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 is open Monday through Thursday this week (December 18-21, 2023) — appointments are recommended. After that, we will be closed from Friday, December 22, 2023, through Monday, January 1, 2024, in participation with the campus-wide holiday break for all faculty, staff, and students.
Special Collections will reopen on Tuesday, January 2, 2024.
This is the last blog post for 2023. Happy Holidays to you and yours from Notre Dame’s Rare Books and Special Collections!
This post features images—including this colorful jack-in-the-box Christmas cover—from the Lake Michigan Yachting News, the official publication of the Chicago Yacht Club. The Yachting News covered all aspects of yachting and boating on Lake Michigan, reporting about sailing races, popular excursion routes, environmental conditions, sailing technology and equipment, and the social activities of the Midwestern yachting set.
The Yachting News also frequently relied on humor and satire in its columns as shown by the “Just a Few Merry Christmas Hints” column below. The journal’s tongue-in-cheek holiday gift suggestions included this advice:
If you have a friend who is a racing skipper you may give him a bunch of your old safety razor blades for splitting hairs on questions of rules. If you have a friend on the Race Committee, give him a drink—he will need it.
Hesburgh Libraries recently acquired a bound volume with 18 issues of the Lake Michigan Yachting News for the years 1925 and 1926. Worldcat lists only three other libraries with scattered holdings of this scarce publication.
As a holiday centered around a meal, Thanksgiving includes some introspection, as we pause to reflect on the past year and give thanks before tucking in.
This Beat Generation Cookbook, although not a particularly Thanksgiving-themed one, takes an irreverent and somewhat alternative approach to meals and cooking, and by implication, to national holidays like Thanksgiving. The Beats—a loosely comprised, countercultural community of writers, poets, musicians, artists, and free-thinkers—coalesced as a cultural phenomenon during the late 1940s.
Published in 1961, this booklet appeared at a time when some Beat counterculturalism had crossed over into mainstream American culture. The recipes—of intentionally dubious origins and quality—are named for (and in some culinary way) connect to Beats who had achieved widespread notice, if not mainstream celebrity. The first recipe, naturally, is named for Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road (1957) and a core Beat figure. He was also one of the best known Beats by the early 1960s; and he loved milk. The “Kerouac Kocktail” a vile-sounding concoction of milk, yeast, sugar, and water, was fermented then refrigerated. The recipe promises that “[i]t beats instant coffee, and it’s effervescent!”
A dessert recipe, “Billy’s Graham Cracker Pie in the Sky,” spoofed Protestant Evangelist Billy Graham’s successful New York City crusade at Madison Square Garden during the summer of 1957. A chocolate pie, the dish’s “appeal has spread to the barbarians and cannibals, partly for its austere simplicity and partly for its religious flavor” the Beat cooks claim. The recipe called for “¼ cup melted margarine (Protestant)” as well as “2 tablespoons water (Holy)” and “2 disengaged eggs.” It further directed the cook to “chill for Seven Days. Go directly to Hell. Do not pass Purgatory. Do not collect Novenas.” This silliness is paired with an illustration of a Pilgrim eating a slice.
Hesburgh Library’s copy is missing its outer cover, which was bright yellow with the title in large, red lettering. Our copy also looks well-used–with food (and perhaps paint) stains on the cover as well as more food stains inside, particularly on the pages with recipes for Streetcar Pie and Dharma Buns (a play on Kerouac’s novel, The Dharma Bums).
The Beat Generation Cookbook: Illustrated also includes recipes for a number of artists and writers the Beats considered important influences. Pablo Piccaso is included as is Kenneth Rexroth, a San Francisco-based poet who supported and helped launch the literary careers of a number of young Beats, including Allen Ginsberg. The Beat Generation Cookbook recognized Rexroth with Rex Broth: a very large, one-pot meal of meat (“beef, mutton, goat, or goose”), beans, barley, root vegetables, spices, and “1 cup Mr. Clean,” with which “to scrub the whole pot (& everything that’s in it).”
Rare Books and Special Collections holds the Kenneth Rexroth Collection: a grouping of works by and about the artist, of which this tongue-in-cheek, cultural, and culinary masterpiece is a light-hearted example. The Rexroth Collection is part of a substantial RBSC collection of post-World War II small press and avant-garde literature published in the United States.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Special Collections will be closed during Notre Dame’s Thanksgiving Break (November 23-24, 2023). We wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving!
