Fall/Winter 2019 No. 13

Fall/Winter 2019 Issue 13

Judging a Book by Its Cover George Salter transformed book jacket design into an art form. The Salter archive at the Newberry includes correspondence and artwork that reveal his process.

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n each issue of The Newberry Magazine, we share stories that reveal the breadth of our collection and highlight the many ways that it prompts new perspectives on the past and enriches our understanding of the present.

In this edition, you’ll read about a new online paleography tool that allows students, scholars, and others to delve deeply into more than 100 Italian manuscripts from the Newberry’s collection as well as those of other world-class institutions, including the Getty Research Institute and the Morgan Library and Museum.

The site builds on the Newberry’s longrunning programming in paleography, which enables users to navigate a wide range of early modern handwritten scripts in archives and special collections.

Another story features a rare Nahuatl manuscript, a short comedic play recently acquired by the Newberry. Anonymously written in colonial Mexico sometime between 1650 and 1750, the play illustrates several Indigenous themes. Analú López, the Newberry’s Ayer Indigenous Studies Librarian, and her colleagues have transcribed the manuscript and translated it into English for the first time. According to López, this play helps “shed light on the diversity of Indigenous languages in Mexico, while opening up opportunities for reinterpreting historical works from a contemporary perspective.” We are proud to offer this article in two languages, English and Nahuatl, as part of a commitment to highlighting the vital role that Indigenous languages continue to play in communities across the globe.

We then shift our focus to design with an article on George Salter, one of the pioneers of modern book jacket art. Smith College undergraduate Georgia Fowler argues that Salter’s work merits further study and recognition because its distinctive style inf luences the ways we think about reading, design, business, and the history of the book. Fowler spent this past summer as a Newberry intern studying the George Salter Papers and contributing to an expanded online archival inventory. Thanks to her and others at the Newberry, the public has improved access to this significant collection of Salter’s work.

I hope you enjoy this installment of The Newberry Magazine, the first issue that I’ve had the pleasure to introduce as President. On a personal note, I appreciate the warm welcome I’ve received since returning to the Newberry in August. I’ll look forward to welcoming those of you I have not yet met to the Newberry soon.

Thank you for supporting our mission, and thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

Daniel Greene, President and Librarian

MAGAZINE STAFF EDITOR Alex Teller DESIGNER Andrea Villasenor PHOTOGRAPHY Catherine Gass 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 Vince Firpo at (312) 255-3599 or firpov@newberry.org.

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.

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Contents FEATURES Help at Hands Matthew Clarke

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A Newberry digital resource helps researchers gain first-hand experience deciphering handwriting styles found in medieval and Renaissance Italian manuscripts.

Going Greene

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Newberry President and Librarian Daniel Greene discusses his background as a historian, his personal and professional history with the Newberry, and his vision for building on our 132-year legacy to expand visitor engagement opportunities—both inside the library and beyond our walls.

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A Nahuatl Play in One Act Analú María López and Victorino Torres Nava The Newberry recently acquired a rare manuscript play that was anonymously written in Nahuatl, an Indigenous language, between 1650 and 1750 in colonial Mexico. Newberry staff, along with Nahuatl language experts, have transcribed the play and translated it into English for the first time. (A Nahuatl translation of this article appears on page 18.)

Judging a Book by Its Cover Georgia Fowler 15

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One of the preeminent book artists of his generation, twentieth-century German-American George Salter transformed book jacket design into an art form during an era of mass production.

DEPARTMENTS

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TAKE NOTE

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NOW ON NEWBERRY.ORG

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DONOR SPOTLIGHT

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VOLUNTEER 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 NEH Grant Will Support Newberry Summer Program for K-12 Teachers The Newberry’s Smith Center for the History of Cartography recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to fund a four-week summer seminar in 2020 that will bring 16 K-12 teachers onsite to study the interplay between mapping and the environment across American history.

The $120,000 NEH grant enables the Newberry to provide valuable professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers. Through this programming, teachers learn tools and techniques for bringing maps and cartographic literacy into their classrooms so that they may expand their students’ perspectives on the role that maps play in shaping our understanding of the world.

This grant is the 14th the Smith Center has received from the NEH since 1995 for its innovative summer seminars and institutes devoted to map scholarship and teaching.

Jim Akerman, Director of the Newberry’s Smith Center for the History of Cartography, leads a 2018 NEH summer seminar for K-12 teachers.

American Institute of Architects Recognizes Newberry Renovation with Award for Preservation and Restoration

Left to right: Newberry President Emeritus David Spadafora, Steven Gerrard (Ann Beha Architects), Ann Beha, and Newberry President Daniel Greene

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On October 24, the Illinois chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) presented the Newberry and Ann Beha Architects (ABA) with the 2019 Crombie Taylor Award for Preservation and Restoration. The award recognizes the Newberry’s first-f loor renovation, completed last year, for the dynamic ways it celebrates the architectural heritage of the building while introducing new design elements that improve visitors’ experiences with Newberry collections and staff. Since opening the renovated spaces in the fall of 2018, the Newberry has seen a surge of activity on its first f loor, including a 45 percent increase in visitors signing up for reader cards in the new Herget Welcome Center. During the award ceremony, held at the Newberry, AIA Board President Terence Moeller presented the Crombie Taylor Award to Ann Beha, Steven Gerrard, and Ian Miller of ABA as well as to Newberry President Daniel Greene and Newberry President Emeritus David Spadafora.

The Newberry to Receive Collection from Eastland Disaster Historical Society This summer, the Eastland Disaster Historical Society (EDHS) announced that it would give the Newberry much of its comprehensive collection of photographs, family records, and historical documents. Together, these materials tell a vivid story about the Eastland Disaster of 1915, the 844 people who tragically died in the event, and the impact it had on the city of Chicago.

The materials related to the Eastland Disaster form a one-of-a-kind collection, having been compiled over more than two decades by EDHS research efforts. The collection

includes information that has never been available to the public: family histories and photos provided by thousands of families across the country; plus unknown, forgotten, or previously inaccessible historical documents from various entities, including the Cook County Coroner’s Office, the Red Cross, and the Western Electric Company. Western Electric was the company that arranged for the SS Eastland to take its employees and their families on an ill-fated trip across Lake Michigan; the ship rolled over before it could leave its dock in the Chicago River.

These materials will be delivered to the Newberry over the next few months; we will make them available for researchers in 2020.

Photo of the Eastland Disaster by Jun Fujita

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

Shelf Life Michelangelo’s Handwriting The Newberry’s collection includes a 1545 letter written by Michelangelo. The content of the letter is fairly mundane: Michelangelo is writing to a bank, requesting payment for a project. But the style of handwriting he uses is very revealing.

In this episode of the Newberry’s Shelf Life podcast, scholars Bill Wallace and Isabella Magni tell us what Michelangelo’s handwriting says about who he was as an artist and his position in Renaissance Italian society.

[Read more about this letter on page 9.]

#NLDocumentCam Geographical Playing Cards We launched our “Newberry Document Cam” video series recently with a video featuring Newberry research fellow Jennifer Park, whose work on learning, games, and cartographic imagination led her to an 1839 deck of geographical playing cards in our collection.

The deck organizes the world into the four suits and, within each suit, ranks countries hierarchically from 10 on down. Jennifer put these playing cards under the document cam and showed us how they represented the world in the nineteenth century.

Listen at www.newberry.org/shelf-life

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Watch at www.newberry.org/source-material

Help at Hands

A Newberry digital resource helps researchers gain first-hand experience deciphering handwriting styles found in medieval and Renaissance Italian manuscripts.

By Matthew Clarke

The Newberry Magazine

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W

hen Lia Markey arrived as a young graduate student at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF) in 2000 to conduct research, she hoped to make a great archival discovery.

Markey—now Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry—was at the ASF to research the construction of a sixteenth-century bridge in Florence in order to determine whether it could have been designed

by Michelangelo. This research required delving deeply into a group of administrative documents that recorded the bureaucratic details of the bridge’s building.

Markey was exhilarated to begin her research; indeed, she had chosen the project because it would allow her to spend time at the Archivio. All that changed when she brought the documents to her table and began to examine them. Markey was shocked: they were inscrutable, written in a strange script she had never encountered that was full of abbreviations she could not decipher.

Over the course of the next few weeks, and with the help of dedicated scholar Gino Corti, Markey began to make progress, until at last she was able to transcribe the documents herself. But the experience stuck with her—as it does with many scholars whose work takes them into the archives and face-to-face with the often impenetrable handwriting of Renaissance Italy.

The challenges involved in deciphering medieval and Renaissance handwriting inspired Markey and a Newberry-led team of scholars and designers to develop a new pedagogically oriented website, Italian Paleography, launched in July 2019.

Funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and created in partnership with the Walter Ong SJ Center for the Digital Humanities at St. Louis University and the University of Toronto Libraries Information Technology Services, the site allows researchers to deepen their familiarity with Italian

paleography before they travel to the archives by providing a digital space where users can explore the many different handwriting styles of premodern Italy and even practice transcribing them. Featuring more than 100 documents in seven different medieval- and Renaissance-era scripts, as well as a wealth of contextual material related to Italian paleography, the site enables a digital approach to the intensive training in paleography that is critical to many scholars.

