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Monthly Archives: July 2017

Book of the Week — A New Hieroglyphical Bible, for the Amusement and Instruction of Children

31 Monday Jul 2017

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Alexander Anderson, America, American, Augsburg, Baltimore, Bible, children, Dutch, emblem books, English, French, hieroglyphical, Isaiah Thomas, New York, Samuel W. Wood & Co., Samuel Wood & Sons, wood engraving

BS560-H54-1818-pg32spread
“…so also can nothing be more unprofitable, than the too customary mode of charging the infant memory with verses, or even chapters of abstract doctrines, or passages, about the true meaning of which, schoolmen themselves have hitherto been divided in opinion.” — from the Preface

A New Hieroglyphical Bible, for the Amusement and Instruction of Children
Alexander Anderson (1775-1870)
New York: Published by Samuel Wood & Sons, And Samuel W. Wood & Co…Baltimore, 1818
BS560 H54 1818

Hieroglyphic Bibles were a natural development from emblem books, in which often complex visual images served as emblems for intellectual or aesthetic ideas presented as moral or religious lessons. The first one was published in Augsburg in 1687. French and Dutch editions followed in the eighteenth century. The first English edition appeared fairly late, but it was followed by at least thirteen other editions before the end of the eighteenth century. The first American hieroglyphic Bible was published in 1788 by Isaiah Thomas.

Alexander Anderson has been called the father of wood engraving in America, and was certainly one of its masters. His work included prints, almanacs, fiction, travel, children’s books, Bibles, religious tracts, medical texts, and broadsides.

BS560-H54-1818-title

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On Jon’s Desk: Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, A Celebration of Heritage on Pioneer Day

24 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by Jonathan Bingham in Book of the Week, On Jon's Desk

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1913, biographies, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Emery, Francis Lyman, Frank Esshom, Jon Bingham, Joseph Smith, Oregon, photographs, Pioneer Day, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, Salt Lake City, St. George, Utah, Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Company, Vernal, Weber, Yellowstone National Park

F825-E78-1913-SpineCover

Photograph by Scott Beadles

“The greatest inheritance of man is a posterity; the greatest inheritance of a posterity is a Christian Ancestry – that these greatest inheritances may live in record, this volume is issued.”

– From the Title Page of Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah

Title: Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah

Author: Frank Esshom

Published: Salt Lake City, Utah: Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Company, 1913

Call Number: F825 E78 1913

First Edition

 

Happy Pioneer Day! What better way is there to celebrate Pioneer Day than to look at some photographs and biographies of the Utah pioneers themselves? Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah makes it easy to get an idea of who these pioneers were. Compiled by Frank Esshom over the course of six years, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah is a collection of 6,482 photographs and biographies published in an edition of 5,000 copies in 1913. In the preface, speaking on reasons why he is proud of the work, the author wrote, “… it will live as a memorial to those men whose deeds were rapidly being forgotten. The story of the leaders has been told repeatedly, but that of the rank and file, the ones who did the actual pioneering and building has not been told before. This will cause them to live on perpetually, and each succeeding generation will know their labors; their deeds will increase in miraculousness; their valor will be more greatly appreciated; their heroisms stand out unprecedented, showing the quality of the men who dared to turn their faces toward an unknown desert and to build homes, and an empire.” (page 11)

Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah is organized into three sections. The first section contains the photographs of the men profiled. The second section is comprised of their biographies, arranged alphabetically by the earliest male head of household by that name, followed by entries for his male descendants. The biographical entries typically list vital information, date of arrival in Utah, marriages and children, LDS church office held, occupation, and other information of interest. The third section includes a chronological history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the ancestry of Joseph Smith, Junior.

The two primary faults in this collection of biographies are that some of the records contain inaccuracies (no source data is included) and that there were approximately 70,000 pioneers – meaning this work contains only about ten percent of them. Many of those were, of course, women, who probably lost husbands or fathers along the way. Many stories of the “rank and file” who actually did most of the pioneering and building did, even after this book’s publication, go untold.

