By Klara Pokrzywa, Library Assistant

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a plethora of innovations in photographic development. As photographic reproduction technology became more widely distributed, both professional and amateur photographers had the opportunity to experiment with different ways of capturing images. While it may be hard to imagine today, when most photographs are taken with a single tap on a smartphone screen, early photographs widely varied in their methods of documenting the world around them.

One early photographic technique I find particularly interesting is the cyanotype method. By bathing paper in a mixture of iron salts and potassium ferricyanide, and then exposing the treated paper to light, a photographer can capture images in distinctive shades of Prussian blue—a rich near-indigo color that gives cyanotypes an immediately identifiable aesthetic.

This process was invented by English photographer John Frederick William Herschel in the 1840s—but perhaps its most iconic images were created by his acquaintance Anna Atkins, a botanist who used the cyanotype process to create photograms of seaweed, algae, and ferns. Now considered the first female photographer, Atkins had a keen eye for artistic detail and composition that ensured her images are celebrated everywhere from the Getty Museum to the MOMA.

I’ve long been interested in cyanotypes for their vivid monochromes and fascinating history, and have occasionally gone out of my way to find exhibits on them, such as the Provincetown Art Association and Museum’s Out of the Blue show from last fall. So I was happy to recently discover that ABIGAIL, our online catalog, has a subject heading under which our cyanotype holdings are cataloged! This made it easy for me to explore what kinds of cyanotypes we have here at the MHS—and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

Many of our cyanotypes depict domestic scenes and personal, poignant snapshots. In the below photograph, a grandfatherly man reclines in a garden, the textures of his clothing and the trees surrounding him picked out in stunning pacific blues. The monochrome coloring mimics the cool shade of the trees, making the scene’s careful composition and use of light a snapshot of private peace.

Perhaps because we’re used to seeing old photographs in black and white, the cyanotypes feel particularly alive—details jump out at me more in blue, and make moments that break the serious propriety so often (and wrongly) associated with old photographs feel even more vivid. The presence of a dog (maybe a pitbull?) in the lower right hand of the below photograph is especially delightful in the below image: blurry and wide-eyed, its startled stare into the camera feels like an ancestor of the many pet photographs stored on my phone.

Sometimes, though, the blued lens of a cyanotype can lend a melancholy cast to an otherwise neutral tableau. In the below photograph, the lit window of an empty room appears almost ghostly to me, blotting out the details of the scene with periwinkle sheen.

Similarly, the careful, minimalist composition in the following images of flowers feels a little lonely when rendered in blue—what might have merely been pretty in color appears wistful in monochrome.

Artistic interpretations aside, cyanotypes were an easy and cheap method of photographic reproduction, commonly used before the advent of other, later methods of film reproduction. Their low barrier to access meant that their use is more generally one of convenience than intentional artistic statement. Still, with the distance of time, it’s hard not to gaze into the blue and see something more than pure color staring back.

If you’re interested in viewing cyanotypes at the MHS, try exploring the Wigglesworth family photographs II, the Rotch family photographs, and the Bemis family photograph album, or heading to ABIGAIL and doing a subject search for “cyanotypes.”

By Emily Petermann, Library Assistant

Relief Printing: to carve away at a block of medium– often wood, linoleum, or metal–leaving behind a raised image that will be inked and printed onto paper. This type of printing is often referred to as letterpress printing and was the primary form of printing from Gutenberg to the 20^th century.[i]

Although women have always been a part of industry, their work has been undervalued and underrepresented in the historical record. The contributions of women have regularly been portrayed as somehow deficient or unequal to the work of their male counterparts. Women are often not even considered in many historical writings but are rather resigned to the background–carved away, to leave the relief-print of men at work.

In the Colonial period, printing was hard, but vital work. Women often filled these vital roles in printing, working alongside men as printer’s devils and compositors, for example. Yet their names were often not recorded and thus they are not easily seen in history.

Today we will explore the MHS collections to find the imprints of the women who were part of the Early American Printing Industry: Ann Franklin, Sarah Goddard, and Mary Katherine Goddard.