But the site is more than just a pedagogical tool. It also functions as an archive in its own right, giving users access to a large selection of gorgeous, high-quality images of early modern manuscripts—many of them available digitally for the first time through the site. Though the items are drawn from libraries and other institutions across the country— including The Morgan Library & Museum, the J. Paul Getty Museum and Research Institute, and the Library of Congress—the large majority are held in the Newberry’s extensive collection of Italian manuscripts.

Newberry documents on the site include a letter composed by Renaissance artist Benevenuto Cellini—author of a well-known autobiography and sculptor of the famous Perseus with the Head of Medusa in Florence’s Loggia dei Lanzi—as well as letters written by members of the Medici family, a personal account of the Black Death composed by the Florentine merchant Pepo degli Albizzi, and even a note penned by Michelangelo himself in 1545.

Italian Paleography will serve both members of the public interested in exploring a trove of beautiful manuscripts and those in the scholarly community who need intensive training in paleography.

But what is it, exactly, that makes Italian paleography so challenging in the first place?

Especially popular with students, Gothic was the standard script for book production in Europe in the early fourteenth century.

Cancelleresca was used by notaries, scholars, and other members of the educated elite.

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The sheer diversity of writing styles, for one. These days, handwriting is more or less uniform. There are two basic styles—print and cursive. While other scripts exist, they are rarely practiced. This was not the case in late medieval and early modern Italy.

Up until the late thirteenth century, when books in Latin started to be supplemented by books in vernacular languages, one script had predominated: Gothic. With its breaks between words, use of double columns, and inclusion of abbreviations, the script was popular among students and those studying at the new universities who sought out easily readable texts. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, Gothic had become standard in book production across Europe.

But the changes that transformed northern and central Italy in the thirteenth century and that ultimately led to the Renaissance also affected penmanship. As new artisan, mercantile, and administrative classes developed in cities like Florence, Venice, and Siena, so too did the importance of commercial and bureaucratic record-keeping and the need for scripts that could be easily learned and employed by newly literate artisans, merchants, and administrators.

Soon, two new styles had emerged. One, Cancelleresca, was used by notaries, scholars, and upper-middle class members of the laity to compose public and private documents of all sorts, from municipal and guild statutes and local histories to literary prose. The other, Mercantesca, was used by merchants and working men—bankers, painters, sculptors, and other artisans—who had learned to read and write on the job and solely in the vernacular, rather than in the notarial schools that taught Cancelleresca.

Toward the end of the fourteenth century, these scripts were supplemented by a new script known as Humanistic.

Initially used by the members of the Florentine cultural elite,

the Humanistic script soon became the standard style of scholars and others in positions of power. By the middle of the fifteenth century, it took its place as the dominant form of handwriting in Western Europe.

This diversity of scripts poses serious challenges for researchers, especially those unfamiliar with the different styles of writing used in the period. A scholar proficient in Italian and familiar with the conventions of the Humanistic script may well find a document produced in Mercantesca virtually indecipherable. With its many abbreviations and linked letters, the script—used by merchants to jot down account details and other commercial information as quickly as possible—is almost as inscrutable as shorthand. Without training, a researcher will be hard-pressed to make any use of manuscripts in Mercantesca.

Italian Paleography provides the training necessary to overcome this obstacle. The site presents a range of material that introduces users to Italian paleography. For example, it

Mercantesca was used by merchants, bankers, painters, sculptors, and other artisans to jot down notes and transactions.

By the middle of the fifteenth century, Humanistic was the standard style of handwriting throughout Europe.

Isabella Magni serves as the principal content manager of the Italian Paleography website.

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Italian Paleography features manuscripts like this copy of La Sfera, a cosmography, astrology, and geography textbook written in verse by the Florentine silk merchant Gregorio Dati.

includes an extensive digital handbook authored by one of the site’s editors, Maddalena Signorini, of the Universita di RomaTor Vergata. In addition to surveying the development of Italian handwriting from the late-medieval to the Renaissance periods and detailing the successive development of scripts like Gothic, Cancelleresca, Mercantesca, and Humanistic, the handbook describes the particular characteristics of each style and gives valuable information about the social and economic contexts that shaped penmanship in the period. The information presented in the handbook is supplemented with images from a selection of illustrative calligraphy books and historical maps.

The site also helps users teach themselves how to transcribe and translate a range of texts in a wide variety of medieval and Renaissance scripts. Its 102 manuscripts include works of prose and poetry, diaries, correspondence, and much more. These can be filtered according to topic (e.g. religion, arts, finance, and law) or region of origination (e.g. Florence, Venice, Milan, or Pisa). They can also be sorted by the type of script (Gothic, Cancelleresca, Mercantesca, or Humanistic) and 8

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level of difficulty (elementary, intermediate, or advanced).

Moreover, each item is paired with a background essay that illuminates the source’s history and significance.

The pedagogical centerpiece of the site is its embedded transcription tool. Designed by a team at St. Louis University, “T-Pen,” as it is known, enables users to easily transcribe a text, save their work to their own personal account, and even check their transcription against a professionally produced version.

Users who find themselves confused about how or where to start can consult a section titled “New to Paleography?” that provides suggestions for beginning transcribers.

Scholars unfamiliar with the different styles of Renaissance-era Italian vernacular handwriting can thus, for example, develop their knowledge of Mercantesca remotely, according to particular research needs. Users can filter for the script and then choose from a selection of available manuscripts.

After pulling up high-resolution digital images of the item, they are able to start transcribing what they see, saving work when necessary. They can consult supplementary resources on the site whenever they encounter a strange abbreviation or otherwise inscrutable glyph and can learn more about the document they are transcribing by reading the background essay attached to the item. When they are finished, users can compare their work with the official transcription, correcting any errors they find. In this way, Italian Paleography offers invaluable hands-on practice in paleography training that is of vital importance to researchers.

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roviding training in paleography is not a new endeavor at the Newberry. For decades, the library has been recognized as an international center for the study of handwriting. In recent years, the Newberry has partnered with the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Huntington Library, and the Getty Research Institute to host a series of Mellon-funded summer institutes that make available to students intensive training in a range of European vernacular languages, including French, Spanish, English, and Italian.

What is new is the extension of this training from the physical into the digital realm. In 2016, the Newberry designed its first digital paleographic resource: a site devoted to the study of early modern French handwriting. Created with funding from the Mellon Foundation and in partnership with St. Louis University and the University of Toronto, French Renaissance Paleography provides access to an array of Renaissance-era manuscripts in French and enables users to develop their familiarity with early modern handwriting styles through transcription practice.

Italian Paleography resembles French Renaissance Paleography in many ways. Like its predecessor, Italian

Paleography also features an extensive digital archive and a transcription tool. Yet the new site was conceived with a broader audience in mind and makes available a wealth of background material that will advance understanding on the part of all users.

Consider, for example, the Michelangelo manuscript included on Italian Paleography. The letter provides transcribers with a relatively straightforward example of the Humanistic script. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Michelangelo’s letters are crafted with great care and are consequently extremely legible,

On January 25, 1545, Michelangelo composed a short letter to the Salvestro da Montauto e Compagni, a bank based in Rome. Earlier that month, his assistant Raffaello da Montelupo had installed three finished statues—a Prophet, a Sibyl, and a Madonna—in niches of the tomb of Pope Julius II. Michelangelo and his team had been working on the tomb for 40 years.

Now, they were ready to be paid.

In his letter, Michelangelo instructed the bank to forward payment to Raffaello. He then created a copy for his own records, jotting down from memory the content of his letter to the bank, abbreviating sentences where possible, and even adding his own name. (Twice during the project, the sculptor had been accused of embezzling funds for the tomb, and he was probably intent on creating a paper trail that would allow him to ward off any further criticism.)

thus serving as ideal documents for learning the style.) The letter is accompanied by a fascinating background essay by William Wallace of Washington University in St. Louis, and interested readers can learn more about the artist’s use of different scripts from Professor Signorini’s handbook. In this way, the site provides a general audience with an illuminating window into the documentary history of the Italian Renaissance and many of its key figures.

The site’s designers and editors are especially excited about the potential of Italian Paleography to reach new audiences.

This so-called copialettera is interesting not only for what Michelangelo writes but for how he writes it. Usually, letters of this sort would be written in Mercantesca, a script used by artisans and merchants to record business dealings. Contrary to common practice among sculptors, Michelangelo wrote in Humanistic, a refined script usually used by the elite. This letter, like other Michelangelo letters from these years, hints at a change in Michelangelo’s selfperception: the sculptor had begun to see himself and his peers as belonging to a higher social set— no longer artisans but artists.

The letter is the subject of a recent Newberry podcast, accessible at www.newberry.org/shelf-life.

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“What makes this new site especially exciting is that it’s also meant for curators, librarians, and archivists; calligraphers and graphic designers; and really anyone at all with an interest in early Italian documents.”

The site features calligraphic manuals like Alfabeto Figurato, a seventeenth-century Italian manuscript displaying illustrated and hand-colored letters.

“The Newberry has always been at the forefront of paleographic studies, and new digital resources like French Renaissance Paleography and Italian Paleography indicate our continuing commitment to providing paleographic training to scholars preparing for research in Italian archives and students studying Italian language and culture,” says Lia Markey.

“But what makes this new site especially exciting is that it’s also meant to appeal to curators, librarians, and archivists; calligraphers and graphic designers; and really anyone at all with an interest in early Italian documents.”

The site’s designers plan to continue widening the audience for Italian Paleography. Over the coming months, the team will augment the site’s appeal by expanding its content and adding new teaching resources.

