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Jewels in her Crown:
Treasures from the Special Collections ofColumbia's Libraries
Master Labels 7/26/04
Printing History and Book Arts
- 1.
- Aelius Donatus (fl. 354 CE)
- Ars Minor
- Printed on parchment, Folio 12, lines 4-28
- [Mainz: Johann Gutenberg, ca. 1450]
- Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Plimpton Collection
The momentous accomplishment of Gutenberg's first printing
of the Bible was preceded by a number of necessarily experimental
publications which developed the technique of printing with
moveable type. This fragment, printed using the type of the
36-line Bible, is a relic of those trials. The text is part
of a Latin grammar written by Donatus, who was the teacher
of St. Jerome. His grammar was one of the most popular teaching
aids during the medieval period, and Gutenberg seems to have
found it advantageous to publish many editions of it, not
only as practice but also as a source of much needed revenue.
There are twenty-four known editions of the text in Gutenberg's
earliest type, all preceding the famous Bible. Described by
earlier scholars as a "Pfister imprint," dated ca. 1460, recent
investigations indicate that this fragment belongs with Gutenberg's
work, probably dating not later than 1452.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
- 2.
- Canon Missae
- Mainz: Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, 1458
- Printed on parchment
- [bound with]
- Missale Cracoviense
- Mainz: Peter Schöffer, 1484
- Printed on paper
- RBML
In 1457, Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer completed the
printing of the Psalterium latinum, the first printed
book to give both the names of the printers and the date of
its printing. The following year they used the same type and
ornamental initial letters to print the exceedingly rare Canon
of the Mass, in this copy bound at the center of the Missal
for the use of Cracow (printed in 1484). The missal is,
in the reality of its physical production and in reflection
of its liturgical use, two separate books. One of nine editions
produced by Schöffer between 1483 and 1499, the missal
is printed on paper, using font sizes that are smaller than
those of the canon. They printed the 12-leaf canon of the
mass the section with the consecration prayers
on vellum for durability, and in a larger font size for legibility.
It was sold as a separate unit so that the purchaser could
remove the canon of whichever missal he was using and insert
this much nicer version. The advertisement put out by Schöffer
in 1470 still included this 1458 canon among the books he
offered for sale; presumably one could purchase it as late
as the 1484 date of the present missal. Although Columbia's
copy of the canon lacks three leaves, it is one of only three
known copies to survive (together with a few isolated fragments).
Of all the acquisitions that Henry Lewis Bullen made for the
American Type Founders Company Library, he was most proud
of this one.
Purchased with the American Type Founders Company Library &
Museum, 1941
- 3.
- Alexander de Villa Dei (1175 1240 )
- Doctrinale
- Printed on parchment, Folios 21-22
- [Holland?: Laurens Janszoon Coster?, by 1463?]
- Lower pastedown in the binding of UTS Ms. 14
- The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Leander
van Ess Collection
The 1499 Cologne Chronicle, while assigning the first printing
from moveable type to Mainz, yet mentions that its forebears
were "the Donatuses in Holland." Fragments of elementary grammar
texts composed by Donatus and Alexander de Villa Dei survive,
and are tied through study of their fonts to what may be the
remnants of Dutch prototypography. Almost all such fragments,
however, are now removed from their context, rendering their
place and date of origin yet more obscure. The startling exception
is the present pastedown in a manuscript containing works
by Albertus Magnus and Raymond Lull. Paul Needham has taken
into consideration evidence of the manuscript scribe's colophon:
Conrad Itter signed his work four times during the course
of 1463; Needham has identified the manuscript's paper stock
and the paper stock of the flyleaves used by the binder; and
he has studied the blind-stamped tools used on the manuscript's
binding of calf over oaken boards.
The result is a verifiable proposal for the place and date
of production of the manuscript: Cologne, 1463. By extension,
we now have a terminus ante quem for the manuscript's
pastedown and thus for Dutch prototypography that is some
four years earlier than paper evidence amassed to date, and
some eight years earlier than ownership inscriptions have
attested. The Burke Library's fragment, because it survives
in a context, advances knowledge of the means we have used
for five hundred years to spread knowledge: printing itself.
The manuscript and fragment came to Union Theological Seminary
in 1838 with the library of Leander van Ess at that
time the largest and most comprehensive theological library,
with the largest number of incunabula, in the New World.
Purchased with the Leander van Ess Collection, 1838
- 4.
- Iamblichus Chalcidensis (ca. 240 325)
- De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, Chaldaeorum, Assyriorum
- Venice: Aldi et Andreae soceri, 1516
- RBML, Phoenix Collection
The 1516 edition of works of neo-platonic philosophers, including
Iamblichus, Proclus, Porphyrius, Synesius and others, translated
into Latin by Marsilio Ficino, is one of the significant books
issued by the Aldine press. This copy is bound in an architectural
style, ca. 1545, one of four known showing porticoes and the
only one without perspective features, made by Claude de Picques
for the noted French bibliophile Jean Grolier (1476-1565).
The motif is derived from an illustration of the Corinthian
temple in Diego da Sagredo's Raison d'architecture
antique (1539). Among the owners of the volume after Grolier
were Count Hoym, ambassador to France from Saxony and bibliophile,
the dealer-bibliophile A.A. Renouard who documented the Aldine
publications, and the notorious thief Count Libri.
Bequest of Stephen Whitney Phoenix, 1881
- 5.
- John De Beauchesne (1538? after 1610) and John
Baildon (fl. 1570)
- A Booke Containing Divers Sortes of Hands
- London: Thomas Vautrouillier, 1570
- RBML, Plimpton Collection
This work, an enlarged adaptation of De Beauchesne's Le
Thresor d'Escripture (Paris, 1550), was the first book
on handwriting to be printed in England. De Beauchesne, a
French Huguenot immigrant, was a writing master who became
tutor to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, only daughter of King
James I. Baildon's role in the work is uncertain; he may have
cut the woodblocks, or edited the work. Containing thirty-seven
leaves (this copy lacking nine leaves, dedication and letter
press), the work includes admirable examples of gothic and
secretary hands, as well as chancery, italic, secretary written
with the left hand (a reversed hand read through a mirror)
and other hands. One other incomplete copy of this edition
and a fragment are known to exist.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
- 6.
- William Caslon (1693 1766)
- A Specimen by W. Caslon, Letter-Founder, Ironmonger-Row,
Old-Street, London
- London: W. Caslon, 1734
- RBML, Book Arts Collection
Daniel Berkeley Updike wrote in his Printing Types,
"In the class of types which appear to be beyond criticism
from the point of view of beauty and utility, the original
Caslon type stands first." William Caslon, an engraver, began
his career as a typefounder in about 1720 by cutting a font
of Arabic-language types for use by the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge. In order to sign his name to a printed
proof of these letters, he cut his name in a pica roman. These
roman letters were so admired that he turned his attention
to various other sizes of roman and italic, followed by Hebrew,
black letter, Coptic and many other exotic types, as well
as ornaments. He did not issue his first specimen until 1734
the date is printed at the end of the brevier Greek
at the lower right corner. Shown here, this is the only known
complete copy of this type specimen, with Caslon's Ironmonger-Row,
Old-Street, London address. In the only other recorded copy,
at the British Library, the line of ornaments at the bottom
has been cut off.
Purchased with the American Type Founders Company Library &
Museum, 1941
- 7.
- Benjamin Franklin (1706 1790)
- Composing stick
- RBML, Typographic Realia
This composing stick may have been purchased in France in the
1780s by Benjamin Franklin while he was serving as United
States minister to France. During this period, Franklin had
his own private press in his house at Passy, outside of Paris.
He used his press to produce leaflets, broadsides, and even
passports for American citizens. Made of wood, the composing
stick has a head, knee, and rail faced with brass, and uses
the slotted knee and screw system, standard at the time, to
fix the length of the line of type being set. According to
Henry Lewis Bullen, who acquired it for the American Type
Founders Company Library and Museum, it was used by Franklin
and his grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache.
Purchased with the American Type Founders Company Library &
Museum, 1941
- 8a.
- Alexander Anderson (1775 1870)
- Diarium commentarium vitae Alexander Anderson
- Autograph manuscript, 3 vols., 1793 1799
- RBML
- 8b.
- John Plumbe (1809 1857)
- Daguerreotype portrait of Alexander Anderson
- New York, ca.1846
- RBML, Woodblocks, Related Material
- 8c.
- Alexander Anderson (1775 1870)
- Wood engraving of garden-house scene, signed in the
block "AA"
- 6.5 x 8 cm.
- RBML, Woodblock No. 6
Alexander Anderson has long been considered the father of wood
engraving in America, being the first in this country to adopt
the technique developed in England by Thomas Bewick. Wood
engraving produces a finer image than the standard woodcut
by working on the denser end-grain section of the wood. Anderson
acknowledged his debt to Bewick in 1804 by creating an American
edition of Bewick's A General History of Quadrupeds
(1790) with his own re-engraved blocks, adding "some American
animals not hitherto described."
Anderson's connections to Columbia are many. He received an
M.D. from Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons in
1796, engraved Columbia's commencement ticket in 1794, and
a bookplate for the College Library. As noted in his diary,
he began sketching the design for the bookplate on March 14,
1795, delivered the finished work to President Johnson on
March 25th, and was, after some effort on his part,
paid £2, 8s on May 7th.
Columbia's daguerreotype portrait of Anderson is one of two
likenesses "taken in duplicate" in New York by photographer
John Plumbe no later than 1847, when Plumbe went bankrupt.
Anderson continued to produce wood engravings until at least
1868, two years before his death at the age of 94. Also on
display is an early wood engraving by Anderson, depicting
a summer, garden-house scene, and signed "AA" in the lower
left of the block. It was published in A Memorial of Alexander
Anderson, M.D., New York, 1872.
(Diary) Vols.1-2, gift of Phillips Phoenix; Vol. 3, gift of
Mrs. Castle, 1911
(Woodblock) Purchased with the American Type Founders Company
Library & Museum, 1941
- 9.
- Washington Hand Press
- New York: R. Hoe & Co., 1843
- Foolscap size (platen 35.3 x 49.4 cm., bed 45.6 x 60.9
cm.)
- RBML
This press was used for over a hundred years by the American
Bible Society, founded in 1816 to encourage a wide circulation
of the Holy Scriptures. The Society started doing its own
printing of Bibles in about 1844; thus this press, built in
1843, would have been one of the first it acquired for the
purpose.
The Washington-style press employs two major innovations that
distinguish it from the presses used since the 15th
century: it is built of metal, and it uses a toggle action.
A number of improvements in press design took place rapicly
in the early 1800s, which simplified and reduced the cost
of manufacture while developing maximum power with minimum
effort. Samuel Rust of New York designed the main features
of the Washington press: a "figure 4" toggle, which provided
greater power than previous levers; and a lighter, stronger,
frame, which could also be disassembled for moving.
R. Hoe & Co. bought Rust's patent and manufactured over
6,000 of these presses between 1835 and 1902. Simpler and
cheaper though slower than the increasingly sophisticated
presses becoming available through the 19th century,
these presses found a niche in small shops doing short runs,
and for extra fine printing. A number of contemporary fine
printers use Washington presses today. This is one of the
four presses owned by the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Gift of the American Bible Society, 1953
- 10.
- Kelmscott Press
- Specimen copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer
- Pigskin binding by J. & J. Leighton, 1896
- RBML, Book Arts Collection
In addition to a regular copy of the Kelmscott Press's edition
of the works of Chaucer, bound in half-holland paper, the
Rare Book and Manuscript Library also owns this specimen binding,
made for William Morris by J. & J. Leighton, the text
block made up of mostly repeating sheets from the print run
of the book. Morris's wish was that the binding be executed
in 15th-century style, using pigskin over oak boards, with
blind-tooling. The tools were cut specially for this binding,
and were based on designs found on two incunables owned by
the British Museum Library [note to JBL: check], the Apocalypse
block book and the Richel Bible. According to Sir Sidney Cockerell
in his "List of All the Books Printed at the Kelmscott Press,"
in A Note by William Morris on his Aims in Founding The
Kelmscott Press, this was the only design executed by
Leighton's. It was then used by the Doves Bindery to bind
forty-eight copies, including two printed on vellum, in full
white pigskin.
Purchased with the American Type Founders Company Library
& Museum, 1941
- 11a.
- Arthur Rackham (1867 1939)
- Self-portrait, 1924
- Pastel, from Sketch book F1
- RBML, Arthur Rackham Collection
- 11b.
- Arthur Rackham (1867 1939)
- Sketchbook for A Midsummer Night's Dream, ca. 1908
- Pencil, 18 pages, Sketch book F4
- RBML, Arthur Rackham Collection
This haunting self-portrait reveals the genius of one of England's
most renowned children's book illustrators. Born in 1867,
Arthur Rackham entered the Lambeth School of Art in 1884.
From 1885 to 1892 he worked as a clerk in an insurance office.
In 1893 he began what would be his life's work, illustrating
the Ingoldsby Legends, and Charles and Mary Lambs Tales
from Shakespeare. He became famous with Grimm's Fairy
Tales in 1900, and Rip Van Winkle in 1905, and
through an exhibition held at the Leicester Galleries in 1905.
The Rackham collection at Columbia University contains 413
drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings, as well as 30 sketch
books, including this one of sketches for A Midsummer Night's Dream. In addition, the collection contains some 400
printed books and ephemera.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred C. Berol, 1967
12.
- W. R. Johnson (b. 1933)
- Lilac Wind,poems by W.R. Johnson on a pulp painting
made by Claire Van Vliet with Kathryn Clark
- Newark, VT.: Janus Press, 1983
- 1 folded sheet, 9 pp.
- RBML, Book Arts Collection
Claire Van Vliet established the Janus Press, one of the country's
most creative private presses, in 1955, at West Bourke, Vermont.
Over the past fifty years, the Press has become known for
its harmoniously balanced textual and visual elements, as
well as for the careful consideration of inks, complex bindings,
papers, boxmaking, and typography. Lilac Wind consists
of a single printed sheet in which the illustration is integral
to the paper itself, produced by the "painted papers" technique.
The text poem by W.R. Johnson was printed on a pulp painting
made by Van Vliet with Kathryn Clark, rendering each of the
150 copies unique. The Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds
a complete collection of the books and ephemera produced by
the Janus Press.
Purchase, 1983
13.
- Vincent Fitz Gerald & Company
- Maquette for The Reed, by Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi,
translated by Zahra Partovi
- Watercolor, ink and pencil on cut paper, by Susan Weil,
1989
- RBML, Vincent Fitz Gerald & Company Archives
The fine press company created by Vincent Fitz Gerald, a Columbia
alumnus, is the embodiment of that nexus of creativity that
makes New York City such a vital place. Through the generosity
of Sylvia and Joseph Radov, the Rare Books and Manuscript
Library now only owns a nearly complete run of the publications
of Vincent Fitz Gerald & Company, and also holds a significant
portion of its archives.
As Village Voice theater critic, translator, and Columbia
alumnus, Michael Feingold, a member of the company, has written:
"In our degraded age of uncaring mass manufacture ... one
artist was able to find so many kindred souls to share his
love for works that are beautiful, meaningful, individual
and scrupulously made." Fitz Gerald has brought together the
work of such authors as Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi, James Joyce,
Franz Kafka, Edith Sitwell, Lee Breuer, and David Mamet, with
artists such as Susan Weil, Judith Turner, Edward Koren (also
a Columbia alumnus), Neil Welliver, Dorothea Rockburn, and
James Nares. Texts have been newly translated by Zahra Partovi,
yet another graduate of Columbia, and Michael Feingold. Other
members of the company include artisans such as book designer
and calligrapher Jerry Kelly, paper artist Paul Wong of Dieudonné
Papermill, and printer Daniel Keleher of Wild Carrot Press,
in addition to Zahra Partovi, who is also a book binder.
Purchased with funds provided by Sylvia and Joseph Radov,
2003
East Asian
- 14.
- Oracle Bone
- China, Shang Dynasty, ca. 1300 1015 BCE
- Scapula, (11.4 cm. x 18 cm.)
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
An image of this bone is seen in countless textbooks as an
example of the earliest Chinese writing. Dating from about
1300 to 1050 bce, it is a fine example of an authentic oracle
bone. Questions of moment to the ruler and his people, about
weather related to agriculture, about marriages of importance
to the state, and about sacrifices important to the order
of the world, were scratched onto the surfaces of bones or
shells. Then heat was applied, and by the cracks on the surface,
the diviner could read the answers of Heaven. These bones
were unearthed by farmers and came to be known only at the
turn of the last century. Together they provide information
about the life of the ruling class of the Shang dynasty, some
3,250 years ago. Columbia's collection of oracle bones is
an important one, donated over the first half of the twentieth
century by a number of scholars and collectors.
- 15.
- Chinese, Zhou Dynasty (1050 256 BCE)
- Vessel (gui)
- Bronze, (6 ¼ x 12 inches)
- Office of Art Properties
This bronze ceremonial vessel, with its smooth green patina,
is a type (gui) that was used as a container for food, probably
for grain. The body is round, with two dragon head handles
and a band of conventional dragon motifs on the upper part.
The vessel is raised on three legs, which are given the form
of human figures.
Sackler Collections at Columbia University
- 16.
- Hyakumantō darani (One million pagoda dhārāni)
- Kyoto, Japan: 764-770 C.E.
- Cypress and cherry wood, (height 13.6 cm., bottom diameter
10.5 cm.)
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
As a gesture of appeasement (disguised as a gesture of Buddhist
piety) after a political power conflict between the monk Dōkyō
(d. 772) and the aristocrat Fujiwara no Nakamaro (706-764),
the Empress Shōtoku (r. 764-770) ordered the production
of one million miniature wooden pagodas with copies of at
least four different dhārāni (mantras or
charms). These pagodas, containing the rolled-up dhārāni,
were then distributed to ten major temples. Most have been
destroyed or lost over time. Only the Hōryūji (a
monastery temple in Ikaruga, Nara prefecture) still owns approximately
1700 of its original one hundred thousand sets. In addition
it is estimated that almost as many sets are held in public
and private collections. The pagodas were made of two parts:
the hollow bottom portion was made of hinoki (cypress)
wood, and the top seven-tiered spire of cherry wood. The dhārāni
were printed, most likely by the metal-plate method and, at
least tentatively, form the earliest extant examples of printed
text. They are also the only known printed texts from the
Nara period (710-794), and as such remain of great interest
in the history of printing.
- 17.
- Japanese, Fujiwara period (12th century CE)
- Standing Bodhisattva
- Wood, (height 33 ½ inches)
- Office of Art Properties, S3404
- This Bodhisattva, with inlaid eyes of painted crystal,
stands on a low, lotus pedestal.
- Sackler Collections at Columbia University
18.
- Da bo re bo luo mi duo jing(Prajna-paramita
sutra)
- Fenghua xian: Wang gong ci tang, 1162 CE
- One volume of six surviving volumes
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
This extremely rare volume was identified by visiting scholar
Shen Jin, from Shanghai Municipal Library, in 1987, as one
of only six known surviving volumes of the original 600-volume
printing of this Buddhist sutra. Printed apparently privately
during the Song Dynasty (960 1279 C.E.), it is believed
to be the oldest book in the Chinese collections at Columbia
University. The Prajna-paramita sutra is one of the
most important sacred books of Mahayana Buddhism, and Chinese
translations of Indian sutras were used in the spread of Buddhism
and of the Chinese written language as well
throughout East Asia.
19.
Nestorian Crosses
China, Yuan Dynasty (1260 1368 CE)
Bronze, varied sizes
C. V. Starr East Asian Library
Also known as "Ordos" crosses, from the region of China believed
to have produced them, these unusual artifacts emerged only
in the early part of the twentieth century. Christianity has
had a long history in China, and Nestorians were welcome and
active in China as early as the Tang dynasty (618-907). However,
it languished for centuries until the Yuan dynasty. Many members
of the Mongol ruling family were Nestorian Christians, including
Khubilai Khan's mother, as well as large numbers of the general
northern population. One of Khubilai Khan's advisors was a
Nestorian priest who traveled to Europe the western-most
reaches of the Mongol empire on behalf of the Mongols.
While the use of the items is not certain, each one has a
small ring on the back, indicating they might have been used
as ornaments, either on a belt or as a pendant. Given their
appearance near grave sites, some scholars have suggested
that they may have been used in funeral rites.
Gift of Anne S. Goodrich, 1986
- 20.
- Yongbi Ŏch'on'ga (Songs of the Dragons
Flying to Heaven)
- Korea: s.n., 15th cent.?
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
These two volumes are from Yongbi Ŏch'on'ga
(Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven), volumes 9
and 10 (of 10), printed in the late fifteenth century from
the original blocks. Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven
is a poem in 125 cantos, written in Korean, with a Chinese
translation following. It was commissioned by King Sejong
(1419-1450) and was compiled in 1445 by three court poets
and scholar-officials. King Sejong recognized that the Chinese
writing system, which was used at the time for all government
business, was inappropriate for the sounds of Korean; furthermore,
he believed it was important to convey the spoken language
in writing. King Sejong invented the Korean script (called
han'gul or "Korean writing," since about 1913), in
late 1443 or early 1444.
These volumes are a tangible legacy of two related seminal
historical and cultural events. The poem itself was composed
to celebrate the legitimacy of the Chosŏn dynasty, which
lasted from 1392 until 1910. In the history of Korean culture,
it was a kind of declaration of cultural independence. The
invention of a true alphabet that represents the sounds of
the Korean language had enormous implications for the development
of a national literature, and ultimately national consciousness.
The history of printing in Korea, the most advanced in East
Asia in the fifteenth century, is also illustrated by this
first printing of han'gul.
Owned by Yi Sŏng-ŭi, Purchase, 1968
- 21.
- Kuzuoka Nobuyoshi (1629 1717)
- Urashima Tarō
- Japan: s.n., 1550
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
These volumes are fine examples of a genre known as Nara
e-hon (Nara illustrated books, although with no known
connection to the city of Nara or the historical Nara period,
645-794). The beautiful manuscript books and scrolls were
actually produced in the late Muromachi (1336-1600) and early
Edo (1600-1868) periods. This volume recounts the folk story
of a young fisherman, Tarō from Urashima, who rescues
a turtle from a group of children. The turtle later returns
to take Tarō under the sea to the Palace of the Dragon
King. He is treated with great kindness, but becomes too homesick
to remain. When he returns to his island home he discovers
that hundreds of years have passed while he was under the
sea.
- 22.
- Urashima Tarō
- Japan: s.n., 16--?
- Painted scroll, (48 x 1,105 cm.)
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
This scroll, which has seven illustrations, including two
contiguous pictures, is another version of the folk tale of
Urashima Tarō. The story progresses as the scroll is
unrolled, from right to left. It is an example of illustrated
manuscript material that continued to appear even as the development
of popular printed book publications began to expand. The
combination of text and illustration has a long history in
Japan, with popular books of the Edo period (1600-1868) developing
integrated text and picture to a high degree the forerunner
of today's manga, or cartoon books.
Gift of Bertha Margaret Frick, 1959
- 23.
- Nogŏltae ŏnhae
- Korea: s.n., Yongjo yon'gan, 1670
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
Printed with bronze moveable type, in a font created in 1668,
these volumes form a textbook of colloquial Chinese for Chinese-Korean
interpreters. Each Chinese character is followed by two han'gŭl
(Korean alphabet) transliterations, the one on the left indicating
the standard Chinese pronunciation as recorded in fifteenth-century
Korean lexicons; the one on the right indicating a contemporary
northern Chinese pronunciation. The set also includes a complete
translation of the Chinese text into seventeenth-century spoken
Korean. All the linguistic information contained in this format
provides valuable data for scholars studying the developments
of spoken languages as well as written languages.
Owned by Yi Sŏng-ŭi, Purchase, 1968
- 24.
- Murasaki Shikibu (active ca. 1000 CE)
- Genji monogatari kogetsush ō
- [Japan]: Murakami Kanzaemon, 1673
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
This 60-volume woodblock-printed edition of the 54-chapter
masterpiece of Japanese literature, The Tale of Genji,
was edited by Kitamura Kigin (1625-1705) and includes six
additional volumes of commentary. The influence of The
Tale of Genji has been felt not only in all areas of literature—poetry,
drama, prose fiction—but also in visual arts and popular
culture, as seen in the woodblock print accompanying this
volume. In the twentieth century, it was translated into English
three times, and into modern Japanese by many famous writers,
including a recent version by Setouchi Jakuchō that became
a best seller. The volume is open to the final chapter, "The
Bridge of Dreams."
The edition was part of a gift to the East Asian collection
from the Imperial Household Ministry of Japan in 1933 of 594
volumes either printed or written during the Edo period (1603-1868).
Together they represent many of the most important texts in
Japanese culture, covering history, poetry, and government,
including the illustrated encyclopedia Wakan sansai zue.
Gift of the Imperial Household Ministry of Japan, 1932
- 25.
- Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798 1861)
- Yume no ukihashi (Bridge of dreams)
- n.p.: Iseya Ichibei, 1845-46
- Japanese paper, oban (approx. 38 x 25.5 cm.)
- Print # 54
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
Circa 1845-46, Utagawa Kuniyoshi produced a series of prints
with allusions to the Genji Monogatari (Tale of
Genji). The series was entitled Genji kumo ukiyo-e
awase (A comparison of prints of the floating world
with the cloudy chapters of Genji), and consisted of sixty
designs, one for each of the fifty-four chapters of the Genji
Monogatari , and six supplemental designs. The series
is unusual in that the scenes depicted in the main body of
the print have nothing to do with the actual content of the
corresponding Genj chapters, but instead depict famous
Kabuki actors. Only in the scroll-like inset at the top of
each print a poem and minor symbolic representation of the
theme of the relevant chapter refer to the novel. It is thought
that this approach was used to circumvent the 1842 Tenpō
reform laws forbidding the depiction of actors and prostitutes
in works of art. Like the woodblock-printed volume shown elsewhere
in this exhibition, the print here displayed corresponds to
the so-called "Bridge of dreams" chapter of the novel.
- 26.
- Court of Raja Jaisingh II (1686 1743)
- Yantraraja
- Manuscript on paper, 35 ff., Jaipur, ca. 1693-1743
- RBML, Smith Indic 73
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds a significant number
of Indic manuscripts, most of them acquired by David Eugene
Smith in Bombay and Kashi in the early years of the 20th
century. The subject matter of these manuscripts is predominantly
Jyotihsastra (Hindu Astrology), including astronomy, mathematics,
divination and predictive astrology. According to a note made
by Smith, this manuscript on the astrolabe was copied by a
priest in the court of Raja Jaisingh II in Jaipur, India,
and was purchased by him in Jaipur at Christmas, 1907. Jaisingh,
the great warrior-astronomer who ruled from 1693 until 1743,
founded the city of Jaipur in 1727. His observatory and huge
masonry instruments constructed there are still in use today,
and were used by him and his court to achieve significant
advances in the exact sciences.
Gift of David Eugene Smith, 1931
- 27.
- Andō Hiroshige (1797 1858)
- Tōkaidō Go jūsan Tsugi no Uchi: Fujikawa
- (Fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō: Fujikawa
station)
- Takenouchi Magohachi (Hoeidō), 1833
- Japanese paper, oban (approx. 38 x 25.5 cm)
- Print # 38
C. V. Starr East Asian Library
The Tōkaidō was the highway connecting Edo (now Tokyo)
and Kyoto during the pre-modern period in Japan. It consisted
of fifty-three "stations" or rest stops, including the starting
point in Edo and the end of the route in Kyoto. It was a popular
subject among artists of ukiyo-e ("floating world"
woodblock prints), among them Andō Hiroshige (1797-1858),
who made a number of different series representing the fifty
three stations. Most of these series were produced in a horizontal
or landscape format. However, the series that came to be known
as the upright Tōkaidō is in vertical or portrait
format, and is generally considered the best of these series.
The print here displayed depicts a group of travelers on horseback
entering Fujikawa station during a heavy snowfall.
- 28.
- Amanoto Toryū (1818-1877)
- Kyōka chakizai gazōshū
- Tokyo: Seiryūtei, Ansei 2, [1855]
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
Kyōka or "mad verse" is a comic variant of waka,
a 31-syllable Japanese poetry form heavily dependent on pivot
words (kakekotoba) and related words (engo).
Kyōka were written mainly during the Tokugawa
period (1600-1868), and were popular among all classes. Many
woodblock print artists illustrated kyōka, either
individual verse as surimono (small edition or special occasion
prints), or collections of verse in book format, an example
of the latter is displayed here. Kyōka chakizai gazōshō
(Collection of comic verse on tea utensils) is divided into
two parts, the second of which contains verse by a number
of poets. The first half of the book contains illustrations
by two different artists, figures by Utagawa Yoshitora (a
pupil of Kuniyoshi) and landscapes, such as the one here displayed,
by Hiroshige (1797-1858).
- 29.
- Tibetan Printing Block
- Tibet, 19th century
- Wood, (40 x 9 x 3.5 cm.)
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
This block, carved on both sides, contains sections of the
Prajna-paramita sutra, seen in Chinese translation
elsewhere in the exhibition. The Tibetan language version
was printed on both sides of long sheets. The leaves were
traditionally unbound, but assembled in order between wood
"covers," and bound up with colorful cloth. Printing blocks
such as this provide scholars and researchers with information
about specific editions of the sacred texts.
- 30.
- Fabric "cheat sheet"
- China, n.d.
- Ink on silk, (40 x 43 cm.)
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
The Chinese examination system, stretching though two thousand
years of Chinese history, theoretically created system of
meritocracy, in which any man of whatever background could
join the governing class by means of his learning. By late
Imperial times, successful candidates were appointed only
to districts other than their own, to avoid conflicts of interest
and other seeds of local corruption. But the examination system
itself became increasingly bureaucratic and exacting, leading
to a condition, according to Benjamin Elman, in which "cheating
became a cottage industry." Since candidates and their possessions
were physically searched before they could enter the examination
hall, in which they were locked for the three days of the
examination, it is hard to imagine how successful any of the
attempts at cheating actually were. This handkerchief is covered
with hand-brushed tiny characters representing some of the
texts a candidate was required to know.
Gift of Anne S. Goodrich, 1986
- 31.
- Chen Menglei (1651 1741) and Jiang Tingxi (1669
1732)
- Qin ding gu jin tu shu ji cheng
- Beijing?: Zong li ya men shi yin ben, 1890?
- 1,672 volumes (original gift in 5,044 volumes)
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
East Asian Studies at Columbia University began in 1901, following
donations by Columbia College graduate and Trustee General
Horace Walpole Carpentier of $100,000 and by Dean Lung, his
employee, of $12,000. In 1902 the Trustees approved the creation
of the Dean Lung Chair in Chinese studies. University President
Seth Low solicited the gift of books through the American
ambassador in Beijing, and received the donation from the
Empress Dowager of China of the 5,044-volume encyclopedia.
The Qin ding gu jin tu shu ji cheng follows a line
of increasingly extensive encyclopedias, but is substantially
larger than its predecessors. It is divided into thirty-two
classes or sections of various length, grouped under six main
categories approximately representing Heaven, Earth, Man,
Science, Literature, and Government. None of the content is
original; rather, both text and illustrations were compiled
and copied from earlier works. Columbia's set is from the
second edition, published in 250 copies, and is one of only
three such sets outside China. The first Dean Lung Professor
of Chinese, Frederick Hirth, raised funds to rebind the volumes,
received in their original format of several small silk-sewn
volumes in a book case, in Western style, thought at the time
to be easier to handle and keep safe.
Gift of the Empress Dowager of China, 1902
- 32.
- Jo Davidson (1883 1952)
- Portrait of V. K. Wellington Koo
- Paris, Valsuani Foundry, signed by the artist, 1920
- Bronze, (60.5 x 25.5 x 23 cm.)
- RBML, Art Collection
V. K. Wellington Koo (1888 1985) graduated from Columbia
College in 1908, also receiving from Columbia an AM in 1909,
a PhD in 1912 and a LL D in 1917. This bust portrait, depicting
Koo at the beginning of his diplomatic career, was one of
a number of portraits sculpted by Jo Davidson in 1920 of the
delegates to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. RBML is also
the repository for Dr. Koo's papers, including correspondence,
diaries, memoranda, manuscripts, notes, printed material,
and photographs, that he gave to Columbia in 1976. They document
his work in many areas, including as the Republic of China's
ambassador to France (1932 1941), to England (1941
1946), the United Nations (1944 1946), and the
United States (1946 1956).
Gift of Mme. Juliana Koo, and Patricia Koo and Kiachi Tsien,
1989
- 33.
- Chinese Paper Gods
- Beijing, China
- Chinese paper, ink, and watercolor, (29.5 x 25.5 cm.,
50.5 x 30 cm.), ca. 1931
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
In 1931, while living in Beijng, China, Anne Swann Goodrich
assembled a substantial collection of folk prints of a type
now commonly referred to as "paper gods." After publishing
a study about them in 1991, she donated the collection of
over 200 prints to the C. V. Starr East Asian Library. The
inexpensive prints were typically hung about the home or pasted
on doors as protection against evil. Frequently they were
burned and replaced, generally at the beginning of the new
year or some other auspicious point of the calendar, as a
symbolic send-off to heaven to mediate on behalf of the owner.
