Fall/Winter 2018 No. 11

Fall/Winter 2018 Issue 11

Win Column The Newberry’s renovated first floor supports new opportunities for engagement with staff and collections.

Put Away Your Hard Hats This issue of The Newberry Magazine arrives at an auspicious time for the Newberry. Having recently reopened our first f loor after a nine-month, $12.5 million renovation, we now offer a more welcoming, more engaging environment that better ref lects the spirit of service to the public that has defined the institution since its founding in 1887.

MAGAZINE STAFF

Thanks to the new Herget Welcome Center, our librarians can now introduce first-time visitors to the Newberry right after they enter the building. In the process, these visitors are learning what current members of our community have long appreciated about the Newberry, namely, that we make our world-class staff and collections accessible to everyone, free of charge.

The Newberry Magazine is published semiannually by the Newberry’s Office of Communications and Marketing. Articles in the magazine cover major archiving projects, digital initiatives, and exhibitions; the scholarship of fellows and Newberry staff; and the signature items and hidden gems of the collection. Every other issue contains the annual report for the most recently concluded fiscal year. A subscription to The Newberry Magazine is a benefit of membership in the Newberry Associates. To become a member, contact Luke Herman at hermanl@newberry.org.

EDITOR Alex Teller DESIGNER Andrea Villasenor PHOTOGRAPHY Catherine Gass

The ceremonial removal of Walter L. Newberry’s hard hat takes place during our grand re-opening gala on September 26.

In addition to the welcome center, the new Trienens and Hanson Galleries further introduce visitors to the collections through both temporary and permanent exhibitions; the climatecontrolled ITW Seminar Room, the Baskes Boardroom, and Rettinger Hall allow for increased f lexibility in designing programs connecting users with staff and collections; and our expanded Rosenberg Bookshop offers a carefully curated selection of books, cards, and gifts.

Although construction work was completed just a few months ago, we can already see the impact it is having on the Newberry and the ways in which our users interact with us. With more spaces devoted to promoting public engagement, an almost palpable intellectual energy now pervades the renovated first f loor, as has always been true on the upper levels. One early indicator of this surge in activity is a significant increase in new reader registrations, compared to previous years.

Unless otherwise credited, all images are derived from items in the Newberry collection or from events held at the Newberry, and have been provided by the Newberry’s Digital Imaging Services Office.

I invite you to read about the various reconfigured and redesigned first-f loor spaces in the following pages of this magazine. We are delighted to bring you this information about the renovation, and we hope that you will soon experience the results of the project for yourself—if you haven’t done so already.

As always, we thank you for your continued interest in and support of the Newberry, now and into the future. /newberrylibrary

David Spadafora, President and Librarian

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Contents FEATURES A Brief Tour of the Newberry’s New First Floor

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After nine months of construction, the dust has settled, we’ve hung up our hard hats, and our renovated first f loor is now open for business.

4 Image-Making Matthew Clarke

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Elbridge Burbank’s portraits of Geronimo were meant to contribute to ethnography, but the Nde (Chiricahua Apache) war chief may have had his own plans, as Burbank’s letters home reveal.

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The Fairest of Them All Alex Teller

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In the 125th anniversary year of the World’s Columbian Exposition, the Newberry’s latest exhibition explores its tremendous power of attraction.

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Teaching By the Map Matthew Clarke and Kara Johnson

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Participants in an NEH-funded seminar on material maps in the digital age ref lect on their experiences exploring the Newberry’s collections in an interview with library staff.

DEPARTMENTS 17

TAKE NOTE

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NOW ON NEWBERRY.ORG

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DONOR SPOTLIGHT

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RETROSPECT: Recent Events

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PROSPECT: Upcoming Events

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TA K E N O T E Introducing the Newberry Institute for Research and Education From its earliest years, the Newberry has long sought to develop audiences and communities to engage with its collection. This fall, the Newberry re-branded its Division of Research and Academic Programs as the Newberry Institute for Research and Education, with three primary goals in mind. First, the Newberry Institute will continue to nurture

communities of scholars through its highly competitive fellowship program, the focused work of its research centers, and the offerings of its seminars for scholars, graduate students, and undergraduates. Second, the Institute will foster public engagement with the humanities through free public programs, adult seminars on wide-ranging topics, and professional development programs for teachers. Finally, the Institute will collaborate and at times integrate across these various programs and across the library to bring the work of scholars to life for the broader public. In announcing the change, Vice President D. Bradford Hunt explained: “We want both scholars and the general public to know the broad range of exciting activity taking place, where we bring the collections to life through scholarship, programs, and learning opportunities for various audiences—many of whom overlap with one another. Re-branding as the Newberry Institute will provide greater clarity on what we do, and it will provide opportunities for new collaborative initiatives that can bring together our collective strengths around a focused challenge. I look forward to leading this effort.”

Participants in a French paleography workshop explore materials in the Newberry’s James M. Wells Reading Room.

Short-term fellow Melissa Moreton examines limpvellum bindings (or “early modern paperbacks”) from the Newberry collection.

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Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf discuss Thomas Jefferson and the tensions within American democracy during an installment of “Conversations at the Newberry.”

An Archival Project to Process the Midwest Dance Collection Is Complete This fall, Newberry archivists finished processing a series of exciting new acquisitions for the Midwest Dance Collection.

Originating in the early 1980s, when the library started to acquire a massive archive of dance-related materials from Chicago dance journalist and critic Ann Barzel, the Midwest Dance Collection has steadily grown to include more than 80 discrete collections of papers, books, photographs, films, and other materials belonging to significant figures in the midwestern dance world, as well as numerous archives of Chicago-area dance studios and companies. Along with the papers of dancers, choreographers, and dance educators, the Midwest Dance Collection also contains the papers of dance critics, dance photographers, and dance advocacy organizations. Recently, the Newberry was able to expand its dance collections and make them more accessible to researchers with the help of a two-year grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.

The Donnelley grant enabled the library to hire additional staff to process previously unprocessed archives as well as incoming materials, including

Archiving efforts by Alison Hinderliter, Catherine Grandgeorge and Samantha Smith have made the dance collection more accessible to researchers.

the Ruth Page Papers, the Dorothy Hild Papers, the Zwief ka Family Papers, and the records of studios and organizations like Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Chicago City Ballet and Ballet School, MoMing Dance and Arts Center, and StoneCamryn Studio. In addition to these collections, archivists have also finished processing a collection of beautiful black and white photographs of Chicago dancers taken by photographer William Frederking, and the archives of Dance for Life, a yearly dance event organized by Chicago Dancers United. The results of the project—and other highlights of the Midwest Dance Collection—will be on display at the Newberry this coming April, when we unveil our first major exhibition of dance materials in more than 20 years.

Promotional poster for the Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet School’s new season, 1921-22.

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N O W O N N E W B E R R Y. O R G

Shelf Life (Podcast) Don’t Bring a Bow and Arrow to a Laser Gun Fight “Being a big comic book nerd, I recognized the importance of working with Native artists to fill a gap in Indigenous-created literature, using images in a creative way that didn’t reinforce Indigenous stereotypes.”

Source Material (Blog) Try Your Luck with a Book of Fortune Why use a Magic Eight Ball when you have a Book of Fortune? Interactive fortune-telling books like Lorenzo Spirito’s Libro della ventura were all the rage during the Renaissance, as Newberry curator Suzanne Karr Schmidt explains in a recent blog post. Passing through 50 editions and at least 6 different languages, the Libro gained an international audience by serving as a versatile parlor game in which users told each other’s fortunes by selecting a question and then following a complicated series of steps involving kings, mythic rivers, and the rolling of dice before arriving at an answer. In her post, Suzanne discusses the popularity of the Libro, surveys a few of the Newberry’s copies, and explains how the book would have been used by Renaissance readers.

Read more at www.newberry.org/ source-material

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In the latest episode of “Shelf Life,” educator, poet, and comic-book creator Lee Francis IV (Laguna Pueblo) discusses how comics can serve as a vehicle for presenting Native stories and identities in modern, dynamic settings rather than the ahistorical past in which pop culture often portrays Native characters.

Listen at www.newberry.org/shelf-life

A Brief Tour of the Newberry’s New First Floor After nine months of construction, the dust has settled, we’ve hung up our hard hats, and visitors are now enjoying the new welcome center, expanded bookshop, redesigned galleries, and other parts of our renovated first f loor.

