RBSC News & Info – Page 9

Navigating Ideas of “Progress” in Puerto Rico’s Prensa Literaria

By Joyce Rivera González, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Anthropology

Although Puerto Rico’s current two-party system might seem familiar to those interested in the American political landscape, Puerto Rican political parties are not necessarily defined by fiscal and/or social liberalism or conservatism, but instead by their views on the future political status of the archipelago. The two main political parties are the New Progressive Party (PNP), which seeks Puerto Rico’s full annexation into the Union as its 51st state, and the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), a party which designed and implemented the current political system of the Estado Libre Asociado (loosely translated as “Commonwealth,” but literally translated as “Free Associated State”).

Rare Books and Special Collections’ Puerto Rican holdings include 27 issues of the periodical Prensa Literaria: Revista de Cultura. Dating from 1963 to 1966, this magazine highlights key debates and tensions in the development of Puerto Rican politics and identity following the new Constitución del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, ratified in 1952.

WHO ARE WE? WHERE ARE WE GOING?

Prensa Literaria was edited by major literary and political figures in Puerto Rico, many of whom were affiliated with the PPD.

The PPD was a pivotal player in the postwar transformation of Puerto Rico. The party’s leader, Luis Muñoz Marín, was dubbed the architect of a new Puerto Rico and became the first democratically-elected governor of the archipelago in 1948, a role he held for 16 years. His political magnum opus was Operación Manos a la Obra (Operation Bootstrap), a massive industrialization political programme that began in 1947 and would transform the Puerto Rican economy, society, and political landscape in the years to come. For the average working-class poor, weekly wages more than doubled, life expectancy rose from 46 to 69 years, and basic living standards and infrastructure would vastly improve for all Puerto Ricans between 1953 and 1963 (see Ayala & Bernabe, 2007). Yet many of the PPD’s projects also depended on manufacturing incentives for US-based corporations, which dramatically reshaped the economy of the territory and broader Caribbean, detrimentally limiting economic and political self-sufficiency to the region.

The whirlwind of change and industrialization that characterized the 1950s on the archipelago created what many scholars have identified as a collective existential crisis of sorts. This is reflected in an editorial by Ernesto Juan Fonfrías that appears in the September 1965 issue of Prensa Literaria, entitled, Who/what are we? Where are we headed? Fonfrías, a scholar, writer, and one of the founding members of the PPD, muses,

Many aspects of Puerto Rican life have not yet acclimated to the momentum of progress that has come to provide its benefits, almost all of a sudden but in times of crisis, because it met an unprepared average citizen, orphaned from moral, educational, and religious values, which are necessary to any civilized man’s wellbeing […] The result of economic progress has impaired the individual’s moral capacity to be and feel.

Muchos renglones de la vida puertorriqueña no se han atemperado al impulso de progreso que vino a regar sus parabienes, casi súbitamente pero en momentos de apuros, porque encontró al ciudadano promedio impreparado [sic], huérfano de muchos de los valores morales, educativos, y religiosos que son necesarios en el haber de todo hombre civilizado […] El producto del progreso económico ha dañado la capacidad moral del individuo para ese alto estar y sentir.

THE JÍBARO IS GONE, AND THE LAND IS UP FOR SALE

In his front-page editorial “El jíbaro se acaba y la tierra se vende” (“The jíbaro [rural peasant] is gone and the land is up for sale”) in the May 1966 issue of Prensa Literaria, Fonfrías further examines Puerto Rican identity during an era of change.

Perhaps the jíbaro is disappearing from the countryside, but his mark on history will remain, his criollo lifestyle, his cultural heritage and his milestone in civilization, which shall never be forgotten […] Who knows? Maybe the more civilized we become, the more jíbaro we become in our love for the land! […] Progress is good and so is the jíbaro.

Tal vez el jíbaro desaparezca de la ruralía, pero quedará su quehacer histórico, su criollo vivir, su acervo de cultura y su hito de civilización que no se olvidarán […] Quién sabe si mientras más civilizados, seguimos siendo más jībaros en el amor a la tierra! […] El progreso es bueno y el jíbaro lo es también.

Fonfrías takes on the very ideal of cultural nationalism—the jíbaro—in this passage. Through his seemingly benign, yet arguably patronizing discussion, he approaches the quandary (paradox, for some) that stood at the very core of the PPD ideology: ¿y no podrá haber progreso y jíbaro también? (“could there not be both progress and jíbaros, as well?”)

