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.

Over the past several months we’ve been working hard to put more of our finding aids online for our users. Until recently, we had approximately 45 finding aids online. Now there are about 110 finding aids online that are fully searchable. We have never had a complete inventory of our named collections available online for users, but now we do, with over 370 viewable alphabetically or by collection number. We will continue to add links to more finding aids in the coming weeks and months. Recently departed Digital Collections Librarian, David Conners, and David’s interim replacement, Anne Moore, as well as several dedicated students, deserve thanks for putting our new finding aids and inventory online.

In related news, the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL) Finding Aids Page has gone live at the University of Pennsylvania. Containing finding aids recently processed as part of the CLIR-funded “Hidden Collections in the Philadelphia Area: A Consortial Processing and Cataloging Initiative,” the site includes finding aids for 14 collections from Haverford and will continue to grow.

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!

In 1979, a junior history major at Haverford named Conrad Turner, chose as the subject of a research paper a letter from Special Collections by philosopher René Descartes from 1641. Turner’s paper was written for the Junior Seminar in Historical Evidence (History 361), a ground-breaking program begun in 1969 in order to inject the study of material culture and the use of primary sources into the undergraduate history curriculum. In one assignment, students selected an unidentified object and were asked to determine the object’s identity, provenance, use, and social context. In another assignment students selected a document from Special Collections, and were assigned to prepare a transcription and in-depth analysis of its content.

Over thirty years later, the Descartes letter was discovered to be unknown to the scholarly world and—even more surprising—to have been stolen from a French library in the mid-nineteenth century. This exciting news was widely reported in the media in early 2010. On June 8, in a ceremony held in Paris, France, Haverford returned the letter to its rightful owner, the Institut de France. At the reception that followed, Conrad Turner ’81—the alum who wrote the paper on the Descartes letter—gave this moving speech about working with the Descartes document, Haverford’s decision to return the letter, and the potential for education to inspire and engender integrity.

Steve Emerson, Mr. Anderies, Members of the Board, Scholars, Distinguished ’Fords and guests: while Rene Descartes, Count Libri and “father of the Internet” Vinton Cerf have made today’s ceremony possible, we have come here because we have a spiritual connection to Haverford, and also of course because many of us happen to live in Europe. It says something about Haverford that a 370-year-old letter is the reason for my trip from Belgrade to Paris, allowing me to visit my senior year roommate Mark Sadoff and his wife Sheila. I have been on the wrong side of the Atlantic and in some cases deep in the Eurasian continent for every reunion for most of the last 23 years, so being part of this one is special for me, and being invited to say a few words is a real honor.

The Turner paper, as it has come to be known, is a footnote in the story of the Descartes letter. But as someone who, as Chris Mills put it, “spent some quality time cuddled up with that document back during the Carter administration,” I’m happy to share some thoughts on what this letter, and its return to l’Institut de France, symbolize. It has to do with the obligation universities have to educate not only their students, but also society at large.

Real education inspires. For too many of the world’s undergraduates, the reality is different. Information is force-fed into the brain, causing a brief rearranging of a few neural networks before being swept off to make room for the next brutal infusion of facts. What remains is a grade on a transcript. Inspiration, on the other hand, turns the brain into a magnet not just for facts but reason, purpose and values. That is what makes the difference between a good college and a great one.

The other day I spoke to Serbian university students about Diversity in the United States. Students there complain that professors lecture at them while keeping a studied distance. They’ve learned to expect worse from foreign diplomats, so I love to smash those stereotypes: as I addressed those students I paced the room, stepping forward and back, gesturing, asking open-ended questions, encouraging a lively give-and-take… In other words, I worked hard to inspire them.

Some of you will recognize a style mastered by Professor Emeritus Roger Lane. I sat quietly during his year-long American History course, but that didn’t prevent me from admiring, and one day imitating, his inspirational teaching style. It just seemed like the right way to do it. (I don’t mean to contradict myself, and please don’t tell Roger, but that’s the only thing I remember from his class.)