This year’s Halloween post brings you tales of the Pooka:
“an avil sper’t that does be always in mischief, but sure it niver does sarious harrum axceptin’ to thim that deserves it, or thim that shpakes av it disrespictful.”
Broadly speaking, the Pooka (also referred to as a púca or puca) is a mischievous creature found in Celtic, English, and Channel Islands folklore—its name is the root of Shakespeare’s Puck in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Although a shapeshifter capable of a variety of appearances, in our story the Pooka takes one of its more common forms, that of a black horse with fiery eyes and blue, flaming breath.
The volume this story comes from is Irish Wonders: the Ghosts, Giants, Pookas, Demons, Leprechauns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other marvels of the Emerald Isle by D. R. McAnally, Jr. We hold both American and British editions of this text from 1888, both illustrated by H. R. Heaton. The title page describes the book as “Popular Tales as told by the People.” The stories and storytellers are integrated in the narrative, with storytellers represented as local characters. The Hiberno-English, or English as spoken in Ireland, is represented in the spelling and dialogue shown above.
Captain Francis O’Neill copy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1888)Loeber Collection copy (London: Ward, Lock and Co, 1888)
“Taming the Pooka” tells two brief stories of interactions with the spirit before settling in to the longer tale of how King Brian Boru tamed the beast. Click below for a PDF of the entire tale. Enjoy!
Happy Halloween to you and yours from all of us in Notre Dame’s Special Collections!
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.
This year we share two issues of the comic book, El Gato Negro (The Black Cat), created by American artist Richard Dominguez. The popular series debuted in 1993 and narrates the adventures the Hispanic superhero, El Gato Negro, a vigilante crime fighter in Southwest Texas. Special Collections holds single copies of issues 3 and 4.
Packed with action and defined by dynamic imagery, this graphic title fits solidly within the comic book genre. It also takes on current events, issues in Mexican, Mexican American, and American history, and popular culture in a whole variety of ways.
Francisco Guerrero, the man behind the El Gato Negro mask, is a social worker in Southwest Texas whose friend, Mario, a border patrol officer, was murdered by drug traffickers. Guerrero takes on the El Gato Negro identity at night to fight against drug-related violence, even while being targeted by local law enforcement. His name combines the first name of Francisco Madero, a hero of the Mexican Revolution, with “guerrero,” or “warrior.” Across its 4 issues, the comic book series references Hispanic soldiers who fought in the Korean War, the Zapatista movement in Mexico, and lucha libre (Mexican professional wrestling). As such, this title speaks to parts of the Mexican American experience in late twentieth-century America in fun and fascinating ways.
On July 2, 1887, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper marked the upcoming Fourth of July holiday with a cover illustration that graphically depicted the expansion of the United States. The serial was a popular weekly American publication of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Rare Books and Special Collections is pleased to highlight here a significant recent acquisition of the first 73 bound volumes from 1855 through 1891.
The image, titled “Independence Day—A Case of Vigorous Growth,” features a giant Uncle Sam wearing a top hat labeled “1887” standing astride the continental United States from New York to San Francisco. He extends his hand to greet a much smaller man standing on the Atlantic seaboard wearing a tri-corner hat labeled “1776.” “1887” Uncle Sam asks, “How are you, old man?”; and “1776” responds, “Bless my soul, boy, how you have grown!”
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, For the week ending July 2, 1887. (vol. 64, no. 1659, p. 317)
During the last half of the nineteenth century, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper catered to the reading interests of middle class Americans, and its content routinely reflected and depicted the conventional mainstream sensibilities of middle America. In 1888, Leslie’s claimed a robust weekly circulation of 45,000 and declared that its issues “reach[ed] the better class—those that have taste and the means to gratify it.”
The 1887 Fourth of July issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper followed up its striking cover image with a centerfold, titled “New York—Welcome to the Land of Freedom,” emphasizing the common contemporary belief that the growth of the United States had been fueled by the constant arrival of new Americans. The two-page spread shows immigrants huddled together on the deck of an ocean liner enthusiastically watching and pointing at the Statue of Liberty as the ship sails past.
New York. — Welcome to the Land of Freedom — An Ocean Steamer Passing the Statue of Liberty : Scene on the Steerage Deck. (pp. 324–25)
The image references a short accompanying article, also titled “Welcome to the Land of Freedom” (p. 327). The text explains that the scene shows the arrival of the ocean steamer Germanic carrying immigrants from several European countries motivated, according to the the article, “by the belief that here they will escape the burdens and limitations which in the Old World abridge individual freedom and the exercise of rights which are felt to be inherent.”
