#vaultsofmann

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Modern Farmer

As many of us know, the farming life can be an epically tough vocation. And as some of will also be keenly aware, this has been more true for some than for others.  Thanks to a recent scanning project, we’ve had our eye on the story of The Modern Farmer, a publication produced by the National Federation of Colored Farmers (NFCF) during a stretch of economic history that was hard for most folks in the United States—1929 through 1949—but especially so for African Americans confronting the vise of Jim Crow in the American South. As Black History Month closes out for this year, we’re pleased to share a little of what we’ve learned about this remarkable publication and the people who produced it.

Issued monthly, The Modern Farmer was first and foremost a periodical release of current news of interest to African American farming households. Its purpose: To share information that would advance the efforts of the NFCF in building the capacity of America’s black farmers to prosper. Founded in 1922 by a group of African American entrepreneurs and attorneys led by broker James P. Davis and heavily influenced by the teachings and philosophy of Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute, the NFCF had an initial early focus on building cooperatives and procurement/distribution networks. With this approach, the Federation hoped to secure reliable markets, good prices and fair interest rates for participants, attract a growing membership to these networks, and ultimately make it possible for rural black communities to take care of themselves. Over the years, as it became clear that (yet again) black farmers were being excluded  from the benefits of New Deal legislation and programs, the Federation also turned attention and energy towards strengthening African American farmers' political clout.

Flip through the monthly issues of The Modern Farmer across its 20 years of publication, and you can't help but be impressed with the community purpose that emanates from its lively pages. Reports of farmstead success and tragedy, pithy advice on personal care, nutrition and diet, and school news published in its pages evoke a vibrant sense of shared experience and mutual care. Announcements about scholarship programs and religious conventions publicize opportunities for personal growth. News about lynching events and racially discriminatory hiring practices at specific firms and factories inform its readership on the specific dangers and challenges (and sometimes also more hopeful breakthroughs) happening at local, state as well as national levels.  Of course, the periodical’s dominant content most certainly pertains to farming, as it provided a steady feed of news relevant to farm techniques and operations (e.g. "Ladybugs Used to Save Apples from Insect Parasite"), trends in markets and product marketability (e.g. "Federal Buying of Wheat Said to Be Justified"  and "Potash Improves the Baking Quality of Michigan Potatoes"), and financing ("Biggest Fund in United States History Authorized by Senate: Two Billion Dollar Credit Assures Real Relief." ).  And certainly not least: Across all of its pages, a strong editorial case for the power of organizing and collective strategizing will not be lost on any reader.

Given its timing, the NFCF was not poised particularly well for success. The 1930s were, after all, years that Jim Crow was maturing to its full, noisome ripeness in the American South, adding a huge handicap to widespread African American advancement in any pretty much any industry. While the color line may have been less brutally enforced elsewhere in the United States, it remained, of course, a perniciously widespread reality in American socioeconomic life in all corners of the country. And then of course, there were financial and natural disasters that shaped the Great Depression of the 1930s. Precipitous drops in commodity prices, crushing debt, floods, dust storms, heat waves, pest plagues spelled disaster for farming communities across the United States, black or white. Finally, of critical importance:  the NFCF suffered from a serious internal weakness as well. Organized and largely led by prosperous black businessmen and professionals, the Federation was faulted for not sufficiently speaking to the realities of the land-poor tenant farmers and sharecroppers who made up the bulk of the black farming community of the rural South and who ultimately saw their interests and concerns better served by sharecropper unions and more politically engaged civil rights organizations of the 1930s.

Yet the NFCF was nothing if not energetically determined in its hope of making successful collective self-help and, eventually, a greater political voice, a reality for black farmers. For a time at least, there was good reason to gain confidence about this prospect. In September 1930 "The National Federation of Colored Farmers .... reports that 500 farmers in Holmes County, Mississippi have made the first purchase of a carload of groceries and supplies through the federation. The farmers, by wholesale buying, saved 42 percent on the cost." Later that year, promising negotiations between African American merchant associations in New York City and black farmers with melon and other fruits to sell had begun. By 1939, The Modern Farmer was able to spotlight an impressive victory on its front page:  The Special Assistant to the Administrator of the U.S. Agricultural Adjustment Act had been successfully enjoined to meet with the NFCF to address concerns about the Act’s deleterious effects on black farmers.

Mann Library has the good fortune of being able to offer the full run of The Modern Farmer as part of its special collections in historical agriculture. As far as we know, we may be the only library with this rare and important piece of African American history in its collection. But we’re also happy to say that you don't need to actually walk through the front doors of our building to get a look at this treasure.  Thanks to a recent scanning initiative, The Modern Farmer is now available for anyone with access to a computer and the internet. We invite you to take a look at archive.org. It is worth a good, long browse, for across the lively issues of its two decade run, you will get an amazing view of unflinching determination. The history of African American farmers in the United States may be one of contending with bitterly long odds—but what materials like The Modern Farmer make clear, black farmers have never been silent, passive or submissive in working to make these odds, well, unacceptable.

Sources: 

Gordon Nembhard, Jessica. Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014.

Roll, Jarod. "The Lazarus of American Farmers": The Politics of Black Agrarianism in the Jim Crow South," in Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule: African American Landowning Families Since Reconstruction, edited by Debra A. Reid and Evan P. Bennett, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2012, pp. 132 - 154.

The World of Jim Crow: A Daily Life Encyclopedia, edited by Stephen A. Reich. Greenwood, 2019 (https://books.google.com/books?id=ti6bDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA326&lpg=PA326&dq=Leon+R.+Harris+NFCF&source=bl&ots=skyrKCpGoq&sig=ACfU3U0u43uEPn0fRWIBhZ3u3DoMGiIcNA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQstOJmvLnAhUZl3IEHWMIDywQ6AEwDnoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q=Leon%20R.%20Harris%20NFCF&f=false)

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Cookbook History

(Title page from "The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy", London 1758, in the special collections of Mann Library, Cornell University)

Got assigned to make the sweet potato casserole for your big family gathering of the holiday season? Need some inspiration for your weekly meal prep? Just reach onto your book shelf and pluck out your favorite cookbook. Or, in these days of the internet, google your ingredients to find an almost infinite array of matching recipes at your fingertips. But it wasn’t always this easy. In the days of early antiquity, your success would have depended on who you knew, as recipes were primarily transmitted orally. In the Middle Ages, you would have had to be among the privileged classes to get your hands on manuscripts of collected recipes. It wasn’t until the advent of the printing press and increased literacy rates that access to cookbooks was democratized. And in the unfolding story of getting good food to the people, a leading part was played by this book: The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, authored in 1747 “By a Lady.”