According to Isabella Magni, one of the project’s editors and the site’s principal content manager, the new resources will

allow for the seamless integration of Italian Paleography into undergraduate and graduate classrooms. She notes, “By making the Newberry’s rich holdings in medieval and Renaissance Italian manuscripts available for use to teachers and students everywhere, we hope to showcase a fascinating group of items at the core of the Newberry’s collection while also galvanizing interest in the study of Italian history and culture.”

Italian Paleography has much to offer all its users, whether they be scholars, members of the public, teachers, or graduate students preparing for their first visit to the Archivio di Stato di Firenze— where, with the site’s help, they can expect to arrive with the skills necessary to make even greater discoveries.

Matthew Clarke is Communications Coordinator at the Newberry.

Calligraphic manuals—like these fifteenth-century manuscripts detailing the geometric construction of letters—give researchers additional context for understanding Renaissance handwriting.

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Going Greene Daniel Greene joined the Newberry in August 2019 as President and Librarian, becoming the ninth occupant of the office since the library’s founding in 1887. A historian dedicated to the public humanities, Greene plans to build on the Newberry’s 132-year legacy, with an eye toward expanding user engagement opportunities both inside the library and beyond our walls.

Some within the Newberry community may remember that Daniel spent several years on staff at the library, serving as Director of our Dr. William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture and then as Vice President for Research and Academic Programs before joining the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2014 as Exhibitions Curator and Historian.

This interview has been edited and condensed for the magazine.

In August 2019, Daniel Greene became the Newberry’s ninth president and librarian. Photos by Anne Ryan.

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading a book called Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer, the Copy Chief for Random House. It’s a fantastic writing guide: it’s funny, it’s nerdy, and it sometimes gets into the weeds (in a good way) to explain the principles of good, clear writing. Dreyer is doing something similar to what we’re trying to do here at the Newberry, which is to enable readers and writers to appreciate and produce quality writing.

Your academic and professional background is as a historian. What historical eras or themes are you most passionate about investigating in your scholarship?

My own scholarship has focused on urgent issues and debates about what it means to be an American. Sometimes I’ve approached this question from an intellectual and cultural history perspective by studying metaphors that we use to describe difference in America, whether it’s the “melting pot” or cultural pluralism or multiculturalism. Much of my work asks where those metaphors come from and how they’ve been contested at various points in our nation’s history.

I’m also interested in how ideas about who gets to be an American are lived out on the ground, in the experiences of immigrants and refugees. The recent exhibition that I curated at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, focuses in part on divisions in the United States about whether to admit immigrants and refugees during the 1930s and 40s—the height of Nazism in Europe, and a time when many Americans were against admitting immigrants and some were proposing even more restrictive immigration policies.

Many of my interests are linked by the questions Who’s “in” and who’s “out” when it comes to immigration and inclusion in American society and culture? And who gets to decide who’s in and who’s out?

The “melting pot” is one of those phrases that seems to have always been part of the American lexicon. But it must come from somewhere…

It does seem to have always been part of the political discourse in the United States. But it actually has origins in the not-toodistant past. J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur famously wrote in 1782 about individuals who arrive here being “melted” into something new. Ralph Waldo Emerson used the term The Newberry Magazine

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“smelting pot” when discussing ethnic or national difference in the United States. As a popular term, however, “melting pot” really emerges in the early twentieth century to describe difference during the height of immigration in this country.

It’s a contested term. What’s so interesting about “melting pot” is that it means different things to different people, and its meaning also changes over time.

The phrase is such a compelling entrée for contemplating evolving attitudes about national identity.

What is your personal history with the Newberry?

My association with the Newberry goes back more than 20 years. I first came to the library when I was in graduate school to work as a research assistant for the Encyclopedia of Chicago, which was a fantastic collaborative project that reached across institutions and also across different parts of the Newberry.

The project resulted in a one-of-a-kind print and digital resource that still endures. So I was hooked on the Newberry even at that moment as a graduate student during the late 1990s.

I returned in 2008 to direct the Scholl Center for American History and Culture and ultimately became Vice President for Research and Academic Programs. After six years away from the Newberry, working as Exhibitions Curator at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and teaching history at Northwestern University, it’s great to be back.

exhibition opened at the Newberry in 2013. During the course of our research at the Newberry, we found a children’s toy called the Myriopticon, produced by Milton Bradley around 1865 or 1866. The Myriopticon is a little cardboard box framed with a mock proscenium stage presentation for the viewer.

The box has two dowel rods that allow you to scroll through different images narrating scenes from the Civil War. Many of these images are linked to images that appeared in Harper’s Weekly during the war.

While this object relates to the print culture of the time and gives us a window into how Americans processed the Civil War once it was over, it’s also a very engaging item to find at the Newberry and speaks to the breadth and depth of our collection.

As someone with experience curating exhibitions, what role do you see exhibitions playing at the Newberry— now and in the future?

Do you have a favorite Newberry collection item?

With the completion of our first-f loor renovation last year, it’s a great time to think about the role of exhibitions at the Newberry. The renovation resulted in two redesigned gallery spaces: the Trienens Galleries for rotating thematic exhibitions and the Hanson Gallery for a permanent display of collection highlights that we call From the Stacks. The latter helps us orient new visitors; the former gives us an opportunity to present our collection in ways that will engage visitors with important issues today and push people to think in new ways about the past and the present.

One of the most exciting finds I’ve made in the Newberry collection came when I was co-curating (with P. J. Brownlee from the Terra Foundation for American Art) an exhibition called Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North. That

We’re already seeing that in action with our current thematic exhibition, What Is the Midwest? The exhibition asks big questions: Who lives in the Midwest, and how did they get here? How

The Myriopticon, produced by Milton Bradley around 1865, consisted of two dowel rods, a mock proscenium stage, and a scroll displaying images of the US Civil War. The item was featured in an exhibition titled Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North that Daniel Greene co-curated at the Newberry in 2013.

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“I’d like to use our renovated galleries as a launchpad for engaging even more proactively with topics that are of vital concern to Chicagoans and others in the region today.”

have patterns of migration and immigration defined the region? How can Indigenous perspectives challenge stereotypes about the Midwest and shift our thinking?

We will continue to draw from our collection to stage exhibitions like What Is the Midwest? Going forward, I’d like to use our renovated galleries as a launchpad for engaging even more proactively with topics that are of vital concern to Chicagoans and others in the region today.

What excites you most about the Newberry at this time?

I believe there are so many ways that the Newberry can engage the people of Chicago and the region.

I’m eager to see the Newberry reach beyond its walls to serve the city. We’re doing that already with a project called Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots. The project has put the Newberry at the center of a collaboration with more than a dozen Chicago cultural institutions to examine the legacy of the 1919 Chicago race riots.

This is an example of one way that the Newberry can bring historical perspectives to bear on issues that are urgent to Chicagoans today—issues of diversity and inclusion, racial inequality, and the legacies of violence in our city. The Newberry very much wants to be part of these kinds of critical conversations, now and into the future.

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The Newberry serves many functions for many different people. Our visitors do research, see exhibitions, attend public programs, and take continuing education classes. In your view, what unites all these different activities and different people?

What unites all these dynamic opportunities at the Newberry is the fact that we’re serving curious people who want to know more about things that matter to them in their lives— whether that’s exploring family history, the history of reading and books, or the ways in which maps encode certain ideas about organizing geographic space and thinking about community—to name just a few of the many topics that readers can explore here. These are important topics in the world today, and we know that people want to understand them more deeply.

The Newberry has always been a place for curiosity and for lifelong learners. You see undergraduate students taking part in programs and classes that challenge them to do intensive, hands-on research using primary sources. You see members of the general public coming in for exhibitions or programs that advance their thinking on issues that matter. You see scholars

conducting ground-breaking research while in residence here as fellows. You see people who care about family history, maps and exploration, book history, Chicago history, Indigenous peoples’ history, the Renaissance, and so much more, all making discoveries at the Newberry.

Everyone here is united by a desire to learn and to pursue their curiosity wherever it takes them. And what they find here is such a deep dedication to service on the part of our staff, who are committed to helping visitors navigate our collection so they can have productive, enriching, and intellectually stimulating experiences at the Newberry.

How do you envision your first year as president of the Newberry?

I’m first here to listen. I’ve been away from the Newberry for more than five years, and the library has made considerable advances in that time. One of my initial priorities is to engage with staff, the board of trustees, the visitors we serve, and cultural partners in Chicago and beyond in order to learn about all the ways we’re currently executing our mission. At the same time, I want to gain an understanding of all the potential we have as an institution.

I’ll be collaborating with all of these groups this year (and in the years beyond) to develop strategies for further aligning our resources with Chicagoans’ needs and interests.

The Newberry is a unique institution with a lot to offer Chicago, and we’re in a position to become a vital part of the cultural landscape of the city.

“The Newberry can bring historical perspectives to bear on issues that are urgent to Chicagoans today— issues of diversity, racial inequality, and inclusion. The Newberry very much wants to be part of these kinds of critical conversations, now and into the future.”

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A Nahuatl Play in One Act

By Analú María López and Victorino Torres Nava

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he Newberry’s Edward E. Ayer Collection of American Indian and Indigenous Studies includes one of the world’s greatest collections of books documenting the Indigenous languages of the Americas.

Of the many strengths within the Indigenous linguistic material, one of the most remarkable is the vast collection in the Nahuatl language. Nahuatl remains one of many Indigenous languages still spoken in Mexico and Central America today.

(A total of 11 Indigenous language families, with 68 Indigenous language variants, are still spoken throughout these regions.)