Far from a comprehensive overview, what follows is a series of snapshots of the different spaces and the people enlivening them. We invite you to visit soon (if you haven’t already!) to see what’s new at the Newberry.

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Case in Point

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rom the Stacks, the Newberry’s new permanent exhibition, is now open. Every three months, Newberry curators will select a fresh round of items to introduce visitors to the library’s collection. Individually, these items serve as conduits to the past; collectively, they ref lect the scope of the Newberry’s collecting efforts in the humanities across the past 131 years.

Photo by Jaclyn Simpson

During the exhibition’s first rotation, visitors get to see this range vividly displayed. It’s immediately apparent that the curators took their mandate to show variety very, very seriously. On one end of the collection spectrum in the gallery is a medieval book with a chained binding, which would have kept the book securely attached to a lectern in a 15th-century library. At the other end of the spectrum is a selection of pussy hats and other protest ephemera from the 2017 Women’s March in Chicago.

In between are various other Newberry collection items, including the first Native-authored, Native-copyrighted text (David Cusick’s 1827 Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations); Ben Hecht’s 1928 Oscar for best screenplay for 6

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Underworld; and German-American hand-illuminated baptismal certificates from the late 18th century.

While all these things command attention, the case in which they’re displayed is itself a marvel to behold. Measuring 8 feet tall and 46 feet long, the case runs nearly the full length of the Helen M. Hanson Gallery. Inside, climatized air is controlled by a computer system that monitors and adjusts the temperature and humidity levels to create a stable environment for collection materials.

“It’s almost like a small gallery in and of itself,” says Steven Gerrard, Principal of Ann Beha Architects, the firm behind the Newberry’s first-f loor renovation.

The Hanson Gallery case was modeled on a similar one that ABA designed for the Olin Library at Washington University in Saint Louis. What makes the Newberry case unique is the degree to which it was blended into original architectural elements of the building.

“The library’s original architectural elements and the display case are integrated into one piece of architecture,” says Gerrard.

“Instead of a free-standing box, it wraps around the existing columns running along the gallery on one side and the corridor on the other.”

As a result, visitors are able to see objects on display from both inside and outside the

In a corridor adjacent to the Hanson Gallery, wall niches display objects as part of the From the Stacks permanent exhibition.

“It’s almost like a small gallery in and of itself,” says Steven Gerrard, Principal of Ann Beha Architects, the firm behind the Newberry’s firstfloor renovation. “The library’s original architectural elements and the display case are integrated into one piece of architecture.”

Hanson Gallery. In the corridor to the north of the gallery, niches between the columns display items installed in the same case used to exhibit items inside the gallery.

In addition to being a feat of architecture, design, and engineering, the continuous display case also aligns with the Newberry’s curatorial objectives. Newberry curators wanted to use the gallery not just to show off an array of cool items in isolation but to underscore the ways in which they’re interrelated. The items chosen usually represent not a single subject or collecting focus but several; and the historical lessons they offer are magnified when these items are brought into dialogue with one another—for example, materials showing the interconnectedness of print and manuscript cultures or Native and non-Native interpretations of American history.

From the Stacks will demonstrate the connections between and among the Newberry’s various collections, in ways that might not have been possible using a series of separate exhibition cases. In the process, the exhibit opens up new avenues for research and learning.

Ben Hecht’s 1928 Academy Award for best screenplay for Underworld.

Funding for From the Stacks was provided by Joan and William Brodsky.

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With a Little Help from Our Volunteers

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long with our amazing staff, our volunteers have been integral to creating a more welcoming environment on the first f loor. Here are a few whom you’ll meet as you make your way through our lobby, Victoria J. Herget Welcome Center, and Sheli Z. and Burton X. Rosenberg Bookshop.

The Herget Welcome Center. Photo by Tom Rossiter

Allen Lentino volunteers in the Newberry’s Herget Welcome Center alongside library staff, like Reference Services Librarian Jo Ellen Dickie.

The Newberry’s Rosenberg Bookshop. Photo by Tom Rossiter

Allen Lentino Welcome Center Volunteer/Lobby Greeter I retired recently after spending 23 years as a senior admissions officer at Northwestern University. I wanted to get connected with another educational or academic institution as a volunteer. After volunteering last summer for the Newberry Book Fair, I thought, “The Newberry looks like a good fit for me,” and I inquired about additional volunteering opportunities, which were opening up as part of the first-f loor renovation. In addition to working in admissions for Northwestern, I served as Associate Chair for their Humanities Residential College, so my humanities passion also drew me to the Newberry.

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My background is actually in the social sciences, but the humanities have always been a really good fit for my personal interests.

I really wanted a public-facing, service-oriented volunteer position because that’s where my orientation was.

When you’re a member of an undergraduate admissions staff, you’re being very welcoming to people—addressing their questions and concerns—and I’ve always enjoyed those kinds of interactions with people.

Quetzalli Luera Bookshop Volunteer I’ve been a volunteer here for about a year. I’m working at the bookshop now, but I interned with the Event Rentals office for about six months before that.

I didn’t learn about the Newberry until the second semester of my junior year at Roosevelt University, in 2016, when my Introduction to Shakespeare class came here for the Shakespeare exhibit that was then on display. I stopped by the bookshop, met Jen [Fastwolf, Bookshop Manager], and later applied to be a volunteer.

My adviser—also the teacher of my class— recommended that I volunteer here, because I was considering being a librarian. Now I’m a first-year student in Dominican’s MLS program.

I’m really interested in doing cultural heritage and archival work. I would identify as Chicana, and I think it’s important to make sure that we are represented, so I see library work as a way to make sure that the community is heard.

Shanti Nagarkatti helps a visitor in the Herget Welcome Center.

Shanti Nagarkatti Welcome Center Volunteer/Lobby Greeter I grew up in Wisconsin and lived in New York for a couple of years. I moved here for work initially, and I’ve been As a Greeter, Shanti helps a visitor with information on in Chicago for the last the Newberry’s current exhibition. six years.

I attended a seminar here in February of last year. It was Mary Wisniewski’s seminar on creative journaling. During one of the evenings, a gentleman came into the room and was mentioning the plans for the renovation, and some of the different avenues available to get involved as a volunteer, and it sounded interesting to me, so I contacted Rebecca [Haynes, Manager of Volunteers at the Newberry], who was my entree into volunteering.

I’ve always loved the Newberry’s cultural events, especially the “Meet the Author” events, and that’s why I’m so excited now. It seems like the lectures are more robust than ever, and it seems like there are a lot more public programs. I went a couple of weeks ago to the Renaissance lecture on pop-up books and was blown away.

For more information on volunteering at the Newberry, visit www.newberry.org/volunteering.

Quetzalli Luera volunteers in the Rosenberg Bookshop.

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Premodern Studies in a Modern Seminar Room

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n addition to creating a more welcoming atmosphere, the Newberry’s first-f loor renovation has given staff greater f lexibility in facilitating access to our collections. Nowhere is this more acutely on display than in the ITW Seminar Room, where climate-control systems create a stable environment for collection items, and audio/visual technology integrated into the classroom enhances users’ engagement with primary sources.

The Newberry’s Center for Renaissance Studies is harnessing the capabilities of the new space. During a recent session in its “Digital Humanities and Premodern Studies” seminar, center staff toggled between Powerpoint slides, web videos, and music on a screen at the front of the room while students leafed through 12th-century manuscripts and ruminated on the ways in which digital tools might be used to bring them to life for a general audience online.

“We want to use everything the ITW room has to offer,” says Christopher Fletcher, Program Manager of the Renaissance Center. “We use a projector to show Powerpoints, videos, and websites; a document camera to project particular passages from

Center for Renaissance Studies staff members Chris Fletcher and Isabella Magni conduct a recent graduate seminar session in the ITW Seminar Room.

items with us in the room; and a PC to play music—all while incorporating collection items into our conversations.”

The convergence of primary sources and technology perfectly ref lects the goals of the seminar.

“We want to ‘demystify’ the digital humanities [DH] for scholars of premodern culture, give them some introduction to basic DH tools and methodologies, and encourage them to think about how these things could be useful for them in their future work,” says Fletcher. “This is the ideal environment in which to do just that.”

Graduate students examine primary sources during the “Digital Humanities and Premodern Studies” Seminar organized by the Newberry’s Center for Renaissance Studies.

