Collection highlights, news about acquisitions, events and exhibits, and behind-the-scenes looks at the work and services of Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) at Notre Dame.
Rare Books and Special Collections welcomes students, faculty, staff, researchers, and visitors back to campus for Spring ’26! Here are some things to watch for in Special Collections during the coming semester.
Special Collections Welcomed a New Postdoctoral Research Associate during the Fall 2025 Semester
Ruben Celani (Photo by Matt Cashore / University of Notre Dame)
Ruben Celani, Ph.D., joined the Hesburgh Libraries in October as a postdoctoral research associate in Italian Studies and Zahm Dante Collection curatorial fellow. He works in Rare Books & Special Collections as a subject liaison for Italian studies and curator of the Libraries’ extensive rare Italian collections, while also pursuing his own academic research.
Prior to joining the Hesburgh Libraries, Celani served as an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Literary Studies at Ghent University in Belgium. He holds a Ph.D. from Ghent University in Literary Studies with specialization in Italian Studies, as well as a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Archival and Library Sciences from the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” Ruben has experience working in libraries in Rome, The Hague, and Antwerp.
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).
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Day (January 19th), the birthday of Jackie Robinson (January 31st), and Black History Month (February), Rare Books and Special Collections is pleased to highlights examples from its collection of souvenir fan pennants from the Negro Baseball Leagues. The colorful collectible felt souvenir pennants represent leading Black baseball teams of the 1930s and 1940s and feature large screen-printed graphics of African American baseball players in action.
Curated by Gregory Bond (Curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection).
Created across multiple centuries, geographies, and cultures, pre-Hispanic clay sellos (flat and cylindrical stamps and seals) are celebrated as the earliest manifestation of Mesoamerican print culture. This cross-repository Spotlight Exhibit presents a selection of sellos stewarded by the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art; two emblematic publications of sello designs, preserved in the Hesburgh Libraries’ Rare Books and Special Collections; and contemporary examples of sello-inspired visual arts.
Curated by Payton Phillips-García Quintanilla (Librarian and Curator for Latin American and Iberian Studies).
These and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.All exhibits are free and open to the public during regular hours.
Special Collections’ Classes & Workshops
Throughout the semester, curators will teach sessions related to our holdings to undergraduate and graduate students from Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College. Curators may also be available to show special collections to visiting classes, from preschool through adults. If you would like to arrange a group visit and class with a curator, please contact Special Collections.
In her speech to celebrate the opening of Christine Dunlap Farnham’s Archive at Brown University, feminist historian Joan Wallach Scott reflected on the lack of attention to women’s personal collections and archives that memorialize their lives.1 The exhibit “Social Media Networks in the 19th and 20th Centuries: The Albums of Esmeralda Cervantes, Teresa Puelma de Orrego, Luz de Sagaceta, María Enriqueta Camarillo,” recently installed in Rare Books and Special Collections (Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame), seeks to build on Scott’s insights by highlighting women’s friendship albums and scrapbooks as vital historical documents that deserve a place on display.
Curated by members of the upper-level Spanish course “Women’s Culture in 19th Century Latin America” at the University of Notre Dame, this exhibit focuses on preserving and showing the importance of women’s stories through material culture. In this course, we explore the cultural and intellectual contributions of women in 19th- and early 20th-century Latin America, examining how gender shaped ideas of citizenship, sexuality, and education in post-independence societies. Among our study of literature, periodicals, and other women’s public interventions, albums emerge as a novel object for understanding 19th- and 20th-century sociability.
19th century albums were typically blank books that served as repositories for various collectible objects and writings. For women, in particular, albums were a crucial medium for engaging with writing and visual culture, shaping identity, and creating bonds outside the domestic sphere. Pages within the albums vary in content, including personal letters, poetry, pieces of artwork, and autographs, among others. Each album serves as a tangible representation of the illustrious life of the woman who curated it.