(Image of the frontispiece to “The Art of Cookery”, 1777 edition, from Wikimedia Commons)

It was later revealed that the author was, in fact, a lady: specifically an English dressmaker named Hannah Glasse, who helped usher in the development of modern cuisine by producing a cooking guide meant to be used by a wide swathe of an increasingly literate populace. Seminal though it was, Glasse’s cookbook could be considered “old-fashioned” in at least one sense: It included at least 200 recipes found to be plagiarized from other publications. At the dawn of Enlightenment, the culinary knowledge handed down through generations—via traditions of family life and food sharing—was still there for the taking, and Glasse apparently saw no problem in continuing the tradition of re-purposing other people’s recipes for her own enterprises.

The Art of Cookery contains hundreds of recipes, from puddings to gravies to food for the sick and hardy meals for voyaging sailors. Glasse purposefully used a conversational style of English in her book, avoiding the fancy French terminology associated with “high cuisine” at the time. Her stated aim with this approach: To ensure the book’s accessibility to people of any class. Asserts Glasse in her bold introduction, Cookery in hand, “…every Servant who can but read will be capable of making a tolerable good Cook, and those who have the least Notion of Cookery can’t miss of being very good ones.”

Over 40 editions of “The Art of Cookery” followed the original publication, and Glasse’s classic proved a popular hit beyond England as well, particularly in areas touched by British colonialism. But, in a telling example of the the back-and-forth nature of cultural exchange in a globalizing world, it didn’t take long for this seminal English cookbook to also be shaped by the foods and culinary traditions of far flung places. By 1774, a new edition of Cookery included a recipe for Indian "currey.” In 1805, an updated edition printed in Virginia, features quintessentially American ingredients such as maple sugar and pumpkin in dishes of a decidedly New World palette alongside the stoutly English fare.

(Recipe for Indian curry from the 1774 edition of “The Art of Cookery” from archive.org)

There are few records pertaining to the end of Glasse’s life, but it is known that she tragically plunged into debt over business troubles- so much so that she had to sell the copyright to her smash hit classic to make ends meet. While it isn’t known how much involvement Glasse had in later publications, The Art of Cookery continued to grow and develop as the years progressed- and came to mark an important milestone in the history of cooking: making good cooking accessible to the masses—which gives us yet another thing to be grateful for this holiday season.

References:

A History of Cookbooks: From Kitchen to Page over Seven Centuries, Henry Notaker, 2017

History of American Cooking, Merril D. Smith, 2013

The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse, 1758

time.com/5218240/google-doodle-cookbook-author-hannah-glasse/

archive.org/details/b30502081_0002/page/100

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Bird travels

From the great white pelican to the snowy owl — birds spread their wings and flock southward in droves in the late summer and early fall. As the bird lovers among us would likely agree, few natural sights are as breathtaking as a group of cranes flying in a V-formation or a migrating group of snow geese, or even robins, which typically migrate in groups of less than fifty but sometimes gather in groups of hundreds or thousands. For those of us lucky enough to live near migration corridors, the sight of this fall phenomenon can captivate the mind and move the soul.

Over the centuries, many naturalists have attempted to better understand avian migration. One of these was early 20th century American ornithologist and author Frank Chapman. Chapman was a self-taught ornithologist from New Jersey – he is perhaps most well known as an early promoter of the photographic blind in bird photography, and for bringing the science of ornithology to the people through the use of non-specialized language and field guides composed with the bird-loving lay person in mind. As Frank Chapman observed in his lovely 1916 volume, The Travels of Birds, the study of natural history has been replete with thoughtful theorizing about the reasons behind bird migration, some of which have been a little out there (at least in the light of what we do currently know).  Writes Chapman “At one time it was thought that some birds flew to the moon. Others, particularly the Swallows and Swifts, were believed to fly into the mud and pass the winter hibernating like frogs; while the European Cuckoo was said, in the fall, to turn into a Hawk.”

Such speculations may sound silly to us today, but the truth is, the facts of bird migration are indeed astonishing — bird populations seemingly disappear en masse overnight, make their way without a map or compass, across hundreds of thousands of miles of land and sea only to reappear every year, hale and hearty after winter’s last thaw. Thanks to insights gathered from careful scientific observation over the years, we now know that our feathered friends are able to navigate using a variety of methods such as a sun compass or olfactory cues, that migration is cued by factors like changes in day length, and that migration is driven to a significant degree by the seasonal availability of nourishment in different regions of the globe.

In Travels, Chapman takes a moment to ponder one of history’s most impressive migrants, the North American passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) whose day-flying migratory group — as observed in the early part of the 1800s at least — could reach flocks that were “a mile or more in width. Often the sun would be obscured by the clouds of flying birds." So great were the numbers of these birds in migration flight that hunters assumed the passenger pigeon would provide them with an inexhaustible supply of income — and used their rifles accordingly. Alas, passenger pigeons were hunted with such reckless abandon, and their deciduous forest habitat was sufficiently degraded during the course of the 19th century, that in less than 100 years, the death of the last known surviving passenger pigeon at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914 marked their final extinction. 

So, while Chapman's lyrical  volume about travelling birds does not fail in his goal of evoking in his readers a great (yes we'll call it soaring!) sense of wonder and appreciation about bird migration, it serves as a sobering cautionary tale as well. With brand new research by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology highlighted in Science Magazine just this month suggesting an alarming 30% decline in the general bird population of Canada and the United States since the early 1970s, it's a tale that we would be wise to take seriously to heart. 

Sources: 

wikipedia

audubon.org

catalog.hathitrust.org

[mannlibrary]

Missing Misses in Mycology

From:  Fungi collected in Shropshire and other neighborhoods, by M.F. Lewis (1860-1903) in the Mann Library special collections.

It's no secret—the official history of science is a spotty narrative, flawed by frequent omission of the many contributions women have made to its advancement over the centuries. While we're now seeing considerable effort to rectify the record, the discovery of untold stories to fill in the blanks can be tricky business. It's not that the stories never happened — the field of botany, for one, is replete with some pretty spectacular evidence of women's (often unacknowledged) engagement with scientific inquiry, embodied in the detailed illustrations that captured the insights of observations from the natural world. But the published historical record is often woefully scant when it comes to closer detail on the lives and careers of the women who have helped carry modern science forward. For this month's Vaults of Mann blog — and in conjunction with a new exhibit spotlighting early women in botanical illustration that has just gone up at Mann Library — we hail a couple of  exquisite gems from our special collections in mycology that speak volumes about women’s dedication to the creation of knowledge throughout history — and about the challenges involved in finding the missing pieces for a reliably accurate accounting of the mycological herstory.