“The first glimpse of this Land of Promise,” Frank Leslie’s elaborates, “must indeed be inspiriting and joyful … as they sail up our beautiful bay and for the first time see the majestic statue of Liberty, standing, so to speak, at the very gateway of the Republic.” The article concludes stirringly: “May all who sail past it to these hospitable shores find every just expectation realized, and prove in all things worthy of the citizenship which the land of freedom confers upon them.”
This week Special Collections is open Monday (July 3), CLOSED on Tuesday (July 4), and open Wednesday through Friday (July 5-7).
Best wishes to the 2023 graduates of the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College, from all of us in Rare Books and Special Collections.
We would particularly like to congratulate the following students who worked in Special Collections during their time on campus:
Sarah Berland (ND ’23), Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience and Behavior, with an Irish Language and Literature Minor.
Kathryn Heyser (ND ’23), Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and Bachelor of Arts in History.
Both images: MSE/EM 110-1B, Diploma, University of Padua, 1690
The Treaty of 1922 resulted in the formation of the Irish Free State. This tenth anniversary book, published under the Minister for Industry and Commerce and edited by Bulmer Hobson, is intended to show the world how Ireland has developed in all areas, from science and industry to education and art. The book is profusely illustrated.
The cover design by Art O’Murnaghan (1872-1954), is clearly making reference to the style of early Irish illuminated manuscripts. This decorative style, based on the art of illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow, became very popular during the Celtic Revival of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Cromlech on Howth: a Poem, by Samuel Ferguson. With illuminations from the Books of Kells & of Durrow, and drawings from nature by M. S. (Margaret Stokes); with notes on Celtic ornamental art, revised by George Petrie. London: Day & Son, 1861.
An earlier example of the celebration of early Irish art is found in ‘The Cromlech on Howth’, a book that combines the fascination and research into Irish art and literature with a poem by Samuel Ferguson, decoration by Margaret Stokes, and an essay on Irish script by George Petrie.
Shamrocks and harps, however, have been used as emblems of Ireland for centuries, and in America in particular, book bindings of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries proclaim the Irish context with a harp, a decoration of shamrocks, or both. In The Days of a Life, by “Norah” (Margaret Dixon McDougall), is a story of Ireland showing the plight of the laborers and the abuse of the landlord class, from the perspective of a young Canadian visitor. The additional images of a round tower and the ruins of a castle or monastery are also typically suggestive of Ireland’s history.
The Days of a Life by “Norah” (Margaret Dixon McDougall). Almonte, Ontario: Templeman, 1883. Loeber Collection of Irish Fiction.
The tiny edition of Thomas Moore’s extraordinarily popular Irish Melodies shown here includes a ‘female harp’ combining the harp, a symbol of Ireland with the female personification of Ireland. Among Moore’s Melodies, ‘The Harp that Once Through Tara’s Hall’ is one of Moore’s many references to the harp.
Irish Melodies by Thomas Moore. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1856.
The harp that once through Tara’s hall The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory’s thrill is o’er, And hearts, that once beat high for praise, Now feel that pulse no more.
No more to chiefs and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells: The chord alone that breaks at night, Its tale of ruin tells. Thus freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives, Is when some heart indignant breaks. To show that still she lives.
A Philadelphia edition of Mrs. S. C. Hall’s stories, Wearing of the Green, or, Sketches of Irish Character, published in 1868, has a winged woman as part of the harp.
Wearing of the Green, or, Sketches of Irish Character, by Mrs. S. C. Hall. Philadelphia: William Flint, 1868.
This bound set of issues of Duffys Hibernian Magazine, published in Dublin in 1860, bears the bookplate Mathew Dorey of Dublin.
Due to OIT infrastructure work being done in the Hesburgh Library, Special Collections is closed today, Monday, December 19, 2022.
Rare Books and Special Collections is open Tuesday through Thursday this week (December 20-22, 2022). After that, we will be closed from Friday, December 23, 2022, through Monday, January 2, 2023, in participation with the campus-wide holiday break for all faculty, staff, and students. Special Collections will reopen on Tuesday, January 3, 2023.
This is the last blog post for 2022. Happy Holidays to you and yours from Notre Dame’s Rare Books and Special Collections!
