Category Archives: Rare Books and Manuscripts

Marianne Moore: College Education to Professional Career

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MMoore Senior PictureBryn Mawr College Special Collections is in the final stages of reorganizing and cataloging the papers of one of the college’s most cherished alumnae, the poet Marianne Craig Moore (Class of 1909). The Marianne Craig Moore Papers consist of 23 boxes of correspondence, photographs, audio recordings, manuscripts, news clippings, and ephemera. We can also boast that we have in our collection one of Marianne Moore’s cloaks, her briefcase with the monogram “M.M.,” and one of her iconic tricorner hats! These materials were given to Bryn Mawr by many donors including Hildegarde and J. Sibley Watson, Jr., Sallie Moore and Marianne Craig “Bee” Moore, Mary Woodworth, Anna Marcet Haldeman-Julius, K. Laurence Stapleton, and many Bryn Mawr alumnae. The collection reveals unique aspects of Marianne Moore’s education at Bryn Mawr.

At the time of her death in 1972, Marianne Moore was well-known as an innovative and witty modernist poet. She won multiple awards for her books of poetry including the Pulitzer Prize, the Bollingen Prize, The National Book Award, The National Medal for Literature, France’s Croix de Chevalier, and sixteen honorary degrees. Until the time of her final illness in 1969, Moore participated in numerous speaking engagements and graciously gave critical advice to young and upcoming poets. Success had not come quickly or easily for Marianne, however. She faced many challenges in acquiring a college education, being professionally published, and finding a professional position as an editor and writer.

Marianne Moore was born to Mary Warner Moore and John Milton Moore in Kirkwood, Missouri in 1887. Because John Moore suffered a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized before she was born, the poetess never knew her father. Marianne, with her mother and her older brother, moved to Pennsylvania in 1894. While living in Carlisle, PA, Mary Moore worked as an English teacher. A single mother, Mary would continue to hold this job so that both of her children could attend college—John at Yale and Marianne at Bryn Mawr. Details of the financial burden of putting two children through college emerge in the letters Mary wrote to Bryn Mawr. In a letter dated May 2, 1904, Mary Warner Moore wrote: “In replying for my daughter to your announcement that an increase of fifty dollars in the yearly tuition is to be made, I should say that her application still remains good. I am sorry however, that an increase in tuition is necessary. I have been teaching for four years in order to make college education possible for my two children—a son and a daughter, and of course under the new arrangement, the weight is greater…”

And on January 18, 1906, she wrote, “That [Marianne’s] brother is in College, and she likewise, and that I am teaching in order to keep them there, may make apparent the reason of a somewhat frugal ordering of her affairs on Marianne’s part while she is in College, and also of her application for scholarships. The circumstances of our lives have been unusual…”

Their “unusual” family circumstances also made other aspects of attending college difficult for Marianne. In a letter dated September 4, 1905, Mary wrote to Bryn Mawr to ask whether there was any way Marianne could take her English examination on a Monday afternoon rather than in the morning so that Marianne’s brother could escort her to Bryn Mawr. This way, Mary would not have to take off work. Marianne’s mother ended the letter,

“[Marianne] has never traveled alone, however, and I am not willing to have her make the journey, and its several changes, alone.”

Unfortunately, her request was not granted. In the next letter dated September 11, 1905, Marianne’s mother thanked Bryn Mawr for refusing her request politely. Seeming thoroughly embarrassed, she replied, “That I, a teacher, should be guilty of proposing a disorderly act, seems most reprehensible.”

In Fall of 1905 Marianne arrived at Bryn Mawr. She wanted to be an English major; her love of reading and writing had started at a young age. She was thwarted, however, by her English professors who said that she was obscure and unclear in her writing and that she often disregarded rules of grammar and language. Ironically, these characteristics would be hallmarks of her famous, modernist poetry. Marianne continued to write while at Bryn Mawr, publishing short stories and poems in Tipyn O’Bob and The Lantern. She also wanted to major in biology but was apparently discouraged by her mother who thought that being a biologist was no profession for a lady. Nevertheless, flora, fauna, and the sea were frequent subjects of her poetry.

Marianne graduated from Bryn Mawr with a B.A. in history, economics, and politics in 1909. It took six years after graduating Bryn Mawr before she was published professionally. After moving to New York with her mother, she befriended J. Sibley Watson, Jr. and Scofield Thayer, owners of The Dial, a popular magazine which served as an outlet for modernist thought, art, and literature. Watson and Thayer were so impressed with Marianne Moore that they made her acting editor of their magazine in 1925 and editor-in-chief in 1926. She was editor until 1929 when The Dial ceased publication.