These paper god prints are thin sheets of paper with the image
of a god woodblock-printed on them. Some are mostly black
and white with just a few splashes of color on them. An example
of this can be seen here in a depiction of Sanjie Zhifu Shizhe,
a messenger of the gods. He delivered charms and acted himself
as a charm against evil spirits who cause disease, particularly
during the fifth month. This period was considered to be malignant
by the Chinese as a time when contagious diseases were likely
to appear. Other prints are quite colorful, like the other
example here, which is a depiction of Zhong Kui, considered
one of the most effective protectors against evil spirits,
expeller of demons, and protector against poisons. Although
his picture is usually pasted on the door on the last day
of the year, like Sanjie Zhifu Shizhe, he is particularly
worshipped during the fifth month.
Gift of Anne S. Goodrich, 1991
- 34a.
- [Pigŭk sosŏl] Pulsanghan insaeng
(An unhappy life)
- Kyŏngsŏng-pu: Hongmun Sŏgwan, Shŏwa
11, [1936]
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
34b.
- Yǒngsǒn (n.d.)
- Syongdo mallyŏn pulgasari chyŏn (The
account of a pulgasari in the last years of Songdo)
- Kyŏngsŏng-pu: Tongyang Taehaktang, Shōwa
11, [1936]
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
- 34c.
- [Kodae sosŏl] Tang Taejyong chyŏn
(Biography of Tang Taizong)
- Sŏul T'ŭkpyŏlsi: Sech'ang Sŏgwan,
Tan'gi 4284, [1951]
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
A collection of 155 exceptionally rare, early twentieth century
traditional style Korean popular novels is housed in the C.
V. Starr East Asian Library. These novels are deemed unique
and no other copies are known to exist, but were in all likelihood
lost or destroyed during the Japanese occupation and the subsequent
Korean war. The novels were printed in Korean script at a
time when this was discouraged by the Japanese occupation
government. Since the Korean language has changed considerably
in the course of the twentieth century, and most published
material before the twentieth century was typically written
in formal language and Chinese script, the novels also provide
a unique record of the colloquial language of the time. As
these novels were not produced through the major publishing
houses, most are physically sub-standard products, printed
on cheap paper with primitive printing methods. Most volumes
have gaudily colored covers and are no more than thin booklets,
most of them with well under a hundred pages. The three volumes
here on display are a traditional style popular novel (kodae
sosŏl) chronicling the life of the Chinese emperor
Tang Taizong (626-649), a tragic novel (piguk sosŏl)
about a life full of hardship, and the story of a mythical
creature (Pulgasari) during the last years of Songdo
(modern Kaesŏng), the old capital of Chosŏn (1392-1910)
said to eat metal, to expel nightmares, and to purge noxious
vapors.
- 35.
- Peter H. L. Chang (Zhang Xueliang), (1901 2001)
- "Recollections of Xian Incident [Review]"
- Jiangshang, [May 10, 1946]
- RBML, Chang Papers
Peter Chang (his name also rendered as Zhang Xueliang, and
Chang Hsueh-liang) was born in Manchuria in 1901 and died
in Hawaii in 2001. After his father, Chang Tso-lin (Zhang
Zuolin), a leading war-lord know as the Old Marshal, was assassinated
in 1928 by the Japanese, Chang took his place as the Young
Marshal, becoming one of the most powerful military figures
in China. In 1930, Chang became Deputy Commander in Chief
of the Chinese Armed Forces. In 1933 he traveled to Europe.
Upon his return to China, Zhou Enlai convinced him of the
need for a united front between the Nationalist and Communist
Chinese against Japan.
On December 4 1936, Chiang Kai-shek, the nationalist leader
met with Marshal Chang in Xian, ostensibly to plan a campaign
against the Communists that was due to begin on December 12.
Chang arrested Chiang Kai-shek, an event that became know
around the world as the "Xian incident." Two weeks later,
Chiang was released after agreeing to work with the Communists
in fighting the Japanese. After the Xian incident Marshal
Chang might have chosen to join the Communists. Instead, he
surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek who placed him under house
arrest for the next 50 years. Marshall Chang lived comfortably
in a house with an extensive garden. The house was filled
with paintings and calligraphy honoring the Chiang family,
including a number that were draw by Madame Chiang Kai-shek.
Many of these items are now in the Chang Papers, along with
correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, published materials,
and memorabilia documenting the life of Peter and Edith Chang.
Gift of Peter H. L. and Edith C. Chang, 1994
- 36.
- Fukuda Bisen (1875 1963)
- Ch ū goku sanjū emaki
- Watercolor, (49 cm x 40 feet), Scroll 2 of 30, 1949-1959
- C. V. Starr East Asian Library
The Japanese artist Fukuda Bisen twice painted a thirty-scroll
series on Chinese landscapes, only to have the first set destroyed
in the great Tokyo earthquake of 1923, and the second by the
bombing of Tokyo in World War II. By chance, another painting
by Fukuda was accidentally noticed and admired by General
D. D. Eisenhower, then President of Columbia University. The
artist was inspired to redo his series, which depict the great
Yangtze River of China, to present to Columbia University.
The artist donated the first scroll in 1951, and completed
donating the entire set in 1960. The length of the scroll
is used by the artist to create a panoramic view of a great
river, viewed as though passing through the landscape on the
water.
Painted for Columbia University and donated by the artist,
from 1951 through 1960
New York City History
- 37.
- Johannes Nevins (1627 before 1672)
- Document pertaining to a plot of land
- Manuscript document, signed, New York, 6 July 1658
- RBML, Van Courtlandt Papers
The seal on this document is the first seal of the City of
New York, granted to New Amsterdam in 1654 and used until
1659. The document, signed by Johannes Nevins, the Clerk of
the Burgomasters from 1658-1665, confirms Oloff Stevenszen
Van Courtlandt's (1600 1684) ownership of a plot of
land on Stone Street.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Cremin, 1970
- 38.
- New York City, Coroner's Office
- Minutes of the Coroner's Proceedings in the City and
County of New York
- Manuscript on paper, 1747-1758
- RBML
These early reports kept by John Burnet for New York City and
County document colonial attempts to establish causation of
injuries related to untimely and unnatural death. They offer
an invaluable insight into the history of forensic pathology
in America, showing the fees and duties of the coroner as
well as documenting court testimony in criminal and civil
proceedings.
Gift of Mrs. Charles Blyth Van Courtlandt Martin
- 39a.
- Charles Willson Peale (1741 1827)
- Portrait of Alexander Hamilton
- Watercolor on ivory, (4.5 x 3.5 cm.), ca. 1780
- Office of Art Properties
- 39b.
- Alexander (1757 1804) and Elizabeth Schuyler (1757
1854) Hamilton
- Gold double-band wedding ring of Elizabeth Schuyler
Hamilton, and wedding handkerchiefs of Alexander and Elizabeth
Hamilton, 1780
- RBML, Hamilton Memorabilia
American portrait painter, naturalist, and patriot, Charles
Willson Peale was a distinguished painter of American statesmen
of the Revolutionary era; of George Washington alone, he painted
some sixty portraits. This miniature of Hamilton (1755 1804)
is thought to have been painted in 1780, the year of his marriage,
at the insistence of his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler. She is
credited with embroidering the silk mat. At the time, Hamilton
was serving as Washington's secretary and aide-de-camp. He
studied at King's College in 1773 and 1774, but his education
was interrupted by the American Revolution. The renamed Columbia
College granted him an honorary master's degree in 1788.
(Portrait) Gift of Edmund Astley Prentiss
(Wedding Ring and Handkerchiefs) Gift of Furman University
Library through the suggestion and assistance of the Hamilton
family descendents: Mrs. Marie Hamilton Barrett and Mrs. Elizabeth
Schuyler Campbell, 1988
- 40.
- Tammany Society
- Journal & Rules of the Council of Sachems of
Saint Tammany's Society
- Manuscript on paper, 1789 - 1796
- RBML, Kilroe Tammaniana Collection
The Tammany Society was founded in New York City by William
Mooney, a Revolutionary War soldier, as a patriotic fraternal
order in opposition to the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization
of officers. This volume records its first meetings. In order
to mock the aristocratic Cincinnati, the society was named
for Tammany, an Indian chief, and used American Indian names,
imagery and ceremonies. Focused on youth, young men who could
not normally participate in political events could experience
something of politics within the society, and it developed
into a political club, its clubhouse known as Tammany Hall.
Led by Aaron Burr, the Society helped to carry New York for
Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800. It became increasingly
political by the nineteenth century and enjoyed the support
of newly arrived immigrants through its program of aiding
and helping them to become citizens. "Boss" William M. Tweed,
the society's most powerful member, ruled New York like a
despot, and Tammany Hall became synonymous with City Hall.
Tammany retained considerable influence into the twentieth
century until Robert Wagner was elected mayor on an anti-Tammany
ticket.
Gift of Edwin Patrick Kilroe, 1942
- 41.
- Archibald Robertson
- New York from Long Island
- Ink and color wash on paper, (17 ¼ x 24 ½
inches), ca. 1795
- Office of Art Properties
Emigrating from Scotland in 1791, Robertson set up practice
in New York City as a miniaturist. In addition, he also made
numerous landscapes and city views. Together with William
and Thomas Birch, who worked in Philadelphia, he helped to
introduce the English topographical watercolor tradition in
the United States. This view across the East River to Manhattan,
depicting an expansive landscape, stems from that tradition.
The building at the right is George Washington's headquarters.
The location is identified in an inscription across the bottom
of the sheet.
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan
- 42.
- DeWitt Clinton (1769 1828)
- Letterbooks
- Vol. 17, 1808-16, of 24, 1785-1828
- RBML, DeWitt Clinton Papers
Congress established the First Bank of the United States,
headquartered in Philadelphia, in 1791. By 1816, Congress
chartered the Second Bank of the United States. In the manuscript
from DeWitt Clinton's own letterbooks shown here, Clinton
argues passionately that New York City deserves to be the
home of the national bank, writing: "New York is the commercial
capital of the union. In her center is one third of our commerce
and from here is derived one third of our revenue. There are
ten times more goods purchased here." Clinton's wish prevailed,
marking the commercial and political ascendancy of New York
over its rival Philadelphia. The library's DeWitt Clinton
holdings contain 15 volumes of letters received by Clinton
(1785-1828), 8 volumes of letterbooks of his own letters and
writings (1793-1828), and one volume of miscellaneous papers
in various hands.
Gift of William Schermerhorn, 1902
- 43.
- Alexander Jackson Davis (1803 1892)
- United States Custom House
- Watercolor and black ink on paper, (8.25 x 14.37 in),
ca. 1834
- Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Drawings
and Archives, Alexander Jackson Davis Collection I
In 1833, Davis and his partner Ithiel Town won the competition
for the US Custom House to be built on the site of Washington's
Inauguration down the street from Trinity Church. The architects
lost control of the construction, that being given to Samuel
Thomson, and the finished building lacks the majesty of this
drawing particularly in the reduction of the dome. A magnificent
section, this drawing shows Davis in full command of his artistic
and architectural powers. The proportion and harmony of the
design are wedded to a direct and rich exposition of the architectural
structure and detail.
Architect, writer, renderer, theorist, it is hard to overestimate
Davis's position in American architecture of the 19th century
before the Civil War. Davis designed civic and urban buildings
for the burgeoning city of New York and with his friend, the
landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing, brought to life
the romantic vision of Gothic cottage in the Hudson Valley.
Fortunately his work survives in large numbers in three major
repositories: the Avery Library, the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, and the New-York Historical Society.
Purchase, 1940
- 44.
- Richard Upjohn (1802 1878)
- Trinity Church perspective view
- Watercolor on paper, ca. 1840
- Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Upjohn Collection
At the head of Wall Street stands Trinity Church built by the
dean of American Episcopalian architects, the Englishman Richard
Upjohn. Upon his arrival in the United States, Upjohn passed
the first five years in Boston where he met Dr. Jonathan Mayhew
Wainwright, who became the Rector of Trinity in 1838. The
standing structure of the church was found to be unstable
and the new rector called in Upjohn to build a new church,
which was dedicated in 1846. This rendering, thought to be
executed by Fanny Palmer, an artist for Currier & Ives,
portrays the urban church as a typical English country side
church rather than the dominant element of its neighborhood.
Upjohn was joined in his practice by his son, Richard Michell
Upjohn, most famous for his design of the Connecticut State
Capitol in Hartford. His son, Hobart, also became an architect,
with a practice in the New York area, with many churches,
and North Carolina. Hobart's son, Everard, also an architect,
taught at Columbia for many years. Upon the request of Avery
Librarian Talbot Hamlin, Everard and his children donated
his family's architectural drawings to the library through
a series of donations, the last in 1983. The papers of the
firm were donated to the New York Public Library.
Gift of the Upjohn Family
- 45.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809 1865)
- Manuscript letter in John Hay's hand, signed by Lincoln,
to Columbia University President Charles King
- Washington, D.C., June 26, 1861
- RBML, Columbia College Papers
At commencement exercises held at the Academy of Music on June
27, 1861, President King announced that the University was
conferring an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on President
Lincoln. Preoccupied by the events of the Civil War, Lincoln
could not travel to New York to receive the degree, so Professor
Francis Lieber was sent to Washington to present the diploma.
Lincoln wrote to President King to thank him for the honor.
Signed by Lincoln, the text of the letter is in the hand of
John Hay, one of Lincoln's two private secretaries. The divisiveness
of the Civil War, as well as the election of 1860, was doubtless
in the President's thoughts when he wrote of preserving the
country's institutions and of the honor being a gesture of
"confidence and good will," awarded two months after the war
began.
Gift of Janet Haldane and her Children, 1983
- 46.
- Louis Prang (1824 1909)
- Views in Central Park, New York
- Boston: L. Prang & Co., 1863-69
- 5 series of 12 chromolithographic cards, (6.3 x 10.1 cm
each)
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
By the mid-nineteenth century, New York City had expanded northward
at such a precipitous pace, that the question of open space
was addressed by legislators, who passed an act to create
a large public park. In 1857, the same year that Columbia
College moved uptown to Forty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue
(where it remained until 1897), a competition was announced
for the design of Central Park. The entry selected for the
site (which extended from 60th to 106th
Streets between Fifth and Eighth Avenues) was the now-famous
Greensward Plan, created by Calvert Vaux (1824-1895) and Frederick
Law Olmsted (1822-1903).
Today, it would be impossible to imagine Manhattan without
this urban oasis. In the park's first decades, its distinctive
blend of English picturesque and more rugged American Adirondacks
style captivated the entire nation. Numerous prints, stereograph
photographs, and souvenir books celebrated what quickly became
one of New York City's major tourist attractions. These color
lithograph album cards, issued in series for mounting in scrapbooks
(a Victorian pastime), depict favorite landmarks. The first
three series were published in 1863, and the last two in 1869,
by the Louis Prang firm, one of the finest lithographic concerns
in the United States. All five series in full are known to
exist only at Avery.
Purchase, 1986
- 47.
- Architectural Iron Works of New York
- Illustrations of Iron Architecture, Made by the Architectural
Iron Works of the City of New York
- New York: Baker & Godwin, Printers, 1865
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
This catalogue of buildings, storefronts, and architectural
elements is a noteworthy example of Avery Library's unrivalled
collection of more than ten thousand catalogues from the American
building trades. Daniel D. Badger's Architectural Iron Works
was one of the larger American foundries producing cast-iron
architecture. In 1865 Badger decided to advertise his firm's
work with this volume listing its principal productions, including
about 400 buildings and storefronts in New York, but also
ones in Richmond, Virginia, and Sacramento, California—not
to mention Alexandria, Egypt, and Panama. The book also featured
claims for cast iron as a new building material and, most
important, 102 lithographic plates of architectural details
as well as whole facades, printed by the prominent firm of
Sarony Major & Knapp.
Plate III (one of a handful of color plates) shows the E. V.
Haughwout Building (1857), designed by architect J. P. Gaynor
as an emporium for the sale of glassware, silverware, clocks,
and chandeliers, and the first New York City store to have
an elevator for customers. The cast-iron facades at the northeast
corner of Broadway and Broome Street recall the arched windows
set between columns at Venice's Biblioteca Marciana, testimony
to Badger's assertion "that whatever architectural forms can
be carved or wrought in wood or stone, or other materials,
can also be faithfully reproduced in iron." The Landmarks
Preservation Commission designation report quotes an architectural
historian on the significance: "In this one building are combined
the two elements that provided the basis for today's skyscraper—the
load-bearing metal frame and the vertical movement of passengers."
In parallel, one might say that in this one publication are
combined the elements that provided the basis for the flourishing
of trade catalogues for decades to come—promotional
writing and mass printing technology, in the service of prefabricated
materials and building parts.
Purchase, 1944
- 48.
- Daly's Theatre, New York
- Account book
- Manuscript on paper, 1872
- RBML, Dramatic Museum Manuscripts
Augustin Daly (1838- 1899), playwright, adaptor and critic,
is considered one of America's greatest theatrical managers.
Daly's first original work was the wildly successful melodrama
Under the Gaslight (1867). He opened his first New
York theater, The Fifth Avenue, in 1869, and a few years later
established Daly's Theatre on Broadway with a stock company
in which John Drew and Ada Rehan were stars, and many other
19th century luminaries appeared from time to time.
Some stars, like Clara Morris, left the fold, but others,
like Ada Rehan, John Drew, Mrs. Gilbert, and James Lewis stayed
with him for years.
The library's Daly's Theatre records include 10 volumes of
business records connected with the daily operations of the
theater from 1872 through 1899, including income and expenditures,
rosters of personnel, attendance books for members of the
company, salary accounts, receipt books and one volume having
to do with directions for the settings for various plays.
Brander Matthews Dramatic Museum Collection, transferred to
RBML, 1956
- 49.
- Charles Follen McKim (1847 1909)
- Typed letter, signed, to Stanford White, with initial
sketch of Low Library
- New York, July 24, 1894
- Avery Library, Drawings and Archives Collection, Stanford
White Collection
When Columbia purchased the land on Morningside Heights, it
was the first time that the university had acquired land with
the express purpose of building a campus. The university had
previously occupied existing buildings on other sites. At
the 49th Street campus, the university utilized the buildings
of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum even after new buildings by Charles
Coolidge Haight were erected. A competition for the new campus
was announced and McKim, Mead and White were chosen from the
competitors, who included Richard Morris Hunt, Haight himself,
and Ware and Olmsted.
The focal point of the new campus was the library, named after
President Seth Low in honor of his donation of one million
dollars to erect this building. In this draft of a letter
to his partner Stanford White, Charles McKim, the lead designer,
explains that he cannot go golfing in Europe with White as
President Low has cut out such a lot of work for him. On the
verso of this letter emerges the conception of Low Library,
remarkably close to the final version.
This letter was found within the office correspondence of Stanford
White, who had kept the letter under M for McKim. Avery Library
received the incoming and outgoing correspondence from the
White family along with other gifts. From the successor firm,
Walker O. Cain Associates, the library acquired many of the
architectural drawings of the Columbia campus. The bulk of
the firm's archive, more than 100,000 drawings as well as
papers and files, was donated to the New York Historical Society.
Gift of the Stanford White Family, 1981
- 50.
- William Barclay Parsons, (1859-1932)
- Diary, Rapid Transit System of New York
- Typescript, 4 vols., with author's initials in vol. 1,
1900 - 1904
- RBML
William Barclay Parsons attended Columbia University and graduated
in 1882. He was the co-founder of the Spectator and
became one of the great developers of the civil engineering
projects that ushered America into the modern age of industrial
design. He was chief engineer for the Rapid Transit System
of New York, and designed the original plans for the Interborough
Rapid Transit system which opened one hundred years ago, in
1904. His thorough examinations of Manhattan's topography
resulted in his use of the less expensive and more efficient
cut-and-cover construction method for the first subway lines.
Parsons made an important survey of Chinese railroads (1898-99),
was on the board of consulting engineers for the Panama Canal
(1905), and was Chief engineer for the Cape Cod Canal (1905-14).
He served as a colonel in the Spanish American War and a general
in World War I. Even his overseas duty did not diminish his
dedication to improving Columbia University, as he was chairman
of the Board of trustees, a founder of what would become the
Starr East Asian Library, and a confidant of Nicholas Murray
Butler during this time. In addition to this diary, Columbia
received Parson's diaries kept during his work on the Panama
Canal and during World War I, as well as his fine collection
of railroad prints.
Gift of William Barclay Parsons, Jr., 1958
- 51.
- Lewis Hine (1874 1940)
- Photograph of welder, Empire State Building
- New York, 1930-31
- Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Empire State Buildings
Archive
At the time of its construction in 1930-1, the Empire State
Building was the tallest building in the world, its construction
a fascination to everyone. As part of the publicity for the
building, the Empire State Corporation hired photographer
Lewis Hine to take photographs of the workers. Renowned for
his social documentary of immigrants, child labor, and the
poor and working classes, Hine was compelled by the economic
realities of the Depression to take this advertising job.
His photographer's eye was, however, unchanged by those realities
and delivered an intimate and often heroic vision of American
workers, published as Men at Work: Photographic Studies
of Modern Men and Machines (Macmillan Company, 1932).
The Hine photographs are part of the Empire State Building
archive. Included in this collection are over 400 demolition
and construction photographs taken during the razing of the
Waldorf-Astoria and the building of the new skyscraper. There
are more than 20 scrapbooks of news items collected by clipping
services that document the publicity blitz promoting the building.
Post-construction the publicity machine continued with the
photographs of dozens of celebrities and political figures
who found the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building
the perfect photo opportunity.
Gift of the Empire State Building Corporation, 1971
- 52.
- September 11th 2001 Oral History Narrative
and Memory Project
- Oral History Research Office
The Columbia University Oral History Research Office [OHRO],
in collaboration with the Institute for Social and Economic
Research Policy [ISERP] at Columbia University, has undertaken
a major oral history project on the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks and their aftermath.More than 300 audiotaped interviews
have been conducted with a wide variety of people who were
directly and indirectly affected by the catastrophe. Many
of the interviews were conducted within six to eight weeks
of the attacks, in order to document the uniqueness and diversity
of experiences of and responses to the catastrophe as close
to the events as possible.Initial funding for the project
was provided by the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller
Foundation and Columbia University. The early success of the
project was also made possible by a concentrated effort of
volunteer oral historians, historians, sociologists, journalists
and student interviewers.
The objective of the Oral History Memory and Narrative Project
is to gather as many different perspectives on the impact
of September 11th as possible, by asking individuals to narrate
their experiences of the events and their aftermath through
the telling of their life stories.The project is designed
to return to the same individuals at least twice, over a period
of two years, to assess the influences of September 11th on
their self-understanding over time.While the nucleus of the
project is in New York, an effort has been made to collect
life stories around the country, and the scope of the project
will expand internationally pending future funding.Interviews
have been conducted over a broad spectrum of ethnic and professional
categories, and include those who have been discriminated
against or lost work in the wake of the events. Through the
support of the Rockefeller Foundation, clusters of interviews
have been conducted with Afghan American immigrants as well
as refugees, Muslims and Sikhs, Latinos, and community and
performance artists whose lives and work have been influenced
by the September 11th events.
Art & Architecture
- 53.
- Leon Battista Alberti (1404 1472)
- De re aedificatoria
- Florence: Nicolaus Laurentii Alamaus, [1485]
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
Although Vitruvius's is the oldest architectural treatise to
survive in the West, the first to have been printed from movable
type was Alberti's De re aedificatoria. Indeed, Alberti's
was the first architectural treatise to be written in the
West since Vitruvius and consciously recalled the ancient
work, being likewise divided into ten books. Alberti wrote
his text for patrons as well as architects, in elegant Latin,
a deliberate effort to bring status to architecture and the
architectural profession. He presented his treatise in manuscript
to Pope Nicholas V in 1450. The text was posthumously printed
at Florence in 1485, with a preface by the scholar-poet Angelo
Poliziano, addressed to Lorenzo de' Medici. Lorenzo already
owned a manuscript of De re aedificatoria, and he may
indeed have lent it to the printer for the setting of type.
Avery acquired the editio princeps within a year of
its founding, from the New York City bookseller Stechert.
The copy has been dutifully annotated by a non-Italian student
of the first half of the sixteenth-century; that is, up until
leaf 23 of 204, where he appears to have stopped reading.
Alberti's treatise included no illustrations, but for the
first book on Lineaments, the reader has added diagrams that
reflect the author's discussion of angles, arcs, and circles.
The volume was rebound in the late nineteenth century and
bears the gilt arms of the Bibliothèque de Mello on
its front and back covers.
Purchase, 1891
- 54.
- Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (b. ca. 80/70 BCE)
- De Architectvra
- [Rome?: s.n., 1486 or 1487]
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
Avery Library, a memorial to Henry Ogden Avery, a New York
architect who died tragically young, was expressly established
to make expensive treatises and plate books accessible to
architects and students. It was only quite natural, then,
that the first printed edition of Vitruvius's De architectura
should enter Avery's collections early on. Eight years after
the library's founding, in March 1898, Henry's father, Samuel
Putnam Avery a superlative book collector as well as
one of America's first great art dealers presented
a copy of the editio princeps to Columbia University.
Most of the little that is known of Vitruvius's life has been
gleaned from his ten books on architecture, probably written
around 30-20 B.C.E. He was a freeborn Roman citizen with a
liberal arts education as well as architectural training.
His text, the only architectural treatise to survive from
Western antiquity, remains the most important document for
understanding the built environment of the ancient Roman and
Greek worlds. Although no papyri scrolls of De architectura
are extant, medieval manuscripts are preserved. Probably at
least two fifteenth-century manuscripts were used by Giovanni
Sulpicio, a Roman humanist, to produce this first edition
from movable type, which, like the manuscripts, includes little
illustrative matter (actually just one woodcut diagram). The
book is presumed to have been printed at Rome, current scholarship
favoring Eucharius Silber over Georg Herolt as printer.
The Avery copy is the second of two variant printings and is
bound (as is often the case) with the first printing of an
ancient work on Rome's waterworks, Frontinus's De aquæductibus
(Rome?: s.n., 1486 or 1487), in early nineteenth-century diced
russia leather, decorated in gold and blind. The annotations
of a late fifteenth-century reader appear in its margins.
The inside front cover bears S. P. Avery's bookplate with
a quote from John Lyly's Anatomy of Wit (1579): "far
more seemely were it for thee to have thy Study full of Bookes
than thy purses full of mony." Avery Library today includes
well over a hundred different editions of Vitruvius among
its 380,000 some volumes.
Gift of Samuel Putnam Avery, 1898
- 55.
- Albrecht Dürer (1471 1528)
- Underweysung der Messung
- Nuremberg: Hieronymus Andreae, 1525
- RBML, Book Arts Collection
Best known of the books on the geometry of letterforms is
Dürer's Unterweysung der Messung (A Course on the
Art of Measurement). The text is printed in a form of
blackletter known as fraktur. The book presents the principles
of perspective developed in Renaissance Italy, applying them
to architecture, painting, and lettering. Dürer's designs
of roman capital letters demonstrate how they can be created
using a compass and straightedge.
Purchased with the American Type Founders Company Library
& Museum Purchase, 1941
- 56.
- Antoine Lafréry (1512 1577)
- Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae
- 610 prints of varying sizes mounted on sheets, 76.8 x
55.2 cm.
- Avery Library, Drawings and Archives
The Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae is a collector's
album of engravings of Renaissance Rome that takes its name
from a title-page designed by Etienne Dupérac (ca.
1573-77) and published by Antoine Lafréry. In his shop
at Rome, Lafréry offered for sale well over a hundred
prints of Roman subjects, which could be supplemented with
other prints, and bound up by visitors to the eternal city.
These sixteenth-century albums were in turn acquired by later
collectors who further expanded them.
The Avery-Crawford Speculum is what may be called a
"super" Speculum, consisting of over 600 prints assembled
by the 26th Earl of Crawford (James Ludovic Lindsay,
1847-1913), most probably from two Speculum exemplars
of 168 and 433 prints each. As was the fashion with these
nineteenth-century amalgamations, the prints were removed
from their old mounts and bindings, laid down on fresh sheets,
and boxed. The Avery-Crawford Speculum is distinguished
by the number of unusual suites and single prints it contains,
as well as its size.
Purchase, 1951
- 57.
- Sebastiano Serlio (1475 1554)
- Book VI, On Domestic Architecture
- Ink, wash, and pencil on paper; drawing: 73 drawings on
mount (62.3 x 47 cm.), and 63 text leaves (38.7 x 27 cm.),
1541 - ca. 1551
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
"Book VI is a unique treasure because in the great variety
of needs it seeks to accommodate it gives us, as no other
book of its age has done, an insight into Renaissance society
and customs." So, the architectural historian James Ackerman
introduced this manuscript in its first complete printing,
over four hundred years after its creation (Myra Nan Rosenfeld,
Sebastiano Serlio on Domestic Architecture . . . The Sixteenth-Century
Manuscript of Book VI in the Avery Library of Columbia University,
1978).
The Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio planned to issue seven
books on architecture, among the first illustrated manuals
of their kind to be printed in Europe. For reasons not fully
known, one of these failed to find a publisher, Book VI, On
Domestic Architecture. The Avery manuscript of Book VI
is one of two extant in Serlio's hand. It passed through various
private owners—some unknown and debated, some clearly
known (the Bird family of Cheshire, England, in the eighteenth
century, and Dr. David Laing of Edinburgh in the nineteenth)—before
arriving at Avery, on deposit, in 1920.
Serlio probably began work on the book, a series of designs
for houses both modest and regal, after arriving at the court
of François I at Fontainebleau. Although the volume
was not published as intended, its ground plans, elevations,
and cross sections appear to have been known and influential.
Drawings that have fascinated historians include ones for
the chateau at Ancy-le-Franc, which established Serlio definitively
as its architect, and Serlio's proposed plan and elevations
for the Louvre, the earliest grand designs for the Parisian
royal palace; and one of the first Renaissance designs for
a domed secular building, noted for its similarity to Palladio's
Villa Rotonda.
Purchase, 1924
- 58.
- John Shute (d. 1563)
- The First and Chief Grovndes of Architectvre vsed in
all the auncient and famous monymentes: with a farther
& more ample discouse vyppon the same, than hitherto
hath been set out by any other. Pvblished by Ihon Shute,
Paynter and Archytecte
- London: Thomas Marshe, 1563
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
The First and Chief Grovndes of Architectvre is the
first book in English on architecture and of excessive rarity,
even in an imperfect copy such as Avery Library's, one of
only two copies held outside the British Isles. Shute was
a painter-stainer and does not seem to have worked as an architect,
although he identifies himself as such. He had visited Rome
and includes his own accounts of ancient buildings there,
although his text in the main is indebted to Vitruvius, Philandrier,
and Serlio, being largely a manual on the five orders.
The book's four engraved plates are less accomplished than
contemporaneous Continental work. The larger woodcut illustration
of the Composite order has, perhaps, greater charm and is
the one original plate surviving in the Avery copy. Shute's
book was influential in establishing English architectural
terminology. One of the earliest English textbooks, it appears
to have been popular, going through three further editions
in the sixteenth century. These editions are even scarcer
than the first, with no copies traced for two of them. According
to library lore, the first edition was serendipitously acquired
for Columbia when an Avery librarian walked into a London
bookshop and asked if they had any Shute.
Purchase, ca. 1947
- 59.
- Thomas Wright (1711 1786)
- Various & Valuable Sketches and Designs of Buildings
- Album of ca. 175 drawings mounted on ca. 64 full leaves
and numerous partial leaves, ink, pencil, and wash on
paper, (30 x 25.5 cm.)
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
Thomas Wright is best known as an astronomer, but he was also
active as a landscape gardener and architect. His Universal
Architecture (1755) in two parts (Arbours and Grottos)
is a beautiful printed book of true rarity. This manuscript
volume, however, is even rarer, being, of course, unique,
and one of just two surviving that document Wright's designs
beyond his published work.
For thirty years, Wright was employed by the 4th
Duke and Duchess of Beaufort at Badminton, where he filled
their grounds with follies, grottoes, and garden buildings,
in the rustic, gothic, and Palladian styles. He also designed
country houses, pavilions, and gatehouses for other wealthy
patrons. Some drawings in the Avery volume have been identified
as specific built projects for Badminton and elsewhere; others
are still unassigned. An identified and wholly fantastic design
is the garden barge with Chinese-style pagoda for Frederick,
Prince of Wales, intended to travel the Thames.
The Avery Wright manuscript was previously owned by Sir Thomas
Phillipps (1792-1872), the greatest of all manuscript collectors
(he owned over 100,000). Its front endpaper is inscribed:
"Phillipps MS / 13448* / and / 13451 / (vol 1)." Phillipps
manuscripts were dispersed in a series of sales, this one
at London, in 1898.