As part of the coursework, we were also introduced to the fascinating world of Rare Books and Special Collections, a space that allowed us to work hands-on with the friendship albums and scrapbooks of four women from the 19th and early 20th century Hispanic world held at the Notre Dame’s archives: Esmeralda Cervantes, Luz de Sagaceta, Maria Enriqueta Camarillo, and Teresa Puelma de Orrego.
Researching them revealed a challenging but fruitful journey. We found that women’s stories were poorly cataloged or entirely absent from historical archives, while the information on similar works of male counterparts from their time were easily accessible through a simple Google search. This lack of documentation is not accidental but rather revealing of a greater theme: the historical discrimination of women in academic spaces and historical accounts, even among elite women. Traditional academia has undervalued their work, and left it outside of the literary canon. Our research, however, reveals the profound importance of their activities in shaping the culture and politics of their era. By reconstructing women’s stories through their friendship albums and scrapbooks, objects often dismissed as trivial or not relevant outside the private sphere, we engage in an act of recovery and critical analysis. Each page becomes evidence of an intellectual world that has always existed but was never fully recognized. Our goal is not simply to display their work but to restore women’s historical presence by centering the very objects and writings that belonged to them.
Album coverFirst page of the album signed by Argentine writer Adolfo Mitre during Cervantes’s visit to Buenos Aires.Letter signed by Spanish writer and feminist Emilia Serrano, who was also traveling in Latin America during Cervantes’s tour.Album amicorum de Esmeralda Cervantes, 1875-1877 (MSH/LAT 0094)
The album belonging to Clotilde Cerdá (1861–1926), better known by her artistic name, Esmeralda Cervantes, meticulously documents her highly publicized Latin American tour between 1875 and 1877. Born in Barcelona, she had achieved renown across Europe as a prodigious harpist by the age of fourteen. The prominent selection of “Esmeralda” rather than “Clotilde” to be hand-embroidered on the album’s center signifies her wish to delineate her professional trajectory from her private identity, asserting that she be primarily remembered for her musical accomplishments. Though the velvet cover has faded with time, the enclosed collection of drawings, poems, and dedicatory letters—all paying homage to her—preserves the intellectual and artistic worldview she cultivated through her art.
Album coverPoem in English with botanic motifs adorning the page. Albums were usually multilingual and spoke of the transnational connections of their owners.Album amicorum de Teresa Puelma de Orrego, 1851-1893 (MSH/LAT 0119)
The album of Teresa Puelma de Orrego, who was born in Santiago de Chile in 1861, offers a glimpse into the upper-class world of Chile during the 19th century. She was the daughter of an aristocratic family and lived most of her life in Chile. Her album contains a collection of letters and signatures from prominent politicians and generals, family mementos, and prayers in French, English, and Spanish. Notable entries include a condolence letter from Chilean President Jorge Montt and a hand-drawn map of the War of the Pacific (1879–1884), fought between Chile and an alliance of Peru and Bolivia and originated from a territorial dispute. The album itself is highly ornate: the cover is made of thick dark green fabric with her name embroidered in gold thread on the front. There is little information about her other than what exists in this album, inviting us to “read” the silences surrounding her as part of the historical record itself, and work to fill in those silences with our own original research.
Album coverPainting by Roberto MontenegroPoem by Jesús Valenzuela, 1904Album de recuerdos de la Señorita Luz Sagaceta, 1904-1905 (MSH/LAT 0095)
Luz Sagaceta was born in 1886 in Mexico City and was eighteen years old when her album was assembled. Through newspapers and the works in her album, we know that she was part of Mexico’s Porfirian elite. As members of this social class, she and her family were well-known enough to be noted in print culture and had the means to travel. Her album reveals the privilege she possessed, a privilege few women enjoyed: the opportunity to create an album, a subtle space of authorship. Luz’s album includes contributions from authors such as Jesus E. Valenzuela, Amado Nervo, Ruben M. Campos, and Jesus Urueta. These authors dedicated poems to her; some were inspired by Luz’ beauty, while others addressed topics of personal significance, such as the important women in their lives. This demonstrates that Luz had sufficient significance for them to offer genuine, personal tributes.