A Prayer for Christmas Morning by Henry Van Dyke, donated by American poet Raymond E. F. Larsson (London & New York: Ernest Nister & E. P. Dutton, n.d.). Special Collections, Rare Books Small BV 45 .V32
Generations of Irish children first experienced the theatre at the Christmas Pantomime. This year’s panto offerings in Ireland include The Jungle Book, Sleeping Beauty, and a number of variations on Jack and the Beanstalk such as Olly, Polly and the Beanstalk.
The tradition probably found its way from Britain to Ireland in the eighteenth century, and has delighted children since then. Peculiarly, its popularity has not spread across the Atlantic.
The typical pantomime has a basic story, presented with an abundance of song and dance, great hilarity, and often with predictable gender cross-over as we shall see below. Scenes of slapstick comedy are interspersed with witty dialogue for the grown-ups in the audience. Pantomimes are peppered with current political references, from the setting and characters to the scripted or perhaps ad-libbed asides in the performance.
A selection from our extensive Irish Theatre Program collection gives us a glimpse of the genre in Ireland, as we look at a handful of Dublin theatre programs.
Cover of the program for Dick Whittington, the annual pantomime at the Theatre Royal, 1904.
The 1904 pantomime at Dublin’s Theatre Royal was Dick Whittington. According to the program, it was written specially for this theatre by William Wade. In the tradition of pantomime, Dick Whittington is played by a female, Carlotta Levey.
An Irish Times review includes particular praise for Carlotta Levey: “Miss Levey has proved herself to be one of the very best Principal Boys we have had in Dublin for very many years, and has made a host of friends for herself…”
Ninth Annual Christmas Pantomime: Mother Goose, Theatre Royal, January 31st, 1907. Book of Songs.
The above program is also a Book of Songs, and includes pages of songs in addition to photographs of some of the cast. Once again, Carlotta Levey plays the principal boy, while Mother Goose is played by a male actor, Martin Adeson.
A newspaper review tells us that local references ‘largely directed against Dublin Corporation, and many of which provoked a good deal of laughter, are furnished.’ (Irish Times 22 Jan 1907, p. 7)
John MacDonagh’s Grand Christmas Pantomime, Cinderella. Program for the Olympia Theatre, 1928.
The Olympia Theatre’s annual pantomime in 1928 was Cinderella, a perennial pantomime favorite. The Irish Times review praised almost every element of the show: the scenery, costume, lighting, music, songs, and indeed the actors. The reviewer provides an example of a witty (at that time) local reference: ‘“There are two gentlemen at the door,” says Chris Sylvester as Buttons. “How do you know they are gentlemen?” asks Dick Smith, as Baron Touch. “They have Cork accents,” says Buttons.’ (IT 10 January 1928, p. 4.)
Turfyella (The Emergency “Cinderella”) By Brighidín NIc an Bháird and Eamon Byrne. Sunday, 15, February, 1942 (left); and “Gone with the Glimmer” by Eamon Byrne, Sunday 14th February 1943 (right).
An Óige, the Irish Youth Hostel Association, held their pantomimes in the Olympia theatre from 1941. Our two programs of their pantomimes staged during the “Emergency” (World War II) suggest shows loaded with commentary on the scarcity and rationing of the Emergency years.
From the 1942 program for Turfyella, we can be confident that the reference to turf in the title is connected to the fact that all fuels, among other commodities, were rationed during the Emergency—but as turf, also known as peat, could be cut from the ground in Ireland’s bogs, there was much activity cutting and gathering turf.
Turf was harvested at a frantic rate. The main avenue of the Phoenix Park was eventually flanked on both sides by ton upon ton of turf destined for the fires of the people of Dublin. The avenue was soon christened The New Bog Road.
The same article tells us a little about the ‘glimmer’ of the following year’s an Óige pantomime Gone with the Glimmer, by Éamon Byrne. During the Emergency, the use of gas was limited to certain times of the day. A small flow had to be maintained in the pipes, but people were forbidden to turn on their stoves to use this tiny flow of gas.
Hence the arrival of that fearsome figure who still haunts Dublin folklore – the Glimmer Man. Emergency or no emergency there were babies’ bottles to be warmed, and many mothers used the glimmer in desperation to soothe a crying baby. The Glimmer Man had extraordinary powers: he could legally enter your house and check for recent illegal usage of gas by placing his hands on the cooker ring. Guilty parties could have their supply cut off forthwith.
Cinderella by Dick Forbes, at the Theatre Royal, 1946 (program cover) and Mac ‘Q’ Productions’ pantomime, Cinderella at Saint Anthony’s Theatre, 1957 (program cover).
