AS220 Redux

I was very happy and gratified to receive a card from the folks at AS220--mostly because it contained all the buzzwords that a young(ish) special collections librarian wants to hear. As a steward of cultural artifacts and a researcher myself, I have a good idea of the potential of these collections. When others use words like "inspiring," "spectacular," and "hidden jewels" in relation to these materials, and "generosity," "open minded-ness" and "friendliness" in relation to my own "book-side manner," I feel like I'm really serving in an exemplary way. My point is, we don't (and shouldn't) do this work in a vacuum; we need people to see this stuff as much as possible.

AS220 comes to PPL!

Last Friday (May 9) I gave a tour of the D. B. Updike collection on the history of printing to about a dozen artists and printers from AS220 (http://www.as220.org/about/), a local non-profit artist's community which is doing some exciting things these days. Hoping to hook into their energy, I invited them across the street and was not disappointed.

AS220 has begun a print shop, and people are taking classes in (among other things) letterpress printing. Since the Updike collection is one of the finest of its kind (I had verification of this from two scholars working here last week as well), it is a natural well of inspiration for working printers. Indeed, that is why Updike created the collection--as a practical, rather than a scholarly resource. In fact, it is both. For more pics of the tour, see:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/as220/2479228856/

Known as the "Saxon Nymph"

The reason I went to grad school for medieval English literature, lo these many years ago, was because of my adulation of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was a philologist, and knew Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) as well as dozens of other languages. You can imagine my delight, then, when I came across this first edition of the first English grammar of Old English.
Elizabeth Elstob (1683-1756) was a rare case--a female scholar, allowed to be so by her brother, who died the year this book was published, which was a tragedy to her career. Proficient in eight languages, and one of England's first professional female scholars, she persevered and eventually enjoyed the support and fellowship of her colleagues.

Check your attic for Lincoln letters!

This just in from the auction world:

"A fabulous Lincoln letter, magnificent both for its content and price, broke all kinds of U.S. auction records at Sotheby's last month. The President wrote the 1864 letter in response to a petition he had received from schoolchildren in the Concord, Massachusetts, class of Mary Mann, widow of famed educator and abolitionist Horace Mann. Their petition was headed "Petition of the children of the United States; (under 18 years) that the President will free all slave children." In his reply, Lincoln writes, "Please tell these little people I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and generous sympathy, and that, while I have not the power to grant all they ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it seems, He wills to do it." If it sounds odd that Lincoln was not willing to free slaves in 1864, long after the Emancipation Proclamation, it must be remembered that the Proclamation only freed slaves in states in rebellion against the United States. Slavery was still legal in the border Union states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia. This letter was sold for a record price of $3,401,000. Sotheby's noted that this was not only a record price for a Lincoln manuscript, but for any presidential or any American manuscript ever sold at auction. It was sold to an unnamed American telephone bidder."

By Michael Stillman. For the full article, see http://www.americanaexchange.com/NewAE/aemonthly/article.asp?f=1&page=1&id=633)

Here's a great image from our truly astounding Rhode Island Collection--one of thousands of photos which you can view at our online album, at http://www.provlib.org/ri_image/providence_library/index.html

This description of the Providence Grays is from Wikipedia:

In 1884, Providence was a major league baseball city. The Providence Grays played at the long-gone Messer Field in the Olneyville neighborhood, as one of the eight teams in the National League. They were led by ace pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Radbourn),

who is still remembered for winning a record 59 games that year and leading the Grays to the pennant. When the team's other pitcher defected to a rival league in July, it looked like the Grays' season was over, but "Old Hoss" offered to pitch the rest of the team's games. The Grays went on a twenty-game winning streak and blew past their hated rivals, the Boston Red Stockings.

When the season was over, the Grays had won the league title by five games. They then played the New York Metropolitans, champions of the rival American Association, in a three-game championship series, and won all three games. It wasn't officially called the "World Series", but the Grays became undisputed world champions.

The Providence Grays disbanded after the 1885 season. A minor league by the same name played in Providence from 1891 to 1929; at one time its roster included a promising young pitcher, Babe Ruth.