Jennifer Hoit Dawson
Ph.D. Candidate in Greek, Latin & Classical Studies

Students and Alumnae Meet, in Special Collections

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Dr. Jeannette Ridlon Piccard was a pioneer on several fronts in her lifetime. She became the first woman to reach the stratosphere with her husband, Dr. Jean Felix Piccard, in a high-altitude balloon in 1934. In 1974, she became one of the first women ordained as priests by the Episcopal Church. Although she professed little talent for academics, Piccard was a dedicated student. In a letter composed in 1942 as a supplement to a job application, Piccard claimed to have chosen Bryn Mawr College because her high school diploma decreed that she could go to any college in the country except for Bryn Mawr. She wrote, “So I decided to take Bryn Mawr exams so that no one could say there was any college to which I could not go.” Piccard graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1918 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and psychology, and went on to earn a master’s degree in organic chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1919, finally receiving her Ph.D. in education from the University of Minnesota in 1942.tag1

The task of organizing her papers, which were donated to Bryn Mawr College by her granddaughter Ruth Elizabeth Piccard, has occupied the bulk of my summer in Special Collections. When I began sorting through the five boxes, I found Piccard’s extensive correspondence mixed with receipts and travel vouchers from her time as a Special Consultant for NASA; drafts of essays on topics ranging from the significance of head covering in various religious denominations to the ethics of modern medicine; evidence of her decades-long campaign for the ordination of women jumbled up with the original research for her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Minnesota; and even a rough copy of the first few chapters of her unfinished autobiography. The collection was disorganized, to say the least. However, over the past several weeks, I have managed to consolidate the assorted papers into a formal structure that will guide the more complete organization and description of the collection in the future.

By her own account, Piccard lived an eventful and unconventional life. Born in Chicago, Illinois, on January 5, 1895, she was the next-to-youngest of nine children. At three, she watched her twin sister accidentally set herself aflame and burn to death. By the time she was eleven, Piccard had resolved to become a priest, even though at the time there were no female priests in the Episcopal Church. She was also deeply invested in the sciences; even though her majors were philosophy and psychology, she took all the college courses in physics and chemistry she could. Upon entering graduate school at the University of Chicago during the First World War, Piccard chose to pursue a master’s degree in chemistry, partly to “replace a man for the front,” but also because she believed her degree might lead to permanent employment after the war, as opposed to the temporary positions most of her fellow female students expected. It was as a graduate student that Jeannette met her future husband, Swiss national Dr. Jean Felix Piccard. “We were drawn to each other the first time we met. We had the same name. We were [identical] twins.” They married shortly after Jeannette received her degree and promptly left for Switzerland.

Drawn into aeronautics by her brother-in-law Auguste, Piccard qualified as a pilot in 1934. In October of the same year, she and Jean ascended by balloon to an altitude of 57,559 ft, reaching the stratosphere through a layer of clouds. Contemporary accounts hailed Piccard as the first woman in space. She and her husband became popular lecturers as a result of their successful flight and toured for many years, until Jean secured a teaching position at the University of Minnesota, one of the first universities to have a department devoted to aeronautical engineering.

A year after Jean’s death in 1963, the director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center hired Jeannette as a consultant. She held the position until it was eliminated for reasons of economy in 1970, the same year the General Convention of the Episcopal Church opened the Diaconate to women. From that point onwards, Piccard devoted herself to becoming a priest, a vocation she had never abandoned. She was finally ordained in 1974 alongside ten other women, who together formed the “Philadelphia Eleven”, the first female priests “irregularly” ordained by the Episcopal Church. After extensive debate, the ordinations were regularized on January 1, 1977.

Although Piccard dedicated her life to two fields in which I otherwise have little interest, I have found a great deal to admire in this woman whom I came to know through the papers she left behind. Piccard was a life-long advocate for gender equality in two areas traditionally closed to women: the church and aerospace. Unapologetically committed to eradicating institutionalized sexism in both space exploration and the church that was so dear to her, Piccard was one of those fortunate people who actually managed to make something of her ambitions, making significant progress in both arenas during her lifetime.

In a letter to a colleague dated March 30, 1970, Piccard noted that she had a number of badges from her time as a Special Consultant for NASA that no longer held any value following the expiration date. “I’ll stick them in the file to edify future generations!” she wrote.

Consider me edified, Reverend Dr. Piccard.

Eileen Morgan, class of 2015Eileen

Exhibition posters in BMC’s special collections

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Today’s post is by one of our summer interns, Elizabeth Reilly:

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Bryn Mawr’s Special Collections has an interesting set of posters and prizes from many world’s fairs, but the bulk of the posters come from the Louisiana Purchase International Exposition of 1904 held in St. Louis. You might recognize this fair’s name from the movie musical, Meet me in St.Louis, starring Judy Garland.This fair commemorated the centennial of the 1803 land purchase, focusing on themes of imperialism and technological advancements. It was also the first fair to have an entire building dedicated to education and social issues, the Palace of Education and Social Economy, which is where Bryn Mawr’s installation was. The fair spanned 1,272 acres and ran from April – December of 1904, attracting approximately 20 million visitors.

In this day and age, fairs and expositions seem obsolete, so what’s the big deal about Bryn Mawr at a fair? Today, thanks to social media, ideas, writings and images can be spread around the world in a matter of seconds. But in the past, World’s Fairs and Expositions served as gathering places for these ideas, inventions and people from all over the globe, so it was important to have an exhibit at one of these international fairs. M. Carey Thomas helped to carefully design Bryn Mawr’s exhibit for the fair to promote the value of women’s education. I use the word ‘carefully’ intentionally, for Bryn Mawr was trying to convey a particular image of what a women’s college was and why women’s education should be supported. In Thomas’ letters, she explains that the St. Louis exhibit was going to be much more elaborate than any of Bryn Mawr’s prior World’s Fairs exhibits. Thomas was also chosen to be a speaker at the fair’s Congress on Education, which she viewed as an “important occasion because not only so many American scholars but a large number of European scholars will be present.” Below is a picture of what Bryn Mawr’s exhibit looked like in the Palace of Education and Social Economy.

