Spring 2017 No. 8

Spring 2017 Issue 8

Something to Write Home About A collection of 500,000 individual postcards is now open to researchers at the Newberry.

Building on the Past In the following pages of The Newberry Magazine we share with you two major pieces of Newberry news.

First, the Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection, acquired from the Lake County Forest Preserves District in October, is now available for use in our reading rooms. Consisting of an astonishing 500,000 individual postcards, the Teich Archives represents the largest publicly available collection of postcards in the country.

Integrating a collection of such magnitude into the Newberry has involved the work, vision, and expertise of staff from across the library. Nearly every Collections and Library Services unit has had a hand in preparing this rich historical resource for readers, from our archivists and curators to our conservators and digital librarians.

The Teich materials at once strengthen and expand the core subject strengths of our collection.

Genealogists, for example, may discover new details about their ancestors’ lives by consulting images of the towns—or the very buildings—in which they lived. Meanwhile, print historians can probe the tens of thousands of job files the Teich Company maintained for insights into “how the sausage was made.” Students of local and travel history will be able to pair up postcard views with maps such as those in county atlases to learn more about early twentieth-century America.

At this point, we can offer only educated guesses about the full extent to which Newberry readers will be able to use the Teich Archives in conjunction with other collection materials. The possibilities appear to be endless.

Second, the extensive renovation of our first f loor, scheduled for 2018, will foster a similarly diverse range of educational opportunities—within just a few steps of our entrances. We are now advanced enough in the planning of this project to give you a glimpse of its details, through architectural renderings of what the renovated spaces will look like.

The designs, developed by Ann Beha Architects, call for both new and enhanced spaces in which Newberry staff, collections, and visitors will be able to interact with one another in exciting and fruitful ways. There will be an information center where visitors can learn about the library and prepare to use our collection; redesigned galleries for three-month-long themed exhibitions as well as a permanent display of highlights from our collection; f lexible event spaces that can be configured for a variety of programming; and a climate-controlled seminar room where classes may engage directly with maps, books, manuscripts, and other collection items.

The six-month construction project begins January 1, 2018.

At its conclusion, we will welcome the public into our newly renovated first f loor 125 years after the Newberry first opened the doors of its building at 60 West Walton Street.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue of The Newberry Magazine. And, as always, thank you for your support.

David Spadafora, President and Librarian

MAGAZINE STAFF EDITOR Alex Teller DESIGNER Andrea Villasenor PHOTOGRAPHY Catherine Gass & Tyne Lowe 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 Alexandra Katich at katicha@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.

Cover image: Detail of a 1932 postcard from the John I. Monroe Collection within the Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection.

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Contents FEATURES

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Dancing in the Archive

By Jamie Waters The Newberry’s Midwest Dance Collection—a resource for dancers, choreographers, and historians—is becoming more accessible, one finding aid at a time.

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Something to Write Home About

By Alex Teller Bursting with 500,000 individual images, the Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection is the largest public collection of postcards in the country—and it’s now open to researchers at the Newberry.

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Vicarious Conquest

By Lia Markey As Europeans explored the Americas, the Medici assembled an expansive collection of cultural goods as well as flora and fauna from the “New World.” What drove this fascination with the Americas?

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College Prep

By Karen Christianson Over the past three years, students from Hansberry, a Chicago public high school, have honed their research skills and used the Newberry’s collection to take their history projects to the next level.

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DEPARTMENTS NOW ON NEWBERRY.ORG 20

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DONOR CORNER: Rod Swantko and Rebecca Gray Smith

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RETROSPECT: Recent Events

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PROSPECT: Upcoming Events

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SPECIAL FEATURE From the Ground Up A look at our plans for renovating the Newberry’s first f loor.

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The Newberry Magazine

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

Shelf Life

A New Curator’s Guide to Getting Lost in the Stacks Suzanne Karr Schmidt recently joined the Newberry staff as George Amos Poole III Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts. As part of her Newberry orientation, Suzanne was sent into the stacks on an epic scavenger hunt that tested her growing knowledge of our collection and the many classification systems for storing and organizing it.

The experience reinforced a long-held notion that “getting lost in the stacks” (as Suzanne puts it) is often the best way to get to know the Newberry’s collection.

Suzanne’s peregrinations led to her coming across eighteenth-century French pamphlets, an illicit Czech translation of My Ántonia, and something called “lottery puffs.”

Read more at www.newberry.org/ from-the-stacks

This past winter, we launched “Shelf Life,” the Newberry’s first-ever podcast. Each episode features a new conversation with the Newberry staff, fellows, and other readers who bring our world-class collection to life. If you haven’t listened yet, we hope you’ll enjoy the first few episodes, which include:

Give Us a Sign Following the Women’s March held in Chicago and other cities on January 21, the Newberry began collecting protest signs and personal accounts from the people who took to the streets. While the Newberry’s collection contains plenty of materials documenting activism in history, this is the first time the library has collected such materials in the moment. We talked with archivists Martha Briggs and Catherine Grandgeorge about how and why they’re crowdsourcing an archive of modern protest.

17th-Century Fake News The Popish Plot, a conspiracy theory promoted by a man named Titus Oates, is an especially dastardly episode from the annals of fake news.

According to Oates’s writings in the late 1670s, a cabal of Catholics was conspiring to kill King Charles II and replace him with a Catholic ruler.

Even though Oates was a notorious liar and had little to no evidence to support his claim, the story lodged itself in the public’s imagination and led to the execution of dozens of people.

How did this happen?

Listen at www.newberry.org/shelf-life

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Dancing in the Archive The Newberry’s Midwest Dance Collection becomes more accessible, one finding aid at a time.

By Jamie Waters

“ Using an unprocessed collection means you have no idea whether you’ll find what you’re looking for, or how much you’ll have to look through to find it.”

Clockwise from left: “ABODE” promotional postcard for a performance by Judith Ragir; a dance class schedule from 1974 advertising MoMing’s strict “nondiscriminatory policy”; a MoMing promotional poster from the 1970s.

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Music Alliance Records, Chicago City Ballet and Ballet School Records, and the Allied Arts Corporation Records.

In 2016, our archivists—Smith, Catherine Grandgeorge, and Alison Hinderliter—processed the Ruth Page Papers, the MoMing Dance and Arts Center Records, and the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Records. At the time of writing, only 4 of the 13 collections covered by the Donnelley grant remain to be fully processed—and finding aids for two of those will be ready shortly.

The items within these collections include programs, promotional materials, tickets, correspondence, solicitations, press kits, and invitations, as well as board documents, financials, development records, video, and photography.

Smith says, “Preserving ephemeral materials, This ensemble photograph, included in the MoMing Records at the Newberry, shows the dancers like these dance collections, is essential for scholars who performed in a show held at Merce Cunningham Studio in New York in April 1977. who may be interested in studying cultural movements, art history, and dance. A researcher can he MoMing dance and artist collective started as a loose gain insight into the way the institution perceived itself, the association of post-modern dancers, performers, and way it dealt with challenges, and often the way the community artists located in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. They interacted with it.” worked together to push the boundaries of what is considered MoMing documents provide a narrative of the organization, dance and art, working within and moving beyond the its work, its rise and fall, and its struggle with cultural shifts like restrictions of classical forms. MoMing ultimately dissolved in gentrification in its Lakeview neighborhood and new criteria for 1991, and donated its records to the Newberry. However, until winning National Endowment for the Arts grants. last year, the collection that documents its work was unprocessed oMing’s work can tell us much about the perception of and difficult to access. dance and the way dance has grown and changed—in the MoMing was not our only unprocessed dance collection.