Ann Franklin: 1734-1763

Like many women in the early printing industry, Ann Franklin came into the business through the death of a male relative; her husband, James. Franklin had previously taken over the press while James was in prison, and at a time when her brother-in-law, Benjamin (yes, that Benjamin Franklin) had fled to Philadelphia.[ii] Following the death of James in 1735, Franklin took on the family printing business in Newport, RI. In 1736 she became the Colony Printer,[iii] which meant that she printed all of the new legislative and official documents. In addition to printing books and pamphlets, Franklin also edited, printed, and published a newspaper titled The Newport Mercury.[iv] At a time when women had little legal standing, Franklin, as a businesswoman and widow, was able to run the business like any man: forming and dissolving partnerships, pursuing contracts, and expanding the business. Franklin would run the shop until her death in 1763.[v]

The MHS has a few items published by Ann Franklin, including this broadside titled “A journal of the survey of the Narragansett Bay, and parts adjacent” by William Chandler, which Franklin printed in 1741.

To find other materials in Abigail published by Franklin, perform a keyword search for “Widow Franklin” and “Ann Franklin”.

Sarah Goddard, 1765-1768

Sarah Goddard was introduced to the world of printing in 1762, when her son William chose to open a printing shop in Providence, RI. Sarah and her daughter, Mary Katherine, moved to Providence to support him in his business. Instead, William’s attention would soon be drawn to other lines of business, leaving Sarah and Mary Katherine to manage the press in his absence: Sarah, who owned a share in William’s press, managing the business, with Mary Katherine as a compositor.[vi]  In 1766, Goddard took public ownership of the press, as the imprint became “Sarah Goddard and Company.” Like Franklin, Goddard was legally able to form partnerships and pursue contracts. One such partnership, formed in 1767, was with John Carter, who had been apprenticed to Ann Franklin’s brother-in-law. Goddard and Mary Katherine ran the business in Providence for many years, until William decided to set up another printing shop in Philadelphia. The Goddards sold the Providence shop to Carter and followed William to Philadelphia, where Sarah Goddard died in 1768, shortly after the move.[vii]

The MHS holds one item published by Sarah Goddard and Company: a pamphlet titled “Divine Providence illustrated and improved” by David S. Rowland, published in 1766.

Mary Katherine Goddard, 1774-1784

Mary Katherine Goddard came into the printing industry with her mother, Sarah Goddard, first as a compositor in Providence, RI and then in Philadelphia. Upon her mother’s death in 1768, she assumed ownership of her mother’s share in her brother William’s business, and management of the print shop as a whole.[viii] Four years later, in 1772, William again moved the print shop, this time to Baltimore. Once more, Mary Katherine followed her brother to manage the operation.[ix]

Mary Katherine eventually left her brother’s shop and began her own, competing press, publishing under the imprint “M.K. Goddard.”[x] While managing her own press, Goddard also served as the Baltimore Postmaster from 1775-1789. She was forced to relinquish that title in 1789 when the postal system was consolidated; at that time, over 200 Baltimore businessmen attested that she was well deserving of the title and position.[xi] In 1777, Goddard‘s press was the first to print the official Declaration of Independence with the signatures attached 7.[xii] Eight copies of Goddard’s printing of the Declaration of Independence still exist; you can see one here, held by the New York Public Library.

Although we would love to say that we hold the other copies, in fact, the MHS holds one item published by M.K. Goddard: “Baltimore, Dec. 31, 1776. This morning Congress received the following…”

These women made, and quite literally, recorded early American history. Franklin, as one of the first female printers in the British Colonies, Sarah Goddard as she ran multiple printing shops, and Mary Katherine Goddard as she printed the first signed edition of the Declaration of Independence, all played a vital role in the transition of the colonies to a nation. There are, of course, more such women whose lives were not recorded in the same way as Franklin and the Goddards. These three women are among the many whose work has been undervalued and underrepresented in the historical record.

I hope you enjoyed a quick look into the history of women in Early American Printing history!

