Unpacking 22 boxes of a gift collection this morning has generated pure, unadulterated nostalgia for my earliest passion: reading The Hardy Boys mystery series.

The gift came quite literally from out of the blue. A bookseller in the southwest posted a note to a rare books listserv that his client — a collector in New Mexico — had formed a “study collection” of various juvenile genre series (nearly 700 volumes, including multiple editions of the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, the Little Colonel, The Dana Girls, the Bobbsey Twins, Judy Bolton, Connie Blair, and works by Alcott, Montgomery, Porter, and Wiggin), and she wanted to gift it to an institution. Three minutes after this was posted, I responded, and was the first institution to do so–and therefore got the prize!

And what a prize it is. It joins our other children’s books (ca. 2,000 volumes) which also connects to our Barnard collection (ca. 7,000 volumes)  on early education, effectively allowing our students to study what American youth read from the 1820s through the 1950s.

What we have in this current gift is a small but significant window into the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which produced such an outpouring of works from its “fiction factory” from the 1920s through the 1970s, many of which are still in print. Generations of American youth cut their teeth on these stories, myself included–when I was ten I refused to read anything else, my mother had to wean me off these books and branch out, I loved them so much.

In the 1950’s there were some major revisions done, mostly to update the technology and language (racial slurs were thinned out, etc.)–as one can see from a comparison of the first page of the first Hardy Boys volume, The Tower Treasure, below:

On the left is the 1927 edition, and on the right, the revision done in 1959.

A small exhibition of these books will be mounted in the atrium of the Raether Library and Information Technology Center from January to June, 2015.

I am pleased to announce that Julia Helena Rubano ’14 is the first awardee of the South Beach Writing Residency, offered by the family of Hyam Plutzik ’32.

Originally from Madison, CT, Julia entered New York University in the Fall of 2010 as an English major and made the Dean’s List during her three semesters there (Fall 2010-Fall 2011). She transferred to Trinity in the spring of 2012 as an English major with a focus on creative writing (poetry), with a minor in Film Studies. A member of the Varsity Track & Field team, Julia has studied writing and literary topics at Trinity with Ciaran Berry, Dario Del Puppo, Lucy Ferriss, Sheila Fisher, Christopher Hager, Daniel Mrozowski, David Rosen, Clare Rossini, Mary Beverly Wall, and James Prakash Younger. Julia’s advisor at Trinity is Ciaran Berry, Assistant Professor and Director of the Creative Writing Program, recipient of the 2012 Whiting Writer’s Award, and author of The Sphere of Birds (2008) and numerous pieces in journals and anthologies.  Her thesis advisor is Clare Rossini, poet and Artist-in-Residence, and author of Winter Morning with Crow (1997) and Lingo (2006), as well as numerous pieces in journals and anthologies.

The Family of Hyam Plutzik (Trinity ’32) is proud to offer an annual residency (for five years, beginning in Spring 2014) in South Beach in the Betsy Writers Room to a graduating senior with outstanding talent in the literary arts.  The award will be given in May, as part of the graduation program.  This residency comes with a $500 travel stipend, six days lodging, and a per-diem of $50. During the residency, the recipient will be invited to participate in an Arts Salon to share his/her work with the community; planning will be done in close partnership with the visiting artist.  The residency will be awarded annually by the Head Curator and Librarian at the Watkinson, in cooperation with College advisors, for a residency to be scheduled directly with the Betsy Writers Room.

We recently acquired a bit of Connecticut history that has been in a mid-western historical society since 1965, and was recently deaccesioned by that archive. We bought it from a dealer in Philadelphia and brought it back to Connecticut!

Dated 14 July 1763 at Preston, CT, this is an apprenticeship indenture which binds Asa Greer, “son of Elisabeth Parke and one of the poor of this town,” to John Greer and his wife to serve as an apprentice until age 21.

Young Asa (who was probably about seven years old) “shall not absent himself day or night from his master’s service,” and in return his master will “teach him to write and cipher and provide him with suitable board and clothes.” The nature of his apprenticeship beyond “service” is not specified.