As in the previous issue, we see Fonfrías struggling to reconcile economic changes (“progress”) and industrialization with social and cultural realities and ideals. These debates intersected with conversations regarding the archipelago’s political status. In its early days, even under Muñoz Marín, the PPD supported independence, but this stance slowly and quietly eroded. Prensa Literaria best captures the centrist positioning of the political status quo that emerged as a result of the PPD’s political evolution, still in effect to this day.

REFERENCIAS

Agrait Betancourt, Luis. “La idea independentista de Luis Muñoz Marín (1913-1931).” In Luis Muñoz Marín: ensayos del centenario. Edited by Fernando Picó, 1-15. San Juan: Fundación Luis Muñoz Marín, 1999.

Ayala, Cesar y Rafael Bernabe. Puerto Rico in the American Century: A History since 1898. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Cortés Zavala, María Teresa y María Magdalena Flores Padilla. “La Revista Puertorriqueña: el periodismo cultural y sus redes hispanoamericanas.” Revista de Indias 75, no. 263 (2015): 149-76.

Díaz Quiñones, Arcadio. El arte de bregar: ensayos. San Juan: Ediciones Callejón, 2000.

Duprey Salgado, Néstor R. Independentista popular: las causas de Vicente Géigel Polanco. San Juan: Crónicas Publicaciones, 2005.

Grosfoguel, Ramón, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, and Chloé S. Georas. “Beyond Nationalist and Colonialist Discourses: The Jaiba Politics of the Puerto Rican Ethno-Nation.” In Puerto Rican Jam: Rethinking Colonialism and Nationalism, pp. 1-38. Edited by Frances Negrón-Muntaner & Ramón Grosfoguel. Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Pantojas-García, Emilio. “Puerto Rican Populism Revisited: the PPD during the 1940s.” Journal of Latin American Studies 21, no. 3 (1989): 521-557.

Serra Collazo, Soraya. “Explorando la Operación Serenidad.” In Explorando la Operación Serenidad, pp. 7-10. Edited by Soraya Serra Collazo. San Juan: Fundación Luis Muñoz Marín, 2011.

Upcoming Events: August 2022

Please note that the corridor outside RBSC has construction barriers due to ongoing library renovations, but we remain open regular hours.

There are no public events currently scheduled for August. Please check back for events being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections during September.

An exhibition of materials from the University of Notre Dame Archives reflecting on the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Notre Dame will open mid-August and run through the fall semester.

The current spotlight exhibits are Three Sisterhoods and Two Servants of God (June – August 2022) and Fifties Flair and Seventies Feminism Presented by Two Magazines (May – August 2022). The latter exhibit will be replaced towards the end of August by an exhibit showcasing two recently acquired World War II era photo albums featuring original photographs from the within and outside of the Warsaw Ghetto’s walls.

RBSC will be closed Monday, September 5th,
for Labor Day.

Three Sisterhoods and Two Servants of God

Materials displayed in this spotlight exhibit come from the collections of Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) and The University of Notre Dame Archives. Please note that the corridor outside RBSC has construction barriers, but we remain open to all.

by Jean McManus, Catholic Studies Librarian

The Sisters of Loretto (SL) founded 1812 as The Friends of Mary at the Foot of the Cross, Washington County, Kentucky

The Oblate Sisters of Providence (OSP) founded 1829, Baltimore Maryland

The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (FSPA) founded 1849, Wisconsin

These three distinct societies of women religious, featured in the June-July Special Collections spotlight exhibit, have their origins in the 19th century United States, on the frontier, among immigrant Catholics in the east, and in the Midwest, with varying experiences in relation to slavery, racial segregation, and discrimination in the American Catholic milieu. In their different places and motherhouses, these groups of sisters have cared for orphans and widows, educated children, and all have continuously responded to the “needs of the time,” in the words of Sister Rita Michelle Proctor, OSP, the current Superior General of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. Gender, race, religion, and place shaped and continue to shape their stories.

Sisters of Loretto

The Sisters of Loretto were founded as the Friends of Mary at the Foot of the Cross in 1812, among the earliest sisterhoods established in the United States. The founding Sisters—Mary Rhodes, Ann Havern, and Christina Stuart—worked with Belgian missionary Fr. Charles Nerinckx, who became their clerical founder. Nerinckx supported the new society by writing their Rule, helping to build Little Loretto, their first home, and commissioning the print displayed here. The landscape in the engraving is fantastically rendered via the European imagination by the Belgian printer, but also rather accurate in portraying the rough hewn buildings, barefoot sisters, and split rail fence around their buildings.