But let’s not be too hard on Esshom’s work. Despite its lack of completeness, what was gathered and published was actually quite extraordinary under the constraints of the time it was compiled. Describing the process used to gather the information for this book the author wrote,

“After a year of gathering material and data in Salt Lake City, a year was spent in Weber and Utah counties in the same quest. Then a thorough search was started, as a beginning to the end; the Bishop of every ward from Yellowstone National Park and Upper Oregon on the north and northwest to Vernal, Emery and St. George on the south and southeast in Utah, was visited. … [the bishop] gratuitously furnished the author with the names of the Pioneers who had died in his ward, and the names of their representative male descendants, also the names of the Pioneers who were living in his ward and the names of their representative male descendants. … After this organization was perfected, the author, assisted by a corps of solicitors visited each house in every ward in all of the stakes in the territory above mentioned, where a Pioneer or the descendant of a Pioneer lived as given by the Bishop of the ward, or could be secured from inquiry, and gathered the portraits and genealogies as complete as it was possible to so do, and arranged for the information unobtainable at that time to be sent to him. The gathering of this data, which could be acquired in no other manner, probably required more than fifty thousand calls, the assistance of every photographer in the territory, [and] the traveling of thousands of miles, which was made over every kind of roads in all kinds of weather, and by every mode of conveyance.” (page 11)

It is no wonder the preface for Francis Marion Lyman points out that, “In nineteen hundred and eight, after a year’s labor gathering data for the Pioneers’ history, the vastness of the undertaking dawned upon its promoters and depressed them to almost stupidness.” (page 6)

It’s a miracle we have what we have in this one volume of Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah. So grab your favorite cast iron cooking device, fry some flatbread, and discuss your pioneer heritage with the family on this Pioneer Day. Then come check out Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah and see how close Frank Esshom got with the records of your pioneer ancestors. It’s fun for every pioneer-heritaged family.

~ Contributed by Jon Bingham, Rare Books Curator

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Rare Books Online Exhibition – La Parola Scritta: XVI Centuries of Italian Culture in Ink

18 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by Jonathan Bingham in Online Exhibitions

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2013 Year of Italian Culture in the United States, ink, Italian Culture, J. Willard Marriott Library, La Parola Scritta, Online Exhibition, rare books, Special Collections, Suitter Axland, The Honorary Italian Consulate of Salt Lake City, The Italian Club of Salt Lake City, The Italian-American Civic League, Tony Caputo Market & Deli, written word

La Parola Scritta: XVI Centuries of Italian Culture in Ink

In honor of the 2013 Year of Italian Culture in the United States, this exhibition includes books from the 15th through the 19th century celebrating Italian contributions to printing, poetry, theater, music, geography, mathematics, botany, astronomy, anatomy, law, typography, dance, travel and more. Many of the books in this exhibition are first editions, including the first printed edition of Euclid’s Geometry (Venice, 1482) and Galileo’s Dialogo (Florence, 1632). The reception for this exhibition included hands-on displays of medieval manuscript facsimiles and 20th century artists’ books. Those books are included in the online exhibition.

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Book of the Week — On Painting

17 Monday Jul 2017

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aquating, architecture, blind, Brunelleschi, carborundum, copper, copperplate oil, Donatello, drypoint, engineering, etching, Florence, goatskin, inks, intaglio, Italian, Leon Battista Alberti, London, Masaccio, mathematics, mezzoting, Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, painter, Perspex, pigments, poetry, Prose, relief, sand grain, sculpture, Susan Allix, Tuscan, zinc

ND1130-A4813-1999-ColorBlock
“Colour and light have an important relationship in the act of seeing…colours multiply among themselves, but, like the elements, there are only four true colours from which other species of colour are born. There is red, the colour of fire; blue, of air; green, of water; and earth, ashen grey…from these four colours according to the addition of light or dark, black or white, are made innumerable other hues. Therefore the mixing in of white will not change the basic colour, but just make tints;’ and black has a similar power, with its addition making an almost infinite number of colours. You can see colours alter in the shade; when the shade deepens the colours fade, when the light brightens they become brighter and clearer.” — Leon Battista Alberti

ON PAINTING
Leon Battista Alberti (1401-1472) and Susan Allix
London: 1999
ND1130 A4813 1999

Leon Alberti was born in 1401 in Florence. His art was influenced by the work of Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Masaccio. He wrote On Painting in order to “set forth principles to be followed by the painter.” Alberti then turned his attention to architecture, for which he is better remembered today. He wrote De Re Aedificatoria and received several commissions for building projects. He had a deep understanding of the classical past, but an eye for contemporary change. He wrote on sculpture, poetry, prose, mathematics, engineering and other topics. His work was studied by generations of artists.

