Tag: on this day & holidays

Discovering Fianna: The Voice of Young Ireland

by Matthew Knight, Irish Studies Librarian and Curator

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, Rare Books and Special Collections is pleased to showcase this recently-catalogued item, Fianna: The Voice of Young Ireland. This journal was published sporadically between 1935-36 by an organization called Na Fianna Éireann—also known as the Boy Scouts of Ireland. The goal of the publication was to rekindle a spirit of patriotism in a new generation of Irish youth. It featured songs, poetry, and prose in English and Irish; biographical sketches of republican heroes and martyrs; patriotic editorials that focused on the glorious past; essays on the joys and benefits of camping; and updates on the various sluaite (troops) across the country. Hesburgh Libraries houses the only complete run of this extremely scarce publication in which, among other things, 13-year-old Brendan Behan saw his first articles in print.

Background

Legendary member of the Fianna, Oisín, tells St. Patrick about the deeds of his father, Fionn Mac Cumhaill. Ua Concheanainn, Tomás. Fianna Éireann. Brún agus Ó Nólláin, n.d.

Na Fianna Éireann was founded in 1909 by Countess Constance Markievicz and Bulmer Hobson to create an Irish nationalist alternative to British uniformed youth groups like the Baden-Powell Boy Scouts (from which the Boy Scouts of America would later be formed). Taking its name from the Fianna, the legendary band of warriors in ancient Irish mythology, the young members of Na Fianna Éireann were provided with both military training and a nationalist education, emphasizing the importance of Irish language, history, and cultural traditions.1 Although generally aged between eight and seventeen years, these boys were prepared, mentally and physically, to make the ultimate sacrifice for Ireland.2

Due to the military nature of Na Fianna Éireann, however, controversies regarding the role of girls in the organization quickly arose. Even though Countess Markievicz, one of Ireland’s most famous woman activists, was a founding member of the Fianna, the annual Ard-Fheis (National Convention) of 1912 voted to make the organization open to boys only.3

RBSC has a copy of the 1924 Fianna Handbook, revised and expanded from the original 1914 version. Special Collections Rare Books Small DA 954 .F53 192

Members of Na Fianna Éireann were also involved in the production and distribution of Irish nationalist publications, including the 1914 Fianna Handbook and a monthly newspaper, Fianna, which first appeared in February 1915 and ran until Easter 1916. British authorities included this work in a list of publications that they considered to be disseminating “seditious propaganda.” Although the publication contained mostly innocuous fiction, poetry, jokes, historical essays, and a monthly column on folklore written in Irish, it is apparent that British authorities were aware of the nationalist undertones of the contents and likely of Na Fianna Éireann itself.4

Detail from page 29. Drill terms in Irish from Fianna: The Voice of Young Ireland, 1935. These terms were in use from the time of the founding of Na Fianna Éireann.

Current and former Fianna participated in the 1916 Easter Rising, and the organization later worked alongside the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the Irish War of Independence (1919-21). As with the broader republican movement, Na Fianna Éireann experienced internal divisions over the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, ultimately taking an anti-Treaty stance (Pro-Treaty members having left the group). The ensuing Irish Civil War (1922-23) nearly destroyed Na Fianna Éireann, as membership numbers collapsed, and many leaders and affiliates were killed or imprisoned. After the Civil War, Countess Markiewicz once again revived her beloved organization, though with a fundamental change in philosophy that disassociated the children’s group from any actual military activity. Instead, they became an independent, non-political, civilian group focused on educating and training young boys to be good Irish citizens.5 Theirs, however, was still to be a republican education.

Revival of Fianna

Revitalizing Na Fianna Éireann proved difficult, as the Free State government did not buy into the notion that the group was truly non-political; thus, in 1931, the IRA and the Fianna were declared illegal organizations. Na Fianna Éireann also faced competition from other youth organizations, especially the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland founded in 1927, but membership did continue to increase each year. When Éamon de Valera and his Fianna Fáil party gained power in 1932, and freed republican prisoners and suspended the Act proscribing Na Fianna Éireann, membership exploded across the country.

Fianna: The Voice of Young Ireland, vol 1., no. 1 (October 1935)

High-ranking officials in the organization decided to revive the Fianna journal for a new generation of youth. With the help of poet Norah O’Kane of Derry, they published the first issue of Fianna: The Voice of Young Ireland in October 1935.6 Serving and former members of Na Fianna Éireann who died in the Easter Rising were praised and promoted as role models in historical essays, and contributors like young Brendan Behan provided wonder tales and heroic biographies of their own.