Genevieve Thompson expo picture

The entry way is reflective of the many archways that decorate Bryn Mawr’s campus. Archways are symbols of power and the design of the exhibit help to frame the perception of the space as more important, or impressive, to visitors.

 

 

A portion of the posters from 1904 are dedicated to marriage rates of alumnae and from the Department of Physical Training. An award winning chart from the fair is an Anthropometric chart that measures girth, height, depth, breadth, and length of students over the course of their undergraduate career at Bryn Mawr. Weird, right? Can you imagine if this was a part of Customs week: move in to your dorm room, awkwardly talk with your brand new roommates and then head over to the gym to be measured together! I’m pretty sure the student body would riot. But you know what’s even crazier? The fact that the Bryn Mawr administration included posters about female students’ physical well-being in efforts to prove to the world that women were physiologically capable of receiving an equally rigorous education as men and that they, as some believed, would not become infertile and die.
Let me explain more. In 1873, Havard and University of Pennsylvania educated Dr. Edward Hammond Clarke wrote “Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for Girls.” In this controversial but widely discussed essay, he promoted the idea that women will become sick, weak, unable to become pregnant and possibly die if they receive a similar education to men. Here’s a sample from his essay: “Those grievous maladies which torture a woman’s earthly existence, called leucorrhoea, amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, chronic and acute ovaritis, prolapsus uteri, hysteria, neuralgia, and the like, are indirectly affected by food, clothing, and exercise; they are directly and largely affected by the causes that will be presently pointed out, and which arise from a neglect of the peculiarities of a woman’s organization. The regimen of our schools fosters this neglect. The regimen of a college arranged for boys, if imposed on girls, would foster it still more.” Click here to read his essay in its entirety. Warning: May cause you to throw blunt objects at your computer screen. Read with caution.

Clarke goes on to refer to puberty as a “critical voyage” for women and he finds it ludicrous that America’s educational structure doesn’t pay attention to the fact that this passage takes place during a large portion of a girl’s educational life. Basically, Clarke thought that the female body was not strong enough or wired correctly to receive an education while also experiencing puberty. This idea was prevalent in the educational world for quite some time. But M. Carey Thomas and other people at Bryn Mawr were trying to turn this notion on its head by providing ample amount of evidence to prove that not only could women thrive at college, but they continued on to graduate school, received fellowships and some even got married, too! The Anthropometric chart won a bronze medal award at the 1904 Exposition, serving as validation that the International Exposition committee was receptive to Bryn Mawr’s assertions that women could succeed in academia without it affecting their physical well-being. According to the charts, many women even improved their physical health while at school. Although, the marriage rate of Bryn Mawr alumnae was down to 18.9% in 1903 from 40% in 1889…Uh-oh, better warn the patriarchy! (hey, hey, ho, ho…)

Over 70 posters about the graduate school program, the Self-Government Association, all of the academic departments and plans for the residence halls were displayed at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Bryn Mawr College received a grand prize for its general exhibit illustrating courses of instruction, and methods and results of college work in various departments as well. Below is part of a letter to M. Carey Thomas from Evelyn Winchester, a student native of St. Louis who had been chosen to oversee the exhibit, informing the President about the award of the Grand Prize. Next to it is an image of the photogravure Grand Prize.Untitled-1_MG_2498

There are also several posters that have students blue book exams mounted on the poster. In true honor code spirit, the names are cut out and yes, these blue books look almost exactly like the ones we still use today. Even through 109 year old posters, I can still feel a connection with Bryn Mawr students of the past who also stressed over their finals and were constantly trying to prove their intelligence and validity of their presence in the academic world.

Theory and Practice: Students in Spring course produce exhibition and education program Part 4

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making our worldThe Spring 2013 course “The Curator in the Museum” at Bryn Mawr College mixes theory into practice in the new exhibition “Making our World” located on the second floor of Canaday Library. Through readings and guest lectures related to the broader course theme of analyzing the “institution” of the museum and all its related parts, we integrated these models into our own project exhibition and corresponding education program for local high school students.

The following updates — written and edited by students as part of the team-based approach to the entire project — are reports on our progress along the way. Please let us know your thoughts.

Oral Histories: Gathering Information and Making Connections

Student bloggers: Xingzhe He, Jennifer Rabowsky, Alison Whitney

Jennifer:

Courtney Pinkerton oral history interview with (clockwise from lower left) Jennifer Rabowsky, Xingzhe He, Pinkerton, Brian Wallace, and Alison Whitney.

Courtney Pinkerton oral history interview with (clockwise from lower left) Jennifer Rabowsky, Xingzhe He, Pinkerton, Brian Wallace, and Alison Whitney.