ND1130-A4813-1999-Power

This translation of On Painting is by Susan Allix, based on the Italian text published in L. B. Alberti, Opere Volgari, Volume Terzo. Allix writes, “This translation…is a painter’s translation and includes those parts that seem to hold, for the present, the most important of Alberti’s ideas…it has been extensively abridged to prevent it from becoming several volumes.”

In a letter to Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, Allix wrote, “One day I started to read Alberti’s book and was astounded at his idea that everything begins with a dot. I spent a long time struggling away with fifteenth century Tuscan (helped with a more modern translation), but present Italian hasn’t altered so much and I did find it readable. I wanted my own translation. Slightly unprofessionally some of this was done in the afternoon quiet of an Italian camping site. One interesting page is where I followed Alberti’s instructions on how to achieve a squared pavement. So complicated, I never believed it would work, but lo and behold the perspective of the squared pavement appeared!”

ND1130-A4813-1999-TheFirst

This edition contains twenty-eight intaglio prints, the result of four years of sketchbook observation and drawing, plate-making and reworking the plates. The prints were made from copper, zinc, and Perspex plates, and contain a wide variety of techniques. There is etching, drypoint, and mezzotint, often in combination, and also open bite, aquatint, sand grain, and carborundum. The plates have been printed black and white and color in intaglio, relief and blind. All the inks are made from pure pigments ground in copperplate oil, so interleaving sheets is necessary to stop the plates from offsetting. As each plate is hand-inked and printed separately, complete uniformity is not possible. Twenty of the prints are in color, seven in black and white, one in blind, and many have extra hand-coloring on the prints or the type. The first ten copies, of which this is number three, have watercolor and pencil paintings on Japanese paper between each of the three of Alberti’s books.

Bound in full cream goatskin, upper cover tinted with a border of darker purple dye, extending to the spine, and an abstract design of other lighter tints and various colored goatskin onlays with textured endpapers.

ND1130-A4813-1999-Cover

Rare Books copy has holographic letter written in ink on both sides of the press’s stationary from Allix to book collector Denis Collins, prospectus, and biographical article about the author, entitled “God is in the datail,” laid in. Signed in ink on the verso of the front flyleaf: “For Denis/with warmest regards/Susan/11 April 2000.” Collins’ stamp on recto of terminal endpaper. One of twenty-two copies, numbered and signed by the artist.

ND1130-A4813-1999-Reclining
ND1130-A4813-1999-WomanSea

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Article on Utah Arabic Paper fragment added to Academia.edu

13 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Journal Articles

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Abbasid, Abū al-Ḥasan, Academia.edu, Alī, Arabic, business, Cairo, caliphs, Egypt, Eunuch, Fatimids, fragment, Ikhchicid dynasty, Kāfūr, mercenary, Naïm Vanthieghem, paper, papyrologist, Rare Books Department, slave, Tuġǧ al-Iḫšīd, Turkish, Unūǧūr, Utah

1383-Front
“But in the end it was the eunuch Kāfūr, the slave of their father, who held the strongest political hand over the country.”

P. Utah Inv. 1383
Cairo, abt 954 CE
paper

Arabic papyrologist Naïm Vanthieghem has added a paper to Academia.edu, publishing an Arabic paper fragment held in the Rare Books Department’s Arabic Papyrus, Parchment and Paper Collection. The paper is titled “Une contribution pour la table d’un prince ikhchidide. Édition de P. Utah Inv. 1383” and may be downloaded here.

Naïm Vanthieghem has identified this piece as being written in Cairo about 954. The fragment concerns business with Abū al-Ḥasan Alī b. Muḥammad al-Iḫšīd, “the third and last sovereign Ikhchidid,” about whom little is known.

“His father Muḥammad b. Tuġǧ al-Iḫšīd, a Turkish mercenary, founded the Ikhchicid dynasty in 935. The dynasty ruled in Egypt on behalf of the Abbasid caliphs. Upon his death, his two sons Unūǧūr (946-961) and Alī (961-966) succeeded him….But in the end it was the eunuch Kāfūr, the slave of their father, who held the strongest political hand over the country. At the disappearance of Alī, in 966, Kāfūr evicted Aḥmad, son of Unūǧū…and exercised power directly until his death in 968. The unfortunate Aḥmad briefly inherited the throne, before the Fatimids toppled it in 969. The reign of Alī was marked by many shortages and economic crises that weakened the power of the Ikhchidids and thus favored the advent of the Fatimid caliphs.”

