Author Archives: Suzanne Reller

Cincinnati’s Bathtub Hoax and a Missing Giant Tub

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By:  Kevin Grace

Mencken

H.L. Mencken

In 1917, the noted journalist and philologist H.L. Mencken published an article in the New York Evening Mail concerning the history of the bathtub in the United States.  According to the Baltimore writer, known as much for his satire and acerbic wit as he was for his political reporting, Cincinnati was home to this tub.  Mencken asserted that America’s first bathtub was introduced on December 20, 1842 by Adam Thompson who lived, in all places, Cincinnati, Ohio.    Made of mahogany and lined with lead, the vessel was introduced by Thompson to his guests at a Christmas party, described how it worked, and invited the partygoers to take a dip.  Four of them took him up on his offer, and the next day the invention was widely reported in the press. Continue reading →

RESCHEDULED – ARB’s "50 Minutes" Lunchtime Series Returns for the 2014-2015 Academic Year

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By:  Kevin Grace

This presentation has been rescheduled for TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25.  The series of monthly talks in the Archives & Rare Books Library will return this fall  for its fifth year.  Each month at noon, ARB holds a casual presentation in 814 Blegen Library with a focus on its collections, local heritage, or book history.  In the past, we’ve hosted talks ranging from the Depression-era Cincinnati WPA guide to the smallest book in the world, from Frankenstein to a book bound in human skin, from William Blake to John Milton; and from Don Quixote to the Arabian Nights.  Our presentation originally scheduled for Wednesday, August 27 has been rescheduled for Tuesday November 25.  This presentation will be about rare books and coffee, looking at how coffee production, trade, heritage, and lore have been portrayed by ethnographers, historians, and explorers.

Please join us for this 50 Minutes-One Book talk.  Bring your lunch and your conversation, and of course, coffee will be served!  Other upcoming presentations include the first female graduate of UC back in 1878; Irish poetry during the Great War, the Easter Rising, and the Irish Civil War; UC during World War II; the Hellfire clubs of the 18th century; and fairy tale and fantasy illustrators.  We are also open to any ideas or presenters for these talks.

50 Minutes November

 

New Material in ARB's Urban Studies Collection Highlights Cincinnati's Culture and History

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By:  Suzanne Maggard

Kennedy Heights 15th Anniversary Cover

Kennedy Heights Community Council 15th Anniversary Celebration booklet

What do the papers of a local choral director and composer and the records of the Kennedy Heights Community Council have in common?  All these records were added to the Urban Studies collection in the Archives and Rare Books Library in 2014.  Finding aids are now available for both of the collections and they are open to the public for research.

The Urban Studies collection in the Archives and Rare Books Library holds a vast amount of material related to the history of the city of Cincinnati, the city’s neighborhoods, and the people and culture of the city of Cincinnati.  The newest items in this collection help to expand on the history already available within the collection. Continue reading →

“Bitter Bierce”?

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By:  Michael Tipton, Archives & Rare Books Library intern

 Ambrose Bierce headshot     Shortly after the conclusion of World War II in 1945, a Mr. Myles Walsh of Oradell, New Jersey traveled to Cincinnati for the purpose of visiting his daughter, who at the time worked in the city.  While on an extended stay, Mr. Walsh decided to take some coursework in the Classics Department at the University of Cincinnati.  So impressed was Mr. Walsh with the courses and the campus of the university that he decided to donate to UC some very rare and unique letters personally written and addressed to him from noted American author and journalist Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?).

Though they were consulted once or twice by scholars over the past half-century, the fifty-nine donated letters have never been generally accessible for research and teaching.  In 2011, the letters were digitized and now, with the development of a Bierce presence on ARB’s website, they have assumed their rightful place on the internet for all to study and enjoy. Continue reading →

Summer Issue of Records Quarterly Now Available

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By:  Eira Tansey

Records Quarterly cover Summer 2014The current UC Records Management newsletter shares information on reducing  that hoard of administrative records in your office, tips for how you can organize records through shared drives, information on upcoming workshops, and program news.

Click here for the latest issue and if you have any questions about UC records, just contact me in the Archives & Rare Books Library at 556-1958 or at eira.tansey@uc.edu.

And for more information on the Archives & Rare Books Library and its holdings, please contact us by phone at 513-556-1959, by email at archives@ucmail.uc.edu, or on the web at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/arb.html.

