Best wishes to the 2026 graduates of the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College, from all of us in Rare Books and Special Collections.
We would particularly like to congratulate the following students who worked for Special Collections during their time on campus:
Rocío Colón Cotto (ND ’26), Bachelor of Arts in Art History, Bachelor of Arts in Chinese
Ashley Estelle (ND ’26), Bachelor of Arts in History
José Hurtado (ND ’26), Bachelor of Architecture
By Emiliano Aguilar, PhD, Assistant Professor History, University of Notre Dame
The first Saturday every May is celebrated as Free Comic Book Day. Since 2002, this annual event by the North American comic book industry aims to attract new readers to independent comic bookstores and a variety of titles. Books dedicated to superheroes, adaptations of television shows, frightening tales, and more are made available for visitors to these shops. This year, we are highlighting one of the historically rich comics in Rare Books and Special Collections.
In June 1965, Eduardo del Río García (1934-2017), known by his pseudonym, Rius, released Los supermachos (published by Editorial Meridiano), which, at its height, reportedly sold 200,000 copies a week. The comic book served as a critical commentary on Mexico’s social problems from the perspectives of the fictional town, San Garabato de las Tunas, Cuc., and the eccentric inhabitants of the rural town. Over the issues, Rius introduced his readers to a wide array of characters, such as the central character, Juan Calzónzin. Often the guide for the reader, the indigenous Calzónzin possessed a rich understanding of Mexican and global affairs.
As a medium, comics served as a democratic equalizer for the Mexican public, as no one was barred by geography, class, occupation, or education – even literacy – from reading and sharing them. Another recurring figure in Los Supermachos, the mayor and jefe politico of San Garabato, Don Perpetuo Del Rosal, served as an icon to criticize one-party rule in Mexico. The local strongman, Don Perpetuo, is associated with the ruling party, the RIP, a mockery of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which dominated Mexico’s political landscape for seventy-one years (1929-2000). Throughout the series, Don Perpetuo served as a foil for Los supermachos as he personally organizes the elections — always sure to declare the ruling RIP the repeated winner, commands his own police force, and builds a collaborative relationship with the local landowners, all while claiming unconditional support from the people.
Ultimately, Rius would leave Los supermachos due to government censorship. During his time authoring the books, the publishing team at Editorial Meridiano often revised Rius’s work to avoid fines and bureaucratic burdens, such as the denial of subsidized paper or restrictions on postal service for distribution. When Rius left, the book kept the title and much of the cast of characters, but without crediting him.
The volumes in Rare Books and Special Collections are mainly from after Rius’s departure. However, each comic offers an opportunity to understand the medium as a form of commentary and education for the Mexican people in the 1970s.
Published August 20, 1970, issue 242, is perhaps one of the more critical forms of political commentary. Los Supermachos: LA CIA follows Calzónzin, detailing the CIA’s history after he and his friends encounter a Gringo, who had just taken a ten-dollar bill that Calzónzin hoped to claim. Responding to their shock of seeing of seeing a Gringo in their community, he said, “No lo duden que ese billete que se llevo el Gringo sirva de pilón pa controlar a medio mundo. [Make no mistake: that bill the Gringo took is being used as a lever to control half the world.]
Mixing pop cultural icons, such as the Road Runner and Mickey Mouse ears, alongside real figures, the comic gives a grassroots history of the Central Intelligence Agency from a Mexican perspective. The comic uses the visual of two figures tossing a blue ball, which symbolizes the world, back and forth over a wall, as Calzónzin remarks that “Además, de fuentes oficiales norteamericanas se ha afirmado más de una vez la existencia en Moscu de un organism official de lucha sicológica contra la CIA. O lo que es lo mismo orta CIA, nomás que sovietica.” [In fact, U.S. official sources have stated more than once that there is an official agency in Moscow engaged in psychological warfare against the CIA. Or, in other words, another CIA – only Soviet.]
The creator uses each frame as a method to unravel how the CIA asserts its power and U.S. imperialism abroad. A military figure, bookended by the U.S. flag, details how the network of influence relies on three forms of action: political, psychological, and paramilitary. Merging the visual and textual allowed Los supermachos to present their point about the slow creeping Americanization of the world, even in Mexico. In the comic, the cultural changes wrought by U.S. business and pop culture epitomize the CIA’s war for influence. The deliberate use of actual photos, such as for Allen W. Dulles, the former Deputy Director of the CIA, or a Mexican father walking his children who are dressed as U.S. superheroes became ways for the comic to complement the visual and textual critique of U.S. influence.
