Class Blog 1

The Shoes That Danced

~ Annie Swafford

The only text within the right time period I found during our library visit was in a book of poems called “The Shoes That Danced” by Anna Hempstead branch. This book was published in Boston in 1905 by Mifflin and Co.

In this book of poems, someone had made marks on a specific page of poetry. While it is not clear whether the marks are accidental pencil markings, for the purpose of this lab, I’m going to assume they were put there intentionally. IMG_7739 IMG_7740

The picture is blurry, but the bracketed area says,

“THE wonderful, strong, angelic trees,
With their blowing locks and their bared great knees
And nourishing bosoms, shout all together,
And rush and rock through the glad wild weather.

They are so old they teach me,
With their strong hands they reach me,
Into their breast my soul they take,
And keep me there for wisdom’s sake.

They teach me little prayers;
To-day I am their child;
The sweet breath of their innocent airs
Blows through me strange and wild.

So many things they know,
So learnèd with the ebb and flow
By which the seasons come and go.
Still the forefather stands
With unforgetting eyes,
Forever holding in his tranquil hands
The fruit that makes us wise.”
Seeing as these are the only marks made by this person in the entire book, obviously this passage is significant to him or her. These marks say something specifically about the reader. The fact that these are the only marks in the entire book can indicate that this is a person who doesn’t ever write in books, be it because they usually take them out of the library where i found them or because they are not that type of person. Additionally, it means that the poem moved this person so much that, even though they do not normally write in books, they needed to indicate the importance of this poem. If this is the case, it is a very good example of the power of words and the weight they can hold with a reader.
If the pencil marks been made unintentionally,  this could mean a few different things.It could mean that the reader who left the marks is someone who usually writes in books and likes to hold a pencil while they read. It could also mean that the reader could have been doing something else while reading. In my mind, I imagine a college student who has their math homework open in front of them, but instead finds themselves distracted by the book of poetry. Absentmindedly and lost in the poem, the reader accidentally marks up the book with the pencil she should be using to do homework. I like to think that words can take them to a completely different place, and that the poem meant something to the reader.
In this lab, I stumbled upon a few books that were not within our allotted time period that were also marked up. Reading these, I learned that someone who writes in books is someone who is speaking to the author. The person who wrote the book could be dead or across the world, but someone who writes in books is having a conversation and sharing his or her opinion with the author. Marginalia is conversation.

Book Traces

~ Annie Swafford

 

 

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Walking through the second floor of the library, I stumbled upon multiple books that caught my attention.  It was very difficult to find scripture with handwritten marks in it, but after a solid 20 minutes, I came across this lovely book entitled “Seventeenth Century Studies.”

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Specifically, I stumbled upon marks such as cross outs, and underlines.  I found this to be exceptionally cool because when finding these marks I began to think to myself “I really wonder who wrote in this book, and how long ago did they actually do this.”  Obviously, none of us know, but it is sure cool.

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Seems to me, that whoever was reading this book understood a majority of the book because there weren’t many marks on these pages, but the cool part about it was they underlined sentences that had true legitimate meaning.  “tells us were written beneath the wings of God” – “1646, soon after his arrival in Paris.”  These two sentences exhibit time, and place; as well as information about what the publications were specifically about.

 

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All in all,  really was an awesome experience looking through all legendary old books that were published in such an early time.  Makes history that much more intriguing.  I love history!

 

Samantha Harris

Discovering a Dedicated Wordsworth Fan

~ Annie Swafford

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In this book, published in 1908, I could immediately tell that the previous owner was very passionate about the works he/she was reading. Even in just the table of contents, we can immediately see his/her fascination with the works he/she was about to read or even re-read. I found myself wondering if the work underlined was his/her favorite, or if the check marks next to certain works meant something significant to him/her. IMG_2793

In thumbing through some of my own personal favorite Wordworth works, I found descriptive marginalia left by whomever else had enjoyed the romantic poems of Wordworth. IMG_2790The writing in this book shows that the person who had previously owned/read this book was very interested in deciphering the true meanings of the writings. IMG_2791Sometimes Wordsworths’ sonnets can be difficult to interpret, but the previous owner shows his dedication in trying to understand what he was reading. IMG_2792The stains in the book also show how invested the person mustve been in what he was reading. IMG_2794I am a huge Wordsworth fan myself, and being able to find interesting book traces in a book that I was interested in reading myself was very exciting. Though the marginalia didnt directly tell me anything about the previous owner, it reminded me alot of myself and the way i read. No matter what i am reading, i am constantly using the margins to clarify what I am reading, even if occasionally i may be wrong. This assignment also excited me with the thought that maybe someday my notes in a book may become something to marvel at.