As of January 2016, 42 of the Newberry’s 81 dance-related mainstream as well as on the edges. collections had not been processed. Researchers can view most Jackie Radis, Jim Self, Susan Kimmelman, Eric Trules, unprocessed collections, but when archivists process collections, Kasia Mintch, Tem Horowitz, and Sally Banes formed MoMing they make them more easily navigable through the Newberry’s in 1974 with a mission to push art and dance to extremes. online inventories. According to Samantha Smith, a project archivist at the Newberry, “Using an unprocessed collection means you have no idea whether you’ll find what you’re looking for, or how much you’ll have to look through to find it. The collections often come to us in a disorganized state, and processing allows for the initial assessment, then arrangement, and description of the materials.”

By the end of 2017, 13 of our largest and most important unprocessed dance collections will be processed and fully accessible to researchers thanks to a generous grant from the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation and the hard work of our archivists. Part of the Newberry’s Midwest Dance Collection, these collections include MoMing, the Ann Barzel Dance Research Collection, the records of Ruth Page and her foundation, the ongoing Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Records, Stone-Camryn Studio Records, Zwief ka Family Dance Papers, Dorothy Hild Papers, Chicago Repertory A promotional postcard advertises a MoMing art show called “Self Interest.”

Dance Ensemble Records, the ongoing Chicago National Sponsored by the NEA and the Illinois Arts Council, this piece ref lects the range of MoMing’s programming (beyond dance) and also the role public Association of Dance Masters Records, Chicago Dance and

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funding played in supporting its experimental ethos.

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MoMing conscientiously maintained its avant-garde sensibility, consistently pushing the boundaries of what qualified as dance.

This experimental ethos was ref lected in MoMing’s organizational structure (which was mostly symbolic rather than ref lective of administrative practice) and its name (translated as “nameless” from Chinese). But a loose association is hard to fund. From its center in Lakeview, MoMing offered a space for dance training and avant-garde performance alongside an art gallery; in order to continue to do so through the ‘70s and ‘80s, it would need to calcify a structure and secure funding.

It formed a more structured board and system of operations when the NEA grew under the Nixon Administration.

MoMing’s newly organized board allowed it to meet requirements to apply for federal funding, which in turn gave members the freedom to pursue more experimental art forms without worrying about sales and profits.

As Newberry researcher Asheley Smith noted in her master’s thesis on MoMing, for which she conducted research at the Newberry before going on to pursue a PhD in Critical Dance Studies, it had a “right to fail.” The right to fail, she wrote, is “an integral part of creating innovative work” and was intrinsic to MoMing’s project.

Smith found that the NEA allowed MoMing this freedom.

Sometimes, indeed, its projects failed; and according to the business records at the Newberry, even performances deemed successful would often cost more money than they brought in. The NEA assistance kept the collective af loat, and enabled MoMing to experiment with dance and other art forms.

MoMing conscientiously maintained its avant-garde sensibility, consistently pushing the boundaries of what qualified as dance. These were not always well-received; sometimes they elicited harsh critique. One such performance featuring Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane in 1984 consisted, in part, of Zane building a wall of cinder blocks while Jones posed and both performed spoken word. In an incident reported in the Chicago Tribune, the secretary of Ruth Page, the legendary dancer and critic, questioned whether the performance even qualified as dance, and dramatically departed the theater.

Under the Reagan Administration, a decline in NEA funding disproportionately affected small and experimental arts organizations, which had fewer resources for applying for grants and less data to support their goals. The scale of an operation— and the number of people an organization could get through the door—became important criteria for awards.

MoMing was among organizations that suffered from cuts to federal funding for the arts. “The NEA began to impose a definition of ‘what is art,’ and organizations like MoMing couldn’t keep up,” says Samantha Smith.

We can see the challenges MoMing faced in the collection of its materials, including business records, mail, programs, and other ephemeral materials that are now preserved for future researchers like Asheley Smith.

Left to right: Alison Hinderliter, Samantha Smith, and Catherine Grandgeorge sort materials in one of the Newberry’s dance collections.

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s was the case with our dance collections, when archival materials arrive at the Newberry, we may have little information about them, and each item—or set of items— has to be processed, sorted, and arranged. Archivists place the records in folders and boxes with descriptive labels, and they correlate these folders and boxes with descriptions in an electronic finding aid so their contents can be easily located.

Once this finding aid is available online, users can see the items in an archival collection and request to view them in our reading rooms. You can’t use something if you don’t know it’s there, and processing materials—incorporating them into an organized filing system with finding aids that list the materials in the collection—brings them into the light.

After processing, the MoMing Dance and Arts Center Records, 1970-1991 (the official name of the MoMing archival collection at the Newberry), now comprise 90 linear feet in 84 boxes.

Local choreographers and dance companies can use the collections to find inspiration, to recognize continuity with earlier artists, and to set their work within the legacy of Chicago’s dance history. The Hubbard Street Dance materials—which have already been processed with the Donnelley grant—show the ways dance has inspired creativity in young artists and fostered deep connections with the wider Chicago community. Researchers can use the collection to observe historical trends throughout the Midwest as well as local arts communities.

Once dance critic Ann Barzel donated her collection of dance materials to the Newberry in the 1980s, the Newberry became a major center for the study of twentieth-century dance.

The library has been expanding its dance holdings ever since.

The growing Midwest Dance Collection is now more accessible than ever.

Jamie Waters is the Communications Coordinator at the Newberry.

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Something to Write Home About Bursting with 500,000 individual images, the Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection is the largest public collection of postcards in the country—and it’s now open to researchers at the Newberry.

By Alex Teller

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Collectively, the 500,000 postcards are a gallery showcasing America’s evolving conception of itself.

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his past October, the Newberry acquired the Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection from the Lake County Forest Preserves District.

Generally considered the largest public collection of such material in the country, the collection’s 500,000 individual postcards span a century of American visual culture.

Situated at the intersection of art, commerce, memory, and communication, the postcards offer not just a window onto the past but a mirror ref lecting the poses that people, businesses, and governments struck for all the world to see. The Teich Company’s own large-letter (“Greetings from…”) design illustrates this well. Spelling out the name of a state, city, or town, each letter From 1898 to 1978, the Curt Teich Company was the largest producer of view and advertising features a different attraction—whether natural, postcards in the world. Beginning in 1911, the company operated out of its factory located at historical, or commercial—that is, ostensibly, Irving Park and Ravenswood in Chicago. central to the identity of the place.

Motivating the acquisition was the prospect of how readers Collectively, the 500,000 postcards are a gallery showcasing might be able to use the postcards in conjunction with the America’s evolving conception of itself—and its place on the library’s other materials. The research possibilities, at one time global stage—during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. theoretical, are becoming a reality now that the Newberry can As soon as the Teich Collection arrived on Walton Street, offer access to the postcards (by appointment only, for the time Newberry staff began preparing to make it available in the being) and answer reference questions from users interested in library’s reading rooms, a six-month process comprising the viewing them. unseen but heroic work of moving the millions of postcards into “Studying the postcard as a physical object is important their designated areas in the stacks, updating records in an to understanding the history of printing, graphic design, electronic database for enhanced subject searches, and creating photography, advertising, communication, and so much research tools to guide readers through the massive collection. more,” says Alice Schreyer, Roger and Julie Baskes Vice President for Collections and Library Services. “When used by researchers alongside our other subject strengths, such as local history and genealogy, postcards can illuminate popular culture as well as the daily lives of the individuals who wrote and received them.”