The Sisters of Loretto relied on enslaved people to provide labor at their several missions before Emancipation, and also brought some African American women into the society as oblates, with different rules and professions. The story is not simple or altogether documented in the archives. The Sisters of Loretto today are present in the United States, and around the world, and center education, peace and justice in their work. More historical investigation appears in the LOREtto blog posts, written from the archives at the motherhouse in Kentucky. In 2000, the community erected a memorial to honor persons enslaved at their missions. Sisters of Loretto continue reckoning with their historical relationships with people of color at Little Loretto and other places, as they research their own and related archives regarding slavery and Native American children at Loretto-run schools.

*Klyn Loretten in Noord-America. Petit Lorette Etats Unis de L’Amerique. Little Loretto Kentucky United States of America.* [Belgium], 1816. [Hesburgh Library, Special Collections Prints • PRINT-1816-01-F1]

Oblate Sisters of Providence and Mother Mary Lange

Foundress Mother Mary Lange of the Oblate Sisters of Providence was still alive in Baltimore when members of the order responded to the invitation of Rev. Ignatius Panken, S.J., to educate Black Catholic children in St. Louis in 1880. They marked anniversaries of service in education and care of orphans in 1905 with a celebration and printed souvenir. The extension of their mission to St. Louis was consistent with the principles of their founding.

Mother Mary Lange

From the souvenir program of the Silver Jubilee of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Saint Louis, Missouri, 1905.

In 1828, Elizabeth Lange, who was born into a Catholic family and educated in Cuba, had emigrated to a French-speaking Catholic enclave in Baltimore and was already teaching Black children at a school in her home. Urged by the French Sulpician priest who became their ecclesiastical director, Fr. James Joubert, Elizabeth Lange (who became Sister Mary Elizabeth Lange) with fellow teacher, Maria Balas (who became Sister Mary Frances), Rosine Boegue (who became Sister Mary Rose), and Almaide Duchemin (who became Sister Mary Therese) began the work to minister to the children of Haitian refugees by making formal professions in July 1829. As the OSP website history proclaims, “The Oblate Sisters of Providence is the first successful Roman Catholic sisterhood in the world established by women of African descent.” The cause for sainthood for Mother Mary Lange recognizes her heroic virtue in founding and sustaining the Oblate Sisters of Providence to educate African American Catholic children in Baltimore and beyond. Her cause for beatification was opened in 2004, and she is a Servant of God.

Oblate Sisters of Providence moved to St. Louis in 1880 and taught Black Catholic children at St. Elizabeth School. Changes in parish makeup led the Sisters to establish St. Frances’ Orphan Home (1882-1952) and St. Rita’s Academy (1912-1950), both ministering originally to girls. Eventually the order founded schools in eighteen states–by the 1950s there were over 300 OSP Sisters teaching and caring for Black children.

St. Frances’ Orphan Home First Communion, 1902.

From the souvenir program of the Silver Jubilee of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Saint Louis, Missouri, 1905. [MO St Louis – OSP, 1905, PROW 10/02. University of Notre Dame Archives.]

The two items featured in this exhibit point to 25 years of sustained effort and growth by the OSP Sisters in the St. Louis area. The interior pages feature an iconic photograph of foundress Mother Mary Lange, with a short history of the order. Also included are photographs from the St. Louis missions, such as the “First Communion class of the orphans, 1902,” showing 18 girls, two Oblate Sisters, and one white priest. Later, in 1930, a Golden Jubilee was celebrated, marking 50 years in the St. Louis area. The challenging circumstances faced by the OSP Sisters in St. Louis are well documented in Ann Rosentreter’s 2016 thesis, Black, Catholic, and female : the Oblate Sisters of Providence in St. Louis, Missouri, during the interwar years.

Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and Sister Thea Bowman

Left: *Lead Me, Guide Me : the African American Catholic Hymnal*. Chicago: G.I.A. Publications, 1987.
[National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, CNBC 15/12. University of Notre Dame Archives.]