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[i] Sidney E. Berger. “Relief Printing,” The Dictionary of the Book : A Glossary for Book Collectors, Booksellers,

Librarians, and Others. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2016. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1351166&site=eds-live&scope=site.

[ii] Leona M. Hudak. Early American Women Printers and Publishers, 1639-1820.

 Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1978.

[iii] Frances Hamill. “Some Unconventional Women Before 1800: Printers, Booksellers, and

Collectors” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 49, no. 4 (1955): 300-314.

[iv] Leona M. Hudak. Early American Women Printers and Publishers, 1639-1820.

[v] Hudak. Early American Women Printers and Publishers, 1639-1820.

[vi] Hudak. “Early American Women Printers and Publishers, 1639-1820.”

[vii] Hudak. “Early American Women Printers and Publishers, 1639-1820.”

[viii] Hudak. ”Early American Women Printers and Publishers, 1639-1820.”

[ix] S tate of Maryland Archives. “Mary Katherine Goddard (1738-1816).” Archives of Maryland. https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/002800/002809/html/2809bio.html

[x] State of Maryland Archives. “Mary Katherine Goddard (1738-1816).” Archives of Maryland.

[xi] State of Maryland Archives. ”Mary Katherine Goddard (1738-1816).”

[xii] Hamill. ”Some Unconventional Women Before 1800: Printers, Booksellers, and Collectors.”

By Evan McDonagh, Library Assistant

Delving into the stacks of the Massachusetts Historical Society collections, one might happen upon a series of sprawling and intricate blueprints for the “Residence of George S. Parker” in Peterborough, New Hampshire. A majestic home with gleaming white walls and several stalwart chimneys, the New Hampshire “Clue House” has impacted lives worldwide through the most unexpected of sources: the board game Clue.

Clue, or Cluedo as it was called originally, came about during the Second World War and the air-raid blackouts of 1943-1945. Its inventor–British musician Anthony Pratt–greatly enjoyed murder mystery parties. Facing the isolation of nighttime raids, Pratt decided to transform this experience into a playable board game. By 1947, Pratt and his wife had finished designing the game and patented it to the U.K. board game manufacturer Waddington’s and its American counterpart, Parker Brothers.[1]

George Swinnerton Parker was born in 1867 in Salem, Mass. An avid lover of games, Parker invented his first game–a card-based game called Banking–as a teenager. This passion pushed Parker to establish his game publishing company in 1883. The addition of George’s brothers Charles and Edward in 1888 and 1898 would create the company formally known as Parker Brothers. From these roots, Parker Brothers grew to exert massive influence on the world of board games, with the company producing or publishing classics like Monopoly, Risk, and Sorry.[2]

The George S. Parker house entered the picture over one hundred years before the Parker Brothers even existed. Situated among the picturesque Monadnock mountains, the Peterborough property was constructed in 1790, a cape house built with wood from a sea captain’s home in Salem, Mass. When George S. Parker purchased the house in 1925, he expanded upon the existing structure with wood from his own ancestral home in Salem.

Parker and his wife lived in the house for three decades, during which Parker Brothers acquired the rights to produce Clue in 1947. The floor plan of the Parker estate, including the decorative furniture, the first floor rooms, and even the secret passages, all inspired the changes that George S. Parker made to the North American version of Clue. By the time of its release in 1949, the layouts of the Clue board and the Parker house were inextricably linked.[3]

Bibliography

• Popvici, Alice. “The Game Was Borne of Boredom During WWII Air-Raid Blackouts.” The History Channel. Last updated August 29, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/clue-game-origin-wwii.
• The History Channel. “The Parker Brothers.” Accessed October 12, 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20071012132037/http://www.history.com/exhibits/toys/inventors.html.
• Donelan, Jenny. “A House with Secrets.” New Hampshire Home. Accessed April 4, 2023. https://www.nhhomemagazine.com/a-house-with-secrets/.

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[1] Alice Popovici, “The Game Was Borne of Boredom During WWII Air-Raid Blackouts,” The History Channel, last updated August 29, 2018, https://www.history.com/news/clue-game-origin-wwii.