Fianna: The Voice of Young Ireland June 1936, page 130; and
Fianna: The Voice of Young Ireland, July-August 1936, page 148

Interestingly, despite its continued existence as a boys-only organization, this incarnation of Fianna devoted as much space in its columns to the past and present contributions of women to the nationalist cause, reprinting the works of—and offering tributes to—Rose Kavanagh, Alice Milligan, Countess Markievicz, Anna Johnston (AKA Ethne Carbery) and several others, while issuing regular reports on the activities of Cumann na mBan, Cumann na gCailíní, Cumann na Gael, and Mná na Poblachta. Since one of the leading editors was Norah O’Kane, one might perceive her guidance, and potentially even the primacy of her input, in these choices.7

Detail from Fianna: The Voice of Young Ireland, July-August, 1936, page 137.

Na Fianna Éireann was made illegal in the Free State in the summer of 1936, along with other Republican organizations, and Fianna was shuttered after the July-August issue. The proscription of this journal and its sponsoring organization, along with its association with a children’s cause, may have led to its scarcity in the historical record. Yet, it offers much to researchers interested in the under-studied topics of women’s and children’s contributions to Irish independence. Notre Dame is excited to house this rare publication, and we hope that you will visit Rare Books and Special Collections to see more of this fascinating periodical, and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and Women’s History Month at the same time.

 

Footnotes

1. For more information on the history of Na Fianna Éireann see: Marnie Hay, Na Fianna Éireann and the Irish Revolution, 1909-23: Scouting for Rebels. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019.

2. At age eighteen the Fianna would ‘graduate’ into the Irish Volunteers military group or, after 1919, the IRA.

3. Some girls joined the Clann na Gael Girl Scouts, an auxiliary to the Hibernian Rifles. When Cumann na mBan (League of Women) was formed in 1914 as an auxiliary to the Irish Volunteers, many of the young women who joined were former Fianna. It was not until 1930 that Cumann na mBan established their own republican scouting organization for girls, Cumann na gCailíní, or the Irish National Girl Scouts. See: Hay, Na Fianna Éireann, 11-12.

4. The organization later revived the journal Fianna—in 1921 and 1926—but it shuttered after one issue each time.

5. See John R. Watts, “Na Fianna Éireann: A Case Study of a Political Youth Organization,” PhD Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1981. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/1907/

6. Many boys had fathers who served in the British army during WWI, so it was necessary to indoctrinate them into the republican cause. For more on the editors of Fianna see: S.G. O’Kelly, “I Knew the Real Brendan Behan,” in Irish Digest, vol. 78, No. 12, 1964, 67-70.

7. Note the masthead, unlike previous iterations of the journal, depicts a girl opposite a young boy scout. Also, the inclusion of all women’s groups is especially interesting, as Mná na Poblachta had recently split from Cumann na mBan on political lines. This lack of an editorial preference for which group to highlight in its pages is telling. The Fianna were still referring to Cumann na gCailíní as their female counterpart in 1964 and finally began to accept girls as members in 1968–69.

Previous St. Patrick’s Day Blog Posts:

2022: The Breastplate of Saint Patrick — Thomas Kinsella and the Dolmen Press
2021: Competing with Finian’s Rainbow
2020: St. Patrick’s Day Postcards
2019: St. Patrick and the Nun of Kenmare
2018: St. Patrick’s Day in America, 1872

Women’s History Month 2025

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.

The First Women’s Political Party

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator

Rare Books and Special Collections recently acquired a small collection of mostly printed materials of the National Woman’s Party (NWP) and its short-lived precursor, the Congressional Union (CU). Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, CU’s founders, believed the mainstream National American Woman Suffrage Association’s methods were neither effective nor aggressive enough. Paul and Burns engaged in militant (non-violent) protest—like picketing the White House—to bring attention to women’s suffrage. By 1916 the NWP had formed in states where women had won the right to vote. It was the first women’s political party and had a single plank: immediate passage of a suffrage amendment to the Constitution.

After passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, the NWP turned to campaigns for women’s full and equal rights at home and abroad. The party championed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the US Constitution and opposed any legislation that constrained women’s choices in the labor market.

“The Woman’s Party and the Minimum Wage for Women” flyer, circa 1923.