As a student then I thought it bizarre that some people could get worked up over the Honor Code. What was the big deal? Yet 21 years later I was on the lecture circuit, addressing thousands of students at a dozen universities in Kyrgyzstan on the subject of academic integrity, helping them write honor codes, and leading seminars using abstracts provided by Haverford’s Honor Council. Concepts that seemed pretty mundane to me as a student turned out to be excellent tools for helping universities, through their students, to come to terms with problems that threatened their country’s development.

And then there’s the Descartes letter, which over a few weeks forced a sleepless young man to think of the great philosopher and mathematician as a real human being.

It’s not unusual for a student to see the extraordinary as ordinary, as I did the Honor Code, Roger Lane, and even exclusive access to an original letter penned three centuries ago by one of mankind‘s greatest thinkers. And really, isn’t that a goal of education? We should enter the workforce taking for granted that inspiration and integrity are the ideals we’re supposed to strive for. Embracing these values is what grounds us throughout our careers, as we engage in the struggle between our desire to hold to the values of our profession, and our need to navigate the politics governing that profession.

This struggle is evident in the letter itself, which if you read between the lines is really a scene from a political drama. Descartes’ challenge was to be true to scientific values while avoiding offending the religious figures who could have been his undoing. It wasn’t easy, and makes you wonder where he got his inspiration and integrity.

My stories from Haverford days are only a small part of the picture, and I’m sure many of you have similar ones. But colleges have a responsibility to educate that transcends even their duty toward their students. Returning the Descartes letter to its owner should be an obvious step. We might even take it for granted. Others do not. A close colleague of mine, whose opinions I respect, was incredulous when I shared the news. “Why give it away? Who cares how it got there, it’s Haverford’s now.” I understand this point of view. Many people would agree, maybe a majority. It was stolen a long, long time ago, and stuff happens.

But stuff doesn’t just happen. We make it so, as individuals and as institutions. Seen in another way, Haverford’s power to confer a prestigious degree carries certain rights and privileges, as well as obligations. Just as I was allowed 31 years ago to connect with history by staring at original ink marks, a great college must be aware of its historical role, and through its actions improve on history by taking a public stand on behalf of integrity. In this case, Haverford’s obligation – to educate us by inspiring us – was simply to do the right thing and return the letter to its home, giving up any perceived benefit the college might have had by clinging to it.

And your decision has inspired us, the news rippling through academic networks worldwide in multiple languages, all the way to my daughter’s high school in Belgrade, where the librarian, on learning my humble connection to the story, gaped at me as if I were a rock star and said, “That was you???”

Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections and the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College announce the completion of the Quakers and Slavery Project, a publicly accessible database of primary source material on the topic of Quakers and Slavery, and an interactive website to accompany the online material.  Among the types of material included are photographs and lithographs, organization records, personal correspondence, and other publications. The interactive website includes commentary contributed by eminent scholars, Quaker researchers, and project staff.

Initial discussions about a joint digitizing project between the Quaker repositories at Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges began in 2007, when both were preparing for the 300th anniversary of the end of the slave trade in North America. Abolition was a cause whose beginnings and sustenance came largely from Quakers in northeastern America and England. The two colleges also began plans to join with the McNeil Center of Early American Studies at University of Pennsylvania to host an international conference on Quakers and Slavery in November 2010. This digitization project is timed to correspond with the conference, which will include material exhibitions by both Quaker repositories.

The materials selected for this project are available for research within the confines of our two Quaker repositories. However, these materials are unique or rare, and as such should receive limited physical handling in order to ensure their longevity. Digitization of these materials supports their long term preservation by reducing the amount they are handled, as well as providing greatly increased access to researchers who are not able to visit. Moreover, within each repository the documents span a range of material types and come from several collections, such that there is no easy way to bring them together physically. This project allows for the virtual reunification of these materials and collections.

The Religious Society of Friends was the first corporate body in Britain and North America to fully condemn slavery as both ethically and religiously wrong in all circumstances. It is in Quaker records that we have some of the earliest manifestations of anti-slavery sentiment, dating from the 1600s. After the 1750s, Quakers actively engaged in attempting to sway public opinion in Britain and America against the slave trade and slavery in general. At the same time, Quakers became actively involved in the economic, educational and political well being of the formerly enslaved.