From:  Fungi collected in Shropshire and other neighborhoods, by M.F. Lewis (1860-1093)  in the Mann Library special collections.

Open even just the first few pages of Fungi collected in Shropshire and other neighborhoods by M.F. Lewis and you'll be likely be smitten by this breathtaking 3-volume inventory of mushrooms identified over more than forty years (1860-1902) in the fields, forests, hills and valleys in various counties of England's West Midlands region in  the late 19th century. Lewis' exquisite artistry is likely to persuade even the indifferent non-mushroom-enthusiasts among us about the curiously alluring beauty of this particular kingdom in life’s universe. The sheer number (over 300) and extraordinary variety of specimens included will leave you inspired by the wealth of fungi found in just one small corner of the world--a great lesson itself on the important but not always so readily visible biodiversity that can be found in our own backyards. And the care with which Lewis identifies the scientific name and place and date located for each species depicted will put you in awe of the painstaking devotion to data collection and taxonomy that this work represents.

From:  Fungi collected in Shropshire and other neighborhoods, by M.F. Lewis (1860-1093)  in the Mann Library special collections.

But who exactly was M. F. Lewis and what inspired her to produce this extraordinary study? What was her training? How did she work? And who did she work with over the four long decades that it took to complete her inventory? We may never know. Miss Lewis' work was never published—the 3 volumes in the Mann special collections appear to be a hand-bound set that includes the original watercolor drawings and field notes created by Lewis’ own hand.  It did garner one mention by the English botanist William Phillips, who, in his essay on "The Hymenomycetes of Shropshire" in an 1880 issue of the Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, observes having been "permitted to look over [a work] of very much excellence executed by Miss M. F. Lewis, of Ludlow" and notes that "several rare species [of fungi] are very artistically represented."  Aside from this single reference, however, Miss Lewis remains for us an elusive figure of mystery, a person whose (dare we call it) life's work proved her to be in possession of great talent, a keen eye, and an devoted dedication to the focused study of a fascinating subject of nature, yet who otherwise appears exceedingly difficult to find in the published record.

Clockwise from top left:  Agaricus mutabilis Agaricus Laccatus, Lentinus cochleatus, Russula heterophylla, from  Illustrations of the fungi of our fields and woods, by Sarah Price (1864-1865) 

We also have in the Mann special collections a work by another English mycologist and science illustrator, Sarah Price, who, hailing from the town of Bitterly in Shropshire county (about 4 miles from Ludlow) happened to be not only Lewis' older contemporary, but also her virtual neighbor. Illustrations of the fungi of our fields and woods (1864-1865) offers an inventory of common mushrooms that Price found making the countryside in "her own neighborhood. around Shropshire...gay in their abundance." This study is a more limited one than Lewis' work--covering a little over hundred mushroom species only — but Price did manage to formally publish it as a slim 2 volume set thanks to funding provided by paying subscribers. 

Among Price’s subscribers was William Jackson Hooker, then director of London's Royal  Gardens of Kew, to whom Price dedicated, in her modest words, "this small contribution to the literature of botany." In addition to Hooker, about another 200 or so subscribers appear on the front pages of each of Price's volumes, many a "Sir," "Lord,"  "Reverend" “Colonel,” “Esquire,” and "Mr." among them, but also, a remarkably high number of "Ladies," "Misses" and "Mrs's." While, like M.F. Lewis, Sarah Price remains virtually invisible in the published record of British mycology, a review of her subscriber list (where women — not even counting those who appear as part of a couple — make up 53% of the names represented) makes it easy to imagine the presence of a kind of vibrant sisterhood in the Midlands region of 19th century England, a network of kindred spirits and bright minds sharing a common fascination with the secrets to be found in the nooks and crannies of the world around them--along with a determination to help discover them.

Polyporus beatiei, illustrated by Mary Elizabeth Banning, from Fungi: Mary Banning, at the New York State Museum.

In some ways, the cases of Lewis and Price recall the story of another remarkable woman who also toiled tirelessly to advance what we know about fungi, only this time on this side of the Atlantic. Mary Elizabeth Banning, born sometime in the 1820s in Talbot County, Maryland, received no formal training, but her family's moderate means allowed a basic level of childhood homeschooling that included some (clearly inspiring) nature study, possibly along with some Latin. As an adult, Banning became the sole breadwinner for her mother and half-sister and experienced a steady impoverishment of means over the course of her life. However these difficulties did not keep her from years of intrepid fieldwork hunting mushrooms across the state of Maryland, taking whatever form of public transportation available to her. Banning's passion prompted her to strike up a thirty-year correspondence with the mycologist Charles Horton Peck at New York State Museum of Natural History, to whom she sent many of her specimens and with whom she identified a number of fungal taxa. (Banning also identified 5 new species entirely on her own; and Peck wisely named one of the specimens that Banning had provided to him after the collector herself, Hypomyces banningiae). Convinced of the value of nature study for children's education, Banning worked long and hard on an illustrated study of Maryland's mushrooms, which she finished but was not able to publish before she died in 1903, in ill-health and living in a worn boarding house in Baltimore. Thanks to her connection with Peck, however, both a wonderful collection of her illustrations and the correspondence that detailed the story of her careful work were saved at the New York Museum of History, where, ninety years later, their discovery led to some well-deserved public recognition at last and the honor of being named to the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame.

It can be helpful to think of Banning's now more widely known story as a kind of proxy palette for very lightly coloring in some of the yawning blanks in the very incomplete picture we have of M.F. Lewis, Sarah Price and their engagement with the study of the mushroom kingdom. We can hope that the stories of Miss Lewis and Mrs. Price will also be eventually uncovered at some point, thanks to some intrepid future sleuth, willing to comb the town archives, local libraries and historical public records of rural England.  In the meantime, we safeguard these women’s exquisite art and taxonomic work here at the Library, keeping their treasures accessible for future generations to enjoy — and to draw from as they embark on their own quests to better understand and appreciate this precious yet vulnerable planet that we call home.

Additional references:

Maroske, Sara; May, Tom W. (March 2018). "Naming names: the first women taxonomists in mycology" Studies in Mycology, Vol. 89, March 2018.

Mary Banning's Fungi of Maryland (1868-1888), New York State Museum; also see illustration collection at https://web.archive.org/web/20110710024009/http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/treasures/explore.cfm?coll=29&startRow=1&maxRows=12

[mannlibrary]

Beekeeping: From Amos to Z!