In the past, Naïm Vanthieghem has contributed descriptive terms to many pieces from the Utah Arabic Papyrus, Parchment and Paper Collection and published several pieces in international academic journals. Read about some of his other articles here.

Thank you, Naïm! We look forward to seeing more of your work with our collection.

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Rare Books goes to Ghent!

12 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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Ayyubid, Barbanūda, Bristol, Coptic, Copts, Egypt, Fatimid, Fayoum, Ghent University, Leuven, Mamluk, Naïm Vanthieghem, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, Paris, Peeters, rare books, Syria

#933-Front
“It is a contract of sale concluded between parties whose anthroponymy shows that they were exclusively Coptic; it was found in the east of Fayoum, a region which was still largely occupied by Copts in the Fatimid period.” — Naïm Vanthieghem

Naïm Vanthieghem took Rare Books to a colloquium at Ghent Univeristy. His paper was published in Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 244 “Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras VIII,” Peeters: Leuven, Paris, Bristol, CT, 2016. The title of the paper is “L’arabisation des Coptes: un Temoin inedit.”

Mr. Vanthieghem has dated this fragment to avril-mai 1030. The contract is for the sale of a portion of a home in the village of Barbanūda. Mr. Vanthieghem posits that the geographic origin of the document, the name of the parties involved and grammatical errors in the Arabic text suggest that it was created by Copts, who hoped to give more legal authority to the contract by recording it in Arabic.

His paper is available in Special Collections. Call number: DT 72 C7 V36 2016. The paper fragment, no. 933 from the Arabic Papyrus, Parchment, and Paper collection, is also available to look at.

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Rare Books Goes to Warsaw!

11 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Journal Articles, Publication

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Analecta Papyrologica, Arabic, Arabic Papyrus, bilingualism, Cairo Geniza, Classical Studies, contracts, Coptic, Egypt, estate manager, European Research Council, Fatamid, Free Universtiy of Brussels, Greek, Heroninus, Johannes Gutenberg University, Journal of Juristic Papyrology, legal documents, Mainz, Marina Rustow, Modern Languages and Literatures - Arabic Language and Literature, multilingualism, Naïm Vanthieghem, Near Easter Studies, paper fragments, papyrus, Princeton University, Ramadan, Rare Books Department, slaves, Special Collections, The Cairo Geniza as a Source for the History of Institutions and Documentary Practices in the Medieval Middle East, University of Zurich, Utah

#60-Front
P. Utah inv. 6o
end of ninth century
papyrus

“J’ai pu y decouvrir une trentaine de documents juridiques arabes inedits de toutes epoques, parmi lesquels quelques beaux specimens de contrat de vente d’esclaves.” (I have discovered thirty legal documents in Arabic…, including some fine specimens of contracts for the sale of slaves.) — Naïm Vanthieghem

Five pieces from the Arabic Papyrus, Parchment, and Paper Collection were published by Naïm Vanthieghem in The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, vol. XLIV (2014), pp. 163-187 (Warsaw). The article is titled “Quelques Contrats de vente d’Esclaves.” Unfortunately, the J. Willard Marriott Library does not hold this journal. Mr. Vanthieghem graciously sent us a pdf of his article, which we have had cataloged. It may be found under the call number HT1317 V36 2014 when requested at the Special Collections Reference Desk, Level 4. The papyrus and paper are also available for review.

Naïm Vanthieghem obtained his MA in Classical Studies (2009) and in Modern Languages and Literatures – Arabic Language and Literature (2010) at the Free University of Brussels (ULB). He then specialised in the field of Arabic papyrology at the University of Zurich (2010–11) and at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz (2011–12). He received his PhD at the Free University of Brussels with a dissertation devoted to the archive of an estate manager called Heroninus, who was in charge of a large estate in mid-third-century Egypt (2015).

Naïm Vanthieghem has written several articles and reviews in the fields of Greek, Coptic and Arabic papyrology. He has a special interest in the study of multilingualism in medieval Egypt, and in several contributions he highlighted the existence of an Arabic-Coptic bilingualism that emerged in Egypt in the ninth century and disappeared in the late Fatimid period (twelfth century). He has also worked for several years on Arabic legal documents, for the project “Islamic Law Materialized” funded by the European Research Council. In the framework of the project “The Cairo Geniza as a Source for the History of Institutions and Documentary Practices in the Medieval Middle East” led by Prof. Marina Rustow, he is studying Fatimid Arabic documents of the Cairo Geniza. He is currently a post-doctoral research associate with the department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University.

