, velvet, and mother-of-pearl, and others disguised as tiny books or rouge-pots.
The B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection Exhibit Room is located in 201A Pattee Library. For further information, call the Department of Special Collections at (814) 865-1793. The exhibit will run through November 20.
Contact: Sandra Stelts (sks5@psulias.psu.edu)
March 22-September 30, 2002:
Legends of King Arthur
A Rare Books and Manuscripts exhibit held in conjunction with a conference on the theme of "The Fortunes of Arthur," organized by Professor Norris Lacy and sponsored by the Center for Medieval Studies, March 22-23, 2002.
We may never know whether King Arthur really existed, or where his kingdom was, but the essential aspects of Arthur's chivalrous world have kept people returning to it for inspiration and entertainment down through the ages. A mixture of legend, anecdote, fact, and speculation make up the passionate and magical stories of the king and his sword, Excalibur; of his villainous son, Mordred; of the enchanters Merlin and Morgan le Fay; and of Lancelot and Guenevere. Here too are illuminated the daily lives of knights and ladies and pages, as well as the meaning of quests and the search for the Holy Grail. Arthur was a hero throughout Europe, and there are romances about him in eleven languages. The greatest were written by Chretien de Troyes (French, late twelfth century), Gottfried von Strasburg (German, early thirteenth century), the unknown author of the magical and funny English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late fourteenth century), and Sir Thomas Malory, who completed his collection of tales known as Le Morte d'Arthur in 1470.
The exhibit features Arthurian holdings from the Rare Books and Manuscripts division of the Special Collections Library, including two 15th-century Middle English manuscripts on vellum (the Prophesies of Merlin and the Brut Chronicle). Also included are examples of great Arthurian prose cycles and chronicles; 17th-century volumes on the life of Merlin; early editions of The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser, whose 16th-century Arthur is the hero of a complex religious, moral, and political allegory; and 18th-century editions of Henry Fielding's The Life and Death of Thomas Thumb the Great, a parody of Arthur and the conventions of the romance.
The 19th century brought the Arthurian Revival-a rediscovery of the Arthurian legend (beginning with Tennyson's Idylls of the King) which triggered a remarkable popularity that endures to the present day. Examples in the Rare Books and Manuscripts display include illustrated editions of Tennyson; finely printed books by William Morris's Kelmscott Press; and American tales such as Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Children's books based on the Arthurian adventures are also represented, including those produced by the great illustrators Howard Pyle and N. C. Wyeth.
The Rare Books and Manuscripts division is located in the Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library, which is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00. For more information, call (814) 865-1793. The exhibit will continue through 30 July 2002.
Contact: Sandra Stelts (sks5@psulias.psu.edu)
April 7-July 13, 2002:
Playing for Keeps: Celebrating Pennsylvania Baseball
The exhibit, Playing for Keeps: Celebrating Pennsylvania Baseball, documents the history of Penn State baseball and minor league baseball in the Keystone State. On display are rich material culture sources: game programs, tickets, vintage ball caps, bats, posters, game jerseys, nineteenth century scorebooks, illustrated books devoted to Cuban and Negro League baseball, and rare photographic images culled from the University Archives and donated by private collectors.
The Special Collections Library is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00. For more information, contact Jim Quigel at 863-3181, or at jpq1@psulias.psu.edu.
February 4-March 15, 2002:
A Jamaican Voice:
The Life and Poetry of Vivian Virtue (1911-1998)
An exhibition, A Jamaican Voice: The Life and Poetry of Vivian Virtue (1911-1998) is on display in the Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library, in commemoration of Black History Month. The exhibit includes manuscripts, correspondence, publications, translations, broadcast scripts, and photographs of this Jamaican poet, translator, and broadcaster.
After the publication of his only full book of poems, Wings of the Morning, printed in Jamaica in 1938, Virtue was hailed in the 1930s and '40s as the successor to Claude McKay, the Jamaican national poet and Virtue's father-in-law. Virtue was an active member of the Jamaica Centre of the International P.E.N. Club and a frequent broadcaster on the BBC's "Caribbean Voices" radio program. Prominent correspondents in the Virtue Papers include Harlem Renaissance poets Claude McKay and Langston Hughes.