Center: Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA, portrait, ca. 1990 [University President Rev. Edward “Monk” Malloy (1987-2005): Graphics, GPML #1996-6 box B:37, University of Notre Dame Archives.]

Right: Lead Me, Guide Me–Book of Signatures, 1987 [National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, CNBC 15/62. University of Notre Dame Archives.]

Finally, we have a glimpse of the work of the Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, Sister Thea Bowman, now a Servant of God, who was educated by the FSPA Sisters in her home town of Canton, MS, became a convert to Catholicism at age 9, and entered the order as a determined 15 year old girl. She taught and worked for racial reconciliation in the Catholic church, and evangelized through song, particularly advocating for a Black Catholic tradition. Sister Thea Bowman died in March, 1990, and weeks later the University of Notre Dame honored her with the Laetare Medal, the first time the medal was given posthumously.

The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have long pursued their mission of education along with their devotional practice of perpetual adoration. The Sisters continue to lift up Sister Thea Bowman by supporting her cause for sainthood, and the foundation started with her input and name. The Sister Thea Bowman Black Catholic Education Foundation provides scholarships for Black students to attend Catholic colleges and universities.

One result of Sister Thea’s evangelization and ministry is this 1987 hymnal, Lead Me, Guide Me, a collaborative project with a host of Black Catholics that includes her essay, “The Gift of African American Sacred Song.” The hymnal signature book includes hundreds of signatures, many dated May 23, 1987, a month after the publication of Lead Me, Guide Me. Perhaps it was a book launch and celebration? Sr. Thea Bowman was part of it, as her signature attests.

A 17th Century French Missionary in the Middle East

by Alan Krieger, Theology and Philosophy Librarian

Hesburgh Libraries has recently acquired a rare first edition of an account by a seventeenth-century French Carmelite missionary of his journey through the Middle East and India, Philippe de la Tres Sainte Trinite’s Itinerarium orientale…in quo varii successus Itineris, plures Orientis Regiones, earum Montes, Maria & Flumina, Series Principum, qui in eis dominati sunt, Incolae tam Christiani, quam Infideles Populi (Lugduni, 1649).

Philippe traveled through Syria, Armenia, Persia and India, describing the situation of Christians abroad as well as taking notes on the flora, fauna, and geography of the places he visited. The work contains ten chapters; the eighth and ninth offer descriptions of the various Christian missions to the Middle and Far East, including an account of the martyrdom of two Carmelite missionaries in Sumatra in 1638.

The author (1603-1671) eventually settled in Goa (India), where he taught until he was elected General of the Carmelite Order in 1665.

We have found only three other North American holdings of this edition.

Representing Decoration Day in a 19th Century Political Magazine

“The 30th day of May, 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. …”
GENERAL ORDERS No. 11
May 5, 1868

What is now known as Memorial Day—a day to remember those U.S. military personnel who died while serving—was originally known as Decoration Day. Below are a selection of images from Harper’s Weekly published during the first decade after General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic first called for this official day of national mourning in 1868.

“Honoring Our Dead Heroes” from the June 6, 1868, issue of *Harper’s Weekly* (365).

Continued text from “Honoring Our Dead Heroes” (366).

“‘In Memorium’—Decoration Day, 1872” from the June 8, 1872, issue of *Harper’s Weekly* (441).

“Decoration Day” article from the June 14, 1873, issue of *Harper’s Weekly* (498).

Illustration from later in the same June 14, 1873, issue (501).

A happy Memorial Day to you and yours
from all of us in Notre Dame’s Special Collections!

2016 post: Memorial Day: Stories of War by a Civil War Veteran
2017 post: “Memorial Day” poem by Joyce Kilmer
2018 post: “Decoration Day” poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
2019 post: Myths and Memorials
2020 post: Narratives about the Corby Statues—at Gettysburg and on Campus
2021 post: An Early Civil War Caricature of Jefferson Davis

Rare Books and Special Collections is closed today (May 30th) for Memorial Day and will be closed on July 4th for Independence Day. Otherwise, RBSC will be open regular hours this summer — 9:30am to 4:30pm, Monday through Friday.

During June and July the blog will shift to our summer posting schedule, with posts every other Monday rather than every week. We will resume weekly publication on August 1st.