Back in late February, while sitting across from our first interviewee, Courtney Pinkerton, our nerves threatened to botch our first oral history.  Just a week before, we had sat down with Professor Brian Wallace and Educator Shari Osborn, where quite simply put, we were told that we were going to be conducting oral history interviews of Bryn Mawr alumna for the “Making Our World” exhibition.  The process seemed intimidating—there is a widely known, appropriate way to go about conducting these interviews—and all three of us had never done one before.  Luckily for us, Courtney was excited to participate, had a wonderful sense of humor, and was incredibly patient.  When we had to spend five minutes to figure out why our recorders weren’t working, this last quality turned out to be a godsend.  And, by the time we started the interview the ice had been broken and it was smooth sailing.

Courtney’s answers to our questions were engaging and, most importantly, were full of emotion.  She told us a humorous anecdote of a prank she performed sophomore year—she and two friends replace the flags from the Thomas Hall turrets with Texas flags—followed by more serious anecdotes about how Bryn Mawr helped her view her fiscal independence as a positive.  Courtney allowed us to see the influence that Bryn Mawr College had on her, and by the end of the interview we had captured a snapshot of Courtney’s life.   When we walked away, we were all excited that we had conducted a successful oral history interview.  But more so than this, we were excited that we had created something that would be accessioned into Bryn Mawr’s permanent collection, and that would be used as an integral part of “Making Our World”.

Xingzhe:

Xingzhe He interviewing Kimberly Blessing '97.

Xingzhe He interviewing Kimberly Blessing ’97.

I interviewed two alumnae, Margery Lee, who graduated in 1951 with a BA in History, and Kimberly Blessing, who graduated in 1997 with a degree in Computer Science. Kimberly was my first interviewee, and the interview was conducted over the phone. While I was a little nervous for my first oral history project, I became more relaxed as the conversation unfolded. Kimberly was an engaging and inspiring character, and it was truly a pleasure to share with her some of the best memories she has had at Bryn Mawr, the moments of accomplishment, difficulties and confusion she had encountered as a young college student.

Later I interviewed Ms. Lee in person. Almost 60 years have passed since she left Bryn Mawr, yet she is still deeply attached to the college and the place. She recalled the classes she loved while being an undergraduate, her role as the coordinator of her Garden Party, and her involvement with the alumnae association after graduation.

Alison:

I was the second person in our group to interview an alumna on our own, and I have to say, it was nerve-wracking. But I could not have interviewed a more charming, interesting woman than Jackie Koldin Levine, graduate of Bryn Mawr’s class of 1946. Jackie received her BA from Bryn Mawr in psychology, with a minor in political science, and has led a fulfilled life as a self-described “full time volunteer”.  Jackie has been very involved in national organizations for the National Jewish Community, and also with the Civil Rights Movement.

Jennifer Rabowsky and Alison Whitney during the Jackie Levine interview.

Jennifer Rabowsky and Alison Whitney during the Jackie Levine interview.

In our interview Jackie spoke proudly of her experiences marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery, and attending the march on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. She shared that she gained her strength at Bryn Mawr, a place where she learned to not be afraid and to express herself and her beliefs — even when others disagree. My favorite moment during our interview had to have been the discovery that Jackie lived in Rockefeller dorm, where I have lived for three years. I realized that the dorm room I am living in now has been occupied by incredible women like Jackie Levine (or even Jackie herself!) who have gone on to graduate from Bryn Mawr, achieve great things, and live fulfilled lives. I am proud to know that I am a part of that legacy.

Theory and Practice: Students in Spring course produce exhibition and education program Part 3

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making our worldThe Spring 2013 course “The Curator in the Museum” at Bryn Mawr College mixes theory into practice in the new exhibition “Making our World” located on the second floor of Canaday Library. Through readings and guest lectures related to the broader course theme of analyzing the “institution” of the museum and all its related parts, we integrated these models into our own project exhibition and corresponding education program for local high school students.

The following updates — written and edited by students as part of the team-based approach to the entire project — are reports on our progress along the way. Please let us know your thoughts.

Communicating Personality and Displaying a Life

Student blogger: Claudia Keep

Pinkerton (left) and Levine sections of Making Our World. Photograph by Alison Whitney

Pinkerton (left) and Levine sections of Making Our World. Photograph by Alison Whitney

One of the challenges of creating an exhibit around living individuals is how to portray their personality and the intangible qualities and values that they hold. How do you show something that is not an object? We were working with various objects that hopefully, when displayed together, would tell /create an accurate description of the individual. But how does one pick and choose the object or series of objects that would best represent the various qualities that made up these individuals?

One of the subjects of our “Making Our World” show, recent Bryn Mawr graduate Courtney Pinkerton had many interests and fascinating stories, but they did not all lend themselves to a visual display. Other subjects of our show were easier to portray visually, particularly as interviewees Jackie Levine and Margery Lee are both art collectors, and had donated numerous books and works of art to Bryn Mawr’s Special Collections.

Only having graduated last year, most of Courtney’s life experiences and interests have been defined by her time in high school, and most especially by her time at Bryn Mawr. Courtney’s time at Bryn Mawr was shaped greatly by her independence, and her work ethic. But how do you show independence, hard work, and commitment inside of a glass case?

