The semester is off to a bang in Special Collections.  Last week, history of science professor Darin Hayton, brought his class on “The Scientific Revolution” to visit and introduced them to a range of primary sources and the types of questions one should ask when confronted with such a text.  Texts discussed during the visit included Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium caelestium (1543), Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (1686), and Ralph Cudworth’s The true intellectual system of the universe (1678).  In an upcoming assignment, students will be asked to select, describe and analyze a text from our collection (or Bryn Mawr’s) that falls between 1500 and 1700, roughly the dates covered in the course.  In preparing for supporting this assignment bibliographers Ann Upton and Margaret Schaus have uncovered a rich trove of scientific literature within our rare book stacks.

Students in professor of art history Carol Solomon’s course on “Art, Politics, and Society in Nineteenth-Century Europe” have been spending quality time with editions of the works of William Blake.  This week students picked illustrations from such works as The Songs of Innocence and Experience, America, a Prophecy, The Book of Urizen, Vala or The Four Zoas, and The Book of Job, and presented on the works within the political, social and cultural contexts of the period.

Next week we’re expecting a visit by professor Kaye Edwards and her class on “Quaker Social Witness.”  They will be learning about our print, manuscript, and online resources on Quakerism from librarians Diana Peterson, Ann Upton and Anne Moore.  During the semester students will have several assignments that will make use of materials from the Quaker Collection.  Three research papers will include an exploration of a specific Quaker testimony and its relationship to social action; an examination of a historical figure from the Religious Society of Friends; and an analysis of a current Quaker project toward social justice.  Additionally, students in the course will be attending parts of the upcoming conference on Quakers and Slavery, co-hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College and Haverford College.

Post by Deanna Bailey (’12), student worker in Special Collections.

This entry is part of our monthly series to highlight entries from the 20,000 letter Charles Roberts Autograph Letters Collection.

In a 1952 letter to Dr. Gilbert F. White, then president of Haverford College, Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger compares himself to his close friend and colleague, Albert Einstein.  Rebels in the world of physics, Schrödinger and Einstein were just two of many scientists who made great contributions to the 20th century, a few of whom were able to come to Haverford due to the Philips Grant.

The Philips Grant consists of funds left by Haverford alum William Pyle Philips (Class of 1902) for two purposes: the purchase of rare books “which the college would not otherwise buy” and to invite “distinguished scientists and statesmen” to Haverford.  Among the rare books made affordable by the Philips grant are a few of Special Collections’ most notable items, including a copy of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium caelestium, Castiglione’s The Courtier, and Marlowe’s The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta. Among the scientists who were able to visit Haverford are Nobel Prize winners Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi, and theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Presented with the prospect of giving a lecture at Haverford College, Schrödinger voices his concern about Haverford’s students who have studied other great physicists of the time, including Niels Bohr, Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, and John von Neumann.  He cautions Dr. White in this regard, saying that “[w]hile being on most friendly terms with all of them, I heartily disagree with them at the root…Your students would ask my opinion on one or the other point in the works of [Julian] Schwinger, [Sin-Itiro] Tomonaga and others.  I should shock them profoundly by saying, I have not read it, because I am physically unable to follow arguments that make no sense to me.”

Schrödinger goes on to tell Dr. White about an essay he included in the letter, which was to appear in a volume in honor of Louis de Broglie, a Nobel Prize winning physicist.  Schrödinger qualifies his work as “not a new theory–just rebellion, argued rebellion.”  He then continues talking about his close friend Albert Einstein at the end of the letter, saying that “Einstein too is a rebel.  But we are rebelling in opposite directions.  To meet Einstein once again is, of course, a great temptation.”

With the end of this letter the communication between Schrödinger and Haverford College seems to stop; however, packed with a wealth of historical references, the letter places Haverford College in the realm of great scientists like Erwin Schrödinger.  At the very least, the letter is indicative of the importance of grants, such as the Philips Grant, that secure Haverford’s position as a highly advanced scholarly institution worthy not only of bringing great minds to the college, but also producing great minds from its student body, something that Haverford continues to accomplish even today.

Gest Fellow Hayley Glaholt is a Doctoral candidate in Religion, Ethics, and Public Life (Department of Religion) at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Her research is on late-nineteenth century British and American Quakers’ debates on the morality of animal vivisection, virtue, gender, and medicine.