If you’re into beekeeping you likely know the name Amos Ives Root- the Ohio-born author and pioneering apiculturist who wrote “The ABC of Bee Culture” in 1879. The book in still in circulation today (although now titled “The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture: An Encyclopedia of Beekeeping”) in its 41st edition and is affectionately nicknamed “The Beekeeper’s Bible” among bee-enthusiasts. “ABC” covers everything in regard to honey-bee rearing: from building hives to honey-harvesting, beekeeping implements, pollinator-friendly plants, biographies of noted beekeepers, and how to deal with pesky bears. A true A to Z of beekeeping!

As the story goes, Amos Root’s journey into beekeeping began on a warm August day in 1865 as a swarm of bees passed over Root’s worksite. An employee of his, recalling that Root had previously mentioned a desire to keep bees, offered to catch the swarm for him. Root was soon to discover that beekeeping is not an easy task, as his first swarm of bees was to fly off and abandon him. But he was not quick to give up! After much trial and error Root had his first successful hive, and four years later, in 1869, he decided to spread his passion for bees and founded the A.I. Root Company, producers of quality beehive and beekeeping equipment. He later went on to establish the publication “Gleanings in Bee Culture” and wrote his renowned book “The ABC of Bee Culture”. Impressively, all of Root’s accomplishments are still alive in some form. His beekeeping company would later switch to candle manufacturing, but Root Candles is still in business today and is run by Root’s great-great grandson (and produces some fine beeswax candles of course!). “Gleanings in Bee Culture” is today produced in magazine and online format and now known as “Bee Culture: The Magazine of American Beekeeping”. Last, but not least, of course the beekeeper’s bible “The ABC of Bee Culture”, while updated, is still a go-to for the modern beekeeper.

It was the efforts of early pioneers and inventors like Amos Root that laid the foundation for the modern beekeeping industry. Much has changed since Amos Roth’s time, but while the pollinators we rely on to produce over 75% of our food crop are in crisis and declining rapidly, we will need to summon that same gusto and tenacity as the early apiculture pioneers to help ensure their recovery and future health. Apiculturists like Amos Ives Root seemed to truly recognize the beauty of our pollinators and their supreme importance to all life. That isn’t a lesson we should be quick to forget!

References:

“ABC of Bee Culture”, Amos Ives Root, 1891

beeculture.com

rootcandles.com/

[mannlibrary]

Knitting for All

With the intense winter cold of the Finger Lakes and a yarn-bomb challenge we have going here at Mann Library, this last week of January has us on to a cozy topic—needlework and knitting. Whether as artisanal craft, high fashion design, or work of art, knitted creations have been the object of intense human focus and activity across time and culture. The earliest piece of true knitwear ever found—a knitted sock—dates from about 4th century Egypt, while ancient Mongolians were also known to have created knitted vests with abstract floral motifs to help ward off the bitter Central Asian winter cold.  Distinctive knitting traditions developed in other corners of the globe following those early Near Eastern origins. Over the years—thanks to the work of artisans, fiber artists, designers and cultural historians—these traditions survived the process of industrial revolution to remain a solid, even resurgent part of culture today.  

J. A Fleming’s How to Teach Needlework in Schools, published in 1887 by George Gill & Sons publishers of London, is a charming introduction to all types of needlework: from crochet to embroidery to knitting. It features lovely illustrations so the reader can easily follow along, like this one that shows the reader how to complete an exercise that will help them learn how to “cast on.”  

For those of us new to the needle arts, in knitting, “casting on” is the process of getting the first loops, or row of stitches, on to the needle. Adversely, “casting off” is the act of finishing your last row of stitches so that your piece doesn’t unravel. Jane A. Fleming was an active English educator in her day, with a particular focus on promoting skills in sewing, knitting, and mending.  In addition to authoring books such as How to Teach Needlework and Common-Sense Needlework, she contributed to the The Practical Educator, a  British late 19th century monthly journal of advice and lesson material for teachers. We heartily recommend a browse through Fleming’s  writings for a look at some beautifully clear and helpful guidance in some remarkably timeless (or, given today’s growing “maker” movement, perhaps better said, delightfully timely) life skills. Thank you Miss Jane!

How to Teach Needlework in Schools” is a rare book in the Mann Special Collections and may be browsed here at Mann Library via special request. Fleming’s Common-Sense Needlework has been digitized and made available via the library repository partnership known as the HathiTrust. To view there, visit goo.gl/xh8qBw. 

[mannlibrary]

Poinsettia

December 12th is Poinsettia Day! And so we celebrate the “Christmas Star” (as it’s commonly known) with an image from volume 85 of Revue Horticole. Poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) were introduced to the United States from Mexico in 1825 by Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first Ambassador to Mexico. Upon returning to the United States, Poinsett sent clippings of the plant to friends and botanists. In the early 1900’s a family of German immigrants, the Eckes, began producing poinsettias on a mass scale and selling them as Christmas decorations. The Ecke family were genius advertisers, incorporating the plants into magazine fashion shoots and giving them away to TV show hosts to get the plant in the public eye. Another fun fact about the poinsettia: The colored parts (the non-green ones that is) aren’t flower petals but bracts (or modified leaves). Deep red is the classically popular color for poinsettias, but they also come in pink and cream — as in this beautiful illustration from 1913 — as well as burgundy, and even marbled.

Revue Horticole was a French journal edited by the Société Nationale d'Horticulture de France, featuring botanical descriptions and gorgeous full color chromolithographs. This particular image was originally painted by the French painter Adolphe Millot and printed by the lithographer J. L. Goffart of Brussels.

A quick lesson on the chromolithography printing process: These words at the bottom of the image tell the story. “pinxit” (Latin for “he/she painted”) credits the artist who made the original painting while “lith” (lithographer) signifies the printmaker who reproduces and prints the image we see in the book.

A lithograph is created by an image drawn onto a smooth stone, which is then inked and printed on paper. A chromolithograph is a multi-layered colored lithograph, using many stones depending on the level of detail the printer wants. Chromolithography emerged in order to reproduce oil paintings in publications in mass quantities. When chromolithographs came onto the market they were referred to as “the democracy of art” because the medium was capable of a high quality reproduction for a low price. Although the quality of chromolithographs could vary, for those printers interested in high quality reproductions, it was possible to produce some stunningly gorgeous prints, such as this very poinsettia illustration!