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Image-Making

By Matthew Clarke

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he Newberry is not the first place one would expect to find a cache of fine art. Yet amid the vellum-bound incunables and illuminated prayer books in the library’s vault is one of the country’s richest small collections of American Indian portraiture: 25 oil paintings created by early 20thcentury painter and illustrator Elbridge Ayer Burbank.

Intimately scaled yet meticulously detailed, the portraits feature Native men and women Burbank encountered during his travels through the Southwest in the late 1890s. Most of

Burbank’s subjects—men like White-Swan, Rain-in-theFace, and Black-Coyote—were unknown outside of their tribal communities. Others, like Naiche, chief of the Nde (also known as the Chiricahua Apache), would have been recognized by a limited white audience. Yet one of the artist’s subjects had been a household name for years when Burbank first painted him in 1897 and was on the verge of transforming into something more mythic. This was the Nde war chief Goyaałé—or Geronimo, as he was by then known.

Burbank painted seven portraits of Geronimo, and the Newberry holds two of them. Both are small, measuring about 8 by 10 inches, and both show Geronimo in a red head scarf and robe. While one features the war chief in a frontal pose, facing the viewer head-on, the other—on view now in our new permanent exhibit, From the Stacks— depicts him in profile, a pose reminiscent of Italian Renaissance portraiture.

Like his other portraits, Burbank’s paintings of Geronimo show a striking attention to detail; as the painter explained in his 1944 memoir Burbank Among the Indians, he strove to depict “every wrinkle in his face and even a mole on his cheek.” Such detail stood out to contemporary audiences, as suggested by a reviewer for the Chicago Inter-Ocean, who concluded that “they are, from the manner of their painting, and the skill of Mr. Burbank, of genuine artistic value as well as high ethnological interest.”

It’s this intersection—of “genuine artistic value” and “ethnological interest”— that is most perplexing, and most problematic, about Burbank’s portraits. Like Burbank, many artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries specialized in ethnologically oriented paintings of American Indians, depicting their subjects in traditional garb—known as regalia—and placing them in idyllic, ahistorical settings.

Geronimo, Fort Sill, O.T., 1897. Elbridge Burbank. Oil on panel.

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Geronimo. Elbridge Burbank. Oil on panel.

Yet to many scholars and others today, these paintings perpetuated an insidious idea—that American Indians were a “Vanishing Race.” Deriving from the caption of a wellknown Edward Curtis photograph, the Vanishing Race motif construed American Indians as a people weakened by disease and overrun by soldiers and settlers, whose traces should be preserved for posterity by artists, scholars, and ethnographers. Yet given that many tribes were still vibrant, the Vanishing Race myth was a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” according to historian Brian Dippie. In this sense, “[t]he myth of the Vanishing American accounted for the Indian’s future by denying them one, and stained the policy debate with fatalism.” Artists like Burbank created exquisite work, Dippie and others conclude, but only at the cost of reinforcing an idea used to justify the imposition of federal policies—like 12

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the General Allotment Act of 1887, which broke communally controlled tribal land into private allotments for individual ownership—now seen as destructive to Native communities.

Few would deny the “genuine artistic value” of Burbank’s masterful portraits of Geronimo, but what are we to make of their “ethnological” significance?

Burbank himself hinted at his aims in a 1904 letter, writing that “[i]t won’t be many years before this Indian work will be a thing of the past. They are dying off so fast, the older ones and genuine Indians…. Now is the chance to get types of every Indian tribe in America.”

Regardless of the painter’s intentions, it’s difficult, and probably impossible, to avoid the conclusion that Burbank’s portraits strengthened the Vanishing Race myth.

But even if Burbank’s portraits appropriated Geronimo as a “type,” evidence suggests that Geronimo also sought to use Burbank’s portraits for his own purposes. A collection of Newberryheld letters sent by Burbank to his uncle Edward E. Ayer (the early Newberry benefactor who had commissioned Burbank’s American Indian portraits) gives a detailed account of the painter’s experience working with Geronimo.

These letters, which shed light on the complex relationship between the two men, suggest that rather than serving as a passive subject, Geronimo exerted active control over Burbank’s work when he could—most likely for the purpose of advancing his own personal agenda.

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orn in Harvard, Illinois, in 1858, Elbridge Ayer Burbank moved to Chicago in 1874 to study art at the Academy of Design. He spent the following two decades in a variety of pursuits, opening a portrait studio in St. Paul in 1880, illustrating life along the Northern Pacific Railroad during 1885, and moving to Munich in 1888 to work with the artists Paul Nauen and Toby Rosenthal. His career would probably have continued in this fashion had he not been the nephew of one of Chicago’s most successful businessmen: Field Museum President—and future Newberry donor and trustee—Edward Everett Ayer.

I said How do you do Chief Geronimo he looked at Like Burbank, Ayer was from Harvard, and like Burbank, me in a surprised way and held out his hand and we he had begun travelling early. Yet whereas Burbank had shook hands. wandered east to Europe, Ayer had set out west, arriving at the age of 19 in San Francisco, where he worked in a Burbank was struck by Geronimo’s appearance, recounting lumberyard until enlisting with the First California Cavalry later in his memoir that “[h]is keen, shrewd face was deeply Company E and then the First New Mexican Infantry during furrowed with strong lines” and that “[h]is small black eyes the Civil War. were watery, but in them there burned a fierce light.” The two Stationed in New Mexico and Arizona, where he was men set to talking with the help of a translator. According to his responsible for defending the Southwest from Confederate March 12 letter, Burbank gave Geronimo “a box of cigarettes. advance, he came into contact with Navajo and Pueblo He smoked and offered me one motioned for me to sit down Indians, whom he recruited for service in the Union Army, and we smoked the cigarette of Peace.” By the end of the and became fascinated by their rituals, dances, and artwork. conversation, Burbank had arranged with Geronimo to paint When the war ended, Ayer began selling lumber to railroads the chief ’s portrait: “He says he will sit for me any time and that and was soon providing rail ties to major lines like the Union I can use his house for a studio which am going to do so will Pacific, the Santa Fe, and the Mexican Central. His commercial commence his picture Tomorrow and he is going to dress up career made him fabulously wealthy and allowed him to travel for me with a war bonnet on and an Indian blanket on also.” extensively through the West, where he further explored his Geronimo’s willingness “to dress up” may have given Burbank interest in American Indian cultures, amassing an ever-growing some relief, for the painter later reported that “Geronimo goes collection of Native American regalia, jewelry, and tomahawks, around with Soldiers clothes on.” as well as a large library of books, manuscripts, paintings, and As it turned out, the sitting had to wait several days. drawings focused on Native life.

Burbank visited Geronimo’s house the following day but found As time went on, Ayer became more and more convinced him away, only locating him later that night at an officer’s that the American Indian cultures of the West were on the house. There, the two seem to have agreed on the particulars verge of disappearance, and his early impulse to collect of the paintings: as Burbank explained, “I am to start the transformed into a desire to preserve. When it was reported Geronimo picture in the morning and will work in house I will that the Chiricahua Apache Geronimo—perhaps the bestpaint two of him a front view and a profile he has a fine head.” known symbol of Indigenous resistance to American expansion—had been captured and imprisoned at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, Ayer decided to seize the opportunity to create a visual record of the shaman and war chief.

He turned to his nephew Elbridge to do so, agreeing to fund a trip to Fort Sill and support Burbank’s work there.

Burbank arrived at Fort Sill on March 12, 1897, and penned his first letter to Ayer that night. [Ed. note: Here and elsewhere, the text of Burbank’s letters has been left unedited.]

The first thing after Dinner I hunted up Chief Geronimo he lives two miles from the Fort in a house. I found his house…but no one was in but an Indian nearby who spoke pretty good English told me Geronimo was out getting some ponies. I saw him way off in the distance and waited for him.

Pretty soon he came on horse back (he The “Vanishing Race” myth derived its name from the caption of Edward Curtis’s photograph of Navajo can ride free) when he came up to me riders disappearing into the distance.

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When Burbank arrived at Fort Sill, he found that “Geronimo goes around with Soldier’s clothes on,” as he reported in a letter dated March 12.

In a letter dated March 14, Burbank informed his uncle that he had arranged to paint Geronimo “in his native dress.”

As if to reassure his uncle that he would succeed in his mission, Burbank once again reported to Ayer that “Geronimo is to fix him self up in his native dress.”

