Announcing: The Florence & Richard C. McBrien and Richard C. McBrien, Jr. Special Collections Lecture Series

Rare Books & Special Collections pleased to announce a new lecture series, The Florence & Richard C. McBrien and Richard C. McBrien, Jr. Special Collections Lecture Series, beginning this fall. All events are open to the public and admission is free.

Please join us for our inaugural lecture of the series on Thursday, November 7 at 5:00pm in Special Collections, featuring Scott Gwara, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina. Gwara will deliver a lecture entitled “Professor Ege. With the Knife. In the Library. Solving the Murder of 200 Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Twentieth-Century America”.

This lecture is co-sponsored with the Medieval Institute.

 

Scott Gwara is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina, where he is completing his 25th year of service. At South Carolina, Scott regularly teaches graduate Old English and Beowulf, and undergraduate courses as diverse as King Arthur, Shakespeare, the 21st-Century British bestseller, American Apocalyptic fiction, and medieval manuscripts. He is the author of six books and 50 refereed articles. He is perhaps best known for Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, which he calls a “bio-bibliography” on the Cleveland rare book dealer who established the North American market for framed pages of early manuscripts.

Professor Gwara is currently completing a history of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in North America from the beginnings to ca. 1875. Over the past decade he has established a teaching collection of early manuscripts at his university, and his efforts were recognized in October by a “Fresh Voices in the Humanities” award from the Humanities Council of South Carolina. As part of his effort to publicize the South Carolina collection, and manuscript culture more broadly, he has been filming a series of 20 podcasts for release in 2020.

Recent Acquisition: Miniature Books on the Four Elements

by Julie Tanaka, Curator, Special Collections

Les Quatre élémens appeared around 1830 in Paris printed by Maulde and Renou. These four miniatures—a mere 3.25 x 2 inches—were designed to teach French children about the properties of the four elements: earth, fire, water, and air.

Each volume is a tricesimo-secondo, more commonly referred to as a “32mo”. In book production, these terms refer to a single sheet that has been folded to produce 32 leaves (64 pages).  Each volume has glazed pastel paper boards (covers) in lavender, yellow, green, and pink. Each front cover is blindstamped with a decorative frame that surrounds a raised vignette representing the element featured in the volume.

Inside of each book are two wood engravings. One of the engravings in La Terre depicts a family fleeing an earthquake (below) and its other shows farmers harvesting crops.

Le Eau contains wood engravings of a fisherman (above) as well as a flood. In Le Feu, children see a volcano erupting (below) as well as a display of fireworks.

In the fourth book, Le Air, a mother and her children look upon a hot air balloon (above) and in the other wood engraving, the winds blows a man’s hat off.

Special Collections’ acquisition of this fine example of nineteenth-century science education in France was a collaboration with Professor Robert Goulding (Program of Liberal Studies, Director of the Reilly Center, and Director of History and Philosophy  of Science). Professor Goulding states that this set is “probably one of the last publications to teach the old system of the elements as a scientific theory.”

Upcoming Events: October and early November

Please join us for the following events being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Thursday, October 3 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar – “Reading the Medieval Mediterranean: Navigation, Maps, and Literary Geographies. Questions, Approaches, and Methods” by Roberta Morosini (Wake Forest).

The Italian Research Seminar is sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies.

Thursday, November 7 at 5:00pm | “Professor Ege. With the Knife. In the Library. Solving the Murder of 200 Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Twentieth-Century America” by Scott Gwara (University of South Carolina).

This lecture is co-sponsored by Rare Books & Special Collections and the Medieval Institute. 

 

The fall exhibit Hellenistic Currents: Reading Greece, Byzantium, and the Renaissance is now open and will run through the end of the semester.

The current spotlight exhibits are Touchdowns & Technology: The Evolution of the Media and Notre Dame Football (September – December 2019) and Knute Rockne All American (October – November 2019). Both spotlight exhibits feature materials from the University Archives.

RBSC is open regular hours (Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm)
during Notre Dame’s Fall Break (October 19 – 27)

Recent Acquisitions: Rare Life of a 16th-Century Female Poet

by Alan Krieger, Theology and Philosophy Librarian

Hesburgh Libraries has just acquired a rare and interesting biographical first edition, Luis Munoz’s Vida y virtudes de la venerable virgen dona Luisa de Carvaial y Mendoca (Madrid, 1632). Mendoza (1566-1614), a Spaniard, is an unusual figure in the history of the English Recusant period: a Jesuit-educated female who travelled to England in 1605 to preach and teach with the aim of bringing Anglicans back to the Catholic Church. She also became known for her charitable works in London, taking care of the poor and helping those engaged in prostitution. Mendoza was also an accomplished religious poet, in the mystical tradition of great Spanish literary figures such as St. John of the Cross; the last section of the book includes her spiritual poetry.