Additional sources:

apsnet.org/publications/apsnetfeatures/pages/poinsettiaflower.aspx

The Ecke Poinsettia Manual, Paul Ecke, 2004

knoxhort.com/wp-content/uploads/Documents/Poinsettia-History.pdf

smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-americas-most-popular-potted-plant-captured-christmas-180949299/

[mannlibrary]

Bacteria Hunters

From: Bacteria: The Smallest of Living Organisms, by Dr. Ferdinand Cohn. Translated by Charles S. Dolley. Rochester, N.Y.: 1881 (from the special collections of Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University)

Antibiotics Awareness week celebrated in November reminds us that it’s hard to imagine a world before antibiotics. The early 20th century discovery of the “magic bullet” rocked the medical world and turned once deadly infections into a quick trip to the doctor’s office. The problem now is that diseases once effectively treated with antibiotics are mutating and returning even stronger. It turns out the magic bullet can be over-prescribed and overused, and overuse causes resistance and stronger bacteria. At a time when dangerous super-bacteria are drawing increasing attention of the world’s microbiologists, we turn our special collections spotlight to some key foundational work for the field of bacteriology done by a 19th century German scientist. 

Image reproduced from: "Bacteria: The Smallest of Living Organisms," translated by Charles S. Dolley, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, January 1939, via jstor.org (https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44440427.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4129cd9688644f0c8cbfcf67fb8c40a9) 

Ferdinand Cohn was a botanist who earned himself lasting fame with the  essays on bacteria that he first began publishing the early 1870s in Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen, a journal he had just launched as professor and director of the Institute of Plant Physiology at the University of Breslau (now known as the University of Wrocław in Wroclaw, Poland.)  Cohn's most widely acclaimed essay "Über Bacterien, die kleinsten der lebenden Wesen"  was also published in 1876 as part of a German series of popular science lectures, where it caught the eye of American medical student Charles S. Dolley at the University of Pennsylvania, who hoped to help make the "best writings in medicine and science" from the German and French medical literature more widely available to aspiring young American scientists-in-training. Dolley's translation, "Bacteria: The Smallest of Living Organisms,"  first appeared as a limited edition pamphlet published in Rochester, N.Y. in 1881, and was later picked up by the Johns Hopkins University Press in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine (January 1939).

Pamphlet from the special collections of Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University

Don't let the size — 31 pages — of this slim publication fool you, for it summarizes profoundly important insights that the botanist had achieved in his study of algal, bacterial, and fungal microorganisms. With his work, Cohn established a robust definition of bacteria as chlorophyll-free cells that could be classified into four basic morphological forms — cocci, bacilli, vibrios and spirilli (see the illustration at the beginning of this blog for the visuals he provided along with that classification). He gave decisive intellectual weight to an understanding of bacteria as form-constant species in their own right, rather than organisms that evolve into something else. And Cohn recognized for the first time that some bacteria can undergo a spore stage—a stage in which otherwise actively reproducing bacteria cells assume a dormant form that allows them to survive exposure to unfavorable physical (e.g. high heat) or chemical (e.g. antiseptic agents) environments .

It's hard to overstate the importance of Cohn's analysis for the major breakthroughs in bacteriology that ensued. By the mid-1870’s Cohn’s ingenious work had attracted the attention of a young country physician, Robert Koch, whose research on anthrax was quietly laying the groundwork for modern medicine's understanding of bacteria as causative agents of infection. Cohn became a key supporter of Koch’s research, publishing Koch's seminal paper about bacillus anthracis in his Beiträge journal series in 1876, and also collaborating with him in some further studies. The rest is glorious science history, as the insights achieved by both scientists proved fundamental to all the later work establishing effective ways to treat bacterial infections, including of course Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in the late 1920’s. 

From: Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen, vol. 2, no. 1, 1876. This seminal paper by Robert Koch, published in Ferdinand Cohn’s botany journal, established the causal relationship between bacillus anthracis and anthrax infection. 

As microbiologists of today turn their attention to the problem of increasingly antibiotic-resistant super-bugs, it’s easy to imagine their intellectual forbears, the Cohns, Kochs, Flemings and the other greats of modern bacteriology, cheering them on — with no small sense of urgency — in their important work on behalf of global health. We might also do well to imagine these giants of science history reminding us that the global public has its own role to play in understanding how bacteria work and what steps we can take in our own habits and industry practices to hold the line against growing antibiotic resistance. For further thoughts on that, be sure to check out the info pages by the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. 

Additional references: 

Drews, Gerhart, "The roots of microbiology and the influence of Ferdinand Cohn on microbiology of the 19th century," FEMS Microbiology Reviews, Volume 24, Issue 3, 1 July 2000, Pages 225–249, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-6976.2000.tb00540.x

“Ferdinand Cohn, German Botanist,” Encyclopaedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ferdinand-Cohn

Gradman, Christoph, "Cohn, Ferdinand Julius," https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.proxy.library.cornell.edu/doi/10.1038/npg.els.0002386

Leikind, Morris C., Introduction to "Bacteria: The Smallest of Living Organisms," translated by Charles S. Dolley, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, January 1939, via jstor.org (https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44440427.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4129cd9688644f0c8cbfcf67fb8c40a9) 

Seidensticker, Oswald, Introduction to Ferdinand Cohn's  "Über Bacterien, die kleinsten der lebenden Wesen" German Scientific Monographs for American Students, Boston: Henry Holt & Co.,  1889, via hathitrust.org (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hxdcmt;view=1up;seq=7)

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Spider Curious

We don’t need Tolkien’s fantastically horrifying Shelob or his monstrous spiders of Mirkwood Forest to remind us that people find arachnids—even at their natural sizes—among the most fearsome creatures of the natural world. So in the spirit of spooky late October fun we've dug out a few creepy crawlies from The Natural History of Spiders and Other Curious Insects (1736), by 18th century painter and water colorist Eleazar Albin (d. 1742?).     

Page through this entomological rarity, and you’ll make the acquaintance of over 180 spiders, most from England but some also from other corners of the world (South Africa, the Philippines, Suriname, among others).  You won't learn their names though. Drawing from his own "ocular observation" (probably in good part via various private specimen collections), Albin provides accounts that detail the shape, color, size, and sometimes behavior of each spider depicted, but does not attempt to sort out  species identification. To Albin's time, the art of taxonomy was, after all, a very young science still.  Proceed to the chapter-like appendices — penned by physician Richard Mead and famed natural philosopher Robert Hooke — you get up-close-and-personal views of tarantulas, scorpions, and, somewhat incongruously, a range of fleas and lice associated with a variety of birds. The inspiration for this intriguing if somewhat discomfiting volume, as declared by author Albin in his introductory notes: A desire to provide a reliable account of the spider species that would “instruct our understanding and gratify our commendable curiosity.” Thanks to this work, and his earlier treatise, The Natural History of English Insects (London, 1720), Albin has been recognized by at least one team of science historians as "one of the great entomological book illustrators of the 18th century."  (Salmon, et. al., quoted in Wikipedia). 