The Nahuatl language is part of the Uto-Aztecan language family and consists of many regional variants; it is related to the Hopi, O’odham (Pima-Papago), and Tongva, as well as many other Indigenous languages.

Last year the Newberry acquired a notable addition for its American Indian and Indigenous Studies collection: a short comedic play in the Nahuatl language, written sometime between 1650 and 1750 in Huejotzingo, Mexico, which then fell under Spanish colonial rule.

The anonymously written play, possibly by an Indigenous author, presented a challenge for us to read and transcribe because the author tended to write the words so closely together. (The play does not have a standard title, though it is sometimes informally called The Old Lady and Her Grandson, or Ilamatzin ihuan ixhuiton in Nahuatl.) An initial description of the play characterized it as a short farce featuring two characters: ce ilamaton (elderly woman) and her grandson Petol (likely a Nahuatl version of the name Pedro).

The plot is quite simple: the elderly woman looks forward to tasting some honey that she has purchased, but she never gets a chance to taste it because Petol eats all of it. The comedy ends with the elderly woman denouncing Petol’s gluttony. This short and very funny play consists of only three small pages.

Our research about this play led us to a 1948 publication by ethnographer and historian Fernando Horcasitas. According to Horcasitas, the play chronicles the story of a grandmother who leaves her grandson to watch over their turkeys while also telling him to keep an eye on a jar filled with a mysterious liquid. She tells her grandson not to drink the liquid and warns him that, if he does, he will become sick.

The jar contains necuitetzahuac (a special kind of potent pulque, an alcoholic drink made by fermenting sap from the maguey plant). After the grandmother leaves, her Analú López, the Newberry’s Ayer Indigenous Studies Librarian, and Victorino Torres Nava, a native grandson gets very hungry and drinks the Nahuatl speaker and linguist, analyze a rare one-act play that they recently translated into English for the first time.

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necuitetzahuac, becoming drunk. He then believes that he has been transformed into a coyote and begins to howl. When she returns, the grandmother scolds him, and the play concludes with them dancing as they exit.

Most plays written in colonial Mexico during this era drew on religious ideas, but this play stands out for its secular themes.

Catholic priests viewed the Nahuas’ devotion to their deities as threatening, and wondered how they could convert them to Christianity. They turned to traditional performances that had developed in Europe during the Middle Ages, some of which became quite popular in Mexico after its conquest by Spain.

Most of these religious plays found inspiration in the Bible or from saints’ legends and often had a moral at the end. In colonial Mexico, they became a tool for conversion. This play in the Newberry’s Ayer Collection, however, does not fit the pattern.

The Mexican philologist, linguist, and scholar Fray Ángel María Garibay Kintana noted our Nahuatl play’s connection to the Indigenous tradition of pre-Hispanic theater. A central element of this tradition is the figure of the truhane, a person who scams others through disguise, cunning, and playfulness.

Petol is a version of this figure. Disguised as an innocent grandson, he turns out to be the truhane, “scamming” his grandmother into believing he was going to watch her drink and her turkeys. Other unique Indigenous elements within this short play include the guajolotes (turkeys), the coyote, the necuitetzahuac drink, and Petol’s playful, childish nature.

The short comedic play in Nahuatl is a farce about an old woman who entrusts her grandson to look over her turkeys and her supply of a potent fermented drink.

The grandson disobeys in spectacular fashion, becoming so drunk that he believes he has been transformed into a coyote. The play, just three pages long, incorporates several Indigenous themes, including the figure of the truhane, or trickster.

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The play was quite possibly intended for a general audience.

The play starts with: “Entremés. Tehuehuetzquiti tepapachi,” which roughly translates to: “A performance that makes a lot of laughter that enjoys several reprises.” An entremés is a short, comic theatrical one act, usually performed during the interlude of a long dramatic work, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Spain.

Aside from a French translation published in 1900 and a Spanish translation published in 1946, the play has not been studied by modern audiences. Based on preliminary research, We believe that the manuscript now in the Newberry’s collection may have been part of the private collection of Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, the Mexican historian, archivist, and Nahuatl language scholar. Since the French translation’s publication in 1900, the manuscript seems to have been unavailable to scholars and the public until it came up for auction in 2018.

Now that the manuscript is in the Newberry collection, our colleagues, working alongside Nahuatl expert Abelardo de la Cruz of the University of Albany, have been able to transcribe the work into Nahuatl, translate it into English for the first time, and digitize it.

Additional Nahuatl-language materials held at the Newberry include some of the first grammar books and dictionaries ever printed on this continent, as well as other manuscript material. The newly acquired play is not the only Nahuatl play in the Newberry’s collection: our [Manuscritos

en mexicano], which date from 1855–56, include three copies of miracle plays in Nahuatl and Spanish, translated by Faustino Chimalpopoca Galicia: Las almas y las albaceas (The souls and the executors); Nacimiento de Isaac (The birth of Isaac); Sacrificio que Abraham su Padre quiso por mandado de Dios hacer (The sacrifice that Abraham his Father wanted by command of God to do); and Maquiztli: tragedia escrita en idioma mexicano (Maquiztili: a tragedy written in the Mexican language) by Mariano Jacobo Rojas with a translation in Spanish by Pedro Rojas. The latter is a tragedy in which Prince Quillotl, defends Princess Maquiztli from a Spaniard and dies. In response, Maquiztli commits suicide.

The United Nations has declared 2019 the International Year of Indigenous Languages, highlighting their importance and vitality as well as their increasing endangerment. There are approximately 6,500 to 7,000 languages spoken throughout the world today. However, in 2016, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues determined that 40 percent of those languages were losing more speakers than they were gaining. This decreasing population of f luent native speakers of Indigenous languages results directly from several historical assimilation and education policies that denied rights to different minority linguistic communities. No public policies exist to help develop learning and use of native languages among Indigenous populations.

Yet, in spite of the genocidal consequences of settler colonialism in North America, many Indigenous peoples have preserved their languages. Many variants of the Nahuatl

language are still in use today, especially in regions from Nicaragua to Central Mexico. Improving access to unpublished works such as this comedic play should help shed light on the diversity of Indigenous languages in Mexico, while also opening up opportunities for reinterpreting historical works from a contemporary perspective.

Making sources of Nahuatl language and culture more widely available to Nahuatl speakers may also mark a small step toward reconciliation between institutions rooted in colonial history (including many libraries and archives) and Indigenous communities. Connecting communities with their histories can enable the strengthening of Indigenous identity and help to grow networks of Indigenous language speakers in Mexico, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, as well as in Nahua migrant communities throughout the world.

Analú María López (Guachichil/Xi’úi) is the Ayer Indigenous Studies Librarian at the Newberry and Victorino Torres Nava (Nahua) is a native Nahuatl speaker, linguist, professor at Anahuacalmecac School in Los Angeles, and founder of the Xinachkalko Center, in Cuentepec, Morelos, Mexico. Thank you to Abelardo de la Cruz (Nahua), PhD candidate in Anthropology, University at Albany, who is also a native Nahuatl speaker from the Chicontepec de Tejada, VeracruzLlave, Mexico, region, for his work on transcribing this manuscript.

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Se ixewayotl san ika se ixpantilistli okichihchi Analú María López wan Victorino Torres Nava

I

non amoxmasewaltlahpialli ika amerikanotlakah wan masewaltlakah Edward E. Ayer ipan Newberry kimpixtikateh non kachi weyi tlahpialmasewalamoxtin ipan inin tlalli inon kampa ihkwilitikateh inon masewaltlahtolmeh inon onkateh ipan America.

Miyek inon amoxtin inon onkan kimpiah, onkan kwali tikimitaskeh inon ihkwilitikateh ika nawatlahtolli. Inon nawatl sente inon miyek masewaltlahtolmeh inon tlahtowah Mexiko wan itlahkotian America. (Onkateh 11 inon kampa mosentlalihtikateh inon tlahtolmeh kampa kisah 68 masewaltlahtolmeh non oknoma tlahtlatowah tlanelokan).

Inon nawatl walewa kampa sentlalihtikateh itoka Uto-Azteca wan miyek kimpiah tlatlantikateh kenime tlahtlatowah, wan kenkimita inon hopi, inon O’odham (pima-papago), inon

tongva wan miyekeh oksekin masewaltlahtolmeh.

Ixexiwitl, inon Newberry okikalaki ihtek imasewalamoxtlahpix ika amerikanotlakah wan masewaltlakah: sente ixewayol ika nawatl non okinkixtikeh ompa Huejotzingo, Mexiko ka ipan 1650 wan 1750, ka ihkwak non espanioltin non akinomeh otlanawatiayah.

Inon tetlawetskiti ixewayotl, amo kimatih akin okihkwilo, tele sente masewaltlakatl, kwe okimihkwilo wilihki netechihtikateh inon tlantolmeh, wilihki otikitilikeh kenika tiktlahtoltiskeh wan tikinyankwikihkwiloskeh. Ika ipewayan inin ixewayotl omihkwilo kenime: sente tetlawetskiti kotoktik non kampa san omemeh kisah, “se lamatsin” wan non imach “inon ayikwali itla ayi” Petol, (tele kiyon ka okihtowayah ika nawatl non tlahtolli pedro ika espaniol).

