This February, one of the most important books in the history of English literature is coming to Middlebury. This year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and to honor the centuries of the bard’s influence, the Folger Shakespeare Library is sponsoring a national tour of their collection of First Folios.
Considered one of the most influential books in the world, the First Folio includes 36 Shakespeare plays, 18 of which had never been printed before the First Folio in 1623. Without the First Folio, all of those plays – including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, As You Like It, and more – might have been lost forever.
From February 2-28, Middlebury College will serve as the Vermont site of the national tour, displaying the First Folio at the Middlebury Museum of Art.
To kick off this month of celebration, James Shapiro, Columbia University professor and renowned Shakespeare scholar, will give a lecture on Shakespeare’s role in American history on Wednesday February 3rd at 7:00pm in the Concert Hall.
Visit go/shakespeare for more information about events throughout the month of February, including a First Folio Festival on Thursday February 18th at 4:30pm in the Center for the Arts Lobby.
Two distinguished alumni are returning to Middlebury as the faces of the Anderson Freeman Resource Center, celebrating its opening weekend to coincide with Alumni of Color and Martin Luther King Weekend, January 15-17, 2016.
Mary Annette Anderson and Martin Freeman represent the struggles and triumphs of the beginning of diversity at Middlebury College, and Special Collections & Archives is pleased to see their impact on College history continue in the form of the new Resource Center.
Mary Annette Anderson, class of 1899, was the first woman of color to graduate from Middlebury College. She earned the title of Valedictorian and went on to teach as a university professor in New Orleans and Washington, D.C.
Martin Henry Freeman graduated from Middlebury in 1849 and became the first African-American Professor and College President at the all-black Allegheny Institute (later Avery College) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. An advocate a movement of black Americans to Africa, he himself relocated to Liberia where served as a professor and later President of Liberia College in Monrovia.
The opening weekend festivities begin with a keynote address by UCLA and Columbia Law School professor Kimberlé Crenshaw at 7pm in Mead Chapel. On Saturday professors, alumni, staff, and students will speak about the “History of Diversity and Student Activism at Middlebury College” at 12:30pm in Wilson Hall, followed by an official opening ceremony at Carr Hall and a talk by Professor of History William Hart on these two iconic alumni at 2:30pm.
Brooklyn-based book artist Brian Dettmer transforms books into art pieces, carving into them to uncover new meaning in the pages and to redefine the book’s role as an cultural object and knowledge repository.
Pictured above, and on display in the Special Collections Reading Room are The Smaller Big Fun Book, 2012and Manual of Engineering Drawing, 2010. Come take a look!
Disclaimer: While we appreciate these works of book art, we do not endorse such work with any Library materials.
These three-dimensional “pop-up” postcards were printed in Germany by the Winsch Publishing Company of Stapleton, New York. The Winsch Publishing Company produced thousands of postcards from 1910 to 1915, designed primarily by artist Samuel Schmucker. This one from 1911 reads, “Glad Thanks-Giving Wishes. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving” and features a Native American woman bearing a basket of apples and a (deceased) turkey.
Winsch Publishing utilized such stereotypes in their imagery to evoke patriotic sentiments, touting the Native American female as the symbol of the bountiful nation. With her beaded dress, wild turkey, and raw fruits and vegetables, she called forth nostalgic visions of rural America in the minds of white viewers likely to purchase holiday postcards.
Another pop-up postcard features a white homemaker in an apron and bonnet. Her milkmaid attire, idealized log cabin, and sidekick turkey suggest a domesticated, tamed American landscape. On the backside, an undated, handwritten note from an American woman urges her sister to “come down” on Thursday for “gobbler.”
Undated postcard, ca 1910 to 1915
Glad Thanks-Giving wishes and bounty be thine from all of us in Special Collections.
Sources
Middlebury College Special Collections & Archives, C-132 Historic Postcards.
Gifford, Daniel. American Holiday Postcards, 1905-1915: Imagery and Context. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2013.