Figure 173: A spider from the Cape of Good Hope. “These foreign large spiders have ten legs besides the forceps, all our English spiders having but eight. They are said to spin a web so strong between the branches of the trees as is able to intangle the humming-birds, which they kill and devour.”  [Note: Albin mistakes two of the spider’s appendages, the short pedipalps on either side of the jaws at the top, for legs. By definition of course, spiders are 8-footed creatures]. 

So how did Albin—whose first paying job was that of teacher of painting and drawing in the bustling city of London—come by his success as an early pioneer of English science illustration? One lucky break came when the young artist’s life path crossed with that of Joseph Dandridge, a successful fabric pattern designer who was also respected as an amateur botanist, entomologist and collector.  As Dandridge (himself a talented if possibly time-strapped illustrator) relied on Albin to render some of the choice caterpillars and other specimens gathered during expeditions across the English countryside, their collaboration provided the artist with access to a widening circle of British intellectuals, aristocrats and other wealthy patrons who would eventually become paying subscribers for several ambitious natural history projects of his own. Ultimately, Albin had five illustrated natural history works to his name, which in addition to Spiders and Insects, included, A Natural History of Birds (1731) ,  Natural History of English Songbirds (1737), and The History of Esculent Fish (published posthumously in 1794) , —no shabby life achievement.  

Among others, the Empress of Russia. Taking care to include a celebrity-studded subscriber list  in his introduction to Spiders, Albin was clearly not above stoking some 18th century FOMO as part of his marketing strategy. 

While clearly adept at tapping into the wealth of England’s upper crust to make his work possible, Albin was not one born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The specific date and place of his birth are unclear, but he appears to have been born in Germany and come to London as an immigrant in either his child- or early adulthood.  In London, he ended up with a large family to support (ten children in all), and their residence on Golden Square, SoHo, "next ye Green Man near Maggots Brew House," was likely not conducive to forging easy connections with the city's monied class. Yet a large family also provided some important resources. Albin's daughter, Elizabeth, and possibly his son (or son-in-law) Fortin contributed some of the lovely artwork in Albin's volumes. And according to at least one contemporaneous natural historian (James Petiver), Albin was known to use a surprisingly effective secret ingredient in mixing up the pigments for his artwork: boys' urine. No shortage of that agent in a household with five boys! 

 Spider no. 178: “The back, belly, legs and feelers of this large Spider were of a yellowish brown, with marks of a darker shade of the same color; its forelegs were longer than any of the others; its feelers were oddly sloped like claws of a lobster, with which it would lay hold of any thing it had a mind to.”

Albin beat some considerable odds in the unforgiving social environment of 18th century England to achieve respect as a natural history illustrator in his lifetime, but there’s a murky side to his story as well. In the late 1960's, some intrepid sleuthing by British science writer W. S. Bristowe yielded a troubling discovery:  It appears that the spider illustrations in Albin's 1736 work were essentially copies of an unpublished set of "delicately executed and often excellent" illustrations by Albin's mentor Joseph Dandridge, which were found tucked away in the archives of the British Museum. Bristowe takes Albin severely to task (to the point possible with someone who’s been dead over 200 years) for failing to include even a hint of attribution to Dandridge's work is in his Spider volume. Now to be fair, Dandridge was very much still alive and kicking — "far from being in his dotage" as Bristowe puts it — when Albin published Spiders, and Albin's appropriation appears to have elicited none of the justifiable outrage one might have expected from his mentor or any of his other contemporaries. At least not anything that's been recorded in the history books. 

And for your frontispiece, why not a put portrait of the author riding a fine horse among an array of mites, scorpions, tarantulas and other spiders!? One can’t, of course, help wondering about he inspiration behind this composition. An eccentric sense of grandeur ? A surreal sense of humor? Or maybe a need to express some wry commentary on the way this particular project had taken over the author’s life? Your guess!

Regardless of the specific story behind his Spider work, it’s clear that Albin labored greatly in life to achieve the results he did. Perhaps Joseph Dandridge felt sorry enough for hard-toiling Albin—and appreciated his zeal for the natural history project enough—to cut his erstwhile mentee a generous break and forgive him his piracy; perhaps Dandridge owed Albin some kind of intellectual debt stemming from their years of collaboration; or perhaps Albin contributed to Dandridge's original spider drawings in ways that he himself had not yet been able to acknowledge. 

 We may never know the full story behind this apparent act of 18th century intellectual property theft. But it's a good cautionary tale in the month of October in any case. While the entomologically unenlightened among us may still find spiders profoundly scary creatures, there's nothing like a cry of plagiarism to send shivers of horror into both the halls of academia and the world of publishing. And almost surely, that is a very good thing. 

Additional references: 

Albin, Eleazar. A Natural History of English Insects. 1720 Bristowe, W. S., "The Life and Work of a Great English Naturalist: Joseph Dandridge," Entomologist's Gazette, Vol. 18, No. 2 (April 24, 1967), pp. 71-89 Bristowe, W. S., "More About Joseph Dandridge and His Friends James Petiver and Eleazar Albin," Entomologists Gazette, Vol. 18, Nos. 3 & 4, pp. 197-201. Osborne, Peter (2004): "Albin, Eleazar (d. 1742?)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University  Press.  Weiss, Harry B., "Two Entomologists of the Eighteenth Century--Eleazar Albin and Moses Harris,"  The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 23, No. 6 (Dec., 1926), pp. 558-564  

Wikipedia: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Dandridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleazar_Albin

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Lima Bean Respect

Who knew?! Lima beans have their very own national holiday, celebrated in this country on April 20.  Actually, it’s called Lima Bean Respect Day, which surely speaks to the controversial, one might even say vulnerable standing of this nutritious legume in the American diet. Our discovery of this remarkable annual holiday sent us scrambling to our vault, to see what we could find there in the way of a fitting tribute. And find one we did---this lovely image from a 19th century vegetable catalog, Les plantes potagères  published in 1883 by the French seed and nursery company Vilmorin-Andrieux, a company that was founded in the late 18th century and still exists today as Vilmorin SA, based in La Ménitré, France.

