Celebrating 75 Years of the Man of Steel

By Super Admin Posted in Resources and Services Special Collections and Archives

Posted on June 30, 2013October 27, 2016

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman’s 75^th birthday! On June 30, 1938, Superman debuted in Action Comics #1, marking the unofficial birth of superheroes in comic books. Through decades of films, TV shows and comics, the Last Son of Krypton has permeated our culture and become as American as baseball and apple pie.

The creation and history of Superman is as fascinating and heartbreaking as Kal-El’s own fictional backstory. In 1932, a young Jerry Siegel’s father died of a heart attack brought on by the robbery of the family’s small clothing store. Within a few years, he and his artistically-minded friend Joe Shuster created Superman – an orphan who is virtually invincible, and who fights tirelessly to rid Metropolis of evildoers. Siegel and Shuster are eventually commissioned to tell the character’s story in Action Comics. They agree to sell the rights of Superman for $130.

Superman radio serials, television shows and motion pictures soon followed. While the radio was Superman’s preferred medium in the 40’s, come 1951, Iowa-born actor George Reeves donned the red and blue suit to portray the first live-action Man of Steel in the TV series, “The Adventures of Superman.” Reeves stood for Truth, Justice and the American Way for the better part of a decade until he was killed in 1959 by a single gunshot wound to the head. The circumstances surrounding his death are still a mystery.

After a twenty year absence, the Man of Tomorrow returned, this time played by Christopher Reeve in Richard Donner’s classic 1978 film, “Superman.” Not only was the film a commercial and critical success, it holds a significant historical importance – “Superman” was the first major superhero movie ever released, paving the way for future blockbusters like “Batman”, “Spider-Man”, “Iron Man”, and “The Avengers.” Reeve held the role for three more films, consistently surrounded by an all-star cast including Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Terence Stamp and Richard Pryor. Tragically, the Man of Steel proved to be all too human off screen, as a horseback riding accident in 1995 left Reeve paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair until his death in 2004.

The 1990’s and 2000’s were a transitional period for Superman. He appeared in two very successful television series, first in “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”, starring Dean Cain as Clark Kent, and then in “Smallville”, with Tom Welling taking the reins. Both series took root in the hearts and minds of a new generation of Americans, and once again, Superman was soaring. In 2006, Brandon Routh took the lead in Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns.” Cast partly for his likeness to the late Christopher Reeve, Routh’s Superman faced off against his arch nemesis Lex Luthor, portrayed by Academy Award-winner Kevin Spacey. While the film was critically successful, it didn’t resonate well enough with audiences’ wallets to warrant a sequel. For the last seven years, Americans haven’t seen much of Smallville’s favorite son. Even the most recent actors to portray him – Dean Cain, Tom Welling and Brandon Routh – have all but faded from memory, as they struggled to find quality roles in Hollywood.

But that all changed last week with the record-breaking release of Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel”, starring Henry Cavill as Superman and Michael Shannon as the villainous General Zod. The blockbuster proved that Americans’ fascination with Superman is only growing. That love for the character will only continue to grow in the next few years, as star Cavill and director Snyder have both signed on for a sequel. Additionally, Superman is slated to appear in the upcoming “Justice League” film, surrounded by fellow superheroes Batman, Green Lantern, the Flash and Wonder Woman.

If your own interest in the character was piqued by the movie, feel free to fly in to Special Collections and check out our awesome assortment of Superman comics, graphic novels and books. Everything you see here, and so much more, is available to you. And unless you have X-Ray vision, you’ll need to get here faster than a speeding bullet and take a look yourself!

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives Custer’s Last Battle

Custer’s Last Battle

By Super Admin Posted in Resources and Services Special Collections and Archives

Posted on June 25, 2013April 20, 2016

Cover, Custer's Last Battle by Charles Francis Roe, published in 1925 by Robert Bruce

“Lieut. Bradley sends word that he has counted 196 dead cavalrymen on the hills to the left; what appeared yesterday in the distance like buffalo lying down are dead troopers and horses.”

So reads the journal of Edward J. McClernand, 2^nd Lieutenant of the Montana Column. The scene he describes is the aftermath of the Battle of Little Bighorn. On the afternoon of June 25^th, 1876, George A. Custer, Lieutenant-Colonel of Seventh Cavalry, along with five companies of the Seventh Cavalry had faced a force of Sioux and their allies near a tributary of the Big Horn River. All of Custer’s forces perished, save for a single horse. The battle was part of the Sioux War, the outcome of the United States government’s failure to honor the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which granted territory in the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana to the Sioux nation.

A horse named "Comanche" was the lone survivor of the Battle. Now stuffed, the horse remains on display in Lawrence, Kansas. Photo courtesy of the Musuem of Natural History, University of Kansas.