Will Hansen, in his dual role as Director of Reader Services and Curator of Americana, is uniquely positioned to see how the postcards fit within the rest of the Newberry as well as how they will steer research projects in new, unexpected directions in the reading rooms. “The Teich materials are opening up angles on twentieth-century popular culture that, before now, we hadn’t been able to fully support,” he told me. “The possibilities are endless.”

Curt Teich was a pioneer of printing postcards in the U.S. He often commissioned custom presses to handle the high volume of orders his company received.

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When I set out to get to know the archives, I didn’t have a research topic to guide me. So I began my foray into the collection following a path that genealogists, local historians, and plenty of others are sure to take as well: looking for views of my hometown—Evanston, Illinois.

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Take one glance at the subject headings organizing the industrial archives of the Teich Company itself, and you can see what he means. Assigned by Lake County archivists and converted by the Newberry’s digital librarians to Library of Congress-authorized terms, the system consists of dozens of headings and, nested within each, sub-categories providing more granular points of entry into the collection. Within Amusements, you’ll find postcards related to Amusement rides, Gambling, and Haunted houses; within Transportation: Horse-drawn vehicles, Bus stops, and Sled dogs; within Sports: Boxing, Canoes and canoeing, and Animal fighting—the latter sub-category suggesting the potential for exhuming cultural mores of the past that are alien to us today.

Browsing the postcards themselves, neatly stored in shoebox-sized cartons according to production number and in chronological order, yields a similarly wide range of topics.

During a random survey of the stacks one day, I came across a coast guard station in Marblehead, Ohio; an iron ore quarry in northern Minnesota; the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago; and an aerial view of “the new Memphis and Arkansas Bridge.”

Users will no doubt enjoy doing their own browsing online. Just skimming images of soda jerks and drive-ins is enough to generate the special frisson of communing with the past. But without a particular topic to pursue, a collection of such magnitude may soon feel overwhelming, if not impenetrable.

If you think of the Teich Archives as an enormous highway system, the electronic database of headings and sub-headings is your road map; clicking one of the terms can lead you onto an off-ramp and, eventually, your destination.

Meanwhile, jumping from one term to another is akin to driving on the highway without ever getting off: you’ll catch glimpses of sights along the way (Shipwrecks, Local elections, Fire stations), but you’re not likely to experience them with the kind of depth the Teich Archives can offer when you explore them more deliberately.

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he Curt Teich Company’s own postcards and work records form the foundation of the larger constellation that is the Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection now at the Newberry (which includes such discrete collections as the Leonard A. Lauder Raphael Tuck Collection of over 35,000 postcards known as “Oilettes”; the John I. Monroe Collection of postcards on postcards; the John High Collection of woven-silk postcards; and the James R. Powell Route 66 Collection).

The Teich Company operated in Chicago from 1898 to 1978 as the world’s largest printer of view and advertising postcards. While winding down operations in the mid- to late 1970s, Ralph Teich, one of the founder’s sons, began searching for an institution that would preserve the company’s gargantuan aggregation of 360,000 individual postcards and 100,000 job files. Ralph understood the postcards’ significance as a visual record of American culture, and he envisioned them becoming the basis for an even larger collection that would grow over time with the addition of other materials.

He found an enthusiastic partner in the Lake County Discovery Museum. In 1982, the museum acquired the Teich Company archives, and began organizing their contents for researchers and building them into the resource they are today.

Lake County inherited a collection whose size was a function of both the Teich Company’s phenomenal success and its meticulous record-keeping: Teich tended to hoard numerous copies of individual postcards. This served a commercial end. In maintaining an extensive library of copies, Teich could reprint

The Teich Company maintained giant geographic indexes to track orders.

They are now essential resources for f inding postcards of particular places in the U.S. Newberry staff have detached the pages from their original ledger books for easy retrieval.

center is a view of a fountain f lanked on the left by carriages, postcards with greater accuracy than competitors could offer. bicycles, and pedestrians. The bustle of human activity gives life But the company’s archiving ethic also produced documents that to the public square without overwhelming it. researchers can now use to find specific postcards in the collection.

Thus, I became acquainted with the Teich geographic indexes, giant ledger-albums containing an entry per postcard and organized by city and state. Each entry provides a description and a production number that can be used to locate the corresponding postcard in the stacks.

“We expect researchers to consult the geographic indexes and the electronic database of subject terms together,” says Martha Briggs, curator and head of the Modern Manuscripts Division at the Newberry. “But when it comes to finding postcards depicting a particular place in the U.S., there’s no substitute for the indexes.”

After summoning the strength to carry the Illinois index to a quiet corner of the General Collections Reading Room, I flipped through its pages, passing Elmhurst, Elmwood Park, and Eureka on my way to the The Women’s Christian Temperance Union ordered “tuck-in cards” from Evanston section of the book. (Briggs’s team has since the Teich Company. removed the ledger sheets from the cumbersome indexes and stored them in folders and boxes for easy retrieval; digital technicians have digitized the indexes so they can be accessed online.)

The postcard entries for Evanston had been recorded in the same legible, clerical cursive as those for every other city. Scanning one line after another, I realized that the place names of my hometown, deeply resonant for me, were, for the Teich employees tasked with tabulating them, merely part of a fungible f low of information making up an honest day’s work.

I was a bit disoriented from the experience of parsing the geographic indexes, of seeing a stream of beloved signifiers in such plain, clinical prose. But above all I was grateful to the Teich staff charged with maintaining the records, for the information they preserved led me to some real gems.

I found views of hotels, schools, churches, retail storefronts, and street scenes. Even the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, headquartered in Evanston, had been a Teich client. The WCTU ordered “f lower mission tuck-in cards” through the company. These small cards, featuring a simple f loral design and a line of Scripture, were included with gifts of f lowers, fruit, and clothing assembled by the WCTU’s Department of Flower Mission and Relief Work. Within the cabinets containing the hundreds of thousands of Teich postcards at the Newberry are several versions of the WCTU tuck-in cards, along with the larger sheets they had been cut from.

Another discovery was a pair of postcards—one produced in 1910, the other in 1951—showing Sherman Avenue, a commercial thoroughfare, from two different Through the Teich collection, you can track the growth and development of American towns. These two postcards show the same commercial thoroughfare in Evanston, directions. The older of the two looks north. At the Illinois: The one above is from 1910, the one below from 1951.

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The other postcard looks south, offering a minimally populated vista that invites the viewer to step into the scene and partake in a little unobstructed window shopping.

Instead of a photographic reproduction (like the 1910 postcard), this card was the product of C. T. Art Colortone printing, a five-color process made on linen-finish stock. The result is an image that has clearly been designed, crafted, and polished into its finished form.

One of the great perks of using the Teich Company archives is the ability to comb the job files for evidence of such preparatory activities. These are the files that guided the firm’s work as it churned out orders for clients.

“The production files provide a tremendous amount of archival material for seeing the day-to-day activities of the Teich Company,” says Jill Gage, the Newberry’s curator of printing history.

The files document the different stages of a postcard’s development, from order form to store-ready memento. The amount of documentation varies from one job file to another; the most robust of them contain photographs, negatives, sketches, proofs, and notes instructing Teich artists on color, image beautification, and other considerations for realizing a client’s vision.

According to the ticket for the 1951 Sherman Avenue postcard, the alterations based upon the initial black-andwhite photograph consisted of getting the colors right, omitting people and cars from the foreground, and adding “nice billowy clouds.” The cloud directive also appears in production f iles for other Teich postcards, as do instructions to scrub the original photographs of undesirable features, such as power lines.

Files for advertising postcards shed further light on how the sausage was made. Accompanying a 1937 postcard promoting the Brockton Shoe Company’s “Fall Tips for Young Men” is a wealth of materials revealing the genesis and evolution of the ad’s design.