Music of the Past

~ Annie Swafford

The late 1700’s was a very well-known time for musicians, such as Ludwig Beethoven. Often, I had found that a majority of the books with musical compilations had told of the years that the music was published, not the book itself. Within the book “Contemporary Composers” by Daniel Gregory Mason (published by The Macmillan company in 1918), it shows multiple moments where someone has underlined certain points.
DH Book (Pg. 138)
In the first portion of the underlined section the person who had underlined the text made a point to take notice of what was written there. This section mentions how even though a musician knows what they are playing, an “untrained” listener, or a listener who is not so widely educated in the ways of music, will not know exactly how in depth the music goes. As a musician, I have found this to be true in multiple forms, and often forget that the audience does not truly understand the music. Knowing exactly the extent of the audience’s listening and comprehending abilities can help the musician to alter their performance in such a way that the audience will be as close to the same level as the performer.
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Continued from the pervious page to the top of page 139, the underlined section also goes on to talk about how music is not just about playing the notes correctly and with the right inflections, but the emotions that are laced into the notes. The composer does not create these emotions entirely; that is entirely to the performer. A good performer can change a song that is typically known as a slow and beautiful piece, to music that is riddled with fear and despair. The composer is a guide, the performer is the leader.

A 92 year old book about a 2000 year old wall

~ Annie Swafford

Hadrian’s Wall was a massive structure constructed by the Roman Empire during its occupation of Britain. Its purpose was to secure lower England from the “barbarian” hordes to the North- and, it did that. Only, now, it’s a series of ruins. What was once a mighty and impenetrable barrier at which the legions of Rome held the line, and that tends to captivate people.

In 1922, Jessie Mothersole published a novel recounting the history around the Wall. Everything contemporarily known about the purpose, construction and day-to-day functions of the society around the structure was scrupulously documented and recited with a surprising degree of clarity. Reading through the book, I found myself somewhat taken off guard: I had expected to understand it simply due to my anthropology and history background. While they did not hurt, the writing was actually fairly easy for the layman to understand and painted a vivid portrait of the Wall’s history, and even went so far as to describe Roman conventions and history beyond the scope of simply the Wall itself.

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Perhaps most interesting from this nearly hundred-year-old book, however, is not what was originally contained within the now aged and delicate paper. In 1950, a previous owner of the book had inserted several news articles (themselves artifacts!) with regards to Roman history and the Wall.

A previous (and main) owner's signature and one of his modifications and notes.
A previous (and main) owner’s signature and one of his modifications and notes.

Mr. Oliver B. Searivan (I believe that’s his it, but I am having trouble reading the cursive of his surname) came into possession of this book and altered it, possibly to fit research he was doing at the time. Google searches of his name do not yield any results (bear in mind that I may be misspelling his name), so I am uncertain as to whether this was an academic venture or a personal one. Regardless, the work is there, and quite visible.

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The book itself is a very interesting read, but these modifications make it all the more intriguing to read. In fact, due to the information they add, it enhances it beyond the main text- it’s incredible to see what information added 28 years after the fact can do, even if all of this is over 60 years old at the very least.

Note: as of 1:05PM on October 5th, 2014, the Booktraces link had not yet been posted. This post will be updated with links to the content there as soon as it is available. The pictures listed here are identical to the ones posted to Booktraces, but are in their original resolution due to file size conflicts on Booktraces.

Book Trace – Little Essays of Love and Virtue (Angela Zanga – Theofanaki)

~ Annie Swafford ~ 2 Comments

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I was able to find some small notes in “Little Essays of Love and Virtue” by Ellis, Havelock. It was difficult to find a book from 1800 to 1923 with writing on the inside but there was some underlining and three words written on pages 134 to 135. Ellis was a British physician, psychologist, writer, and social reformer who studied human sexuality. In these seven chapters (“essays”) he discusses “certain fundamental principles” (v) about relationships and sexuality and reproduction.