Four Works by a Controversial Augustinian Hermit

by Alan Krieger, Theology and Philosophy Librarian

Hesburgh Libraries has just acquired a rare and beautifully printed edition of Enrico Noris’s two controversial works, Historia Pelagiana and Dissertatio de Synodo V. Oecumenica (Patavii, 1708 and 1707) ; this volume also contains his Vindiciae Augustinianae quibus Sancti Doctoris scripta adversùs Pelagianos and is bound with his Opera Varia.

The first work, in which this Augustinian hermit (1631-1704) attacks Pelagianism and its emphasis on the efficacy of human free will and denial of original sin, was almost immediately suspected of propounding Jansenist doctrines; accompanying this copy is an extremely rare Inquisitorial broadside announcing the suspension of the title from the Spanish Index of Prohibited Books in 1758, accomplished after protracted lobbying by the Augustinian Order and the intervention of Pope Benedict XIV himself in 1748.

The second work on the church’s Fifth General Council deals with the Second Council of Constantinople (553) and supports the council’s condemnation of Nestorianism, which emphasized the distinction between Christ’s human and divine natures and denied that Mary could be called the Mother of God (in Greek, Theotokos).

Cardinal Enrico (or Henry) Noris, of Irish ancestry, held the Chair of Church History at the universities of Pesaro, Perugia, and Padua before gaining a position as Assistant Librarian in the Vatican in 1692; he became the full Librarian in 1700.

We have found only five other North American holdings of this edition.

A Physician Who Served Where He Was Needed

by Hye-jin Juhn, East Asian Studies and Metadata Librarian

Some RBSC visitors have asked about the Westerner in the Eighth Route Army uniform, who appears in two Cultural Revolution posters in the Keating Collection (EPH 5061).

He was Norman Bethune (1890-1939), a “surgeon, communist, humanitarian” from Canada, who volunteered to participate in three foreign wars outside of his home country. His role was not to fight and kill, but to treat the wounded and save lives.

In World War I he was a stretcher bearer of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. In the Spanish Civil War he organized and operated the Canadian Blood Transfusion Service, providing blood to the frontline wounded—an innovative concept that had not been tried before.

In late 1937, at the start of the Second Sino-Japan War, he joined the Communists’ side of the United Front, and was stationed in the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Area. According to his letters and reports, in the area of 130 million residents and 150,000 armed troops, he was the only qualified doctor. He again organized and operated mobile medical units, providing a medical care for the villagers in need, and training local medical staff. He started a medical school, and wrote books with hand-drawn illustrations on how to treat battle wounds. Lacking trained personnel and resources, he reportedly performed 110 operations in 12 days. When surgical gloves became unavailable, he operated bare-handed.

In spite of the challenging circumstances he was in, in his August 1938 report, he wrote:

“It is true I am tired but I don’t think I have been so happy for a long time. I am content. I am doing what I want to do. Why shouldn’t I be happy—see what my riches consist of. First I have important work that fully occupies every minute of my time from 5:30 in the morning to 9 at night. I am needed. More than that—to satisfy my bourgeois vanity—the need for me is expressed…”
(Page 153, The Mind of Norman Bethune)

He died in November 1939 in a small village near Baoding in Hebei Province. The cause of death was septicemia, caused by an infection from a bare-handed surgery he had performed a few days earlier.

Bethune, or Bai Qiu’en 白求恩, his Chinese name, became one of the national heroes of China for his contributions to the defeat of the Japanese invaders and the founding of the People’s Republic of China. He was posthumously honored and eulogized by Mao Zedong. He became a popular role model during the Cultural Revolution. There are statues of Bethune found in parks, schools, and museums. The Norman Bethune Health Science Center of Jilin University was established to succeed his medical school in the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region that had been destroyed during the war.

The first poster was printed by the Hebei People’s Publishing House in 1969. The original painting, by Zhang Xin’guo (张辛国, 1926-), is probably from the 1950s while Zhang was working for Hebei People’s Fine Arts Publishing House. The message at the bottom, “Time Is Life” (时间就是生命), is a quote from Lu Xun’s Outsider’s Chat about Written Language (门外文谈) (1934). Why Lu Xun? Lu Xu’s symbolic status as a “doctor” who tried to create a “literature that would minister to the ailing Chinese psyche” is pretty well-known. But what’s the connection between his essay about the Chinese writing system and Bethune? For now, we’d like to reserve this topic for our future researchers.