As we glance over the years of programs, we find Cinderella repeated often, from major city theatres such as the Theatre Royal (no longer in existence), the Gaiety (still staging a popular Christmas pantomime), to smaller theatres and local dramatic societies. The above covers are from programs for the Theatre Royal in 1946 and St. Anthony’s Theatre in 1957, while the program below is from the Gaiety’s 1956 pantomime.
Howard and Wyndham’s Cinderella. Gaiety Theatre, 1956. Program cover.
Cast list from the program of the Gaiety Theatre’s Cinderella, 1956.
While the Gaiety’s pantomime has been a regular event since 1873, it was only during the mid-twentieth century, under the management of Louis Elliman, that their pantomime became home-produced rather than imported. The cast list here shows Jimmy O’Dea playing Buttons, a very important role in the pantomime Cinderella, and Maureen Potter playing the maid, Dolores.
Mícheál Mac Liammóir and Milo O’Shea, must have been a great sight as the sisters Marigold and Myrtle, while the valet Dandini is played in another gender cross-over by Maureen Toal.
Clár Fuireann na Mainistreach, Amharclann na Mainistreach/ Program of the Abbey Theatre Company, Abbey Theatre, 1961.
Our theatre program collection began with some two hundred Abbey theatre programs, and has expanded to include programs of many theatres throughout Ireland. The Abbey, Ireland’s National Theatre, began its Irish-language pantomimes in 1945 with Muireann agus an Prionsaby Mícheál Ó hAodha, based on The Golden Apple by Lady Gregory.
Our program for the 1961 Abbey pantomime, or geamaireacht, is for another tale with a princess and a magical kingdom. In An Sciath Draíochta, Princess Clíona is banished from Tír na nÓg by the witch, Muiregáin. The hero, Aonghus, rescues her with the help of the magical shield of the title, and after many adventures.
In some later pantomimes, the magical setting takes the form of an overt parallel to Ireland. The plot of the Abbey’s Flann agus Cleimintín (1963) would not be clear to a very young audience. The mythical land of youth, Tír na nÓg, is partitioned and therefore vulnerable. However, the opportunistic sea-god and the emperor of China are foiled in their tracks when the border is abolished. The synopsis provided in the program was probably essential to follow this plot.
Synopsis of Flann agus Cleimintín, Abbey Theatre program, 1963.
Partition is once again the subject of the 1964 pantomime, Aisling as Tír-na-nÓg. The story begins with dissatisfaction with the Irish Partition, and a request to an ancient king to come from Tír na nÓg and reunite the country. The call is answered by the king’s son Conall who travels the land and ends up crowned king of Ireland, along with his queen, the heroine of the title, Aisling.
The examples selected here are from a very large collection of programs of many kinds of performance in theatres throughout Ireland, over a century and more. They are currently being cataloged, and these titles will eventually be added to the existing list of programs on our archival finding aid.
Due to OIT infrastructure work being done in the Hesburgh Library, Special Collections will be closed on Monday, December 19, 2022.
The painting of a wild turkey featured in this Thanksgiving post is also displayed in pride of place in the book in which it was printed: opposite the title page in Audubon’s American Birds, from Plates by J.J. Audubon, published in 1949 in London and New York by a British publisher, Batsford. As the title indicates, this is a book of reproductions of fewer than two dozen of John Audubon’s paintings from his monumental work of natural history and painting, Birds of America, published in London between 1827 and 1838.
Batsford, the publisher that produced this modest, post-war volume, wished to place Audubon’s accomplished paintings within reach of nearly everyone. The publisher asked Sacheverell Sitwell to write the introduction, which makes up (excluding the illustrations’ captions) the book’s text. Sitwell was a poet and a prolific writer, mostly on artistic themes and as an art critic. In this book on Audubon’s birds, Sitwell places Audubon’s work firmly within the history of British and American art.
Sitwell also underscored the publisher’s populist intent. The writer noted that books like Audubon’s original work, which was produced in the largest possible format—elephantine, was the “modern equivalent of the illuminated missals of the middle ages. They were accessible only in the houses of the rich and in public libraries.” (p. 10) Sitwell (who was himself both wealthy and titled) and Batsford made Audubon’s great nineteenth-century achievement accessible to popular audiences in Britain and the United States. Turkey for the people.
RBSC will be closed during Notre Dame’s Thanksgiving Break (November 24-25, 2022). We wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving!
Due to renovation-related work being done in the department, on November 28-29 Special Collections will be closed to visitors, except for previously scheduled classes.
