During the Civil War era Boston led the national crusade against slavery and the struggle over emancipation and citizenship. Owing largely to activists in Boston, Massachusetts became one of the first states to end slavery. It soon granted black men full suffrage, ended the ban on interracial marriage, and in 1855 became the first state [...]
Finding aids for seven newly cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month, including the Marian Hannah Winter and Rose Winter Memorial Collection of Prints, a rich collection of images documenting the history of all kinds of theatrical performance from the 17th to 20th centuries.
This weekend, expect the smell of madeleines to fill the balmy spring air of Harvard Yard, as Proustians from around the world gather in Cambridge for the conference Proust and the Arts. Coinciding with the centennial of the publication of Swann’s Way, the first book in Proust’s masterwork In Search of Lost Time, the co-organizers [...]
Last month Houghton Library acquired a small group of letters and postcards from Charles Ricketts (1866-1931) & Charles Shannon (1863-1937) to the Irish artist and collector Cecil French (1879-1953). These letters were acquired with the Louis Appell Jr. Fund for British Civilization because they are full of current affairs, news and gossip in the world [...]
Finding aids for 11 newly cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month, including a collection of photos of the dancer and choreographer known as La Meri. Processed by Michael W. Austin: Series X. James family photograph albums in the collection: Correspondence and Journals of Henry James Jr. (MS Am [...]
Riddle: What does a semiotician do for fun? Answer: For your amusement this April Fools’ Day, we offer a rebus from the papers of American philosopher and scientist Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). Peirce (pronounced like “purse”), a scholar of astonishingly wide-ranging interests, was best known in philosophy for his theory of “pragmatism,” but he made many [...]
John Brown’s raid against the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, on October 16th, 1859, and his subsequent martyrdom elicited an immediate outpouring of abolitionist sentiment across the Northern states. In Columbus, Ohio, twenty-two-year-old William Dean Howells responded with “Old Brown,” his first separately printed work; the poem was soon reprinted in the Ashtabula Sentinel, [...]
“I speak softly, but I carry a big stick” joked Chinua Achebe when he began his talk at the Christopher Okigbo International Conference at Harvard in 2007. Indeed he did. His debut novel Things Fall Apart, was “hard-hitting” in bringing home to Western readers the African perspective on the social and political consequences of colonial [...]
Houghton Library recently acquired two autograph letters written by William Morris (1834-1896) the English designer, author, visionary socialist and proprietor of the Kelmscott Press. These letters are especially appealing because they are both hitherto unknown and unpublished, and addressed to an individual not known to have corresponded with Morris until these letters surfaced at auction [...]
Finding aids for nine newly cataloged collections, and a preliminary box list for four recent acquisitions, have been added to the OASIS database this month, including a rare collection of tinsel prints, portraits of actors in character, decorated with bright metal foil costume pieces.