Purchase, 1967
- 60.
- François de Cuvilliés (1695 1768)
- A collection of engravings after the designs of François
de Cuvilliés, the elder and his son, François
the younger (1731 1777)
- Paris and Munich, 1738 - ca. 1772
- Bound for Victor Massena, Prince d'Essling (1836
1910)
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
This large and unique compendium of ornament and architectural
design by one of the greatest of rococo designers, Cuvilliés
the elder, and his son, both architects at the Bavarian court,
has been fully analyzed by Herbert Mitchell in The Avery
Library Selected Acquisitions 1960-80: An Exhibition in Honor
of Adolf K. Placzek (1980). It comprises 337 engravings
on 307 leaves and includes the celebrated Morceaux de caprice
à divers usages characteristically inventive and
wonderfully bizarre.
The volume came to Columbia in 1962 as part of the John Jay
Ide (1892-1962) bequest, one of the most substantial gifts
of books to Avery Library after the initial donation of Henry
Ogden Avery's collection. Ide was a great-great grandson of
John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States and one
of Columbia's most famous graduates. He had a distinguished
career as an aeronautics expert but actually first studied
architecture at Columbia, where, no doubt, Avery Library inspired
his love of books.
Bequest of John Jay Ide, 1962
- 61.
- James Adam (d. 1794)
- British Order
- Ink and wash on paper with red highlighting, (116 x 60
cm.), 1762
- Avery Library, Drawings and Archives
The third son of Scottish architect William Adam became best
known as the partner of his brother Robert, who was one of
the most important architects in England in the second half
of the eighteenth century and a leading international figure
in the neoclassical movement in Europe. Pursuant to their
gaining knowledge of the "spirit of antiquity" both brothers
had undertaken extensive stays in Rome and had been guided
by the French architect Charles Louis Clerisseau, a pensionnaire
at the French Academy in Rome. It was during James's tenure
in Rome, 1760-1763, that this drawing, replete with Crown
of Britain and other symbols of the Empire, was made as part
of his project for the Houses of Parliament. Although he had
little chance of winning the commission, James dedicated the
design to the Earl of Bute, a close friend of the King.
- 62.
- Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 1778)
- Tavola Decimaquinta. Elevazione ortografica
della Tribuna, e del Presbiterio della Basilica Lateranense
- From Varj Disegni fatti d'ordine della Santità
di Nostro Signore PAPA CLEMENTE XIII NEL'ANNO 1764
. . . pe'l compimento della nuova Basilica Lateranense:
presentati nell'anno 1767 . . .
- Pen and brown ink, with gray and brown washes on paper,
(89.7 x 57.2 cm.)
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
This artfully embellished section is one of twenty-three drawings
at Avery that present Piranesi's ideas for the redesign of
San Giovanni in Laterano at Rome. Widely acclaimed for their
beauty and historical importance, they are justly regarded
as the crowning glory of Avery Library's considerable Piranesi
holdings.
Avery began collecting the work of the great Venetian-born
printmaker Piranesi soon after its founding, acquiring an
almost complete set of the Rome printing of his Opere
in 1892. Through the years, other notable materials were added:
a first state of the Antichità Romane (1756);
a rare copy of the Lettere di Giustificazione (1767);
the Prima parte di architetture (1743), Piranesi's
first printed work; and a manuscript account book recording
construction costs for Piranesi's redesign of the church of
Santa Maria del Priorato in Rome (1764-1767).
In 1970, through the generosity of Dr. and Mrs. Arthur M. Sackler,
Avery acquired a collection of most of Piranesi's major works
in their early states up to 1764. And in 1971, once again
through the Sacklers' beneficence, Avery acquired twenty-three
of the twenty-five known large drawings for the redesign of
the Lateran Basilica, in memory of Rudolf Wittkower, chairman
of Columbia's Art History and Archaeology Department from
1956 to 1969.
Jointly executed by Piranesi and his assistants, these drawings
propose various architectural solutions for rites in the church
space, sympathetic with the remodeling by Francesco Borromini
(1599-1667). They were commissioned by Pope Clement XIII and
presented to his nephew Cardinal G. B. Rezzonico; however,
none of the six schemes was ever realized. They remain a magnificent
record of Piranesi's second and final attempt to work as an
architect.
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Arthur M. Sackler in Memory of Rudolf
Wittkower, 1971
- 63.
- Abraham Swan (ca. 1720 ca. 1765)
- A Collection of Designs in Architecture, Containing
New Plans and Elevations of Houses, for General Use
- Philadelphia: R. Bell Bookseller, 1775
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
Swan's Collection of Designs is the second architectural
book to be printed in the Colonies, and by far the rarest
of the handful printed before 1800 in what came to be the
United States of America. It appears that only two other copies
exist, at the New York Public Library and Winterthur in Delaware.
The printer Robert Bell and engraver John Norman had announced
their intention to publish A Collection of Designs,
in twelve monthly numbers, in their publication of Swan's
British Architect (1775), the first book on architecture
printed in the Colonies. Perhaps because of the political
situation, only this, the first number, ever appeared. The
book was dedicated to John Hancock, president of the Continental
Congress. Its dedication leaf features an emblem engraved
by Norman, symbolizing the unity of the thirteen colonies.
The Avery copy was purchased by Richard Smith (1735-1803),
a delegate to the Continental Congress, while on recess in
Philadelphia. His inscription on the title-page, "Richd. Smith
Novr. 15. 1775," gives a terminus ante quem for publication; the fascicule
with its ten leaves of plates may have been available some
months earlier. In the twentieth century, the book was owned
by the Pennsylvania senator's nephew and namesake, Boies Penrose
II (1902-1976), who affixed his ex-libris to the title-page's
verso.
Purchase, 1990
- 64.
- Minard Lafever (1797 1854)
- Drawings for unbuilt church in Brooklyn Heights, 1840
- Avery Library, Drawings and Archives
Lafever's reputation rests on two aspects of his career. In
the 1820s and 1830s, the architect published several works
that promoted the Greek Revival style. His Modern Builders'
Guide, first printed in 1833, had seven editions by 1855,
their popularity due to their designs for townhouses then
gaining fashion in New York. Lafever was also known for his
Gothic Revival churches, mostly executed in Brooklyn. Upjohn's
Trinity Church, begun in 1839, had sparked this interest in
Gothic Revival churches. These drawings are designs for an
unbuilt church on Henry and Montague, which may be an early
version of Holy Trinity on Montague Street. It was perhaps
too expensive for the funds raised by subscription. This drawing
is bound in a book of specifications for the church along
with other drawings and a print of Holy Trinity as built.
Purchased through the New York Chapter American Institute of
Architects Heritage Ball fund, 1989
- 65.
- David Octavius Hill (1802 1870)
- A Series of Calotype Views of St. Andrews
- Edinburgh: D. O. Hill and R. Adamson, 1846
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
This volume of twenty-two mounted calotypes is the third book
of photographic illustrations to be published and the first
such to be devoted to the monuments and scenery of just one
city, St. Andrews, Scotland. David Octavius Hill was a painter
and illustrator and learned the art of calotype photography
from Robert Adamson (1821-1848), with whom he first teamed
in 1843, to tackle a daunting group portrait project. Adamson
had been trained by his brother, John, who had learned the
process from Sir David Brewster, a friend of William Henry
Fox Talbot (1800-1877), the inventor of negative-to-positive
paper photography.
The Views of St. Andrews has a printed title-page but
no table of contents. There are fewer than ten copies recorded,
and each differs in assortment and number of images. The calotypes
in the Avery copy have faded, as is usual. Alas, the ephemeral
medium eerily seems to suit the medieval ruins, nineteenth-century
fisher folk, and top-hatted gentlemen depicted. Too fragile
for exhibition, the book is preserved and made available through
study prints.
Avery acquired this volume early on from a London bookseller.
For years it sat on the open shelves, classed with other books
on Scotland's cities, more a novelty, perhaps, than a "treasure."
Today, as photomechanical processes in book illustration give
way to digital ones, the significance of this volume is obvious.
Purchase, 1896
- 66.
- Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition
of 1851. From the Originals Painted for H. R. M. Prince
Albert, by Messrs. Nash, Haghe, and Roberts
- London: Dickinson, Brothers, 1854
- 2 volumes
- Avery Library, Classics Collection
This deluxe edition was created to commemorate the 1851 exhibition
in the Crystal Palace. Great Britain's Prince Albert had proposed
a trade exhibition like no other before it, truly international,
with the work of nearly 14,000 exhibitors from twenty-six
nations on view. To house such an event, Joseph Paxton (1803-1865)
designed a new type of building, using the latest in cast
iron and glass technology. Sited in London's Hyde Park, the
landmark structure, 1848 feet long by 408 feet wide, was visited
by more than six million people in the exhibition's five months.
Public feeling for the temporary building was so strong that
it was re-erected in South London, in enlarged form, the year
that these volumes appeared. Fire destroyed the Crystal Palace
in 1936.
Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures document the pomp
and ritual in this resplendent space, and the exhibits—from
European bourgeois furnishings and modern machinery to an
Arab tent from Tunis, draped with leopard and lion skins.
Avery's set of these spectacular large-format color plate
books—from the genre's heyday in the nineteenth century—is
a unique one. The fifty-five chromolithographs, with some
details colored by hand, are in proof impressions, many signed
in pencil by the artists.
Purchase, 1963
- 67.
- Stanford White (1853 1906)
- Album of family letters with sketches
- Mixed media, 1873-78
- Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Stanford White Collection
Throughout his life White was a prolific letter writer, both
professionally and personally. This album, one of four in
the Avery collection, contains letters to his mother and father
during his employment with Henry Hobson Richardson in Boston.
The letters reveal his enormous energy, keen observation,
and personal magnetism, as well as his strong affection for
his parents. White often included sketches of scenes he described.
At this early stage in his career, he had only recently given
up his wish to become an artist, instead focusing his artistic
talents on a career in architecture. Unlike the clarity of
his artistic vision, White's handwriting was nearly illegible;
fortunately his son, the architect Lawrence Grant White, transcribed
the letters when he compiled these albums of letters and drawings.
In addition to these albums, the White family has donated more
than 500 drawings for the White houses in St. James and on
Gramercy Park in Manhattan and a variety of other projects.
They have donated letterpress books with outgoing correspondence
and incoming correspondence for White's professional activities
from 1887-1907 as well as a death mask and plaster cast of
the architect's hand.
Acquired by purchase and gift, 1999
- 68a.
- Louis H. Sullivan (1856 1924)
- Drawing for Doorknob, Guaranty Building, Buffalo,
New York
- [Medium], 1895
- Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Louis Sullivan
Collection
- 68b.
- Yale & Towne
- Doorknob, Guaranty Building
- Cast iron, 1895
- Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Louis Sullivan Collection
Considered one of Sullivan's most famous buildings, the Guaranty
Building retains much of its original decorative elements
designed by the architect. The drawing shows the general outline
of the doorknob that was used throughout the building. Yale
& Towne, a manufacturer of cast iron architectural elements,
produced the doorknob.
The drawing was part of a group of drawings that Sullivan gave
to Frank Lloyd Wright, who had worked for Sullivan as a young
architect. The drawings were purchased for Avery after Wright's
death by Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., whose family had commissioned
Wright's Fallingwater. The doorknob was an extra found at
the building and donated to the library.
Purchase, 1965
69.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 1959)
Drawing of dining room, Dana House, Springfield, Illinois
Watercolor on paper, (62 x 50.5 cm.), 1902-04
Avery Library, Drawings and Archives
Susan Lawrence Dana commissioned this house from Wright in
1902-04, which is now a state landmark. The cut-away view
of the dining room, complete with furniture, hanging lamps,
sculpture, and wallpaper, makes the room look much larger
than its true size. This drawing appears in an early photograph
of Wright's Oak Park office and was purchased from the architect's
son, John Lloyd Wright. John Wright's notes indicate that
his father was the draughtsman of the drawing, although others
have claimed authorship for George Niedecken, an interior
decorator who collaborated with Wright.
Purchased from John Lloyd Wright, 1969
70.
Greene & Greene
Detail drawing of decorative window, Earle C. Anthony House,
Los Angeles
Pencil on paper, 1913
Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Greene & Greene
Collection
Born in Ohio and educated at MIT, these brothers designed several
of the most distinguished Arts and Crafts houses in the United
States, mostly in Pasadena and other towns in southern California.
Combining Japanese-inspired wood construction and individually
designed and handcrafted furniture and objects in houses that
opened into the beautiful California climate, Greene and Greene
defined the California bungalow in the early 20th century.
This stained glass window was designed for the house of the
Los Angeles businessman, Earle C. Anthony, for whom the brothers
had also designed a showroom for his Packard dealership. The
mixture of Japanese-inspired line with California flora—here
the live oak—was typical of the Greenes's design sensibility.
The Greene and Greene papers are spread among three repositories:
the Gamble House, the Environmental Design Archives at UC
Berkeley, and the Avery Library. Under the aegis of the Gamble
House, now a house museum belonging to the University of Southern
California, the three repositories cooperated on a "virtual
archive" of the three collections. The site can be located
at the Gamble House's website: http://www.usc.edu/dept/architecture/greeneandgreene/.
Gift, 1960
71a.
Rafael Guastavino (1842 1908)
Drawing for Dater House, Montecito, California
Pencil & colored pencil on tracing paper, (9.5 x 7.37
in), 1917
Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, The Guastavino Fireproof
Construction Company/ George Collins Architectural Records
& Drawings
71b.
Rafael Guastavino (1842 1908)
Tile made for Dater House
Polychromed terra cotta, (5.75 x 5.75 x .8 in) 1917
Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, The Guastavino Fireproof
Construction Company/ George Collins Architectural Records
& Drawings
Rafael Guastavino was a Spanish émigré architect
who brought to the United States a centuries-old vernacular
method of building fireproof vaults and domes and adapted
it to the steel-frame construction prevalent in this country.
Although Guastavino practiced as an architect in Barcelona
and in New York on his arrival, his career took an unexpected
turn through his connection with Charles McKim and his work
at the Boston Public Library in the late 1880s. It was at
this building that Guastavino began to function primarily
as a contractor building vaults and domes. His company, the
Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company, under his leadership
and that of his son, Rafael, Jr., was extremely prolific.
By the time the firm closed its door in 1962, they had built
vaults, domes, and other architectural elements in approximately
1,000 buildings in the United States. Their best known works
include the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal and the dome
at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
The Guastavinos worked frequently with Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue,
the architect of notable Gothic churches and the Nebraska
State Capitol. Goodhue had an interest in Mexican architecture,
which he put to use in his designs for the Panama-Pacific
exposition in San Diego in 1915. These tiles were designed
for the Dater house in Montecito, California, but were also
used in San Diego and at the Goodhue hotel in Colon, Panama.
Goodhue, more than any other architect the Guastavinos worked
with, took advantage of the decorative possibilities of the
surfaces of the Guastavino vaults and domes.
The Guastavino papers were saved through the efforts of the
late George R. Collins, Professor of Art History and donated
to the University in 1963. Professor Collins served as custodian
and guide to the papers until his retirement in 1988, when
the archives were transferred to the Avery Library.
Gift, 1963
72.
Hendrick Petrus Berlage (1856 1934)
Frank Lloyd Wright. Wendingen
Amsterdam: "De Hooge Brug," 1921
Avery Library, Classics Collection
This special number of the Dutch art magazine Wendingen
testifies to the international reverberations of American
architecture in the early twentieth century, as well as the
powerful intersection of typography and book design with criticism
and the visual arts. It also serves as a fine example of Avery
Library's architectural periodicals collection, perhaps the
largest in the world.
Under the editorial and design leadership of H. Th. Wijdeveld,
the periodical entitled Wendingen—"Upheavals"
or "Turnings"—was intended as a medium for creation
and not just art journalism. Individual issues were dedicated
to a single subject, with writings by noted practitioners.
The distinctive format and style of binding echoed Japanese
traditions. Covers were conceived as works of art, most being
designed by "representative members" of the society sponsoring
the publication, Architectura et Amicitia.
For this issue devoted to Frank Lloyd Wright the artist El
Lissitzky (1890-1941) was paid to provide the cover design,
among his first commissions upon leaving Russia. In the magazine's
fourth year (1921), German-language and English-language editions
of issues began to appear, evidence of its appeal beyond the
Netherlands. This deluxe copy of the English edition of vol.
4, no. 11, is one of about 75 produced with heavier paper
and hard covers. The text of the influential Dutch modern
architect Berlage introduces a selection of photographs and
renderings of Wright's work, including Midway Gardens, Taliesin,
the Imperial Hotel, and the Barnsdale Theatre. A further seven
issues of Wendingen would be devoted to Wright in 1925-26.
73.
Florine Stettheimer (1871 1944)
Portrait of Myself, 1923
Oil on canvas, on masonite or canvas mounted board, signed
and dated, upper left, "Florine St." (100 x 65 cm.), 1923
Office of Art Properties
Florine Stettheimer was an artist, designer and poet. Although
during her lifetime she was little known outside the circle
of New York modernists of which she and her sisters were a
part, Stettheimer's achievements in painting, costume and
set design have since been recognized as important contributions
to American art in the first half of the twentieth century.
She was born in Rochester New York, the second youngest of
five children in a well-to-do German-Jewish family. In 1914,
after studying art in both New York and Europe, Stettheimer
settled permanently in New York City with her mother and two
sisters. Together they hosted salons and intellectual gatherings
for over twenty years that included such figures as Marcel
Duchamp, Carl Van Vechten, Georgia O'Keefe, and Alfred Stieglitz,
many of whom became the subjects of Stettheimer's portraits.
Her first and only solo exhibition during her lifetime took
place in 1916. It was a great disappointment to her, and subsequently
Stettheimer showed her work only in group exhibitions. In
her vividly colored portraits of family and friends, Stettheimer
experimented with modernist styles and expressed her often
witty social commentary on contemporary culture. She created
sets and costumes for two never-produced ballets and the well-known
1934 Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson opera Four Saints
in Three Acts. In addition to the paintings catalogued
by Columbia's Office of Art Properties, the Rare Book and
Manuscript Library holds her journals, early paintings and
drawings, scrapbooks, and figurines and prop maquettes, including
those for Four Saints, included in the Theater and
Performing Arts section of this exhibition. Her Portrait
of Myself shows the artist dressed in a diaphanous gown;
she floats beneath the arch of her signature, which ends in
a radiant sun and dancing mayfly.
Gift of the Estate of Ettie Stettheimer, 1967
74.
Roy Lichtenstein (1923 1997)
Untitled, 1974
Lithograph and silkscreen with embossing, (40 9/16 x 31 7/8
inches, sheet; 32 1/2 x 23 7/8 inches, plate)
1/100, from the portfolio For Meyer Schapiro, twelve
signed prints by twelve artists, published by The Committee
to Endow a Chair in Honor of Meyer Schapiro at Columbia
Office of Art Properties
This portfolio is a tribute to Meyer Schapiro (1904 1996),
distinguished teacher, lecturer, and scholar, whose writings
have influenced generations of scholars and critics the world
over, particularly in the areas of medieval and modern art.
Affiliated with Columbia since he enrolled as a freshman in
1920 at age 16, he earned three degrees at the University,
including the Ph.D. in 1929, with a dissertation on the Romanesque
sculpture of Moissac. Schapiro began teaching art history
at Columbia in 1928 and rose through the professorial ranks
to become full professor in 1952. He was named University
Professor, Columbia's highest rank, in 1965 and was designated
University Professor Emeritus 1973.
Known as a champion of the art of his time, Schapiro not only
wrote about contemporary art but was a friend of countless
artists. As a gesture to their friend and mentor on his 70th
birthday, 12 artists, among them Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly,
Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenburg, Saul Steinberg, Frank
Stella, and Andy Warhol, in addition to Roy Lichtenstein,
created this portfolio of original lithographs, etchings,
and silk screens.
Philanthropy, Social Services, Human Rights
75.
Memorial to the Columbia College Board of Trustees
Printed document, with signatures in ink, on paper, 26 sections,
New York, 1882 1883
Barnard College, Barnard College Archives
On April 22, 1882, a large public meeting was held to discuss
the reform of women's higher education in the City of New
York. The venue was the Union League Club on East 39th
Street, which had been formed in 1863 to support the Union
during the Civil War. Prominent speakers at this meeting included
Joseph H. Choate, the Reverend Henry C. Potter, and Sidney
Smith, who drew attention to the "empty minds and nimble fingers
of women" in arguing that there was a need for reform in women's
education. When it was Choate's turn to speak, he stressed
that women were entitled to an equal education and called
for an end to the "educational privileging" of the male sex.
At the conclusion of the event, attendees began signing a
petition calling on the Trustees of Columbia College, the
leading institution of higher learning in New York, "to extend
with as little delay as possible to such properly qualified
women as might desire it, the benefit of education at Columbia
College by admitting them to lectures and examinations." As
more persons signed in the subsequent weeks and months, section
after section was glued on to extend the document, until it
was 75 feet long and held the signatures of 1,410 persons,
including those of then United States President Chester A.
Arthur, Samuel P. Avery, Theodore Roosevelt, and Susan B.
Anthony.
Presented to the Columbia College Board of Trustees in February
of 1883, the Giant Memorial served as proof that many progressive
citizens of New York favored the idea of post-secondary co-education,
a trend that was already well-established elsewhere in the
United States. Although the Trustees (with the lone exception
of President Frederick A. P. Barnard) voted to reject the
Memorial's substance, it did persuade them to immediately
form the Select Committee on the Education of Women. In the
fall of 1883, the Committee issued a report advocating the
improvement of higher education for women. Although still
not allowed to attend the lectures that were so essential
to a genuine college education, qualified women were offered
the Collegiate Course for Women, which permitted them to receive
syllabi and to take examinations. When Annie Nathan Meyer
enrolled in the Collegiate Course, she found its shortcomings
so great that she made it her personal mission to help found
an independent, four-year women's college in the City of New
York annexed to Columbia, and with precisely the same academic
standards. That vision finally was realized in the fall of
1889, when Barnard College opened with the provisional blessing
of the Columbia College Board of Trustees.
In the spring of 2003, one hundred twenty years after it was
presented to the Columbia College Board of Trustees, the Giant
Memorial was returned to the Barnard College Archives by the
Northeast Document Conservation Center, following a process
of manual restoration that took the better part of a year,
and was made possible by a generous gift from the Class of
1942. Originally rolled on a wooden dowel, too fragile to
be examined for many years, the 75-foot document was meticulously
repaired, flattened, photographed, and cut into twenty-six
sections which were individually encapsulated in Mylar.
76.
Eastman Johnson (1824 1906)
Portrait of Fredrick A. P. Barnard
Black and white chalk on prepared gray paper, mounted on linen,
signed, (24 x 17 ¾ in.), 1886
Office of Art Properties
Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard (1809 1889) succeeded
Charles King as president of Columbia College, now Columbia
University. During his long administration (1864 89),
Columbia grew from a small undergraduate college of 150 students
into one of the nation's great universities, with an enrollment
of 1,500. He was instrumental in expanding the curriculum,
adding departments, and fostering the development of the School
of Mines (founded 1864; now part of the Fu Foundation School
of Engineering and Applied Science). He extended the elective
system and advocated equal educational privileges for men
and women. Barnard College, the woman's undergraduate unit
of Columbia, was named for him, who was a staunch advocate
of higher education for women. Renowned for his sophisticated
portrayals of American rural life, Eastman Johnson was also
one of the most cosmopolitan painters of his era. During the
1880s, he turned almost exclusively to portraiture. This chalk
drawing is probably a study for the large oil portrait that
hangs in Low Memorial Library.
77.
Andrew Carnegie (1835 1919), Carnegie Corporation of
New York
Records of College Donations New York
Bound manuscript volume, 1901-30
RBML, Carnegie Corporation of New York Archives
This volume contains the records of donations made by Andrew
Carnegie and subsequently the Carnegie Corporation of New
York to colleges and universities for their endowments, libraries,
scholarships, new buildings, programs and research.
Gift of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1990
78.
Carnegie Family Convention, Pittsburgh
Black and white photograph, Pittsburgh Gazette Times, (10
x12 in.), April 1910
RBML, Carnegie Corporation of New York Archives
Carnegie family in Pittsburgh on the return of Mr. Andrew
Carnegie (front row, third from the left) and Mrs. Loiuse
Whitfield Carnegie (front row, second from the left) from
California en route to New York. Pittsburgh was the first
place of residence in the United States for the 12-year-old
Andrew, when he arrived from Scotland along with his parents
Margaret and William, and his younger brother Tom. The family
chose Pittsburgh, since Margaret Carnegie's sisters had already
been living in the area. Pittsburgh witnessed Carnegie's meteoric
rise from bobbin boy on a cotton mill to a telegraph operator,
then to a railroad manager, then to a steel industry titan.
Over the years many other members of the extended family settled
there as well. Andrew Carnegie moved to New York City in 1867,
but Pittsburgh has always remained the site of his steel factories,
and the recipient of many Carnegie benefactions.
Gift of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1990
79.
Andrew Carnegie (1835 1919)
Typed letter, signed, to Robert A. Franks
Skibo Castle, Scotland, September 1, 1910
RBML, Carnegie Corporation of New York Archives
One of several hundred letters from Andrew Carnegie to his
close friend and financial agent, Robert A. Franks authorizing
payments for various charity causes. Franks was the president
and director of the Carnegie Home Trust Company (the trust
to invest, keep, and distribute the money for Carnegie's pensions
and philanthropic activities) and served as a trustee, an
executive committee member and a treasurer for both the Carnegie
Foundation for Advancement of Teaching and the Carnegie Corporation
of New York until his death in 1935; for some years he was
also treasurer of the Teachers Insurance Annuity Association
of America. The letter uses simplified spelling, championed
by the New York State Librarian Melvil Dewey and much favored
by Carnegie. This spelling was used for all official documents
in early days of the Carnegie philanthropic foundations.
Gift of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1990
80.
Sigmund Freud (1859 1939)
Contract for "The Psycho-Analytic Problem of the War"
Typescript, signed, Vienna, October 10, 1921
RBML, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Records
This contract between Sigmund Freud and the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, is signed by Freud and James S. Shotwell,
the General Editor of the CEIP's seminal 150-volume series
Economic and Social History of the World War. In December
1921, Freud, informing Shotwell that he "can't make any headway,"
asked to be released from the contract. In 1924, as the series
was brought to a conclusion, Shotwell became director of the
CEIP Division of Economics and History.
Gift of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1953-54
81.
Lillian Wald (1867 1940)
The House on Henry Street
Autograph manuscript, ca. 1915
RBML, Lillian Wald Papers
One of the most influential and respected social reformers
of the 20th century, Lillian D. Wald (1867-1940)
founded the Henry Street Settlement in 1893. She focused her
energy on improving the health and hygiene of immigrant women
on the impoverished Lower East Side. Wald devoted herself
to the community full-time and within a decade the Settlement
included a team of twenty nurses offering an astonishing array
of innovative and effective social, recreational and educational
services.
Wald pioneered public health nursing by placing nurses in
public schools and with corporations. She founded the National
Organization for Public Health Nursing and Columbia University's
School of Nursing, becoming an international crusader for
human rights and a labor activist. The Lillian Wald Papers
focus on the administration of the Henry Street Settlement
that she directed until 1932, and her involvement in numerous
philanthropic and progressive causes. Her office files trace
the founding and growth of the Settlement from 1895-1933.
Other papers detail her activities on behalf of child welfare,
civil liberties, immigration, public health, unemployment,
the peace movement during World War I. The House on Henry
Street … with Illustrations from Etchings and Drawings
by Abraham Phillips and from Photographs was published
by Henry Holt and Company in 1915. The book became a classic,
influencing generations of nursing, sociology, and social
welfare students.
Gift of the Visiting Nurse Service, through Mrs. Eva M. Reese,
1967
82.
Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870 1942)
Photograph of slum children
Photograph #1900, ca. 1918-19
RBML, Community Service Society Papers
Jessie Tarbox was born in 1870 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Her family's comfortable lifestyle allowed her, at the age
of 14, to attend the prestigious Collegiate Institute of Ontario.
Her first photographs were of the children in her classroom
in 1888. By 1900 The County Reformer newspaper published
Jessie's photographs of a carnival, making her the world's
first female photojournalist. Her superb work led her to become
one of the official photographers of the St. Louis World's
Fair. In 1905 she moved to New York City where with her husband,
Alfred Beals, she ran a successful studio until her death
in 1942.
During this time, she took many photographs for the Community
Service Society, an organization that, through its predecessor
organizations, the Association for Improving the Condition
of the Poor and the Charity Organization Society, has tackled
the problem of urban poverty for 150 years. They were responsible
for the first public baths in New York City in 1852, the first
model tenement in 1855, the first shelter for homeless men
in 1893, a prototype of the free lunch program in 1913, and
the ground-work for New York State's Old Age Assistance Act
of 1930. The Rare Book and Manuscript Library was designated
as the repository of the CSS papers in 1979, comprising to
date, some 300 linear feet of material, including hundreds
of photographs.
Gift of the Community Services Society, 1979 and ongoing
83.
Varian Fry (1907 1967)
Surrender on Demand
Typed manuscript, with autograph corrections, ca. 1942-45
RBML, Varian Fry Papers
Surrender on Demand , published just before VE Day
in 1945, describes the dramatic story of the underground organizations
set up by Americans in France to rescue anti-Nazis from the
Gestapo. Fry, a 32-year old Harvard-educated classicist and
editor from New York City, helped save 4,000 endangered refugees
who were caught in the Vichy French area during World War
II, including Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Hannah Arendt, Andre
Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Franz Werfel, and Alma Mahler. In
1991, 24 years after his death in obscurity, Fry received
his first official recognition from a United States agency
the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. In 1996, he
was named as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the
Holocaust Heros and Martyrs Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem.
Gift of Annette Riley Fry, 1969 and 1974
84a.
Telford Taylor (1908 1998)
Public Relations Photo Section, Office Chief of Counsel
for War Crimes, Nuremberg, Germany, APO 696-A, US Army, Photo
No. OMT-IX-P-7
OMGUS Military Tribunal Case 9, Nuremberg, Germany
Palace of Justice, Nuremberg, German: February 13, 1948
Black and white photograph, 8 x 10 in.
Arthur W. Diamond Law Library, Special Collections, Telford
Taylor Papers
84b.
Telford Taylor (1908 1998)
Statement on Nuremberg Trials for the International News
Service
Typescript, May 9, 1949
Law Library, Special Collections, Telford Taylor Papers
Telford Taylor was an attorney, historian, writer and legal
scholar. Taylor was a Professor of Law at Columbia University
Law School (1963 1976) and served as Nash Professor
Emeritus of Law (1976 1998). From 1945 to 1946, Taylor
was a member of the Office of United States Chief of Counsel,
Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, Nuremberg, Germany. In 1946,
Taylor was appointed Chief Counsel, and Prosecutor for the
Nuremberg Military Tribunals that ran from 1946 to 1949. In
this photograph, Taylor is shown presenting the closing arguments
of the prosecution in the Einsatzgruppen case. The defendants,
as officers of the Einsatzgruppen extermination units, were
charged with furthering Hitler's program of genocide through
the murdering of approximately one million Jews, Gypsies,
Poles, Soviet officials, and others marked in the Nazi race
purification plan for the strengthening of Germanism. "When
a plan was so criminal that Himmler and Hitler were ashamed
of it," stated General Taylor, "it must have been indeed horrible."
In his May 9, 1949 statement to the International News Service,
Brig. Gen. Taylor announced the end of the Nuremberg Military
Tribunals. The document contains Taylor's original corrections
and clearance stamps from the Security Review Section, Public
Information Division, Special Staff United States Army. Taylor
declared: "… I venture to predict that as time goes
on we will hear more about Nuremberg rather than less, and
that in a very real sense the conclusion of the trials marks
the beginning, and not the end, of Nuremberg as a force in
politics, law and morals." … "Nuremberg was part of
the process of enforcing law law that long antedated
the trials, and that will endure into the future; law that
binds not only Germans and Japanese, but all men."
Gift of Professor Toby Golick, 1999
85.
John Howard Griffin (1920 1980)
Journal
Typescript, with interspersed
photographs, 1950 - 1980
RBML, John Howard Griffin
Papers
This massive Journal runs to
2,762 pages of single-spaced typed pages and covers the years
1950 - 1980. This page count does not include ten autograph
notebooks he kept while traveling. Griffin kept a journal
from the age of sixteen until twenty-one. When France was
about to fall to the Germans, he gave the journals to a schoolmate
for safe-keeping. "Years later when I returned to France [in
1976], I retrieved the journal which had been buried on my
friend's father's farm during the war." As he read what he
had written so long ago, Griffin became saddened by the discovery
that it was filled with petty reflection on music, food, and
literature and practically nothing on the World War. Griffin
burned this journal.
John Mason Brown, the theatre
critic, encouraged Griffin to write. The result was his first
novel, The Devil Rides Outside, written in 1949. Griffin
began his mature Journal in December of 1950, the third year
of his blindness. He would regain his sight seven years later.