A week and a half later, on March 21, Burbank was able to announce the completion of his assignment: “I finished with Chief Geronimo Today I have painted two fine likenesses of him one a full front view and the other a profile and I have painted him with his correct costume on.” According to Burbank, Geronimo was pleased with the work, for Burbank related that Geronimo had “the different Indians come in and…they all like the picture when I got through Geronimo patted me on the back and says good man, good man.”

The resulting portraits were promising contributions to Ayer’s ethnographic project. They satisfied the requirements of existing ethnographic conventions—Burbank adopted the profiles, frontals, and three-quarter views frequently used in

so-called “physical type photography,” the preferred style of ethnographers during the period—and, in addition to adding place information to one of the portraits, the painter even convinced his subject to sign his name to the paintings. They were also unique: drawings of Geronimo had been published in the press beginning in 1886, and numerous photographs had been produced, but with the exception of a single painting by Henry Francois Farny, Burbank’s were the first oil portraits of the Apache war chief.

Yet while Geronimo agreed to sit for Burbank in his “native dress,” he was anything but passive in the process.

Geronimo seems almost to have courted the artist. During down time, Burbank writes in his memoir, “Geronimo would lie on his back on the bed and sing Apache songs to me. He had a deep, rich voice and these songs, sung in the Apache dialect, were of great beauty.” He also presented Burbank with

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“I finished with Chief Geronimo Today I have painted two fine likenesses of him one a full front view and the other a profile and I have painted him with his correct costume on” gifts—the artist reported in a March 25 letter that “Geronimo has made me a fine bow and fine arrows”—and he even taught Burbank the art of massage, though Burbank suspected ulterior motives. (“[A]fter he had shown me how it should be done, he frequently would lie face down and ask me to massage his back, which I did,” Burbank writes in his memoir.) Burbank hinted at the emergence of a genuine friendship in a March 28 letter, relating how on a free day he went “to see my friend Geronimo he was glad to see me wondered why I didn’t come to see him oftener.”

At the same time, Geronimo pushed back repeatedly against the painter’s requests. Though Burbank reported that Geronimo “has signed his name to both of the pictures I painted of him,” he also admitted that he “had a hard time to get him to do it.”

And while Geronimo ultimately agreed to sit for Burbank in regalia, he also drew a line: after finishing the first two portraits, Burbank reported that “I was going to paint a third profile of him in war paint he promised to paint his face up, but he backed out.” Finally, though Burbank’s assignment was to depict the war chief in regalia, Geronimo seems to have convinced Burbank to let him sit for one of the portraits in the soldier’s uniform he then commonly wore. (This portrait is now held at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio.)

Geronimo was thus willing to collaborate in Burbank’s ethnographic project—but only to an extent. Rather than submitting wholly to the painter’s desire to typecast him as an instance of a vanishing race, Geronimo seems to have sought to manage the image Burbank produced. What was his intention?

Without a doubt, Geronimo was aware of the enormous power of his public image and was intent on harnessing it.

From around the time of his encounter with Burbank in 1897 until his death in 1909, Geronimo took every opportunity to put himself in the spotlight. Still under arrest, he participated in the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in 1898, the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, and the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. He joined Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show. He sat for numerous photographs. He even managed to appear in Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade in 1905.

Geronimo seems to have used the attention to exert control over his image. Early photographic representations—

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othing more than speculation is possible, of course, yet evidence provides grounds for a hypothesis. Driven by his desire to escape indefinite imprisonment at Fort Sill, Geronimo may have seen his work with Burbank as an opportunity to refashion his public image along less threatening lines. By doing so, he may have believed, he could convince his captors that he and his followers could be safely released without any renewed threat of resistance. Proving this would have required a delicate balancing act: Geronimo had to demonstrate his willingness to comply with the artist’s wishes, while ensuring that the resulting portraits didn’t reinforce the already widespread public image of the war chief as a dangerous “savage.”

Early images of Geronimo—like this 1887 photograph by Frank Randall—often depicted him as a warrior. (Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.)

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like A. Frank Randall’s famous shot of the war chief kneeling, rif le in hand, and glowering darkly at the camera—tended to depict Geronimo as a merciless warrior. He continued to be willing to play this part until his death, but he also participated more and more in “Americanizing” photo shoots as time went on. One well-known photo—taken by Frank Rinehart at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition—shows Geronimo in American clothing, staring at the camera calmly, while another, shot by Walter Ferguson in 1904, featured the war chief in a top hat and at the wheel of an automobile.

This change in focus may have been the result of a general effort on Geronimo’s part to temper his earlier reputation by altering his public persona. Other actions—like his notorious conversion to Christianity in 1903—seem to have been undertaken with the purpose of inf luencing opinion, especially that of the authorities. In converting to Christianity, for example, Geronimo chose to join the Dutch Reformed Church (to which Roosevelt also belonged) with the hope, according to many, of winning the president to his cause.

The nature of this cause is indicated by how Geronimo chose to use his one meeting with Roosevelt, which occurred after the inaugural parade in 1905. According to the New York Tribune, Geronimo petitioned the president directly to “take the ropes from our hands” and let him and his fellow Apaches return to Arizona. When he was angrily rebuked by Roosevelt—the war chief had a “bad heart,” the president is reputed to have said—Geronimo reacted emotionally, the meeting was cancelled, and Geronimo was sent back to Fort Sill.

Geronimo’s petition to Roosevelt makes clear that his abiding desire was to liberate himself and his fellow Chiricahuas from imprisonment and return to the Southwest. In all likelihood, he understood that convincing the authorities to grant his request meant demonstrating that he was no longer a threat, an aim that would be furthered by softening his public image. In working with Burbank, Geronimo may well have been motivated by this goal.

In Indian Country, Martin Padget adopts this position, arguing that Geronimo “used the opportunities made available to him to broaden his sphere of inf luence, earn money, and petition the president for the return of the Chiricahuas to their Arizona homeland.” Along similar lines, William Clement proposes in Imagining Geronmio that the war chief saw in Burbank an early opportunity to refashion his public image, and asserts that the humanizing “avuncularity” of Burbank’s portraits would have appealed to Geronimo, given his aims.

Burbank’s letters, however, suggest that Geronimo not only accepted but actively encouraged the artist’s “avuncular” depiction. By agreeing to appear in regalia while refusing to wear war paint, Geronimo may have sought and found a middle ground, complying with the artist’s ethnographic goals while still managing to project a friendlier image. Likewise, Burbank’s apparent willingness to ignore his uncle’s instructions and paint Geronimo in uniform indicates the war chief ’s success in using Burbank’s visit to begin the project of altering his reputation.

Even with all his efforts, Geronimo never managed to escape Fort Sill. He died there in February 1909, from pneumonia contracted after spending an entire night exposed to the cold in the wake of a riding accident. “I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive,” he is said to have told his nephew from his deathbed. Burbank’s portraits offer a unique chance to ref lect on the struggles of this extraordinary man, the nature of his legend, and the ever-dynamic relationship of art and power.

Readers interested in exploring—and transcribing for themselves—Burbank’s letters from Fort Sill can do so by visiting the Newberry’s digital transcription site Transcribing Modern Manuscripts (publications.newberry.org/digital/ mms-transcribe).

A 1904 photograph featured Geronimo in a top hat and at the wheel of an automobile. (Image courtesy of the Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries, Ferguson 745.)

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Matthew Clarke is Communications Coordinator at the Newberry.

The Fairest of Them All

By Alex Teller

“Y

ou could never imagine how wonderful the fair is,” Jane Elliott Sever wrote to her aunt back home in Massachusetts while visiting the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. “Every day that we go, some new and more beautiful thing appears.”

Jane’s wonder and astonishment could be attributed to her youth (she was 16 years old when she traveled to Chicago for the fair).

But her impressions are representative of how millions of other visitors experienced the relentless barrage of visual stimuli in the “White City” and along the Midway Plaisance.

The fairgrounds’ 700 acres— encompassing everything from the latest technological innovations to fine art and entertainment— exceeded any single person’s capacity for description. At the end of the day, one simply stood in awe, searched for the right way to characterize the fair’s epic grandeur, and fell back on words like “wonderful” and “beautiful.”

The 1893 World’s Fair was designed to elicit these kinds of reactions. As the grandest international spectacle in a

great age of spectacles, the event shaped the expectations, experiences, and memories of audiences through a dazzling array of imagery. A new exhibition at the Newberry, Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair, curated by Diane Dillon, examines the fair’s immense visual power. Open through the end of 2018, it is the first major exhibition to take place in the Newberry’s newly renovated first f loor.