Inin ixewalotlahkwilolli amo tepasoltik: inon kokotsintli okinekiya kikwas tetepitsin non nektli non okiko, maski ayikwali kikwa kwe non Petol okitlami nochi. Inon tetlawetskiti tlami kwak non ikokotsin kiteilwia non Petol kwe san tlakwani. Se ixewayotl amo weyi, kwakwali wan tetlawetskiti wan san yeyi amameh pipipitsakeh.

Yotiktemokeh okseki ika inin tekitl, wan otiksalokeh itech sente tekitl non okis ipan 1948 okichihchi non masewatekitke wan momachtiani ika non iwehka yopanok Fernando Horcasitas. Kiyon kenime kihtowa inon Horcasitas, inin Ixewayotl tlahtowa ika sente lalamatsin non kikahtewa ixwi ma kimokwitlawi non kokonemeh wan chika tlamokwitlawia kilia ma kimokwitlawili sente xalo kipia tetsawak tlenon. Ihwa kilia ma amo kikwi tla amo mokokos. Ihtek non frasko kipia nektetsawak (kenime oktli wilihki Analú López, amoxtlahpixke itech masewaltlamatilli itech inon amoxtlahpilli Ayer ihtek amoxkalli Newberry, wan Victorino Torres Nava, se nawatlatoke wan tlahtolmomachtike, tekitih itech se ixewayotl chikawak, wilihki tetlawanti non yowehka non amo wilihki onka non san sewelta kixpantiah wan kimach ihtoti okitlahtolkwepkeh ika ingles.

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okitlalikeh non walewa itech metl). Kwak oya non ikokotsin, non ixwi wilihki oapismik wan okonik non tetsaknektli wan otlawan. Satepan okima yomokwep koyotl wan ope koyochoka. Kwak omokwepato, non ikokotsin okahwak, wan nin Ixewayotl tlami kwak ihwan kisah mihtotihtiweh.

Miyek nin ixewayolmeh nin okimihkwilokeh ihkwak otlanawatiayah nin espanioltin Mexiko san ika inon tlenon ika otetlaneltokwepayah, ihwa nin nanka nin tekitl tlahtowa okse amo ika tetlaneltokakwepah. Inon tiopixkimeh koyomeh okitakeh nin tochantlakah wilihki okinneltokayah non inteowan wan ihwan okikwitiayah amo kwali, kine okinemiliayah kenika kwali kinkwepaskeh Kristianotlakah.

Kine opehkeh kikwih non tlenon okichiwayah iwehka ompa Europa ipan Edad Media, wan sekin wilihki omixmatkeh Mexiko satepan kwak oasikoh non espanioltlakah. Miyek nin ika otetlaneltokakwepkeh itech nestikateh non tlenon walnesteh itech non Biblia noso itech non tlenon omihtowaya inka non xantotsimeh wan, keman, non ika otlamiya

ika oteititiayah itlah. Kwak weliman onkan onemiyah non espanioltlakah nikan Mexiko, okinkwikeh non ika otetlaneltokakwepkeh. Maski, inin ixewayolli nin kipia Amoxtlahpilli Ayer ipan Newberry oksentlamantli.

Kiyon kenime okihto non filologo, lingüísta wan tlamatini Fray Angel Maria Garibay Kintana, itech nin ixewayotl onkan walneste non kenime iwehka okichiwayah nin ixewayotl kwak ayimo owalayah asih nin koyotlakah.

Onkan itech walneste non kikwitiah truhane (tlakatl tekahkayawa), sente tlakatl okinkahkayawaya oksekin kwak okse omokwepaya, kenika omahakiaya wan otetlawetskitiaya. Inon Petol, kwali tikihtoskeh, ihwa nin kiyin kenika kichiwa. Mahakia kenime ixwitli non amitla konchiwa, maski wilihki iliwistle, “kikahkayawa” ikokotsin kwe okinekiya ma kineltoka ihwa kimokwitlawiliskia non inek wan non iwexolowan. Itewan nikan walnestiweh ihwa non kokoneton, non koyotl, non tetsaknektli wan non tetlawetskiti wan awile Petol.

Inin tlahkwilotlawetskiti se ixewayotl kampa san omemeh kisah wan amo weyi, sente kokotsintli non kineltoka non ixwi kimmokwitlawis iwexolowan wan non tlenon okiko tetsawak wilihki tetlawanti. Inon ixwi amo kineltoka, wilihki otlawan wan ope kinemilia yomokwep sente koyotl. Inin ixewayotl, san yeyi ixamatl, onkan walneste tlanelo nin masewalmachtilistli, kenime inon tlakahkayake.

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Maski amo wilihki momati akinomeh non otlakakiyah wan otlaiitayah, wilis inin ixewayotl oteititiayah tlaixpan. Kiyin ka pewa inin tlahtolli: “Entremes. Tehuehuetzquiti tepapachi “, inon kitlahtolkwepah kenime “Inon kichiwah itla wan wilihki tetlawetskiti wan miyekpa kichiwah”. Kenime se “entremes” inon kichiwah se ixewayolli tetetepichin wan tetlawetskiti, miyekpa kichiwah inin kwak yokichikeh sente kachi wehkawi, ipan non tlalpilxiwitl VVI wan XVII ompa España.

Itewan okifranseskwepkeh wan okikixtikeh ipan 1900 wan non ika espaniol okis ipan 1946, ihwa nin tekitl ayimo kitlahtoltiah nin tlakah nin axkan nemih. Tlemach techwika tiknemiliskeh inin amatlahkwilokmeh kox inwaxka oktaya non Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, inon iwehka tlemach momachtike, tlapiwiyani wan momachtike ika tlahtolli Mexiko nawatl. Ihkwak okis non tlahtolkwepalli ika franses ipan 1900, inin amatlahkwilolli ayikwali okikwiyah non temachtikeh nian san akin wilis tlakatl, okikixtikeh kwak okinekeh kinemakaskeh ipan 2018.

Axkan nin amatlahkwilolli yonkan ka ipan amoxkalli Newberry, nin sepan titekitih wan nehwa, inwan non nawatlaixmatkeh Victorino Torres Nava wan Abelardo de la Cruz walewa tlamachtiloyan Albany, kwali yotikihkwilokeh nin ixewayotl ka nawatlahtolli, otiktlahtolkwepkeh ika inglestlahtolli kimach ihtoti wan yotiktepostlehkawikeh.

Oksekin tlemach non onkan kateh nikan Newberry ika nawatlahtolli amoxtin kenimekeh gramatikatin, tlahtoltlatekpantililtin wan oksekin amameh non kampa okinchihchikeh onkan, Mexiko. Itewan onkateh miyek oksekin ixewayolmeh ika nawatlahtolli, kenimekeh non tomasewaiamatlahkwilokwan inon pewah ipan 1855 wan ya asih 1856. Itech inimeh walnestiweh tlanelokeh tlahkwilolmeh wan onkan witseh yeyi tetsawil ixewayolmeh ika nawatlahtolmeh wan espanioltlahtolli, non okintlahtolkwep Faustino Chimalpopoca Galicia: Las almas y las albaceas (las almas y los ejecutores): El nacimiento de Isaac (itlakatilis Isaac), kwak otetlamiktili Abraham kwe itata okinek ma kichiwa kwe Dios kiyon okinek (wan inon itetlamiktilis Abraham itata okinek kwe Dios kiyon okinek) wan Maquiztli: tragedia escrita en idioma mexicano (Maquiztili: tlenon amo kwali opanok mihkwilo ika nawatlahtolli) okihkwilo Mariano Jacobo Rojas wan okitlahtolkwep ika espaniol Pedro Rojas. Inin sayika wits tlami walneste non amo kwali pano inon kampa non Tlahtowani Kwillotl kinawaltia inon ichpokatlahtowani Maquiztli imak se espaniol wan miki. Wan kine inon Maquiztli momiktia.

Inon Naciones Unidas okihto ma ipan 2019 ye ixih inin masewaltlahtolmeh, kwe kineki kinweyitlalis wan ma mochikawakan, wan ma kitakan yokinkokokeh wan okseki kinkokotikateh. Onkateh axkan kana 6,500 noso 7000 tlahtolmeh ipan nin tlalli. Maski, ipan 2016, inon kikwitiah 20

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Foro Permanente de las Naciones Unidas non kimita non masewaltlakah okihto ipan imochtin nin tlahtolmeh kana 40% inin tlahtolmeh kachi ikinkahtikateh ayikmo tlahtlatowah tla amo ohkachi oyeskeh akinomeh kisalowah, wan miyek inin tlahtolmeh walewah ipan masewalaltepemeh. Ihwan inin tlenon panotikah ika inin totlahtolwan kwe inon tlanawatilmeh inon onkateh inka kinchiwah ma poliwikan nin totlahtolwan ika inon kenime ka techmachtiah, kwe kinekih ma tiyekan kenime imochtin akinomeh sa tlahtowah inon tlahtolli inon kachi mokwi. Inin totlahtolwah, kwe amo onkateh tlanawatilmeh inon ika kimpalewiskeh ma weyakan wan ma kinweyitlalikan nin tlahtolmeh akinomeh tlahtlatowah.

Maski yowehka inon koyotlakah ikinwalmihmiktitiwitseh non masewalmeh Amerika del Norte, miyekeh nin masewaltepemeh oknoma tlahtowah intlahtolwan. Miyek tlanelo nin tlahtolli nawatl. Ke ihkwak, inin nawatl tlahtlatowah Nicaragua mopatla non kenika tlahtlatowah inepantlatian Mexiko. Tiknekih tikektlaliskeh ma kachi kwali kimitakan nin tlanon onka inon ayimo keman mokixtia, kenime nin ixewayotl tetlawetskiti, tepalewia kachi tikitaskeh mochi inin tlanelo masewaltlahtolmeh Mexiko, wan sihkiyon tiktlapowah ohtli non kampa intewan ninaxkan nentikateh ma teititikan kenime ihwan ka kitah.