In  the late 18th century, company owner Philippe-Victoire de Vilmorin became known as an enthusiastic importer of exotic plants to France, helping to introduce new vegetables into French cuisine. Lima beans themselves came from the New World of course; they were first domesticated in the Andes as early as 2000 BC, while a second independent domestication is thought to have occurred in Mesoamerica around 800 AD.  Alas, among Americans of the north, lima beans  frequently take a category in line with that of much maligned broccoli. Too often they are the butt of mean food jokes at the family dinner table, the dish that everyone loves to hate. Perhaps for this reason, lima beans, also known here as butter beans, tend to be considered part of distinctly regional  (e.g. Southern) cuisine, rather than as source of pan-American food pride.

Originally published in 1856 under the title Description des plantes potagères, the catalog was updated and re-published four more times, in 1883, 1904, 1925, and 1947 respectively. French food heritage enthusiasts have been known to compare the list of vegetables included in each of these different editions to document changes in French cuisine and heirloom gardening.  And how well received was the humble (but far-traveling) lima bean among 19th century French gardeners?  We turn to the description in Les plantes and see that for “usage” the authors note: On consomme le grain frais ou sec. Il est très farineux et particulièrement estimé aux États-Unis et dans les pays chauds.  Loosely translated:  “Either fresh or dried beans may be prepared for consumption. The beans are starchy and particularly valued in the United States and in countries with hot climates.” One could fault this description for its rather faint praise of a New World legume. Still, it’s worth recognizing: Lima beans made the cut in a catalog intended for the discerning French food and farming audience, which of course many of us here on this side of the Atlantic consider a bit of a gold standard in foody-ness.  So, all in all,  we here at Cornell’s Mann Library say we’re with the idea of a national holiday in praise of lima beans. We happen to think they are, in fact, delicious as well as nutritious and certainly deserving of some generous respect.

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Winter blossoms and evergreen

Winter months bring bone-chilling cold to the temperate parts of the world (particularly with some of the arctic low temperatures we've seen year in the Finger Lakes around Cornell this January and February!). Which makes it a perfect time to seek out some heartwarming cheer in the blooms and greenery that one way or another take up a presence among us over the winter months. A prime example, paperwhites, a.k.a. Narcissus papyraceus, which 19th century British naturalist and illustrator John Traherne Moggridge drew for his book Contributions to the flora of the Mentone, and to the winter flora of the Riviera, including the coast from Marseille to Genoa. As Moggridge tells us, the different wild variants of this Mediterranean plant begin blooming in their native landscapes at different points of the winter season — some in December, others not until February. And outside of the French Riviera, many of us recognize paperwhites as those winsome bulbous perennials that we coax into full, fragrant bloom to lighten up our indoor spaces in the spirit of holiday celebration and against the deep, dark cold of our long northern European and North American winters.

Then there are the plants that grace winter landscapes not with blossoms, but with the beauty of their leaves. Against the cold ice and snow of even the bitterest winter weather, it's easy to feel drawn to the hope of quiet resilience that one may find in the evergreen trees and shrubbery of our otherwise frozen temperate landscapes. Moggridge's illustration of the prickly juniper (Juniperus oxycedrus) gives us a captivating close up of one such beauty:

While the prickly juniper is found mainly in the Mediterranean and North Africa, its cousin, Juniperus communis, has a vast geographic range throughout the temperate northern hemisphere up to the southern Arctic. Used as a sedative by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, across much of the rest of the northern hemisphere, the juniper tree is known and loved not only for its evergreen beauty in some of the harshest northern climes, but also for its blue-black seed cones, which find their way into a wide variety of delicious dishes and healing teas, not to mention alcoholic brews and distilled spirits.

A member of the Linnaean Society of London, John Traherne Moggridge was known to some of his contemporaries, including the great Charles Darwin himself, as a specialist in orchids. He also gained some renown for his study of insects, in particular harvester ants and trap-door spiders. With Contributions to the flora of the Mentone and to the winter flora of the Riviera—which Moggridge illustrated entirely himself—he hoped to “lay a pebble towards founding the great illustrated FLORA OF EUROPE.” It was quite a few decades before Moggridge's hope was realized, with works such as the Flora Europaea, a 5-volume encyclopedia of Europe's plants published by Cambridge University Press between 1964 and 1980  (with ongoing financing for edition revisions managed by the Linnaen Society itself). But 19th century Moggridge may have taken heart in a quintessential fact of 21st century life: The power of the digital age to give world-wide accessibility to comprehensive works in the life sciences, including even Moggridge's own publications. While Mann Library houses an original copy of the 1874 edition of Contributions, which can be viewed in person via a special paging request,  for those unable to make a trip to the Cornell University campus themselves, an online view of this beautifully crafted work is possible via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.  One way or the other, it is absolutely worth a long look, particularly if you happen to find yourself rather wanting to stay snuggled indoors with visions of new life and growth in spring to come, as winter winds blow hard outside. 

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Death in the Pot!

For a large serving of the sinister and spooky this Halloween, dig no further than this morbid title from Mann’s Special Collections: Deadly Adulteration and Slow Poisoning or, Disease and Death in the Pot and the Bottle. Published in London, around 1829 by an anonymous author self-described as “An Enemy of Fraud and Villainy”, this volume caused quite a stir at the time. While the title may suggest some kind of “How-To” for the murderously inclined, this work was actually intended to publicize the use of chemicals and unsafe practices in the production of common food items such as tea, flour and medicines.

Many later historians of food safety believe this work was actually the last-ditch effort of Friedrich Accum to get his message across to ordinary citizens. Accum was a German chemist who wrote in English and whose many scientific publications were influential in the popularization of chemistry during this era. Earlier in 1820, Accum had published his “Treatise on Adulteration of Food” to both great acclaim – and outrage. The cover was imprinted with a skull-and-crossbones above a spider sitting in the center of an intricate spiderweb.

And what about that catchy headline: Death in the Pot? This is a Biblical reference (2 Kings 4:40), which started to appear in the early 1700s in medical treatises and books about food contamination.  

For a closer look at our creepy collections you can request to view both volumes from Mann’s special collections: http://mannlib.cornell.edu/use/collections/special/registration

Deadly Adulteration and Slow Poisoning, Anonymous, c1829, Call Number TX563.D27.

A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons, Accum, Friedrich Christian, 1820, Call Number TX 563. A17 1820.

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Sandwich Recipes by Honorable Cooks

#ArchivesHashtagParty falls on #nationalsandwichday this month—and it’s hard to pass up this fun coincidence for a look at another little special collections treasure. 