Hayley Glaholt 2010 Gest Fellow

My interest in using Haverford’s Quaker Collections stems from their extensive holdings concerning Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Orthodox) and their complete set of nineteenth-century Quaker periodicals, both British and American. While the majority of my research on British Friends was carried out at Friends House and Woodbrooke in England, I managed to miss one key journal—The British Friend. Haverford possesses the entire set of this periodical, and I have since found key primary source material that supports my claim that Quaker debates concerning vivisection overlapped with discussions of the parameters of their testimony for peace. The British Friend, in comparison to The Friend (London), has slightly more radical pieces describing the virtues of those engaged in war, vivisection, and other forms of cruelty, and particularly outlines women’s roles in establishing and maintaining a pacific ethic within the Quaker community.

Haverford’s holdings on Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Orthodox) have been significant for my research in that they proved the absence of a debate about vivisection among American Friends. While The Friend (Philadelphia) mentions the British Quaker community’s agitation against the practice of vivisection (or experimenting upon live animals), Philadelphia Friends consistently fail to engage with the issue in any meaningful way. I could not have substantiated my ‘hunch’ had I not accessed these important records from the late-nineteenth century. Further, side trips around Haverford to the American Anti-Vivisection Society and the Women’s Humane Society, both founded by Philadelphia Quaker Caroline Earle White in the late-nineteenth century, have allowed me to flush out the Philadelphia Quaker response (or lack thereof) to the problem of vivisection in medical education.

Lastly, Haverford has bits and pieces of material related to the contemporary incarnation of the Friends’ Anti-Vivisection Association, which is now called Quaker Concern for Animals. These modern discussions of vivisection, which draw upon Victorian Friends’ arguments, are extremely useful for contextualizing this long-running debate on violence towards animals within a religious community founded on pacifism.

This month has been a luxury, allowing me the time and resources to delve into a crucial aspect of my dissertation research. I would like to thank John Anderies and Ann Upton in particular, and the Gest Fellowship Committee more broadly, for providing me with this wonderful and inspiring opportunity to use Haverford’s Special Collections.

Post by John Washington (’10), former student worker in Special Collections.

This entry is part of our monthly series to highlight entries from the 20,000 letter Charles Roberts Autograph Letter Collection.

While frantically scouring (actually just casually reading) through the names of letter writers in the Charles Roberts Collection, I found an artist/poet that I came to admire, Dante Bariel Rossetti, who I first came to know  because of his sister, poet Christina Rossetti.   I was excited to write a blog post about Dante Gabriel Rossetti who was famous for poems and paintings like “Song and Music” and “Girl in a Green Dress,” respectively.  When I started looking through the physical collection, I came upon a folder not listed in the inventory.  it was labeled Christina Rossetti!  I put Dante Gabriel Rossetti aside for his more “interesting” younger sister.

Christina Rossetti is best known for her poem “Goblin Market.”  She is British by birth with an Italian background.  Christina Rossetti’s was devoted to her religion.  For Christina Rossetti, her Anglican religion greatly augmented her sickly life.  She denied two marriage offers based on the religion, or lack of religion, of the persons asking her—using her writing as a way to talk about her rejections (see poem “Remember“).

The letter I found by her in the Charles Roberts Collection is addressed to a Mr. Bryant, possibly William Cullen Bryant—the American poet famous for writing the poem “Thanatopsis.”  Christina’s words are to the point but gentle; just as situations would deem her throughout her life.  First letting Mr. Bryant know what was wrong with what he did then letting him off of the hook and accepting him.

Since it is not a long letter, allow me to post it for reading:

Dear Mr. Bryant,

Please do not feel hurt at what I am about to say. More than once I have been applied to by letter from some or other person unknown to me who alleges that you have named me, more or less, as a reference. One such letter reached me this afternoon. In every case I have replied in your favour. But I cannot approve of perfect strangers being thus referred to me. It was a different thing when you told me Mr. Caine knew and could vouch for you, he and I being acquainted; to him there was no difficulty in my writing, and as you know I did write and act on what he told me. I must ask you not to use my name thus to strangers. All the same I remain.

After studying Christina Rossetti for a number of years, I have learned to understand her sense of self (I wouldn’t say humor) that she portrays in her writing.  This letter excited me because it encompassed her views on life in a few short lines.