Protective labor legislation, put into place beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century, safeguarded women from exploitative working conditions. The NWP argued that by restricting the number of hours a woman could work, for example, these laws kept women from competing for the better-paying positions held by men, whose hours were not restricted. Although these arguments did not make much headway during the 1920s, by the 1930s and after World War II, as the job market and women’s place in it changed, the NWP’s campaigns helped dismantle gender-based restrictions on women’s labor. 

“Feminist Leaders From Other Lands Conferring At Woman’s Party Headquarters,” Equal Rights, 1924.
Equal Rights, 1937.
The NWP’s international focus.

The NWP also stressed the importance of creating international ties among women and raising the status of women everywhere. The party formed an international organization and worked for gender equality in the League of Nations and later, the United Nations. The 1937 issue shown here, for example, included news and reports on women from Ireland, the Philippines, Mexico, and in the legal codes of Hinduism and Vedicism, in addition to the United States.

The NWP gained some political traction for the ERA in the immediate postwar period, bringing the amendment to a vote in the Senate in 1946. Ultimately, however, the party was unable to secure the measure’s passage. In a notable political success, the NWP helped ensure that the wording of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin) included women in its purview. The NWP operated as a political action committee until 1997.

“Equal Rights Amendment Reaches Vote In Senate, July 19, 1946,” Equal Rights, 1946.

Always a small vanguard of feminist women, the NWP’s forceful tactics and focus on women’s equality in the United States and around the world made it one of the most important political and social organizations of the twentieth century. 

This collection holds a variety of printed formats: flyers, pamphlets, brochures, programs, a publicity photograph, and a long, although incomplete, run of the NWP’s magazine, Equal Rights—from 1924 to 1951. While the magazine is partially available online (see the Hathi Trust catalog record), access to physical copies in RBSC enhances researchers’ experience of these records. 

Previous Women’s History Month Blog Posts:

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

Black History Month 2025

We join with 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 paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society.

Remembering the Harrisburg Trojans, Champion African American Football Team

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

In recognition of Black History Month and in conjunction with the upcoming Super Bowl, Rare Books and Special Collections is pleased to highlight the recent acquisition of a unique vintage homemade fan poster about the Harrisburg Trojans.

Although mostly forgotten today, the Trojans were one of the best African American football teams in the World War Two-era and the winner of the unofficial “World Negro Football Championship” in 1941. This 28-inch by 22-inch poster made by an unknown fan in about 1945 celebrates the accomplishments of the Trojans and provides a rare insight into fan culture around African American sports teams during the era of segregation.

Willie Moon

Founded in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1938, the Trojans were composed mainly of African American athletes who had played high school football in the region, and they quickly developed a reputation as a talented team. The Trojans attracted considerable press coverage and routinely drew big crowds for the high quality of their play against both white and African American semi-pro, amateur, and professional teams. 

The Trojans regularly competed at the highest levels of African American football. On Sunday, November 2, 1941, for example, the New York Brown Bombers, one of the best and most well-known African American teams in the country, visited Harrisburg and played the Trojans in a game billed as the “World Negro Football Championship.” 

Lunch Atwell

In a thrilling and hard-fought game, the Trojans upset the favored Brown Bombers 12 to 7 to claim the title of best Black football team in the country. Willie Moon was the star for Harrisburg, accounting for all of the Trojans’ points. In the second quarter, Moon blocked a Brown Bombers’ punt and recovered the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. Trailing 7-6, late in the fourth quarter, Harrisburg’s Lunch Atwell recovered a Brown Bombers fumble on a punt return to set up more heroics by Moon. With one minute left in the game, Moon made a leaping catch in the end zone of a 22-yard pass by Sammy Greene for the game-winning touchdown. 

The local Harrisburg Telegraph newspaper (November 3, 1941, page 12) described the action:

When Willie Moon rose up in back of the goal line to snare a long forward pass for a touchdown, in the waning minutes of play, the Harrisburg Trojans football team yesterday beat the highly-touted New York Brown Bombers, 12 to 7, and cinched the World’s Negro football championship.

Moon’s spectacular leap into the air for the pass thrown diagonally across the field by Sammy Greene, was the climax of one of the most thrilling grid battles seen here for a long while, and it was also a signal for hundreds of the more than 4000 persons in the stands to rush onto the playing field at Island Park to congratulate the ultimate victors.