"Infanticide" "Abortion" "Birth Control"
“Infanticide” “Abortion” “Birth Control”

The two pages pointed out by a previous reader are in the last chapter, The Individual and The Race.The underlined part is, “(It was chosen by) Francis Galton, (less than fifty years ago, to express) “the effort of Man to improve his own breed (134-135).” This line is in references to eugenics. Ellis goes on to explain that failing to consciously “improve his own quality” (his being “man” of course) can lead to  “suffering.” He makes it very clear that he is in support of eugenics.

The three notes taken down by a previous reader are ‘infanticide,’ ‘abortion,’ and ‘birth control.’

Infanticide is scrawled neck to an example of “primitive eugenics” and the “mika operation” in Australia. I did a quick search and found a the mika operation to be, “the establishment of a permanent fistula in the bulbous portions of the urethra to render the man incapable of procreating; said to be a practice among certain Australian aboriginal groups.” I’m not sure why infanticide was written next to it when this would be sterilization.

Abortion is next to a sentence on infanticide. I am, again, not sure why it was next to a sentence on killing an already born child, but it is.

Birth control is written next to the section on some kind of eugenics, though I’m not sure exactly what forms Ellis is referring to when he says that “most civilised nations of the world have devoted all their best energies to competitive slaughter.”

All in all, it is obvious that Ellis himself was a ethnocentric, eugenics supporter and the person who wrote in the book may not have been completely aware of what he was saying.

Here is a link to the whole book and…

Here is a snippet of the first two pages of The Individual and The Race:

“The relation of the individual person to the species he belongs to is the most intimate of all relations. It is a relation which almost amounts to identity. Yet it somehow seems so vague, so abstract, as scarcely to concern us at all. It is only lately indeed that there has been formulated even so much as a science to discuss this relationship, and the duties which, when properly understood, it throws upon the individual. Even yet the word “Eugenics,” the name of this science, and this art, sometimes arouses a smile. It seems to stand for a modern fad, which the superior person, or even the ordinary plebeian democrat, may pass by on the other side with his nose raised towards the sky. Modern the science and art of Eugenics certainly seem, though the term is ancient, and the Greeks of classic days, as well as their successors to-day, used the word Eugeneia for nobility or good birth. It was chosen by Francis Galton, less than fifty years ago, to express “the effort of Man to improve his own breed.” But the thing the term stands for is, in reality, also far from modern. It is indeed ancient and may even be nearly as old as Man himself. Consciously or unconsciously, sometimes under pretexts that have disguised his motives even from himself, Man has always been attempting to improve his own quality or at least to maintain it. When he slackens that effort, when he allows his attention to be too exclusively drawn to other ends, he suffers, he becomes decadent, he even tends to die out.

Primitive eugenics had seldom anything to do with what we call “birth-control.” One must not say that it never had. Even the mysterious mika operation of so primitive a race as the Australians has been supposed to be a method of controlling conception. But the usual method, even of people highly advanced in culture, has been simpler. They preferred to see the new-born infant before deciding whether it was likely to prove a credit to its parents or to the human race generally, and if it seemed not up to the standard they dealt with it accordingly. At one time that was regarded as a cruel and even inhuman method. To-day, when the most civilised nations of the world have devoted all their best energies to competitive slaughter, we may have learnt to view the matter differently. If we can tolerate the wholesale murder and mutilation of the finest specimens of our race in the adult possession of…”

Dan Albrecht’s book trace blog post.

~ Annie Swafford

The book that I have chosen to do my post on is “Heroes of American History: Amerigo Vespucci.” It was published in 1907 and discusses the life and background of Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian Explorer who the Americas were named after.  This book has written notes and Marginalia included throughout the text, and gives some insight to the thoughts of past readers of this book.

Pic1 This first image shows the word “friends” written into the margins.  This is written on the first page of chapter 2, which discusses Vespucci’s friends and family.  The word “friends” was written to specify that two of the individuals being talked about on this page were friends and not family by one of the past readers of this book.

pic2 In this page shown here, the author discusses Columbus and a man named Toscanelli, a florentine scientish who the author credits with giving Columbus the idea of searching for a western sea route to India.  In the margins, someone wrote “Toscanelli + Columbus discover America.” This is was one way for an unknown reader to basically sum up what they read on the previous several pages.

pic3In this chapter, the author discusses competing claims by various historians about which voyages involved participation by either Vespucci, Toscanelli, or Columbus.  In the margins, the readers writes “How many voyages did Columbus make?”  This was apparently an expression of frustration by the reader than there may not be a definitive count of all the voyages that columbus was himself involved, let alone the number that Toscanelli and Vespucci were involved in.

pic4In this chapter, the author discusses the favorite writers of Vespucci and Toscanelli.  He iterates that around this time period was when printing was invented and books were not yet prevalent.  The readers writes a question in the margins, “question as to what he would probably read” This is a question as to what books Vespucci would have read if he had access to them, and may have been the readers attempt to summarize what the chapter was discussing.