To mark Founders’ Day, the original Middlebury College Charter signed by the Governor of Vermont on November 1st, 1800 will be on view in Special Collections, 101 Davis Family Library, on Nov. 2nd. from 1p-5p.
Can’t make out the cursive? Read the transcript here.
After two failed petitions to the Vermont General Assembly in 1789 and 1799, Middlebury faced opposition from the institution that received the first university charter, the University of Vermont. Though UVM had been chartered in 1791, it’s doors had yet to open. Fearful of losing their state funding, UVM tried to block Middlebury’s establishment.
However, due to the state’s population increase (Vermont’s population grew from 84,000 to 154,000 between 1791 and 1800) and UVM’s slow start, there was a clear need for another institution to educate Vermonters at home. Middlebury, with its newly constructed Academy Building (a $4,150 project funded by public subscriptions) founded by Gamaliel Painter, proved the perfect place to serve the College and Vermonters at large. Thus, the town’s college was founded with the signing of the charter, just 39 years after the town of Middlebury itself was chartered.
Source: Stameshkin, David M. 1985. The Town’s College: Middlebury College, 1800-1915. Middlebury, VT: Middlebury College Press.
What better way to wish a friend or loved one a “Happy Halloween” than with a postcard depicting a wacky, spooky, romantic Halloween tradition? Today these postcards, now archived as part of a collection of historical postcards in Special Collections, offer a glimpse of Halloween pastimes with Scottish, English, and Irish influences.
While we recognize bobbing for apples and roasting chestnuts as typical autumnal activities, these postcards illustrate the soothsaying power Halloween inspires in every household item – from magic mirrors to apple augurs. Who knew that uprooting kale blindfolded in the dead of night could reveal specific details about future loves? Or that an apple peel denotes the initials of your future spouse? Only on Halloween, October’s very own Valentine’s Day.
Nuts, Kale, & Cabbage
Anthropomorphized nuts, paired off with the titles “Uncertainty,” “Hope,” “Despair,” and “Happy Ever After,” represent the practice of interpreting the behavior of chestnuts in a fire. Those participating would assign two chestnuts to a couple and observe whether the chestnuts burned together, jumped apart in the flame, crackled loudly, or came together.
Postmarked 1911, Peoria, Illinois
A couple was said to live a long happy life together if their corresponding chestnuts burned brightly and quietly next to each other, or their relationship would end in disaster if they crackled contentiously and popped in different directions.
In a similar gastronomical theme, partygoers would collect cabbage or kale from the garden blindfolded and ascribe various meanings to the experience. Perhaps in continuation of ancient harvest celebrations, this ritual took on romantic implications in the American Hallowe’en context.
If the selected cabbage or kale was difficult to unearth, it denoted difficulty in a relationship. Kale with clumps of dirt stuck to the roots signified a rich husband, and the size, shape, and taste of the kale foretold the physical attributes and personality of a future spouse.
Open Flames & Apple Peels
Another postcard depicts a daring party game in which a stick was suspended horizontally from the ceiling with an apple impaled on one end and a lit candle affixed to the other. The stick was sent spinning while guests attempted to bite the apple – without getting burned by the candle. The skill with which one could capture a bite indicated their fortune in love, and if a player got burned in the game, he or she was certain to be “burned” by a lover. (Special Collections & Archives does not endorse any of the activities described in this post. Please don’t try this at home.)
Apples weren’t just for group play. An apple peel when thrown over the shoulder could disclose a future spouse’s initials, and an unintelligible result denoted spinsterhood (though the reader could interpret her apple peel liberally).
Postmarked 1912, Brooklyn, NY
Blindfolds & Finger Bowls
Another party game used bowls of different liquids. Blindfolded players would select a bowl, and its contents would reveal their fate. Clear water signified marriage to a young and fair mate, vinegar denoted widowhood, and an empty bowl meant solitude.
Postmarked 1909, Duluth, Minnesota, sent to Cleveland, Ohio
Postmarked 1923, Williamsport, PA, “From a Friend”
Mirror, Mirror
Mirrors also took on special powers on All Hallow’s Eve, as depicted on the following postcards.