The Vivian Virtue Papers were a recent gift to Rare Books and Manuscripts from Alan L. McLeod, a Penn State Ph.D. and now Emeritus Professor of English and Speech at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. After writing an article on Virtue, Dr. McLeod carried on a long correspondence with the poet until Virtue's death in 1998. When Virtue died, he left his manuscripts and literary effects to McLeod.
The exhibit was curated by Erin Dini, a senior in Penn State's Department of English and a Bednar Intern in Rare Books and Manuscripts. Erin selected the materials and wrote the labels as the culmination of a semester-long project to process the Vivian Virtue Papers in preparation for cataloging.
The exhibition will run through 15 March 2002. The Special Collections Library is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00. For more information, contact Sandra Stelts at 863-5388, or at sks5@psulias.psu.edu.
October 26, 2001-March 30, 2002:
"When Two or More Are Gathered Together . . . .":
Groups and Composite Images from the B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection
As photographic studios opened across the country in the middle of the 19th century, Americans flocked to have their portraits made. Many of the earliest portraits feature a lone sitter in a rather stiff, formal setting. But equal numbers of images of spirited couples and groups of all kinds, on the Continent and at home, abound from this era. The B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection in the University Libraries contains many stunning examples.
While most of the faces are anonymous and their makers unidentified, we nevertheless glean a wealth of information about 19th- and early 20th-century social life from these groupings. The variety of relationships depicted and the contexts of these relationships--family, the military, or recreational activities--are strikingly familiar to those of us who maintain our own 21st-century photo albums. Whether casual or fairly formal, whether the photographer created an ornate interior or assembled people out of doors, whether the moment was a milestone celebrated or an imaginary staged event, these images of "two or more gathered together" are revealing of the new art form, its practitioners, and the culture in which it developed. The exhibit features a wide variety of images and formats, including daguerreotypes, tintypes, cartes-de-visite, prints on paper, and photo albums.
The B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection Exhibit Room, 201A Pattee Library, is part of the Eberly Family Special Collections Library. The exhibit will run from October 26, 2001, through March 30, 2002. For more information, call the Special Collections Library, (814) 865-1793. The Henisch Website offers further details about the collection.
Contact: Ann Copeland, auc1@psulias.psu.edu, (814) 865-1755.
October 18, 2001-January 3, 2002:
German American Crosscurrents at Penn State:
Celebrating a Century
The University Libraries' Special Collections department is honoring the 100th anniversary of Penn State's Department of German with an exhibit called German-American Crosscurrents at Penn State: Celebrating a Century. Penn State has had a long tradition of German-American relations, beginning with its first president, Evan Pugh, who studied in Germany and received his doctoral degree from the University of Göttingen.
Extensive holdings in the University Libraries on German subjects bear witness to this tradition. The Special Collections exhibit includes a very rare Amsterdam imprint of William Penn's 1681 pamphlet that invites members of the Pietistic sects of Germany to settle in Pennsylvania. Other important works on display include a Saur Bible printed in Germantown in 1743; illustrated Pennsylvania German broadsides; Fraktur bookplates and christening certificates; the Ephrata Martyr's Mirror of 1748 and other German texts published in the early years of the Commonwealth; Evan Pugh's 1853 travel diary; and the records of a 19th-century German brewery in Pittsburgh.
In addition, the exhibit highlights the extensive holdings of the Allison-Shelley Collection, which documents German literature and culture in the English-speaking world. Items on display include German children's literature in English translation, diaries and travel accounts, and literary manuscripts.
The exhibit will run from October 18, 2001 through January 3, 2002. The Eberly Family Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library, is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 5:00. For more information, call (814) 863-5388, or write to sks5@psulias.psu.edu.
May 30-October 19, 2001:American Tintypes:
Selections from the B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection
A new exhibit in the University Libraries' B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection Exhibit Room features a selection of 19th-century American tintypes. The tintype, an invention of the mid-1850s, gained fame during the 1860 presidential election when, for the first time, portraits of the candidates (including "Old Uncle Abe") were issued freely in the form of tintype medals and brooches. The photographic image was made on black-lacquered sheet iron ("tin" in popular parlance), and the result was a format that was both robust and portable. The tintype also gained a foothold in people's affections during the American Civil War, partly because of its cheapness, but mainly because its sturdiness made it a souvenir that could be taken into battle.
The exhibit, drawn from a teaching collection on the social history of photography, includes family albums, cased tintypes, overpainted tintypes, and many examples of photographers' studio practices, such as elaborate backdrops, costumes, props, and simulated action photographs.