When he was not working on novels or short stories, he wrote
his Journal, which became a seedbed for most of the work he
would publish later. Its pages are full of fragments and drafts
of stories and novels; essays and articles; meditations on
human rights, the Civil Rights Movement, and major events
such as the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ethics,
religion and philosophy; responses to the music he listened
to constantly; discussions of cooking, farming and family
relationships; insights into the realities of blindness and
how the condition is wrongly perceived by the sighted; speculations
on psychology, sociology, anthropology and the arts in relation
to the diminishment of culture in America.
Purchased with the John Howard
Griffin Papers, 1995
86.
Ivan Morris (1925 1976)
Hiroshima Project
Typescript, with photographs, [date]
RBML, Ivan Morris Papers
Ivan Ira Esme Morris was a member
of the Columbia faculty from 1960 until his death in 1976,
serving as chairman of the East Asian Department from 1966-69.
His field was Japanese literature and culture, but he was
also very active in the human rights organization Amnesty
International. A member of the group's executive committee
in London, he co-founded an American section and served as
section chairman from 1973-76. Morris's "Hiroshima Project"
recorded the personal accounts of survivors of the Hiroshima
nuclear bomb blast. Included with each account is a photograph
of the person, bringing to life their deeply personal struggles
to live with the pain of their experiences. These accounts
also contain anecdotal documentation of the medical problems
suffered by each interviewee as a result of the blast, as
well as recording the exact distance that each person was
from its epicenter.
Gift of Annalita M. Alexander, 1979 and ongoing
87.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 1963)
Executive Order, Equal Opportunity in Housing
Typscript, signed, with pen, November 27, 1962
RBML, Whitney M. Young, Jr. Papers
John F. Kennedy had criticized President Dwight Eisenhower
during the election campaign of 1960 for not eliminating discrimination
in housing "by the stroke of a pen." On November 27, 1962,
President Kennedy issued this executive order prohibiting
racial and religious discrimination in housing built or purchased
with Federal aid, and set up the President's Committee on
Equal Opportunity in Housing. He then sent this copy, with
a pen used in the signing ceremony, to Whitney M. Young, Jr.
(1921-1971), Executive Director of the National Urban League
from 1961 until his tragic death in 1971. Young's papers,
including correspondence, speeches, reports, testimony, press
releases, and the texts of his radio broadcasts "To Be Equal,"
document his leadership.
Gift of Mrs. Margaret Young in memory of Whitney M. Young
Jr. (LL.D 1971), 1975
88a.
Presidential Medal of Freedom and Certificate signed by
the President, Awarded to Herbert H. Lehman (posthumously)
by President Lyndon B. Johnson, December 6, 1963
Silver miniature medal, ribbon bar, and silver lapel emblem,
in walnut presentation case lined with silver gray plush and
white satin, with silver disk containing the arms of the President
of the United States inset in the cover of the case. Certificate
signed by the President, with citation formally detailing
the achievements for which the President is recognizing the
individual.
RBML, Lehman Papers
88b.
Photograph of President Johnson presenting the Medal of
Freedom to Edith Altschul Lehman (Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman)
Washington, D.C., December 6, 1963
RBML, Lehman Papers
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest civilian
award, which recognizes exceptional contributions to the security
or national interests of the United States, to world peace,
or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.
Among all American honors, it ranks second to only the Congressional
Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award. The medal
was established by President Truman in 1945 to recognize notable
service in the war. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy reintroduced
it as an honor for distinguished civilian service in peacetime.While
the medal may be awarded for singular acts of importance,
it is customarily given only for a lifetime of service or
at the conclusion of a distinguished career. With this criterion,
it was altogether fitting that the Medal of Freedom was presented
to Herbert H. Lehman in 1964 for 35 years of service as both
Lieutenant Governor (1928-1932) and Governor of New York (1933-1942),
Director-General of the United Nations Rehabilitation and
Relief Administration (1943-1946), and U.S. Senator from New
York (1949-1956).
This particular award ceremony was significant in that it marked
the reintroduction of the medal as a civil honor, but the
occasion was also saddened by the absence of two men: John
F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated during the previous
November and Herbert Lehman himself, whose death in New York
occurred just minutes before his departure to Washington to
receive the award. Lehman's wife of over fifty years, Edith
Altschul Lehman, journeyed to the White House and accepted
the medal on her late husband's behalf.
As the medal was presented to Mrs. Lehman, President Johnson
read, "The President of the United States of America awards
this Presidential Medal of Freedom to Herbert H. Lehman, citizen
and statesman. He has used wisdom and compassion as the tools
of government and he has made politics the highest form of
public service." Mrs. Lehman accepted the award and replied,
"I can't tell you how honored I feel to accept this medal.
I want to also say that the knowledge that this medal was
coming to him added a great deal to his last hours of life."
Among Lehman's fellow award recipients that year were: Thornton
Wilder, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, E. B. White, George Meany,
Marian Anderson, Edward Steichen, Felix Frankfurter and the
late President John F. Kennedy.
Gift of the Estate of Edith Altschul Lehman, 1976
89.
Archdiocese of Sao Paulo
Projeto A " Brasil: Nunca Mais"
Sao Paulo: Arquidiocese de Sao Paulo, 1985
Law Library, Special Collections
"Nunca mais — Never again." On April 1, 1964 a military
coup in Brazil established a regime which made political prisoners
of dissenting citizens and people who belonged to "clandestine
organizations." During the time Brazil remained under military
control, from 1964 until March 1985, political prisoners were
detained by government security agents. Transcripts from 707
trials conducted by the military indicate that physical and
psychological torture was practiced on prisoners in order
to coerce confession. Lawyers for the defendants, working
with the Roman Catholic Church, photocopied over 1,000,000
pages of these records to analyze the trials and to discover
the fate of persons who had disappeared. The results of their
investigations were published in "Projeto A" of which this
is the volume documenting torture.
Acquired, 1987
90.
Antonio Hernandez Palacios (1921 2000) and Will Eisner
(b. 1917)
Les Droits de l'homme
Brussels: Magic Strip, 1989
Law Library, Special Collections
From Spain, France, Italy, Uruguay, Argentina and the U.S.,
six artists contributed stories to illustrate what can happen
in a world that disregards fundamental human rights embodied
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Scenes of these
sophisticated cartoons are situated in first century Jerusalem,
twentieth century Paris, and sixteenth century Italy. Of the
22 articles in the Declaration, the artists chose to portray
the right to life, liberty and security of person; freedom
from torture or cruel, inhuman treatment; the right to a hearing
by an impartial tribunal; freedom of movement within one's
country and the right to return to one's country; freedom
of opinion and expression; the right of participation in government
and the right of access to public services. This episode by
Will Eisner takes place in an imaginary country where citizens
learn the results of failure to participate in elections.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted and proclaimed
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10,
1948. At their website, www.unhchr.ch/udhr/index.htm, the Declaration
is available in 300 languages.
Gift of Kent McKeever, 1989
History
91.
Cuneiform Tablet
Cone, 11.5 cm high, 3.8 cm diameter
Ur, Southern Babylonia, ca. 2060 BCE
RBML, Cuneiform Collection
This cone was found prior to 1937 in what is now Southern
Iraq in the archeological site of Ur of the Chaldees, the
birthplace of Abraham. It was built into a temple wall with
similar cones, serving a purpose similar to our modern corner
stone. The inscription, dating from the reign of King Libit-Ishtar,
just prior to the time of Abraham, is one of the best examples
yet discovered of writing dating from that period, and confirms
the existence of some of the cities mentioned in the Book
of Genesis, once doubted, including Erech, Isin, Sumer and
Akkad.
Gift of Frances Henne, 1973
92.
Urraca, Queen of Leon and Castille (r. 1109 1126 CE)
Confirmation of Land Grant
Manuscript on vellum, dated according to Spanish Era, 1160
[1122 CE]
RBML, Smith Documents
Urraca, Queen of Leon and Castile, and her son, Alfonsus,
confirm the grant by Count Suarius and Countess Enderquina
to give after their death to Cluny properties and churches
in Asturia and Galicia, among them the church of St. Salvador
in Cornelia (Asturia).
Gift of David Eugene Smith, 1931
93.
Marco Polo (1254 1324)
Buch des edeln Ritters und Landtfahrers Marco Polo
Nuremberg: Friedrich Creussner, 1477
RBML, Engel Collection
Fourteen copies of this incunable survive, although not all
with the woodcut frontispiece depicting Marco Polo as a Renaissance
gentleman, posing before a cloth of honor. The German of the
text was produced by an anonymous translator who worked from
a Tuscan copy: whenever he encountered a word he didn't recognize,
he left it in that Italian dialect. As with many incunables,
the printed text stands independently of the surviving manuscripts
(two, in this case); presumably its exemplar was jettisoned
once the printer, Creussner had finished using it for casting
off the type.
Gift of Solton and Julia Engel, 1955
94.
Gilles Le Bouvier (1386 ca. 1457)
Le chronique des rois Charles 6 et 7 conformé aux
troubles d'aujourduy
Manuscript on paper, France, ca. 1485
RBML, Jeanne d'Arc Collection
Gilles Le Bouvier, herald of the King of France and King-of-Arms
of Berry, was in the army with Joan of Arc from the coronation
of Charles VII at Rheims to her capture at Compiègne.
His chronicle was first published in 1661. This manuscript
is part of the collection formed by Acton Griscom, one of
the most important collections of books and manuscripts about
Joan of Arc outside of France.
Gift of Acton Griscom, 1920
95.
Denga
Silver wire coin, Russia, Moscow Mint, 16th century
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive
This coin was apparently produced during the reign of Ivan
IV (1530-1584) better known as Ivan the Terrible. Ivan IV
was the first Russian ruler who was formally crowned as Czar
(1547). Ivan the Terrible reformed the Government and Court,
conquered Kazan Khan (1552) and Astrakhan Khan (1556) and
created an empire that included non-Slav states. The home
policy of Ivan the Terrible was accompanied by repressions
and the enslaving of peasants.
96.
Abraham Ortelius (1527 1598)
Theatrum orbis terrarum
Antwerp: Egidius Coppens Diesth, 1570
RBML
Ortelius's "Theater of the Whole World" is considered the
first modern geographical atlas and was first published on
May 20, 1570. It proved to be so popular that a second edition
appeared later that year. Ortelius compiled and edited the
work, gathering together the best maps that he could find,
and had them re-engraved in uniform size, listing all of the
contributors to the volume. Most of the engraving work was
executed by Franz Hogenberg (fl. 1558 - 1590).
97.
Joan Oliva (1580 1615)
Portolan atlas of five charts of the the European and African
Coasts of the Mediterranean and Atlantic
Manuscript on 6 vellum leaves, signed Iovanne Oliva fecit,
Italy, ca. 1590
RBML, Plimpton Ms. 94
The portolan chart is of the same tradition as the isolario,
and many of the portolan atlanses made by the Oliva family
and other chart makers of the period include an isolario
at the end. This fine example has only charts, Portolan charts
were used by mariners well into the seventeenth century, but
there was also a demand for richly decorated versions among
the enlightened wealthy. One can assume that the present atlas
was meant for this market. Joan Oliva was the most prolific
member of a large family of Catalan chart makers, one branch
of which had settled in Messina (Sicily) some time before
1550. Charts signed by at least sixteen members of the Oliva
family are recorded, with dates between 1538 and 1673.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
98.
Peter the Great (1672 1725)
Patent
Moscow, May 3, 1722
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, Georgii Mitrofanovich Kiselevskii
Papers
Peter I, was a grandson of Russian Tsar Mikhail Romanov (1596-1645),
a founder of the Romanovs dynasty, and was proclaimed a tsar
at the age of ten. He introduced a series of important reforms,
which placed Russia among the major European powers. Peter's
main goal was to regain access to the Baltic Sea and in 1700
he started the Northern War with Sweden. The war lasted for
21 years, after which Russia was declared an Empire. This
Patent raises Yurii Gein to the Rank of Colonel. It also signed
by Alexander Menshikov (1673-1729), Peter the Great's close
friend.
Purchase, 1966-1967
99.
Mason/Dixon Map: A plan of the boundary lines between the
Province of Maryland and the three lower counties on the Delaware
with part of the parallel of latitude which is the boundary
between the provinces of Maryland and Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: Robert Kennedy, 1768
2 sheets, (54.5 x 76 cm., 54.5 x 77 cm.)
RBML, Historical Map Collection
The surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon established
the boundary line in 1767, which was to bear their names,
resolving a dispute of nearly ninety years between the Penns
and the Baltimores. The boundary 244 miles in length, is printed
on two sheets, the eastern line on a single copperplate, the
western line, because of its length, divided into three parts,
one engraved under the other. This copy belonged to Benjamin
Chew (1722-1810), a member of the Boundary Commission established
in 1750 by the English High Court.
Gift of the Chew Family through the Courtesy of John T. Chew,
1983
100.
John Jay (1745 1829)
Federalist Number 5
Autograph manuscript, 4 p., 1788
RBML, John Jay Papers
Along with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, John Jay formed
the triumvirate of authors who wrote and anonymously published
The Federalist, an eloquent series of essays in defense
of the Constitution of 1787. Jay wrote five of the essays,
and this is his manuscript draft for Number 5, which varies
from the printed version. It is a concise, tightly argued
exposition warning that rejection of the federal form of government
would reinforce and worsen the already apparent sectional
strife among the thirteen states; therefore, only through
the establishment of a united American state could the young
nation hope to succeed in its domestic and foreign affairs.
Purchased on the Frederic Bancroft Fund and Various Donors,
101.
George Washington (1732 1799)
Proposals for the additional army
Autograph manuscript, 4 p., 1798 or 1799
RBML, Hamilton Family Papers
This working draft of George Washington's proposals for the
new American army was probably given by the President to Alexander
Hamilton for his comments, since it remained in the Hamilton
family until coming to Columbia. Written on both sides of
two integral folio leaves, it has sections headed "Half-pay,
& Pensionary establishmt." and "Compleating
the Regiments and altering the establishmt. of
them."
Gift of Marie Hamilton McDavid Barrett, 1988
102.
France. Ministère de la Marine
Comptabilité particulière du Citoyen David,
pour l'Expedition d'Angleterre
Manuscript on paper, 21 ff., Dunkirk, 1799
RBML, Montgomery Ms. 252
Robert Hiester Montgomery (1872 1953) assembled an
outstanding collection of books and manuscripts that document
the history of accounting and business procedures from the
14th to the 20th century. These include
instruction books, daybooks, waste books, journals, bank books,
ledgers, receipt books, storage books, invoice books, registers,
ships' logs, letterbooks, tax roll books, articles of agreement,
bills of sale, deeds, wills, and other business items, making
it is the largest collection of rare accounting works in the
United States. This document, created for the French Ministry
of Marine by "Citoyen David," gives detailed estimates of
the amount of money required for Napoleon's projected invasion
of England from Dunkirk.
Gift of Robert H. Montgomery, 1924
103.
Kara George (1762 1817)
Agreement
Belgrade, December 14, 1808
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia Papers
This document represents an agreement between Kara George,
leader of the Serbian people in their struggle for independence
from the Turks and founder of the Karageorgevic dynasty, and
the Serbian National Council. It introduced a system of limited
monarchy and established the legal basis for the Karageorgevich
Dynasty. The text was first published in the "Istorija Matice
Srpske", [Novi Sad]: Matice Srpska, 1863, page 149.
Gift of Prince Paul and Princess Olga, 1954-1985
104.
Abraham Lincoln (1809 1865)
Arithmetic exercises from manuscript sum book
Autograph manuscript, 2 p., 1824
RBML, Plimpton Collection
The earliest known examples of Lincoln's handwriting come
from the arithmetic text that he copied out for his own educational
use while living in Indiana. His later law partner and biographer,
William H. Herndon, acquired the hand-stitched notebook in
1866. The leaves were later separated and scattered, and today
only ten of them are located. It was a fitting addition to
the collection of George Arthur Plimpton, a member of the
board of directors of textbook publishers Ginn & Company,
whose vast collection shows the development of education.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
105.
Alexander I (1777 1825)
Funeral scroll
Manuscript on paper, Russia, (ca. 30 feet), 1826
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, Georgii Mitrofanovich Kiselevskii
Papers
This printed scroll (stolbets) depicts the order of the Alexander
I funeral ceremony. The scroll is comprised of 18 sections,
each 20 inches long and 3 inches wide. Each section describes
a sequence of the mourning procession, for instance, a mourning
procession being held on the occasion of a transfer of the
deceased with God Emperor, Alexander the First, from the Our
Lady of Kazan Cathedral to the Peter and Paul Cathedral. After
the Master of Ceremonies there will be His Imperial Majesty
Personal Convoy, etc.
This type of funeral ceremony was introduced by Peter the
Great. The Tsar-Reformer had borrowed many details from Western
funeral tradition such as horses, shields with coats-of-arms,
helmets, gold spurs and swords. The last Emperor buried according
to the adopted tradition was Alexander III (1881).
Purchase, 1966-1967
106.
Alexander Bestuzhev (1797 1837)
On Your Namesake Day [Decemberist Poem]
Yakutia, May 18, 1829
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, General Manuscript Collection, Bestuzhev
Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev (pseudonym Marlinsky) was
a military officer, popular writer, literary critic and poet.
However, after participation in the Decembrist Revolt of 1825,
his life dramatically changed. Bestuzhev was stripped of his
noble status and exiled first to Siberia and then to Caucasus.
His prose and poetry weren't published and his name was not
mentioned until his death in 1837. In 1838 Bestuzhev's sister
published his collective works. A multivolume set was sold
out within weeks of its issue.
On Your Namesake Day was first published in this edition
from an incomplete copy and wrongly dated 1828. The original
has never been found and all later editions used the same
incomplete copy.
Gift of Ekaterina G. Garina, 1964
107.
Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749 1838)
Memorie. In tre volume. Seconda editione corretta, ampliata e accresciuta
New York: Pubblicate dall'Autore, 1829-30
RBML
The beginning of Italian studies in North America can be traced
to 1825 when Lorenzo Da Ponte joined the faculty of Columbia
College. Da Ponte had arrived in New York in 1805, an immigrant
grocer and private teacher, who had fallen on hard times following
his days as Mozart's librettist. While at Columbia, he finished
writing his memoirs, that had been first published as a slim
volume in 1807 ("Storia compendiousa della vita di Lorenzo
Da Ponte"), then as a three volume work published serially
from 1823 to 1829, and this revised and augmented edition,
published in 1829-1830. Da Ponte considered it to be his lifetime
achievement.
Purchase, 2004
108.
Nicholas I, Czar of Russia (1796 1855)
Autograph letter, signed, to Count Alexander Benckendorff
(with envelope )
Peterhof, June 19, 1837
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, Benckendorff Family Papers
Nicholas the First was the personification of classic autocracy.
His reactionary policies earned him the title "The emperor,
who froze Russia for 30 years." Nicholas was faced early in
his reign with an uprising in the army, the Decembrist revolt,
which he dealt with swiftly and decidedly, thus establishing
his reputation as a powerful leader. In this letter to a close
friend, Count Alexander Khristoforovich Benckendorff (1782-1844),
he discusses his architectural projects in Peterhof (his estate
near St. Petersburg) as well as his observations on a situation
in England in the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria.
Purchased from the Benckendorff Family Estate, on the Tulinoff
Fund, 1995
109.
John Stuart Mill (1806 1873)
Autobiography of J. S. Mill, written by himself
Autograph manuscript, 210 leaves, 1861, 1869-70
RBML
One of the most versatile British thinkers of the nineteenth
century, Mill was an incisive critic of liberalism as well
as its greatest exponent. His Autobiography, published
the year of his death, has eclipsed his political and economic
studies, such as the Essay on Liberty and Utilitarianism.
According to a note written by Mill's step-daughter Helen
Taylor on this manuscript, the work was "to be published without
alterations or omissions, within one year of my death." In
fact, it was published from a hastily made copy, and it was
not until 1924 that an edition, based on this manuscript,
considered more reliable since it is in Mill's own hand, was
first published by the Columbia University Press. The 1861
portion of the manuscript represents a heavily revised version
of an early draft done in 1851; the last forty-eight leaves
are the only draft of all but one small portion of the rest
of the Autobiography.
Gift of nine members of the Department of Philosophy: Lawrence
Buermayer, William F. Cooley, John J. Coss, Horace L. Friess,
James Gutmann, Thomas Munro, Houston Peterson, John H. Randall,
Jr., and Herbert W. Schneider, 1942
110.
K. F. von Gan
Czar Nicholas II with his family
Photograph, Tsarskoye Selo, (18 x 24 cm.), July 17, 1906
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, Corps of Pages Papers
Rare photo of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II (1868-1918)
holding his son, successor to the throne, Tsarevich Aleksei
(1904-1918). Next to him is his wife Alexandra Fiodorovna
(1972-1918) and their three daughters. This photograph was
taken during maneuvers and a military review at the Guard's
summer camp at Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg.
Gift of Colonel Meshcherinov, 1957
111.
Nicholas Murray Butler (1862 1947)
Medal, Nobel Prize for Peace, 1931
RBML, Nicholas Murray Butler Papers
Nicholas Murray Butler, as Robert A. McCaughey has stated
in his 250th anniversary history Stand Columbia, "was
the dominant personality in Columbia University's history
in the first half of the twentieth century," serving as President
from 1902 until 1945. He viewed the world, not merely Morningside
Heights, as worthy of his attention and considered himself
the last of America's "presidential" university presidents.
Even though, according to then university archivist Milton
Halsey Thomas, Butler spent the last two years of his life
directing the selected pruning of his papers for posterity,
they still amount to 600 boxes of material and 315 volumes
of newspaper clippings.
Butler was also involved with the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, serving as its president from 1925 to 1945. He used
his friendship with many world leaders, including Pope Pius
XI, in pursuit of peace and international cooperation, working
to secure the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Treaty outlawing wars. For
this work he received the Nobel Prize for peace, jointly with
Jane Addams, in 1931.
Gift of the Estate of Nicholas Murray Butler, 1947
112.
Jane Addams (1860 1935)
Twenty Years at Hull-House with Autobiographical Notes
... with Illustrations by Norah Hamilton, Hull-House, Chicago
New York: The MacMillan Company, 1910
Barnard College, Overbury Collection
Jane Addams is best known as the founder of Hull House in
Chicago, one of the first social settlements in North America.
During a trip to Europe in 1887-88 with Ellen Gates Starr,
she was inspired by a visit to the Toynbee Hall settlement
house, founded in 1884. Toynbee Hall was located in Whitechapel,
the area east of the City of London that would become notorious
for the exploits of Jack the Ripper beginning in August, 1888.
Returning to the United States, Addams and Starr acquired
a large vacant house that had been built by Charles Hull,
renaming it Hull House. This would grow to a settlement that
included thirteen buildings and a camp near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
In 1910, the year that Twenty Years at Hull House was
published, she became the first woman president of the National
Conference of Social Work. In 1920, she was instrumental in
the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union. For these
and many other endeavors, she was awarded the Nobel Prize
for peace in 1931, along with Nicholas Murray Butler.
Bequest of Bertha Van Riper Overbury, 1963
113.
Frances Perkins (1880 1965)
Draft notes of reply to F. D. Roosevelt on her nomination
to the Cabinet
Autograph manuscript notes, ca. February 25, 1933
RBML, Frances Perkins Papers
Frances Perkins was the first woman ever to become a U. S.
presidential Cabinet member, serving as Secretary of Labor
for all twelve years of the administration of Franklin D.
Roosevelt. She had been Industrial Commissioner of New York
from 1929 to 1932 while Roosevelt was Governor, and after
being elected President, he asked her to join him in Washington.
Before accepting his offer, she wrote these notes in order
to determine whether or not he would support her ideas. These
would become the most important elements of the New Deal:
including unemployment relief, public works, maximum hours,
minimum wages, child labor laws, and social security.
Gift of Frances Perkins, 1955
114.
Harrison & Abramovitz
Sketch of original plans for United Nations building
Pencil on tracing paper, (14.25 x 17.5 in.), 1947
Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Wallace Harrison Collection
The United Nations was designed by a committee of international
architects selected by Wallace Harrison. Le Corbusier from
France, Howard Robertson of England, and Oscar Niemeyer from
Brazil were among the members of this committee, of which
Harrison was the Director of Planning. The architects were
charged with planning and siting the buildings needed to house
the complex functions of the newly formed international council.
As the architects presented and discussed ideas, the concepts
were turned over to a team of renderers, headed by Hugh Ferriss,
to develop the ideas into drawings. This drawing is one of
many sketches Harrison made.
Gift of Ellen Harrison (Mrs. Wallace Harrison), 1981
115.
Mikhail Taube (1869 1961)
Reminiscences, 1900-1917 [ Fragment of a memoir]
Paris, 1954
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, Mikhail Alexandrovich Taube Papers
In 1953, Anatolii Vel'min, Parisian representative of a newly
organized Russian Archive at Columbia University, asked Baron
Mikhail Alexandrovich Taube, former Professor of International
Law at St. Petersburg University, Senator, and former Advisor
to the Imperial Minister of Public Education, to write a memoir
about everything that he had witnessed and participated in
during his long life. The Archive pledged to pay $100 US for
its first ‘commissioned memoir'. Of the three hundred
memoirs now in the Bakhmeteff Archive, over one hundred date
from the time of this ‘memoir initiative'. Baron Taube's
reminiscences will be published by the Russian Publishing
House ROSSPEN in 2005.
Purchased on the Humanity Fund, 1953
116.
Herb ert L. Matthews (1900 1977)
Interview with Fidel Castro in Sierra Maestras Mountains
Autograph manuscript notes, February 17, 1957
RBML, Herbert L. Matthews Papers
During the Cuban revolution, Fidel
Castro's forces were attacked by Batista's army at the foot
of the Sierra Maestras in eastern Cuba. A government report
claimed that forty of the rebels had been killed, including
Castro. Only a few of them escaped into the mountains, among
them Fidel, his brother Raul, and a gun-totting, asthmatic
Argentinean physician, Che Guevara. These few survived with
the help of people who lived in the mountains, while outside
the Sierra Maestras few knew of the rebels' existence.
In early 1957, Herbert Matthews
of the New York Times evaded army checkpoints, interviewed
Castro, and returned to New York. Publication of the interview
created a sensation and Cuba's minister of defense called
the story a fantasy. The New York Times published a
photo of Matthews and Castro, making the Batista regime look
foolish. With the publication of this interview Castro gained
the credibility and international support that allowed him
to overthrow Batista's government. The Matthews Papers also
include the working notes, manuscript, and typescript of his
biography of Castro, published in 1969 by Simon and Schuster.
Matthews had Castro sign one page
of his notes as further proof of the authenticity of his interview.
That portion of the page was detached, and for a time was
missing, but was eventually returned to Matthews who sent
it along to join the other pages of notes, already given to
Columbia.
Gift of Herbert L. Matthews, 1962
117.
L. S. Alexander Gumby (1885 1961)
Collection of Negroiana
Multi-media, New York, ca. 1800 - 1961
RBML, Gumby Collection
Earlier treasures of the Columbia libraries exhibits have
overlooked the achievement of Alexander Gumby, a book collector
and Harlem hairdresser who compiled a remarkable series of
scrapbooks that document African American life in America.
Gumby started his collection in 1901 at the age of sixteen,
and in 1910 began the process of gathering the material into
scrapbooks. Most of the material dates from the period 1910
until1950, the year that he presented the collection to the
Columbia University Libraries. Whole volumes are devoted to
major figures such as Booker T. Washington, Paul Robeson and
Josephine Baker. In addition to his six volumes of personal
scrapbooks, labeled "Gumby's Autobiography," that came with
the original collection, the library has recently acquired
materials that were held back as too private, detailing his
life as a gay black man.
Gift of L. S. Alexander Gumby, 1950
118.
Kate Millett (b. 1934)
Sexual Politics [Submitted in partial fulfillment of
the Ph.D.]
Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1970
RBML
In her groundbreaking Columbia University dissertation, Kate
Millett proposed an end to patriarchy. Using passages from
Henry Miller, Jean Genet and Norman Mailer, Millett illustrated
how men use sex to degrade women. Millett assailed romantic
love ("a means of emotional manipulation which the male is
free to exploit") and called for an end to monogamous marriage
and the family. The late 60's and early 70's became the second
wave of the fight for equal rights for women. At that time
woman were only 3% of the lawyers in the country and 7% of
the doctors, earning 59% of the salaries given to men for
similar jobs. Millet used the $30,000 that she earned for
the initial publication of Sexual Politics to establish
the Women's Art Colony Farm for writers and visual artists.
Copy submitted for the Ph.D., 1970
119.
Thurgood Marshall (1908 1993)
Transcript of Oral History Interview
New York: Columbia University, Oral History Research Office,
1977
Oral History Research Office
The Columbia University Oral History Research Office is the
oldest and largest organized oral history program in the world.
Founded in 1948 by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Allan
Nevins, the oral history collection now contains nearly 8,000
taped memoirs, and nearly 1,000,000 pages of transcript. These
memoirs include interviews with a wide variety of historical
figures, including Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American
justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, appointed by President
Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967. Some interviews, conducted in the
late 1940s, contain recollections dating back to the second
administration of Grover Cleveland. An interview with Charles
C. Burlingham conducted in 1949 opens with a discussion of
the drafts riots during the U. S. Civil War. This transcript
of Thurgood Marshall's oral history interview, conducted by
Ed Edwin in Washington, D.C. in February, 1977, captures something
of his unique presence, even on paper.
The Oral History Research Office has never confined its work
to one area of historical experience or to one region. It
is the only oral history program in the country which conducts
interviews over a broad range of fields and areas. Thus it
has attracted scholars from around the world, whose research
has examined almost every aspect of our recent past. The focus
of the collection is United States political and cultural
history. However, there are large projects in the history
of China and Argentine, and some scattered interviews on the
histories of other countries. Each year approximately 200
to 300 interviews are added to the collection through the
efforts of the OHRO itself and by donation. These interviews
generally fall into two categories: longer biographical memoirs
and shorter interviews focused on specific topics or experiences.
120.
Harrison E. Salisbury (1908 1993)
China Diary Tiananmen
Spiral bound notebook, Beijing, June 2 - ***, 1989
RBML, Harrison E. Salisbury Papers
The American journalist Harrison E. Salisbury was well-known
for his reporting and authorship of books on the Soviet Union.
A distinguished correspondent and editor for The New York
Times, he was the first American reporter to visit Hanoi
during the Vietnam War. In 1989, at age 81, Salisbury journeyed
to China to collaborate on a documentary marking forty years
of the Chinese Peoples Republic. His assignment by Japan's
NHK TV coincided with the events in Beijing during the first
days of June, 1989. Salisbury found himself in a hotel room
one block away from Tiananmen Square, arriving the day before
student demonstrators and government troops met for their
bloody confrontation. His book, Tiananmen Diary: Thirteen
Days in June, published later that year, records not only
the terror and confusion in Beijing, but also the reaction
in the countryside, where Salisbury traveled in the aftermath
of the tragedy.
Gift of the Estate of Harrison E. Salisbury, 1993
Theology and Religion
121.
Aurelius Isidoros (4th century CE)
Petition to Dioskoros Caeso
Papyrus, in Greek, Karanis, 324 CE
RBML, Papyrus Col. inv. 187
This petition by Aurelius Isaidoros, the son of Ptolemaios,
from the village of Karanis, to Dioskoros Caeso, praepositus
of the 5th pagus, is among the earliest known documents relating
to the history of the early Christian church. It contains
Isidoros's vivid account of how cattle owned by Pamounis and
Harpalos had damaged his crops, and how their cow had "grazed
in the same place so thoroughly that my husbandry had become
useless." He continues: "I caught the cow and was leading
it up to the village when they met me in the fields with a
big club, threw me to the ground, rained blows upon me and
took away the cow ... and if I had not chanced to obtain help
from the deacon Antonius and the monk Isaac, who happened
by, they would probably have finished me off completely."
Images of this petition, along with the translation used here,
in addition to entries for all of Columbia's papyrus holdings,
can be found on the Advanced Papyrological Information System
(APIS), a multi-institutional database.
Purchased from Dr. Askren, through H. I. Bell, 1924
122.
Anthology of Church Dogma
Manuscript on vellum, Southern France, second third of the
9th century
RBML, Plimpton Ms. 58
This codex is composed of some twenty pieces of text, as if
it were the casual compilation of an owner-scribe, copying
out passages of beauty or interest. Scholars suggest, however,
that the volume constitutes an intentionally formed sequence,
since six other manuscripts, all of the 9th century, repeat
the same series of texts. One text draws our attention: it
is an extract of a letter written ca. 798 by Alcuin to the
future emperor, Charlemagne. It ends, in the anthologies but
in no other copies, with the wish that the recipient's power
grow and prosper. Was the compiler of the anthology a member
of Charlesmagne's court circle? Following straight on after
the pious closing of the letter is an astronomical observation
on the movement of the planet Mars during the summer of 798.