Tikchiwah ma inin tlahtolli wan nemilistli nawatl ma kachi kwali kitakan san akin wilis kinekis akinomeh tlahtlatowah, tele poliwi okseki, maski tikyehyekotikateh ma inin kaltekichikeh nin kitekipanoltiah nin tlenon yopanok (kenime amoxkalmeh wan amapixkeh) wan masewaaltepemeh.

Tikintsekos oksepa nin altepemeh ika non tlenon yopanok kinchikawa inon akinomeh ihwan wan kinsepanelowa oksepa non masewatlahtowah Mexiko, El Salvador wan Nicaragua, wan itewan non akinomeh yoyakeh oksekan yomochantitoh ipan mochi nin tlalli.

Analú María López (Guachichil / Xi’úi) amoxtlahpia ihtek amoxkalli masewalamoxtin itoka Ayer ihtek amoxkalli Newberry Chicago wan Victorino Torres Nava (Nawa) nawatlahtowa, tlahtolmomachtike, temachtia tlamachtiloyan Anahuacalmecac ompa Los Ángeles wan kiweyaltitika inon Xinachkalko, ompa Cuentepec, Morelos, México. Tiktlasohkamatilia Abelardo de la Cruz (nawa) walewa tlamachtiloyan Albany, nawatlahtoke, akin okiyankwiktlalli nin amatlahkwilolli,

Judging a Book by Its Cover

By Georgia Fowler

“N

ever judge a book by its cover,” we’re told. Whatever deep truths are hinted at in this old adage, it’s easier said than done when it comes to actual books and covers. Long after the plot lines and characters of a book disappear from memory, the cover design has a habit of lingering in our minds.

Resisting the temptation to judge a book by its cover is especially difficult when it comes to the work of George Salter (1897–1967), the German-born and—after 1940—American calligrapher, illustrator, teacher, and designer. A prolific jacket designer capable of capturing the essence of a book on its cover, Salter revolutionized book jacket design, fundamentally altering the way this art form was understood—and establishing jacket designers as artists in their own right.

The Newberry Library holds 66 boxes of Salter’s papers and artwork, a generous gift of the artist’s wife, Agnes Salter, and his daughter, Janet Salter

Rosenberg. The George Salter Papers include correspondence, notes, and articles written by and about Salter, but the vast majority of the material comprises his book jacket artwork.

Alongside sketches and prints for multiple German and American design jobs, the collection contains several books and the jackets he designed for them. Spanning approximately 95 linear feet, the Salter collection houses a wealth of beautiful work.

I can attest to this beauty myself. This past summer, I worked as an intern at the Newberry, fulfilling a practicum requirement for my Book Studies Concentration at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where I am now a senior majoring in history. My work at the Newberry focused on producing a finding aid for the Salter Papers. Though a paper finding aid was created in 1997, it was never digitized, so my job was to reorganize the collection and create a new digital aid that users could consult online to search and navigate the archive. Because I had created such tools before, the task was not particularly daunting. I was unprepared, however, for how attached I would become to the collection.

I was also surprised to find that scholars have paid little attention to Salter. His work is relevant to many areas, including art and design history, media studies, and literature. Yet aside from a definitive biography, Classic Book Jackets: The Design Legacy of George Salter, by Wellesley professor Thomas S. Hansen, very little has been written about Salter. (I draw on Hansen’s work throughout this article.) This is an especially surprising omission given Salter’s fascinating life and his transformative impact on the world of jacket design.

Top: Detail from George Salter’s original cover illustration for Christopher Morley’s Ex Libris. Bottom: Of Mice and Men cover illustration screen printed by Salter on book cloth.

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“G

eorg Salter” was born on October 5, 1897, in Bremen, Germany, to Stefanie (née Klein) and Norbert Salter.

His parents, both born Jewish, converted to Lutheranism prior to his birth. The Salters were a musical family, and contact with many famous musicians and conductors led George Salter, 1949 to Georg’s interest in stage and set design, the fields in which he initially trained.

Georg received only “satisfactory” marks in penmanship during his first years in school because he was left-handed and had to teach himself to write and draw right-handed (something he later encouraged left-handed students to do). His studies were put on hold after he completed secondary school in 1916 and, in the midst of World War I, joined the German Army—for which, along with other duties, he was a mapmaker (a task that augmented his skill as a draftsman).

Upon returning to civilian life in 1919, he began studying art with Ewald Dühlberg and enrolled in the Kunstgewerbeund Handwekerschule (School of Applied Arts and Crafts)

Salter’s unique design style is exemplified in his book jacket for Franz Kaf ka’s The Castle (1954).

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in Berlin, where he studied under Harold Bengen and concentrated on scene painting. From 1921 to 1922, he worked at the Prussian State Opera in the studio for stage design and began to dedicate himself to professional theatrical design.

Yet during this period, Georg’s interests began to move from theatrical to book design. Soon, much of his professional attention was directed to the book arts. Between 1922 and 1934, he worked for 33 different German publishers and produced more than 350 designs, most of them for book jackets.

Salter stood out from his contemporaries, whose artnouveau aesthetic dominated the book market in the early twentieth century. In his early years as a book designer— until around 1924—his style was expressionistic. But as he gained experience, Salter embraced a number of different design models, and his style became a hybrid modernism that incorporated both classical elements (particularly regarding calligraphy) and modern elements (evident especially in his color choices and renderings). His jackets thus often blended typographical innovation and symbolic illustration that allowed him to graphically convey a sense of the book’s contents.

In 1931, Salter was hired by typographer Georg Trump to serve as the director of the Commercial Art Department at the Höhere Graphische Fachschule (Institute of Graphic Arts) in Berlin. There, Salter grew to enjoy teaching, but his opportunities were short-lived. Soon after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in January 1933, a student wearing a National

Salter developed his own typeface—“Flex”—to use in his book jacket designs.

Socialist uniform and carrying a knife accosted Salter, challenging Salter’s presence at the school based on his family’s Jewish background. The experience shook Salter to his core. Soon after, the Nazi regime forced Trump to dismiss Salter from his post at the school. (Trump, who did not support the Nazi Party, remained friends with Salter and soon left Berlin himself.)

Because Salter did not identify as Jewish, he had considered himself safe from persecution before this humiliation by a student. Wasting little time, he left Berlin and began to line up his affairs to emigrate to the United States. After acquiring an affidavit from his brother Stefan, who had emigrated years before, Salter received his visa from the consulate in Stuttgart on October 1, 1934. By early November, he had arrived in New York City.

Unlike many emigres to the United States in the 1930s, Salter did not suffer any long period of poverty or unemployment. His arrival had been anticipated by professionals in the New York book world, thanks to an exhibition of his work mounted at Columbia University in 1933

by Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, who was the university’s curator of the Department of Rare Books.

Salter soon had commissions from Simon & Schuster and Viking Press. Through his work for Viking—and in particular his designs for books by Herman Broch and Stefan Zweig—he solidified his connections with German exile culture in New

York City. In 1936, he designed his first Thomas Mann volume for Alfred A. Knopf, initiating a long and fruitful relationship with the publishing company.

Salter’s work for Knopf exemplified his unique style and the force of his impact on book jacket design. Knopf, who cared deeply about the appearance of his books, was especially attentive to his relationship with Salter, who in turn always worked closely with the art department at the publishing company.

Through his relationship with Knopf, Salter produced some of his greatest designs and arrived at the apex of his career. Between 1935 and 1967, Salter executed 178 jacket designs for Knopf, including designs for books by some of the most prominent Western writers of the day, including Kay Boyle, Albert Camus, Elias Canetti, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Paul Gallico, John Hersey, Franz Kaf ka, H. L. Mencken, and Robert Nathan.

Many of these covers displayed what became Salter’s distinctive style—an airbrushed and often minimalist aesthetic coupled with a burst of color. Salter remained keenly aware of the importance and role of typefaces in book production, and he even designed his own—“Flex”— a ribbon font named for its f lowing, calligraphic lines. Meanwhile, in part because Knopf encouraged his designers to sign their work and mentioned them in colophons and advertisements, Salter signed his name to many of his jackets, marking them as his own.

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Top row: One of Salter’s initial designs for The Missing Miniature and a sketch for an alternative cover drawn on the unfolded reverse side Bottom row: A final printed version of the front and back covers of Salter’s jacket showing the revised title and implementation of the sketched design

Perhaps most striking was Salter’s ability to capture the essence of a book on its cover, encouraging an immediate dialogue between designer and viewer. In many of his jacket designs for Knopf as well as other publishers, Salter incorporated symbolism to suggest historical relevance, lending his art a subtlety that was greatly admired by readers and publishers alike.

Salter’s ability to convey the sense of a book in a single striking image depended on his practice of reading almost every work for which he designed a jacket. The one exception was mysteries, which Salter did not enjoy reading. Instead, his wife, Agnes, would read and then summarize them for Salter, suggesting material that he could use in his jacket designs.