The images at the heart of the fair often spoke for themselves.

Marveling at the electric light that radiated across the fair at night, Jane Elliott Sever paid special attention to the fountains in the Grand Basin, bathed in “a pure shimmering white, then changing to rose, then a pale green, then blue, yellow, then green, rose and white together, making a

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most wonderful sight.” Devoid of much detail, her breathless description captures the exhilaration she must have felt in the moment, following the lights as they danced on the water.

The World’s Columbian Exposition was the first such event to be fully electrified. Merely to itemize the colors on display at night was to capture the wonder of the new technology.

The inf luence of the fair stretched far beyond the 700 acres it occupied along Lake Michigan. Those who couldn’t visit the World’s Columbian Exposition were able to experience it vicariously through books, magazines, and newspaper accounts. The fair’s iconic imagery was reproduced and widely disseminated as well. If you didn’t make it to the White City, you could at least have a poster in your home showing a bird’s-eye view of the fairgrounds—arrayed majestically on the lake, with the Midway receding inland and the Ferris wheel levitating in the distance.

Bird’s-eye views could be functional, helping fairgoers locate, say, the Horticulture Building at a glance. They also came to symbolize the World’s Fair itself. Essentially serving as the exposition’s visual identity, these views appeared on everything from posters, handkerchiefs, and playing cards to photo albums, hand fans, and postcards. Such items helped visitors remember their time at the fair and helped everyone else access the event in some small way from a distance.

Presenting the entire expanse of the World’s Fair in a single image fed the illusion that it was a Gesamtkunstwerk: a total, unified work of art. In reality, it was anything but. The fair was used as a platform for advancing a number of agendas.

City boosters sought to position Chicago on the global stage as a cultured metropolis that had rebounded from the Great Fire of 1871; Daniel Burnham, the fair’s Director of Works, emphasized the exposition as an architectural showpiece; and entrepreneurial exhibitors capitalized on racist stereotypes to

New technology electrified audiences at the 1893 World’s Fair. One visitor, 16-year-old Jane Elliott Sever, marveled at the electric light dancing across the fountains in the Grand Basin at night. According to Sever, lights bathed the Grand Basin in “a pure shimmering white, then changing to rose, then a pale green, then blue, yellow, then green, rose and white together, making a most wonderful sight.”

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Birds-eye views of the fairgrounds acted, essentially, as the fair’s visual identity, appearing on everything from posters, handkerchiefs, and playing cards (above) to photo albums, hand fans, and postcards.

bring paying customers live displays of Indigenous peoples from around the world.

Meanwhile, people who’d been excluded from the fair or relegated to its margins strived for greater visibility. One notable example was Potawatomi leader Simon Pokagon, who saw the event as an opportunity to call attention to the history of his people in the Chicago area. Protesting the Euro-centric nature of the World’s Fair, Pokagon gave a speech on “Chicago Day” in October and distributed a book made of birch bark. He began the book with these words: “I declare to you, the pale-faced race that has usurped our lands and homes, that we have no spirit to celebrate with you

the great Columbian Fair now being held in this Chicago city, the wonder of the world.”

There’s that word again—wonder—only this time charged with a bitter irony you won’t find in Jane Elliott Sever’s letters.

Pictures from an Exposition is part of Art Design Chicago, an exploration of Chicago’s art and design legacy, an initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art with presenting partner The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

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Teaching By the Map This past summer, the Newberry hosted a four-week seminar for K-12 school teachers called Reading Material Maps in the Digital Age. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and codirected by Dr. James Akerman, Director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center and Curator of Maps, and Dr. Peter Nekola, visiting assistant professor of philosophy at Luther College, this program focused on current scholarship in the field of cartography, as well as the practice of critically reading original map documents.

Matthew Clarke, Communications Coordinator, and Kara Johnson, Manager of Teacher and Student Programs, sat down with three seminar participants who shared some highlights from their time in residence at the Newberry: Kathryn Person, an AP Microeconomics and AP Human Geography teacher at Walter Payton College Prep High School (Chicago); Katie Holden, an Instructional Technology Specialist for the Madison County School District (Ridgeland, MS); and Chicago native Andres (Andy) Ortega, who teaches kindergarten in the Miami-Dade Public Schools.

The following excerpts from the interview have been edited for publication.

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MATTHEW CLARKE: Over the last few weeks, you’ve each been working with particular items in the Newberry’s collections. This week you’re going to present your research to the group. Could you tell us about your research and your upcoming presentations?

KATIE HOLDEN: I initially wanted to look into travel along the I-55 corridor from the South (mainly Mississippi, which is where I am from) into Illinois and the north. I stumbled across the story of Alfred Edward Mathews [1831-1874] by chance when searching in the Newberry’s online catalog. I discovered some books of sketches he had done and a short book of journal entries by him called An Interesting Narrative [An Interesting Narrative; Being a Journal of the Flight of Alfred E. Mathews]. The initial short description was about how he traveled, mostly by walking, from Alabama to Chicago over some months. I was fascinated and sat in the Newberry’s reading room and read the small book in its entirety. I came back and read it again and took more detailed notes about his travels.

KARA JOHNSON: What did you find so fascinating about him?

KATIE HOLDEN: He was a Union sympathizer living in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, and he was told he would have to join a regiment there – they were going to fine him, if he didn’t. So, starting on December 28th, as he put it, “I took a walk every morning, and I decided to walk a little further.”

MATTHEW CLARKE: That’s how he got started?

That’s like Forrest Gump!

KATIE HOLDEN: He walked by foot from Alabama to Texas to Chicago. He was a school teacher but also an artist and a mapmaker. It was right before the Civil War, so we’re not talking paved roads. And he was walking and sleeping in rain, covered in sores on his feet and body, and had been bitten by numerous insects, and he didn’t have access to food, so he ended up getting really sick and had to stay in Chicago.

KATHRYN PERSON: I want to understand the human geography of the near North Side - so this particular neighborhood, in which the Newberry is located. [Human geography examines the interactions between humans and their environments.] I teach at Payton, which is three blocks from the Newberry. What’s interesting, or what I want to make interesting to my students, is that we can look at this particular neighborhood as multi-layered in terms of history but also in terms of why things are located where they are. My goal in this

Seminar participants pose for a photo outside the Newberry.

project was to try to find some resources at the Newberry that could help me explain this through maps, as well as postcards, pictures, and books. The Newberry has [Harvey Warren] Zorbaugh’s The Gold Coast and the Slum [1944], and an original copy of Ernest Burgess’s The City [1925], where he presented his first concentric zone map, which we study in my human geography class. [Burgess’s concentric zone model of urban development suggests that cities develop outward in rings from a central business district, to zones of factories, working class tenements, middle class neighborhoods, and aff luent commuter areas.] My presentation is actually going to be an activity. I’m going to split the Near North Side into smaller quadrants, and then give all of you sources and ask what we ask in my class: “What is where? Why there, and why care?”

ANDY ORTEGA: As a kindergarten teacher, I’m focused on working with five- and six-year-old minds, so my presentation is going to be a little different. My research project/presentation is going to focus on landmarks, not only statewide but also countrywide. I want my students to have a broader understanding of what there is to see out there. My kids know their home country – Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico – or they know Orlando, because that’s nearby, or New York, because they have family from New York. So whenever I show them buildings, they assume I’m showing them New York. My presentation is going to focus on other cities, and the things you can see in them. There’s more than Miami and Florida. There’s St. Augustine. There’s St. Pete’s, there’s Tallahassee, there’s Jacksonville. That’s what I would like to focus on: that there are fun places to visit, and interesting things to see.

KARA JOHNSON: I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the utility of the material as opposed to the digital map in the classroom.

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KATIE HOLDEN: Relatability is also important. I remember certain students saying “Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize that this was so close to this, or that this was so far away from this,” until they actually saw a physical map, whether in a textbook, or hanging in the classroom.

KARA JOHNSON: I wanted to ask each of you what your biggest take-away from the seminar was.

Andy Ortega (left) examines an item during a seminar workshop.

ANDY ORTEGA: My classroom has a globe, a pull-down of a U.S. map, the Florida map, and the world map. I use them as a comparison: “This is a globe, and if we open, or cut it, and laid it f lat, this is how it would look.” And my students always “ooh’ and “ahh” when I pull a map down. They see the colors, and they see the patterns. I spend a lot of time on the maps because I don’t like rushing through them. I want them to absorb it more.