To design and fill the portion of the display case reserved for Courtney, we had several objects to work with.  We had a portrait of Courtney Pinkerton and her mother taken last year at commencement, by artist Gilbert Plantinga; the pair of pink sequined cow girl boots that Courtney is wearing in the photograph; the flag of Courtney’s native state, Texas; a copy of the 3.5 resolution Courtney drafted and proposed at plenary; a copy of Courtney’s senior thesis on the intersection of popular culture and race relations; and finally, the crime blotter entry that describes the prank Courtney and her friends played where they switched the flags on Thomas Great Hall with Texas state flags.

Gilbert Plantinga Mary & Courtney Pinkerton, 2012 Digital print Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase Bryn Mawr College 2013.6.32

Gilbert Plantinga
Mary & Courtney Pinkerton, 2012
Digital print
Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase
Bryn Mawr College
2013.6.32

For the final display, we decided to include the portrait of Courtney, her pink boots, the Texas flag, the crime blotter, and the plenary resolution.  These objects seemed to both create an image of Courtney’s personality as well reflect on her time at Bryn Mawr, combining her personal experiences, like her flag prank, and experiences that all Bryn Mawr students could relate to, like a plenary resolution and the Bi-Co news crime blotter. The flag of Texas and her pink cowgirl boots were visual nods to her home state as well as too her strong sense of individuality (not many Bryn Mawr students regularly wear such striking boots). We decided not to include her thesis for, as stimulating as it might be to read, it would not look very compelling sitting in a glass case where no one could read it. We also felt that as almost all students will write a thesis during their time at Bryn Mawr, it did not communicate anything specific enough about Courtney or her time at Bryn Mawr.

We hoped to achieve a balance between objects and text to create a display that was both informative and visually arresting.

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Theory and Practice: Students in Spring course produce exhibition and education program part 2

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making our worldThe Spring 2013 course “The Curator in the Museum” at Bryn Mawr College mixes theory into practice in the new exhibition “Making our World” located on the second floor of Canaday Library. Through readings and guest lectures related to the broader course theme of analyzing the “institution” of the museum and all its related parts, we integrated these models into our own project exhibition and corresponding education program for local high school students.

The following updates — written and edited by students as part of the team-based approach to the entire project — are reports on our progress along the way. Please let us know your thoughts.

Decision-making and “Making Our World”

Student blogger: Christine Villanueva

Curator Jennifer Redmond, Director, The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education, introduces students to the Taking Her Place exhibition on the first day of the semester.

Curator Jennifer Redmond, Director, The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education, introduces students to the Taking Her Place exhibition on the first day of the semester.

Making Our World is a satellite exhibit centered on main exhibition Taking Her Place located in Canaday’s Rare Book Room. As a departure from Taking Her Place (an exhibition dedicated in exploring the early history of women’s higher education and Bryn Mawr College’s parallel role in providing women of the 19th/early-20th centuries public access beyond the domestic sphere), Making Our World focuses on four contemporary Bryn Mawr alumnae. Since the post-war period, Bryn Mawr has remained an environment that fosters the same intense intellectual curiosity that it did for women in the 19th/early 20th centuries, giving them public access to contribute more actively to the world around them.

The collected cultural ephemera that included (among other things) a computer, yearbooks, magazines, pamphlets, photographs, and artworks were donated by each of the four Bryn Mawr alumnae profiled. Each was generous with her time and participation with the project, but discretion as a value revealed itself of tantamount importance as research in developing the story and thematic elements of Making Our World. The alumnae profiled in Making Our World –Courtney Pinkerton, Kimberly Blessing, Margery Lee, and Jacqueline Levine –not only served as subjects in order to explore how experiences at Bryn Mawr shaped their lives, but also as women to celebrate. In that light, the exhibitions group sought to find objects that best represented and respected the women and their stories, and also how each have impacted Bryn Mawr’s community.

In the case of Margery Lee, Class of 1951, instead of focusing on her experiences as an undergraduate at Bryn Mawr College and her professional career, Lee insisted on focusing on the collection of artworks she donated to Bryn Mawr College and her numerous experiences in the art world. It was clear that her love of art she shared with her husband had been a vital and defining experience in her life. We respected her insistence on this significant aspect of her life by having her collection of artworks take center stage as indicative of Lee’s experiences and accomplishments from Bryn Mawr. She has donated over a dozen artworks to the college, and selecting which works to highlight from the impressive pool of candidates proved a fun task for the exhibitions group as executive “curators” of Making Our World. The objects group pulled several pieces for us to consider. These included a large-scale photograph by local and contemporary artist David Graham, a photograph by prolific and controversial artist Andres Serrano, a screen print by Warren Rohrer, and lithographs by Jim Dine and Jody Pinto.

Working out the installation details

Working out the installation details

Initially unsatisfied by the pool of works pulled by the objects group, we used triarte.brynmawr.edu, the arts and artifacts database of Bryn Mawr and Haverford colleges to see what other works could be considered for the exhibit. We rejected the Jim Dine lithograph because we felt its heart motif too sentimental, obvious and ‘on the nose’ for the exhibit’s theme and title. We loved that Bryn Mawr owned an Andrew Serrano photograph of a close-up girl’s pierced ear and earring titled “Child Abuse II”, but felt the content of the photograph incongruous with our exhibit, and felt that Serrano’s piece could be better served in a future exhibit. Its inclusion in Making Our World felt forced to us given Serrano’s critical intent for the work. Rohrer’s screen print “Barks and Marks”, David Graham’s photograph of a William Penn impersonator “Bud Burkhart as William Penn, Three Arches, Levittown, PA”, and Jody Pinto’s landscape lithograph “Fingerspan for Climbers Rock Fairmount Park” were all seriously considered to display for the exhibit.