Even as a new immigrant, Salter worked constantly. During his first six years in the United States, Salter produced some 185 book jackets and at least 30 magazine covers. Meanwhile, he established himself as a preeminent book jacket designer for mysteries, which led to a long-lasting association with publisher 24

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Lawrence E. Spivak, who had a small empire in the world of mysteries and science fiction. At the same time, Salter formed attachments with American writers such as Nora Lofts, William Faulkner, and Frederic Prokosch.

On September 19, 1940, Georg Salter became George Salter, a naturalized American citizen. From that day on, he signed his name only with the Anglicized spelling, “George.” (He left his colleagues bemused because he enjoyed paying taxes, which he viewed as a symbol of belonging in his new country.) In 1942, he married Agnes Veronica O’Shea (1901–1989) after a two-year-long friendship. A few years later, in 1946, the couple adopted their daughter, Janet Salter Rosenberg. The family lived in Greenwich Village.

By 1950, Salter had risen to the top of his profession. Even during a dry spell in the mid-1950s, his colleagues still greatly respected him and publishers coveted his jackets. Many of his designs from this period became signature pieces for seminal

Salter’s jacket design for an edition of Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!

literary works of the twentieth century, including William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, Virginia Woolf ’s Orlando, and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. His success was also demonstrated by his election in 1947 as chairman of the Book Jacket Designers Guild—a group dedicated to encouraging interest in the book jacket as a form of art—and his election to membership in the Grolier Club, a prestigious New York bibliophilic group, in 1951.

As mass market forces and cheap production techniques led to a decline in the quality of book jacket design and a lowering of artistic standards, Salter worked to redefine the book jacket as a form of art. Though he was by no means alone in this effort, his prominence in the publishing world and his dedication as an artist exerted a powerful impact. He valued the craftsmanship that went into creating book jackets and inf luenced his colleagues and students to take similar care. And as the first designer to sign his name to his covers, he stamped his work as art rather than simply the protective shell of a book.

George Salter passed away on October 31, 1967, in New York City. He and Agnes are both buried in Cummington, Massachusetts, where the family had at one time summered. He remains one of the seminal calligraphers, book and book jacket designers, and illustrators of the twentieth century.

including a selection of correspondence, notes from classes and lectures given by Salter, and articles he published. The remaining 60 or so boxes contain artwork from his design jobs, both in Germany and the United States. There are pen trials, sketches, prints, and original paintings. A few projects even include correspondence he exchanged with other designers or contributors. For example, the collection includes a letter from Salvador Dali’s wife, Gala, concerning work Salter completed for an edition of Cervantes’s Don Quixote that included illustrations by Dali. Finding gems like this letter throughout the collection made my summer internship at the Newberry especially rewarding and exciting.

I plan to continue using the Salter collection in my own scholarship at Smith, as I undertake a joint senior thesis and capstone on German book artists who were forced to f lee Nazi Germany in the early 1930s. I will focus both on George Salter and Elizabeth Friedlander, another German designer and calligrapher. With luck, my research for the Salter portion of this project will bring me back to the Newberry in less than a year’s time.

Though I was sorry to leave the Newberry at the end of the summer, I am encouraged to know that George Salter and his wonderful designs will be here to greet me upon my return.

Until then, I will browse used book stores, always on the lookout for what are certainly some of the most distinctive book jackets of the twentieth century.

Georgia Fowler, former intern at the Newberry, is a senior at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

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enewed scholarly engagement with Salter is long overdue. As the home of the George Salter Papers, the Newberry is the best place to start. The first six boxes of the collection house a broad range of personal papers and articles, The Newberry Magazine

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DONOR SPOTLIGHT

Giving Back and Looking Forward Carla Funk

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he Newberry has something for everyone. Whether you’re interested in researching and writing a book on eighteenthcentury schoolboy culture, attending a seminar about American Art Deco design, or exploring an exhibition that challenges your assumptions about the Midwest, the Newberry is the place for you. Few patrons exemplify this assertion better than Carla Funk, who has used the Newberry to explore her varied intellectual interests, both in the collections and in our classrooms.

Carla recalls first coming to the Newberry to start work on her family history. “I have my family archive at home,” she says. “Which is really no more than a box full of papers.” That box, along with an early version of DNA testing that was offered through National Geographic, inspired Carla to dig deeper into her family history. Viewing the DNA testing as “the tip of the iceberg,” Carla is using the Newberry’s resources and collections to uncover the full story behind her genealogical tree.

In addition to using the Newberry to delve into her family history, Carla also attends seminars with a group of friends. She’s taken courses on diverse topics including Shakespeare, English Romantic music, Russian history, Syria, and, of course, genealogy.

She’s also a member of The Cliff Dwellers and can sometimes be found at the Newberry working with Alison Hinderliter, Lloyd Lewis Curator of Modern Manuscripts, to bring the club’s papers to the Newberry to be archived. She’s attended the annual Award Dinner, first coming in 2018 when the Newberry honored her friend Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress.

Perhaps Carla feels so at home at the Newberry because her professional life also has revolved around libraries. She made her living as a librarian from the time she received her Master in Library Science degree from Indiana University in 1973 to the time she retired in 2015. She capped off her career with an impressive run as Executive Director of the Medical Library Association (MLA) from 1992 to 2015. The MLA now confers the Carla J. Funk Governmental Relations Award to recognize a medical librarian who, like Carla, works “diligently

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“I decided to focus my giving on libraries. They have sustained me both personally and professionally for over 50 years, and I wanted to give back.” and passionately to provide visibility for the association and profession, and to further the association’s governmental relations agenda.”

When it came time to make her charitable contributions under the latest tax laws, Carla made the decision to streamline her giving. She was already supporting the Newberry’s Annual Fund as a member of the Newberry Associates, but she increased her gift to join the President’s Fellows, the Newberry’s leadership giving society. At the same time, she included the Newberry in her estate plans, joining the Blatchford Society.

“I decided to focus my giving on libraries,” Carla says. “They have sustained me both personally and professionally for over 50 years, and I wanted to give back.”

Carla’s multifaceted involvement with the Newberry as genealogist, seminar attendee, amateur archivist, and donor is a wonderful example of how the Newberry can satisfy the curiosities of all. This is a sentiment Carla shares when describing libraries in general and the Newberry in particular.

“Having been a librarian myself, I understand how libraries serve their communities and can mean many things to many people. I’m excited by all the things that are happening at the Newberry and look forward to all that’s to come.”

Thanks to Carla’s generous support, and the support of all of our Annual Fund donors, the Newberry will continue to be a home for many people with many interests. To learn more about how you can support the Newberry, please contact Vince Firpo, Director of Individual Giving, at (312) 255-3599.

VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

Behind the Scenes of Chicago’s Best Used-Book Binge

Dan Crawford, Book Fair Manager, oversees the sorting process.

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or bibliophiles, book dealers, and bargain hunters throughout Chicago and across the Midwest, the Newberry Library Book Fair begins at noon on the last Thursday of July and runs for four days. For Dan Crawford, the Newberry’s Book Fair Manager, as well as for the Newberry’s Facilities team and a small group of dedicated volunteers, the Book Fair is a year-round operation.

Every book sold at Book Fair is donated to the Newberry, with books being dropped off by the carload day after day, all year. Our volunteers work four days a week sorting donations into one of 70 categories and often starting friendly arguments in the process.

“The placement of books can be a little contentious,” says Dan Crawford, “particularly the difference between ‘Fiction’ and ‘Literature.’ The book I’ve seen end up in the most disparate categories may be Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”

After sorting, books are priced, boxed, and sent to storage to await the day when they will fill the Newberry’s first f loor to the delight of Book Fair shoppers. For the 2019 Book Fair, Dan and his volunteers prepared 4,232 boxes of books (which equates to roughly 135,000 books).

In the weeks leading up to Book Fair, Dan figures out how many boxes are packed per category and develops a plan for the fair’s layout across five rooms on the first f loor of the library. Then Newberry Facilities staff, led by Jason Ulane, get to work laying protective covering on the f loor of Ruggles Hall and other areas of the first f loor, setting up some 220 tables, and carting thousands of boxes of books from basement storage to their designated spaces.

At this point in the process, our cohort of volunteers becomes an army. On the Saturday before Book Fair opens, the library is filled with volunteers in red aprons who unpack all the books, setting them out on shelves and tables and, in some categories, alphabetizing them all. Book Fair setup is a gargantuan job—one that takes 100 volunteers nearly 24 hours over three days to complete.

Left: The Newberry’s exhibition galleries, in the process of being transformed for the opening day of the 2019 Book Fair. Right: With the help of 100 volunteers, the galleries are ready to welcome throngs of book lovers to Book Fair.

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Bill Charles, Co-chair of the Book Fair Committee, sorts books into categories.

Karen Aubrey, former staff member and now Book Fair Volunteer, prices books.

By noon on the last Thursday in July, a line of shoppers wraps around the outside of the Newberry building. When the doors open, book lovers of all ages f lood into the library in search of cookbooks, art books, paperback mysteries, biographies, records, children’s books, and so much more. If you are one of those shoppers who hits the fair as it opens, be sure to look up as you enter. You’ll likely find a group of Newberry staffers huddled on the main staircase to marvel at the joyous stampede.

From the moment the doors open on Thursday until the last customer checks out on Sunday, the Newberry is transformed by Book Fair. At the 2019 event, 218 volunteers served as greeters, line attendants, re-stockers, and cashiers, contributing 2,500 hours of service to the Newberry. A dedicated crew of some 20 staff members was on hand at all times to organize the volunteers, count cash and receipts, and make sure the event ran smoothly and safely. And, of course, an estimated 13,000 shoppers filled the library with the excited hum of the hunt.