[2] “The Parker Brothers,” The History Channel, accessed October 12, 2007, https://web.archive.org/web/20071012132037/http:/www.history.com/exhibits/toys/inventors.html.

[3] Jenny Donelan, “A House with Secrets,” New Hampshire Home, accessed April 4, 2023, https://www.nhhomemagazine.com/a-house-with-secrets/.

By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

In previous Beehive posts, a few of our contributors have introduced you to the terrific DeGrasse-Howard papers here at the MHS. Crystal Lynn Webster discussed themes in the diary of Dr. Edwin Clarence Howard, and Mia Levenson wrote about the account book of Edwin’s uncle, Dr. John Van Surley DeGrasse. I’d like to revisit the collection, particularly because of the great work our digital team has done to digitize it in its entirety.

The MHS collection of DeGrasse-Howard papers is small but fascinating. Several members of the related DeGrasse, Howard, Downing, and Asbury families are represented, and each probably deserves a post of their own. Isaiah George DeGrasse and Howard DeGrasse Asbury were clergymen, John Van Surley DeGrasse and Edwin Clarence Howard were physicians, and George T. Downing was a civil rights leader. John also served as a medical officer during the Civil War.

Like Webster, I found myself particularly drawn to the diary of Dr. Edwin Clarence Howard (1846-1912), kept in 1865 while he was a student at Liberia College in Monrovia, Liberia. Edwin went on to become, in 1869, the first African American to graduate from Harvard Medical School. He practiced in Charleston, S.C. before settling in Philadelphia, and several biographical sketches I found note his impressive service during the 1870 smallpox epidemic there. He also played a part in the establishment of both the Frederick Douglass Hospital (1895) and the Mercy Hospital (1905) in Philadelphia.

This diary reveals Edwin at the beginning of his career, struggling with all the uncertainties of a young man far away from home. One of the things that makes the volume intriguing is that Edwin wrote about half of it in code. Much of this code consists of simple letter substitution (each letter represented by the one just before it in the alphabet), but he also incorporated French and Latin words and phrases and even what appear to be Greek symbols. Certain people are represented by initials, such as “O,” who was a woman with whom he apparently had a relationship. For example, in this entry from 1 April 1865, he switched in and out of code within a single sentence.

I am now almost always harrassed [sic] with unpleasant feelings, and were it not for a certain gnod que I gaud hm [hope that I have in] O I think I wd. use my utmost endeavours to return home.

This unhappy passage was written after a scolding from a doctor Edwin described as “pthsd shfgs,” or “quite tight”!

I hope someday to be able to spend more time with this interesting diary. While most of the entries are of a personal nature, Edwin also described the treatment of patients and his other daily activities, including long walks, social calls, a liberal amount of pipe smoking, and the occasional performance on his concertina.

Unfortunately, the DeGrasse-Howard papers contain only a few passing references to Edwin’s sisters, who were both accomplished educators. His older sister, Adeline Turpin Howard (1844-1922), became the principal of the Wormley School in Washington, D.C. His younger sister, Joan Imogen Howard (1848-1937), was the first Black graduate of the Girls’ High and Normal School in Boston. None of the siblings ever married or had children, and all three are buried in Eden Cemetery outside Philadelphia.

As I mentioned above, the entire DeGrasse-Howard collection has been digitized by the MHS digital team, so you can browse the papers at your leisure. The MHS also holds a collection of 24 DeGrasse-Howard photographs, which have also been digitized. My favorite is probably this Civil War-era photograph of a young Georgenia Cordelia DeGrasse, Edwin’s cousin.

And the last photograph in the collection depicts Rep. Shirley Chisolm speaking at an event in 1968 with Howard DeGrasse Asbury.

We hope you’ll take some time to look through both of these amazing collections.

By Heather Rockwood, Communications Associate

In my previous post, I introduced Annie Adams Fields, a talented woman who wrote descriptions of contemporary authors in her diaries. She was a socialite married to James T. Fields, an author and publisher. Their circle of friends included American and European authors.