Sammy Greene

In 1942 and 1943, the strong Washington Lions team visited Harrisburg to challenge the Trojans for the “Negro Football Championship.” In 1942, the two teams played to a 7-7 tie, and, the following year, the Lions beat Harrisburg 8-0 to earn the title.

The Trojans’ financial and administrative affairs were handled in these years by business manager Ned R. Givens and promoter William E. “Bud” Marshall. The Trojans continued playing each fall through about the 1950 season.

Unusually, although the players on the Trojans were predominantly African American, the team added white players to its roster for both the 1942 and 1945 seasons. In 1942, the Trojans fielded white players Dusan “Duke” Maronic—who would go on to play in the NFL for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1944 through 1950—and John Krovic. In 1945, the team included white players Andy Anderson and Bob Sostar.

Years after, Duke Maronic recalled his time with the Trojans: “Later, I played for the Harrisburg Trojans. They were an all-Negro team. I was the only white guy on the Team. I never gave much thought to it. Neither did the black guys, but once in a while one of the opponents would make a remark.”

George House, Ernest McLaughlin, and John McLaughlin

Besides old clippings from the 1930s and 1940s in central Pennsylvania newspapers or in the African American press, however, there is little available information about the Harrisburg Trojans. Fortunately for researchers, the anonymous creator of this remarkable fan poster has preserved an exceedingly rare source about the Trojans. 

Phil Mason

On a piece of black cardboard underneath a heading that reads “1938-Harrisburg Trojans-1945,” the unknown fan has pasted clippings from a promotional pamphlet written and published by business manager Givens. Except for these extracts, there are apparently no other known extant copies of Givens’s pamphlet. It is also unknown if the publication originally included more material than is seen here.

In a clipping from the poster about the history of the team, Givens wrote that the Trojans’

“… policy always was and still is, to play the best teams that they could get, and they never asked anyone for favors or setups. This team was organized in 1938, as one body of athletes, clean living, clean sportsmanship, and sport loving lads. In order to do this, many sacrifices have been made by these boys. Through the guidance of Bill Simpson, Phil Mason and Lewis Carlton they were recognized as one of the most outstanding Negro Professional football teams in the United States.”

Coach Vince Whiting

The poster features rare images and short bios from Givens’s pamphlet about 17 different men who played for the Trojans. The pictures capture talented and serious African American football players ready for action. And the remarkable piece of fan art provides a glimpse into the significance of African American sports teams during the mid-twentieth century and the way in which at least one fan related to the Trojans.

In his pamphlet, Givens concluded his brief historical summary of the team by writing: “And to the boys who are now playing as members of the Trojan team, and to those who have played, I dedicate this book.”

Today, we remember and celebrate the accomplishments of the Harrisburg Trojans and dedicate this post to their legacy.

Previous Black History Month Blog Posts:

2023: African American Women Activists and Athletes in 1970s Feminist Magazines

2022: Searching for Claude Monroe Paris, Unheralded African American Basketball Pioneer: Documenting Black History Using Notre Dame’s Joyce Sports Research Collection

2021: Paul Laurence Dunbar’s New Literary Tradition Packaged to Sell

2017: African Americans and Populism

Happy Holidays from Special Collections!

Rare Books and Special Collections is open Monday through Thursday this week (December 16-19, 2024)—appointments are recommended. We will then be closed from Friday, December 20, 2024, through Wednesday, January 1, 2025, in observance of the campus-wide holiday break for all faculty, staff, and students.

Special Collections will reopen on Thursday, January 2, 2025.

This is the last blog post for 2024.
Happy Holidays to you and yours from
Notre Dame’s Rare Books and Special Collections!

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

This post features the December 1909, “Christmas Number-American Sports,” catalog published by Boston-based sporting goods company Iver Johnson. The colorful catalog over depicts Santa Claus driving an automobile—a relatively new popular consumer item in the first decade of the twentieth century—stuffed with presents from the Iver Johnson catalog. Santa’s goodies include sleds, toboggans, skis, snowshoes, winter caps, suitcases, cameras, flags and wrapped presents.

Founded in the 1870s, Iver Johnson was best known for selling bicycles and firearms, but, as shown throughout this 30-page catalog, the company sold a wide range of sporting goods, household wares, and other items. This Iver Johnson catalog (EPH 5036-7) is part of the Joyce Sports Research Collection’s Sporting Goods Catalog Collection (EPH 5036), which is open and available to researchers.

The “Christmas Number” catalog particularly featured Iver Johnson’s winter sports toys and products, as seen in this picture of children pulling their sheds through a snowy field.