KATHRYN PERSON: I know Jim [Akerman, the Newberry’s curator of maps and co-instructor of the NEH summer seminar] focuses on the scale of the physical map, and tells us “the real size of this map is [for example] 2 by 3 feet,” and that’s something that makes an impression on students, or could make an impression on students. The issue with using physical maps is that while I can personally take students to the Newberry, Katie’s not going to be able to take students to see some of the maps that she found.

But does that mean she shouldn’t use the photographs she took of maps in the Newberry’s reading room? No, because it’s better to have some image in front of them, than not to have one. Physical maps are useful, but I would hate to swing the pendulum the other way and say the digital isn’t worth anything. They’re just doing different things.

KATIE HOLDEN: This is probably a really bad analogy, but I always thought of it like a long-distance relationship —or listening to music. With a song I really like, I love listening to a recording of that song, but how much better is it seeing a person sing it live?

KATHRYN PERSON: But should you not listen to the song unless Johnny Cash can sing it to you? [Laughter.] Because that would be sad – you would never listen to it!

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KATHRYN PERSON: To remember to come to the Newberry. There’s no reason why I can’t come here. There’s so much here, you just don’t know where to start. The problem with the Internet is that it’s iterative, so kids do a Google image search and keep getting the same things, whereas the Newberry may have things that aren’t going to show up in a Google search. Even to push myself to explore a library’s digital collections, or to remember to go to the Library of Congress, or remember to push myself to check out the academic sources, rather than do the quick-anddirty “Oh this map is good enough to show the concept that I’m trying to teach right now.” I want to make sure to give students images that are novel, that they’re not going to see somewhere else, and to ask them to do things that are challenging but doable, as we say at my school.

KATIE HOLDEN: I think I probably stole this from Pete [Nekola, co-instructor], or Jim, or an article we read, but though I always think about maps as things people create, I never thought about how maps have created me, or inf luenced me. There are certain places I never would have visited without having seen them on maps beforehand, and I might not be the person I am had I not travelled to these places. Maps have very much inf luenced me – where I’ve chosen to go, and where I’ve chosen not to go – so that was a huge realization.

ANDY ORTEGA: I would say my biggest takeaway was being reminded of my continuing love of paper maps, not only current maps but also the past maps, too. In terms of teaching, I can always mix maps in with any subject. You can use them with science, reading, math. But most of all I want to instill in my students the appreciation for maps, and maybe they’ll appreciate that we’re just little beings in a big, big place, and that there’s a lot to see and to do out there, and maybe they’ll want to do it.

Securing Our Future A Legacy of Planned Giving at the Newberry The very founding and establishment of the Newberry started with intentional estate planning.

Written two years before his death, Walter Newberry’s will provided for the establishment of a “free, public library” for the people of Chicago. At the time of the will’s writing, Newberry told his dear friend Mark Skinner that he thought there were “forty chances in a hundred” that a library would result, and yet, following the death of Newberry, his two daughters, and his wife, Skinner and fellow Trustee Eliphalet Blatchford were left with the extraordinary responsibility of turning Newberry’s $2.5 million estate ($40 million in today’s dollars) into the library he envisioned.

In the decades since this founding gift, the Newberry has benefited from the foresight of countless other individuals who have included the library in their estate plans. Believing that knowledge is a valuable gift and wishing to ensure the Newberry’s ability to promote the humanities to future generations, these donors have had an enduring impact on all aspects of the library’s operations.

The following pages tell the stories of two of our most recent planned givers, Helen M. Hanson and Roger J. Trienens. Visitors to the renovated first floor will Walter L. Newberry recognize these names as those on our new gallery spaces – the Helen M. Hanson Gallery is now home of From the Stacks, a permanent exhibition presenting a range of representative items from the Newberry’s collection, while the Roger J. Trienens Galleries are now host to Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair. We are pleased to name these galleries in memory of two donors whose generous estate plans will benefit the Newberry and all who visit it.

Planned giving is a simple and effective way to have an extraordinary impact on the Newberry. Those who include the Newberry in their estate plans enjoy membership in the Blatchford Society. To learn more about planned giving at the Newberry, contact Jackie Johnson at johnsonj@newberry.org or (312) 255-3544.

The Cobb building under construction in 1892, the permanent home of the Newberry Library.

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DONOR SPOTLIGHT

A Quiet Legacy M

“Helen Hanson demonstrated both extraordinary generosity and extraordinary vision when making her bequest to the Newberry.”

ary Minow has fond memories of Ms. Helen M. Hanson.

An administrative assistant for Mary’s father, Newt Minow, Ms. Hanson was always a warm, welcoming presence who never forgot am grateful to her for her foresight and major contribution to Mary’s birthday, was the life of the library.”

Helen M. Hanson known to provide Mary Ms. Hanson’s journey started at the recommendation with a Coke on the occasional office visit, and even showed of the aforementioned Newt Minow, an attorney at her the intricacies of the IBM Selectric typewriters and new Sidley Austin LLP, former Chairman of the Federal magnetic cards that, at the time, could save you valuable time Communications Commission, and her one-time boss. His at work. daughter, Mary, had a summer job at the Newberry, and By all accounts an unassuming woman, Helen M. Hanson Mr. Minow suggested Ms. Hanson should visit as, upon her had this same sort of indelible impact on many lives. An avid retirement, she desired to research her family’s history. genealogy researcher and reader at the Newberry, she left a Ms. Hanson was an avid genealogist and talented substantial gift to the Newberry through her estate when she researcher who made good use of her time at the Newberry. died in 2013. She had the vision to direct her gift to two of the She published three volumes of her own family history, most important elements of the library—the collection and the and she grew stronger as a researcher and writer with each building that houses it. effort. “She clearly was a gifted writer,” remarks Matthew Part of Ms. Hanson’s gift enabled the Newberry to establish Rutherford, the Newberry’s Curator of Genealogy and Local a book fund, named in her honor, which substantially increased History. “The Newberry strives to offer not only sources our ability to acquire new, highly prized materials. Those for conducting family history research but also models of who use our reading rooms and attend our exhibitions understand that enhancing and expanding our collection is of the utmost importance.

But equally important is that Ms. Hanson’s gift enabled the Newberry to more seriously consider planning and implementing the transformative renovation of the first f loor of the historic Cobb building that the Newberry calls home.

“Helen Hanson demonstrated both extraordinary generosity and extraordinary vision when making her bequest to the Newberry,” ref lects David Spadafora, President and Librarian of the Newberry. “I The Helen M. Hanson Gallery, home of From the Stacks, the Newberry’s new permanent exhibition 24

Fall/Winter 2018

how to conduct that research. It is clear that in her time at the Newberry, Helen learned from the examples around her and put them to good effect. We are fortunate to have the products of her family history work, not only for the descriptions of the lineages themselves, which have already proved invaluable, but also for what they reveal about Helen herself: a gifted,

committed, skilled researcher who exemplifies the best of what Newberry genealogy can offer and produce.”

Ms. Hanson’s legacy will continue at the Newberry: we have named the gallery housing the rotating exhibition, From the Stacks, in her memory. The Helen M. Hanson Gallery recognizes her bequest, which provided the Newberry with the initial gift that made the renovation of the first f loor possible.

Newt Minow says it best. “Helen did her research, fell in love with the Newberry, and spent much of her time there, studying, volunteering, writing several books about her family, and making many new friends. Helen respected the Newberry’s high standards, its scholarship, and its contributions to our community and the world. My family and I are gratif ied to learn that the Newberry is dedicating the Helen M. Hanson Gallery in her name to make Helen’s life a splendid and permanent example to future generations.”

Unaccustomed Angles: The Newberry on Display S

earch the Newberry’s catalog for the author word “Trienens,” and exactly one result will be returned with a title in English. A reader who pursues that title in the General Collections Reading Room on the Newberry’s second f loor will be presented with a slim, red volume published in 1973 and bearing the title Pioneer Imprints from Fifty States. There the reader will find, as its author writes, that this book seeks to present “the Library of Congress collections from an unaccustomed angle”—by chronicling the earliest example of printing from each of the states.

Any reader who knows much about the Newberry and its collections could readily imagine that the Newberry, too, might hold most of these 50 items—and therefore might be able to host an interesting exhibition based on them. Such an exhibition would tell the story of print and print culture in the United States by displaying these early printed materials and providing informative labels for each. Visitors would be encouraged to examine these works close up in their cases, and to consider their place in history. Those who wanted to learn still more could find plenty of related research material in the Newberry’s reading rooms upstairs.