The B. and H. Henisch Photo-History Collection Exhibit Room is located in 201A Pattee Library. The exhibit will run through August 15, 2001.
May 21-August 15, 2001:A Thrill a Minute: Selections From the Charles and Betty Jacques Amusement Park Collection
An Exhibition by the Penn State University Archives in the Eberly Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library
"I remember going to Kennywood every year with my father for a special day set aside for families of railroad workers. We looked forward to that day all year." (Charles Mann) "I remember my grandparents taking me to Dutch Wonderland when I was a little girl, it was amazing." (Robyn Dyke) "I remember my mom taking me to Hersheypark and Chocolate World after a visit to the hospital and the entire town smelled of chocolate." (Emily Esposito) "I remember the roller coaster at Rolling Glen. It was wooden with steel tracks and it rattled constantly as it traveled the course. I was sure it was going to fall apart." (Jim Quigel)
We all have memories of our first adventure to an amusement park. It was thrilling, exciting, scary, fun, and always, a special event. Charles Jacques, PSU Class of 1962, has spent almost thirty years collecting materials detailing the history, evolution and development of America's amusement parks. His collection has been touted as the "best and largest of its kind in the United States."
The exhibition of selections from the Jacques Amusement Park collection, curated by Jackie Esposito and Robyn Dyke, features brochures, blueprints, photographs, letters, contracts, posters, ride designs, tickets and souvenirs dating back to the early 1900s and continuing through the 1990s. The exhibition
- details the history of the roller coaster and carousel
- identifies the major ride manufacturers Philadelphia Toboggan Company, Dentzel, Travers, Uzzell,
Chambers to name but a few (many of them in Pennsylvania),
- features vaudeville performers including Roy Rogers, Rudy Valle, Howard and Washington, and the Great
Zacchini, human cannonball,
- reviews the evolution of ride construction from the caterpillar and the tilt-a-whirl to the steam engine and the
whip,
- explores various parks to numerous to mention but including Storybook Forest, Kennywood, Hershey, Cedar
Point, Coney Island, West View and Idora Park, and
- highlights the publications and research conducted by Charles Jacques.
This exhibition will bring back your fondest memories and evoke many smiles of joy and happiness from your earliest childhood days. The exhibition is open to the public Mondays-Fridays from 8:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m. It will also be open during Alumni Reunions on Saturday, June 2 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
As a special added attraction, Charles Jacques will offer a slide presentation and interpretive talk about his collection on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 at 2:00 p.m., the Foster Auditorium, Pattee Library. Plan on joining Charles as he discusses the motivation and drive that has built this unique resource.
For additional information about the collection, the exhibition or the slide presentation, contact either Jackie Esposito or Robyn Dyke at 814-865-7931.
March 1-August 15, 2001: A Modern Gutenberg:
Barry Moser and his Pennyroyal Caxton Bible
An exhibit in the Special Collections Library highlights a recent gift from the Hastings Family Endowment for the Libraries of a deluxe edition of The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, designed and illustrated by Barry Moser, who is well known for his illustrations of children's books and the classics. Printed on handmade paper and bound in five volumes, the set is the complete Old and New Testaments of the King James Version with 231 engravings, as well as an additional suite of prints and archival material. Some of the images are traditionally narrative while others are symbolic, interpretive, or metaphorical. The gift adds to Penn State's extensive Bible collection, which includes a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible, and will be of special interest to students in printmaking. Moser employed an epoxy resin printmaking block (a substitute for the dwindling supply of good quality wood engraving blocks) to facilitate production of this oversized edition.
The donor of the Bible, the late John D. Hastings, was a Penn State grad and the longtime owner of a bookstore, Readers' Forum, in Wayne, Pennsylvania. His obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer on January 31, 2001, described him as "a figure reminiscent of a time when a book was meant to be read rather than to be used as a place to rest an elbow between sips of café latte." Mr. Hastings was regarded as the dean of Philadelphia-area booksellers among the last of a breed of independent shopkeepers.
The exhibit will be on display through August 15. The Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library, is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00.
Wednesday, 1 April 1998
3:30 p.m.
Talk by Stanley Weintraub on "The Bubble Gum Wars," in
connection with an exhibit (for March/April) on World War II bubble gum
cards and youth propaganda.
Friday, 5 December 1997