Check out the list of other amazing people who have letters in the Charles Roberts Collection!  There are American and British poets, scientists, and signers of the Declaration of Independence—just to name a few.  This is the perfect place to get an insight into the lives of historical figures that interest you!

There is always more work to be done in Special Collections than can be done by the full-time staff.  To complete some projects additional short-term staff is needed.  Below is a profile of a part-time librarian, Anne Moore, who has been often seen in Special Collections in the last year.

I am a recent Library Studies graduate from Drexel University and currently working in Haverford College Special Collections Library on my second project.  The first project took place during the spring of 2009.  I worked with Manuscripts Librarian & College Archivist Diana Franzusoff Peterson, updating and encoding a finding aid for the Baltimore Yearly Meeting records.

I returned in December of 2009 to work on a digitization project about Quakers and slavery with Digital Collections Librarian David Conners.  This is a joint project with the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College.  Materials relating to Quakers and slavery have been digitized, transcribed, cataloged, and uploaded to Triptych, the Tri-College Digital Library.  In addition to the digital library, an exhibit webpage is also being created that will highlight featured resources, a timeline, and scholarly essays on various topics related to Quakers and their role in abolishing slavery and the slave trade.

When I first joined the project, I spent my time digitizing and transcribing manumissions books from Philadelphia Meetings.  These manumissions document the freeing of slaves.  Entries include the name, age, and date of the release of the slave as well as the Quaker releasing them.  Another interesting and noteworthy item is the first organized protest against slavery in the Americas from 1688.  More recently I have been coding webpages and providing materials for the Quakers & Slavery exhibit website (coming soon!)

Parthenia is set free by her owner Hannah Dawes

This semester 42 students are enrolled in the History and Principles of Quakerism class taught by Professor Emma Lapsansky-Werner. The record number of curious scholars is a reflection of the growing interest in Quakerism on Haverford’s campus. Last week two library sessions were held with students to orient them to the resources in the Quaker Collection that will help them complete their assignments that include a group project on a Quaker novel, presentation of Pendle Hill Pamphlets and a challenging bibliographic essay on some aspect of Quakerism. Students and librarians will be very busy in the weeks ahead exploring the breadth and depth of our collection!

Swarthmore College ‘s Externship Program is an opportunity for a current student to spend five days at the workplace of an alumnus/a in order to gain practical exposure to a career field.  Naomi Liang joined us in Special Collections this January:

From January 11 to January 15 I participated in an externship offered by David Conners, Digital Collections Librarian (Swarthmore alum ’03), at Magill Library’s Special Collections.  The Swarthmore Extern Program entails five days of job shadowing to allow undergraduates to explore a particular field of interest.  My current prospective majors are philosophy, English literature, and sociology/anthropology.  Since knowledge accession, reading culture and, generally, the process of research have long been fascinations of mine, I was happy to be able to absorb librarian life during my five days at Magill.

I spent much of my time working with David on digital archiving – scanning and photographing photographs used for classes, scanning books, reformatting digital audio, and cataloging art.  I sat in on a meeting of TAG, the Tri-College Technology Advisory Group, where librarians worked out the final logistics of the neat-looking new service Tripod Mobile (a mobile-friendly version of the catalog for use on smart phones).  During this time I also shadowed Ann Upton, Special Collections librarian and Quaker Bibliographer, who, along with David, guided me around the rare book vault and allowed me to pull out random items out of curiosity (including a beautiful 1854 edition of Walden and Christopher Morley‘s German literature notes from 1910).  Ann also showed me her process of deciding which rare books or Quaker books to add to the collection.  We also answered emailed reference questions regarding Quaker genealogies, and I spent a few hours working on the beginnings of a new project in Special Collections – the digitization of 19th century Quaker fiction illustrations for an exhibit on the popular depiction of Quakers.

Of course, my gathered gemstones of experience at Magill were not all from work.  During the coffee breaks and the all staff meeting I attended, “all staff” at Haverford consisting of only a little over 20 people, I was able to witness the collaborative and truly congenial atmosphere of a library workforce. I was amazed by and very grateful for the welcome I received by everyone, as well as for the stories I’ve heard from people in various stages of the library career – a current student, a recent graduate, and librarians who are well into their careers and love what they do, a number of whom began their life as college graduates with jobs completely unrelated to librarianship. I absolutely enjoyed my time at Haverford, and I am looking forward to my next visit to Magill’s Special Collections.