The original sketch established the essential elements that would appear in the finished postcard. To the left are two shoe cut-outs (which the artist may have gotten from a company catalog), and to the right is a vignette of a spirited crowd cheering at a football game. After reviewing this sketch, the Teich district rep responsible for the Brockton account suggested toning down the vignette lest it divert attention from the real focus of the postcard—the shoes. In an internal memo, the rep advised the Teich team to “make the colors in the football scene not quite so festive as I did in sketch.

Detracts from rest of card. Make them darker, heavier colors as per your judgement.” Given how the card turned out, this appears to be exactly what the company did.

The Teich job files chart the different stages of postcard production, from rough sketch to store-ready memento.

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The format of the earliest picture postcards dictated brevity, to an extent that would make even the most seasoned Twitter user blanch.

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he introduction of uniform penny postage in Britain in 1840 was a watershed moment in the pre-history of the postcard. Starting in May of that year, Britons could buy prepaid official post office envelopes that included the cost of postage. Eliminating a step in the letter-writing process (buying stamps), the envelopes inspired other innovations that further streamlined written communications, eventually leading to the introduction of a single card that obviated the need for envelopes altogether.

It was not until 1869 that the world’s first postcards appeared—and not in Britain but in Austria-Hungary.

Known as Correspondenz-Karte, they were utilitarian in both function and appearance, issued as thin cards of a light brown color. They originated with two men who had been working separately while following the same train of thought: Heinrich von Stephan in Germany and Emanuel Hermann in Austria-Hungary. Martin Willoughby explains their motivation in A History of Postcards: “As a solution for those who required it, von Stephan suggested the introduction of a stiff form, of envelope size, which could be directly written on and posted without the need to be enclosed in an envelope.

Its nature would preclude the need for formalities in writing, and it would bear a preprinted postage stamp making it ready for sending.”

Soon, other European countries as well as the United States began issuing postcards, whose benefits were undeniable. The new technology provided a cheaper alternative to writing letters, relieving the buyer of having to During the “undivided back” era, (before 1907), messages could appear only on the purchase paper and envelopes; it was also a more suitable front of a postcard. medium for providing loved ones with quick status updates (“arrived safely in Denver last night”) or spontaneous Some of the postcards in the Teich Archives actually went words of affection too frivolous for a full-blown letter. through the mail and now bear the notes of their senders. A The format of the earliest picture postcards dictated brevity, postcard from around 1900 (the undivided back era) simply reads, “Affectionately, Madge”—a note one might see now as a to an extent that would make even the most seasoned Twitter harbinger of emoji, the icons used to succinctly express or evoke user blanch. Before 1907, the space allotted for text effectively a range of sentiment via text message. Were Madge alive today, forced writers to keep their messages well below 140 characters. she’d fire off one or two emoji to convey her affection with This was the era of the “undivided back.” The entire back of the same warmth and linguistic economy as she did with this the card was reserved for the address, leaving the message to be squeezed into a small blank box running along the bottom or tucked into a corner on the front, so as not to obstruct the picture. (In 1907, the Universal Postal Congress decided that postcard backs could be divided between the address and the message.)

postcard.

The postcard, as the go-to medium for brief communications, would be superseded by a succession of new technologies: the telephone, email, text messaging, and social media. Nevertheless, travelers continue to purchase postcards and send them home.

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Postcards depicted not only tourists’ destinations but their means of getting there and stops along the way.

According to Katherine Hamilton-Smith, the postcard has endured as part of a ritual of marking one’s place in the world.

Postcards have always been a record of where we’ve been and a token of our thoughtfulness when we were there; they stand as proof that we were intrepid enough to get to the Grand Canyon and caring enough to spend 10 minutes not admiring its majesty in order to write a note to our parents.

Hamilton-Smith is the director of public affairs and development for the Lake County Forest Preserves District, and she was the original archivist for the Teich Archives when it arrived at the Lake County Discovery Museum in 1982.

“The conf luence of experience, communication, and image is still intact,” she says. “There’s something very powerful about the coexistence of those three things, which are all present from the very beginning.”

The first picture postcards, designed as souvenirs to commemorate major events, were sold at the Eiffel Tower during the Paris Exposition of 1889 and on the grounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. The intertwining of postcard and place persists to this day: you’re not going to find a postcard of Mt. Rushmore in Poughkeepsie.

A corollary to this insight is that, historically, postcards also tend to portray the transportation networks that enable all the traveling and postcard-buying we do. As auto travel expanded

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in the United States in the twentieth century, postcards depicted not only tourists’ destinations but their means of getting there and stops along the way: turnpikes, tunnels, and bridges; motels, restaurants, and gas stations.

“Postcards are, by and large, oriented around automobile travel,” says Jim Akerman, the Newberry’s curator of maps.

“Exploring the Teich postcards beside the road maps, travel ephemera, diaries, letters, and photo albums in our collection, one could glean revealing insights about how Americans visualized and spatialized their experiences.”

This brings us back to our Teich-Archives-as-highway metaphor. The Teich materials are a complex sprawl of vectors that intersect with other Newberry collections in ways we’re only beginning to understand. It’s now up to Newberry staff and readers to blaze trails through these intersections as they establish routes to new understandings of American history.

One might take an exit for their hometown and roam around for a little while. Eventually, they’ll get back on the highway and see where the road takes them.

For information on how to access the Teich Collection, visit www.newberry.org/curt-teich-postcard-archives-collection.

Vicarious Conquest As Europeans explored the Americas, the Medici assembled an expansive collection of cultural goods as well as flora and fauna from the “New World.”

What drove this fascination with the Americas?

By Lia Markey

Lia Markey, Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry, recently published Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence. In it, she posits that the Medici representations of the Americas in their art and the objects and goods they acquired from the Americas demonstrate a “vicarious conquest.” As they sought to learn about and collect materials from the Americas, they pursued a different form of dominion from that practiced by European colonizers.

Through researching their correspondence, their sources of information about the Americas, and their inventories and collections, Markey shows the importance of the Americas in Medici Florence. What follows is text from Markey’s recent meet-the-author talk presented at the Newberry, adapted for this publication.

Why would Medici rulers, who were never physically involved in the conquest or colonization of the Americas, be interested in collecting and representing them? I suggest that these Medici collectors acquired goods from and representing the Americas in order to compensate for their noninvolvement in the conquest, to acquire intellectual prowess, and to vicariously conquer America in their own way.

By “vicarious conquest” I suggest that through artistic production and collecting, the Medici grand dukes experienced a type of personal conquest of the Americas—a sense of possessing it symbolically. This case study examining the way in which the Americas were integrated into court culture reveals the intersections between collection and representation. It ultimately uncovers an incongruous

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n July of the year 1500, Amerigo Vespucci wrote from Lisbon to his former patron Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici in Florence about his second voyage along the coast of South America. Lorenzo was a banker and patron of the arts who did not have the resources to fund his friend Vespucci’s travels. Yet this Medici was one of the first to learn of the “boundless land,” the “infinite number of people, speaking various tongues,” the “many wild animals and different kinds of birds,” and the precious stones that Vespucci brought back to Europe on his ship.

In the decades following Vespucci, few Florentines traveled to the Americas, because of Spanish and Portuguese restrictions on travel across the Atlantic. So when Duke Cosimo de’ Medici became Duke of Florence in 1537, he knew no one like Vespucci to tell him of firsthand experiences in the Americas. Still, reports of these new lands, peoples, plants, animals, and precious materials fascinated Cosimo and his sons. Though they had few ties to the Americas, the Medici dukes of the sixteenth century acquired a great number of objects from the Americas, such as masks and featherwork, and boasted many representations in a variety of different media, including frescoes, paintings, tapestries, ephemera, and prints.