 

ARB’s "50 Minutes" Series Returns in August

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By:  Kevin Grace

The Archives & Rare Books Library will usher in its 5th year of the “50 Minutes” lunchtime talks this August with “The Coffee Chronicles: Accounts and Descriptions in Rare Books.” The talk is scheduled for Wednesday, August 27, at 12 noon in 814 Blegen and as always, the “50 Minutes” presentations are very informal and conversational.  Bring your lunch, relax, ignore the clock on the wall which is invariably an hour behind, and enjoy a look at the history and culture of this global commodity.

50 Minutes One Book August Talk ARB’s "50 Minutes" Series Returns in AugustFor the 2014-15 academic year, the days on which we hold the presentations will vary but will always be at noon.  Other slated talks are: Winona Hawthorne, class of 1878, the first female graduate of the University of Cincinnati; The British Enlightenment; Saint Paul and the Bible; Irish Poets and the Great War (this topic is a presentation marking the centennial of the war.  ARB exhibits of “UC during World War I” and “The City of Cincinnati and the Great War” will be mounted as well); The McNamara Brothers: Cincinnati Labor Radicals and the 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times; Global Efforts in Developing Reading and Libraries; And more! Please join us in August and the following months throughout fall and spring semesters.  

Poetry Month and ARB-Dublin's Easter Rising

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By: Kevin Grace

A Voice of Insurgency     Ninety-eight years ago in 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood staged an uprising during Easter Week, the intent being to reclaim Ireland from the British and establish a republic.  Though the rebellion failed, as so many others had in the previous two centuries, the rising galvanized the Irish people in a way that would ultimately lead to the country’s independence following a bloody civil war.  The Easter Rising and the years following it are complicated ones in sorting out the loyalties and issues, though there has been no shortage of histories and autobiographies and polemics.

In the Rare Books Collection, there is another view of the rising: a poetry chapbook by Maeve Cavanagh.  Entitled A Voice of Insurgency, Cavanugh’s collection of verse documents the six days of the rebellion from Monday, April 24 through Saturday,April 29 and the men and women who were in the forefront of it as gunshots and cannon fire reverberated around Dublin.  Cavanagh was a dedicated supporter of the republican movement, and friends with many of the leaders of the insurgency.  Her poems capture the fear and exhilaration of that Easter week. Continue reading →

Introduction to Records Management Workshop

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By Eira Tansey

The next Introduction to Records Management Workshop will be held on Thursday, May 8 at 10am in Blegen Library, 8th floor. All members of the university community are welcome to attend this 1-hour workshop.  Please RSVP to eira.tansey@uc.edu.

Led by the University Records manager, we will discuss the benefits you will receive from efficiently managing university records, UC’s records program, your role as a keeper of public records, the definition of a “record,” how to perform records inventories, the development of records retention schedules, and proper means of records disposal. A representative from the Office of Information Security will also be involved in the presentation.

For more information on UC’s Records Management program, please visit http://www.libraries.uc.edu/arb/records-management.html 

Poetry Month and ARB-Phillis Wheatley's Poetry

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By:  Kevin Grace

anthropodermic binding     Last week we had the pleasure of hosting an English Department lecture by visiting University of Texas professor John Rumrich on John Milton’s poetry, who spoke on the sometimes very literal connection between a physical book and an author.  In the case of Milton, Professor Rumrich related the poet’s work to the curious custom that developed in the 18th century of binding books in human skin.  And, in preparation for his remarks, Rumrich examined the Archives & Rare Books Library’s anthropodermic binding.

An odd volume in our holdings for over half a century, this binding encloses the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, an 18th century African American poet.  Though there is no indication at all that the binding has a connection to the poet in any way, and really is an altogether other topic for discussion, it did call our attention to the Wheatley body of work, appropriate enough for a month devoted to poetry. Continue reading →

On John Milton and "Reading Blood"

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By:  Kevin Grace

On the south parapet of Blegen Library are carved these words from John Milton’s Areopagitica written in 1644:

For books are not absolutely dead things

But do contain a potencie of life in them

To be as active as those whose progeny they are.

John MiltonMilton (1608-1674) is one of the greatest poets and essayists in the English language.  The quote, which is part of his work condemning censorship and pleading for free speech, is part of the architectural design in the library, which opened as the University of Cincinnati’s Main Library in 1930.  Intended to inspire students and scholars, they are words meant both to establish the primacy of books and the written word in human culture and to draw the reader within the building to explore, to learn, to consider, and to share knowledge.

The Department of English and Comparative Literature sends this information for a lecture this Friday at 1:00 pm in 814 Blegen, the Schott Seminar Room in the Archives & Rare Books Library: Continue reading →