The wish and the astronomy were copied as a unit, in alternating
lines of red and black.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
123.
Quran
3rd section, in muhaqqaq script with Persian interlinear
translation
Manuscript on paper, copied by the calligrapher Mes`ud and
illuminated by Mahfuz, two sons of `Abd al-Malek, scribe of
Ghiyath, 91 ff., 657 A. H. (1259 CE)
RBML, Smith Oriental Ms. 263
Along with his magnificent collection of primarily western
printed books and manuscripts on the history of mathematics
and astronomy, David Eugene Smith gave to Columbia a number
of Arabic and Persian manuscripts, including a number of Qurans
and Quran fragments. This third volume of the Quran, from
a set of thirty, is similar to volumes from the later Abbasid
period in the Iranian-Iraqi tradition such as the eleventh-century
Quran manuscript by Ibn al-Bawwab in the Chester Beatty Library,
dated 1001.
The Persian interlinear translation is in a version of naskh
script and appears in clusters of words and phrases, hanging
at a forty-degree angle beneath the corresponding Arabic phrase.
The muhaqqaq, used for the Arabic lines, was a favored
script for the large Qurans of the 14th and15th centuries.
Here, the majestic muhaqqaq, outlined in gold, allows
only three lines per borderless page. In a reversal, the vocalizations
are marked in gold that is highlighted by black. Other aids
to pronunciation are marked in blue ink. The dots of the letters
are black, nearly perfect circles. The text is punctuated
with roundel verse endings illuminated in gold, brown and
blue. Larger versions of these mark the end of every tenth
verse, as well as the points of prostration, in the wide margins.
An illuminated teardrop-shaped roundel in the margin also
marks every fifth verse.
Gift of David Eugene Smith, 1931
124.
Lexicographical Works
Manuscript, Nestorian, on paper, 19th century
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Syriac Ms. 19
The Syriac language was based on the East Aramaic dialect
of Edessa, present-day Sanliurfa in Southeastern Turkey, which
became one of the chief centers of Christianity in the Middle
East at the end of the 2nd century. The Burke Library
at Union Theological Seminary houses a significant number
of Syriac manuscripts, the earliest dating from the 10th-11th
century CE. This volume contains two works that show the differences
between words written with the same letters.
125.
Antiphonal
Manuscript on vellum, Perugia, Italy, 1473
RBML, Plimpton Ms. 41
Payment records survive to document the date, the scribe,
and the miniaturist of this antiphonal: it was copied in 1473
by one Don Alvise, and the artist was Giapeco Caporali. It
is one of a set of four antiphonals: the present book covers
the Sanctorale from the vigil of Andrew (29 November) through
John and Paul (26 June); a second volume finishes the Sanctorale,
and the Temporale occupies another two. The other three volumes
of the set are in Perugia to this day. All bear the characteristic
ownership note and call number inscribed at the foot of the
page: "This antiphonal belongs to the congregation of St.
Justina (the saint with the martyr's palm in the roundel in
the upper margin), of the order of St. Benedict (in his black
robes in the roundel to the right), assigned to the use of
the monks of St. Peter's in Perugia (Peter with his keys is
in the bottom roundel)." The historiated initial depicts the
calling of Andrew, as he leaves his boat to follow Jesus (Mark.
1:16-18). Though this antiphonal is bound in diced Russia
leather dating from the 17th century, it retains
most of the original 15th century metal ornaments
(including the stamps of the Holy Monogram, the Agnus Dei,
a sunburst, and a flower).
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
126.
Biblia Germanica
Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1483
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Frederick Ferris
Thompson Collection
Anton Koberger's Biblia Germanica, the ninth German
Bible to be printed, appeared in 1483, the year that Martin
Luther was born. It contained a set of 109 woodcuts illustrating
major incidents of biblical history by the "Master of the
Cologne Bibles." This set became the standard for German biblical
illustration through the 16th century. Koberger
(ca. 1445 1513) became one of the most important printers
in fifteenth-century Germany. He may have operated as many
as twenty-four presses and produced some 250 works between
ca. 1471 and 1504.
Gift Mrs. Mary Clark Thompson, 1923
127.
Book of Hours, use of Paris
Manuscript on parchment, 197 leaves, Paris, ca. 1485
RBML, Phoenix Collection
The artist of this book of hours is known as the Chief Associate
of Maître François or sometimes as the Master
of Jacques de Besançon. Large numbers of works are
attributed to his hand, in particular books of hours. He painted
these with unvarying competence but also with constancy in
his choice of subject matter and arrangement: the same compositions
are repeated again and again. Here on ff. 194v-195 we see
his usual martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria: the wheel
on which she would have been tormented stands ruined behind
her, and the frustrated executioner has finally opted for
beheading. On the facing page, a somewhat less frequent scene
shows dainty Genevieve picking her way along a country path;
as a tiny devil with large bellows attempts to extinguish
the flame of her taper, an angel constantly relights it.
Bequest of Stephen Whitney Phoenix, 1881
128.
Amelontinus
Carthusian Nocturnale
Manuscript on parchment, Germany, in or after 1514-15
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Ms. 111
"I look from afar, and behold I see the Power of God, coming
like as a cloud to cover the land . . ." This response to
the first reading in Advent is what normally determines the
iconography of its historiated initial. It seems to have been
the inspiration for the present illumination, but here, instead,
the vision of God's power is incarnated in the Virgin and
Child.
While the iconography is unusual on medieval terms, the late
date of production of this manuscript may explain a loosening
of traditional image patterns. The manuscript was copied in
or after 1514/15, when the Carthusian order received authorization
to celebrate the feast of their founder, St. Bruno. In the
calendar of this manuscript, in the hand of the original scribe,
we find the feasts of Bruno (6 October), Hugh of Lincoln (a
bishop of that order; 17 November), and the feast of the relics,
celebrated by Carthusians on 8 November. The three feasts
are to be honored cum candelis, ‘with candles,'
just as we might put candles on a birthday cake to signal
the importance of the day.
The codex itself is a celebration of Milton McC. Gatch, librarian
of the Burke Library for many years. The library's Friends
purchased the manuscript in his name, in recognition of his
studies on Leander van Ess (1772 1847), a German who
had owned this same manuscript some one hundred and fifty
years earlier.
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Acquired by the Friends of the Burke Library in Honor of M.
McC. Gatch, 1995
129.
Martin Luther (1483 1546)
Der Prophet Jona
Augsburg: Johannes Knobloch, 1526
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Leander van Ess
Collection
Jonah was the first of the prophetic books Luther translated.
Others appeared separately over the next few years, before
a complete translation of the Prophets was issued in 1532.
According to Luther, Jonah was "well suited for the present
time" immediately following the Peasants' War because it taught
trust in God and reminded readers of Christ's death and resurrection.
It was printed sixteen times in 1526 alone, thirteen in German
and three in Latin. Reformation pamphlets commonly had woodcuts
on their covers or title pages. The woodcut on the title page
of this unbound Augsburg printing of the pamphlet shows Jonah
at various points in his story.
The library of Leander van Ess, a Roman Catholic priest, was
particularly strong in materials on the German Reformation,
and contained a number of Luther's "Flugschriften," literally
"flying writings," ephemeral pamphlets such as this one. He
kept these pamphlets in a separate part of his collection
and they have been reconstructed on the basis of numbered
stickers which remain on most of them. A man far ahead of
his time, van Ess instituted a number of reforms in his Marburg
church, including the use of vernacular throughout the service,
turning the priest to face the congregation, and giving detailed
explanations of what was going on as mass was celebrated.
He was a very popular preacher and his sermons attracted both
Catholics and Protestants.
Purchased with the Leander van Ess Collection, 1838
130.
Babylonian Talmud
Manuscript on paper, 152 ff., copied by David ben Me'oded
of San‘a, Yemenite Rabbinic, 1546
RBML, Hebrew Manuscripts
Although the two versions of the Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud
completed about 400 C.E. and the Babylonian Talmud completed
one hundred years later, constitute the primary body of Jewish
law and thought, its text exists in only one complete manuscript
copy of each version, and even incomplete copies are scarce.
This one, copied in the 16th century in Yemen, is known as
the "Columbia Talmud." It, and a companion volume containing
the Megillah, was copied by David ben Me'oded of San‘a,
who appears to come from a family of scribes. The text has
been found to differ from all of the other known manuscript
copies, and from the first printed edition of 1516, in a large
number of cases, establishing beyond doubt that it came from
an independent source.
These two volumes came to Columbia along with a collection
of Jewish manuscripts, in Hebrew and Arabic, acquired by Professor
Richard J. H. Gottheil for the library in 1890. With the financial
support of Temple Emanu-El in New York, Gottheil had been
appointed professor of Rabbinic Literature and Semitic Languages
in 1887. It was the first endowed chair for Jewish studies
in the United States. The foundation of the library's Judaica
resources also came from Temple Emanu-El, through their gift
of 2,500 printed books and 50 manuscripts from their library
in 1892. Today, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds
more than 1,000 manuscripts in Hebrew and a variety of European
languages, as well as 28 fifteenth-century and 300 sixteenth-century
printed Hebrew books.
Purchased from Ephraim Deinard, 1890
131.
Gospel lectionary
Manuscript on parchment, Spain, second half of the 16th
century
RBML,
Western Ms. 29
This book containing the gospel readings for the mass is an
example of the influence of printed books on manuscripts during
the 16th century. According to the prefatory statement
on the left, the text of this manuscript was corrected on
the basis of comparison with a Roman missal printed in Venice
in 1577 and then compared to another missal printed in Salamanca
in 1588. The style of illumination shows Flemish influence
in the naturalistic fruits and flowers on a gold ground. The
text appears as if in a frame hung against a tapestry of lush
vegetation. On the right is the gospel for the first Sunday
of Advent, Luke 21. This binding is contemporary calf binding
over wooden boards, gilt stamped, with gilt edges.
Gift of John M. Crawford, Jr., 1971
132.
The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New:
Newly Translated out of the originall tongues & …
revised, by his Maiesties speciall Cōmandement
London: Robert Barker, 1611
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Frederick Ferris
Thompson Collection
The King James Version or the Authorized Version of the English
Bible was made by a team of translators appointed by James
I. It was first published in this edition of 1611 and remained
the standard English Bible until the nineteenth century. This
copy, with a contemporary English binding, is one of the treasures
of the Burke Library's Thompson Collection.
Gift of Mrs. Mary Clark Thompson, 1923
133.
Hymnal
Manuscript on parchment, 399 ff., signed by Nikoghayos, Crimea,
Kafay, 1646
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Armenian Ms. 1
The binding on this hymnal is a fine example of traditional
Armenian bookbinding techniques that were still being used
in 17th-century Crimea, including a loop board
attachment, cloth doublures, traditional endbands, blind-tooled
leather fore-edge flaps, and a vertically ruled spine. What
is particularly notable is that the illuminator and scribe,
Nikoghayos, also bound the book. The text is an abbreviated
version of the Armenian Hymnal (Sharaknots‘),
with decorated headpieces at the major divisions of the book.
134.
Solomon Stoddard (1643 1729)
Common Place Book and Sermon Notes
Manuscript on paper, 1660-64
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Ms. 104
Solomon Stoddard was born in Boston in 1643 and graduated
from Harvard College in 1662. From 1667 to 1674 Stoddard served
as the first librarian at Harvard. This volume contains his
college notes. These include the name of the instructor for
the day, as well as the scripture that was expounded in class
and then applied to seventeenth-century society. Using what
would have been the blank portions of the pages, and turning
the volume upside down, Stoddard also used the volume to make
notes for sermons that he preached during the early years
of his ministry at Northampton, where he served until his
death in 1729. His grandson, Jonathan Edwards, was ordained
associate pastor of the Northampton church in 1727.
135.
The African Union Hymn book, designed as a companion for
the pious, and friends of all denominations … compiled
by Peter Spencer
Wilmington: Published by P. Spencer, for the African Union
Church, 1822
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary
An extremely rare early hymnal for the African American Church,
this is the only copy recorded in the national databases.
The "Union Church of Africans," also called the "African Union
Church," was chartered by Peter Spencer (1782 1843)
in Willmington, Delaware in 1813. Now known as the African
Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church and Connection,
usually called the "A.U.M.P. Church," it is the oldest independent
black denomination in the United States. Although it began
as a Methodist Protestant church, by the 1880s it considered
changing to an episcopal structure, a change that was not
formally adopted until 1967 when it consecrated its two leaders
as bishops.
136.
Amanda Smith (1837 1915)
An Autobiography: the story of the Lord's dealing with Mrs.
Amanda Smith, the Colored Evangelist; containing an account
of her life and work of faith, and her travels in America,
England, Ireland, Scotland, India and Africa, as an Independent
Missionary
Chicago: Meyer and Brother, 1893
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary
Amanda Smith's Autobiography reflects a remarkable career.
This is the first edition of her often-reprinted narrative.
The Burke Library was supported by the interest and knowledge
of the late Professor James M. Washington in building this
area of the collection.
137.
Collection of magical prayers and "images"
Manuscript on parchment, 191 folios, copied for Akāla
Wald Baqqala, early 20th century
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Ethiopic Ms. 5
This collection of Ethiopian magical prayers includes those
that can be used against demons for each day of the week,
and prayers for overcoming enemies. It also includes "images,"
an "image" being a hymn in honor of a saint in which the different
members of his or her body are addressed in successive stanges.
The book is bound in wodden boards covered in reddish tooled
leather in which crosses have been worked. The leather carrying
case was used to facilitate easy and safe transport. The manuscript's
elegant script is enhanced by two kinds of decoration: abstract,
linear motifs that highlight textual transitions and figural
representations. This is a fine exemplar of an African Christian
culture to which the African American community has, from
earliest days, looked as a source and model.
138.
Emily Grace Briggs (1867 1944)
The Deaconess in the Ancient and Medieval Church: A Study
in the History of Christian Institutions
Autograph anuscript, written in partial fulfillment of the
Ph.D., Union Theological Seminary, 1913 1925
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Archives, Emily
Grace Briggs Papers
In 1897, Emilie Grace Briggs became the first woman to earn
a degree from Union Theological Seminary. Union was one of
the first institutions of theological education to admit women
students in great quantity and to hire and tenure women faculty.
Briggs later enrolled in the Doctoral program at Union, and
wrote this dissertation, now among her papers held by the
Burke Library Archives. Between 1913 and 1925, as women elsewhere
were marching for the right to vote, she revised her manuscript
for publication as the final step toward receiving her Ph.D.
degree. She was unable to find a publisher, and she and her
work were largely forgotten.
Half a century later, with the re-emergence of the womens
movement, large numbers of women entered seminaries, persuing
careers in theological education, positions of church leadership,
and religious scholarship. In 1997, one hundred years after
Briggs had received her first degree, she inspired the founding
of the Archives of Women in Theological Scholarship (AWTS)
at Union. At that time, no institution had a program devoted
to preserving the records of women theologians. The inaugural
collection received by the Archives came from Phyllis Trible,
formerly Unions Baldwin Professor of Sacred Literature. The
archive now houses 17 personal and institutional collections
that document a diverse range of individuals and groups.
139.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 1945)
Application to Union Seminary
Printed document, completed by the author and signed in ink,
Berlin, February 12, 1930
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Archives, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer Manuscript Collection
Dietrich Bonheoffer was raised in the academic circles of the
University of Berlin where his father was a professor of psychiatry
and neurology. He studied theology at the universities of
Tubingen and Berlin from 1923 to 1927, and served for a year
as assistant pastor for a German-speaking congregation in
Barcelona. With this document he then applied for one year
of graduate study at Union Theological Seminary that began
in September, 1930. He returned to Germany the following year.
With the rise to power of the Nazis in 1933, Bonhoeffer was
a vocal opponent of the regime, speaking out in particular
aginst its policies of anti-Semitism. His stance became politicized
in 1938 after he became involved through his brother-in-law,
Hans von Dohnanyi, in a plot to overthrow Hitler. Although
he returned to New York in 1939, he stayed for only two weeks,
writing to Unions Seminary's Reinhold Niebuhr: "I will have
no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian
life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials
of this time with my people." Following the failure of the
July 20, 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, Bonheoffer was
arrested and excecuted on April 9, 1945. His Letters and
Papers from Prison, published in 1951, contain some of
his most profound writing.
140.
Elizaveta Kuzmina-Karavaeva Skobtsova (1891 1945)
Untitled
Watercolor, (21 x 27 cm.), Paris, [1930s]
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, Mother Maria Papers
Elizaveta Iurievna Kuzmina-Karavaeva Skobtsova, later known
as Mother Maria, was a Russian Orthodox religious thinker,
poet and artist. Her multi-faceted legacy includes articles,
poems, art, and drama. In the 1910s she was part of the literary
milieu of St. Petersburg and was a member of the Socialist
Revolutionary Party. She fled Russia soon after the Bolshevik's
takeover and lived in Paris where she became a nun. In 1935,
she participated in organizing the so-called Orthodox Action,
which was designed to help Russian immigrants in France. She
and her fellow-workers from Orthodox Action opened a house
for homeless and sick immigrants in Paris. During the Nazi
occupation of the city, the house was transformed into a refuge
for Jews and displaced persons. Mother Maria and her son were
arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and died in the Ravensbruck
camp in Germany. Mother Maria's selfless devotion to people
and her death as a martyr will never be forgotten. In 2004,
the Holy Synod confirmed the glorification of Mother Maria.
Gift of Sofia Pilenko, 1955
141.
Thomas Merton (1915 -- 1968)
The Seven Storey Mountain
Typed manuscript, with Merton's emendations in ink, 649 pp.,
Trappist,
Kentucky, 1948
RBML, Thomas Merton Papers
Thomas Merton graduated from Columbia College in 1938, and
received his Master's in English in 1939. He had converted
to Catholicism while at Columbia, but surprised his many friends
and professors, including Mark Van Doren, by becoming a Trappist
monk, a member of the Cisterian Order of the Strict Observance,
in 1941. He was later ordained a priest, taking the name of
Father M. Louis. Among Merton's most widely read writings
is his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, shown
here in the original setting-copy for the first edition. In
addition to Merton's own changes, the typescript also has
editor Robert Giroux's corrections in pencil and a copy editor's
marking in red pencil. Less well known material in Columbia's
Merton Papers are most of his lecture and conference notes
which he used while serving as master of scholastics and,
later, master of novices, prior to his untimely death in Bangkok
in 1968.
Gift of Robert Giroux, 1991
Health Sciences
142.
Articella nuperrime impressa cum quamplurimis tractatibus
pristine impressioni superadditis
Lyons: Jean de la Place, for Bartholomew Troth, 1515
Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection
Nothing certain is known of the origin or the use of the Hippocratic
Oath in the ancient world. The first Latin translations appeared
in the 12th century. However, the Oath only became
part of the European medical tradition when it was included
in the Articella, a popular compilation of Greek and
Arabic medical texts in Latin intended as a handy guide for
the practitioner.
The first printed edition of Articella appeared about
1476; the second edition of 1483 was the first to include
the Oath. In this 1515 edition the Hippocratic Oath begins
in the middle of folio xvii.
Purchased with the John Green Curtis Library, 1914
143.
Jacopo Berengario da Carpi (1460? 1530?)
Commentaria cum amplissimis additionibus super anatomia
Mundini
Bologna: Hieronymus de Benedictis, 1521
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection
Human dissection was reintroduced into the study of anatomy
for the first time in 1500 years by the Italian universities
around 1300. Among the first notable anatomy teachers was
Mondino de' Luzzi (d. circa 1318) whose Anothomia, published in 1316, would be a popular textbook for the next 200
years. Berengario da Carpi, one of Mondino's successors at
the University of Bologna, produced this massive commentary
on the Anothomia in 1521. It is the first anatomical
text to contain illustrations based on human dissections,
of which Berengario performed hundreds. The striking woodcuts
are, unfortunately, too abstract to be useful to the student.
Although both Mondinus and Berengario criticized the anatomical
knowledge of the ancients, they did not succeed in overturning
their authority, especially that of Galen, the 2nd
century A.D. physician whose works defined medical orthodoxy
in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance.
Purchased with the George Sumner Huntington Library, 1928
144.
Hans von Gersdorff (1455 1529)
Feldtbuch der Wundartzney
Strasbourg: Johannes Schott, 1528
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection
First published in 1517, the Feldtbuch was addressed to the military surgeon.
It focuses on treating wounds, amputating limbs, and extracting
bullets and arrows, though it also has chapters on subjects
as varied as anatomy, medications, and leprosy.
The illustrations, attributed to Hans Wechtlin, are well known
for their realistic depictions of surgical operations and
are often handcolored, as in this copy. Its pictures, along
with its practical advice, made the Feldtbuch one of the most popular and
plagiarized surgical works of its time. The first edition
showed the first printed picture of an amputation.
Purchased with the George Sumner Huntington Library, 1928
145.
Andreas Vesalius (1514 1564)
De humani corporis fabrica libri septem
Basel: Joannis Oporini, 1543
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection
Vesalius's Fabrica is an epochal work, the starting
point of the modern study of anatomy and, by extension, of
modern Western medicine. Besides its importance to medicine,
it is a masterpiece of the book arts and a landmark in the
organization of knowledge. At some point, probably while finishing
his medical education at Padua, Vesalius realized that Galen,
the "Prince of Anatomists," had never actually dissected a
human body. With conceptual blinders removed, he undertook
his own comprehensive survey of the body, completing the work
in July 1542 after two years' labor. He was twenty-seven at
the time.
The celebrated frontispiece is a visual representation of Vesalius's
belief that knowledge of the body could be gained only through
the direct experience of dissection by the anatomist. Vesalius
is shown at the center of an imaginary anatomical theater
performing a dissection with his own hands while a vast crowd
looks on. The barber-surgeons who previously opened the cadavers
at dissections have been banished to the floor, where they
quarrel over who will sharpen Vesalius's razors. The dogs
on the right and the monkey on the left can be seen as a sly
reference to Galen's animal dissections. The Health Sciences
Library is one of the few to own four copies of this first
edition.
Purchased with the John Green Curtis Library, 1914
146.
Giovanni Andrea dalla Croce (1509? 1580)
Chirurgiae libri septem
Venice: Giordano Ziletto, 1573
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection, Jerome P. Webster
Library of Plastic Surgery
Croce's Chirurgiae is notable for its description of
all the surgical instruments used before and during his own
time. It also has the earliest known illustration of neurological
surgery in progress. Shown here is a trephination, the drilling
into the skull to relieve pressure. It accurately depicts
the operation taking place in a private home, with family
members and servants (as well as the family cat and a mouse)
present.
Bequest of Jerome P. Webster, M.D., 1974
147.
Gaspare Tagliacozzi (1545 1599)
De curtorum chirurgia per insitionem
Venice: Gaspare Bindoni the Younger, 1597
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection, Jerome P. Webster
Library of Plastic Surgery
Tagliacozzi, professor of surgery and anatomy at the University
of Bologna, published De curtorum chirurgia to instruct
surgeons on all they needed to know about reconstructing noses
and ears. It is the first published work on plastic surgery.
The work's twenty-two plates depict every step of the process
of rhinoplasty and are among the best-known illustrations
in the history of medicine. Shown here is the patient, immobilized
in a vest of Tagliacozzi's devising, waiting for the skin
graft taken from the arm to adhere to the nose. The process
was supposed to take two to three weeks.
De curtorum is the centerpiece of the great library
on the history of plastic surgery assembled by Dr. Jerome
P. Webster (1888 1974), professor of surgery at Columbia
and first director of the division of plastic surgery at the
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. The Webster Library
holds seven copies of the first edition of this work as well
as two copies of the extremely rare pirated version printed
in the same year.
Bequest of Jerome P. Webster, M.D., 1974
148.
William Harvey (1578 1657)
De motu cordis & sanguinis in animalibus, anatomica
exercitatio
Leiden: ex officina Ioannis Maire, 1639
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection
Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood is generally
regarded as the most important breakthrough in the history
of medicine. It is also the starting point of modern physiology.
It had long been believed that blood was continually created
afresh in the liver, which then sent it out to be absorbed
by the body. Harvey, though experimentation, observation,
and measurement of blood flow, realized that the circulation
was a closed system in which the heart played the central
role.
Although Harvey lived to see his theory generally accepted
by the medical world, it first met considerable opposition.
This third edition of De motu cordis which is actually only
the second complete one prints the text interspersed
with a point-by-point counter-argument by Emilio Parisano,
one of Harvey's most vocal opponents. Harvey's professor at
Padua, Girolamo Fabrizio [Fabricius], had discovered the valves
of the veins but had not understood their purpose. When Harvey
wanted to demonstrate that the valves directed the venous
blood flow back to the heart, he simply adapted a plate from
one of his former professor's works, De venarum ostiolis.
This is the only illustration in any edition of De motu
cordis.
Purchased with the John Green Curtis Library, 1914
149.
Robert Hooke (1635 1703)
Micrographia: or, Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute
Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses
London: Jo. Martyn and Ja. Allestry, 1665
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection
Hooke constructed one of the first compound microscopes. Micrographia is an account of his discoveries using it and is the first book
devoted entirely to microscopic observations. It also introduced
the word "cell" to describe the structure of tissue.
The spectacular plates are renowned for their clarity and detail.
It seems most are derived from Hooke's own drawings, though
a few may be the work of Christopher Wren. This is of a bluebottle.
Purchased with the John Green Curtis Library, 1914
150.
King's College Board of Trustees
Draft of medical diploma of Robert Tucker
Manuscript on paper, New York, May 15, 1770
RBML, Columbia College Papers
Though Columbia's medical school, now known as the College
of Physicians and Surgeons, is the second oldest in the United
States, having been founded in 1767, two years after the Medical
College of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania
College of Medicine, Columbia has the honor of having conferred
the country's first doctor of medicine degree on Robert Tucker
in 1770. While Tucker's diploma appears to no longer survive,
this draft preserves the text, if not the format, of one of
the founding documents of American medicine.
151.
John Hunter (1728 1793)
The Natural History of the Human Teeth
London: J. Johnson, 1771
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection
Hunter was one of the greatest surgeons of the eighteenth
century. Though not a dentist, he wrote several works that
laid the foundation for much future dental research. His first
major treatise was this meticulous study of the mouth, jaws,
and teeth, which described with unparalleled accuracy the
growth of the jaws and their relationship to the muscles of
mastication. The work also did much to popularize the terms
cuspids, bicuspids, molars, and incisors. The illustrations
by the Dutch-born artist Jan van Riemsdyck are renowned both
for their accuracy and for their beauty.
Purchased with the George Sumner Huntington Library, 1928
152.
James Graham (1745 1794)
Doctor Bard's Lectures upon the Palsey
New York, February 11, 1774
Health Sciences Library, Graham Family Papers
The King's College Medical School opened in the fall of 1767,
boasting an impressive faculty of New York's leading medical
men. Among them was Samuel Bard (1742-1821), who served as
dean and would later win fame as physician to George Washington
during his first term as President. The medical school, along
with the rest of the college, closed in 1776 as a result of
the disruptions of the American Revolution. These notes of
Bard's lectures taken by medical student James Graham in 1774
are the only ones from the pre-revolutionary school now in
the possession of the University.
Graham did not receive a medical degree from King's, but he
later practiced medicine in Walkill, New York, and his son
George was a member of the medical class of 1819.
Purchased with the assistance of W.W. Palmer, M.D., 1940
153.
Luigi Galvani (1737 1798)
De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius
Bologna: Ex typographia Instituti Scientiarum, 1791
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection
Galvani, professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna,
was studying the nervous system of the frog when he noted
that distant electrical discharges would cause violent muscular
contractions in a dissected frog if the lumbar nerve was in
contact with a metal instrument. He called this force "animal
electricity" but it quickly became known across Europe as
"galvanism."
Galvani was in error the phenomena he observed was caused
by the generation of electricity by different metals in a
moist atmosphere but his mistake had manifold consequences.
The idea of galvanism forms the background to Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein, while the physicist Alessandro Volta,
in disproving Galvani's theory, was led to the invention of
the electric battery.
Galvani first published his findings in the proceedings of
the Bologna Academy and Institute of Sciences and Arts in
March 1791. A very small edition of the paper was then printed
to be distributed to Galvani's friends. Though the Health
Sciences Library owns one of that rare edition, the copy on
display here was part of a printing later that same year designated
for public sale. The plate shows Galvani's laboratory with
the dissected frog's legs, an electrostatic machine (left),
and a Leyden jar (right).
Purchased with the John Green Curtis Library, 1914
154.
René Théophile Hyacinthe Laennec (1781
1826)
De l'Auscultation Médiate, ou Traité du Diagnostic
des Maladies des Poumons et du Coeur fondé principalement
sur ce Nouveau Moyen d'Exploration.
Paris: Brosson & Chaudé, 1819
Vol. 1 of 2 Volumes
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection
Laennec discovered "mediate" auscultation in 1816 while examining
a female patient whose stoutness made "direct" auscultation
where the physician placed his ear on the chest of
the patient impractical. Taking a piece of stiff paper,
Laennec rolled it into a tube and placed one end on the patient's
chest and the other against his ear. He had inadvertently
invented the stethoscope.
This first edition of Laennec's De l'Auscultation Médiate
[On Mediate Auscultation] depicts his stethoscope after
three years of experimentation. A wooden tube about 30 centimeters
long and about 6.75 millimeters in diameter, the instrument
was constructed in two pieces that could be unscrewed for
easier portability. Readers could purchase the instrument
directly from publisher at first, but the simplicity of the
design allowed it to be replicated by any competent woodworker.
Purchase, 2002
155a.
Florence Nightingale (1820 1910)
Notes on Nursing: What it is, and What it is Not
London: Harrison, [1860]
Health Sciences Library, Auchincloss Florence Nightingale
Collection
Notes on Nursing is Nightingale's best-known work and
the most influential book ever written on nursing. In simple,
direct prose, Nightingale set forth her principles of patient
care, which stressed cleanliness, fresh air, warmth, light,
and proper diet. A popular book, Notes sold over 15,000
copies within months. Nightingale inscribed this copy in its
year of publication.
Gift of Althea Andrews, 1997
155b.
A. A. Turner
Portrait of Florence Nightingale
New York: D. Appleton & Co., undated
Carte-de-visite , signed, 10 cm. x 6 cm.
Health Sciences Library, Auchincloss Florence Nightingale
Collection
Cartes-de-visite were small, mass-produced cards with
photographic portraits of notable people. They were very popular
in the mid-19th century and frequently kept as souvenirs.
The production of cartes-de-visite with Nightingale's
portrait attests to her fame. Although Nightingale signed
this card in 1867, the photograph was likely taken in London
soon after her return from the Crimea.
156.
The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the New
London: Charles Bill,
1693
Health Sciences Library, Auchincloss Florence Nightingale
Collection
This Bible belonging to the Nightingale family passed down
to their most famous member, Florence Nightingale (1820-1910).
Though deeply Christian, Nightingale did not feel bound by
any particular dogma, and was influenced by Anglican, Roman
Catholic, Lutheran, and Unitarian beliefs. She signed this
family heirloom at the beginning of the New Testament.
Gift of Hugh Auchincloss, M.D., 1942
157.
Jean-Martin Charcot (1825 1893)
Ueber die Localisationen der Gehirn-Krankheiten
Stuttgart: Adolf Bonz & Co., 1878
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection, Freud Library
In 1885, Freud studied with Jean-Martin Charcot, a charismatic
lecturer and outstanding clinician, at the famous Salpêtrière
hospital in Paris. Freud greatly admired Charcot, even naming
his first son Jean Martin in Charcot's honor. This copy of
the German translation of Charcot's lectures on the localization
of brain disorders bears Freud's ownership signature.
The New York State Psychiatric Library acquired part of Freud's
library in 1939, after Freud had to flee Nazi-occupied Vienna.
It has been housed in the Health Sciences Library since 1978.
158.
Sigmund Freud (1856 1939)
Totem und Tabu
Autograph document, Essay II, section 3, Vienna, ca. 1912-13
Health Sciences Library, Rare Book Collection
In Totem und Tabu, a study in cultural anthropology
and psychoanalysis, Freud made use of Sir James Frazer's The
Golden Bough to theorize about early human culture. He
believed that the Oedipus complex was at the root of civilization's
origin—when, Freud asserted, a dominant patriarch was
slain and eaten by a primal horde.
Freud gave the manuscript of part II, sections 3 and 4, to
his Hungarian disciple Sandor Ferenczi. After Ferenczi's death
his family held the manuscript, which was nearly destroyed
in 1945 when the family home caught fire during the Soviet
capture of Budapest. The manuscript later passed to Ferenczi's
literary executor, Dr. Michael Balint, whose son, Dr. John
Balint, later donated it to the Health Sciences Library.
Gift of John Balint, M.D., 1998
History of Science, Mathematics, Technology
159.