Album coverTitle page of the first volumeClippings of portrait and literary profile of the author published in the literary journal Album de Damas, Mexico, 1908.Juicios de prensa acerca de María Enriqueta y de sus libros: recortes y copias de opiniones publicadas en diarios y revistas de varios países, 1897-1940 (MSH/LAT 0118, t. 1-3)
Maria Enriqueta Camarillo, a celebrated Mexican novelist, poet, translator, and educator, used her meticulously kept albums to showcase her multifaceted talents, intellectual collaborations, and commitment to community, offering an analogue to contemporary social media. These collections, filled with her work, scholarly praise, sketches, and photographs, functioned as social connectors, highlighting her versatility, her international image, and the significant professional and personal relationships that were central to her life and Mexican culture. For the modern reader, engaging with Camarillo’s scattered yet beautiful albums provides an invaluable perspective—a welcome into a 19th-century life that otherwise might not have been fully told—and serves as a formative lesson in accepting historical complexity and narrative ambiguity rather than seeking immediate, structured answers.
Exploring the lives of these women through their albums was an enlightening experience. As a class, we were able to travel back in time to learn about their lives and gain insight into the society of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first step of this process was reading about our albums from materials provided in class. Then, we had the chance to step outside of the classroom and into Special Collections to work with the physical albums. Working closely with library staff, curators, and specialists allowed us to fully immerse ourselves in the materiality of women’s archives. We gained tangible access to the lives of these women, feeling the texture of the album fabrics and carefully turning their pages.
Curating the physical exhibit proved equally enriching, as we took ownership of every step: from item selection and display design to writing introductory texts and labels—a long process requiring intensive collaboration with library specialists. This hands-on experience transformed us from simple student observers into the main actors of a historical recovery project, contributing to something larger that the audience would later enjoy.
The influence of these albums is still evident today in the digital tools and platforms we use to curate and preserve our own memories. Digital content, including posts on Instagram and videos on YouTube, effectively creates a personal digital archive—a collection of memories that visually represents an individual’s most significant social ties and interests, essentially acting as a form of “writing with scissors,” as coined by Ellen Gruber Garvey. While the medium has transformed from handwritten cursive to the digital scrapbook, the fundamental purpose—to preserve selfhood and community—endures, allowing these personal archives to leave a lasting impact on all who encounter them.
The project extended this hands-on approach to a general audience through the “Create Your Own Album Page” activity held on specific dates. This initiative has been a great source of direct and immediate feedback from visitors, including library staff, faculty, and students. Their most frequent reaction has been surprise and delight that the archives are not only part of an undergraduate class but also the inspiration for a collective and participatory project.
With this activity, the archives are truly brought to life. Our proposal of thinking of the albums as the precedent of social media creates a more direct, intimate connection with every visitor: guests are invited to contribute their own unique page to a communal album. Contributions have spanned songs, original poems, verses by renowned writers in various languages, thoughtful collages, dedications to loved ones, and letters—mirroring the rich and diverse content found in the 19th- and 20th-century albums we studied. Visitors of this exhibit become active participants in the enduring legacy of “writing with scissors,” experiencing firsthand the fundamental human impulse to curate and share selfhood.
Bella Barraza, Isabella Cioffi, Ryan Farrell, Meghan Garrity, Luke Grantz, Sophia Hohman, Marshall Horton, Ella Johnson, Kate Kirwan, Elizabeth Larsen, Felipe Nino, Thomas Phillips, Monica Schleg and Jhoseline Trejo, enrolled in ROSP 40790, Women’s Culture in 19th-Century Latin America, taught byVanesa MiseresPh.D. (Associate Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures).
This exhibit traces the global journey of Dante’s masterpiece through rare and valuable printed editions, highlighting how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Commedia. These volumes reveal a dynamic dialogue between Dante’s poetry and the world. A global literary perspective transforms Dante from a monumental yet isolated figure of the European Middle Ages into a central presence in the ongoing international conversation about humanity, the universe, time, eternity, and the power of literature.