The second poster was made for a special exhibition at Dongfanghong (East Is Red) Park in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province to commemorate Bethune. Though there is no year of publication or of the event, the poster was likely made sometime between 1968 and 1980. (The park had different names before and after this time period. See 石家庄长安公园.) The text in-between the images of Mao Zedong and Bethune is an excerpt from Mao’s 1939 eulogy:

“A foreigner selflessly took the liberation of the Chinese people as his own mission. What should we call this spirit? This is the spirit of internationalism, and the spirit of Communism. Every member of the Chinese Communist Party should learn from this.”

The most important message that this poster conveys is perhaps the wisdom of Mao, who recognizes the role model. Bethune’s image support that as he humbly looks up to Mao, while holding in his hand On Protracted War, a series of Mao’s speeches from 1938.

Bethune remained relatively unknown in Canada until the early 1970s. Today he is listed among the “100 Canadians in the First World War” on the Library and Archives Canada website. There are multiple biographies, and fictionalized versions of his life, some made into movies and plays. An annual interdisciplinary conference, the Bethune Round Table (BRT), is held to discuss “the challenges of providing accessible, high-quality surgical care to marginalized patients in low-resource settings.”

If interested in learning more about Bethune, check out the biographies, fiction, and plays about him that the Hesburgh Libraries offer. Notre Dame users can also watch a ten-minute documentary that has footage of Bethune in China in 1938-1939.

Upcoming Events: May and through the summer

No events are scheduled to be hosted this summer in Rare Books and Special Collections.

Please note that beginning in July, our “Upcoming Events” posts will shift from running on the first Monday of the month to running on the last Monday of the preceding month (i.e., the post on July 25 will feature upcoming events in August, etc.).

The spring exhibit The Word throughout Time: The Bible in the Middle Ages and Beyond is now open and will run through June. Tours are available for classes or other groups, including K-12 audiences, by request.

The current spotlight exhibit are 100 Years of James Joyce’s Ulysses (January – May 2022) and Fifties Flair and Seventies Feminism Presented by Two Magazines (May 2022).

All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.

Rare Books and Special Collections is open
regular hours during the summer —
9:30am to 4:30pm, Monday through Friday.

RBSC will be closed Monday, May 30th, for Memorial Day and Monday, July 4th, for Independence Day.

Interesting Irish Ephemera: A Religious, Political and Cultural Collection

by Aedín Ní Bhróithe Clements, Irish Studies Librarian

Ephemeral items such as political pamphlets, religious pamphlets, programs of commemorative events, and broadsides often do not last long enough to serve as historic documents. They may often be found in people’s homes when first printed, but they are not often collected by libraries. Such cheap printings, slight pamphlets, and event programs find their way to the trash can, or in Ireland, to the rubbish bin.

Collections of such material may help to trace the progress of a political or religious movement, and they also serve as a record of people and organizations involved in various activities.

Our Rare Books and Special Collections include many such ephemeral items.

Today we give some examples of Irish pamphlets.

Pagan Missions, a 32-page pamphlet summarizing the activities of various Irish Catholic religious orders in mission work throughout the world, has cover art that tells much about attitudes of the time. This 1933 pamphlet is of the many publications of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland.

Nano Nagle: Foundress of the Irish Presentation Nuns.

Another Catholic pamphlet that informs of Irish religious working overseas is the story of Nano Nagle. This 1937 publication is the fifth edition, from the Irish Messenger series on “Founders”.

Considering the large number of Irish women who joined the Presentation Order, it is unsurprising that a biography of its foundress, Nano Nagle, would be popular. The inside cover lists a number of other biographies including those of Mother Mary Aikenhead, Mother Genevieve Beale, and Mother McAuley.

These Irish pamphlets complement the Hesburgh Library’s Catholic Pamphlet Collection, a rich and diverse collection of over 3,400 pamphlets covering many aspects of Catholic thought and history.

Fifty Points Against Partition. Is Ireland a Nation? With Preface by William M. Murphy

The above eight-page production, Fifty Points Against Partition, published by Independent Newspapers in 1917, is by L. G. Redmond Howard. The preface describes it as an “arsenal of arguments against the mutilation of our country.”

Fr. Denis Faul and Fr. Raymond Murray. The Sleeping Giant: Irish Americans and Human Rights in Ireland. Undated.