Henry James wrote about Annie in the Atlantic Monthly of July 1915:

The truth was of course very decidedly that the seed I speak of, the seed that has flowered into legend, and with the thick growth of which her domestic scene was quite embowered, had been sown in soil peculiarly grateful and favored by pleasing accidents. The personal beauty of her younger years, long retained and not even at the end of such a stretch of life quite lost; the exquisite native tone and mode of appeal, which anciently we perhaps thought a little “precious,” but from which the distinctive and the preservative were in time to be snatched, a greater extravagance supervening; the signal sweetness of temper and lightness of tact, in fine, were things that prepared together the easy and infallible exercise of what I have called her references. It adds greatly to one’s own measure of the accumulated years to have seen her reach the age at which she could appear to the younger world about her to “go back” wonderfully far, to be almost the only person extant who did, and to owe much of her value to this delicate aroma of antiquity.

Annie’s husband James died in 1881, after which she retired for a while from public life, and her friend, author Sarah Orne Jewett, moved in with her. Once Annie began returning to public life, hosting friends and family at her salon in Boston, Sarah moved out. However, the two women began a “Boston Marriage,” living and traveling together six months of the year, until Sarah died in 1909. The term Boston Marriage referred to two usually independently wealthy women living together, who were not seeking marriage to a man. Some Boston Marriages are now thought to have been romantic, some are not.

As a widow living part of the year with Sarah, Annie continued writing her diaries, especially about her travels. Her descriptions of the places she visited and the people she observed or met there are just as riveting as her earlier writings about her literary friends. On a trip to the Bahamas with Sarah in 1896, she wrote a few lines about a beautiful girl who must have lived near to their hotel.

A young girl in a white muslin dress with two or three gentlemen of varying hues of complexion especially attracted me. The soft olive tint of her skin and the real charm she possessed of manner as well as of face compelled me to turn an instant in her direction whenever the least chance offered itself.  She made the whole place instinct with native comeliness of expression to which we were only led up by the soft air, the hibiscus blossoms, the almond trees and the delicate stains of color on the walls and the gates and towers where they were seen peeping out between or above the foliage.

And the next day:

There was a little table there and coffee after dinner, and a mandolin and a Celtic singer—while we strolled about not too near, fascinated by the pretty scene—the tinkling of the strings and above all by the pretty girl. Later she bade farewell to a gentleman in the hall below. The manner was incomparable.  I am sure Juliet did no better for her Romeo in public!

In his Atlantic Monthly piece on Annie, Henry James also wrote this about her later years:  

I have but to recall the dawn of those associations that seemed then to promise everything, and the last declining ray of which rests, just long enough to be caught, on the benign figure of Mrs. Fields, of the latter city, recently deceased and leaving behind her much of the material out of which legend obligingly grows. She herself had the good fortune to assist, during all her later years, at an excellent case of such growth, for which nature not less than circumstance had perfectly fitted her—she was so intrinsically charming a link with the past and abounded so in the pleasure of reference and the grace of fidelity. She helped the present, that of her own actuality, to think well of her producing conditions, to think better of them than of many of those that open for our wonderment to-day: what a note of distinction they were able to contribute, she moved us to remark, what a quality of refinement they appeared to have encouraged, what a minor form of the monstrous modern noise they seemed to have been consistent with!

There is so much more to read in Annie Adams Fields’s fascinating diaries. 

By Susanna Sigler, Library Assistant 

Happy spring, Beehive readers! Taking a departure from my usual blog posts spotlighting WWII-focused materials, I wanted to focus on a fun item that’s been on my mind for a while now. 

Over the summer, a researcher put in a request for a 19th-century book of typefaces. I took a peek at the book before the researcher examined it, and was delighted by its contents.  

Called Rand & Avery’s Specimens, this book was published by Rand, Avery & Company, a book- and map-printing company in Boston in the mid- to late-19th century.  

The book is exactly what a good business owner back then would have for their customers: a collection of specimens, or samples, of the different typefaces that the customers could order for their printing. 

(Prior to writing this post, I did not know the difference between a typeface and a font. According to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, a typeface is a set of letters, numbers, etc. of a particular design, for example Times New Roman, while a font is the particular size and style of a set of letters, for example Times New Roman italic, size 12). 