Los supermachos, even after Rius’ departure, remained a relatively popular comic for Mexico’s public. The book offered an opportunity to educate various aspects of society, such as a later issue on the importance of vaccinations. The comic remained a biting cultural critique of Mexico, authoritarian rule, the Americanization of the world, and much more. Through engaging simple visuals and colloquial Spanish, the indigenous Calzónzin made the complex political, economic, and social issues digestible for a broad audience.
This vibrant and engaging comic run offers not only a window into Mexico, but an entertaining view into the countercultural influence on generations of political cartoonists, such as Lalo Alcaraz, an award-winning contemporary cartoonist known for his comical takes on Latino History and issues, who credits Rius as a major influence on his career as a cartoonist.
Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
[TODAY!] Tuesday, April 28 at 4:00pm | “The Ghost Behind Manuel Puig: Discovering the Mario Fenelli Archive” by Martín Villagarcía (Universidad Nacional de La Plata).
There are currently no public events scheduled in May, June, or July.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
A Community of Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic
Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)
The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport
Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)
Women Religious in Male Spaces
David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)
Ireland’s Idealized Community
Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)
A Community of Solidarity
Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)
Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War
Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
The currently installed spotlight exhibits are Éire Óg / Young Ireland (March–April 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.
Our primary exhibition for Spring 2026, Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections, is currently open and will continue through June 15, 2026.
This exhibition highlights examples of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning. Showcasing narratives spanning centuries and continents, each story demonstrates that the power of constructing community and cultivating hope transcends time and place.
The exhibition features six distinct collections housed in the Rare Books & Special Collections, and is curated by Hesburgh Libraries faculty members. Click below to learn more about each of the individual exhibits within the exhibition:
Curated by David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)
Curated by Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)
Curated by Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)
Curated by Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)
Curated by Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)
Curated by Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting rarebook@nd.edu. All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours. This and other exhibits within the library are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
In honor of Easter, we are sharing two images from the Cuala Press Ephemera Collection (EPH 5002). The Cuala Press was founded in 1908 by Elizabeth Yeats, sister of the poet W. B. Yeats and the artist Jack B. Yeats, who illustrated many of the books and broadsides published by the press. The press was operated in Dublin by Elizabeth and her sister Lily Yeats, and later by George Yeats (William’s wife), through the mid-1940s. In addition to their brother, the Yeats sisters employed various Irish women to create illustrations, including Beatrice Glenavy (Elvery), Elizabeth Corbet Yeats, Pamela Colman Smith, Dorothy Blackham, and Mary Cottenham Yeats.
After being closed April 3 in observance of Good Friday, Rare Books and Special Collections will return to regular hours and is open on Monday, April 6, 2026.
Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Monday, April 16 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: “Dante’s Performative Poetics” by Francesco Ciabattoni (Georgetown University).
Tuesday, April 28 at 4:00pm | “The Ghost Behind Manuel Puig: Discovering the Mario Fenelli Archive” by Martín Villagarcía (Universidad Nacional de La Plata).
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
A Community of Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic
Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)
The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport
Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)
Women Religious in Male Spaces
David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)
Ireland’s Idealized Community
Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)
A Community of Solidarity
Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)
Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War
Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
The current spotlight exhibits are Éire Óg / Young Ireland (March–April 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.
We join the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history by celebrating Women’s History Month.
by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator
This March, RBSC celebrates Women’s History Month by highlighting two recent acquisitions about African American women and their place in the labor market during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Both sources recognize the double bind of race and gender discrimination experienced by African American women, but their similarities end there.
African American journalists and Communist Party members Eugene Gordon and Cyril Briggs produced The Position of Negro Women in 1935. It was published in pamphlet form by the Communist Party USA. The authors wasted no time in declaring on the third line, that “The Negro woman worker is double victimized. She suffers both from the general discrimination against women workers and from her identity as a member of a nationality singled out by the ruling class for special plundering, persecution and oppression.” (p. 2)
The authors described the precarious position African American women held in industrial jobs—largely in laundries, and food and clothing production—as well as in every other part of the labor market. They held up domestic service for special opprobrium, noting that day workers—those who didn’t live in—were the most exploited, making as little as $10 a month (for comparison, women factory workers made $14 a week). Gordon and Briggs also included professional workers in their survey, noting grimly that “The Negro professional woman worker finds it almost impossible to secure a job.” (p. 11) School teachers were the exception. Although African American teachers in the North were generally paid the same as their white peers, in southern states African American teachers earned less than half, or worse, than that of their white counterparts.
Gordon and Briggs called for African American and white worker unity through the Communist Party, for workers to rally together to fight discrimination, unemployment, and hunger.
Three years later, Jean Collier Brown, Public Information Assistant of the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, published The Negro Woman Worker. Brown’s was the first report by the department (headed by Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve in a cabinet) to establish basic facts about where African American women were employed in the labor market, numbers employed, employment opportunities, hours, wages, and working conditions. Although not comprehensive, the report offers significant detail about wage discrimination and terrible working conditions of African American women workers.