The promise of author Roger J. Trienens in his Pioneer Imprints from Fifty States (to present collections from an unaccustomed angle) is shared by the Newberry when planning exhibitions. “Our first f loor galleries let us put the collection in the spotlight outside the reading rooms, thereby enabling a wider audience to see what readers and scholars find when they come here to do research. We aim to bring together items from across the collection, making connections that may not always be obvious, but are enlightening and thought-provoking,” says Diane Dillon, Director of Exhibitions and Major Projects.

Beginning with the opening in September 2018 of Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair, which Dillon curated, the Newberry’s thematic exhibits will be presented in the new Roger J. Trienens Galleries. These recently renovated spaces were named in memory of the late Mr. Trienens, the author of Pioneer Imprints.

Mr. Trienens’s connection to the Newberry goes back to the 1940s, when he was a graduate student in English at Northwestern University. Originally a Shakespeare scholar, he published on The Winter’s Tale (1953) after getting his PhD and later wrote for publication on such widely ranging topics as the The Newberry Magazine

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DONOR SPOTLIGHT

“Our first f loor galleries let us put the collection in the spotlight outside the reading rooms.”

Photo by Jaclyn Simpson

When Mr. Trienens passed away in 2017, the Newberry was one of the beneficiaries of his estate.

Having in life contributed important works to the Newberry’s collection, in death he made a vital financial contribution, one that would be used to fund the renovation of the Newberry’s first f loor and sustain an exhibitions program. In appreciation of his great generosity, the Newberry has named its new thematic exhibition galleries in his memory.

When visitors enter the new Roger J. Trienens Galleries, they will experience the Newberry’s collections in exciting and illuminating ways. “Our new galleries are equipped with state-of-the art lighting and window shades, new systems for hanging framed objects on the wall, and updated cases,” says Diane Dillon. “The f low of the architectural spaces is also much more f lexible and welcoming. All of these improvements in the Trienens Galleries will greatly enhance visitors’ experiences.”

What a fitting tribute to a man who added to the Newberry’s collections by authorship and by gift. The same spirit of fresh discovery invoked by the author of that slim, red volume on early American imprints will be experienced by thousands of visitors to the Trienens Galleries in the years ahead, as they view our collection from “unaccustomed angles.”

Library of Congress’ incunabula from the 1450s and 1460s, the 19th-century bookbindings of Charles Godrey Leland, and medical book title pages printed in the federal period.

As a librarian at the Library of Congress, he did descriptive cataloging of rare books. Later he served as Supervisor of the Library’s famous Rare Books Reading Room. He was also a collector of and eventually a dealer in rare books.

In September 2000, having come from New York to see his brother, Howard Trienens, in the Chicago area, he stopped at the Newberry to donate a copy of Johann Pinicianus’s Virtus et Voluptas. It was the first copy of that edition (1512) to enter a research library in the Midwest. While making the donation, Mr. Trienens also inquired about a 19th-century Native American broadside he had in his collection.

With the help of former Newberry curators Paul Saenger and John Brady, Mr. Trienens was able to verify that the broadside was a wonderful example of Seneca language text. From there, a fruitful new relationship was formed between Mr. Trienens and the Newberry.

By 2005, Mr. Trienens had generously donated 13 more volumes to the Newberry, all of them in Latin, and all published in the 15th or 16th centuries. He regularly corresponded with Newberry staff, visiting the library when he was able. His gift of books added importantly to the library’s collection of Italian, French, German, and even Danish Renaissance imprints in Latin and will continue indefinitely to benefit researchers from around the globe.

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RETROSPECT

Recent Events GRAND RE-OPENING

President David Spadafora. Photos by Jaclyn Simpson

A crowd of 300 guests filled the Newberry on September 26 for a grand re-opening, celebrating both the completion of the newly renovated first f loor and the opening of the first exhibition in the Trienens Galleries, Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair. Guests explored the just-completed spaces, enjoying World’s Fair-inspired cocktails and hors d’oeuvres and learning about the transformative potential of the renovation from the Newberry staff.

After thanking the staff and patrons for their patience during the construction process, Newberry President David Spadafora praised Ann Beha, lead architect on the project, for modernizing the Newberry building while respecting and preserving the 19th-century Ann Beha grandeur of its architectural heritage.

Trustee Victoria J. Herget and family

President Spadafora and Board Chair David Hilliard also offered the Newberry’s gratitude to the donors who made early, lead gifts to the project. “These gifts helped us ensure that the renovation could be completed as planned and on schedule,” said Hilliard. “But they also inspired the Newberry community to contribute what now totals more than $34 million to the First and Foremost campaign, which will support not only the new first f loor, but much of the programmatic activity that will fill it.”

Guests received a preview of some of that programmatic activity by being the first visitors to Pictures from an Exposition, which features books, maps, works of art, and ephemera from the Newberry’s stellar collection of 1893 World’s Fair materials.

“The World’s Fair had this tremendous power of attraction in 1893, and it continues to capture the imagination of Chicagoans today,” explained curator Diane Dillon. “This exhibition examines one reason for that—the savvy mass production of visual images related to the fair in all kinds of materials.”

Pictures from an Exposition will run through the end of December 2018.

Trustee Roger Baskes and Julie Baskes

William Brodsky, Trustee Joan Brodsky, Brunetta and Charles Matthews The Newberry Magazine

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RETROSPECT

Recent Events THE VANISHING CITY: EXCAVATING THE WORLD’S FAIR “While the 1893 World’s Fair was ephemeral and did not endure, the ideas and innovations did.” In a public lecture on October 4, anthropologist Rebecca Graff revisited her 2008 excavation of Chicago’s Jackson Park, site of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Graff underscored the contrast between the permanent infrastructure built for the fair—the gas lines, water mains, and sewerage that could have supported a city of 300,000 people—and the temporary buildings that housed the fair’s exhibits and other activities. Testing four different areas of Jackson Park, Graff ’s team unearthed traces of the fair’s hidden infrastructure as well as remains of the Ohio Building, which had been preserved as a result of being thrown into a defunct utility trench and covered over.

According to Graff, the World’s Fair implanted new ideas and innovations into American life precisely because it was designed to be temporary. Lasting just six months—from May to October of 1893—the fair was a pressure cooker of an event: a kaleidoscopic extravaganza that compressed the latest in art, commerce, and technology into an improbably tiny window of time. Millions of visitors f locked to the fair while it was open, and countless others consumed its messages through image- and text-based mediums.

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In an era before the Internet amassed information and made it available on a monumental scale, “world’s fairs were encyclopedic displays of everything,” Graff said. “They were a platform for debuting products, developing markets, and creating consumer desire.” Indeed, many products unveiled at the 1893 World’s Fair are staples to this day, including Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum and Cracker Jack. Graff ’s archaeological work reveals that the infrastructure built for the fair remains as well.

Rebecca Graff. Photos by Ryan Cook

RETROSPECT

GORDON WOOD, FRIENDS DIVIDED: JOHN ADAMS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON

Gordon Wood. Photo by Peter Pawinski

On October 11, scholar of American history Gordon Wood visited the Newberry for a talk based on his latest book, Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. As leading figues of America’s first political parties, Adams and Jefferson differed from one another in background, temperament, and, of course, politics. Jefferson, the champion of democracy, believed that, in unleashing the sovereignty of the people, the U.S. was embarking on a noble experiment that would inspire nations across the globe. Adams, on the other hand, was suspicious of democracy and wanted to limit its application by, among other things, importing certain monarchical practices from England. Later in life, the rivalry between Adams and Jefferson waned as the two engaged in a prolific correspondence. Commenting on their rapprochement, Wood said, “They knew their combination of idealism and realism had created the country. And that realization saved their friendship.”

MUSIC AT THE 1893 WORLD’S FAIR On October 17, in conjunction with our Pictures from an Exposition exhibit, the Newberry hosted a performance of music from the 1893 World’s Fair. Accompanied by commentary from musicologist Don Meyer, a group of musicians performed rousing renditions of “souvenir music,” songs that were quickly written to commemorate (and capitalize on) various aspects of the fair at the time. These songs included “Columbian Polka” (Lillian Mathewson), “The Ferris Wheel Waltz” (George Valisi), and “Midway Plaisance” (Dennis Mackin and W.T. Jefferson). This program was sponsored by the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation.