 

pic6This is one of many examples throughout the whole book where the past reader(s) highlight various portions of the text that they find relevant by drawing a single line along the left margin past all relevant text.  This is done many times throughout the book and at least once in every single chapter.

Book Traces

~ Annie Swafford

During the book tracing assignment I though it would be a good idea to first try and look on the 3rd floor of the library near the movable stacks. I figured that the oldest books in the library would be on the bottom most floor. At first I looked for books based on year alone and had trouble finding most of them. I then switched my search method to try and find books on certain topics such as music, Shakespearean literature, and old folktales. I found a lot of old books within these categories but none that were between the years of 1800-1900. Most of the books I found were between the years 1920-1960 and a lot had some marginal writing and underlining within them but were too recent to be posted Book Traces. The book I did find though was from 1867. It was one book taken from a catalog of french geography textbooks. There wasn’t much marginalia in the book I found. Not much was in there besides some underlining of a few sentences on a couple of pages. What I took from this though was that whatever was underlined must have been important to whoever was reading this though. I had a hard time understanding what was being said though because everything was in french. Overall though I felt that this was a entertaining and educational assignment.  It let you realize how old certain texts are and what books were in print between 1800-1900.

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Exploring Ideas of “The Self” in 1902

~ Annie Swafford

For this assignment, I intentionally pursued psychology books of the 19th century, curious to see how people would react to psychological perspectives of the time. Charles Horton Cooley’s “Human Nature and the Social Order” was my book of choice and had some interesting marginalia. The book was published in New York in 1902 by Charles Scribners’ Sons and describes early social psychology and sociological view points. Throughout the entire book, there is underlining of key points, but one particular chapter titled “The Social Self – Various Phases of I,” I found marginalia.

 http://www.booktraces.org/book-submission-human-nature-and-the-social-order/

On page 193, the marginalia says “Cut out Cooley’s babies,” following a phrase that had been underlined. The phrase speaks to the idea of the ego of an author slipping through their written work in a way that has no connection to the work itself. The written comment, “Cut out Cooley’s babies” could be a note to the reader to remember to overlook Cooley’s own examples of personal anecdotes slipping into the text at hand. I researched Charles Horton Cooley and could not find anything about him that related specifically to babies. In the Amazon.com review of this book, Cooley is described as a pioneer of sociological views on American culture. His ideas were the catalyst for change in how sociology revolving around the self was approached pedagogically. The passage that is underlined on page 193 suggests that the reader be a critical thinker for not just content, but for the perspectives of authors writing the content.

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On page 227 in the same chapter about Various Phases of “I,” the following sentence is underlined:
Thus the passion of self-aggrandizement is persistent but plastic; it will never disappear from a vigorous mind, but may become morally higher by attaching itself to a larger conception of what constitutes the self.” The marginalia beside the underlining says “self-aggrandizement becomes moral.” This trace of a reader’s idea seems to be the summary of the sentence that resonated most with them. The concept of “self-aggrandizement” means process of promoting oneself as being powerful or important. The marginalia therefore is a synopsis of the idea that as one’s sense of self grows and becomes more attached to one’s morals, self-aggrandizement therefore becomes moral.

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Finally, on page 231, at the end of the chapter, the sentenced underlined is “The chief misery of the decline of the faculties, and a main cause of the irritability that often goes with it, is evidently the isolation, the lack of customary appreciation and influence, which only the rarest tact and thoughtfulness on the part of others can alleviate.” This description of the self that is underlined is referring to the later idea of the self and the marginalia says “misery of old age.” This summarizes the underlined phrase concisely and quiet honestly as well.

 

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Book Tracing

~ Annie Swafford ~ 1 Comment

Searching through shelves of old books is a thrilling experience. I was unsure of what to expect at first with this project. I questioned whether or not everyone was going to be able to find marginalia or some sort of vintage markings in the books. My plan was to write down call numbers of books that seemed promising – books in the genre of philosophy, history, poetry or religion. I searched through all of the books I had written down with no luck in margin notes or other handwritten surprises. It was then when I decided to navigate the shelves by myself to seek out something interesting.