Like Gordon and Briggs, Brown began by noting that “Though women in general have been discriminated against and exploited through limitation of their opportunities for employment, through long hours, low wages, and harmful working conditions, such hardships have fallen upon Negro women with double harshness.” (p. 1) From there, the report moved systematically through the major parts of the labor market in which African American women worked: domestic and personal service, agriculture, manufacturing and mechanical industries, and white-collar workers.
While Gordon and Briggs’ pamphlet aimed to organize workers and rally them to the Communist Party, Brown suggested a multi-pronged approach of social and labor legislation, better education and training opportunities, and trade union organization to address the critical status of African American women workers. Both reports brought much needed attention—for the first time but in quite different ways—to the crisis facing African American women workers during the Great Depression.
Jean Collier Brown later left the Department of Labor and by 1943 worked as an organizer for the United Domestic Workers Union of the CIO, Baltimore branch, a union of African American domestic laborers.
2025: The First Women’s Political Party
2024: Second-Wave Feminist Articles from an Underground Newspaper
2023: Women for Peace and Disarmament
2022: The Feminine “Math-tique”
2021: Writing to Rehabilitate in the House of Detention for Women in New York City
2020: Mary Taussig Hall and Social Reform
2017: A Woman’s Sardonic Eye
Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Monday, March 5 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: M.A. Student Presentations (University of Notre Dame) — This semester’s speakers are: Giorgia Buscema and Madeline Grossman.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
A Community of Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic
Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)
The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport
Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)
Women Religious in Male Spaces
David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)
Ireland’s Idealized Community
Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)
A Community of Solidarity
Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)
Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War
Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
The current spotlight exhibits are Pennant Race: Souvenir Fan Pennants of the Negro Baseball Leagues (January–February 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.
by Daniela Rovida, Rare Books Cataloging and Metadata Librarian
Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia (Natural History) is one of the most important books to survive from the ancient world. Written in the first century CE, it is the earliest surviving encyclopedia and one of the most ambitious works of knowledge ever attempted. In thirty-seven books, Pliny gathered information on astronomy, geography, anthropology, zoology, botany, pharmacology, mineralogy, and art, drawing on hundreds of Greek and Roman sources as well as his own observations (Siegfried, 2023). For more than a thousand years, this work shaped how Europeans understood the natural world.
Pliny believed that knowledge should be practical and widely shared. His encyclopedia was not meant only for philosophers, but for farmers, physicians, craftsmen, and administrators. Although modern science has corrected many of his claims, Natural History remained a foundational reference throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance because it compiled and preserved ancient learning that would otherwise have been lost (Stannard, 2026).
Pliny’s commitment to understanding nature is reflected in the dramatic circumstances of his death. In 79 CE, while serving as commander of the Roman fleet at Misenum, he witnessed the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Instead of fleeing, Pliny sailed closer, both to observe the phenomenon and possibly to help people trapped along the coast. He died during the eruption, most likely from poisonous gases. Our knowledge of this event comes from letters written by his nephew, Pliny the Younger, who provided the only surviving eyewitness account of the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum and narrated the story of a scholar who sacrificed his life in the pursuit of knowledge (Open Culture, 2022).
Pliny’s influence continued through the centuries. During the Renaissance, his encyclopedia was rediscovered, printed, and translated for new audiences. A key figure in this renewed interest was Cristoforo Landino, a humanist scholar who translated Natural History from Latin into the Florentine dialect, which is the foundation of modern Italian. By making the text available in the vernacular as early as 1476, Landino allowed readers without formal knowledge of Latin to engage with ancient science and natural history (Ashworth, 2021). Landino’s translation reflects a broader effort, supported by the recent introduction of movable-type printing, to make learning more accessible beyond universities and monasteries.
Early printed editions of Pliny’s work were often richly illustrated with woodcuts. These images served a dual purpose. On one level, they decorated the book making it more appealing to readers and, at times, marking the transition between sections. On another, more important level, they helped readers visualize the animals, plants, and places described in the text. In a time when direct observation was becoming increasingly valued, woodcuts acted as visual tools for understanding nature, even when the images were imperfect or imaginative. These illustrations show how early modern readers tried to reconcile ancient texts with what they could see in the real world (Dlabacová, 2018).
Even more revealing than the printed images are the handwritten notes left by readers in the margins. Marginal annotations show that Natural History was not treated as an unquestionable authority. Readers compared Pliny’s descriptions with their own experience and observation, added new information, and sometimes corrected or expanded the text. For modern scholars, these annotations provide rare insight into how early readers interacted with scientific texts.