We have located only two other North American library holdings of this edition.

National Hispanic Heritage Month 2019

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 celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Latinx Ephemera Collection

by Erika Hosselkus, Curator, Latin American Collections

In observance of Hispanic Heritage Month, Rare Books and Special Collections is pleased to highlight our newly acquired Latinx Ephemera Collection. This collection came to us from the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies. Many of the materials in the collection were acquired by Gilberto Cardenas, founding director of the institute and Professor of Sociology at Notre Dame.

This collection is comprised of pamphlets, reports, journal issues, flyers, and magazines related to Latinx culture that date primarily between 1966 and 1999. Some materials are political or historical in nature, addressing topics such as migrant labor, the work of iconic Latinx activists such as César Chávez, and grape boycotts. Others examine socio-economic conditions among Latinx populations, access to education, civil rights, employment, and immigration. Held together in one collection, these rare materials provide a diversity of insights into Latinx life and issues in and around the U.S. during the second half of the twentieth century.

A sample of collection highlights follows:

A report on the East Los Angeles Youth Speak-Out held on May 20, 1967. This event was attended by 175 delegates and adult leaders from the East Los Angeles Latinx community. Participants used the event to discuss activities available to local youth and to strengthen communication with local officials.

 

Volume 1, Issue, 1 of Encuentro Femenil, along with the initial letter to subscribers announcing the publication of the magazine and explaining its unique contribution to the field of Chicana literature.

 

A 1969 issue of Fiesta Magazine, dedicated to the spirit of Emiliano Zapata and presenting Latinx poetry and short literary pieces.

 

Number 132 of 1000 copies of Year 1, Number 1 of The Broken Line/La Linea Quebrada, a border arts publication from 1986. This innovative journal combines poetry with visual presentations to address key Latinx issues and present Latinx perspectives.

 

This collection is open for research. A full list of collection contents is available online.

Related Previous Blog Posts:

National Hispanic Heritage Month 2017: Sergio Sánchez Santamaría
National Hispanic Heritage Month 2018: Puerto Rican Artists

Recent Acquisition: An Album of Needlework Samples

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator

Album D’Ouvrages [album of work] by E. Carlier [Belgium, 1844]

The pages of this 1844 album contain not poetry, fiction, or a personal journal, but rather very fine samples of embroidery, sewing, and lace making. Created and assembled by a young Belgian girl, E. Carlier, the album displays her skills. It also shows her abilities in penmanship and calligraphy; she executed a decorative title page for her album, which served as a dedication (to her mother).

Mademoiselle Carlier carefully sewed each piece of needlework onto the album’s pages and pasted in a short label written in a neat hand. The first item, which she called simply, “Marque,” is an alphabet sampler. The following pages include an embroidery sampler and sewing exercises, and miniature examples of a shirt, an apron, a dress, a corset, and an embroidered fichu, as well as samples of crochet, knitting, and other lace making.

Up through the middle of the nineteenth century, girls expressed significant accomplishment in needle arts through the form of sampler albums. This one is particularly finely done, but learning to sew and mastering more advanced skills of lacemaking remained an important part of many girls’ education.

This item is still in process and does not yet appear in the catalog.

Upcoming Events: September and early October

Please join us for the following events being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Thursday, September 5 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar – “‘Gli occhi della fantasia.’ Mental Images and Poetic Imagery in Leopardi” by Sabrina Ferri (Notre Dame).

Thursday, September 19 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar – “Parabola in Boccaccio (I.1; X.10)” by Ambrogio Camozzi Pistoja (Harvard).

Thursday, October 3 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar – “Reading the Medieval Mediterranean: Navigation, Maps, and Literary Geographies. Questions, Approaches, and Methods” by Roberta Morosini (Wake Forest).

The Italian Research Seminar is sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies.

 

The fall exhibit Hellenistic Currents: Reading Greece, Byzantium, and the Renaissance is now open and will run through the end of the semester.

The current spotlight exhibits are Libros de Lectura: Literacy and Education after the Mexican Revolution / Alfabetismo y Educación después de la Revolución Mexicana (June – August 2019) and Art in a 19th-Century Household in Ireland: The Edgeworth Family Album (August – September 2019).

RBSC is closed Monday, September 2nd,
for Labor Day.

Newly Joined Reading Room: Special Collections and University Archives

Over the summer Rare Books & Special Collections and University Archives began combining patron services by launching our joint reading room. All researchers wishing to use materials from either collection should now come to Rare Books & Special Collections (Hesburgh Library 102) located on the ground floor of the Hesburgh Library near the West entrance. For researchers who have used University Archives in the past (located on the 6th floor of Hesburgh Library), please come to the Special Collections front desk to inquire about and to consult University Archives’ materials.