 

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Alas! Something worth writing about. I should mention that of all the books I carefully thumbed through prior to finding Alexander Pope by Leslie Stephen, there was a lot of underlining. I kept searching through other books until I found some sort of notes written in the margins because that was the most rewarding find. The author of this 1901 biography is Leslie Stephen, a 19th century British philosopher. This book is about the life of Alexander Pope who was an 18th century English poet. I tried to examine who wrote the marginalia in order to better understand it. Someone who may have been a philosophy or English student or generally interested in poetry or philosophy may have been the source of the minimal marginal notations. Unfortunately there did not appear to be any cryptic messages or names to decode in the notes. Anything written down in this book seems to have been a confirmation or agreement/disagreement of what was read. Aside from the handwritten cursive margin notes, there was also a vast amount of underlining all throughout the text.

 

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The first bit of marginalia I encountered reads, “money not to protestants”. In this passage the author is describing how Pope had “a conscientious objection” to supporting the Protestant government and saved money himself. The margin note reminds me of something one would write if they were trying to remember a certain point being made to relocate quickly back to that part of the text. Sometimes when I read I benefit from writing down a terse reiteration of the point in the margin so that I can easily find the part in the text I am looking for. Perhaps the person who wrote this was a teacher or explained the book to other people.

 

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The photo above shows a starred sentence and a simple marking of “good” next to a sentence. There is an obvious agreement with a statement and marking of something that is deemed important by whoever scribbled in the book. The sentence that is underlined and has a star in the margin reads, “Waller, Spencer, and Dryden were, he says, his great favourites”. These three English poets were Pope’s earliest inspirations. Stephen writes how Dryden “naturally exercised a predominant influence upon his [Pope’s] own mind”. This sentence is labeled as being “good”. Perhaps the person who wrote the notes admired the work of Dryden also and felt that the influence he had upon Pope was a good thing. Or maybe the person simply enjoyed the flow of the sentence? They may have also agreed that the work of Dryden strongly influenced the work of Pope by comparison.

 

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I attempted to decipher the illegible cursive words in the above photo but had difficulty in doing so. In this passage the author is describing how Pope can be pungent but never simply playful. This line and most of the paragraph about Pope’s personality is underlined. Even though I cannot read exactly what the margin note says, I feel that it is an important part of understanding who the source of margin notes is. If we look at what types of things they marked up it may show a pattern of thinking or a way of teaching. The other margin writings are about Pope’s financial habits, his childhood inspirations, his personality, and in the last photo below his love life. One can surmise that the author of the marginalia was certainly interested in the very personal details of Pope’s life. To try and understand the person writing the short margin notes is a challenge given what they have left. Creating my own perception about who they were given the evidence I have is a tantalizing journey. The further I read into the marginalia, the more I want to figure them out.

 

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Something interesting about this last bit of marginalia is its vertical positioning and rather large size. Compared to the other bits of text this note is much larger and oriented differently in a way that is kind of curious. The adjacent paragraph talks about Pope’s romantic life and how he was too jealous and mean of a man to marry. Why the marginalia is written differently is unbeknownst to me. My guess is that the person either fervently wanted to remember this portion of the text about his love life and wife situation, or it was strikingly important in another way to them. There are other examples of marginal notations and underlining on later pages in the book but they are mostly illegible doodles in comparison to the ones I chose to highlight in this blog post. With all of the evidence in my hands, and a lot of time and thought, I have conjured up an idea of what the person writing all of these notes had in mind. I envision them to be a male, considering the fact that philosophy and poetry of the 19th century seem to be predominantly male dominated fields. They were most likely either a teacher or a student of philosophy or English, interested in the life and work of Alexander Pope. This person was probably mysterious and cerebral since the majority of their notes were short. They were also probably interested in love and desire. The “wife” marginalia was the largest note in the text and it reflected a particular interest in the writing about love. This analysis is basic and lacking true proof of who the person was, although it was a fun adventure figuring them out myself.

Book Tracing is a unique and interactive experience that allows us to get inside the minds of readers of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is an opportunity to get lost in a book in a different way. It gives the student the chance to explore early ideas of love, art, history, and other topics. I found this assignment engaging and exciting and had a fun time browsing the library to find something so interesting. Now I will always peruse the shelves of a library with an open eye to catch any torn spines or handwritten titles.