We continue to add to our Northern Ireland collection, and this pamphlet by Fr. Denis Faul and Fr. Raymond Murry is a recent addition. The Sleeping Giant: Irish Americans and Human Rights in Ireland is on the treatment of political prisoners in Northern Ireland. Along with a large collection of ephemera related to Northern Ireland in the Rare Books and Special Collections, the Hesburgh Library also has access to the digitized collection of the Linen Hall Library, Divided Society: Northern Ireland. 1990-1998, available to the Notre Dame community via the Library’s database page.

We have many programs of cultural events throughout our collections. These include programs of plays, of commemorative events, and in this case, of Feis na Mumhan, a three-day festival held in Cork in September, 1910, that included a concert, a céilí, a conference and many competitions. The ‘feis’ is a festival that celebrates and encourages Irish traditional music and Irish language culture. This program has pencilled in notes of the winners of singing contests.

Our last example here is of a recipe book. Following last week’s blogpost on the Moosewood Cookbook we would like to mention Irish cuisine, and one of the most popular Irish cookbook writers of the twentieth century.

Maura Laverty was a regular presenter on the Electricity Supply Board’s sponsored program on Radio Éireann, Ireland’s national radio station in the 1950s. This book of Christmas recipes, published in 1957, is a revised and enlarged edition of one published two years earlier. It includes recipes for roast goose with sage-and-onion stuffing or potato stuffing, plum pudding with brandy sauce along with a variety of familiar Irish Christmas recipes. Also included is a section on ‘Christmas Specialties from Many Lands.’

An example from the ‘Many Lands’ section is the recipe for Hungarian ‘Boszorkanyhab’ (Witch’s Froth), as follows:

2 lbs. cooking apples, whites of 2 eggs, 6 tablesps. sugar, 1 teasp. lemon juice, 1/4 pint cream, small tin fruit salad.
Bake the apples until very soft. Remove peel and core and rub pulp through a sieve. Beat the egg whites until very stiff; fold in the sugar and lemon juice. When the apple pulp is quite cold, fold it into the egg mixture. Pile on a glass dish and decorate with the whipped cream and drained fruit salad.
Maura Laverty: Christmas Fare, 1957

While the examples above are only a small selection of the Irish pamphlets in the Hesburgh Library Rare Books and Special Collections, it is a fairly representative sample. We welcome opportunities to incorporate these materials into class work.

Acquiring Moosewood Cookbooks to Support Student Research

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator

As we approach the end of the term, when research projects materialize like spring flowers, Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC) highlights some recent acquisitions that emerged from a student’s research interests.

Last fall a history major inquired about sources RBSC held about new thinking about food during the latter part of the twentieth century. We began talking about alternative cooking and restaurants and the vegetarian Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York came up. RBSC didn’t hold any of the famous cookbooks (of the same name) that emerged from that 1970s collective, so we purchased three editions (1977, 1992, and 2000).

Mollie Katzen, one of the founders of the Moosewood collective, compiled, wrote, illustrated, and self-published the original book of recipes in 1974. That first edition (with several reissues) circulated in a spiral-bound notebook format and in limited numbers.

Three years later, in 1977, a small, independent publishing house in Berkeley, California, Ten Speed Press, published the cookbook. (The press also produced What Color Is Your Parachute? (1970).) In this first commercial publication, Katzen described herself as the volume’s compiler and editor and she listed all of “The Moosewood People” who contributed to the book’s content. The book’s multiple sources is one of its central themes. Recipes come from different cooks as well as a variety of food cultures.

Commitment to a plant-based diet is another main focus. In the 1977 edition Katzen included a quotation by William Blake that announces the book’s vegetarianism, and her illustrations reinforce the idea throughout (see the speaking duck above the recipe for Chinese duck sauce).

Katzen retained important visual aspects of the 1974 book in later editions. Her original drawings, page layouts and cartouches, as well as her hand lettering, were translated into the commercialized editions and provide some of the book’s most identifiable characteristics over its long publication history.

For all its warm, visual familiarity, The Moosewood Cookbook has also changed over time. Katzen has revised its content, layout, and format. In 1992 she added “A Personal History of This Book” section, which has appeared in all later editions, and photos of the Moosewood Restaurant were removed. The 2000 edition includes glossy, professionally staged photographs.

Each edition presents the reader with differences (in format, content, and flavor). Holding multiple editions, a researcher gains side-by-side access for comparative analysis. Libraries and special collections often acquire complete or near complete runs of editions to support research questions that such comparisons can spark.