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phenomenon: as more knowledge of the Americas was acquired, representations became more fantastical and allegorical.

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eginning in 1539, when Duke Cosimo de’ Medici married the Neapolitan-born Spanish princess Eleonora di Toledo, the Americas became visible in various media at the Medici court in Florence.

The inventories of Cosimo and Eleonora demonstrate that they owned several objects from the Americas, including Mixtec masks and featherwork, gifts they likely received from Eleonora’s Spanish relatives for their wedding or via Medici Pope Clement VII. Documents tell us they celebrated the Americas in ephemera at their wedding and read about the history of the Americas in Giovanni Battista Ramusio’s Navigazioni et viaggi compiled from various sources the history of the books such as Giovanni Battista RamuAmericas and information on natural history of the continents. This image of corn appears in the sio’s Navigazioni et viaggi. Eleonora herself copy in the Newberry’s collection. was involved in planting corn—a crop that The 10-year exchange of letters between Francesco and originated in the Americas—in the fields Aldrovandi documents the excitement with which these men outside their villa near Florence. studied the nature of the Americas. Of the dozens of known A generation later, Francesco, the eccentric and letters between them, nearly half discuss the acquisition melancholic elder son of Cosimo and Eleonora, was engaged of goods from the Americas, the interest in documenting in collecting and exchanging plants and animals and other items from the Americas. Letters from secretaries, ambassadors, them, and often the ways in which one should go about comprehending the things that Aldrovandi excitedly claimed and colleagues to Francesco record a f low of goods from the “had not been described by the ancients.”

Americas and an enthusiasm for information.

Through the gifting and documentation of these plants For instance, letters to Francesco from the 1560s and and animals, Francesco, Aldrovandi, and armchair artists ‘70s from an administrator at the Medici port of Livorno like Ligozzi could vicariously participate in the conquest and show that he was sending Francesco parrots, fresh nuts, and possess a part of the Americas in Italy. other galanterie, or pretty things, from the Indies. These same documents demonstrate that the import of cochineal, sugar, pearls, and other coveted goods from the Indies into Tuscany steadily increased throughout the 1570s and ‘80s.

The paintings in his studiolo from the 1570s can be linked to information Francesco acquired about the Americas during those years. For instance, a scene of mining could illustrate the mining taking place in Potosí (in what is modern-day Bolivia).

In these years, Francesco received news on mining in South America from his Spanish cousin Francisco de Toledo, who was the Viceroy of Peru.

Francesco was fascinated by the natural wonders of the “New World.” He hired court artist Jacopo Ligozzi to paint much of the f lora and fauna in watercolors on paper. Some of the drawings—as well as many birds, animals, and plants that inspired them— were then gifted and exchanged with the Bolognese scientist Ulisse Aldrovandi, who was similarly recording the American f lora and fauna in drawings and woodcuts, and even through taxidermy.

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rancesco’s younger brother, Ferdinando, had less interest in the documentation of the nature of the Americas; instead, he initially sought to collect religious objects from the Americas. During his 25 years as a cardinal, from 1563 to 1588, Ferdinando became an inf luential figure in Rome. The many prestigious titles he held enabled him to form ties with religious and political leaders who inspired him to interact with and learn about other cultures.

Thus, Ferdinando had access to a variety of political, economic, and religious information about the Americas thanks to agents and secretaries in Spain who wrote regular updates about colonial developments in the Spanish empire.

One secretary who wrote almost daily from Madrid informed Ferdinando of both political and religious governing bodies in Peru and Mexico, of the travels of explorers and merchants, and of various shipments at the Spanish ports. Occasionally, these men in Spain sent Ferdinando items from both Asia and

and is far removed from the reality of the Americas and the the Americas, such as a feather miter—today on view at the naturalistic studies by Ligozzi.

Museo degli Argenti at the Pitti Palace.

Even though artists and collectors by this time had learned Though it is the only extant feather miter in Florence, it about the nature of the Americas, representations like this was not the only one he owned. Inspired by other cardinals one depicted an imaginative, other-worldly place. By having and collectors in Rome, as well as by his father and brother himself represented in one of these fantastical paintings, at home in Florence, the 23-year-old cardinal wrote to his Ferdinando physically put himself within the Americas. In agent in Spain and asked for a list of goods from the Americas, doing so, he may have revealed his very serious desire for the including pearls, aloe, and “a feather painting of about a mezzo wealth available there. braccio [or about a foot] in size from Peru.”

The young Ferdinando at this point obviously did not By the time Ferdinando became grand duke, in 1588, know that feather paintings were only produced in Mexico; he also had collected histories of the Americas. Inventories the fact that he makes no mention of subject matter in his list several books dellindie (from the Indies), such as un libro request for featherwork indicates that his interest lay primarily di pitture dellindie (a book of paintings from the Indies), in the medium and its exotic origin. indicating that Ferdinando owned several books actually Ferdinando’s inventories indicate that he indeed possessed produced in the Americas. an abundance of goods from the Americas. Besides a vast amount of jewelry and bows and arrows, he owned at least two Indian shields and at least a dozen featherwork items listed as being made with penne all’indiana (Indian-style feathers).

Hammocks, another Americas novelty, are listed in his inventory under the heading letti a vento d’ogni sorte (wind beds of various types). One studiolo painting Ferdinando commissioned in the 1580s (currently titled Allegory of the Americas, at the Borghese Gallery in Rome) could be one of the paintings “of the Indies” listed in the inventories.

One of four versions of the painting is in Lviv in the Ukraine and includes significant changes, making it perhaps a more personal representation for Ferdinando.

Court artist Jacopo Zucchi included a portrait of a bejeweled, middleaged, fair-skinned, partially clothed man holding a bow and arrow while gazing out at the viewer: a portrait of Ferdinando himself. The female figures in the foreground are reminiscent of a representation of a native woman in Ramusio’s Navigazioni. Ferdinando must have had himself placed amongst this allegorical scene of plenty, alongside indigenous women, to indicate that he had an association with the “marvels” of the Americas.

This painting differs greatly from This version of Jacopo Zucchi’s Allegory of the Americas, ca. 1590 (Lviv National Art Gallery, Ukraine), those scientific drawings exchanged includes a portrait of Ferdinando Medici (center left) with bow and arrows, literally painting the Medici into the myth of the American continent. between Francesco and Aldrovandi, The Newberry Magazine

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The Newberry houses the largest collection of documents in the United States by Sahagún, the early Spanish ethnographer and conservator of Mexican culture, some of which contributed to the “Florentine Codex.”

Ferdinando hired cartographer Robert Dudley for an expedition to Brazil. The atlas he created includes the Medici family coat-of-arms in the cartouche south of the Amazon.

One of the entries of books dellindie in Ferdinando’s inventory certainly refers to Bernardino de Sahagún’s Historia, also known as the “Florentine Codex.” Considered to be one of the first ethnographic studies of Mexico, the text is bilingual in the native Nahuatl and in Spanish and was illustrated by indigenous artists.

In Florence this manuscript inf luenced Medici court artist Ludovico Buti, who used the images in the codex in his frescoes on the ceiling of the rooms of the Armeria for the Uffizi. Images of Mexican warriors with their conical hats and long spears are unlike other European representations of the Americas and can derive only from images in the codex.

This Medici court artist was unique in both his reliance on Sahagún’s Historia and in his positive portrayal of indigenous people. His roundel in the ceiling portrays a positive celebratory image of the Americas that recalls the joyful people and lush nature described in the codex.