To be frank, however, we wondered if there were other works in Lee’s collection that held the same “big-name” artist recognition as Andres Serrano. Though our anticipated audience was not geared towards a distinctly informed art audience familiar with an artist like Serrano, we felt that, in part, by focusing on Margery Lee’s donated works as indicative of Bryn Mawr’s first-rate Art and Artifacts Collections, we wanted to display works that could carry broad-based appeal and familiarity, and excite an audience approaching not only Making Our World, but Bryn Mawr College itself. Although Rohrer, Graham, and Pinto’s works are of great quality and content (representative of Lee’s strong local connection to the Pennsylvania art scene), we were confident that Lee’s collection was deep enough to pull other works representative of Bryn Mawr’s world class art collection.

As such, we were excited to discover Lee had also donated George Segal and James Rosenquist serigraphs and an Ansel Adams photograph to the college. We wanted to include the Ansel Adams photograph “Dead Tree, Sunset Crater National Monument, Arizona” but were informed that it had already been exhibited in a prior show, Double Take, a year ago. Because of the photographic medium and the work’s age, conservation rules dictate that photographs only be displayed (under strict lighting guidelines) every few years. In order to preserve Adams’s work for future Mawrtyrs, we were unable to display it for this exhibit. However, the James Rosenquist serigraph “For the Young Artist”, an imitation of a color perception test called an Ishihara Color Test that spells out “ICU2RA*” (roughly “I see you too are a star), proved to be the fulcrum around which we based Margery Lee’s display. It was colorful and dynamic, it was by renowned Pop artist James Rosenquist (whose works are in the collection of MoMA and the Met, among others), and most importantly, its thematic content of mentorship between young and old generations proved a home run. As the only abstract, non-figurative artwork displayed, we chose the Rosenquist piece over Rohrer’s “Barks and Marks”.

For the Young Artist, James Rosenquist Serigraph on wove paper 2007.12.3

For the Young Artist, James Rosenquist
Serigraph on wove paper
2007.12.3

However, its size proved to be slightly detrimental and highly difficult within our display case. But, the exhibitions group pushed for its inclusion as it also worked well loosely juxtaposed next to alumna Kimberly Blessing’s technology oriented objects. We were happy with the other artworks the objects grouped pulled –Marlene Dumas’s “Supermodel”, John Kindness’s “China Cabinet Fly”, and David Graham’s William Penn photo –but their respective sizes proved too large for the space, and we found ourselves needing to cut one piece. Dumas’s “Supermodel” was a shoe-in; it is the only work by a female artist, and, we felt, played well against other featured alumna and art collector Jacqueline Levine’s displayed artworks of figuratively focused, and politically/racially charged (in different degrees) works. Ultimately, we chose etching “China Cabinet Fly” against Graham’s photograph because it paired better between the Rosenquist and Dumas prints.


Upon reflection, perhaps it would have proved better to mix up the displayed artworks, exhibiting the large-scale William Penn photograph instead in order to challenge audience expectations. But, as exhibition designers, we stand strongly behind our decisions to display other works against others, as all decisions were reached thoughtfully and collaboratively. We feel that the final three artworks exhibited for Margery Lee cohesively celebrate both her and the college’s art collection, and more broadly, the community oriented engaged learning of Making Our World.

Theory and practice: Students in Spring course produce exhibition and education program Part 1

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making our worldThe Spring 2013 course “The Curator in the Museum” at Bryn Mawr College mixes theory into practice in the new exhibition “Making our World” located on the second floor of Canaday Library. Through readings and guest lectures related to the broader course theme of analyzing the “institution” of the museum and all its related parts, we integrated these models into our own project exhibition and corresponding education program for local high school students.

The following updates — written and edited by students as part of the team-based approach to the entire project — are reports on our progress along the way. Please let us know your thoughts.

Guest Lecturer Dr. Bruce Altshuler

Student blogger: Adriana Grossman

Bruce Altshuler, New York University

Bruce Altshuler, New York University

On February 18th, the Curator in the Museum class was lucky to have Dr. Bruce Altshuler as a guest lecturer. Dr. Altshuler is currently the Director of the Program in Museum Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University, and part of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA/USA), the American Association of Museums, and the College Art Association. It was particularly exciting to be able to speak to someone currently active in the field of museum studies, given the potential beginnings of a museum studies department at Bryn Mawr College. He is also the author of Salon to Biennial—Exhibitions That Made Art History, Volume I: 1863–1959, and is currently at work on the second volume.