Our most significant acquisition this year came from a dealer in Philadelphia.  It is a 450-page diary written over 10 years (1841-1851) by Hartford artist and dilettante Edward Watkinson Wells (1819-1898), one of the many nephews of our founder, David Watkinson (1778-1857).

Edward was immersed in Hartford’s cultural life in the 1840s, exhibited his works at local fairs and gave lessons to the locals. He portrays an active involvement with with his large extended family, which often crossed and re-crossed the other prominent families of Hartford (i.e., Barnard, Channing, Dexter, Ely, Gallaudet, Gill, Goodrich, Hudson, Rockwell, Silsbee, Tappan, Terry, Tracy, Trumbull, Van Renselaer, and Wadsworth).

Edward describes dancing and costume parties, soirees, teas, dinners, and receptions in private homes and public venues. He meets Charles Dickens and his wife when they come through Hartford in 1842, and describes brushes with other luminaries, such as Col. Thomas L. McKenney (who lectures on American Indians), and the Unitarian clergyman Rev. Henry Giles, who gave a pro-Irish speech.

Other entertainments included a balloon ascension, exhibitions of mesmerism and hypnotism, parades, and performances by well-known groups.  He also chronicles the progression of the construction of the Wadsworth Atheneum, and touches on his father’s far-reaching interests in the business world–canals, railroads, factories, and real estate.

The cost of this valuable document of mid-19thC Hartford was generously underwritten entirely by a  member of the Watkinson Trustees.

We recently acquired a few more items for our collection on Lydia H. Sigourney (1791-1865), the “sweet singer of Hartford.”

Shown here is a letter to an unidentified friend dated 22 July 1857. In it, Sigourney apologizes for the delayed response, and is empathetic to an obviously bereaved friend, who lost someone named Elizabeth: “Strongly have I been reminded of your mother and yourself, and your desolated house, by the image of dear Elizabeth . . . objects from her tasteful hand continually meet my eye–the needle-case in my work-basket, the embroidered cushion in the guest chamber, the “Holy Family” upon the walls of the apartment which my daughter used to occupy…”

Another letter, dated 19 May 1857, seems to be to a publisher or distributor, who apparently had asked if she would be able to use 750 copies of Voices of Home.  “It is true that have occasionally desired some as gifts for friends going on voyages,” she admits, but for those purposes she requests only 50 copies.

There are two engraved portraits of Sigourney as well, and two manuscript poems:” Addressed to Madame Wadsworth, on seeing her surrounded by her children, and grand-children, on Thanksgiving Day” dated 30 November 1816; and “Lines written on reading this morning ‘A Letter to Maj. General Dearborn by Colonel Putnam, repelling an unprovoked attack on the character of his deceased father, the late Maj. General J. Putnam,” dated 5 June 1818.

We recently acquired a small archive of forty-three (43) WWI-era letters from enlisted Ohio native John Burkin to his wife Evelyn between August and December 1918.

John (or Jack, as he often refers to himself) was recruited by the army in the summer of 1918 and sent to Fort Slocum in New York to await orders, then to Camp McClellan in Anniston, Alabama, where he made First Sergeant and wrote to his wife Evelyn nearly every day.

“The higher I can get in military circles, the greater chance of having my Evie near. They don’t pay attention to a Private, he is the dog who does the work.”

His letters home speak candidly of the longing most soldiers felt during the uncertain times at the end of the Great War. Camp life was training, waiting, and loneliness. “I am so sad I can hardly talk. There are a great number of soldiers in camp here. They are coming in and going out continually. We are right on the shore and have a fine view but to hell with the views. There is only one that would look good to me.”

Although never shipped overseas, his anxiety about the possibility can be seen throughout the letters.

We recently acquired the first English translation of a famous chronicle of the New World, written and compiled by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas (d. 1625), who was appointed the official historian of the Indies (Cronista Mayor de Indias) by King Philip II in 1586.