Located in the very center of this ceiling, a processional scene indicates that its artist and patron embraced and perhaps identified with the natives of the Americas. After all, the Medici, like the natives of New Spain and Peru, were also living under King Philip II’s rule. Perhaps this celebratory utopian scene of Peru, depicting the native chief being carried by his men, functioned as an allegory for Ferdinando’s new role as grand duke.

A decade after the frescoes were painted in the early seventeenth century, it seems that Ferdinando began to consider the idea of developing a Tuscan colony in the Americas, or

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at least of creating a commercial enterprise. In this pursuit, beginning in 1604, Ferdinando began to arm himself with as much information about Brazil as possible. In 1608, he hired Robert Dudley, a British cartographer, to organize an expedition to South America, laying the groundwork for a conquest that would never come to fruition.

During a period of just over 50 years—spanning the reigns of three grand dukes—the Americas changed tremendously within the Medici imagination, from that of an intangible other world experienced via collecting and art production to a land of opportunity with the promise of wealth. Documents such as letters between agents and colleagues and inventories elucidate the collections and representations of the Americas at the court and provide critical insight into the Medici family’s complex and changing conception of the Americas.

Representation of the Americas at the court became increasingly more fantastical and celebratory. There is thus a shift from nature to fantasy as the virtual became a reality.

Only after the novelty of the Americas had been fully explored and integrated alongside other wonders of the period through collection, documentation, and study, could it be represented allegorically and even participate as a subject of patriotic delight in court spectacle.

Lia Markey is the Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry.

College Prep

Through a series of field trips over the past three years, students from Hansberry, a Chicago public high school, have honed their research skills at the Newberry and used the library’s collection to take their history projects to the next level.

By Karen Christianson

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ach of the last three Februarys, groups of juniors from Hansberry College Prep have met at the school’s South Side campus early on a chilly Saturday morning, then piled into a school bus for a trip to the Newberry. Hansberry participates in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma program, a rigorous curriculum that provides students in the last two years of high school with strong preparation for college courses. As a core requirement, students must write an extended research paper of 3,000 to 4,000 words on a topic they select in history, literature, math, or science. Thanks to generous funding by an anonymous donor—matched the last two years by gifts from the Pritzker-Traubert Family Foundation—students who choose history or literature subjects focused on the Americas or Europe visit the Newberry to start the research for their essays.

The students’ first step is thinking of a general topic they’d like to know more about, followed by preliminary research to narrow that down and develop research questions to frame the essay. They then discover and read relevant secondary and primary sources, take notes, and write a research proposal

outlining their paper’s argument and organization. The process of writing a tightly argued, evidence-based essay follows. They also produce an annotated bibliography. Each pupil keeps a binder with a timeline and sections for notes from each of these steps.

Kameshia Ward, who teaches the required junior-level Theory of Knowledge philosophy course at Hansberry, serves as advisor for these students, providing them with guidance through the lengthy task of producing a high-quality paper.

“This is the first research project they’ve done,” she says.

“I love that—they’ve never been challenged like this before.

They have to grapple with the process. For so many things, we tend to hold their hands a lot, give them all the information they need. This, they do themselves. These are the skills they’ll need in college: how to evaluate sources, understanding what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.”

In a series of individual meetings with Mrs. Ward, students ref lect on what they’ve learned from each step along the way.

They started the process this past winter and will turn in their completed essays midway through the semester next fall.

On February 11, I joined Mrs. Ward and a group of 11 juniors on their Newberry field trip. When I arrived at Hansberry, a Chicago Public School affiliated with the Noble Network of charter schools, at a quarter to nine on a Saturday morning, I expected to find the campus deserted. Instead, the building seemed bursting with teenagers. A group of young women in cheerleader uniforms practiced a complicated dance routine in a hallway; other students hurried to a meeting of the poetry club. The pupils coming to the Newberry gathered in Mrs. Ward’s room before taking the bus downtown. They were just starting the first phases of

Kameshia Ward advises her students during a f ield trip to use the Newberry’s collection.

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“So much research is done online these days—which is wonderful— but there are things that students are going to find only in a book, and oftentimes only in primary sources.”

Kolbi Walker (left) studies at the Newberry.

the essay project, so their ideas for topics were still very broad.

One student said he was interested in World War I and World War II; another in Ruby Bridges and school segregation.

Upon arrival at the Newberry, the group first visited the library’s exhibition Photographing Freetowns: African American Kentucky through the Lens of Helen Balfour Morrison, 19351946, for a curator-led tour. Then the students headed to a private area of the General Reading Room, where Newberry librarians had selected reference materials and secondary sources related to the students’ chosen subjects. In addition to Mrs. Ward, several Newberry staff members worked with the students, including librarians Ikumi Crocoll and Matt Rutherford; Liesl Olson, director of Chicago Studies; Charlotte Ross, manager of professional development programs for teachers; and me. Dr. Olson assisted students with obtaining Reader Cards, while I demonstrated to a few students at a time how to use the library’s online catalog.

Through reading reference materials and talking about their interests, students started to focus on potential research questions. Kolbi Walker arrived interested in African American feminism. “I’m into everything about African American history and culture,” she said. “I believe in equality for women, so I started wondering, What were the differences between black and white feminists in the history of the women’s movement?”

Kolbi started by perusing articles in encyclopedias like Black Women in America and Women’s Rights in the United States: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Issues, Events, and People, and general surveys like A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America. As she read, she homed in on the events of the 1970s. Librarians pulled more specific materials for her, including Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism. By the end of her 90-minute session at the Newberry, Kolbi had narrowed her essay topic to important figures in African American feminism during the decade of the ’70s.

Similarly, Kevon Thomas was fascinated by the Great Chicago Fire. “The Chicago Fire made everything change,” he said. “People had to rebuild, to figure out the process of reconstruction. In a way, it was a great way to figure that out: what should the city be? ” Kevon had already done some preliminary research online, using sites like history.com and study.com, and he came to the Newberry with three possibilities for focus: what caused the fire, how it affected the civilian population, and what impact the fire had on the city. After looking through the recent history Smoldering City: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 1871-1874, Kevon was able to call up a luridly headlined Kenosha, Wisconsin, newspaper from the day after the fire began, and a book from 1871

Hansberry student Kolbi Walker consulted a number of sources in the Newberry’s collection as she focused her research topic on African American feminism in the 1970s.

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Karen Christianson helps Kevon Thomas navigate the library’s online catalog.

that included photographs and a map of the “burnt district.”

Ultimately, he decided to focus his essay on Chicago’s built environment, “the before and after of the fire.”

After the reading room session, over a pizza lunch in a Newberry classroom, the students debriefed on their experiences. Mrs. Ward went around the table and asked students to share what they thought their topic would be when they arrived, and how it had changed. Dwayne Banks, who was interested in World Wars I and II, had decided to focus on military tactics. He planned to conduct additional preliminary research to narrow his topic to either the European or Pacific theater of operations. Jamia Butler, who had seen a film about Ruby Bridges and wanted to learn more, decided to research the rise of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and their relationship to the history of segregated schools in America. Donielle Trueblood, who started out interested in the Harlem Renaissance writ large, was now concentrating on the movement’s musical theater. Each student reported a similar narrowing of focus.

Liesl Olson later ref lected on the value of bringing high school students to a research library. “So much research is done online these days—which is wonderful—but there are things that students are going to find only in a book, and oftentimes only in primary sources,” she said. “The Newberry is an ideal place for students, even if it’s just for the quiet reading rooms where books are brought right to your desk, with expert librarians who can help you with your big research questions.