If you are looking for materials from either collection, there are numerous ways to search Special Collections and Archives holdings:

NDCatalog contains all cataloged books, pamphlets, periodicals, broadsides, prints, posters, published materials, single manuscript volumes, and small archival collections held by RBSC.

To find large archival collections for both Special Collections and University Archives, you can search NDArchiveSpace.  While most of these collections are also discoverable in the catalog, NDArchivesSpace goes much deeper, allowing researchers to discover many more names, dates, and content types than are included in the catalog record.

“Collections and Formats” on the RBSC website.

“About Our Collections” on the University Archives website.

In addition, both Rare Books & Special Collections and University Archives hold other materials that are not currently discoverable in the library catalog, NDArchivesSpace, or on their respective websites. Because of this, researchers may also want to contact staff directly about their research projects to see if there are other materials that may be of use.

Reading Room hours for Fall 2019 and Spring 2020

Monday – Friday       9am – 5pm*
Saturday – Sunday    Closed
Major holidays          Closed

Check for the most up-to-date hours

*Please note: materials in the reading room will be collected from researchers at 4:45pm

Art in an Irish Country Home: The Edgeworth Family Album

by Aedín Ní Bhróithe Clements, Irish Studies Librarian

Last year, Hesburgh Library acquired an album of drawings of the famous Edgeworth family of County Longford, Ireland. The album, showing the artistic endeavors of the family, shows a different side to a family best known to us for Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849), a leading writer of her time. It is Maria’s step-mother, Frances Edgeworth, and some of the children of Richard Lovell’s third wife, Elizabeth Sneyd, who are the artists of this album.

On August 17, 2019, Notre Dame’s Snite Museum opens a major exhibition of Irish art, “Looking at the Stars”: Irish Art at the University of Notre Dame. This exhibition includes items from Special Collections. To complement this exhibition, we are featuring an example of Irish art from our collection in our September 2019 Spotlight Exhibit, Art in a 19th-Century Household in Ireland: The Edgeworth Family Album. This spotlight exhibit runs through September 2019.

The Artists

Frances Beaufort (1769-1864) was born in Navan, County Meath, where her father, Rev. Daniel Augustus Beaufort, was Rector. Having attended Mrs. Terson’s school in Portarlington, she had lessons in art from a number of artists including Frances Robert West, Master of the Dublin Society’s School of Figure Drawing.

The Edgeworth and Beaufort families were acquainted. When Frances was asked to provide sketches for a proposed illustrated edition of Maria Edgeworth’s The Parent’s Assistant, her relationship with Richard Lovell Edgeworth developed and soon they were married. In spite of being younger than her oldest step-daughter, renowned writer Maria Edgeworth, the women became close friends.

Both families were intensely interested in learning. Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817) was an inventor, writer and landowner, and was particularly interested in the education of children. In the Edgeworth household, children were instructed by other family members, and their reading and activities covered a broad and ambitious range. Emphasis on education is apparent in Maria Edgeworth’s books. Her opinions on education are clear not only in her books for children and parents, but in novels such as Belinda and The Absentee, which have examples of appropriate education—in one case, the scientific education of a family in the upper class, and in the other, the practical education that Edgeworth considered appropriate for the children of tenants.

Frances encouraged her children and step-children to draw. The subject matter of the drawings shows a marked interest in working people who might have been tenants, servants or estate-workers.

Most of the drawings in the album are by Frances and her step-daughter Charlotte, though other family members—Honora (1791-1857), William (1794-1829), Harriet (1801-1889), Lucy Jane (1805-1897), and Michael Pakenham (1812-1881)—may also have contributed.

Charlotte Edgeworth (1783-1807) was exceptionally talented, and though she died at twenty-four years of age, she was known for technical expertise, drawing, and poetry.

Many drawings in the album are illustrations for stories by Maria Edgeworth. The Parent’s Assistant includes the tale “Waste Not, Want Not”, in which a lazy and greedy boy is compared to his more virtuous cousin. The picture shown below illustrates the following passage from the story.

Hal came out of Mr. Millar’s, the confectioner’s, shop with a hatful of cakes in his hand. Mr. Millar’s dog was sitting on the flags before the door; and he looked up, with a wistful, begging eye, at Hal, who was eating a queen-cake. Hal, who was wasteful even in his good-nature, threw a whole queen-cake to the dog, who swallowed it for a single mouthful.


The Edgeworth Family Album is on display in Special Collections through August and September 2019.