The catalog also advertised an oversized toboggan that looked to seat five to six children with a bit of doggerel:

Just a glimpse in passing
But, O you—

No wonder every child wants
a Flexible Flyer and most
young people a Double Runner

Iver Johnson is the Place to Buy Either.
When you buy the sleds,
look at the
Skates—Skees—Snow Shoes.

For undecided shoppers, the catalog also helpfully printed a guide called “Christmas Gifts You Can Get at Iver Johnson’s” broken down into the categories of “Father,” “Mother,” “Sister,” and “Brother.”

So, if any readers are doing some last-minute holiday shopping for their loved ones, perhaps they can find inspiration from the 1909 Iver Johnson Christmas Number catalog!

“Christmas Presents You Can Get at Iver Johnson’s”

Upcoming Events: December 2024

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

Thursday, December 5 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: “A Reckless and Scandalous Doctrine: Matthias Ferchius, a Franciscan in the Index” by Eva Del Soldato (University of Pennsylvania).

The exhibition Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924 is now open and will run through the end of January 2025.

Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.

The current spotlight exhibits are Wollstonecraft: Revolution & Textual Evidence (September–December 2024) and A Fourteenth-Century Chanson de Geste Fragment (September–December 2024).

RBSC will be closed during the University of Notre Dame’s Christmas and New Year’s Celebrations,
December 21, 2024 – January 1, 2025.

“The Thanksgiving Visitor”

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator

This Thanksgiving Rare Books and Special Collections features Truman Capote’s short story, “The Thanksgiving Visitor.” It first appeared in the November 1967 issue of McCall’s magazine; as seen here, it was republished with two other holiday stories in 1996 by Random House in its Modern Library series. “The Thanksgiving Visitor” is one of the few stories about Thanksgiving by a major American author.1 Capote wrote it soon after he had achieved professional success and widespread recognition for his nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, published in 1965.

“The Thanksgiving Visitor” is loosely autobiographical, based on Capote’s childhood in early 1930s Alabama. Told in the first person by nine year-old Buddy, it recounts his bullying at school by an older boy, Odd Henderson. While Buddy’s family is relatively prosperous during the depths of the Great Depression, Odd’s family is struggling.

When Buddy’s older cousin, Miss Sook, learns of Buddy’s troubles with Odd, she invites him to Thanksgiving dinner, a grand and sprawling affair of family members, friends, and neighbors. At Buddy’s objection to his cousin’s generosity, Miss Sook reminds him, “when all around us we see people who can’t satisfy the plainest needs, I feel ashamed. . . . The shame I feel is for all of us who have anything extra when other people have nothing.” (p. 78)

When the gathering sits down to eat Buddy believes his moment for revenge has come. He announces that he had just seen Odd steal Miss Sook’s prized cameo pin. Miss Sook counters Buddy’s claim, clearing Odd of blame, at which point the boy confesses that he had stolen the pin, returns it, and leaves. Buddy feels betrayed by Miss Sook for having sided with his nemesis. 

Later, Miss Sook explains to Buddy that however wrong, Odd’s action had not been calculated, while Buddy had set out deliberately to humiliate Odd in front of everyone at the table. “There is only one unpardonable sin,” Miss Sook tells Buddy, “deliberate cruelty. All else can be forgiven. That, never.” (p. 104)

This copy was owned by Penelope Creeley and the poet Robert Creeley and was part of his library, which Hesburgh Libraries acquired in 2011. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

RBSC will be closed during Notre Dame’s Thanksgiving Break (November 25-26, 2021). We wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2023: Beat Generation Cookbook: Illustrated
Thanksgiving 2022: Turkey for the People
Thanksgiving 2021: The Thanksgiving that Gave Us a Song, a Movie … and a Cookbook!
Thanksgiving 2020: Happy Thanksgiving to All Our Readers
Thanksgiving 2019: “Thanksgiving Greetings” from the Strunsky-Walling Collection
Thanksgiving 2018: Thanksgiving from the Margins
Thanksgiving 2017: Playing Indian, Playing White
Thanksgiving 2016: Thanksgiving Humor by Mark Twain
Thanksgiving 2015: Thanksgiving and football

 

Footnotes

1. Michael P. Bibler, “How to Love Your Local Homophobe: Southern Hospitality and the Unremarkable Queerness of Truman Capote’s ‘The Thanksgiving Visitor’,” MFS Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 58, no. 2 (Summer 2012): 284.