Where else can you find that? We hope the Newberry sparks curiosity for high school students, and teaches them how to dig deep.”

Mrs. Ward echoed that sentiment, saying, “I like that coming to the Newberry gives our students exposure to topics they’ve never even considered. These are young people who would never have come to the Newberry on their own.

Getting them in the doors of a research library, getting them a Reader Card, showing them how to call up books: this gives them such a head start.”

Kevon Thomas’s interest in the Great Chicago Fire led him to discover resources like this contemporary map showing the extent of the f ire’s damage.

Recent Hansberry graduates now in college have told Mrs. Ward how important they’ve found the skills they acquired working through the extended essay. They tell her they feel much better prepared for college than many of their peers. Beyond providing practical help with a single research project, visiting the Newberry also helps students feel more comfortable utilizing university libraries once they get to college. They learn that they can talk to librarians and ask questions, as well as receive tips for navigating complicated and sometimes clunky online library catalogs.

When she learned the Newberry had lowered the minimum age for readers last year (from 16 to 14), Mrs. Ward began thinking of ways to expand the Newberry-Hansberry partnership, possibly to include projects tailored for students in the pre-IB first two years of high school. The Newberry looks forward to continuing this rewarding association in the years to come.

Karen Christianson is the Director of Public Engagement at the Newberry.

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DONOR CORNER

The Adventures of Two Newberry Donors Rod Swantko, DDS, and Rebecca Gray Smith have both discovered the Newberry is a place to explore their different interests, and in turn they both support the library in their own ways.

By Sarah Alger

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r. Rod Swantko grew up in Hammond, Indiana, the son of of Tom Sawyer—one of only a welder and a dressmaker. He put himself through college 200 copies bound in half morocco (leather), compared and dental school. Afterward, he was ready for a change. “After with more than 8,000 copies 10 years of reading only medical and dental books,” he recalls, bound in cloth and 1,500 “I wanted to read something different.” In the early 1990s, he in calfskin,” says Hansen. discovered the Newberry Book Fair. “The ladies who were In addition, this copy bears volunteering directed me to the collectibles section. There I found a copy of ‘Smoke and Steel’ by Carl Sandburg that had his an inscription reading “J.E. Simmons / Merry Christmas signature, and I was hooked.” He went home with a shopping 1876 / Regards of H.N. bag of books—the first of many he has acquired at Book Fair Hinckley.” Hinckley was over the years. As he built his oral surgery practice in Indiana, an employee of the book’s he also started sending away for catalogs from book dealers and publisher, the American auction houses. “I read every page of the catalogs and learned Publishing Company, a lot. I made small mistakes, but slowly taught myself what to buy.” Over the years, he has built an extraordinary collection that includes many rare and notable volumes of American literature.

One of his acquisitions was a first edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which he recently donated to the Newberry. Curator of Americana Will Hansen explains that like most of Mark Twain’s popular books, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was sold by subscription—with orders taken by traveling salesmen rather than in bookstores. The books were offered in a variety of binding styles to suit a diversity of budgets and tastes. “Dr. Swantko’s copy is a rare example of the most expensive binding offered for the first edition This f irst edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is one of only 200 copies bound in morocco leather.

It was recently donated to the Newberry by Dr. Rod Swantko.

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charged with opening a branch office in Chicago. Tom Sawyer was published just in time for Christmas 1876, so this is a very early gift inscription from the publisher, with an interesting connection to Chicago as well. “It’s a wonderful gift that adds to the Newberry’s great collection strength in nineteenth-century American literature, and to our Mark Twain collection specifically,” says Hansen.

With this gift, Dr. Swantko became a 2016-17 member of the Society of Collectors, which recognizes donors who make leadership gifts of funds or materials to build the library’s collection.

Rebecca Gray Smith at the Newberry studying a portrait of Alois Senefelder.

“Lithography, which now dominates almost all of modern commercial printing, was invented by one man, Alois Senefelder, in 1796 in order to print musical scores for his theater company. Senefelder used a greasy pencil on limestone from the Solnhofen Quarry in Bavaria, Germany.”

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ebecca Gray Smith, artist and printmaker, confides, “I can’t tell you how many wonderful Saturday mornings I spent doing research on the history of paper and printmaking in the Newberry’s reading room.” At the time, in 2005, she was just over 50 years old and working 12-hour days in the corporate world. “But, I knew I wanted to attend graduate school, and the history of paper and printing was to be my writing sample for graduate admissions.” In 2006 she was accepted into the University of Chicago’s Masters of Liberal Arts program.

For her Master’s thesis, Ms. Smith researched the history of intaglio etching, a printmaking process in which the lines to be printed are etched into a metal plate. Since earning her MA degree, she has been working as an artist full-time— painting, printmaking (etching and lithography), teaching,

and using the Newberry’s resources while writing a book on the history and processes of printmaking.

“In 2013-14, I taught a course at the University of Chicago Graham School’s adult education department on the history of printmaking, and I loved bringing my students to the Newberry. On our last field trip, Dr. Paul Gehl Self portrait. Printed on Solnhofen limestone with an edition of 15 originals (now curator emeritus) on March 13, 2017, at Anchor Graphshowed them the library’s ics Printshop at Columbia College, Chicago. examples of Korean movable type—used 400 years before Gutenberg.”

Ms. Smith is also using the Newberry’s genealogy and local history resources to research an article about her great, great grandfather, William Horace Holcomb, Jr., a Civil War soldier who enlisted in 1862 (sergeant, 77th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment), then was promoted to captain of the Union Army’s 76th Regiment of African American troops in 1864. He fought in some of the worst battles of the war, including Vicksburg and the final battle of Mobile, Alabama, in April 1865. After the war, he worked for the railroad, becoming vice president and general manager of Union Pacific Railroad in 1890. In 1893, he managed and opened the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition Transportation Building (on the site of where, in 2018-19, the Obama Presidential Center will be built).

“Six years ago, after I lost my husband and my father, I realized one can go at any time. I then made plans to leave a percentage of my estate to the Newberry. The library is such an incredible resource, and it’s free. I believe it’s important to support it.”

By making a bequest to the Newberry, Ms. Smith also became a member of the Blatchford Society, which recognizes those who make gifts to the library through their estate or make the Newberry a beneficiary on their retirement or life insurance plans. Gifts of any size qualify for membership, and donors are recognized by name or anonymously, whichever they prefer.

For more information on the Society of Collectors or the Blatchford Society, contact Sarah Alger, Director of Development, at (312) 255-3544 or algers@ newberry.org.

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RETROSPECT

Recent Events MUNTU DANCE THEATRE OF CHICAGO On March 23, 12 performers from Muntu Dance Theatre electrified Ruggles Hall with a fast-moving mix of narration and dance, accompanied by drums and other traditional African musical instruments. The event was planned in conjunction with the Newberry exhibition Photographing Freetowns: African American Kentucky through the Lens of Helen Balfour Morrison, 1935–1946, and the dancers used interpretations of contemporary and ancient African, African American, and Caribbean dance, music, and folklore to express the spirit of the freetowns. Interactive elements involved the audience throughout, culminating in a finale that brought many attendees out of their seats to learn and join the dance.

This program was supported by Newberry Trustee Cindy Mitchell.

Photos by Meghan McCloud

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RETROSPECT

“THE LIVES OUTSIDE HER WINDOW” Chicago proved fertile ground for the artistic development of Gwendolyn Brooks. She let the city’s street scenes and density of life inspire her first collection of poems, A Street in Bronzeville, as well as subsequent publications such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Allen. This year, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Brooks’s birth, institutions across the city, including the Newberry, are organizing public programs to celebrate her legacy. On April 5, a group of poets, historians, and archivists gathered at the library to share their personal and professional experiences with Brooks, her poetry, and the personal papers she left behind.