This exhibit is curated by Salvatore Riolo (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate), and co-curators Giulia Maria Gliozzi (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); Inha Park (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); and Peter Scharer (Yale, Comparative Literature doctoral candidate). Theodore J. Cachey Jr. (Notre Dame) and Jacob Blakesley (Sapienza Università di Roma) served as consultants on the exhibit.
MSH/LAT 0095 (Luz de Sagaceta)
The current spotlight exhibits are Social media networks in the 19th and 20th centuries/ Las redes sociales de los siglos XIX y XX, curated by the students (Bella Barraza, Isabella Cioffi, Ryan Farrell, Meghan Garrity, Luke Grantz, Sophia Hohman, Marshall Horton, Ella Johnson, Kate Kirwan, Elizabeth Larsen, Felipe Nino, Thomas Phillips, Monica Schleg and Jhoseline Trejo) enrolled in ROSP 40790, Women’s Culture in 19th-Century Latin America, taught by Vanesa Miseres Ph.D., and Bibliomania: The Library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, curated by Anne Elise Crafton (2024-2025 Rare Books and Special Collections Postdoctoral Research Fellow).
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.
RBSC will be closed December 2 from 11:00am–2:30pm for the Hesburgh Libraries and ND Press Christmas Luncheon, and during the University of Notre Dame’s Christmas Break, December 24, 2025–January 2, 2026.
Merriam-Webster defines a vampire as, “the reanimated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave at night and suck the blood of persons asleep.” The Oxford English dictionary gives the middle of the eighteenth century as their earliest evidence for the word vampire, but the concept far predates that in the folklore of various cultures. While characters of a vampiric nature occur as early as Babylonian poems recorded on cuneiform and the ancient Greek writings of Philostratus, the folklore that is most significant to the development of the Western concept of a vampire was that of the Slavic cultures of Eastern Europe. These malevolent beings were seen as gruesome and frightening, because death, disease, and degeneracy were all attributed to their actions and influence. As the vampire became a more familiar figure in Western cultures during the eighteenth century (by 1740 Alexander Pope compared himself to “one of those vampires in Germany” when he went out at night), they were initially perceived in a similar, grotesque manner. However, over time the vampire—though still a villain—came to be portrayed as charismatic and seductive.
Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula was not the first vampire in English literature, Robert Southey’s 1801 poem “Thalaba the Destroyer” is generally given that title. Polidori’s short story “The Vampyre” (1819), Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood (1845–1847), and Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” (1872) all preceded it as well. But Stoker’s vampire has become the template against which all modern vampires are compared. The Count is initially described as,
“…a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. …his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice—more like the hand of a dead than a living man.” (Dracula, Chapter 2)
He is gracious and courteous, however, and as the novel progresses, and he feeds, he becomes less corpse-like. When Mina and Johnathan see him in London, she describes him as “a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard… His face was not a good face; it was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal’s.” (Dracula, Chapter 13)
Count Dracula has become more immortal in popular culture than he was in Stoker’s novel, the subject of numerous theatrical adaptations and cinema classics. The first play—more of a staged reading of the book, really—ocurred the same year as the book was published, as a way of securing copyright protection. In the 1920s, Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderson created their own adaptation, and in 1977 a revival of this version arrived on Broadway. This production featured the design work of Edward Gorey in its sets, costuming, posters, and playbills. He won a Tony Award for the Costume Design, and was nominated for Set Design. The play also won a Tony for Most Innovative Production of a Revival. (Frank Langella was nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, while Dennis Rosa was nominated for Best Direction of a Play.)
As the play became a popular success as well as a critical one, Gorey’s designs appeared on a variety of merchandise from t-shirts and bags to puzzles, toys, and even a miniature theatre, examples of many of which are found in Notre Dame’s Special Collections.
The Suzy Conway and Robert M. Conway Collection of Gorey Ephemera (EPH 5004) also includes articles and article illustrations, drawings, picture postcards, posters, and correspondence. There are materials relating to his work illustrating book covers for Doubleday, including a few other vampire themed or related texts.