Among his publications is “Les archives d’un maquignon d’Égypte médiévale ?” Analecta papyrologica 26 (2014), for which he also used pieces from the Rare Books Department Arabic Papyrus, Parchment and Paper collection.

Below are the papyrus and paper fragments of legal contracts for the sale of slaves in Egypt dating from end of the third century to the 16th century, as identified by Mr. Vanthieghem.

#427-Front
P. Utah inv. 427 recto
end of third century
papyrus

#1356-Front
P. Utah inv. 1356 recto
paper
26 ramadan 325 (tenth century)

#949-Front
P. Utah inv. 949 recto
paper
1 ramadan 326

#949-Back
P. Utah inv. 949 verso
paper
1 ramadan 326

#839-Front
P. Utah inv. 839 recto
paper
6 Dec 1497
Cairo?

 

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Book of the Week — تاريخ راشد افندي

10 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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America, Arabic, Austria, Celebizade, dictionary, European, France, grammar, historian, historiographer, Holland, Hungarian, Ibrahim Muteferrika, Islam, Istanbul, Latin, Muslim, Muteferrika Press, Ottoman, Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish, poet, Rasit Efendi, Turkish, typeface, woodcut

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-firstimage
تاريخ راشد افندي
تاريخ راشد
قسطنطنية : ابراهيم من متفرقه كان

The first Turkish printing house was established in Istanbul on December 14, 1727. The director of the press was Ibrahim Muteferrika (1674-1745), a Hungarian convert to Islam. In 1726 Muteferrika sent a report on the efficiency of the printing press to Vizier Damat Ibrahim Pasha, the Grand Mufti. After he submitted another report to Sultan Ahmed, he recieved permission to publish non-religious books, over the objections of calligraphers and religious leaders.

Muteferrika Press published sixteen books between 1729 and 1742. Each edition consisted of between five hundred and one thousand copies. The presses themselves came from France, the typefaces were designed and cut by Muteferrika. The printers were from Austria. The press’s first title, a dictionary, contained maps and drawings from the Islamic world. A grammar (1730) was the first printed Ottoman work in Latin. In 1732, the press published a history of the discovery of America. This was the first book by a Muslim author about the Americas and included thirteen woodcut illustrations.

The work presented here is Rasit Efendi’s Tarih-i Rashid Afandi, published in 1741 by the Muteferrika Press. This was the sixteenth book to be published by the press. The work covers the period 1071-1134AH (1660-1772) of the official Ottoman history.  Rashid’s work is added to with Celebizade Isma’il Asim’s Tarih-i Celebizade Efendi, a history by Celebizade (d 1173 [1760]. Both Rashid and Celebizade held the post of official historiographer for the Ottoman Empire. This publication, printed in four volumes, here bound as one, is considered the prime source for the period.

The text, printed in Arabic script, is in Ottoman Turkish. Rare Books copy has evidence of at least one hand underlining and marking in faded brown ink. Bound in Ottoman style with blind-stamped European leather, lined with patterned paper.

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-pattern

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-colophon

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-secondimage

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Rare Books Goes to Geneva!

06 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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American, Americas, aquatints, Elizabeth Daley, English, fairy tale, Fort McKenzie, French, frontier, German, indigenous, July, Karl Bodmer, Montana, Patek Philippe, Prince Maximilian zu Wied, rare books, Romantic, Scott Beadles, Special Collections Reading Room, watercolors

Tableau_41
“A seemingly idyllic, rarely seen American past comes to life like a fairy tale — some land before time, before film, before death.”

Patek Philippe: The International Magazine used images from the Karl Bodmer aquatints held in the rare book collections for an article in its July 2017 issue. The digital reproductions, especially crafted by Rare Books assistant Scott Beadles for this issue, illustrate “Home of the Braves,” by Elizabeth Daley.

“In the 1830s, when the American West was on the verge of momentous change, a German prince set off to explore the country and its people. He took with him a Swiss artist, whose intricate depictions are the last record [before photography] of a disappearing world.” Swiss-born artist Karl Bodmer accompanied Prince Maximilian zu Wied on his two-year journey across the American frontier, reaching as far west as Fort McKenzie, Montana.