Cuneiform Tablet
Larsa (Tell Senkereh), Iraq, ca. 1820 1762 BCE
RBML, Plimpton Cuneiform 322
"Plimpton 322" is known throughout the world to those interested
in the history of mathematics as a result of the interest
that Otto Neugebauer, chair of Brown University's History
of Mathematics Department, took in the tablet. In the early
1940s, he and his assistant Abraham Sachs interpreted it as
containing what is known in mathematics as Pythagorean triples,
integer solutions of the equation a2 + b2
= c2, a thousand years before the age of Pythagoras.
Recently, Dr. Eleanor Robson, an authority on Mesopotamian
mathematics at the University of Cambridge, has made the case
for a more mundane solution, arguing that the tablet was created
as a teacher's aid, designed for generating problems involving
right triangles and reciprocal pairs. Mr. Plimpton, who collected
"our tools of learning" on a broad scale, would have been
delighted with this interpretation, showing the work of an
excellent teacher, not a lone genius a thousand years ahead
of his time.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
160.
Omar Khayyam (1048 1122 CE)
Maqalah fi al-jabr wa-al muqabalah
Manuscript on paper, 56 folios, Lahore, India, 13th century
RBML, Smith Oriental Ms. 45
Best known in the west as the poet who wrote the Ruba 'iyat,
Omar Khayyam was also one of the leading mathematicians of
the Islamic world. This manuscript of his "Algebra," written
in standard Arabic scientific characters, was probably copied
from an earlier manuscript; the work begins with basic definitions
and makes its principal contribution in the field of cubic
equations. Although the "Algebra" was unknown to western mathematicians
until the eighteenth century, Omar received wide recognition
for it in the Islamic world. He was called to the court of
Sultan Malik Shah I (1054-1092), where he revised astronomical
tables and introduced a highly accurate calendar. Among the
fifteen works bound in this volume are two by Sharaf al-Din
al Tusi (d. ca. 1213/1214), one on the height of vertical
objects and the other on the height of the North Pole, and
treatises by Alhazen (965-1039) on the astrolabe, and by al-Farabi
(ca. 870-950) on music.
Gift of David Eugene Smith, 1931
161.
Arte dell'Abbaco
Treviso: [Gerardus de Lisa de Flanobia or Michele Manzolo],
1478
RBML
This unpretentious little book could almost be taken as a symbol
of the third component in the collection of George A. Plimpton:
"reading, writing and ‘rithmetic." It intends to teach
commercial arithmetic, starting from the most elementary level
to explain numbers and their positions as designators of units,
tens, hundreds, and so forth. On the opening displayed a reader
has noted the method for calculating differences in income
for those who invest varying amounts of money at different
times. Graphically clear are the various earnings of Piero,
Polo and Zuanne. Their names, and indeed the entire text,
are in the local vernacular: Venetian dialect, not Italian.
Abbacus, or commercial arithmethic, was solidly vernacular,
Latin being reserved for the abstract studies of the universities.
tab-stops:5.0in'>
Bequest of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
162.
Georg Agricola (1494 1555)
De re metallica
Basel: 1556
RBML
Georg Bauer, better known as Agricola, spent most of his adult
life as a physician in the mining region of Joachimsthal in
Bohemia. There he observed first-hand every aspect of mines,
mining, and minerals. His subjects include, among other things,
administration, prospecting, equipment, diseases of the lung,
ventilation, ore transportation, soil erosion, and descriptions
of eighty different minerals and metallic ore. The book contains
273 splendid woodcuts by Rudolf Manuel Deutsch.
Bequest of Daniel E. Moran, 1939
163.
Astrolabe
Italy, signed by Bernard Sabeus, 1558
RBML, Smith Instruments
This western astrolabe was made by Bernard Sabeus or Zabeus,
who worked in Padua during the years 1552 59. It came
to Columbia with the mathematical instruments and books collected
by David Eugene Smith. Smith was professor of mathematics
at Teachers College from 1901 until his death in 1944, serving
as Teachers College librarian from 1902 until 1920. When he
began giving his collection to the Columbia University Libraries
in 1931, it included 12,000 printed books on the history of
mathematics, ranging from the 15th through the 20th century.
It also included 35 boxes of historical documents relating
to mathematics; 140 boxes of his own professional papers;
350 volumes of western European manuscripts dating from the
15th to the early 20th century; 670
volumes of Oriental (primarily Arabic and Persian) manuscripts
dating from the 8th to the early 20th
century; 88 volumes of Chinese and 363 volumes of Japanese
block-print books; 3,000 prints portraits of mathematicians;
and some 300 mathematical instruments and related objects.
Gift of David Eugene Smith, 1931
164.
Galileo Galilei (1564 1642) Sidereus nuncius
Venice: 1610
RBML, Smith Collection
This thin pamphlet entitled "The Starry Messenger" contains
the first publications of modern observational astronomy,
and some of the most important discoveries to be found in
scientific literature. Galileo was the first astronomer to
make full use of the telescope, learning of its invention
in the summer of 1609. He constructed his own, eventually
perfecting it to a magnification of 30 diameters, and began
a series of astronomical observations. He observed the craters
of the moon, saw the vast number of stars in the constellations
and Milky Way, and discovered four new "planets," the satellites
of Jupiter. He also declared himself to be a Copernican, and
while none of his work proved that Copernicus's theory of
the universe was right, it proved beyond doubt that the Aristotelian/Ptolemiac
world-view was wrong.
Gift of David Eugene Smith, 1931
165.
Isaac Newton (1642 1727)
The Three Mysterious Fires: Commentary on Monte -Snyder's
Tractatus de Medicina Universali
Autograph manuscript, 3 pp., after 1678
RBML, Smith Historical Manuscripts
In addition to his many renowned contributions to mathematics,
physics and astronomy, such as the discovery of the law of
universal gravitation, the invention of calculus, the construction
of the first reflecting telescope, and the first analysis
of white light, Sir Isaac Newton devoted many years of his
life to chemistry, alchemy and metallurgy. For 250 years after
his death, his manuscripts and books lay in a large chest
into which he placed them in 1696 when he became Master of
the Mint. They remained untouched until 1872 when Newton's
heirs donated his papers to Cambridge University. After the
University Library accessioned those items of scientific interest,
they returned to the family all personal items, including
the alchemical manuscripts. In 1936 these "personal papers"
were dispersed at auction. This manuscript, a commentary on
Johann de Monte-Snyder's Tractatus de medicina universali
(1678), testifies to the depth to which Newton pursued studies
in alchemy.
Gift of the Friends of the Columbia Libraries
166.
Giovanni Domenicis Cassini (1625 1712) and Giovanni
Cassini (1677 1756)
Planisphere terrestre ou sont marquees longitudes de divers
lieux de la terre
Paris: Iean Baptiste Nolin, 1696
RBML, Historic Map Collection
This is the first map constructed using scientific data. Under
Giovanni Domenicis Cassini's direction, coordinates of latitude
and longitude for points throughout the world were collected
by the Académie Royale des Sciences for over thirty
years. These were placed on the floor of the Paris Observatory,
creating a planisphere that was 24-feet in diameter, with
the North Pole at the center. Cassini's son Giovanni drew
the much reduced version that was then engraved by Nolin.
Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Alexander O. Vietor, 1958
167.
John James Audubon (1785 1851)
The Birds of America
London: Published by the author, 1827-1838
RBML
America's premier artist-naturalist, Audubon was born in Les
Cayes, Santo Domingo, and spent his boyhood in France. At
the age of eighteen he came to the United States to enter
business but spent an increasing amount of time pursuing his
childhood interest in drawing birds. By 1820 he was already
devoting his efforts to what would eventually become The
Birds of America, which would illustrate all the then-known
birds of North America. In 1826 he left America in search
of a publisher for the material he had already produced; his
genius was immediately recognized in Great Britain, both by
artists and scientists, and publication began. Over the next
decade work continued, Audubon receiving assistance from his
sons Victor and John and from William MacGillivray who collaborated
with Audubon on the text which appeared in a five volume work,
Ornithological Biography (1831-1839), published in
Edinburgh.
Columbia was one of only three United States colleges or universities
(along with Harvard and the other Columbia College, now the
University of South Carolina) to become original subscribers
to the "double-elephant" folio edition. It was published in
less than two hundred sets with 435 hand-colored aquatints,
principally the work of Robert Havell, Jr. The entry for "Columbia
College State of N.Y." appears in Audubon's Ledger "B," dated
May, 1833. Audubon had visited the college, then located at
Park Place, and had shown his drawings to a gathering in the
rooms of Columbia's president, the Rev. William Alexander
Duer. A subscription of $800 was raised, and Ledger "B" records
that the set was "Completed Nov. 10, 1838 (Bound)."
Purchased from John J. Audubon by subscription, 1833
168.
Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787 1851)
Historique et description des procédés du
daguerréotype et du diorama
Paris: Susse frères, 1839
RBML, Epstean Collection
Edward Epstean (1868 1945) began collecting books about
the history and science of photography in order to aid his
own work, beginning in 1892, as a pioneering photo-engraver.
His collection was also focused on the applications of photography
to the graphic arts, and is an important, though not widely
known, addition to the rich holdings of the RBML pertaining
to the art and technique of printing.
Gift of Edward Epstean, 1934
169.
Stephens and Company
"America"
Watercolor drawing, signed with perforated initials "F.S.K.,"
1828?
RBML, Parsons Railroad Prints R5
William Barclay Parsons (CC 1879, Mines 1882) is best remembered
as the chief engineer for the Rapid Transit System of New
York, opened in 1904. However, he was also a great collector
of books and prints. After his death, his family presented
his book collection to The New York Public Library, but his
collection of some 235 transportation prints came to Columbia.
The collection includes prints dating from 1820 to 1880, covering
primarily railroad transportation in Europe and the United
States.
General Parsons purchased this watercolor of the legendary
locomotive, originally named the "Pride of Newcastle," at
the Americna Art Association sale (December 18, 1930) of the
collection of Cornelius Michaelsen, who had purchased it in
London. "America" was built by the firm of Robert Stephenson
and Company, and was similar to the firm's "Rocket" built
for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway that won the Rainhill
locomotive trails in 1829. The fate of the "America" remains
a mystery. It may have exploded on July 26, 1829 during its
maiden run near Honesdale, Pennsylvania. If so, it would have
been the first commercial steam locomotive to run in the United
States. Its sister locomotive, the "Stourbridge Lion," made
its first run successfully on August 8, 1829.
Gift of Mrs. William Barclay Parsons and Family, 1934
170.
Unidentified photographer
Portrait of John Watson Webb
Daguerreotype, (13 1/8 x 11 inches, plate), (11 x 9 inches,
image, oval), 1850s
Chandler Chemical Museum Collection
Office of Art Properties
The Chandler Chemical Museum was established by
Professor Charles F. Chandler in order to illustrate the things
he discussed in his many lectures. He began to collect material
for the museum almost immediately on his arrival at Columbia
in the 1860s. For half a century, he bought rare and interesting
exhibits of chemicals and of products of various chemical
industries. Many times were paid for out of his own pocket,
and other materials were donated by the chemical industries.
First located in Columbia campus on 49th Street,
the museum was eventually moved to the East End of Havemeyer
Hall when the university was relocated to Morningside Heights.
When the museum was dismantled in 1987, some of its collections
were transferred to Art Properties. Chandler's papers are
located in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Daguerreotypes of this size, called mammoth plates,
are rare. They were evidently difficult to make, and few are
known to exist. John Watson Webb (1802 1884) was a
journalist and diplomat. After an early career in the army,
in 1827 he settled in New York City, where he became an editor
and the owner of a number of newspapers. From 1861 to 1869,
he was minister to Brazil.
171.
Michael Idvorsky Pupin (1858 1935)
X-ray photograph of lead shot in hand
Photograph, 1896
RBML, Michael Idvorsky Pupin Papers
Michael Idvorsky Pupin received his Columbia College undergraduate
degree in 1883 and his PhD at the University of Berlin in
1889, returning to teach at Columbia in 1892. The subject
of electrical resonance engaged his attention between 1892
and 1895, and resulted in the electrical tuning which was
universally applied in all radio work. In February of 1896,
following Wilhelm Roentgen's November 1895 discovery of "new
kind of rays," he discovered a rapid method of X-ray photography
that used a fluorescent screen between the object to the photographed
and the photographic plate. This shortened the exposure time
from about an hour to a few seconds, and is the method now
in universal use.
In April of that year he discovered that matter struck by X-rays
is stimulated to radiate other X-rays (secondary radiation),
and invented an electrical resonator. Pupin received 34 patents
for his inventions, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924 for
his autobiography From Immigrant to Inventor. Columbia
University's holdings include architectural drawings, blueprints
and graphs, photographs, portraits, awards and diplomas. This
print of an x-ray photograph, showing lead shot in a human
hand, was probably taken in February, 1896.
Gift of Mrs. Rose Trbovich Andrews, 1965 & 1970
172.
Harold Miller Lewis (1893 1978)
Laboratory notebook, recording Edwin H. Armstrong's discovery
of superheterodyne reception
Autograph manuscript, 137 pp., Paris, July 21, 1918
January 8, 1919
RBML, Edwin Howard Armstrong Papers
Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890 1954) is the largely unsung
electrical engineer and inventor of three of the basic electronic
circuits underlying all modern radio, radar, and television.
Upon graduating from high school, Armstrong began to commute
by motorcycle to Columbia University's school of engineering.
In the summer of 1912, while a junior at Columbia, he made
his first major invention: a new regenerative circuit in which
part of the current at the plate was fed back to the grid
to strengthen incoming signals. This single circuit yielded
not only the first radio amplifier but also the key to the
continuous-wave transmitter that is still at the heart of
all radio operations. Armstrong received his engineering degree
in 1913, filed for a patent, and returned to Columbia as an
instructor and as assistant to the professor and inventor,
Michael Pupin.
During World War I, Armstrong was commissioned a Captain and
sent to Paris. While working under his direction in the Paris
laboratory of the U.S. Signal Corps, Corporal Harold M. Lewis
kept this notebook in which he recorded the invention of Armstrong's
superheterodyne circuit, the basis for most radio, television
and radar receivers. On August 13, 1918, Armstrong first explained
to Lewis his new short wave amplification system; the complete
circuit designs and the first working model were finished
between August 14 and September 3, 1918. Thus, Armstrong had
created a circuit capable of handling radio signals at much
higher frequencies than were then possible. Lewis went on
to a career in radio engineering and patented nearly sixty
inventions of his own. Upon the success of early radio broadcasting
after the war, Armstrong became a millionaire, but continued
at Columbia University as a professor and eventual successor
to Pupin. In 1941 he was given the highest honor in U.S. science,
the Franklin Medal.
In 1933, Armstrong brought forth a wide-band frequency modulation
(FM) system that in field tests gave clear reception through
the most violent storms and, as a dividend, offered the highest
fidelity sound yet heard in radio. But in the depressed 1930's
the major radio industry was in no mood to take on a new system
requiring basic changes in both transmitters and receivers.
Armstrong found himself blocked on almost every side. It took
him until 1940 to get a permit for the first FM station, erected
at his own expense, on the Hudson River Palisades at Alpine,
N.J. It would be another two years before the Federal Communications
Commission granted him a few frequency allocations. Armstrong
spent the rest of his life fighting infringements on his patents.
Drained of resources and exhausted, Armstrong committed suicide
on January 31, 1954. His estate eventually won $10,000,000
from multiple corporations in patent infringement actions.
The Armstrong Papers were given to Columbia in 1977 by the
Armstrong Memorial Research Foundation.
Gift of Keith E. Mullinger of Pennie & Edmonds, Patent
attorneys for Armstrong, 1983
173a.
Academic cap worn by Marie Curie while receiving honors
at American colleges and universities, 1921
RBML, Meloney-Curie Papers
173b.
Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934)
Impressions of America
Autograph manuscript, 11 leaves, 1921
RBML, Meloney-Curie Papers
The American editor and journalist Marie Mattingly Meloney
first met Madame Curie in May 1920 when she went to interview
her at the Radium Institute of the Sorbonne. When Mrs. Meloney
learned that the scientist had no radium with which to carry
on her experiments, she founded the Marie Curie Radium Fund
and raised over $100,000 from private donations for the purchase
of one gram of the precious element. Curie's visit to the
United States was arranged by Mrs. Meloney for May and June
of 1921 so that the scientist could personally receive the
radium from President Harding at a White House reception.
During her stay, Curie attended dinners and receptions in
her honor and visited colleges and universities, as well as
such tourist attractions as the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls.
A few days after her return to France, she sent this manuscript
of her account of the visit to Mrs. Meloney for publication
in The Delineator.
Gift of William B. Meloney, Jr., in memory of Marie Mattingly
Meloney, 1956
174.
Delano and Aldrich
Marine Terminal, LaGuardia Airport
Pencil on tracing paper, (20 x 14.25 in.), 1943
Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Delano & Aldrich
Collection
With their society connections, the firm was widely known as
architects of urban clubs, such as Manhattan's Union, Knickerbocker,
and Colony Clubs, and country estates, the Charles Lindberg
and Otto Kahn residences among their best known. They worked
extensively at Yale University, Delano's alma mater. Delano
and Aldrich were also responsible for a large-scale renovation
of the White House under Harry Truman. Yet at the end of their
career, they were heavily involved with the new mode of transportation,
the airplane. They designed airfields for Pan-Am in Florida,
Panama, and Guam. The firm received this commission for the
Marine Terminal at Laguardia in the late 1940s. The terminal
is still the departure gate for the Boston shuttle and thousands
of passengers walk through this building everyday and admire
the decoration.
Avery is the largest repository of drawings of the work of
Delano and Aldrich. The original gift by Delano was in 1951.
The next and largest gift, including over 6500 drawings and
3,000 photographs, was donated by the estate of the successor
firm headed by Alexander McIlvaine. Subsequent donations of
the drawings of the Knickerbocker, Colony, and Union clubs
have come into the collection in the last several years. Delano's
personal papers are at Yale University.
Gift, 1985
Law
175.
Nicholas Statham (fl.1472)
Abridgment
Law Library, Special Collections
By the Statute of Quo Warranto (1290), the English fixed a
date for the limit of legal memory: 3 September 1189, the
beginning of the reign of Richard I. With a habit of legal
record keeping so deeply ingrained, one understands the need
for organizing and systematizing court records and judges'
decisions to give attorneys a durable frame of reference.
Lawyers were accustomed to compile their own commonplace books
to keep track of significant points, pleadings, and decisions,
but these were for generally personal use. One lawyer, Nicholas
Statham, made an abridgment of cases drawn from the manuscripts
of English year books, oldest legal records of the common
law, which was ultimately printed in the last decade of the
fifteenth century. Statham's Abridgment dealt with
cases from the reign of Henry VI (1423-1461). Cases were arranged
alphabetically by subject under such topics as jurisdiction,
fines, disclaimer and damages. The copy on display shows how
lawyers continued to add cases to the abridgment by covering
the margins with notes. The abridgment format continued to
be a useful tool for lawyers until the nineteenth century,
when abridgements of reports ran to 24 volumes.
Purchased on the Carpentier Fund, 1917
176.
Johannes Andreae (d. 1348)
De arbore consanguinitatis, affinitatis et cognationis spiritualis
Manuscript on paper, Germany, November 24, 1483
Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Ms. 8
The famous Bolognese authority on canon law, Johannes Andreae
wrote several treatises on marriage law in regard to relationships
considered too close for marriage. These were often illustrated
with tree diagrams to facilitate understanding of the concepts
of consanguinity, or blood relationships, affinity, or relationships
by marriage, and spiritual relationships, those created through
sacramental duties such as that of godparent. In this manuscript,
the Arbor affinitatis (f. 7v) shows a person in an
Italianate hat above the tree who may represent the author.
The Arbor consanguinitatis (f. 3v) shows a pope above
the tree, undoubtedly Innocent III. The work was often found
bound after early printed copies of the great collections
of canon law. The Burke Library has copies so bound, but this
one came to New York with the library of Leander van Ess unbound,
as it remains today.
Purchased with the Leander van Ess Collection, 1838
177.
Thomas Littleton (1422 1481)
Tenures
London: Richard Tottell, 1557
Law Library, Special Collections, Krulewitch Collection
This treatise on land tenure was the authoritative work on
English landholding in all its complex forms: fee simple,
fee tail, tenant at will, tenant by copy, tenant by the verge,
in a vocabulary that preserves such legal terms as parcener,
socage and frankalmoign. It was the book every law student
read and every lawyer had to have from the time of its first
edition in 1481 until the mid-nineteenth century. Many editions
were printed in order to meet a great demand for the volume.
Sir Thomas Littleton, Justice of the Common Pleas, wrote it
as a book of instruction for his sons, which may account for
its refreshingly simple and direct style of writing, even
if the terminology is technical. Littleton wrote in French,
the language of the court, although English translations began
to appear in the early sixteenth century. Copies of this book
often contain annotations by lawyers who added references
to decisions of cases. In addition, the book's compact form
lent itself to portability.
Gift of General and Mrs. Melvin L. Krulewitch, 1970
178.
William III, Great Britain (1650 1702)
Anno regni Gulielmi III Regis Angliae, Scotiae, Franciae
& Hiberniae, Decimo
London: Charles Bill and the Executrix of Thomas Newcomb, 1699
Law Library, Special Collections
This book of English statutes belonged to Joseph Murray, (1694-1757),
a lawyer in colonial New York. A prominent and successful
practitioner, Murray served on the vestry of Trinity Church
from 1720 to 1726 and as warden until 1757. He was a member
of the King's College Board of Governors since its foundation
in 1754. Although married, he had no children and when he
died in 1757, he bequeathed his library to the recently founded
College, along with a considerable remainder of his estate.
With enough money to import law books from England, Murray
assembled an excellent library of law reports and treatises.
Unfortunately the College library suffered plundering during
the American Revolution resulting in the loss of many of Murray's
gifts.
Gift of Joseph Murray, 1758
179.
Catherine II, Empress of Russia (1729 1796)
Nakaz Eia Imperatorskago Velichestva Ekateriny Vtoriya,
Samoderzhitsy Vserossiiskiia dannyi Kommissii o sochinenii
proekta novago ulozheniia
St. Petersburg: Akademii nauk, 1770
Law Library, Special Collections
After coming to power in 1762, Catherine II traveled across
Russia to meet her subjects. During her journeys, she was
struck by the pressing need to create a uniform body of laws
for her country. This book is a publication of her instructions
to the Commission on the Code of Laws which she called into
being and charged with that responsibility. Her instructions
were printed in columnar style in four languages: Russian,
Latin, German and French. Montesquieu's De l'esprit des
lois and Cesare Beccaria's Dei delitti e della pene,
an essay on crimes and punishments, strongly influenced Catherine's
ideas. In this spirit, she envisioned Russia as a European
country; she endorsed lofty concepts of equality; and she
asked for administrative and judicial reforms in the structure
of government. Although members of the Commission on the Code
met for many sessions and debates over several months, they
failed to codify any laws. In the end, privileges of the nobility
were not curtailed, nor were there land reforms, nor freeing
of the serfs. Catherine's attentions had been drawn to expanding
the borders of her Empire, fighting wars with the Turks, and
responding to internal unrest.
Acquired in 1937
180.
Ephraim Kirby (1757 1804)
Reports of cases adjudged in the Superior Court of Connecticut;
with some determinations in the Supreme Court of Errors
Litchfield: Collier & Adam, 1789
Law Library, Special Collections
This was the first publication of decisions of an American
court, the Superior Court of Connecticut. Lawyers and judges
faced a dilemma after the thirteen colonies won independence
because there was no publication of American reports during
the colonial period. Would lawyers continue to base their
arguments on English law reports which were not widely available
in the new nation? How could decisions of American courts
be cited if they were not printed? Connecticut was first to
address this problem. The legislature passed and act in 1784
requiring judges to submit written judgments which could be
kept on file with the clerk of the court. Filing decisions,
however, is not the same as publication for sale or distribution.
It was the initiative of Ephraim Kirby, a private citizen
who recognized the need and opportunity, who undertook the
task of finding interested purchasers to subscribe to a volume
of reports. Names of 230 subscribers listed in the back of
the volume show that lawyers from Vermont and New York were
interested to acquire reports from this court. Nor was it
a simple matter for Kirby to assemble these reports. The court
was ambulatory, meeting in New London, Hartford, Litchfield,
Windham, Fairfield, and New Haven counties. The completed
volume covers decisions from 1785 to 1788 and distinguished
Kirby as the first reporter of court decisions in the United
States.
181.
William Samuel Johnson (1795 1883)
Litchfield notebook of law lecture courses
Manuscript on paper, Litchfield, Connecticut, 1817
Law Library, Special Collections, Johnson Collection
The Litchfield Law School, established by Tapping Reeve in
Litchfield, Connecticut, was the first law school in America.
From its opening in 1774, the school trained more than 1,000
students before it closed in 1833. The course of instruction
included lectures by Reeve, a graduate of Princeton College,
and moot court sessions. Students transcribed Reeve's lectures
into notebooks like this, which would later serve as useful
reference works in the law office.
William Samuel Johnson (not the first president of Columbia
College, but related to that family) received his A.B. from
Union College (Schenectady, N.Y.) in 1816 after which he read
law at the Litchfield Law School. He began his practice in
New York City and was later elected to the N.Y. State Senate
in 1848, representing the sixth district in Manhattan.
Gift of William Samuel Johnson
182.
Georgios Kalognomos
Enchiridion peri synallagmatikon
Athens: Philolaos, 1841
Law Library, Special Collections
This manual on bills of exchange and contracts is one of the
earliest law books to be printed in Greece. Greece had won
its independence from the Ottomans only two decades earlier
and was beginning to develop their own civil and commercial
codes. Nothing is known about the author, who was a lawyer,
except that he also translated books from French into Greek.
Acquired in 2003
183.
Benjamin Cardozo (1870 1938)
Communism
Autograph manuscript on paper, 66 pp., Senior Thesis, prepared
for A.B. degree, Columbia College, 1889
RBML, Benjamin Cardozo Papers
Born in New York, Cardozo attended Columbia College, graduating
in 1889, and Law School but left without taking a law degree.
He served as counsel to other lawyers, and soon gained a reputation
as a "lawyer's lawyer." He was elected to the New York State
Supreme Court in 1913, then a year later to the New York State
Court of Appeals, becoming Chief Judge of the court in 1927.
Especially in commercial law, Cardozo's opinions carried great
weight in New York and throughout the country. His decision
in the landmark case of McPherson v. Buick Motor
Co. (1916) changed the very nature of product liability
law, making manufacturers directly liable to the consumer.
Cardozo argued that rules of law should be judged not by their
antiquity or logic but by the extent to which they contributed
to society's welfare. He was appointed to the Supreme Court
by President Hoover in 1932 to succeed Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Joining the liberal block headed by Justices Louis D. Brandeis
and Harlan Fiske Stone, he voted to uphold much of the early
New Deal legislation. In his six terms he showed promise of
becoming one of the Court's great justices, but died before
he could leave a significant corpus of opinions. His papers
held by the Rare Book and Manuscript Library include his senior
thesis, shown here, as well as his lecture notes kept as a
student at Columbia, and his commonplace books.
Gift of the Estate of Benjamin N. Cardozo, 1938
184.
Itō, Hirobumi (1841 1909)
Teikoku kenpō, Kōshitsu tenpan gige [Commentaries
on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan and Imperial ordinance]
Tokyo: Kokka Gakkai, 1889
Law Library, Toshiba Library for Japanese Legal Research
The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, Japan's first constitution,
was promulgated in 1889, after two decades of careful studies
on the constitutions of the United States and Europe, in particular
that of Germany. With this constitution Japan was to set forth
the foundation of a modern state. However, the articles concerning
the emperor and the state were still deeply rooted in Japan's
old Shinto tradition. The Emperor is sacred and inviolable
(Article III). The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining
in himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them,
according to the provisions of the present Constitution. @
(Article IV). Hirobumi Itō , who became the first prime
minister of Japan in 1885, played a leading role towards the
adoption of this monarchism. In this commentary wrote Itō,
AThe Sacred Throne of Japan is inherited from Imperial Ancestors,
and it to be bequeathed to posterity ; in it resides the power
to reign over and govern the State (Itō, Miyoji, tr.
Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan).
After the promulgation of the constitution, Kotarō Kaneko,
a graduate of Harvard Law School and one of the draftsmen
of the constitution, visited with the translated edition prominent
legal scholars in Europe and the United States, including
Oliver Wendell Holmes, then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
of Massachusetts. The reactions were generally positive and
approving. The Toshiba Library also houses the translated
edition.
Gift of the Family of Justice Jiro Tanaka, 1982
185.
Yatsuka Hozumi (1860 1912)
Kenpō Teiyō [Outline of the Constitution]
Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1911
Law Library, Toshiba Library for Japanese Legal Research
"[T]he Emperor is the state." (p. 79, v. 1). This often-cited
line eloquently summarizes Hozumi's view of the state. According
to him there are two forms of state (kokutai), monarchical
and democratic, depending on the bearer of sovereignty, and
two forms of government (seitai), absolute and constitutional.
The kokutai is eternal while the seitai is not. "In a society,"
he claimed, "there is from the start a heaven-sent leader."
Within that framework, Japan's millenary imperial lineage
constituted the "unbroken monarchical state. Hozumi's conservative
views conformed to the intent of the constitution =s authors,
and helped him reach an influential position in academia as
well as in the government. As with most prominent scholars
of the time, Yatsuka Hozumi studied law in Germany for several
years. Upon his return to Japan, he taught at the Imperial
University of Tokyo from 1889 until his death in 1912. Kenpō
Teiyō is considered his most important work. The
book displayed is the second edition of the original published
in 1910.
Gift of the Family of Justice Jiro Tanaka, 1982
186.
Tatsukichi Minobe (1873 1948)
Kenpō satsuyō [Principles of the
Constitution]
Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1932
Law Library, Toshiba Library for Japanese Legal Research
Today Tatsukichi Minobe is one of the most respected legal
scholars in the history of Japan. Educated in Germany, he
represented the liberal constitutional views against views
of his senior colleague at the Imperial University of Tokyo,
Yatsuka Hozumi and his successor, Shinkinchi Uesugi. Minobe
did not espouse the divinity of the emperor. He argued that
the sovereignty resided in the state, of which the emperor
is an organ (kikan). Though Minobe was not the first nor the
only one to challenge Hozumi =s theory, his Aemperor-organ
theory @ was severely attacked when the military power ascended
in the 1930's. As a result, his publications on constitutional
law including Kenpō satsuyō were banned
from the public in 1935. After World War II, however, his
views gained much popularity. This is the fifth revised edition
of KenpōSatsuyō, originally published
in 1923.
Gift of the Family of Justice Jiro Tanaka, 1982
187.
Dwight's retirement folio
Manuscript folio, Dempsey & Carroll, New York, 1891
Law Library, Special Collections
This hand-colored memento was presented to Theodore W. Dwight
(1822-1892) upon his retirement as the first Dean of Columbia
College School of Law. In 1858, Dwight had been called from
the Law Department of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York
by the Law Committee of Columbia's trustees to organize a
department of law and jurisprudence at Columbia. As Professor
of Municipal Law, Dwight directed the instruction and oversaw
the expansion of the school for 33 years. At the School's
first commencement in 1860, twenty-seven men were graduated.
When Dwight retired in 1891, the graduating class had grown
to 230 members. Students of the classes of 1891 and 1892 commissioned
this book of remembrance, richly illustrated with colored
vignettes and borders. Members of these classes, including
Benjamin N. Cardozo, signed the folio, which shows the Law
School building, then located at Madison Avenue and 49th
Street.
George Welwood Murray Fund, 2001
188.
Edmonston Studio
Harlan Fiske Stone with his law clerks
Photograph, 26 x 35 cm., Washington, D.C., 1938
Law Library, Special Collections, Stone Collection
Harlan Fiske Stone was dean of Columbia Law School from 1910
to 1924 before his appointment, first to be Attorney General
of the U.S., then to the U.S. Supreme Court. Every year on
the Court, Justice Stone held a dinner for his current and
former law clerks, many of them graduates of Columbia Law
School. Pictured in row 1: Oliver Merrill, Milton Handler,
Robert Cogswell, Justice Stone, Alfred McCormack, Francis
Downey, Adrian Leiby; in row 2: Warner Gardner, Howard Westwood,
Herbert Wechsler, Alexis Coudert, Thomas Harris, Walter Gellhorn,
Louis Lusky, Harold Leventhal, Wilbur Friedman, and Allison
Dunham.
Gift of Harlan Fiske Stone
189.
Faried Adams
R. v. Adams and others. South
African Mass Treason Trial
Pretoria: Special Criminal Court
in Pretoria, 1959-1960
Law Library, Special Collections
In the long struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, this
trial of 156 people accused of conspiring to overthrow the
state by violence brought the world's attention to racial
and political discrimination in South Africa. The accused
were a cross section of South African society: Africans, Indians,
Europeans from many professions and occupations: students,
doctors, lawyers, skilled and unskilled laborers, shopkeepers,
teachers, and tribal chiefs. Many were members of the African
National Congress (A.N.C.) which had been a motivating force
for the adoption of the Freedom Charter by the Congress of
the People in 1955. Among the accused was Nelson Mandela,
who, with his law partner Oliver Tambo, had opened the first
African legal practice in Johannesburg in 1952. Mandela's
testimony is preserved in this transcript, containing his
views on non-violence and on the Freedom Charter. After a
lengthy trial, the defendants were all acquitted, but this
trial was only the beginning of the movement to establish
equality before the law in South Africa.