The earliest anti-slavery organizations in America and Britain consisted primarily of members of the Society of Friends. Thus much of the record of the development of anti-slavery thought and actions is embedded in Quaker-produced records and documents. Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College and the Quaker Collection at Haverford College are jointly the custodians of Quaker meeting records of the Mid-Atlantic region, including Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, New York and Vermont and these records illuminate the origins of the anti-slavery movement as well as the continued Quaker involvement, often behind the scenes, in the leadership and direction of the abolitionist movement from the 1770s to the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, and beyond.

Funding for the Quakers and Slavery Project was provided by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, through a program stipulated by the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). This program is administered in Pennsylvania through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries for assisting libraries in providing all users access to information, developing partnerships, and increasing information access for persons who have difficulty gaining it.

Letterhead from Disney Studios, May 8, 1937

This entry is part of our monthly series to highlight letters

from the Charles Roberts Autograph Letter Collection.

Commencement occurred more than a month ago and recent Haverford grads are scouring the world looking for their new place in the world. A job search today usually calls for the applicant to summon all his initiative to find and secure a position.

But imagine a time when a newly successful and exciting industry petitioned Haverford to encourage their graduates to apply for employment! This happened in the spring of 1937 when Walt Disney wrote to the Dean encouraging applications from Haverford students who were able to meet the studio’s artistic requirements.

At the time of this letter the Disney Studio was on the verge of its incredible rise to success. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released just six months after this letter came to Haverford. It was the first animated American film, first to be produced in color and first produced by Walt Disney. In 2008 the American Film Institute ranked Snow White as the greatest American animated film of all time.

Incredibly, a Haverford College graduate did join the Disney Studio in 1997! Andrew Millstein ’84 was named General Manager for Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2008 and was interviewed by the Alumni Association about his career path. View this blog posting in the Haverford News Room.

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

"...if friendship proceeds from folly I am content to be always a fool"

Like his contemporaries, a number of letters by John Jay are found throughout the collection in his many roles as Founding Father: member of the First Continental Congress, President of the Continental Congress in 1779, diplomat, the second Governor of New York, and the first Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  One interesting aspect of the Charles Roberts Autograph Letter Collection is how it highlights the personal correspondence of many public figures.  Jay’s letter to his friend and future law partner Robert Livingston dated July 15, 1765 is one example.

The letter is a response to a previous letter from Robert Livingston and features two main subjects.  The first continues a dialog taking place over several letters in 1765 between Jay and Livingston about the meaning of friendship.  Jay believes his definition of friendship varies significantly from the common definition.  For Jay, true friendship allows for the free exchange of ideas and constructive criticism with the goal of self-betterment, “…if friendship proceeds from folly I am content to be always a fool, if friendship be the result of weakness, I pray that I many never be otherwise than weak.”  For his contemporaries, however, friendship is a “selfish passion” where “their greatness of soul would not permit them to bestow more of their affections upon one than another, their wisdom needed no assistance … & cherished by the weakness of human nature.”  Jay seeks a friendship where

John Jay to Robert Livingston dated July 15, 1765 collection number number 748.

constructive criticism can be given without fear of reproach and pushes for Livingston to do the same, “What foible in your friend have you noted? What imprudences correct?  He certainly is not without foibles – he cannot be free from imprudence – nay he daily sees many of them himself, and many more must be obvious to your penetration.  When then proceeds your silence?”

The second briefer topic is of women and the false nature of flattery.  Livingston in a previous letter makes a distinction between gross (“that which credulity will scarcely believe”) and delicate flattery.  Jay, however, sees the delivery of all flattery as problematic, “Flattery is a kind of compliment, which our judgement tells us, the object to which it is addressed does not merit.”

A junior history seminar paper was written on this letter in 1989 and explores the historical and personal context behind Jay’s remarks.  Both the letter, the paper, and a transcript are available for view in Special Collections.