Honor Among Cooks is a beautiful little collection of recipes compiled by Ithaca pediatrician Mary Burchman Spahr (Cornell Medical College Class of 1922). First published in 1939, the royalties from later editions of this recipe book were donated to the American Friends Service Committee for refugee children affected by World War II. 

To create her publication, Dr. Spahr sent out a “Round Robin letter to cooks” asking for submissions. “Cooks,” notes Dr. Spahr in her introduction, “are generous” and they responded with enthusiasm. And as for the sandwich recipes? Well, they may remind us that the past can be rather another country (though smiley faces are timeless…).

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Monarchs and American Entomology

Autumn in much of the United States means monarch migration. From late September on, across wide swathes of Eastern North America, hundreds of thousands of these delicate beauties are are getting ready for one big thing: a 2000+ mile trek to gather for the winter on a handful of forested hills in south central Mexico. Not until the late 1970s did careful observation by a handful of intrepid researchers and watchful citizen-scientists bring this astonishing phenomenon to wider public light as scientifically documented fact. In celebration of this awe-inspiring occasion, we've done some exploring in the Mann Library vault to find monarch research of past centuries. Not surprisingly, this charismatic creature is well represented in the exquisitely illustrated insect catalogs of the 18th and 19th centuries, and among our favorites is a classic work of early American natural history, American Entomology: A Description of the Insects of North America, written by intrepid early 19th century American naturalist Thomas Say (1787-1834) and illustrated by fellow explorer Titian Peale (1799-1885). First issued between 1824 and 1828, this work was later re-published under varying titles. The excerpts in this post are from the 1869 edition in the Mann Library Special Collections.

As great-grandson of John Bartram, and the great-nephew of William Bartram, Philadelphia native Thomas Say arguably had love of natural history coursing through his veins. A "Memoir of the Author" written by friend and fellow American naturalist George Ord for the posthumously published editions of Entomology, tells us that Thomas was a poor student and failure in running his father's apothecary business. But from a passion for exploring forest and field around his boyhood home emerged a self-taught expertise that earned him wide esteem as an important American scientist, positions at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society, and the University of Pennsylvania, and prestigious spots on the membership lists of the Linnaean Society of London and the London Zoological Society. Titian Peale, also born into a family legacy of natural history study, first began drawing scientific illustrations while helping his father collect and prepare specimens  to send to the Peale Museum of Baltimore, Maryland. Thomas Say and Titian Peale began their collaboration early in their respective careers in Philadelphia, and together took part in a couple of early 19th century exploratory expeditions in the American South and in the American Rockies. American Entomology, described by Ord as "the most beautiful publication of its kind which has ever been issued from the American press," presented specimens collected both near to home and far afield along the American frontiers of the day--along with insights gained from fair amount of painstaking library work Say was able to undertake thanks in part to his work as librarian at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.

American Entomology's spotlight on the monarch butterfly--one of hundreds of equally beautifully illustrated specimens described in the 3-volume work--bears out the truth of Ord's claim. The text accompanying Peale’s precise illustration observes that the monarch caterpillar develops on a very specific diet (different species of Asclepias , aka the toxic milkweed), that monarch butterflies were given their modern scientific name Danaus plexippus in 18th century Linnaean taxonomy, that an authoritative 13th edition of Linnaeus' System Naturae also identified them as native to North America, and that in the early 1700s famed ur-naturalist of North America Mark Catesby found the monarch butterflies "common in most of the northern colonies of North America."  Together the beauty and precision of Peale's illustrations, the consistency of Say's observation-based descriptive text, and his carefully-researched taxonomic clarity made American Entomology a very important work of 19th century American science.

At 47 years of age, Thomas Say's life was cut tragically short by typhoid. Ord's brief biography is a generous tribute to an esteemed friend and early American scientist, but it also includes a cautionary tale. Observes Ord mournfully, by truncating his formal schooling so severely in youth, Thomas Say cheated himself out of a sound educational foundation--particularly in English letters--that could have greatly extended the impact of his work. "Had our lamented friend not misemployed his early youth, he might have acquired a taste for classical literature, which would not only have tended to increase his influence in society, but which would have furnished him with the means of usefulness, proportioned to the extent and variety of his acquirements in natural knowledge." Twenty-first century readers may find Ord's own 19th century prose more than a little wordy and schoolmarmish, but they would probably do well to recognize the relevance of the message for our current age, maybe even particularly so when it comes to the question of monarch conservation in a time of climate change: While rigorous science has much to offer to in our understanding of nature’s often fragile complexity, it behooves us also to remember the value of the so-called "softer" skills needed for communicating its lessons both more effectively... and more widely. 

This fall 2017 “Vaults of Mann” post is part of a Mann Library spotlight on the study of monarch biology, natural history and conservation. This includes a book talk video, Monarchs and Milkweed, by Cornell Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior Anurag Agarwal and a physical book display at Mann Library. For more information: monarchs-science-and-story on the Mann Library news page. 

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Fraisier souchet

Happy National Strawberry Day from Mann's Special Collections!

This rare beauty is from Pomologie française: Recueil des plus beaux fruits cultivés en France, by Antoine Poiteau (1766-1854). 

Botanical artist Antoine Poiteau (1766-1854) is among the greatest masters of the golden age of botanical illustration that flowered during the late 1800s and early 19th century. In addition to the artistic beauty of his work, Poiteau contributed a scientific accuracy to pomological illustration that was unrivaled by other botanical illustrators of his time. 

The illustrations in Pomologie française specifically are considered to represent a high point in the genre of pomological art, which traces its original inspiration to the great Flemish still life paintings of  the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Mann Library is one of only four libraries in the United States that owns the full 4-volume set of this work.

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Happy Moth-ers Day from Mann Library’s Special Collections!

This exquisite Atlas Moth is from Natural history of the insects of India, containing upwards of two hundred and twenty figures and descriptions (1800-1804) by Edward Donovan.

Edward Donovan (1768-1837) kept one of the most extensive natural history collections of his time, which he housed in his own London Museum and Institute of Natural History. He produced several important works on entomology, including Natural history of the insects of India, which was the first illustrated publication devoted to the insects of that region.

Donovan illustrated his exotic species based exclusively on collected specimens, as with the exception of some travel in England and Wales, he himself never left London. Each of the wonderful, exquisitely detailed illustrations in his books were completed entirely by Donovan, from the drawing to the etching and engraving, to the luscious hand painting, often using metallic paints and over-glazes.