Originally published between 1601-15 as the Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas i Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano, the History is, according to one scholar, “a huge work of erudition.  Its author, who never crossed the Atlantic Ocean, incorporated the greatest collection of sources up to that date, including many important writings that had not yet been published, such as the histories of Bernal Diaz and Bartolome de las Casas, and the valuable Geografia y Descripcion Universal de las Indias by the cosmographer Juan Lopez de Velasco.   . . . [It constitutes] a true encyclopedia of all the facts pertaining to the Spanish involvement with the Indies between 1492 and 1555.  The narrated events are arranged in chronological order by decades.  Since the author was sufficiently removed from the facts he narrated, he made judgments without worrying about possible accusations and lawsuits by the people involved, a common problem in many of the earlier histories of the Indies.”

Cited source: Spanish Historical Writing about the New World: 1493-1700 by Angel Delgado-Gomez. (Providence: John Carter Brown Library, 1992).

We bid a fond farewell with best wishes to Michael Kozek ’13, who has worked for the Watkinson for his entire time at Trinity (with the exception of the “study abroad” semester he spent in Argentina).  Majoring in Language & Cultural Studies and Political Science, Michael wrote a thesis in Spanish entitled “Logros, Desafíos y Justicia: La cultura política LGBTQ en Argentina e Italia.”  In the fall, Michael will attend graduate school at the University of Chicago to pursue Latin American studies.

Michael is shown here standing by a small exhibition he recently curated (on display through June 15) entitled “The Corvo Papers: The OSS in Italy during WW II.” The exhibit offers a selection of items from a collection of intelligence reports, photos, and correspondence from fascist Italy (1943-45), given to Trinity by William Corvo, the son of Biagio “Max” Corvo, a decorated Major in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the precursor to the CIA). The collection includes formerly sensitive documents (and some very graphic photos) that reveal how the OSS contributed to a strategic advantage that helped to bring down Mussolini’s administration and turn Italy toward the Allied cause.

One of my favorite types of material are handbooks for working people.  At the recent New York Book Fair I picked up five of these from a New Jersey dealer with whom I have done business for years.  I was delighted that they were in excellent condition and rather inexpensive.  I will let the titles and Preface excerpts of three of them speak for themselves:

A New Conductor Generalis: Being a Summary of the Law Relative to the Duty and Office of Justices of the Peace, Sherriffs, Coroners, Constables, Jurymen, Overseers of the Poor, &c. (New York: Albany, 1803).  “Although it cannot be supposed that a complete system of criminal jurisprudence could be comprised in the following number of pages, yet it will be found that very few cases can arise, subject to an interference of the law, or any of its officers, for which the necessary instructions are not herein pointed out” (Preface).  A nice Early Republic edition of a classic legal manual (the first American edition was 1711, and English editions under the title A Guide for Constables go back to 1669).

A similar work is John B. Colvin’s A Magistrate’s Guide; and Citizen’s Counsellor: Being a Digested Abstract of those Laws of the State of Maryland [etc.] (Maryland: Frederick-Town, 1805).  This is the first printing of an early Maryland legal guide, written, says the author, for the average citizen, in part to protect him from “the impositions of the dishonest part of the bar.”

From the Introduction, “An occasional attendance upon our courts of justice, where I have often witnessed a lamentable want of legal information among that class of citizens who constitute the major part of the community, together with a strong recommendation of a friend, originally induced me to undertake the present composition.”

Departing from law and moving on to commerce, Joseph Blunt’s The Merchant’s and Shipmaster’s Assistant (New York, 1832) is a later edition of this guide, which contains information of every kind, from exchange rates to insurance, and from wreck laws to shipboard crime.

The Preface contains a highly articulate overview of the state of U.S. trade, stating that “its numerous and excellent harbours, and salubrity of climate, the freedom of its institutions, and the equality and justice of its laws, designate it as the natural depot and place of exchange of the manufactures of the old world for the productions of the new.  In that trade it will be enabled by its extensive and fertile territory, to take part as the rival of the South American states in the exchange with Europe; and the industry and the ingenuity of its citizens, the possession of raw materials, and its capabilities as a manufacturing nation, will enable it with equal ease to rival the European powers, in supplying the South American continent with manufactures.”