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Though we were all initially a little intimidated by Dr. Altshuler’s background, a congenial tone was set from the very beginning of the class period when he asked us all to introduce ourselves and explain why we were interested in the field of museum studies. Every answer varied, proving just how many other concentrations could lend themselves to the field and how broad the field itself is. Dr. Altshuler himself studied philosophy before entering the art world. He spoke to us about his beginnings in the commercial art world, working as a dealer with Zabriski Gallery. Zabriski Gallery specializes in Dada, Surrealism, American Modernism, photography, and contemporary art, the last of which is Dr. Altshuler’s primary area of interest, along with the history of exhibitions. He then told us a little about his experiences as director of the Noguchi Museum from 1992 to 1998.

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The last topic that we discussed was museum studies. As Dr. Altshuler made clear to us in telling us about his varied career, museum studies is a field that can be applied in a broad range of ways, the direction of which ultimately depends upon personal preference and the research that one chooses to undertake. The Museum Studies program has been offered at New York University for over three decades, and is still relatively young as a field of study. Dr. Altshuler suggested that this was perhaps because the field is hard to define given how much it has to encompass. Indeed, museum studies requires academic work to engage museum theory and practice, including the history of the institutions as well as the artworks within them, as well as preparation to be involved with more hands-on roles in the workings of a museum. (We recently got to do a little hands-on work ourselves, and will continue to be doing so as our class exhibition “Making Our World” progresses.) In other words, it is everything to do with running a museum.

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As was made clear in our discussions with Dr. Altshuler, museum studies is a field that will only continue to grow. Since its inception, it is a field that has come to many different institutions and is still burgeoning, as is evidenced by the suggestion of such a field of study at Bryn Mawr College.

 

 

 

Joseph W. Taylor’s Books – From the Library of our Founder

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Four of Dr. Taylor's booksBryn Mawr’s Special Collections  holds a number of books previously owned by Dr. Joseph W. Taylor, the founder of the college. In a recent reexamination of some of these—in my case, a first viewing—we were excited to find a group of four books which illuminate the background of Dr. Taylor’s personal education and his beliefs on the place of women in American society. Taylor carefully signed and dated each of his books, which allows us to attach them to known periods of his life. Three are dated to the mid-1820s, when he was in his early teenage years.[i] His age, coupled with the subjects of these books (Euclidean geometry and Latin commentaries on the works of Julius Caesar and Ovid), suggest that these may have been his own schoolbooks. If this is so, their content shows his early education to have been erudite and classically-focused.

The fourth book, Woman, Her Station Providentially Appointed…, by Margaret Coxe, discusses the role of women in American society in general and, more pointedly, argues for women’s intellectual aptitude and the importance of women as teachers.[ii] It came into Dr. Taylor’s collection while living in the Philadelphia area in 1853, one year before he became a member of the Board of Haverford College. It is attractive to imagine this book as one of many which spurred Dr. Taylor’s dream of a women’s college whose academic standards equaled those of institutions like those where he had.

Together, these books serve as a reflection of a man who was well-educated from a young age; a man who valued his school books, and by extension education, enough to keep them throughout his life; and a man who as a rising professional took an interest in questions of the social and intellectual life of American women. Luckily they stayed together in order to support this portrait. What kept them together and how did they come into our collections?

After Taylor’s death in 1880, the books stayed in the Taylor family, passing to Joseph’s sister, thence to her children, and finally to Margaret Taylor MacIntosh. Margaret was a Bryn Mawr alumna (Class of ’21) and took a keen interest in her great uncle—she wrote and published his biography in 1932.[iii] It is no wonder that she realized that these heirlooms would be treasured by Bryn Mawr as they had been by Taylor’s family. She donated many of the volumes to the library in 1955, but some, including that on women’s place in society—in a pleasantly decorative, but subdued, early-Victorian binding—only came to us in 1965. Although the books each have their own distinct origin and history, their individual stories very quickly coincide; they remained together in in the Thomas family libraries until they came into our possession. Here in Special Collections we can preserve not only their individual content, but also their constellation, offering us tantalizing insights into the background and character of the man who collected them—and who founded Bryn Mawr College.

[i] Aulus Hirtius, Jean Godouin, and Thomas Clark, ed. 1824. C. Julii Cæsaris, quæ extant. Philadelphia: J. Grigg. (http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b3895809); Playfair, John ed.. 1819. Elements of geometry: containing the first six books of Euclid : with a supplement on the quadrature of the circle, and the geometry of solids : to which are added elements of plane and spherical trigonometry. New York: Collins and Hanny. (http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b3895808); Jan Minell, and Nathan Bailey ed. 1815. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in fifteen books. Dublin: printed by Brett Smith. (http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b3895805)

[ii] Coxe, Margaret. 1848. Woman, her station providentially appointed: and the duties assigned to a woman in her station. Columbus [Ohio]: Isaac N. Whiting. (http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b3895810)

[iii] MacIntosh, Margaret Taylor. 1936. Joseph Wright Taylor, founder of Bryn Mawr College. Haverford, Pa: C.S. Taylor. (http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b1450995)

 

Bryn Mawr College’s Single Leaf Manuscripts Collection and The Last Will and Testament of Finas de Sancto Cirico

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Bryn Mawr College’s Special Collections holds nearly two hundred manuscripts written on single leaves of parchment, paper, or papyrus. Many of these leaves are merely a portion of a whole work from which they were separated at an earlier time. Others are complete documents. We are excited to announce that our effort to add the Single Leaf Manuscripts Collection to our online database is now nearly complete. Previously, records of our manuscripts existed only on paper, making it difficult for scholars and researchers to access the unique information contained in each manuscript. Now, scholars and researchers can search for manuscripts and view information about each document or text online. What is more, we have created high-quality digital images of these manuscripts to allow them to be viewed online and ensure their survival in the event that they deteriorate further or are destroyed by the malice of time. The database will be made public next week.