War Games: Playing Propaganda in World War One

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

In honor of Veterans Day, Special Collections is pleased to highlight its recent acquisition of two British World War One-era patriotic board games. Marketed to the public to generate support for the war effort and to improve morale on the home front, the two manual dexterity marble-based maze games imagined the progress of battles in Europe and reflected British wartime propaganda against Germany. 

The two games, manufactured by British toy company R. Farmer & Sons, are encased in wood and under glass, and players must navigate a small metal ball around a recessed playing board and avoid holes distributed around the course.

The first game which dates from about 1914 is titled “The Silver Bullet, or the Road to Berlin,” (MSSP 10091) and the playing board depicts the route of a military campaign through Germany with players winning by advancing to Berlin. Along the way, competitors must avoid their ball dropping in holes that depict obstacles like “entrenchments,” “bridge destroyed,” and “road mined,” while also bypassing German cities including Cologne, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Dresden, Hanover, Hamburg, Spandau, and Potsdam.

The reverse side of the board promotes this “new war game” and includes the rules for players. “Amateur Strategists,” the manufacturers wrote, “will soon discover the methods whereby the danger zones may be successfully evaded, but the ever present difficulties tend to make the game of fascinating interest to players and onlookers.”

Perhaps as a warning to the public to be cautious about the progress of the war, the rules concluded that: “Beginners will be encouraged to know that the proficiency generally begets over-confidence, and the expert often fails amidst the hearty laughter of the company when he least expects to.”

Following up on the success of “The Silver Bullet, or the Road to Berlin,” R. Farmer & Sons published its second game “Trench Football” (MSSP 10092) in about 1915. Probably in reference to the informal Christmas Truces of 1914 that saw German and Allied soldiers mingling and playing soccer, the “Trench Football” game simulates trench warfare in the guise of a soccer match. Players start at “kickoff” and must navigate their ball around trenches and holes manned by caricatures of German military and political leaders. Competitors win the game by completing the course, avoiding the oversized mouth of the Kaiser, and maneuvering their ball into the “goal.”

The reverse of the playing board calls “Trench Football the great international game,” and the instructions, labeled “mode of attack,” mock and parody the German leaders on the game board. The instructions, for example, describe the first two defenders that players have to bypass, German Crown Prince Kaiser Wilhelm and Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the head of the German Navy, who supported unrestricted submarine warfare:

You have a feeble opponent in “Little Willie” at “Outside Right.” Loot Ball is his speciality and passing the outsider with the contempt he deserves, you negotiate the skulker Von Tirpitz (notorious for his foul play) on his first ever appearance in the open as “Centre Forward.”

Other German military figures came in for similar ridicule by the makers of the game:

  • “Although Von Kluck is now used to being ‘left outside’ he is an honest thruster but is not clever, and in an important match of recent date he lost his nerve and broke down badly when within shooting distance of goal.”
  • “Von Hindenburg at ‘Inside Right’ has not been played regularly of late, the Grand Duke having badly shaken his confidence. Competent critics are of opinion that he was greatly overrated, and is not likely to re-gain his form or to give trouble on this or any future occasion.”
  • “Count Zeppelin at ‘Right Back’ is the gas-bag of our opponents, he has been badly pricked of late, and is far less dangerous than he appears on paper.”
  • “Von der Goltz, stiff and stodgy at ‘Right Half’ has never been able to think clearly since the Belgian International outwitted him.”

The game reserved its harshest criticisms—and accusations of foul play—for Germany’s Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II:

“Lord High Everything, Canting Bully Bill” in “GOAL” you must keep your eye on, he holds the record for mouth, and foul play.

To obtain a goal you must dodge his mouth, it is the chief difficulty. He has proved himself mentally incapable of understanding the rules of the game or the meaning of fair play. Many complaints have been lodged against him, and it is probable that he will in the near future be “suspended indefinitely.”

Vigour and decision is necessary in dealing with him.

The Silver Bullet and Trench Football games are both open to researchers and available to the public.

An Irish Story Produces a Halloween Icon

by Sara Weber, Special Collections Digital Project Specialist

As with many other aspects of our modern Halloween celebrations, we owe the ubiquitous jack-o’-lantern to the Irish immigrants who brought their traditions with them to the United States.