I began working in Special Collections in the summer of 2008 after my freshman year at Haverford.  I worked with Manuscripts Librarian and College Archivist Diana Franzusoff Peterson on two projects.  The first was a light conservation of the Hartshorne family papers.  The Hartshorne family is a prominent Quaker family in the Philadelphia area.  I also looked through the archives of the Haverford and Bi-Co News to look for connections between Haverford and China for an exhibit on Haverford’s relationship with China.

During the 2008-2009 academic year I worked with Quaker Bibliographer and Special Collections Librarian Ann Upton on a number of projects.  The first was an inventory of the William Jenks collection, a collection of early Quaker writings from around the time of the founding of the Society of Friends.  The second project was a re-housing and inventory of the Quaker Broadside collection.  This project has led to the on-going digitization of the collection.  Upon completion of the inventory, I displayed some of the work I had done on the collection and gave a presentation to the Haverford Corporation/Board of Managers describing the project.  I also regularly worked with Ann checking in Serials and keeping our Serials group collection up to date.

During the summer of 2009, I again worked with Diana Peterson to create a finding aid for the William Warder Cadbury and Catherine Jones Cadbury collection.  For most of the summer I dealt with the numerous unsorted photos in the collection.  Many of these photos were from their stay as Quaker missionaries in Canton, China at the Canton Christian College.  I sorted them into folders, performed some light conservation on them, and ultimately created a finding aid so they can be easily available to scholars.

This fall, I have continued working with Ann Upton on the Serial groups and now the Pamphlet groups collections.  In addition, I have been working on an inventory of the Quaker Rare Books Collection, a collection substantially larger than the Jenks Collection I worked with last year.

Outside of my work in Special Collections, I am a Philosophy major at Haverford and a Political Science minor at Bryn Mawr and am interested mostly in political philosophy.  I also run on the cross country and track teams here at Haverford.

Gest Fellow Catherine Baylin is a MA student in Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo. Her research is on Quaker missionaries in the Middle East before World War II.

Catherine Baylin 2009 Gest Fellow

I first came to Haverford to research Quaker missionaries in Ramallah, Palestine and am delighted to be back to expand my research to include Quakers in Brumana, Lebanon. I am particularly interested in Quaker activity in the Middle East as a case study of Arab-American relations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I hope to challenge the common perception that American missions were unambiguously colonial during this time period and explore the ways in which local residents shaped mission activity.

The collections at Haverford provide unparalleled insight into the schools, Meetings, and medical missions that Quakers established in the late 19th century. The Jones papers contain hundreds of letters and records detailing the activities and finances of the Lebanon mission. The Quaker Collection also contain early writings of Theophilus Waldmeier, the founder of the Brumana mission, as well as the collection of Daniel and Emily Oliver, who opened an orphanage nearby. No study of the Quakers in Lebanon could be complete without examining this original source material. The Quaker Collection also contains numerous published sources which are proving central to my research, including biographies, yearbooks, and memoirs.

Having the time to comb these collections at this state of my academic career is incredibly rewarding, and I would like to thank the staff and the Gest Fellowship Committee for providing me with this opportunity.

In the fall of 2008, during the first semester of my freshman year here at Haverford,  I started working in Special Collections with Digital Collections Librarian David Conners to finish the Cope Evans project.  Started in 2002, the project was to digitize the Cope Evans Family Papers collection in order to make each item available on the web.  This involved reading, scanning, and transcribing almost 3,000 items dating from the 18th to the 20th century.  I had very little knowledge of the Society of Friends before coming to Haverford, and working with this collection of papers was a great way for me to really understand the essence of Quakerism.

At the culmination of the project in the spring of 2009, an event was organized to unveil the work that all of the students, interns, fellows, and librarians had been doing for the project.  Members of the Cope and Evans families were invited, as well as other members of the community, and anyone who had worked on the project in the past.  I spoke on the student panel at the event, and wrote a couple of pieces about some themes that arose from the letters, which were the compiled into a booklet about the collection.

Currently, I am working with Manuscripts Librarian and College Archivist Diana Franzusoff Peterson as the student archivist. I plan to major in Anthropology with a minor in Spanish. I also study Arabic, and plan to spend my junior year abroad in Egypt.