The 2019 Book Fair marked an important achievement for the Newberry. Revenue from the event—a whopping $183,500—eclipsed the previous record set in 2010 by $15,000. Volunteers tallied and rang up nearly 6,800 orders.

Some consisted of one or two books; others were counted by the box-load.

“For the first time, I saw someone with a tape measure measuring the height and width of their pile of books,” says Meredith Petrov, Director of Development.“I assume they were making sure it would actually fit in their car for the ride home.”

On average, customers spent $27 per transaction. Nearly $7,000 of the revenue total consisted of straight donations to the Newberry made by customers at the time of check out.

One of the biggest questions about Book Fair is: What happens to all the books you don’t sell? On the Monday morning after Book Fair—what has come to be known as Remainders Day—non-profits, schools, and teachers are invited to the Newberry to take whatever books they like free-of-charge.

“This year, 17 organizations—ranging from elementary schools to literacy groups and community centers—attended Remainders Day,” says Jo Anne Moore, Associate Director of Development Events, who organizes these efforts. “We’re so happy that these groups are able to benefit from Book Fair.”

Interested in learning more about Remainders Day? Contact Jo Anne Moore at (312) 255-3556 or moorej@newberry.org.

A call for volunteers for the 2020 Book Fair will go out in the spring.

For more information, or to learn about other volunteer opportunities at the Newberry, contact Rebecca Haynes, Manager of Volunteers, at (312) 255-3526 or haynesr@newberry.org.

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Steve Scott, longtime Book Fair Volunteer, sets up the CD section.

Jenny Bissell, member of the Book Fair Committee, instructs Susan Levy, another volunteer.

As the Remainders Day crowd clears out of the Newberry, volunteers return to spend the afternoon packing up any books that are left. The most valuable unsold stock is placed into storage for the next Book Fair, while the rest is sold to a bulk-buyer who hauls it off in his truck by summer’s end.

While the books disappear fairly quickly, it takes Jason Ulane a few more weeks to truly return the Newberry to normal. As August begins to wind down, the first floor is no longer filled with tables and boxes, staff members return to their typical workloads, and the army of Book Fair volunteers shrinks back to a handful.

By Labor Day, the daily drop-off of books resumes in earnest, and Dan and his volunteers once more begin to sort, price, and pack up books as they appear at the Newberry. For while one Book Fair is only weeks in the past, the next one will be here before you know it.

Mark your calendars!

The 2020 Book Fair will take over the Newberry July 30 through August 2.

KNOW YOUR BENEFITS: JOIN A NEWBERRY BOOK GROUP Annual Fund donors receive membership benefits based on their level of support. With so many benefits, it can be difficult to keep track of them all.

Did you know you could join a Newberry Book Group? Donors who contribute $100 or more have the opportunity to join one of two member-led book groups that meet monthly. In the months ahead, the groups will be reading Beloved by Toni Morrison, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, and The Library Book by Susan Orlean. If you are interested in joining the discussion,

please contact Wendy Buta in the Development Office at (312) 255-3581.

Members at the $100 level are also invited to shop Book Fair before it opens to the general public, receive discounts at the Rosenberg Bookshop and on Adult Education Seminars, and receive a members-only Newberry coffee mug.

Learn more about the benefits of being a member of the Newberry by visiting www.newberry.org/annual-fund.

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RETROSPECT

Recent Events THE LANGUAGE OF BRONZEVILLE: LITERATURE AND RACE IN CHICAGO On September 24, Eve L. Ewing and Ken Warren visited the Newberry to ref lect on how African American writers responded to the 1919 Chicago race riots and how artists continue to confront issues central to African American communities today. Warren, Professor of English at the University of Chicago, described how writers like Frank Marshall Davis harnessed the political energy from the riots even as they acknowledged literature’s “insufficiency in realizing human potential.” Ewing, a poet and a scholar of sociology, read from her new book of poetry, 1919, a bracing meditation on the race riots and their echoes across time into the present. The program was part of Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots, a series of community conversations made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and with support from Edith Rasmussen Ahern and Patrick Ahern and the Allstate Insurance Company.

Eve L. Ewing and Ken Warren. Photo by Anne Ryan

NEWS IN CHICAGO MEDIA, TODAY AND TOMORROW Journalism has undergone a revolution over the last few decades, with technological and market changes transforming the profession from top to bottom. These transformations were the focus of a public conversation held recently at the Newberry between veteran Chicago journalists Rick Kogan and Carol Marin. On October 1, Kogan—a senior reporter at the Chicago Tribune—and Marin—the political editor at NBC5 News in Chicago and Director of the DePaul University Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence—discussed Chicago’s changing media landscape.

The two ref lected on developments in their industry, from emerging media genres and the future of print to changing journalistic standards and the dangers of fake news. The program was part of “Conversations at the Newberry,” an ongoing series generously sponsored by Sue and Melvin Gray.

Carol Marin and Rick Kogan. Photo by Anne Ryan

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WHAT IS THE MIDWEST? A ROUNDTABLE On October 5, the Newberry hosted a roundtable discussion coinciding with the launch of a new exhibition, What Is the Midwest? Moderated by Liesl Olson, the Newberry’s Director of Chicago Studies, the program featured five panelists from a variety of academic disciplines who brought their expertise to bear on the question at the heart of the exhibition. Jean M. O’Brien, Professor of History at the University of Minnesota and Newberry Trustee, approached the question from the perspective of Indigenous history, while Jon K. Lauck, founding president of the Midwestern History Association, spoke about the history of scholarship on the Midwest. Erik S. McDuffie, Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, discussed the history of African American experience in the Midwest, and Toby Higbie, Professor of History at UCLA, focused on the concept of the “Heartland.” Finally, Sujey Vega, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University, addressed the history of Latino experience in the region. Part of the Newberry’s What Is the Midwest? project, the program was made possible with funding from a major grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES AND PEOPLES IN THE MIDWEST On October 12, the Newberry celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day and the United Nations’ International Year of Indigenous Languages by hosting a discussion devoted to the Indigenous languages of the Midwest. Moderated by Margaret Noodin (Anishinaabe), Director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education, the conversation brought together five Indigenous community leaders to discuss the role of language in forming identity in their communities, as well as the revitalization projects in which they are currently engaged. Following a discussion between the panelists, Newberry Curator of Americana Will Hansen and Ayer Reference Librarian Analú López presented a selection of Newberry items related to Indigenous languages. The program was funded with a generous grant from the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation.

Panelists included Daryl Baldwin (Miami Tribe of Oklahoma), Marcus Carriagh (Ho-Chunk Nation), Marcus Winchester (Pokagon Potawatomi), Victorino Torres Nova (Nahua), and Michelle WellmanTeeple (Bay Mills Ojibwe Community). Photos by Peter Pawinski

Listen to recordings of these programs at soundcloud.com/newberrylibrary.

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PROSPECT

Upcoming Events Since the Newberry’s founding in 1887, the library has offered free 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.

EXHIBITION What Is the Midwest?

September 20 – December 31, 2019

Jun Fujita: American Visionary January 24 – March 31, 2020

NOVEMBER 20th Nebenzahl Lectures: “Redrawing the World: 1919 and the History of Cartography” Ramifications of 1919 for the history of cartography in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries

The Midwest as Place Conversations at the Newberry Kristin Hoganson and Timothy Gilfoyle Thursday, December 5, 6 – 7 pm Part of the What Is the Midwest? project, funded by a major grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Genealogy and Local History Orientation Saturday, December 7, 9 am

Film Screening: On the Ice First Nations Film and Video Festival Saturday, November 2, 1 – 3 pm

Thursday, November 7 – Saturday, November 9

Books That Built Chicago: Chicago’s Architectural History in Print

Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City

Discussion with Robert Bruegmann, Kim Coventry, John Ronan, and Pauline Saliga on the architecture and urban design projects profiled in Chicago by the Book

Meet the Author: Andrew Sandoval-Strauz Tuesday, November 12, 6 – 7:30 pm

The Red Power Movement: From Alcatraz to Standing Rock and Beyond Nick Estes: D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies Distinguished Lecture Series Wednesday, November 20, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

The Place Native Americans Called “Chicagoua”

Wednesday, December 11, 6 pm Cosponsored with the Caxton Club and Chicago Collections Consortium

Holiday Performance: Christmas Comes But Once a Year A theatrical reading by the Shakespeare Project of Chicago Saturday, December 14, 9:30 am Refreshments; 10 am – 12:30 pm Performance

The Chicago Map Society Thursday, November 21, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

DECEMBER Firelines: Midwestern Prairie Restoration Discussion with Jill Metcoff and Mike Mossman Tuesday, December 3, 6 – 7 pm Part of the What Is the Midwest? project, funded by a major grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

“Creating American Boundaries: Federalism and Dispossession” American Indian and Indigenous Studies Seminar Thursday, December 5, 3:30 – 5 pm

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Save the Date!

Newberry Library Award Dinner Monday, May 4, 2020

∂

Honoring Lonnie G. Bunch III Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution

Exhibition on view through December 31

Non-Profit Organization

U.S. POSTAGE PAID 60 West Walton Street, Chicago, IL 60610 www.newberry.org

Unique books, cards and gifts for bibliophiles

HOURS Tuesday through Thursday 10 am – 6 pm Friday and Saturday 10 am – 5 pm Closed Sunday and Monday

The Newberry Library