In the January 16, 1836, issue of The Dublin Penny Journal we find the tale of “Jack o’ the Lantern.” Here the author relates how he learned from his uncle (a “kind, generous soul … deeply imbued with superstition”) the legend explaining the lights they see from the edge of an Irish shaking bog. Our more scientifically minded narrator insists the lights are merely ignis fatuus, a “gaseous vapour arising from putrid vegetable bodies,” but his uncle attributes them to “that misguided traveler, Jack o’ the Lantern.”

Read on to learn just who Jack is and how he came to haunt the bogs of Ireland.

Other versions of the story end with the Devil giving Stingy Jack a coal to light his way, after he is refused entry to both Heaven and Hell. Jack carries that coal not in a pumpkin but rather in a turnip. The Irish carved faces into a variety of fruits and vegetables with the intent of scaring off the restless souls thought to return to the living world on the eve of the Celtic festival of Samhain—traditionally November 1, though celebrations often began the evening before. When Irish immigrants arrived in the Americas, they discovered that pumpkins (a plant native to the Americas and thus more readily available) are rather easier to carve than turnips.

The post’s header image comes from the front page of the November 23, 1867, issue of Harper’s Weekly, which features both an illustrated story of “The Pumpkin Effigy” and a poem titled simply “The Pumpkin.” The illustration is one of the earliest in a major American serial to depict a carved pumpkin. The article relates a tale not of Halloween, however, but rather of a “quaint old custom” of “mischievous urchins” using a jack-o’-lantern to spook the unwary. The article credits the English with the origin of this pastime and laments its abandonment by the “rising generation”.

Happy Halloween to you and yours
from all of us in Notre Dame’s Special Collections!

Halloween 2023: Demon Horses and How to Tame Them
Halloween 2022: A Halloween Tale: “John Reardon and the Sister Ghosts”
Halloween 2021: A Welsh Witch in the Woods
Halloween 2020: Headless Horsemen in American and Irish Legend
Halloween 2019: A Halloween trip to Mexico
Halloween 2018: A story for Halloween: “Johnson and Emily; or, The Faithful Ghost“
Halloween 2017: A spooky story for Halloween: The Goblin Spider
Halloween 2016: Ghosts in the Stacks

National Hispanic Heritage Month 2024

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.

Reading Beisbol: Semanario Especializado

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Latin American & Iberian Studies Librarian and Curator

“Todas las competencias deportivas, no solamente las internacionales o las interestatales, sino también las interpoblaciones, deben servir para estrechar los lazos de amistad y nunca para distanciar a los pobladores o fanáticos.”

“All sporting competitions, not only international or interstate ones, but also local ones, should serve to strengthen the bonds of friendship and never to distance the residents or fans.”

The September 3, 1953, issue (page 1) of the Mexico City-based magazine Beisbol: Semanario Especializado (Baseball: Weekly Special) published this article lamenting the increasingly bitter and antagonistic rivalries between baseball teams and spectators in Mexico. The editors encouraged their readers to find common ground through sports and urged fans to temper their intensity.

The magazine did acknowledge the centrality of fan participation during baseball games, but it urged moderation in cheering:

“Un encuentro de beisbol sin gritos ni alaridos, es como una cerveza sin espuma; ésta es indispensable para que la cerveza se apetezca… pero tampoco gustará usted de tomarse una cerveza que sea pura espuma.”

“A baseball game without shouts and screams is like a beer without foam; the foam is essential for the beer to be appetizing… but you would not like to drink a beer that is pure foam.”

The editors concluded dramatically: “… después de un encuentro beisbolero, cuando se haya disipado el olor de la pólvora, los contrincantes deben darse la mano y seguir siendo amigos.” (“…after a baseball game, when the smell of gunpowder has dissipated, the opponents must shake hands and continue being friends.”)

Baseball fans, including a man wearing a mask and holding a flag, watch the “Coastal Classic” between teams from Mazatlán and Culiacán, two cities in the state of Sinaloa, on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Source: Beisbol January 14, 1954, page 17.

Rare Books and Special Collections recently acquired nine issues of Beisbol: Semanario Especializado dating from 1953 and 1954. Beisbol, edited by Salvador Mondragón, a prominent Mexican baseball administrator and booster, was published from about 1946-1957. Mondragón was involved for many years with running the country’s professional leagues, as well as organizing Mexico’s amateur teams for international competitions.