In fact, your true love’s face was said to appear in a mirror if you performed various activities on Halloween night. Such as, brushing your hair…
Postmarked 1909, St. Paul, Minnesota
…abandoning your party guests to steal to your room with a Jack-o-lantern…
…or, walking down the cellar stairs backwards with a candle in one hand, a mirror in the other, and a mouthful of salt. If you didn’t trip and break your neck, you would live happily ever after with your love until a peaceful, sodium-induced demise.
All in the name of love and the spirit of Halloween!
These lurking mirror-gazers were sent to Jackson, Michigan in 1910 with the mysterious note, as seen below: “GESS WHO I AM IF YOU CAN.”
References
Arkins, Diane C. Halloween: Romanic Art and Customs of Yesteryear. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2007.
After populating various campus buildings for the last few weeks, banners portraying these eight leading women from Middlebury’s history now stand in the Davis Library atrium in honor of President Laurie Patton’s inauguration, taking place this Sunday, October 11th. Additional information about each of these women can be found at go/specialblog or in person at the library.
Curated by Danielle Rougeau with research and production assistance by Mikaela Taylor. Additional support by Joseph Watson and Rebekah Irwin. May Belle Chellis
Will you be the next Midd woman to make history? Picture yourself among these women by posting a selfie with the display (tag @middleburyspecialcollections) on instagram, or emailing specialcollections@middlebury.edu.
In honor of the inauguration of Laurie L. Patton as the seventeenth president on Sunday, October 11, 2015, Special Collections & Archives will feature remarkable women from the College’s history in eight temporary exhibits spread across campus, now through October 5th. Gertrude Cornish Milliken can be found outside Rehearsals Cafe in the Mahaney Center for the Arts and in Old Chapel.
Milliken the Trustee, 1948
After 34 years on the Advisory Board of the Women’s College at Middlebury College, Gertrude Ella Cornish Milliken understood that women students needed more than advisors recommending change—they deserved a seat at the table. In 1947 she asked President Stratton “to consider the possibility and the appropriateness of appointing one or more women to serve on the Board of Trustees.”
Milliken had dedicated her life to educating women: she founded House-in-the-Pines, a private boarding school for girls, in 1911—just 10 years after her graduation—and had retired as its principal after 33 years. The Board of Trustees responded on June 14, 1947, voting to add women to its membership and in 1948 appointed Milliken as Middlebury’s first woman trustee.
Milliken at her 1901 Commencement
In 1955 her colleagues made her a life member of the board, the first woman to receive the distinction. With Alumnae represented, the Advisory Board was discontinued in June 1949, and Milliken served until her death in 1969.
Notes from a 1948 Women’s College Advisory Board meeting, recounting the inclusion of women on the Board of Trustees and the resolution to dissolve the Advisory Board
Leading up to the inauguration of Laurie L. Patton as the seventeenth president on Sunday, October 11, 2015, Special Collections & Archives will feature remarkable women from the College’s history in eight temporary exhibits spread across campus. Viola Chittenden White can be found in her old haunts of The Axinn Center at Starr Library and BiCentennial Hall, now through October 5th.
Viola White in Starr Library
From 1933 to 1957 at Middlebury College, Viola Chittenden White built one of the most outstanding collections of American literature in the country as Abernethy Curator. The first woman to be honored as a Yale Younger Poet (for Horizons in 1921), and the first scholar to produce a doctoral dissertation on Herman Melville (1934), Dr. White acquired in 1939 what is still the single most valuable book—and one of the most valuable items—owned by Middlebury: Henry David Thoreau’s personal copy of Walden with his hand-written notes. In 1940 she published Not Faster Than a Walk, a yearlong diary of nature writing and observations of Middlebury and its nearby landscapes.
Viola White’s novel, Not Faster Than a Walk, 1939Page from first edition of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, with his notes, acquired by Viola White