Quraysh Ali Lansana, a poet and former student of Brooks, remarked upon his mentor’s ability to transform the quotidian into art: “She looked out the window to find her poems,” he said. Another poet, Camille Dungy, elaborated on this theme, saying, “Brooks described the lives outside her window with dignity and care. It was revolutionary for a black woman to write her truth in such insightful language.” Brooks also produced a great deal of non-literary—but no less insightful—writing. A prolific note-taker, Brooks maintained lists of books she intended to read, kept food diaries, and recorded plot synopses of “One Life to Live.” According to Anna Chen, who works with the Gwendolyn Brooks literary archives as curator of rare books and manuscripts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Brooks was an “inveterate chronicler” whose meticulousness in poetry is ref lected in the meticulousness of her note-taking.

The program also featured a series of performances from the next generation of Chicago poets: students from Rebirth Poetry Ensemble.

Students from Rebirth Poetry Ensemble perform works by Gwendolyn Brooks as well as their own poetry. Photos by Meghan McCloud

ZION HILL: ENVISIONING A BLACK FUTURE How did freed slaves work to build and envision a future for themselves in the Post-Civil War South? How did the freetowns that they founded, like Zion Hill, fit into dreams of freedom? Luther Adams, Professor of African American and U.S. History at the University of Washington Tacoma, explored these questions during a public lecture at the Newberry on April 12. Adams’s lecture was held in conjunction with the exhibition Photographing Freetowns:African American Kentucky through the Lens of Helen Balfour Morrison, 1935–1946 (on display at the Newberry this past winter).

According to Adams, when we see black life in 1930s and ‘40s Kentucky through the perspectives of white artists and documentarians, we don’t see everything. In the photographs in Photographing Freetowns, there are no signs of the violence that was often directed at the people in the freetown communities. The photos can reveal the hope and promise inherent in a place called “Zion,” showing one vision for a black future; but they leave out the struggle it takes to realize it.

This program was supported by the Morrison-Shearer Foundation.

Luther Adams gives context to the photographs in the Photographing Freetowns exhibition.

Listen to the talk: http://bit.ly/2o43GWh

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Thanks to digital tools, the Newberry’s community of learning extends far beyond the library’s building. But these tools only augment and cannot replace the face-to-face (or face-topage) interactions that are the lifeblood of the Newberry.

That is why, starting January 2018, the library will embark on a six-month renovation project to transform much of the 25,600 square feet of our first f loor. The renovations will enhance the services we currently offer in these parts of the building, while creating exciting new opportunities for visitors to interact with the Newberry’s collection and staff.

Crafting the renovation’s plans and overseeing its implementation is Ann Beha Architects (ABA), an award-winning architecture firm with vast experience in updating cultural institutions while staying true to the historic legacies of their buildings. ABA’s plans call for introducing new design elements as well as preserving and (in some cases) restoring architectural details that originally graced the Newberry building.

Following are key elements of these plans.

We share them with you now, and look forward to welcoming you into the new spaces when they are completed in the summer of 2018.

LOBBY

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From the Ground Up

The greeter desk and security kiosk, now centrally located in the Newberry lobby, will be repositioned to give visitors an inviting, sweeping view of the staircase and other architectural elements. Restoring the lobby’s mosaic tiling will add to the vista. (While planning the renovation, we’ve gotten a crash course in the argot of architecture. For example, this mosaic is composed not of tiles but of tesserae!)

INFORMATION CENTER ➜ An information center, to be located in the space currently occupied by the Newberry Bookstore, will welcome new visitors and provide them with a friendly introduction to the many ways in which they can engage with our collection and staff.

During reading room hours, visitors can register as readers and receive a quick orientation on how to request collection items and view them in the library reading rooms.

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BOOKSTORE

The Newberry Bookstore will be relocated to an expanded space in what is now the Smith Gallery, to the east of the lobby. The new bookstore’s layout is designed to display more items than is currently possible, while providing customers with more space to comfortably browse the selection.

Visitors can read, use public wi-fi, and have a cup of coffee in a lounge area just outside the bookstore.

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PROGRAM AND EVENT SPACES ➜ New spaces on the west end of the first f loor can be configured for event rentals and a variety of public programs, including lectures, panel discussions, and film screenings.

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02/07/17

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PERMANENT GALLERY

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EXHIBITIONS

The gallery space on the west side of the lobby, currently used for temporary thematic exhibitions, will be expanded and converted into a permanent display of collection highlights. This is a brand-new feature for the Newberry—the library has never had a permanent exhibition space! A frequently changing selection of books, maps, and manuscripts representing the scope of the Newberry’s collection will appear in this gallery.

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Cases along the adjacent hallway just to the north of this new gallery will display additional materials from the Newberry’s collection.

PROGRAM SPACE

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PASSAGE GALLERY DISPLAY CASES

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FIRST-FLOOR SEMINAR ROOM ➜ Classes can engage directly with Newberry collection items and staff in a new precision climate-controlled seminar room on the first f loor, between the new bookstore location and Ruggles Hall.

EAST SEMINAR ROOM

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The Newberry Magazine

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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, meet-the-author events, exhibitions, seminars, and other programs. Unless otherwise noted, programming is free and no reservations are required. This is a partial list of programs. Please check www.newberry.org for updates.

EXHIBITIONS

Exploration 2017: The 31st Annual Juried Exhibition of the Chicago Calligraphy Collective March 20 – June 16 Religious Change and Print, 1450 – 1700 September 14 – December 30 MAY Conversations at the Newberry A Second Emancipation? The Great Migration Then and Now James Grossman and Isabel Wilkerson Wednesday, May 17, 6 pm Meet the Author Robin Bachin, Big Bosses: A Working Girl’s Memoir of Jazz Age America Thursday, May 25, 6 pm Indigeneity, Gender, and Sexualities: A Scholarly Symposium Friday, May 26, 10 am – 3 pm JUNE Genealogy and Local History Orientation Saturday, June 3, 9 am

Frank Lloyd Wright: Looking Forward and Thinking Back John Waters, Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy Thursday, June 8, 6 pm Make Music Chicago in Washington Square Park Wednesday, June 21 JULY Genealogy and Local History Orientation Saturday, July 1, 9 am The 33rd Annual Newberry Book Fair Thursday, July 27 – Sunday, July 30 The Bughouse Square Debates Saturday, July 29, noon – 4 pm AUGUST

Genealogy and Local History Orientation Saturday, August 5, 9 am

Newberry Library Award Dinner Honoring

Colonial History Lecture Series Jane Kamensky, A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley Saturday, June 3, 10 am

Martin E. Marty for his outstanding contributions to the humanities Monday, June 12, 6 pm To learn more about this event and purchase tickets, visit www.newberry.org/2017-award-dinner

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Spring 2017

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1450-1700

Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, Religious Change, 1450–1700 is a multidisciplinary project exploring how religion and print challenged authority, upended society, and made the medieval world modern.

You are invited to join us during 2017-18 as we pursue this theme through programs for the public, students, and scholars; digital resources; and a gallery exhibition.

www.newberry.org/religious-change

Non-Profit Organization

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

JULY 27–30

2017

The Newberry Library

Be the First to Shop the 2017 Newberry Book Fair!

Annual Fund donors at the $100 level or more receive special access for two to Chicago’s biggest used-book binge. Book Fair Preview Night is Wednesday, July 26, 4–8 pm.

For more information on this and other benefits of membership in the Newberry Associates, please call Alexandra Katich at (312) 255-3599.