Gift of Thomas G. Karis, 1986
Literature
190a.
Homer (fl. 9th or 8th century BCE?)
Iliad [Book 2.433-452]
Papyrus fragment, Greek: Ist Century BCE
early Ist Century CE
Col. inv. 517b, P. Col. VIII 196
RBML
190b.
Homer (fl. 9th or 8th century B.C.E.?)
Odyssey [Book 12.384-390]
Papyrus fragment, Greek: IIIrd Century IInd
Century BCE
Col. inv. 201c1, P. Col. VIII 200
RBML
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library houses Columbia's extraordinary
collection of 2000 papyri fragments. The fragment to the right
from the Odyssey is Columbia's earliest Homeric fragment,
dating from between the third century to the second century
BCE.
Most papyrus finds are non-literary texts, but among the
literary pieces, Homer is the most frequently represented
author. Fragments of the Odyssey are much less
common than those of the Iliad, being outnumbered
four to one. The fragment from the Iliad was purchased
by Columbia in 1930, and that from the Odyssey
was purchased in 1924.
(Iliad) Purchased from M. Nahman through H. I. Bell, 1930
(Odyssey) Purchased from Dr. Askren through H. I. Bell,
1924
191.
La Mort le roi Artu
Manuscript on palimpsested parchment and paper
Northeastern Italy, 14th century
Western MS 24
This Arthurian romance is an amalgam of contradictions, proof
of the divide between today's world and the world that produced
the manuscript. Its 19th-century owner was the
famous bibliophile, Baron Horace Landau, a representative
of the Rothschild banking house in various cities across Europe.
It must have been Landau who had the book bound by one of
the foremost Florentine binders, G. Berti, in a sumptuous
purple morocco binding with inlays of gilt-patterned green
morocco at the corners, and gilt dentelle on the turn-ins.
Clearly, the codex was highly valued by its aristocratic owner.
But in its day, the book was a casual way to pass the time:
a fairy tale, in the vernacular, partially copied on cheap
second-hand parchment (the underlying text seems to be a notarial
register from the province of Vicenza), and partially copied
on poorly sized paper; even the effort to provide good penwork
initials petered out after the first four gatherings. The
book provoked confusion in today's scholars, as well: it was
registered as French in origin, according to the too-simple
logic that its language declared its place of birth.
Bequest of Prof. Roger Sherman Loomis, 1968
192.
Homer (fl. 9th or 8th century BCE?)
Ilias; Ulyssea; Batrachomyomachia; Hymni xxxii
Venice: Aldus and Andreae Asulanus, 1517
RBML, Plimpton Collection
The two volumes of this heavily annotated copy of Homer's works
in Greek belonged to Philip Melancthon, the chief figure in
the Lutheran Reformation after Martin Luther. Melancthon used
it in his lectures to his pupils in 1518 in Wittenberg and
presented it to Martin Luther, who may also have made some
of the annotations. Melancthon began teaching at the University
of Wittenberg in 1518, and it was there that he met Luther
and formed with him a warm personal relationship, which, but
for the years 1522-1527, lasted until Luther's death. Melancthon
taught Greek and Latin literature and was a popular lecturer,
frequently drawing more students than the much admired Luther.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
193.
Edmund Spenser (1552? 1599)
Colin Clouts Come Home Again
London: Printed for William Ponsonbie, 1595
RBML, Samuels Collection
This pristine copy of Edmund Spenser's allegorical poem Colin
Clouts Come Home Again, once owned by the poet Frederick
Locker-Lampson, came to Columbia with the library of Jack
Harris Samuels. Samuels received his Masters in English and
Comparative Literature at Columbia in 1940, and from then
until his sudden death in 1966 amassed a library of nearly
three thousand first editions covering over four centuries
of English and American literature.
Bequest of Mollie Harris Samuels, from the Library of Jack
Harris Samuels, 1970
194.
Valerius Maximus (fl. 20 CE)
Facta et dicta memorabilia
Manuscript in Castilian, on paper, Spain, middle of the 15th
century
RBML, Lodge MS 13
Rarely in recounting the story of a medieval translation are
we allowed a glimpse of its people and its movements, such
as we have here. Valerius Maximus composed a gossipy, moralizing
book, full of instructive examples, arranged by a particular
vice or virtue, such as Anger, Cruelty, Bravery, Gratitude.
His Latin was translated twice into Catalan, and, at the end
of the fourteenth century, one of the Catalan translations
was turned to Castilian. The Catalan writer's name is
well known—Antoni de Canals—, but only the present
manuscript and one in Seville contain the name of the man
who brought the text from Catalan to Castilian: Juan Alfonso
de Zamora, a Castilian emissary to the court of Aragon in
Barcelona. In the early 1420s Juan Alfonso dispatched his
newly finished work to Don Fernando Díaz, archdeacon
of Niebla and Algeciras, who apparently corrected the language,
but also seems to have been responsible for adding a gloss.
The Archdeacon's gloss—based on the Latin commentary
of one Brother Lucas—sometimes is written out separately
from the text), and sometimes is incorporated into the text.
Facta et dicta memorabilia is bound with bevelled wooden
boards in contemporary blind stamped brown morocco; there
are remains of green cloth on the fore edge strap closing
to a clasp on the lower board; the spine, however, is repaired.
Purchased with funds bequeathed by Gonzalez Lodge, 1958
195.
John Milton (1608 1674)
Letterbook
Manuscript, 54 leaves, after 1659
RBML
This letterbook comprises a series of transcripts of 156 Letters
of State by Milton, mainly in Latin, but including ten in
English known from no other source. There are also other writings
by him, including a draft entitled "Proposal of certain expedients
for ye preventing of a civill war now feard, and ye settling
of a firm government," as well as treatises, apparently by
other authors, probably used by Milton in his official work
as Latin secretary to Cromwell. The "Proposal" was unknown
until the letterbook was purchased for Columbia by Nicholas
Murray Butler in 1921. The transcripts of letters are almost
certainly in the hand of the amanuensis who signed the Paradise
Lost contract; Milton had been blind since 1652. The manuscript
belonged to the great English collector, Sir Thomas Phillipps,
as well as to Bernard Gardiner, Warden of All Soul's College
and keeper of the Archives of Oxford University who, in 1703,
kept his accounts and other records in the back of the volume.
196.
Phyllis Wheatley (1753 1784)
Poems on various subjects, religious and moral
London: Printed; Philadelphia: Re-printed, Joseph Crukshank,
1786
RBML
This is the first American edition of the first book of poems
by an African-American and the first substantial work by an
African-American to be published in this country. Although
the English edition is common, there are only seven known
copies of the American edition.
Purchased on the Charles W. Mixer Fund, 1983
197.
Hornbook mould
Wood, England?, 18th century?
RBML, Plimpton Hornbook No. 6
George Arthur Plimpton (1855 1936) used a hornbook
image on his bookplate, and he collected hornbooks, such as
this one that could have been used to make such delightful
things as gingerbread hornbooks. It was the perfect emblem
for his collecting interests. Education through books was
also his profession, he having joined the text book publishing
firm of Ginn & Company in 1881, and serving as its chairman
from 1914 until 1931.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
198.
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769 1830)
Portait of George Gordon, Lord Byron
Oil on canvas mounted on composition board, (11 ¾ x
10 inches)
Office of Art Properties
Sir Thomas Lawrence was the finest portrait painters
of his generation in Europe and the last English inheritor
of the legacy of van Dyck. The dress and accessories of Lawrence's
sitters were chosen, as were his settings, with particular
regard to the age and concerns of the sitter. Lawrence himself
dictated the colour and texture of the material and he responded
to the challenge of depicting it with an enthusiasm rarely
found among earlier English portrait painters, such as Reynolds,
who delegated such chores to drapery painters. In this portrait
of Lord Byron (1788 1824), the poet is shown in his
dashing youth, capable of swimming the Hellespont (today the
Dardanelles), as he did in 1810.
The painting is one of more than 60 portraits of
English authors given to Columbia by Dr. Calvin H. Plimpton,
who had been president of Amherst College and of the American
University of Beirut. The collection had been assembled by
his father, George Arthur Plimpton, the noted publisher of
text books. Both father and son delighted in quizzing visitors
about the identity of the sitters. Dr. Plimpton remarked that
having a "visual impression...of these authors...increases
our enjoyment and even understanding of their writings."
Gift of Dr. Calvin H. Plimpton and his mother Anne Hastings
Plimpton to the George A. Plimpton Collection (RBML)
199.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797 1851)
Frankenstein, or, the modern Prometheus
London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, 1818
RBML, Samuels Collection
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was the daughter of William Godwin,
a political theorist, novelist and publisher, and Mary Wollstonecraft,
author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women. In
1814, she and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married,
fell in love and fled to Europe. During the summer of 1816,
while visiting Lord Byron at his villa on Lake Geneva, Byron
challenged each of his guests to write a ghost story. In response,
Mary began writing what became Frankenstein, in rivalry
with Byron's fragmentary "Vampyre." In December of that year,
Mary and Percy were married, two weeks after his first wife
committed suicide by drowning. Rescuers had taken Harriet
Shelley's body to the receiving station of the London Society,
where various methods, including artificial respiration and
electric shock, were tried, but to no avail.
Frankenstein was inspired by the science of the day,
including the work of the Italian physician Luigi Galvani,
who investigated the electrical properties of living and dead
matter. As Mary Shelley wrote of her talks with Byron and
Percy Shelley, "Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated; galvanism
had given token of such things."
Bequest of Mollie Harris Samuels, from the Library of Jack
Harris Samuels, 1970
200.
Alexandra Vereshchagina (1810 1873)
Autograph album
Mixed media, ca. 1830
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, Lermontov Collection
A set of three Russian salon albums
filled with autograph poems and original drawings, some of
which can be attributed to a famous poet Mikhail Iurievich
Lermontov, author of a well-known novel A Hero of Our Time.
According to the Russian tradition those albums were passed
on from one generation to another. Two of these albums belonged
to the Vereshchagin family, Lermontov's closest friends during
his Moscow years. The third album belonged to Varvara Lopukhina,
a portrait of whom is included in this volume. Apparently,
Lermontov met Varvara Lopukhina around 1827 and fell in love
with her. Unfortunately, she didn't share his feelings. Hurt
by her "betrayal" (she married Mr. Bakhmeteff in 1835), he
later portrayed her in Princess Ligovskaia and other
novels as a weak and deceitful lady.
Purchased from the von Hugel Family, 1935
201.
William Pratt (1822 1893)
Daguerreotype portrait of Edgar Allan Poe
Daguerreotype photograph, (10 x 7.5 cm.), Pratt's Gallery,
Richmond, Virginia, September 1849
RBML
William Pratt opened the Virginia Sky Light Daguerrean Gallery
in Richmond in 1846, seven years after the daguerreotype was
introduced into the United States. As Pratt related the history
of this portrait to the St. Louis writer Thomas Dimmock, Poe
had never fulfilled a promise he had once made to pose for
Pratt until writer and photographer encountered one another
on the street in front of the latter's shop in mid-September
1849. Poe, arguing that he was not suitably dressed, was coaxed
upstairs and photographed. The image shows a man, as disheveled
as he claimed to be, with a haggard face which betrays the
steep decline in his emotional and physical condition; Poe
died in Baltimore three weeks later. The enterprising Pratt
held a patent on a daguerreotype coloring process, used to
impart the faint flesh tone to Poe's face and hand.
Bequest of Mrs. Alexander McMillen Welch (Fannie Fredericka
Dyckman Welch), 1951
202.
Harper & Brothers
Contract between Herman Melville and Harper & Brothers
for "The Whale," [ Moby Dick]
Manuscript, 2 pages, signed by Allan Melville for Herman Melville,
New York, September 12, 1851
RBML, Harper & Brothers Papers
The records of Harper & Brothers, dating from 1817 to
1929, along with the pre-1974 records of its successor, Harper
& Row, came to Columbia in 1975. Included in the archive
are contracts, ledger books, copyright records, correspondence
and publishing records of some 240 American and British authors.
Also in the gift was Harper & Brothers own archive of
2,700 of their publications. In addition to this contract
for "The Whale," the Harper & Brothers Papers also contains
contracts for Herman Melville's Mardi, Omoo, Pierre Redburn,
Typee, and White-jacket. Mardi, Omoo and Typee
are signed by Melville; the others are signed by his brother
Allan Melville.
Gift of Harper & Row, 1975, 1989, 1990
203.
Walt Whitman (1819 1892)
Leaves of Grass
Brooklyn, New York: 1855
RBML
The Moncure D. Conway copy of the first edition, first issue,
of Leaves of Grass is autographed by Whitman on the
title-page. Laid into the volume is the holograph letter from
Whitman to Conway, July 21, 1870, stating that "a verbatim
copy of Emerson's note" is being sent. The note referred to,
copied entirely in Whitman's handwriting, also accompanies
the volume; it is Emerson's well-known letter of July 21,
1855, in which he praises Leaves of Grass in the highest
terms and greets Whitman "at the beginning of a great career."
Moncure D. Conway (1832 1907), a Virginian by birth,
gave up the ministry because of his anti-slavery pronouncements.
He did his most important work as an editor in Boston, where
he conducted The Dial and The Commonwealth.
Gift of Solton and Julia Engel, 1957
204.
Stephen Crane (1871 1900)
Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, a story of New York, by
Johnston Smith
New York: 1893
RBML
Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey, on November 1,
1871, as the 14th child of a Methodist minister. He started
to write stories at the age of eight and at sixteen he was
writing articles for the New York Tribune. Crane studied
at Lafayette College and Syracuse University. After his mother's
death in 1890 - his father had died earlier - Crane moved
to New York, where he lived a bohemian life, and worked as
a free-lance writer and journalist. While supporting himself
by his writings, he lived among the poor in the Bowery slums
to research his first novel.
Crane's first novel, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets,
is the tale of a pretty, young slum girl driven to brutal
excesses by poverty and loneliness. Crane had to print the
book at his own expense, borrowing the money from his brother.
The novel's sordid subject, its air of relentless objectivity,
and its sense of fatalism have led some historians to claim
it as the first American naturalistic novel, a claim supported
somewhat by Crane's statement that he intended it "to show
that environment is a tremendous thing in the world and frequently
shapes lives regardless." The novel is original in its conception,
and remarkable in both the brilliance of its method and the
vitality of its language. Stephen Crane died of tuberculosis
at the age of 28.
Gift of the heirs of Wilbur F. Crane and from the libraries
of Jonathan Townley Crane and Wilbur Crane
205.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860 1935)
The Yellow Wall Paper
Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1899
Barnard College, Overbury Collection
Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wall-Paper" as an
article that first appeared in the New England Magazine
in January, 1892, and was reprinted in this separate edition
seven years later. It tells a largely autobiographical story
of a woman who has a nervous breakdown after childbirth, is
confined by her physician and husband in order that she have
complete rest, is driven mad by hallucinations of a woman
imprisoned behind the wallpaper in her room, and who frees
herself by tearing down the paper.
After attending the International Socialist and Labor Congress
in England in 1896 as one of the few female speakers, Gilman
returned to the United States and published Women and Economics,
reviewed by the Nation as "the most significant utterance
on the subject since Mill's Subjection of Women." Her
argument did not blame men, but pointed to a gradual change
in society from a time when the sexes were equal to a time
when women had become economic slaves. Despite recognition
of her theories in the early years of the 20th
century, she was largely forgotten until Women and Economics was republished in 1966, placing her in the line of important
people in the history of women's rights.
Bequest of Bertha Van Riper Overbury, 1963
206.
Siegfried Sassoon (1886 1967)
Notes and rough drafts
Autograph manuscript, 77 pages, 1906
RBML, Siegfried Sassoon Papers
Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Edmund Blunden were the
surviving British poets of World War I, among the much longer
list of those, such as Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen and Isaac
Rosenberg, who were killed. In addition to the manuscript
drafts and typescripts of two volumes of Sassoon's autobiography,
The Old Century and Seven More Years (1938) and The
Weald of Youth (1942), Columbia owns thirteen volumes
of his early notebooks. These contain drafts of over two hundred
poems for the period 1894 until 1909, from age eight to twenty-two.
This volume contains four of the poems that appeared in his
first book, Poems, 1906.
207.
Gertrude Stein (1874 1946)
Tender Buttons, Objects, Food, Rooms
New York: Claire Marie, 1914
Barnard College, Overbury Collection
Tender Buttons , Gertrude Stein's fragmented rendering
of familiar objects recreated in the cubist mode, was her
first independently published work, following her self-published
Three Lives (1909) and Portrait of Mabel Dodge at
the Villa Curonia (1912). Carl Van Vechten, Stein's loyal
supporter from the time of their first meeting in 1913 until
his death in 1964, had recommended that she offer Tender
Buttons to his friend Donald Evans. He had just started
his own press, named for Claire-Marie Burke, and issued the
following in an advertising brochure: "Claire Marie believes
there are in America seven hundred civilized people. Claire
Marie publishes books for civilized people only. Claire Marie's
aim, it follows from the premises, is not even secondarily
commercial."
Bequest of Bertha Van Riper Overbury, 1963
208.
Virginia Woolf (1882 1941)
Two Stories
London: The Hogarth Press, 1917
Virginia Woolf, novelist, critic, and essayist was born on
January 25, 1882, the daughter of Julie Duckworth and Sir
Leslie Stephen. In 1912 she married political theorist Leonard
Woolf. Her first novel The Voyage Out was well received.
Throughout her life she had suffered from deep depression
and debilitating headaches. In 1913 she attempted suicide.
Partly for therapeutic reasons she and Leonard Woolf bought
a hand press and taught themselves typesetting. From this
they set up The Hogarth Press in 1917, which was run from
their home, Hogarth House, in Richmond, south west London.
The first publication was Two Stories with a story
from each of them, The Mark on the Wall by Virginia
and Three Jews by Leonard. The Hogarth Press published
work by other modern writers including Katherine Mansfield,
T. S. Eliot, Maxim Gorky, Christopher Isherwood, Robert Graves,
and E. M. Forster. Virginia Woolf is considered to be among
the most important English novelists.
209.
Manfred B. Lee (1905 1971) and Frederic Dannay (1905
1982)
The Roman Hat Mystery: A Problem in Deduction
Typescript, carbon, with autograph manuscript notes in pencil
by
Frederic Dannay, 292 pages, [1929]
"Ellery Queen" was "born" in 1928 when the two Brooklyn-born
cousins, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, themselves both
born in 1905, decided to enter a mystery-novel contest sponsored
by McClures magazine. The rules required that entries
be submitted under a pseudonym and the cousins, believing
that readers would remember an author if the name also appeared
throughout the book, chose Ellery Queen because it seemed
unusual and memorable to them. Dannay and Lee were familiar
with chosing pseudonyms; they had each changed their names,
from Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky, as young men. Just
before Dannay and Lee were awarded first prize for their submission,
McClures went bankrupt, but the story, The Roman
Hat Mystery, was published in 1929 by the Frederick A.
Stokes Company, thus launching the career of Ellery Queen.
The creation of a detective who was also a writer of mystery
stories proved to be extremely popular, and Ellery Queen eventually
amassed a reported 120 million readers.
The typescript of The Roman Hat Mystery is inscribed
on the title page by Dannay: "This is the only carbon-copy
of the original typescript of ‘The Roman Hat Mystery'
still in existance. The original typescript, and all other
carbon copies, were destroyed. Ellery Queen 12/22/41."
It and the majority of Columbia's Ellery Queen papers were
given by Frederic Dannay's sons, Richard and Douglas. Their
gift also included the files of Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine,
containing some 4,600 manuscripts submitted to the magazine
over a period of 40 years, nearly all with Dannay's manuscript
corrections.
Gift of Richard and Douglas Dannay, 1985 & 1987
210.
Hart Crane (1899 1932)
The Bridge
Typescript with autograph corrections, 99 pages, ca. April-September
1929
RBML, Hart Crane Papers
Hart Crane began work on The Bridge, his most ambitious
work, in the early 1920s. Obsessed by what he called America's
postwar vertigo, he envisioned the work as an epic "synthesis
of America and its structural identity." The Bridge
was first published by Harry and Caresse Crosby at their Black
Sun Press in Paris in 1930. This working typescript for their
edition contains notes and corrections in the hands of the
Crosbys, as well as that of the author. Among its nearly two
thousand items, the Hart Crane Collection contains two complete
typescript versions of the poem and the extant drafts of the
individual pieces which make up the larger work, as well as
the letters of agreement with Horace Liveright for the American
publication of both White Buildings and The Bridge.
Purchased on the Frederic Bancroft Fund
211.
Alexei Remizov (1877 1957)
Deed (Gramota)
Ink and gouache on paper, 20 x 26 cm., Paris, April 24, 1932
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, Nikolai Vasilievich Zaretskii Papers
Russian modernist writer, Alexei Mikhailovich Remizov, didn't
belong to any particular movement. During his long and prolific
literary career (1902-1957) he always experimented with old
and often forgotten Russian words and expressions trying to
revitalize the language. As a true Modernist, Remizov cultivated
paradox and myth in life and writing. In 1908 he created a
secret literary society "The Great Free Order of the Apes"
(with its acronym Obezvelvolpal) ruled by the King Asyka.
Remizov himself was a permanent Scribe of the Order and later
invented its own Charter and personally designed hundreds
of Deeds (Gramotas). In his designs he often used the Glagolitic
letters (Old Slavonic alphabet). His literary game, started
as a pure joke, later became a favorite entertainment for
many famous Russian intellectuals such as Ivan Bunin, Nikolai
Berdiaev, Vasilii Rozanov, Lev Shestov, Alexei Tolstoy and
others.
Purchased from Nikolai Vasilievich Zaretskii, 1954-1957
212.
René Bouchet
Portrait of Bennett Cerf
Charcoal on paper, [size]
RBML, Bennett Cerf Papers
Bennett Cerf was born in 1898 in Manhattan and graduated from
Columbia University with a degree in journalism. In 1925 he
acquired the Modern Library with Donald Klopfer, providing
the foundation for Random House Publishing. "I've got the
name for our publishing operation. We just said we would publish
a few books on the side at random. Let call it Random House."
Two years later the Random House colophon made its debut.
Cerf was part of the vanguard of young New York publishers
who revolutionized the business in the 1920's and 30's. He
died in 1971.
Gift of Phyllis Cerf Wagner and the Cerf Foundation, 1975
1984
213.
James Joyce (1882 1941)
Ulysses
Paris: Shakespeare and Co., 1930
RBML, Book Arts Collection
This copy of the eleventh printing of James Joyce's Ulysses
was imported by Random House and seized as pornographic by
United States Customs in New York on May 8, 1933. The District
Attorney marked the objectionable passages, such as the heavily
marked pages in the Ithaca episode, to prepare the government's
case for use in the now famous court proceedings. In his decision,
made on December 6, 1933, Judge John M. Woolsey recognized
that the intent of the work was not pornographic, and that
the test for obscenity could not be the presence of isolated
obscene passages, but the effect of the work in its entirety.
The result of the decision was to permit Random House to publish
Ulysses, on January 25, 1934, without legal risks;
and the long range consequence was the eventual publication
in the United States of other controversial works by authors
such as D. H. Lawrence and Henry Miller.
Gift of Bennett Cerf, 1935
214.
Vladimir Nabokov (1899 1977)
Untitled Poem, Album
Paris, February 1937
RBML, Bakhmeteff Archive, Sergei Viktorovich Potresov Papers
This autograph album covers the years 1906-1913 and 1917-1948,
respectively, and has entries by Konstantin Balmont, Ivan
Bilibin, Ivan Bunin, Vladimir Nabokov, and Maximilian Voloshin
among others. It has been assumed that the initiator and keeper
of the album was Sergei Potresov, Russian émigré
writer and critic who used the pseudonym of Sergei Iablonovskii.
Most of the epigrams, poems, drawings, and designs in the
album are on white standard pages. Some drawings and other
entries have been glued onto the pages of the album.
Nabokov's untitled poem was written in 1935 in Berlin and
was first published in Paris in 1952. Right above his entry
Nabokov wrote "My dear Sergei Viktorovich, I can't recall
any of my poems about Blok, so I decided to include my favorite
poem."
Purchased from Maria A. Berman, 1960
215.
Rockwell Kent (1882 1971)
Ceramic cup, saucer, plate from the "Moby Dick"
From ceramic dinnerware set, Vernon Kilns, Los Angeles, 1939
RBML, Rockwell Kent Collection
Kent produced three patterns for dinnerware manufacture between
1938 and 1940; the "Moby Dick" pattern uses designs of whaling
ships and whales different from the Kent drawings in the famous
edition of the Melville novel published in 1930. Shown here
are two of twelve pieces in the set.
Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Alfred C. Berol, Dan Burne Jones, Corliss
Lamont, and Mrs. Arthur Hays Sulzberger, 1971
216.
Cornell Woolrich (1903 1968)
Night Has a Thousand Eyes
Typed manuscript, carbon, with autograph corrections, 372 pages,
ca. 1945
RBML, Cornell Woolrich Papers
Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich was born in New York City on
4 December 1903, the son of Genaro Hopley-Woolrich, a civil
engineer and Claire Attalie Tarler. After his parents divorced,
Woolrich spent his early years with his father traveling through
Mexico and Central America, before moving back to New York
City at the age of twelve to live with his mother. He attended
Columbia University intermittently between 1921 and 1926 but
never graduated.
Of all his major novels, Night Has a Thousand Eyes,
published in 1945 under the new pseudonym George Hopley, is
the one most dominated by death and fate, and in it Woolrich
depicts the terror that is generated by knowing the exact
moment and nature of one's death. By the mid 1940s Woolrich
was regarded as the premier American suspense writer. After
a stroke rendered him unconscious, he died on 25 September
1968, less than two and a half months short of his sixty-fifth
birthday. He left his estate of some $850,000 to Columbia
University to establish a scholarship fund for journalism
in his mother's memory. He also left his papers and his copyrights
to the Columbia University Libraries.
Bequest of Cornell Woolrich, 1968
217.
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917 2000)
Annie Allen
New York: Harper, 1949
RBML, Pulitzer Prize Papers
Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer
Prize. This is the copy that was sent to the Pulitzer Prize
Committee. She was awarded the 1950 poetry prize for this
book, a verse narrative pairing the mythic imagery of a young
woman's hopes and dreams with the realities of her life as
a black woman.
Gift of the Pulitzer Prize Committee, 1950
218.
Ralph Ellison (1914 1994)
Working notes and outline for Invisible Man
Typed manuscript, 9 pages, 1952
RBML, Random House Papers
Invisible Man is one of the great novels of American
literature and perhaps the most profound sociological exploration
of African-American culture ever written in novel form. In
this hand-corrected typescript submitted to Random House,
Ellison discusses the concept of invisibility as applied to
the novel as follows: "First a couple of underlying assumptions:
"Invisibility", as our rather strange character comes in the
end to conceive it, springs from two basic facts of American
life: From the conditioning which often makes the white American
interpret cultural, physical, or psychological differences
as signs of racial inferiority" and "the great formlessness
of Negro life wherein all values are in flux." In these working
notes Ellison discusses the predicament of the Negro in American
life, a person who must act logically in a predicament which
is not logical. Life for the Negro in the world and word of
Ellison is either tragic, absurd, or both.
Gift of Random House, Inc., 1970
219.
Ernest Hemingway (1899 1961)
Autograph letter, signed to Daniel Longwell
San Francisco de Paula, Cuba, 3 pages, July 6, 1952
RBML, Daniel Longwell Papers
Daniel Longwell (1899 - 1968) began his distinguished career
as an editor at Doubleday, supervising the publication of
books by Edna Ferber, Ellen Glasgow and other writers. In
1934, he joined the staff of Time, Inc., becoming one of the
founding editors of Life magazine, and serving as chairman
of its board of editors from 1946 until his retirement in
1954. In this letter, written from the Finca Vigia, his beloved
house in Cuba, Hemingway tells Longwell how important it is
for him to have The Old Man and the Sea published in
Life where people who could not afford to buy the book
would be able to read it, adding, "That makes me much happier
than to have a Noble prize." The work appeared in the issue
of September 1, 1952. Hemingway would receive the Nobel Prize
in Literature in 1954, "for his mastery of the art of narrative,
most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea,
and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary
style."
Gift of Mrs. Daniel Longwell, 1969
220.
Allen Ginsberg (1926 1997)
Howl (for Carl Solomon)
Typescript with autograph corrections, 7 pages, January 1956
RBML, Carr Papers
Ginsberg graduated from Columbia College in 1948, traveled
widely, and held a number of jobs, ranging from floor-mopper
in a cafeteria to market researcher, before writing Howl,
now recognized by many as the most significant of the Beat
Generation poems. Ginsberg enclosed this typescript in a letter
to Lucien Carr, in which he called attention to the "new style,
long lines, strophes." Howl is a violent lament of
the destruction by society of the poet's generation, and both
the style and content clearly demonstrate that the poem follows
in the tradition of Walt Whitman. The first edition, preceding
Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Books publication, was
mimeographed, and Ginsberg sent a copy to his former English
professor Mark Van Doren, now in the Rare Book and Manuscript
Library's Van Doren Papers.
221.
Dawn Powell (1896 1965)
Charts & Casts & Notes for Golden Spur
Autograph manuscript, on folder paper, March 1958
RBML, Dawn Powell Papers
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library is the principle repository
of the papers of novelist and playwright, Dawn Powell, the
gift of Elizabeth T. Page and the ongoing gift of Tim Page.
Among the papers are drafts and working notes for her novel
The Golden Spur. These include this chart that she
began in March, 1958, showing how she kept track of characters,
places, spots and episodes for the work, such as: "Cassie
Bender, gallery. Would have had a tea-room in another age,"
and under "Spots:" "Hotel Le Grand. Golden Spur Cafe. Supermarket.
Wash. Sq. Park."
Born in Mount Gilead, Ohio in 1896, Dawn Powell ran away from
an abusive stepmother when she was thirteen and settled with
her unconventional aunt in nearby Shelby, Ohio. "Auntie May,"
a divorcée, owned a home near the railroad depot, made
lively by Powell's cousins, Auntie's lover, and passing strangers
who stopped for meals. Encouraged by her aunt to further her
education, Powell begged a scholarship to Lake Erie College
for Women. There she wrote and performed in plays and edited
the Lake Erie Record, a campus quarterly, which often contained
her playful yet pessimistic stories. In 1918, Powell moved
to New York City. She married Joseph Gousha, Jr., a Pennsylvania-born
poet turned ad man, and the couple had a son, Jojo. They settled
in Greenwich Village. Powell loved her bohemian neighborhood
and the Manhattan nightlife that she spent alongside friends
John Dos Passos, Edmund Wilson, E. E. Cummings, and others
from the literary scene.
Powell set her fiction in the small Ohio towns of her youth
and later, most successfully, in familiar New York neighborhoods
and cafés. Though dogged by Gousha's drinking, Jojo's
probable autism, financial strain, and her own struggles with
alcohol, illness, and depression, Dawn Powell managed to write
sixteen novels, nine plays, and numerous short stories and
reviews. She died in 1965. Powell's wicked sense of humor,
keen ear for dialogue and human sense of pathos pervade her
barbed, shrewd fiction about mid-century Americans in Manhattan
and Ohio. Her remarkable diaries, published in 1995, were
hailed by the New York Times as "one of the outstanding literary
finds of the last quarter century." Columbia University's
holdings include her personal and professional correspondence,
drafts of her plays and novels and her diaries.
Gift of Tim Page, 2002
Music
222.
René Descartes (1596 1650)
Renati Des-Cartes Musicae compendium
Utrecht: Gesberti a Zÿll, & Theodori ab Ackersdÿck,
1650
Gabe M. Wiener Music & Arts Library
The Compendium is both a treatise on music and a study
in methodology. In it Descartes shows himself to be a link
between the musical humanists of the 16th century he
was influenced particularly by Zarlino, whom he cited
and the scientists of the 17th. The work is noteworthy as
an early experiment in the application of an empirical, deductive,
scientific approach to the study of sensory perception and
as being among the earliest attempts to define the dual relationship
between the physical and psychological phenomena in music.
Descartes divided music into
three basic component parts, each of which can be isolated
for study: the mathematical-physical aspect of sound, the
nature of sensory perception and the ultimate effect of such
perception on the individual listener. He considered the first
of these to lend itself to pure scientific investigation,
since it is independent of personal interpretation. He characterized
the process of sensory perception as being autonomous, self-regulating
and measurable. This is the realm where practical aspects
of music are dealt with (e.g. rules for counterpoint) and
to which the great bulk of the Compendium is devoted.