What drew me to this book was not only the artistry of the typefaces themselves, but the sense of humor displayed in the sample text. You can guess just from the fake names the speciality of most of these businesses – “Jackplane & Broadaxe” (a carpentry firm), “Quadrant & Logline” (navigators), “Hopp & Ginger” (brewers), “Rains and Sunshine” (gardeners), and “Professor Lightheel” (a dancing instructor), to name a few.  

For some of the larger typefaces, there is less space to work with, and oftentimes the placeholder text is just nonsense phrases. Some veer into the poetic, while others often struck me as humorous (if you’re like me and find random words set in very large fonts amusing).  

Aside from the textual content, the actual typefaces themselves are beautiful, ranging from simple and elegant to detailed and intricate. Some are ones that are still in use today, but many are not. Oftentimes the sample text will correspond to the qualities of the font itself–there’s a special typeface in the shape of snowballs, for example, and one proclaiming “tulip beds” that looks to be itself blooming.  

In addition to the typefaces, there are also small drawn icons and other logos that can be incorporated into a customer’s design. My personal favorite is this one of Boston, with tiny ships. 

I’m not a pessimist, or someone who thinks that creativity and beauty in graphic design is long gone, but styles in the mainstream nowadays all seem to have a similar corporate look. Minimalism has rendered interiors completely boring at best, and terrifying alien spaceship at worst. I think they could take a page from Rand & Avery, and try to have a little more fun.  

The Geo. C. Rand & Avery typeface book can be viewed at the MHS. The MHS also holds additional materials on typefaces and printing specimens, found under the subjects “Type and type-founding” and “Printing – Specimens” in ABIGAIL. 

Sources 

“Font.” Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. Accessed March 21, 2023. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/font. 

Rand & Avery, Rand & Avery’s Specimens (Boston: Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 1860).  

“Typeface.” Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. Accessed March 21, 2023. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/typeface. 

By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist 

I’d like to use the blog today to highlight two manuscript collections that recently crossed my desk, collections that document the work of two very impressive and accomplished women.

The first is the papers of social workers Dina D’Alto Malgeri and Francesco P. Malgeri. During the early and mid-twentieth century, the Malgeris, both immigrants from Italy, devoted themselves to the Italian immigrant communities in their adopted homes of Boston and Chicago. The collection consists mostly of papers of Dina Malgeri, who survived her husband by 49 years.

Dina Malgeri worked tirelessly to help immigrants access educational and employment opportunities, government and medical assistance, and recreational activities. She taught English, Italian, and citizenship classes; organized clubs for children and adults; translated and interpreted; led cultural tours and outings; delivered lectures; and even wrote and directed plays. It seems wherever she saw a need, she stepped up.

One of the nice things about the Malgeri papers is that the MHS’s crack digital team has digitized the collection in its entirety, and you can access these images through our collection guide. There you’ll find papers of many of the associations with which Dina was affiliated, as well as papers documenting her efforts to help individuals arrange medical care, straighten out legal matters, and become U.S. citizens.

Literally the same day I cataloged the Malgeri papers, I also cataloged the papers of M. Virginia Morrissey McDermott of Medford, Mass., a woman described in her obituary as “a pioneering lawyer, businesswoman and activist for women’s equality.” After graduating second in her high school class, McDermott told her parents she wanted to attend law school. As she described in a 2007 newspaper article, “My father stared out the window for 10 minutes. Then he said, ‘Well, if you want to, I think you have the brains. Go do it.’” In 1939, she proved him right by graduating second in her class again from Portia Law School, now the New England School of Law.

McDermott was the first female secretary of the Newspaper Guild union, treasurer and president of the Newman Club, president of the Massachusetts Federation of Business and Professional Women, nominating committee chair for the National Foundation of Business and Professional Women, member of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, and Boston’s Woman of the Year. And this is only a partial list. She not only achieved personal success, but devoted her professional life to boosting other women. She fought for the Equal Rights Amendment and was still working as a lawyer in her nineties.

When asked why she didn’t marry until the age of 50, she explained,. “I was just too busy doing everything else to think about it.”