The Single Leaf Manuscripts Collection consists of diverse manuscript leaves in a variety of languages. They were given to the library by a number of generous donors including Sigmund Harrison, Felix Usis, Howard Lehman Goodhart, Phyllis Goodhart Gordan, Doreen Canaday Spitzer, and Miriam Coffin Canady. Most of the manuscripts are medieval (1100-1500 CE), originated in Europe, and concern religious or legal subjects. But the collection also contains Greek, Arabic, and Coptic papyrus fragments, some of which may date to as early as the first and second century CE, and French, English, and American documents that date from the sixteenth to the twentieth century CE.

The Single Leaf Manuscripts Collection features papal bulls sealed by Popes Clement VII, Sixtus V, Innocent XI, and Innocent XII; a legal document with the seal of Queen Elizabeth I and another with the seal of King Edward VII; two letters, one signed by King Henry IV of France and the other by King Philip III of Spain; and grants of nobility sealed by Holy Roman Emperors Leopold II and Francis II. The documents in the collection associated with well-known historical figures are certainly special. Perhaps more extraordinary, however, are documents connected with unknown individuals, because documents relating to these people may well not exist anywhere else in the world.

Single Leaf Manuscripts Collection (2012.11.71). Will of Finas de Sancto Cirico. Parchment. Gothic bastard hand in brown ink. Penwork notarial seal at the bottom. Verso is blank. Approximately 12×12 in.

The last will and testament of Finas de Sancto Cirico, the daughter of Guillelmus de Sancto Cirico, is a good example. Finas de Sancto Cirico was a woman who lived in a time very distant from our own, yet one feels a connection with her while reading her will. The will was penned by a cleric (Latin: clericus) of the Diocese of Cahors in France on the 24th of October in 1288 CE, but is written in the first person voice of Finas. Her testament reveals her religious piety and provides instructions for the disbursement of her property to the church and her heirs, including her son, Arnaldus Bonafos, and her brothers. She entrusts her body and soul “to our lord Jesus Christ, his most glorious mother, and all of the heavens” and her body “to a grave in the cemetery of Sancte Sperie.” At the bottom of the will, the cleric who wrote down the will added a note with his penwork seal affirming that he “faithfully wrote down the words spoken by Finas de Sancto Cirico while in her presence.” In Finas’ own words, she wishes her final arrangements to be recorded for public memory at the present moment “because nothing is more certain than death, and nothing is more uncertain than the hour of death” (Quia nichil cercius morte, et nichil incercius hora morti).

Jennifer Kay Hoit
Greek, Latin & Classical Studies

 

PA Now Papers at Bryn Mawr College

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The Library has a strong collection of items relating to women’s studies and women’s history. A donation from the Pennsylvania branch of the National Organization for Women (PA NOW) this spring doubled our preexisting collection of papers from the group. The earlier donation covered the 1970s through mid-1980s, while the new addition brings the collection up to 2007.

The National Organization for Women was founded in 1966 and is the largest feminist organization in America. Core issues that the group has been active in include abortion/reproductive rights, violence against women, and ending racism and sexism. PA NOW was founded in 1971, and the earliest dated materials in the collection date back to the very beginning.

The PA NOW papers consist of materials saved in the office files of the organization: articles, pamphlets, newsletters, meeting transcripts, convention planning documents, records of the political action committee, and publications from groups other than PA NOW, both for and against various issues.  The collection is substantial, occupying over 15 feet of shelving, and covering a very wide range of topics in addition to the major issues: information on legislators, pornography, disability, aging, child welfare, family medical leave, inequities in health insurance, body image, sexual assault/ abuse, violence against women, equal pay – issues that affect the lives of all women.

The bulk of the collection consists of internal administrative documents. The organization tended to focus on one key issue at a time. The organization’s support for the Equal Rights Amendment during the early 1970s is reflected in the quantity of materials dedicated to the issue. Abortion was a major issue for PA NOW in the 1980s. The papers provide many pro-choice arguments, support the right to abortion under both usual and unusual circumstances, and debate the rights of spouses, partners, family members, and the community to prevent abortions.

Office documents covered state and political news, updates from other women’s organizations, and information about women’s conferences held in other countries, such as China. Legal documents from the Philadelphia region listing PA NOW as amicus curiae demonstrate the organization’s activity and role as an authority on women’s rights in the local area.

The collection also contains a small amount of ephemera, including T-shirts, buttons, and posters, the majority of which focus on LGBT issues, abortion, and racism.

A guide to the collection will soon be publicly available.

More information about PA NOW can be found at: http://www.panow.org/pages/keyissues.htm

Heather Davies is one of two Friends of the Library Undergraduate Interns.