“We Have Sound!” is the title of the IRENE/3D Seeing Sound Blog post from the Northeast Document Conservation Center when they announce that the new recording system is up and running. Middlebury College is fortunate to be part of a grant to reformat the wax cylinder recordings in the Flanders Ballad Collection. See the announcement here, along with more blog posts that follow. You can even listen to some of the recordings!
All posts by Joseph Watson
Photos from the Archives showing the area around Twilight Hall
President Harry Truman once said “The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.” Because the site around Twilight Hall and the Middlebury Municipal Building has recently been a topic of community conversation, we thought people might be interested in these photos from the Middlebury College Archives. For more information on the history of the site and adjacent buildings, see pages 11 and 12 of A Walking History of Middlebury.
Click on the photos to enlarge them and see more detail.
View of Middlebury from Old Chapel in 1867. Notice the building site of the Academy (now Twilight Hall) that replaced the previous wooden structure.
Academy Building in 1893, seen from the east end of the park between College St. and Main St.
Graded School in 1900 seen from College St. just east of Weybridge St.
The Graded School in 1900 seen from the corner of Main St. and Cross St.
Exhibit– A People’s History of Middlebury College: Student Resistance and Social Change
In conjunction with an ongoing student project and J-term class, Special Collections has mounted an exhibit drawn from the College Archives– A People’s History of Middlebury College: Student Resistance and Social Change. From an uprising of students in 1822 asking for the dismissal of a professor, to the student strike in 1970 to protest of the war in Vietnam, through the formation of diverse activist groups like the Black Students for Mutual Understanding, the exhibit draws on primary sources in the College Archives. These resources have been heavily used by Hanna Mahon ’13.5 and Kristina Johansson ’14 as they’ve worked on the People’s History of Middlebury project over the past year, and used by the students in the J-term class that Hanna and Kristina are teaching. See the exhibit in the front vestibule, and the Harman Periodicals Reading Area of Davis Family Library.
To listen to an audio recording of the related panel discussion “Middlebury in the 1960s” see this blog post.
Also on display in the Davis Family Library Atrium– Antique wooden toys produced in local toy factories.
Busy start to 2014 in Special Collections
Special Collections has enjoyed a busy start to 2014 with several J-term classes visiting this week to use our collections for coursework. Prof. Peter Lourie’s class Adventure Writing and Digital Story Telling came to see 17th to early 20th century examples of travel and adventure writing, as well as to view photos from the College Archives of students engaging in their own adventures over the years.
And below see some photos from Prof. Kacy McKinney’s class Space and Place in the Graphic Novel. Students learned about the history of illustrations in books, viewing everything from a 1484 illuminated Latin text, to recently published graphic novels.
Students looking at a wide selection of illustrated books
Special Collections Director Rebekah Irwin shares a large format art book.
Prof. McKinney and students view illustrated books from the 16th to the 18th century.
“Holding Walden” recently…
Snippet of The Roost blog.
Sandy Stott of the Thoreau Farm recently visited Special Collections at Davis Family Library to see Henry David Thoreau’s personal copy of Walden with his notes in the margins. Stott wrote about his visit in this very nice blog post– http://thoreaufarm.org/2013/07/holding-walden/
Thoreau’s personal copy of Walden is invaluable and one of Middlebury College’s most significant holdings. Special Collections plans to digitize the pages with Thoreau’s marginalia so that this unique content can be shared widely on the web. In order to preserve the hard copy safely for future generations, access to it is strictly limited and an advance appointment is necessary. Please see the Special Collections page for more information.