Kate Carter (violin), Francois Henkins (violin), Jean Hatmaker (cello), and Ben Weber (viola) performing Johan Svendsen’s String Quartet No. 1.

Chris White (piano), Don Meyer (music director), and Brad Jungwirth (baritone) performing “The Poor Little Country Maid.” Photos by John Zich

Listen to Newberry public programs at soundcloud.com/newberrylibrary.

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RETROSPECT

Recent Events BOOKED FOR THE EVENING The Newberry hosted its second annual “Booked for the Evening” fundraiser on October 25. The event was launched last year as an opportunity to engage the public and raise funds for collection development, cataloging, digitization, and preservation work at the Newberry.

“Our collection is at the core of the Newberry—it is the reason scholars and the public visit our reading rooms in great numbers and the driving force behind the myriad programs, performances, seminars, and exhibitions we all enjoy,” said Bob Holland, Chair of the Trustee Collection Management Committee and a member of the “Booked for the Evening” host committee. “This event allows people to offer support to enhance the collection, while learning more about the work our librarians and curators do each day.”

Guests had the opportunity to bid to support the acquisition, cataloging, or conservation of 26 specially selected items, including a copy of Ben Hecht and Alfred Hitchcock’s script for Notorious, with alternate endings not used in the final cut; and the conservation and digitization of a manuscript copy of a musical treatise by Boethius, copied in Austria between 1050 and 1150. All items in need of support were on view in Ruggles Hall, allowing guests the special opportunity to get up close and personal with these rare materials.

Funds raised through the event will allow the Newberry to add 20 new items to the collection, catalog major portions of its Melville collections, and conserve a rare 11th-century manuscript in a 13th-century binding that’s currently unavailable to scholars due to its fragile condition. “I’m thrilled with the results of this second iteration of “Booked for the Evening,” said Baskes Vice President for Collections and Library Services Alice Schreyer. “The financial support is significant, but the curators and I are equally pleased to have the opportunity to talk with guests, many of them new to the library, about our collection and the work we do to develop it, preserve it, and make it accessible.”

Suzanne Karr Schmidt, George Amos Poole III Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, describes the importance of Spanish and German Confraternity Certificates.

Will Hansen, Curator of Americana, displays an illustration from a scarce, shortlived and understudied periodical, Ringmaster.

Lesa Dowd, Director of Conservation Services, describes the treatment needed to conserve a rare 11th-century manuscript.

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Fall/Winter 2018

PROSPECT

Upcoming Events Since the Newberry’s founding in 1887, the library has provided programs in the humanities for people throughout the Chicago area and beyond. Today, you can explore history, literature, music, and the arts through public lectures, meetthe-author events, exhibitions, seminars, and other programs. Register to attend these free programs online at www.newberry.org/public-programs.

EXHIBITIONS Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair September 28 – December 31, 2018

Melville: Finding America at Sea January 19 – April 6, 2019

NOVEMBER New/Old — Both! Designing for Heritage and Change Conversations at the Newberry Architects Ann M. Beha and Steven G. Gerrard on the challenges of renovating historic buildings Tuesday, November 13, 6 – 7 pm The Art of Chris Pappan — Tradition Forward and Intervention American Indian and Indigenous Studies Seminar Series Thursday, November 15, 5:30 – 7:30 pm Julia Bachrach, From White City to Green Haven: Jackson Park’s Late 19th-Century Transformations Thursday, November 15, 6 – 7 pm Robert Bruegmann, Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America Meet the Author Thursday, November 29, 6 – 7 pm

DECEMBER Genealogy and Local History Orientation Saturday, December 1, 9 am Paul F. Gehl and Tanner Woodford Chicago Style: Typography and the City Discussion followed by a holiday card-making workshop Saturday, December 1, 10 am – noon Christmas at the Fair: The Joffrey’s New Nutcracker Conversation with Ashley Wheater, The Joffrey Ballet; Hedy Weiss, dance critic; and Alison Hinderliter, Newberry Library Tuesday, December 4, 6 – 7:30 pm

“No One Ever Sees Indian – Native Americans in Media” American Indian and Indigenous Studies Seminar Series Ernest M. Whiteman III (Northern Arapaho) Thursday, December 6, 1 – 4 pm Lisa Snyder, Behind the Model: Reconstructing the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Lecture and demonstration Saturday, December 8, 10 – 11:30 am FNFVF: “Barking Water” and “Woman Who Returns” First Nations Film and Video Festival at the Newberry Saturday, December 8, 1 – 4 pm A Baker Street Christmas Caper Shakespeare Project of Chicago Carols, holiday play, and free hot chocolate and treats Saturday, December 15, 10 – 11:30 am

JANUARY “Lorene Sisquoc (Apache/Cahuilla): Basket Weaver, Teacher, Friend” American Indian and Indigenous Studies Seminar Series Meranda Owens, PhD, Field Museum Thursday, January 3, 5:30 – 7:30 pm Genealogy and Local History Orientation Saturday, January 5, 9 am Titus Andronicus Shakespeare Project of Chicago Saturday, January 12, 10 am – 12:30 pm FNFVF: “Reel Injun – Search for the Hollywood Indian” and “More Than a Word” First Nations Film and Video Festival at the Newberry Saturday, January 12, 1 – 4 pm Winter Storytelling in partnership with the American Indian Center of Chicago Featuring: LeAnne Howe (Choctaw) Saturday, January 19, 11 am – 4 pm

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PROSPECT

Upcoming Events JANUARY (cont.)

The Enduring Power of Moby-Dick A Keynote Address by Nathaniel Philbrick Saturday, January 19, 11 am – noon Moby-Dick Read-a-Thon Live Marathon Reading of Herman Melville’s Masterpiece Saturday, January 19 – Sunday, January 20

FEBRUARY

Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures Meet the Author: Adina Hoffman Tuesday, February 19, 6 – 7 pm Back of the Yards A Play in One Act by Kenneth Sawyer Goodman Saturday, February 23, 10 – 11:30 am

D’Arcy McNickle Center Undergraduate Conference Friday, February 1, 10 am – 5 pm

MARCH

NCAIS Graduate Conference Saturday, February 2, 9 am – 5 pm

Genealogy and Local History Orientation Saturday, March 2, 9 am

Genealogy and Local History Orientation Saturday, February 2, 9 am

“Dynamics of Concentration and Disintegration” American Indian and Indigenous Studies Seminar Series Hannah McElgunn, University of Chicago Thursday, March 7, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

Before Jamestown: The Real Origins of America Colonial History Lecture Series Peter C. Mancall Saturday, February 2, 10 – 11:30 am The Scarlet Ibis, an Opera by Stefan Weisman Panel Discussion and Performance Chicago Opera Theater Wednesday, February 6 Reception 5:30, Program 6 – 7:30 pm “Violence, resilience, and Urban Native Women: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis” American Indian and Indigenous Studies Seminar Series Alexandra Davis, UIC Thursday, February 7, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare Project of Chicago This will be held at Fourth Presbyterian Church Saturday, February 16, 10 am – 12:30 pm

Bowwow Powwow reading with author Brenda Child Saturday, March 9 Newberry Library, 10:30 am American Indian Center, 3 pm FNFVF: “#stillhere,” “Nothing about Moccasins,” and “Jane and the Wolf” First Nations Film and Video Festival at the Newberry Saturday, March 9, 1 – 4 pm

APRIL

FNFVF: “Kissed by Lightning” and “She is Water” First Nations Film and Video Festival at the Newberry Saturday, February 9, 1 – 4 pm

“[Dis]-United the Red People of the Western Hemisphere:” American Indian Activists and Nicaragua, 1979-1991 American Indian and Indigenous Studies Seminar Series Jared Eberle, Oklahoma State University Thursday, April 4, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

Second Saturday Children’s Program Saturday, February 9, 10 – 11:30 am

Genealogy and Local History Orientation Saturday, April 6, 9 am

Two Books on Black Childhood and Criminalization in America Meet the Author: Tera Agyepong and Elliott Gorn Wednesday, February 13, 6 – 7 pm

FNFVF: “Our Sisters in Spirit ” “Song of the Blue Bird,” and “Battles” First Nations Film and Video Festival at the Newberry Saturday, April 13, 1 – 4 pm

Fall/Winter 2018

Pictures from an Exposition

Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair September 28 – December 31

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