Tableau_5edited

The Rare Books Department holds a set of the eighty-one aquatints produced after watercolors by Bodmer for zu Wied’s Travels in the Interior of North America, first published in German in 1839 and later translated into English and French. Rare Books holds first editions of the German and of the English translation.

You can look at the digitized collection here:

Karl Bodmer Aquatints

In this digital format, you can also look at the first German and English editions of zu Wied’s Travels. Better than that, however, you can visit the Special Collections Reading Room and browse the lush, exquisitely detailed aquatints in their original state.

Hardly a romantic fairy tale, the history of indigenous peoples in the Americas is often tragic (they were not saved by a Prince) but always rich in its antiquity and its currency. Bodmer’s aquatints and zu Wied’s Travels are only part of a story worth exploring to your heart’s content in Special Collections.

Patek-Philippe-Cover

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We Recommend — One for the Books

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Lecture

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"graphic designer", Alabama, assisted living, book artist, book arts, Book Arts Program, bottles, cotton rag handmade paper, dolls, farm implements, fossils, Glenn House, Gordo, J. Willard Marriott Library, Jessica Peterson, lecture, letterpress printer, Ma'Cille House, memento, miscellanea, museum, New Orleans, newspaper archives, Northport, Paper Souvenir, Prince Edward County, Prince Edward School Foundation, public education, pull-outs, Rare Books Classroom, Rare Books Department, stab binding, t-shirts, taxidermy, The School of Art Institute of Chicago, The Southern Letterpress, University of Alabama, Virginia, workshop

N7433.4-P475-M33-2011-Digging

Jessica Peterson, book artist, letterpress printer, and graphic designer is the owner of The Southern Letterpress in New Orleans. She holds an MFA in Book Arts from the University of Alabama and a BFA from The School of Art Institute of Chicago.

While visiting the J. Willard Marriott Library to teach a workshop for the Book Arts Program, she will also give a lecture on non-traditional letterpress techniques.

Thursday
July 13
6PM
Rare Books Classroom
Level 4
J. Willard Marriott Library
The University of Utah

Free and open to the public

The Rare Books Department is pleased to support the Book Arts Program with its collections and services.


N7433.4-P475-M33-2011-cover

Ma’Cille’s Museum of Miscellanea
Jessica Peterson (b. 1976), compilar
Gordo, AL: J. Peterson, 2011
N7433.4 P475 M33 2011

This book is an attempt to catalog Ma’Cille’s Museum of Miscellanea ten years after it closed, based on memories of people who visited the museum and newspaper archives. Ma’Cille House (d. 1999), whose formal education ended in 7th grade, began collecting miscellanea in the 1950s, including such things as dug-up bottles, dolls, farm implements, taxidermy, and fossils. After she had raised seven children, she established her museum, in the early 1960s, on a rural back road near Gordo, Alabama. By the time the museum closed forty years later, it was world famous – a multi-building institution visited by thousands of people. In 1998, the Ma’Cille’s family, facing the costs of assisted living care for her, and other financial burdens, auctioned off the museum’s contents. The story of the museum was preserved through stories that circulated about Gordo. Drawings by Glenn House, Sr. Letterpress printed on textblock cotton rag handmade paper from Alabama clay-colored t-shirts. Book contains pull-outs, including one printed memento from Ma’Cille’s. Paper covered boards with exposed stab binding. Laid in a printed four-flap paper folder. Issued in paper slipcase. Edition of thirty copies. Rare Books copy is number 6, signed by the compilar, who also researched, wrote and designed it.

N7433.4-P475-M33-2011-Finale

 


N7433.4-P475-U53-2014-PrinceEdward

Unbound
Jessica Peterson (b. 1976)
Northport, AL: Paper Souvenir, 2014
N7433.4 P475 U53 2014

From the introduction: “In the fall of 1959, the public schools of Prince Edward County, Virginia were closed in response to a court order to desegregate. The schools remained closed for five years. Many white children began attending a system of private schools established by the Prince Edward School Foundation. As permitted by state law, tuition for these schools was almost completely subsidized by the government. No one elected to attend the private academy for black students organized by the same group of white leaders…lawsuits about the intersection of public education and race circulated through the state and federal courts. Edition of one hundred copies. Rare Books copy is no. 81.

N7433.4-P475-M33-2011-Children

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