Romain Rolland and M. Gandhi in Villeneuve, SW, 1931 by Zach? Pehlemmor?

In 1931, the French writer, Romain Rolland and the Indian advocate of non-violence, Mohandas Gandhi, met in Switzerland. For Rolland, the meeting was the culmination of his desire to meet the man whom he so admired.  Gandhi yearned to meet Rolland, his biographer, as well.  According to author Kathryn Tidrick (Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual Life published in 2006), the meeting did not go well.  Rolland wanted to talk politics, Gandhi wanted to talk about his host’s health and his own God-given gifts.

Who were these two very different people? The French-born Rolland (1866-1944) was a writer, an art historian and mystic who received a Ph.D. in 1895 writing his dissertation on opera in Europe.  He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1915.  A lifelong pacifist, he wrote his book about Gandhi in 1924, having long studied Gandhi and Tagore, among others.

From back of photograph

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), born in India, received a law degree from University College in London in 1891 and used his skills to help improve the situation of Indians living in South Africa. Returning to India in 1915, he organized protests by the lower classes against unbearable taxes and discrimination.  He established an ashram in Gujarat in 1918. He was the leader of the Indian National Congress struggling for the rights of those who suffered discrimination, and, of course, for the independence of India from Britain.  His assassination in 1948 only vaulted his international renown.

This photograph is part of the James Garrett Vail collection (no. 930).

The Spring 2010 Haverford Alumni Magazine features an article on the newly discovered Descartes letter and its return to Paris scheduled for June 2010.  In case you missed it, here it is as a PDF.

This past week we installed ten Preservation Environment Monitors (PEMs) purchased from the Image Permanence Institute (IPI) through the generous support of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Preservation Grant for Small and Medium Sized Institutions.  The devices will be used to monitor and assess the environmental conditions of collection storage spaces in use by Special Collections. The results will help us to make decisions about the distribution of materials and will allow us to better manage the long-term preservation of the collection for the benefit of our users well into the future.

Raw data collected from the PEMs can be uploaded to PEMdata, a web- based preservation management tool developed and maintained by IPI.  As noted on the organization’s website, the software can be used to organize temperature and humidity data, graph and interpret that data, and generate reports. Interior temperature, humidity, dewpoint, mold risk, and other parameters can be viewed in line graph form and compared to graphs of exterior conditions for the same period.

Algorithms developed by IPI use the data to determine the risk of various sorts of deterioration for a range of library materials that may result from the observed environmental condition through natural aging, mechanical damage, mold growth, and metal corrosion. These deterioration risks can be combined and displayed as a time-weighted preservation index or TWPI, a single number meant to represent the “approximate length of time, in years, that vulnerable organic materials would last if every time period in the future were just like the one during which the TWPI value was measured.” Calculators on the site allow one to make virtual changes in environmental conditions and view the effect on the TWPI.

The ten new monitors are added to one we have had for nearly a year. It has collected data in one of our open stacks locations in Special Collections.  A look at the data collected shows that the space being monitored offers less than ideal conditions for the storage of many types of materials, with a TWPI of 42 years. The risk of deterioration from natural aging is due to higher than recommended year-round temperatures and, to a lesser extent, elevated relative humidity levels during the summer months. Heightened temperature and humidity can accelerate the rate of decay of many materials, including film, photographs, magnetic tape, and books and papers produced from the mid-nineteenth century to the late-twentieth century. With this information in hand, one would ideally make changes to lower the temperature and summertime humidity levels. If this is not possible, the space could be used for storage of materials that are least likely to suffer from storage under moderately elevated temperature and relative humidity.

On the positive side, temperature was maintained in this space at a fairly consistent level and humidity levels did not reach the point at which mold growth could be supported, a constant worry in library collections housed in older buildings. Additionally, a comparison of the exterior and interior dewpoint temperatures shows that the building HVAC system functions in removing moisture from the air during the summer and adding it during the winter.

This type of data will eventually be available for all of our Special Collections storage spaces and will allow us to make informed decisions about the placement of materials and the improvement of our environmental systems.