Her papers at the MHS consist mostly of printed matter related to her professional activities. However, the collection ended up having an unexpected personal connection to yours truly. Leafing through miscellaneous clippings from the 1950s and ‘60s, I noticed one in particular that made me stop.

The woman in the middle is Virginia McDermott. The woman on the left is my great-aunt Beatrice Corliss!

By Emily Petermann, Library Assistant

If your name is Gaius Julius Caesar (and it’s 44 BC…and you’re the tyrant of Rome) you may want to stay home today. For everyone else—are you ready for the Ides of March?

The Ides is the 13th or 15th day of the month in the Roman calendar. It is the third of three named days in the Roman month: the first is the kalends, or first of each month, and the second is the nones, the 5^th or 7^th day of each month. The Ides of March is a particularly famous Ides—it’s the day the tyrant died. On thisday in 44 BC Julius Caesar was assassinated by 22 Roman senators. You may know his final words—according to Shakespeare—as “et tu, Brute?” or “and you, Brutus?”

To celebrate this year’s Ides, I decided to look through our holdings for Caesar and for Latin related items.

The first item that drew my attention was this 1826 volume of Shakespeare’s Works, which has some beautiful engravings. The engraving pictured below appears at the beginning of the play Julius Caesar and depicts that fateful Ides in 44 BC.

We also hold quite a few non-Shakespearean works related to Julius Caesar. The most relevant is written by Caesar himself: the MHS holds a few editions of his work “Hoc uolumine continentur haec. [C. Iulij Caesaris] Commentariorum de bello Gallico...”  The title translates to “These chapters contain G. Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War…” This volume is Caesar’s account of multiple wars that he was involved in, with the most famous being the Gallic War.

Pictured above is an edition of Caesar’s work published by the Aldine Press, a company started by Aldus Manutius, the Venetian printer responsible for creating the italic typeface. Manutius also notably put out small and affordable editions of Latin and Greek texts, like our copy of Caesar’s work, which is the perfect size to hold in your hand.[i] Open this copy of “Commentariorum de bello Gallico…” and you can use the map of part of Western Europe to follow Caesar’s campaign through Gaul as you read!  

We also hold quite a few (55!) Latin primers and readers: books intended to teach Latin to students. Quite a few of them claim to teach in new and innovative ways. I’ve taken several years of Latin, so I’m always looking for “new” ways to learn the language. My favorite of the primers is titled “A Demonstration How the Latine Tongue May be Learnt With Far Greater Ease and speed then Commonly It Is.” This primer was published in London in 1669 by Arthur Brett. Brett begins his primer with a complaint that the “older” ways of teaching Latin negatively affected student’s health. He said of the old way: “Least pouring on hard Rules should crack their brains, impair their health, and make them to nauseate all kind of knowledg[sic].”

To the modern eye, Brett’s Latin is also likely to crack our brains – he expected students to know to write “What wouldst thou have” (“What would you like?” in 17^th century English) as “Nihil moror quid objicis,” instead of the apparently obviously incorrect “Quid tibi vis?” (which he translates as “What wilt thou to thee?”) It took me a few passes to figure this sentence out, thanks to 354 years of language changing- I’m glad I wasn’t learning Latin from Mr. Brett!

Finally, I thought I would look for some familiar Latin phrases-like “et tu, Brute?”- in the collection. I was excited to find  a volume titled, “Adagiorum chiliades Des” by Erasumes Desiderius, which contains Latin adages and explanations for those adages broken down by the century they were common in.

One of my favorites from this collection is “Elephantum ex musca facis” or “you are making an elephant out of a fly.” This adage sounds a lot like our contemporary phrase, “you’re making a mountain out of a molehill!”

If you’re not supposed to stay inside today (looking at you, Caesar), consider visiting the Reading Room to check out some of our materials on Caesar and the Latin language. You can find out more about visiting the Reading Room here, and can request an appointment here.

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[i] Kuiper, Kathleen, “Aldus Manutius” in Encyclopedia Brittanica, updated Feb. 2, 2023.