In recognition of the centenary of Edward Gorey’s birth and the 25th anniversary of his death, RBSC’s September-October spotlight has highlighted Gorey’s engagement with the New York City Ballet in his distinctive noir style. Although the exhibit officially closes today, it will remain viewable through early next week, before the installation on November 5 of the November-December spotlight. Come visit Special Collections for a further look at some of Gorey’s distinctive work.
Happy Halloween to you and yours from all of us in Notre Dame’s Special Collections!
This exhibit traces the global journey of Dante’s masterpiece through rare and valuable printed editions, highlighting how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Commedia. These volumes reveal a dynamic dialogue between Dante’s poetry and the world. A global literary perspective transforms Dante from a monumental yet isolated figure of the European Middle Ages into a central presence in the ongoing international conversation about humanity, the universe, time, eternity, and the power of literature.
Drop in to one of this month’s Exhibit Open Houses to meet and speak informally with one of the curators of the fall exhibition, Mapping Global Dante in Translation. Learn how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Divine Comedy over the centuries and across the world and discover the Library’s many Dante editions.
This exhibit is curated by Salvatore Riolo (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate), and co-curators Giulia Maria Gliozzi (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); Inha Park (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); and Peter Scharer (Yale, Comparative Literature doctoral candidate). Theodore J. Cachey Jr. (Notre Dame) and Jacob Blakesley (Sapienza Università di Roma) served as consultants on the exhibit.
Opening November 5, our next spotlight exhibit will feature several friendship albums being studied this semester by Notre Dame students in a class taught by Vanesa Miseres (Romance Languages & Literatures).
This exhibition traces the global journey of Dante’s masterpiece through rare and valuable printed editions, highlighting how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Commedia. These volumes reveal a dynamic dialogue between Dante’s poetry and the world. A global literary perspective transforms Dante from a monumental yet isolated figure of the European Middle Ages into a central presence in the ongoing international conversation about humanity, the universe, time, eternity, and the power of literature.
The exhibit is curated by Salvatore Riolo (Notre Dame Italian Studies doctoral candidate), and co-curators Giulia Maria Gliozzi (Notre Dame Italian Studies doctoral candidate); Inha Park (Notre Dame Italian Studies doctoral candidate); and Peter Scharer (Yale Comparative Literature doctoral candidate).
Theodore J. Cachey Jr., Notre Dame, and Jacob Blakesley, Sapienza Università di Roma, served as consultants on the exhibit.
Events
Drop in to meet and speak informally with one of the exhibition’s curators. Learn how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Divine Comedy over the centuries and across the world and discover some of the Library’s many Dante editions.
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. This exhibit is co-sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies and the Devers Program in Dante Studies.
Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Drop in to one of this month’s Exhibit Open Houses to meet and speak informally with one of the curators of the fall exhibition, Mapping Global Dante in Translation. Learn how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Divine Comedy over the centuries and across the world and discover the Library’s many Dante editions.
This exhibit traces the global journey of Dante’s masterpiece through rare and valuable printed editions, highlighting how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Commedia. These volumes reveal a dynamic dialogue between Dante’s poetry and the world. A global literary perspective transforms Dante from a monumental yet isolated figure of the European Middle Ages into a central presence in the ongoing international conversation about humanity, the universe, time, eternity, and the power of literature.
This exhibit is curated by Salvatore Riolo (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate), and co-curators Giulia Maria Gliozzi (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); Inha Park (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); and Peter Scharer (Yale, Comparative Literature doctoral candidate). Theodore J. Cachey Jr. (Notre Dame) and Jacob Blakesley (Sapienza Università di Roma) served as consultants on the exhibit.
Historian Gert Gielis has recently explained the importance of these university writings:
“As the first official statements concerning Luther’s heresy, they were imperative steps in branding his teaching as heretical. Conveyed to Rome by Johannes Eck in March, 1520, the academic condemnations eventually influenced the official papal condemnation of Exsurge Domine, issued [by Pope Leo X] a few months later.”