The copy of Pliny’s Natural History held at the University of Notre Dame offers a remarkable example of this practice. In the margins, a reader describes a giant sea turtle caught by fishermen off the coast of Lisbon. The annotator states that the animal, which measured approximately seven and a half feet long and nine feet wide, was initially believed by some people to be a sea monster and records that it was presented to the king of Portugal. The reader also reports having seen the animal firsthand and identifies it with the turtle described by Pliny on the same page where the annotation appears.
Text of the annotation and translation:
“Nel anno MDXXXXII nel mese di Aprile i piscatori olysiponesi presero sul mare oceano una testuggine la quale io stesso vidi & disegnai come si vede qui acanto; era lungha piedi sette e mezo, larga d’un corno ad altro (ouer’ alle) piedi noue / hauea il guscio amodo di liuto, il color nero, insomma fatta in tuto come qui discriue Plinio negli Tragloditi trouarsene. Ma credetero alcuni ch[e] no[n] fosse testuggine ma altro animale o mostro marino prodotto dal mare, della parte di sotto era di biancho e nero machiatta, era assai bruta & mirabile & fu portata inanzi il sereniss[imo] RE di portoguesi.”
In the year 1542, in the month of April, the fishermen of Lisbon caught in the ocean sea a turtle, which I myself saw and drew, as can be seen here beside this text. It was seven and a half feet long, and nine feet wide from one horn (or fin?) to the other. It had a shell shaped like a lute, black in color; in short, it was made entirely as Pliny describes the turtles found among the Troglodytes. However, some believed that it was not a turtle, but another animal or a sea monster produced by the sea. Underneath it was spotted white and black, it was quite ugly and remarkable, and it was brought before his serene highness the King of Portugal.
Alongside this annotation are three detailed drawings of this creature, likely a leatherback turtle, placed directly next to the relevant passage in Pliny’s encyclopedia. Elsewhere in the margins, a reader drew the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza, next to the section of the book with Pliny’s descriptions of these monuments. These drawings and the numerous annotations, in more than one language and likely from multiple hands, found in various sections of the book, show how readers used both text and image to connect ancient knowledge with contemporary experience.
Together, the translation, woodcuts, and marginal annotations reveal how Natural History functioned as a living book. Pliny’s encyclopedia was not only read, it was questioned, illustrated, updated, and personalized. These traces remind us that knowledge is shaped through the interplay of texts, images, and lived experience.
For modern researchers, books like this are invaluable. They reveal not only what people knew about the natural world, but how knowledge was shared over time. Marginal notes document early attempts to identify species and reconcile classical authorities with new discoveries from travel and exploration. The presence of drawings alongside text shows how observation and visual evidence became central to scientific understanding. Preserved in Special Collections, volumes like Pliny’s Natural History remain essential sources for understanding how modern scientific thinking emerged and why the dialogue between past knowledge and present observation still matters today.
Ashworth, W. B., Jr. (2021, September 24). Cristoforo Landino. Linda Hall Library. https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/cristoforo-landino/
Dlabacová, A. (2018, November 13). Throw away that tedious text! 15th-century illustrated books in 18th- and 19th-century hands. Leiden Medievalists Blog. https://www.leidenmedievalistsblog.nl/articles/throw-away-that-tedious-text/
Jones, J. (2022, August 25). The only written eye-witness account of Pompeii’s destruction: Hear Pliny the Younger’s letters on the Mount Vesuvius eruption. Open Culture. https://www.openculture.com/2022/08/the-only-written-eye-witness-account-of-pompeiis-destruction.html
Stannard, J. (2026). Pliny the Elder. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pliny-the-Elder
Siegfried, T. (2023, February 2). Pliny the Elder’s radical idea to catalog knowledge. Knowable Magazine. https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2023/pliny-elder-first-encyclopedia
Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Monday, February 16 at 4:00–6:00pm | WORKSHOP – Envisioning Dante, c. 1472-c. 1630: Seeing and Reading the Early Printed Page
Join Professor Guyda Armstrong (University of Manchester) and Dr Giles Bergel (University of Oxford) for an interactive workshop showcasing new digital methods for studying early modern printing. This session will introduce the research questions and first findings of Envisioning Dante c. 1472-1630: Seeing and Reading the Early Printed Page, funded by the UK government (c. £1 million; 2022-25). Participants will be given practical, hands-on demonstrations of the techniques and new digital tools developed by the project for analyzing and comparing early printed books.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
Curated by Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies), Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection), David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts), Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Irish Studies Librarian and Curator), Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Librarian and Curator for Latin American and Iberian Studies).
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
The current spotlight exhibits are Pennant Race: Souvenir Fan Pennants of the Negro Baseball Leagues (January–February 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.