To Descartes the impact of sound on a listener's emotions
or ‘soul' is a subjective, irrational element and therefore
incapable of being scientifically measured. He described it
as a psychological-physiological phenomenon that clearly belongs
to the areas of aesthetics and metaphysics, of which he was
to develop the principles later in his philosophical writings.
The distinction he made in the Compendium, between
sound as a physical phenomenon and sound as understood by
the human conscience, permitted him to pass from a rationalist
concept of aesthetics to a sensualist one in his later work.
This concept was influential in the development of a philosophy
for the affections in music in late 17th-century Germany,
especially through his treatise Les Passions de l'âme
(Amsterdam, 1649/R).
Purchase, 1901
223.
Henry Purcell (1659 1695)
Orpheus Britannicus. A collection of all the choicest songs…The
Second Book, which renders the First Compleat
London: William Pearson for Henry Playford, 1702
Gabe M. Weiner Music & Arts Library
Henry Purcell was one of the greatest English composers, flourishing
in the period that followed the Restoration of the monarchy
after the Puritan Commonwealth period. Purcell spent much
of his short life in the service of the Chapel Royal as a
composer, organist and singer. With considerable gifts as
a composer, he wrote extensively for the stage, particularly
in a hybrid musico-dramatic form of the time, for the church
and for popular entertainment, a master of English word-setting
and of contemporary compositional techniques for instruments
and voices. He died in 1695, a year after composing funeral
music for Queen Mary.
Purcell wrote only one full opera, Dido and Aeneas,
with a libretto by Nahum Tate. He provided a number of verse
anthems and full anthems for the liturgy of the Church of
England, as well as settings of the Morning and Evening Service,
the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, Te Deum and Jubilate. Purcell's
secular vocal music includes a number of Odes for the feast
of St. Cecilia, patron saint of music and a number of Welcome
Songs and other celebrations of royal occasions. He wrote
a considerable quantity of solo songs, in addition to the
songs included in his work for the theater.
Gift of Mrs. Elaine Schenker, 1960
224.
The Beggar's Opera
Playing Cards, England, ca. 1730
RBML, Albert Field Collection of Playing Cards
The Field Collection, one of the most comprehensive collections
of playing cards in the world, consists of close to 6,000
packs. Included in the collection are tarot packs; miniature
packs; packs depicting generals, presidents, and sports figures;
and transformation packs, where suit signs change into human
heads, butterflies, bees, birds, or fish. The collection also
contains depictions of historic events, representing changes
in social customs, political context, and design. A sequence
of packs from early 20th-century Russia, for example, shows
increasingly vicious images of the imperial court. The deck
of cards shown here contains the words and music for the songs
in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, first performed in
London on January 29, 1728.
Albert Field, who performed as a magician during his early
years, incorporated card tricks into his magic acts, and collected
cards from the countries he toured. Field received a B.A.
in English Literature from Columbia University, and an M.A.
from Harvard, and then taught English and science in New York
City high schools. Field met Salvador Dali in the early 1940s,
and was chosen by the artist to be his official archivist
in 1955. Field proceeded to catalogue thousands of Dali works
and fakes, eventually becoming the foremost authority in the
field.
Bequest of Albert Field, 2003
225.
Leonard Euler (1707 1783)
Tentamen novae theoriae musicae
St. Petersburg: Typographia Academiae Scientiarum, 1739
Gabe M. Weiner Music & Arts Library
Swiss mathematician, and scientist, Leonard Euler's residency
in Russia coincided with the grand cultural vision of Catherine
the Great and her determination to Europeonize Russia. Under
Catherine's patronage science, the arts and trade flourished.
Catherine is credited with luring Euler back to St. Peterburg
during the Enlightenment. He was one of the first mathematicians
to apply calculus to physics, and is considered to be one
of the most prolific mathematicians of all time. He was the
perfector of integral calculus, the inventor of calculus using
sines, and is particularly renowned for his study of motion.
Euler presented a developed theory of consonance, based upon
an explicit, mathematical rule for determining the ‘simplicity'
of a set of frequencies such as those making up a chord. He
derived his rule from ideas of the ancients, Ptolemy in particular.
It could not take account of difference tones and summation
tones, for they had not yet been reported, but it permitted
Euler to determine by routine calculations the most complete
systems of scales or modes ever published. The last chapter
of this work sketches a theory of modulation. Euler thus began
to construct a mathematical theory of the consonance of a
progression of chords.
From Dr. Anderson's Collection, Given by the Alumni
226.
Vesperal
Manuscript on paper, Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1766
Gabe M. Weiner Music & Arts Library
Three slim volumes, of an original four, contain the musical
compositions for the Divine Office at vespers; the music was
so well known that only its opening bars were recorded, since
the short cue would be sufficient to the singers. It is possible
that this vesperal was produced for use in a church of the
Theatine order: their founder, St. Cajetan, is honored here
with arrangements for his feast (7 August). The only other
unusual saint so fêted is St. Leopold (15 November),
who was Markgrave of Austria in the 15th century.
Austrian ownership is proven by the elaborate achievement
of arms on folio 2 in each of the three volumes: the double-headed
displayed eagle, wearing the collar of the Order of the Golden
Fleece, grasping the two swords and orb in his claws, carries
emblazoned on his chest, the twenty-two coats of arms of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. On the same leaf is the signature
of one Johann Hermann, qualifying himself as "Music." (for
"musicista"?), and the date, 1766. It would have been a worthy
accomplishment to have copied out by hand all of these texts
and music, and to have done so with such consistent elegance.
Gift of John and Johanna Bass, 1962
227.
Whittier Perkins' Yankee Doodle: A Collection of Dancing
Tunes, Marches & Song Tunes
Manuscript, 36 leaves, ca. 1778-1788
RBML
Known as the "Whittier Perkins" manuscript because of the
ownership inscription, this volume, in a contemporary leather
binding, contains more than two hundred tunes from the American
Revolutionary War era, scored for melodic instrument. Many
of the melodies are of English origin, but the spirit of the
times is reflected in the titles given to the tunes, such
as "The Free Born Americans" and "Washinton's [sic] Health."
The most famous piece in the collection is "Yankey doodle,"
which appears here in its earliest known American form. In
addition, the manuscript contains such well-known songs as
"The 12 days of Christmas" and "Greensleeves."
Gift of Robert Gorham Davis, 1965
228.
Joseph Mazzinghi (1765 1844)
Paul et Virginie: the favorite grand ballet, op. 7 composed
by Sigr. Onorati ; the music by Joseph Mazzinghi
London: Printed for G. Goulding, [1795?]
Gabe M. Weiner Music & Arts Library
An English composer of Corsican origin, Mazzinghi was the
eldest son of Tommaso Mazzinghi, a London wine merchant and
violinist. Apparently at the instigation of both his father
and aunt, Mazzinghi commenced lessons with J. C. Bach. He
was appointed organist at the Portuguese Chapel in 1775 when
only ten years old. He later studied with Sacchini, Anfossi
and possibly Bertolini. In 1779 Mazzinghi was apprenticed
as copyist and musical assistant to Leopoldo De Michele, chief
music copyist at the King's Theatre. Five years later he advanced
to the position of harpsichordist and was then engaged as
house composer to the King's Theatre (1786 9). In this
position he provided ballet music, directed operas and was
responsible for arranging pasticcios. Mazzinghi was a prolific
composer for the ballet, having written some two dozen works
for the King's Theatre and Pantheon. As was customary,
Mazzinghi was required to arrange existing music for the ballet
as well as compose new works. Among Mazzinghi's more successful
ballets were those he composed for Noverre during the period
1787 9. Paul et Virginie was among the more popular
ballets after Noverre's departure for France in 1789. Mazzinghi
joined the Royal Society of Musicians on 3 June 1787. He may
have had a financial interest in the music publishing firm
of Goulding, who published most of his music from about 1792.
Mazzinghi died on a visit to his son at Downside College,
and was buried in the vault of Chelsea Catholic Chapel on
25 January 1844.
229.
Joseph Haydn (1732 1809)
[Gebote Gottes den Herm] Die X Gebothe Gottes, in Musik
gesetzt als Canons von Joseph Hayden (Eigenthum der herausgeber)
[The Ten Commandments]
Vienna: Artaria & Comp. [1810?]
Gabe M. Weiner Music & Arts Library
Joseph Haydn was born in 1832 the son of a wheelwright. Throughout
his career he composed for his patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy.
During this period, Haydn was the director of an ensemble
of about twenty musicians, with responsibility for the music
and the instruments. Even if his music was not as emotionally
intense and radical as that of Beethoven (who was his pupil
at one point), or as profound and probing as Mozart's (who
was his good friend), Haydn's music shows a very solid structure
that was an important part of the Classical Era.
In Haydn's sacred vocal music the aesthetics of through-composition
is a matter not only of cyclic integration, but of doctrine
and devotion. Many of these works are organized around the
conceptual image of salvation, at once personal and communal,
achieved at or near the end: a musical realization of the
desire for a state of grace. At the time of his death, Haydn
was mourned as one of the musical giants of his time. His
long career enabled him to produce a vast quantity of works
that defined the Viennese Classical style.
Gift of John and Johanna Bass, 1962
230.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 1827)
Wellingtons-Sieg, oder: Die Schlacht bey Vittoria. In Musik
gesetzt … 91tes Werk
Vienna: S. A. Steiner & Comp., 1816
Gabe M. Weiner Music & Arts Library, Deposit to RBML,
Anton Seidl Papers
This first printing of Beethoven's Wellington's Victory,
Opus 91, the "Battle Symphony," was owned by conductor Anton
Seidl. Seidl came to prominence as Wagner's principal assistant
at the first Beyreuth festival in 1876, and he became a member
of the Wagner household. After conducting in Europe, Seidl
was invited to conduct German opera at the Metropolitan Opera
House. He made his debut on November 23, 1885, conducting
Lohengrin. When German opera at the Met was dropped
in 1891, he became the conductor of the Philharmonic Society
of New York, returning to the Met in 1897. During this time
he became a naturalized American citizen, dying suddenly of
ptomaine poisoning at the height of his career in 1898.
Gift of the Friends of Anton Seidl, 1905
231.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 1827)
Notes on Mozart's Requiem and sketch for Missa Solemnis
Autograph manuscript, n.d.
RBML
This working sheet contains Beethoven's analysis of the Kyrie
fugue from Mozart's Requiem on one side and a sketch
for his Missa Solemnis on the other. Beethoven invented
special symbols for Mozart's use of double counterpoint and
compound 4/4 meter, and made frequent use of this meter in
his late fugues, especially the Gloria fugue in the Missa
Solemnis.
Gift of Roberta M. Welch, 1953
232.
Anton Bruckner (1824 1896)
Symphony IV, (Romantic)
Manuscript, with title page and many corrections in the composer's
hand, 121 leaves, [1878]
Gabe M. Weiner Music & Arts Library, Deposit to RBML
One of the most innovative figures of the second half of the
19th century, Bruckner is remembered primarily for his symphonies
and sacred compositions. His music is rooted in the formal
traditions of Beethoven and Schubert and inflected with Wagnerian
harmony and orchestration. Until late in his career his reputation
rested mainly on his improvisatory skills at the organ. The
Fourth Symphony, like the Third, exists in three distinct
versions. The first was completed in November 1874 (ed. Nowak,
1974).
In this revision of 1878, Bruckner ‘tightened up' the
first two movements, revised the finale and replaced the original
scherzo with a new movement. In 1880 Bruckner substantially
recomposed the finale. The work, comprising the first three
movements of 1878 and the finale of 1880, was given its first
performance by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Hans
Richter, on February 20, 1881. After this performance, Bruckner
unsuccessfully attempted to get the symphony published. In
undertaking the third and final revision, Bruckner was assisted
by Ferdinand Löwe and probably by the Schalk brothers.
233a.
Edward Alexander MacDowell (1860 1908)
Indian Suite, [Suite No. 2, Op. 48]
Autograph manuscript, Boston, ca. 1889-1897
RBML, Edward MacDowell Papers
233b.
Columbia University
Silver cup presented to MacDowell by Columbia students,
1904
RBML, Edward MacDowell Papers
A Columbia University committee, after hearing a performance
of McDowell's Indian Suite by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
on January 23, 1896, decided to recommend MacDowell as the
university's first professor of music. The cup is engraved
with the names of his students and inscribed, "with the high
esteem and affection of his classes at Columbia University."
(Manuscript) Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust,
1969
(Cup) Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Evans, 1972
234.
Gustav Holst (1874 1934)
Egdon Heath
Autograph manuscript, August, 1927
Gabe M. Weiner Music & Arts Library, Deposit to RBML
The music of "Egdon Heath," inspired by Thomas Hardy's The
Return of the Native, is elusive and unpredictable. Its
three main elements are set out at the beginning a
pulseless wandering melody, first for double basses and then
all the strings, a sad brass processional and restless music
for strings and oboe. All three intertwine and transmute,
eventually coming to rest with music of desolation, out of
which emerges a ghostly dance, the strangest moment in a strange
work. After this comes a resolution of sorts, and the ending,
though hardly conclusive, gives the impression of an immense
journey achieved, even though "Egdon Heath" lasts no more
than 12 minutes.
235.
Béla Bartók (1881 1945)
Rumanian Folk Music
Autograph manuscript, ca. 1942
RBML, Béla Bartók Papers
Central to Béla Bartók's work as a composer
was his work as an ethno-musicologist. With fellow Hungarian
composer, Zoltán Kodály, he travelled throughout
Eastern Europe and Turkey collecting folk music prior to the
devastations of World Wars I and II. Alarmed by the spread
of fascism, Bartók emigrated to the United States in
1940. On his arrival, he was commissioned by Columbia to transcribe
a large collection of Yugoslav folk music, and was awarded
an honorary doctorate by the University that year. He prepared
the manuscripts of his work on Rumanian and Turkish folk music
for publication, but was unable to find a publisher. He then
donated the material to Columbia along with his tabulation
of Serbo-Croatian folk music, held in the Parry Collection
at Harvard, that had been published. By 1943 his health was
failing and he died from leukemia in New York in 1945. His
Rumanian and Turkish manuscripts were later published by his
estate.
Gift of Béla Bartók, 1943 and 1944; transferred
to RBML from Central Files, 1981
236.
Boris Artzybasheff (1899 1965)
Marian Anderson
Painting in tempera and pencil for the cover of Time,
December 30, 1946
RBML, Art Collection
During the 1930s, Arturo Toscanini had told the American contralto
Marian Anderson, "A voice like yours comes but once in a century."
In 1941, when she booked Constitution Hall in Washington,
D. C. for a concert, her booking was cancelled by the Daughters
of the American Revolution, the owners of the hall. Walter
White of the NAACP told Eleanor Roosevelt what had happened,
suggesting that the concert could be held out of doors on
government property. Mrs. Roosevelt called Secretary of the
Interior Harold Ickes, and the concert was held on the steps
of the Lincoln Memorial before a crowd of 75,000. Despite
this triumph, Marian Anderson did not make her Metropolitan
Opera debut until 1955, when she was fifty-three, becoming
the first African American to sing at the Met.
Bequest of Boris Artzybasheff, 1965
237.
Douglas Moore (1893 1969)
"Augusta's Aria," from The Ballad of Baby Doe
Autograph manuscript, ink and pencil
RBML, Douglas Moore Papers
The Ballad of Baby Doe was commissioned by the Koussevitsky
Foundation of the Library of Congress for the 200th
anniversity of Columbia University. Completed in 1956, it
has become one of the most popular American operas of the
modern day. The story is a mixture of romance and frontier
rowdiness, a tale of wealth turned into poverty by the change
of the silver standard during the William Jennings Bryan era.
Douglas Moore was educated at the Hotchkiss School and Yale
University (BA 1915, BM 1917), where he studied composition
with Horatio Parker. He began to write songs for social events,
developing a gift for writing melodies in a popular style.
This skill was reinforced by further songwriting during his
World War I service in the US Navy (from 1917); the resulting
collection, Songs My Mother Never Taught Me (1921),
co-authored with folk-singer John Jacob Niles, brought Moore
his first public recognition.
In 1926 Moore was appointed to the faculty of Columbia University,
where he became chair of the music department in 1940, remaining
in that post until his retirement in 1962. He gradually became
one of the most influential figures in American music, both
as a teacher and as a director or board member of many organizations,
including ASCAP and the National Institute and American Academy
of Arts and Letters. Moore's papers include his professional
and personal correspondence, original scores and sketches,
and production notes, libretti and data concerning his major
works.
Gift of Mrs. Douglas Moore & Family, 1971 and 1973; and
on-going gifts of Mary Moore Kelleher & Sarah Moore
Theater History, Dramatic Arts
238.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies
London: Isaac Jaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623
RBML, Phoenix Collection
As the monumental work of Charlton K. Hinman has shown, from
about February until December 1622, three folio books were
in the process of being printed at the printing house of William
Jaggard: Vincent's Discoverie of Errors, Favyn's Theatre
of Honour and Shakespeare's works. All three books are
in the RBML collections, along with copies of the other three
Shakespeare folios. This copy of the first folio came to Columbia
with the library's first rare book collection, that of Stephen
Whitney Phoenix.
Bequest of Stephen Whitney Phoenix, 1881
239a.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751 1816)
School for Scandal
Manuscript, 97 pages, late 18th or early 19th century
RBML
239b.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Miniature portrait
RBML, Plimpton Miniatures
Late in the eighteenth century, Sheridan told a publisher
who asked for a corrected copy of School for Scandal, that
after nineteen years he was still not satisfied with the text.
Whether he ever completed a definitive text is not known,
but he may have continued to work on the play as late as 1815.
This late version, although not complete, shows some significant
changes from an earlier one that has long been accepted as
the basic text. The manuscript is in five hands: one appears
to be either that of John Palmer (1742?-1798), the original
performer of Joseph Surface, the hypocritical brother in this
popular comedy, or, according to some scholars, that of George
Steevens (1736-1800), the commentator on Shakespeare and collaborator
with Samuel Johnson.
(Manuscript) Brander Matthews Dramatic Museum & Library
Collection
(Portrait) Gift of Mrs. Francis Plimpton, 1987
240a.
Frances Anne Kemble (1809 1893)
Muslin bodice of the costume worn as Juliet, debut appearance,
Covent Garden, London: 5 October 1829
RBML, Dramatic Museum Collection
240b.
Frances Anne Kemble (1809 1893)
Journal by Frances Anne Butler, with the author's ms. annotations
Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1835
RBML, Dramatic Library
Fanny Kemble was not yet twenty when she made her debut as
Juliet at Covent Garden on 5 October 1829, wearing this bodice.
The London Times reported: "Upon the whole, we do not remember
to have ever seen a more triumphant debut. That Miss Kemble
has been well and carefully instructed, as, of course, she
would be is clear; but it is no less clear that she possesses
qualifications which instructions could not create, although
it can bring them to perfection." Some critics thought she
was even better than her famous aunt, Sarah Siddons had been
at the same age.
In 1832 she traveled to the United States with her father,
the actor Charles Kemble, and was an immediate success in
New York and during a tour that lasted for two years. She
married Pierce Butler in 1834. Butler was a retired actor
and Philadelphian who owned a plantation in Georgia. Her diary
from this time was published in two volumes in 1835, and in
this copy she has made annotations throughout. Visiting Butler's
plantation, she was shocked to see the institution of slavery
first-hand. Other parts of her diary were published as Journal
of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1835, and reissued
in New York and London during the American Civil War in order
to influence British opinion against slavery and the South.
Brander Matthews Dramatic Museum & Library Collection
241.
Fortune Theatre Model
London: James P. Maginnis, ca. 1912
RBML, Dramatic Museum
In 1599, Philip Henslowe, theater producer, and Edward Alleyn,
actor and founder of Dulwich College, contracted with Peter
Streete, carpenter, to build a theater north of Aldersgate
on Golden (formerly Golding) Lane in London. Streete had been
the contractor for the Globe Cheatre that had opened in late
1599. Henslowe paid £520 for the Fortune, opened in
1600, and almost twice as much to have it rebuilt of brick
after it burned in 1621.
The working of the Fortune contract was exact enough to enable
reconstructions to be made. This one was made by James P.
Maginnis of London, under the direction of Walter H. Godfrey,
for Columbia professor and theater history pioneer, Brander
Matthews. The scale is 3:100. It became part of his Dramatic
Museum, a vast collection of books, manuscripts, prints, photographs,
recordings, puppets, masks, set models, theater models, and
other museum objects, that he began in 1912.
The Fortune Theatre was to be three stories high, on a low
wall foundation of brick "underpinning"). An open stage 43
feet by about 27 feet was to be surrounded by galleries, including
four "gentlemen's rooms" and other "twopennie rooms." The
stage, modeled on that of the Globe in Southwark, would have
its pillars "wroughte plasterwise [i.e.strapwork pilasters],
with carved proporcions called satiers to be placed and set
on the top of every of the same postes." The reconstruction
shows how the gallery, the essential feature of the new theatres,
was copied from the coaching inns (such as The George Inn,
still partly standing in Southwark), which in turn had adapted
it from the large house. The Fortune was located only a few
blocks away from what is today the Barbican Arts Centre.
Brander Matthews Dramatic Museum & Library Collection
242a.
Tennessee Williams (1911 1983)
Typed manuscript, annotated, of an early draft of The Eclipse
of May 29, 1919 [The Rose Tattoo]
RBML, Tennessee Williams Papers
242b.
Black glasses owned by Tennessee Williams at the time of
his death
RBML, Tennessee Williams Papers
Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams in Columbus,
Mississippi on March 26, 1911, the son of Cornelius C. Williams
a shoe salesman and Edwina Dakin the daughter of an Episcopalian
minister. Williams received a BA from the University of Iowa
in 1938 and, supported by odd jobs, set out immediately to
become a writer. He first gained fame with The Glass Menagerie
in 1945. The play drew on his family experience, as would
much of his subsequent writings--an absent father, an eccentric
Southern belle mother, a shy troubled sister, all seen through
the eyes of the sensitive artist brother.
The Glass Menagerie was followed by a succession of
hits which securely established Williams' reputation as a
major American playwright. He won the Pulitzer Prize for A
Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof in 1955. The Rose Tattoo, shown here in an
early draft, received the Tony Award for best play in 1951.
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library began collecting Tennessee
Williams materials in the 1970s, and by 1990 had acquired
a substantial collection of scripts, production material,
photographs and correspondence. The largest part of the collection,
including the pair of black glasses shown here, was purchased
from the Tennessee Williams estate in 1994 and consists primarily
of material found in his Key West house following his death.
(Manuscript) Gift of the Friends of the Columbia University
Libraries, 1986
(Glasses) Purchased with the Tennessee Williams Estate, 1994
243.
Thomas W. Lamb (1871 1942)
Drawing for a proposed new lobby, Audubon Ballroom, New
York City
Charcoal and pastel on tracing paper, 1930
Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Thomas W. Lamb Collection
A Scotsman who emigrated to Canada and then New York, Lamb
became one of the leading theater designers in the early 20th
century. He designed or renovated theaters for several chains,
including Loew's, Fox, and Poli, at sites in New York and
around the world. For Manhattan, the archive contains a large
number of projects or renovations in Manhattan alone, including
the old Madison Square Garden at 8th & 50th St., and the
Eltinge, among others. There are theaters for Calcutta, London,
Cairo, Toronto, and Johannesburg. This drawing is part of
a set of proposals for the renovation of the Audubon Ballroom,
a theater Lamb had designed in 1912 and later became famous
as the site of the assassination of Malcolm X. The building
was redeveloped in 1995 as the Audubon Business and Technology
Center by Columbia. Due to the instability of the abandoned
structure, only the façade was salvaged and reinstalled.
The collection, containing over 20,000 drawings, was donated
by John McNamara in 1982. McNamara, also a theater architect,
had been Lamb's associate and then successor. At the time
of the donation, McNamara was at work preparing the Winter
Garden Theater for a new production called "Cats."
Gift of John McNamara, 1982
244.
Joseph Urban (1872 1933)
"Blue Nursery Scene," The Ziegfeld Follies, 1931
Theater set model; gouache, watercolor, and graphite; wooden
base with paper board drops supported on metal poles; paper
and transparent tissue paper decorations, some supported with
wooden bases
RBML, Joseph Urban Papers
Joseph Urban studied architecture at the Akademie der bildenden
Künst in his native Vienna. He established himself as
an architect as well as a book illustrator, exhibit designer,
interior decorator and set designer, often in collaboration
with the painter Heinrich Lefler. Urban and Lefler were co-founders
of the Hagenbund, an exhibiting society similar to the Secessionists.
In 1912 at the age of 40, Urban emigrated to the United States
and became the designer for the Boston Opera Company where
he introduced the innovations of the New Stagecraft from the
European theater.
After the Boston Opera Company went bankrupt in 1914, Urban
began designing sets in New York. He designed the Ziegfeld
Follies, as well as all other Ziegfeld productions, from 1915
to 1932. In 1917 he began designing for the Metropolitan Opera
and continued to do so until his death in 1933, with operas
including the first American productions of Puccini's Turandot
and Richard Strauss's Egyptian Helen, and the first
Metropolitan Opera productions of Verdi's Don Carlos
and Richard Strauss's Electra.
From 1921 to 1925 Urban was also the art director for William
Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan Studios. He had branched out
to other artistic endeavors since moving to New York, including
designing shop windows, roof gardens and interior decoration.
From 1921 to 1922 he introduced the works of Viennese artists
to the United States through his Wiener Werkstätte shop.
He received his license to practice architecture in the United
States in 1926, after which he designed homes, buildings,
ballrooms and theaters in New York and elsewhere. Notable
examples of his extant architecture are the Paramount Theater
Building and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and the New
School and the Hearst Magazine Building in New York.
Columbia's massive Joseph Urban holdings cover his entire career.
Most recently, the Joseph Urban Stage Design Models and Documents
project, through a grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities, has made possible the preservation of 240 three-dimensional
models created by Urban for New York theaters between 1914-1933,
including productions for the Ziegfeld Follies, such as the
"Blue Nursery Scene" in 1931, the Metropolitan Opera, and
a variety of Broadway theaters. The project has also created
digital images of the set models and related stage design
documents and drawings that are linked to the online finding
aid: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/rare/guides/Urban/.
Gift of Mrs. Joseph Urban, 1955
245.
Florine Stettheimer (1871 1944)
Maquettes made for costumes and scenery for Gertrude Stein
and Virgil Thompson's Four Saints in Three Acts
Wire, crepe paper, thread, feathers, sequins, toile, velvet,
cellophane, New York, 1934
RBML, Florine Stettheimer Papers
Artist Florine Stettheimer is best known for her lavish sets
and costumes that she designed for the first production of
Gertrude Stein's opera Four Saints in Three Acts, with
music by Virgil Thompson. Rather than use flat drawings, Stettheimer
created these figures using a wide variety of materials, including
the newly invented cellophane, seen here on the palm trees,
and used extensively for the set itself. Shown here is part
of the maquette for Act I of the opera, with the figures for
the characters, from left to right: Saint Settlement, The
Compere (in black), Saint Teresa I, The Female Dancers (three),
Saint Teresa II, Saint Ignatius, and The Commere (in red).
Gift of Joseph Solomon, on behalf of the Estate of Ettie Stettheimer,
1967
246.
Ely Jacques Kahn (1884 1972)
Drawing, Dowling Theater, Times Square, New York City
Charcoal and pastel on tracing paper, [1944-47]
Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Kahn and Jacobs Collection
A 1906 graduate of Columbia College, Kahn spent several years
at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris before returning to New
York to join the firm of Buchman and Fox. The firm had many
connections in the retail and garment industries; department
stores were among their clients. Bloomingdale's and Oppenheim-Collins
were two of their major patrons. Kahn, along with Raymond
Hood and Ralph Walker, was one of the most successful New
York architects of the 1920s. His buildings include 2 Park
Avenue, the Squibb Building, Bergdorf-Goodman, 120 Wall Street,
525 Seventh Avenue, the Film Center Building, among many others.
Because of Kahn's decorative talents, the buildings were also
known for their colorful lobbies and elevator cabs and exterior
ornament.
Around 1940, Kahn teamed with a younger architect, Robert Allan
Jacobs, son of the architect Harry Allan Jacobs, who had just
returned from working in Le Corbusier's office in Paris. This
project for a post-war theater shows the exuberance and eagerness
for a post-war New York City. After years of war-time blackouts,
these drawings promised a return to the bright lights and
excitement of Times Square. Unfortunately, this project was
not built.
The Kahn collection was the gift of Hellmuth, Obata, and Kassabaum,
the successor firm to Kahn and Jacobs. Additional personal
materials, including scrapbooks, clippings, and photographs,
were gifts of Mrs. Ely Jacques Kahn.
Gift of Hellmuth, Obata, and Kassabaum , 1978
247a.
Samuel (1899 1971) and Bella Cohen Spewack (1899
1990)
Kiss Me, Kate, "Script A"
Typescript, with autograph corrections, 1948
RBML, Sam and Bella Spewack Papers
247b.
First Tony award for Best Book (Musical), 1949
RBML, Sam and Bella Spewack Papers
The idea for Kiss Me, Kate came from producer Arnold
Saint-Subber. In 1935, while working as a stagehand for the
Theatre Guild's production of The Taming of the Shrew,
he noticed that Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were involved
in a relationship that was almost as tempestuous offstage
as it was onstage in their roles as Petruccio and Katherine.
With the book written by Sam (Columbia College, Class of 1919)
and Bella Spewack, and the music and lyrics written by Cole
Porter, with liberal use of Shakespeare's dialogue for the
"onstage" musical numbers, Kiss Me, Kate opened on
December 30, 1948 at the New Century Theatre and ran for 1070
performances. It won five "Tony" Awards in 1949, the second
year of the awards and the first time that musicals were honored
separately, including this one given to the Spewacks, and
awards for "Best Musical," and "Best Score." The award for
"Best Play" was given to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
The Spewack Papers contain a large amount of material relating
to the creation, production, and performance of their works
for stage, screen, radio and television; Bella Spewack's work
for various charitable organizations including UNRA; and the
manuscripts of novels, short stories and articles written
by the Spewacks.
Bequest of Bella C. Spewack, 1990
248.
Judy Garland (1922 1969)
"The Judy Garland Story"
Typescript, New York, March 1961
RBML, Random House Papers
This is Random House's copy of Fred F. Finklehoffe's transcription,
made in Mexico City, in February 1961, of the tape-recorded
interviews that he had made with Judy Garland in London and
elsewhere in 1960, for her proposed, but never written autobiography.
Playwright, screenwriter, and producer, Fred Finkelhoffe worked
on the screenplays for six of Garland's films, including "Strike
Up the Band," "Girl Crazy," and "Meet Me In St. Louis." On
page one of the transcript she states that, "Contrary [to]
many rumors, I was not born in a trunk, but in a lovely white
house with a garden, and until I went back to see it again
when I was fifteen, always I thought it was the biggest house
I'd ever seen."
Gift of Random House, Inc., 1970
249.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Mimeographed copy of typescript, signed and inscribed to Carl
[Petersen] by the author, New York, ca. 1967
RBML, House of Books Collection
The House of Books opened in New York on October 10, 1930,
under proprietors Louis Henry Cohn (1888-1953) and Marguerite
Arnold Cohn (1887-1984). It specialized in 20th
century British and American first editions and brought the
Cohns into contact with many of the major literary figures
of the day, including Tom Stoppard. This play was his first
major success. It tells the tale of Hamlet from the point-of-view
of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare's
play.
Bequest of Marguerite A. Cohn, 1984
250.
Robert Wilson
"The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud" A Three Act Dance-Theatre
Concert, Brooklyn Academy of Music
Poster, lithograph, "after engraving by William Blake/R. Wilson
70/300," 1969
RBML, Robert Wilson Papers
Robert Wilson was born in Waco, Texas in 1941. He attended
the University of Texas, Austin, 1959-1962 and the Pratt Institute,
1962-1965 where he earned a BFA in architecture. By 1968 he
had gathered a group of artists that became known as The Byrd
Hoffman School of Byrds in honor of Wilson's former teacher.
Together they worked and performed at 147 Spring Street in
lower Manhattan. The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud,
along with The King of Spain, were both produced in
1969. His Einstein on the Beach, a collaboration with
composer Philip Glass, appeared in 1976,
In the early 1980s, Wilson began working on his multi-national
epic, "the CIVIL wars: a tree is best measured when it is
down," his most ambitious project to date. Created in collaboration
with an international group of artists and planned as the
centerpiece of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles,
the full opera has not been seen in its entirety, but individual
parts have been produced in the United States, Europe and
Japan.
Columbia's Robert Wilson Papers include correspondence, outlines,
scripts, production notes, technical materials, story boards,
contracts, posters, programs, announcements, reviews, and
other printed materials relating to all aspects of Wilson's
theater works, opera, films, artwork and video productions.
Also included are the files of the Byrd Hoffman Foundation.
Gift of Robert Wilson and the Byrd Hoffman Foundation, 1988-91
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