—Gert Gielis, “«Post exactam et diligentem examinationem». How the Louvain Theologians condemned Luther’s Theses (1519): Context, Practices and Consequences,” Annali di Storia delle università italiane 2017, no. 2: p. 121.
The Louvain theologians produced 13 articles and Cologne authored its own set of 10; both faculties presented them to the pope’s representative in Germany, Cardinal Cajetan, for his comments. In early November 1519, the Louvain faculty also sent the text of their condemnation to their Dutch colleague Adriaan Florensz Boeyens, Bishop of Tortosa, who within a few years would become Pope Adrian VI. He answered with a letter on December 4, 1519, expressing his critical views on Luther and supporting the condemnation by Louvain. Both sets of condemnations, along with the letter from Boeyens, were published at Louvain in February 1520. By March 27, Luther had finished a lengthy critique of the universities’ views.
This volume includes the full text of the articles of condemnation issued by both Cologne and Louvain, Boeyens’ letter criticizing Luther, and the first edition of Luther’s rather lengthy reply—which constitutes the majority of the text.
We have identified only three other North American holdings of this Wittenberg edition.
This edition includes for the first time a scathing attack on the Protestant Reformation by Gabriel de Saconay (1527-1580), which elicited a reply from Jean Calvin. In his preface, Saconay offers a polemical summary of the previous 45 years, including discussions concerning Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli.
Also reproduced in the preface are letters by Erasmus and St. John Fisher concerning the work, as well as a letter from Pope Leo X that appeared in the preface of the first edition.
We have identified only six other North American holdings of this edition.
Martin Luther King, Jr., John C Bennett, Henry Steele Commager, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Speak on the War in Vietnam. New York: Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, 1967.
To commemorate Memorial Day 2025, Rare Books and Special Collections highlights an anti-war booklet published in 1967 by Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CALCAV).
CALCAV formed at the end of 1965 for clergy and laity from three mainline American religious traditions—Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish—to work ecumenically to express dissent from the US government’s policy in Vietnam and, eventually, in other conflicts around the world. On April 4, 1967 CALCAV organized a mass meeting at the interdenominational Riverside Church in New York City. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had just accepted the co-chairmanship of CALCAV, gave one of his most important statements against the war in this speech, “Beyond Vietnam.” He was joined by other well-known clergy and public intellectuals, including the historian Henry Steele Commager and Rabbi Dr. Abraham Heschel of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Three thousand people attended the event.
Wanting to capitalize on King’s new role in the organization and public attention from the Riverside Church program, CALCAV quickly published 100,000 copies of this 31-page booklet. In the introduction, CALCAV declared “We feel that a time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.” In the booklet, the organization included the four addresses given at that program as well as a speech King had made a few months earlier in Los Angeles, “The Casualties of the War in Vietnam.”
To underscore the group’s seriousness and broad cultural reach, CALCAV invited the public intellectual, theologian, and Union Theological Seminary professor, Reinhold Niebuhr to write the foreword to the publication. In it, the pastor and ethicist observed that although some Americans regarded US involvement in Vietnam as part of the nation’s international responsibility, Niebuhr argued that America in Vietnam was “an example of the ‘illusion of American omnipotence.'” He also defended King’s position of nonviolent resistance to evil, calling it “a real contribution to our civil, moral and political life.”
CALCAV used its publication to defend King from criticism. His anti-war stance had attracted censure from both allies in the civil rights movement and critics in the mainstream press. Just two days after the Riverside Church meeting the New York Times attacked the minister’s position in an editorial (April 7, 1967). CALCAV included a Q&A section at the end of the booklet in which they invited King’s fellow speakers to respond to the New York Times. Commager, Herschel, and John C. Bennett, President of Union Theological Seminar and the fourth speaker, challenged the Times‘ assessment of King by asserting emphatically, “Dr. King was not in error when he said: ‘The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America.'”
A happy Memorial Day to you and yours from all of us in Notre Dame’s Special Collections!
Rare Books and Special Collections is closed today (May 27th) 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.