Beisbol covered all aspects of the sport. Many issues focused on the professional Mexican Leagues in both the summer and winter seasons. But the magazine also covered other subjects of interest to Mexican baseball fans, including semi-pro and amateur baseball, Mexican and Latin American players who competed in other leagues, news from the American major leagues, foreign teams that visited Mexico, historical baseball stories, and many other topics. 

A small sampling of articles from the profusely illustrated magazine gives a good sense of the range of subjects covered in Beisbol. 

The November 12, 1953, issue (pages 8-9 and 18-19), for instance, provided in-depth coverage of the recent visit of Jackie Robinson’s Stars, a barnstorming club of American major leaguers, minor leaguers, and Negro Leaguers led by the Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson and Cleveland Indians outfielder Luke Easter. The magazine featured a two-page spread of photos of the American players.

The magazine printed a two-page article “El Parque ‘Carta Clara’ Recibe Maquillaje” (“The Park ‘Carta Clara’ Receives a Makeover”) in its September 3, 1953 (pages 28-29), issue about renovations at Carta Clara Park in Mérida. The author of the article extensively interviewed the field manager/groundskeeper, Carlos “Licho” Ponce, about the changes and improvements being made to the stadium.

Beisbol also routinely featured a small “Sección de Softbol” (“Softball Section”). The coverage usually focused on men’s softball, but the April 8, 1954, issue included a lengthy story about a new amateur women’s softball league (that was sponsored, in part, by the Hipódromo de las Américas, a prominent Mexico City horse racing track). According to Beisbol, the organizers of the Asociación Femenil de Softbol (Women’s Softball Association):

“… han realizado una magnífica labor, llena de penalidades, para organizar este campeonato en la cual se han abierto los brazos a las jovencitas que tuviesen deseos de jugar a la pelota y no contasen con elemento para hacerlo…” (page 30).

“…have done a magnificent job, full of hardships, to organize this championship in which they have opened their arms to the young girls who had wanted to play ball and did not have the resources to do it…” (page 30).

The issue featured numerous photographs (pages 32-34) of opening day and action from the first games.

Each issue of Beisbol: Semanario Especializado featured remarkable full-color cover illustrations drawn by artist Guillermo Ley. Ley’s eye-catching images humorously commented on important current events in Mexican baseball. 

The August 20, 1953, cover illustration, for example, depicted the in-season travels of Cuban pitcher Aristónico Correoso. Correoso had been released by two teams in La Liga Mexicana (Mexican League) during the 1953 season before signing with Tuneros de San Luis in La Liga Central (Central League) and leading his new team to the top of the standings.

The cover of September 24, 1953, editorialized about outfielder Humberto Barbón’s recent decision to leave the Campeche Pirates of la Liga Peninsular de Yucatan (the Yucatan Peninsular League) to play for a team in Havana, Cuba. The illustration shows “el tesoro de los piratas” (“the treasure of the pirates”) waving goodbye and departing Mexico in a boat rowed by the manager of the Havana team.

Ley’s intricate and attractive illustrations and caricatures commented on many different topics of the day and likely helped to draw readers’ attention to the magazine. On November 12, 1953, his cover illustrated the race between the six teams of the Veracruz Winter league vying for the championship, and on April 6, 1954, Ley’s cover showed underdog Venezuela bursting the Mexican team’s balloon by winning the baseball gold medal at the 1954 Central American and Caribbean Games. 

Beisbol: Semanario Especializado is an important source documenting the post-World War Two history of baseball in Mexico and throughout Spanish-speaking Latin America. These scarce issues—Worldcat finds only one other institution with any holdings of Beisbol—are open and available to researchers in Rare Books and Special Collections.

Previous Hispanic Heritage Month Blog Posts:

Upcoming Events: October 2024

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

Thursday, October 3 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: Dante’s Chorographies: From the Territory to the Comedy” by Giovanna Corazza (Cà Foscari University of Venice).

The exhibition Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924 is now open and will run through the end of January 2025.

Curators Gregory Bond and Elizabeth Hogan will host exhibit open houses on select Friday afternoons before Notre Dame home football games, including on October 11, November 8, and November 15. The drop-in open houses will run from 3:00–4:30pm and will feature brief remarks by the curators at 3:30pm in October and 3:15pm in November.

Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.

The October spotlight exhibits are Wollstonecraft: Revolution & Textual Evidence (September–December 2024) and A Fourteenth-Century Chanson de Geste Fragment (September–November 2024).

RBSC will be open regular hours (9:30am–4:30pm) during the University of Notre Dame’s Fall Break, October 19 – 27.