Page 29, detail. Photograph of Gall, leader of Sioux forces at the Battle of Little Bighorn

Special Collections houses a copy of Custer’s Last Battle by Brigadier-General Charles Francis Roe. Our copy was signed by Custer’s widow, Elizabeth Bacon Custer. She presented this copy to late MU professor John Neihardt, whose entire library is now housed in Special Collections. The library is an especially rich source of Americana. Custer’s Last Battle (Rare JGN E 467.1 C99 R7 1927) presents the reports of Charles Roe and other veterans of the Sioux War, accompanied by photographs and maps.

Page 1, detail. Autograph of Custer's widow, Elizabeth B. Custer

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby

By Super Admin Posted in Resources and Services Special Collections and Archives

Posted on May 30, 2013October 27, 2016

The Great Gatsby is seen by critics and the general public as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quintessential novel, and is the novel he is most famous for. It tells the story of a rich man named Jay Gatsby and his quest to regain a past love. As its most recent movie adaptation is currently playing in theaters, Special Collections invites you to take a look back on the novel and the man that created it.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota and named after his second cousin three times removed, the Francis Scott Key of national anthem fame. While on academic probation at Princeton, Fitzgerald enlisted in the army in 1917. In June 1918, he was assigned to a camp near Montgomery, Alabama, where he met and fell in love with Zelda Sayre. In late 1919, after being discharged from the army and quitting his job in advertising, Fitzgerald began his career of writing short stories for magazines and other publications, with The Saturday Evening Post becoming his best story market. He published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in March 1920 and married Zelda Sayre soon after. His success and the extravagant lifestyle of the young couple soon earned him a reputation as a bit of a playboy. He also became known as a heavy drinker, though he always wrote sober. After the publication of his second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, and the birth of his child, Frances Scott (Scottie) Fitzgerald, in 1921, the Fitzgeralds moved to Long Island where F. Scott wrote short stories to cover the family's debt after his play, The Vegetable, failed to make it into production. The family moved to France in the spring of 1924 so that F. Scott would be able to focus on his newest project, the novel that would become The Great Gatsby.

Before it became The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s novel went through many revisions and forms. Special Collections has in its possession a facsimile of one such early edition, entitled Trimalchio. This is an allusion to a Roman novel, The Satyricon by Petronius. In this novel, Trimalchio is a freedman who has amassed power and wealth and shows this off by hosting exceedingly lavish dinner parties for his numerous guests. This copy includes correspondence between Fitzgerald and a man by the name of Perkins, Fitzgerald’s friend and an employee of his publishers, in which Perkins makes suggestions for revision and suggests using a different title (pictured below right).

Shortly after this, Fitzgerald rewrote several aspects of his novel and reordered key scenes, such as the one where Gatsby’s past is illuminated.

The Gatsby we know today comes in many different forms and editions. One of the more unique Gatsbys at Special Collections comes in the form of a fantastical graphic novel adaptation by Nicki Greenberg, in which Jay Gatsby is portrayed as a seahorse
and the others as any number of creatures.

There are also a number of more conventionally illustrated editions of The Great Gatsby in existence, such as the 1980 Limited Editions Club which is illustrated by artist Fred Meyer, whose recognizable style brings the Jazz Age to life on the page.

Most people are familiar with The Great Gatsby after having spent some time studying it at either a high school or college level. From Professor Lago’s collection, we have her copy of The Great Gatsby, which has been heavily annotated for use as a teaching tool. Her extensive notes comment on such key themes as morality and hope. On the page shown here, she notes the importance of color symbolism, among other things.

In the years after The Great Gatsby was published, Fitzgerald began work on his fourth novel, Tender is the Night. Work on this novel was put on hold throughout the years due to Zelda Fitzgerald’s declining mental and physical health. During her stay in a clinic in Switzerland, F. Scott returned to writing short stories for income. He completed Tender is the Night in 1934, though it was ultimately a commercial failure.

In the summer of 1937, Fitzgerald went to Hollywood to work as a screenwriter. It was there that he began an affair with columnist Sheilah Graham. After MGM Studios dropped his contract at the end of 1938, he worked as a freelance script writer and continued writing short sories. He began work on his last novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, in 1939 and had more than half of it written when he died of a heart attack on December 21, 1940.

Though Fitzgerald was not much of a commercial success during his lifetime, he is now considered to be the author of one of the “great American novels” and is esteemed for his accurate portrayals of the Jazz Age. Many of his works, including collections of his short stories, are available for use by patrons in the Reading Room of Special Collections.

Bruccoli, Matthew J. "A Brief Life of Fitzgerald." Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, n.d. Web. 21 May 2013. http://www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org/biography/index.html.

"Trimalchio." Trimalchio. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 May 2013.
<http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Trimalchio.html>.

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives Spring brings things

Spring brings things

By Super Admin Posted in Resources and Services Special Collections and Archives

Posted on May 17, 2013October 25, 2016

And spring things bring people who collect them –naturalists and artists such as Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), the first to hitch entomology to fine art and to make a living doing so. Her interests were not limited to European species; she spent two years stalking the insects of Surinam, a colony the Dutch had acquired from the English in exchange for Manhattan about thirty years earlier. She devoted an equal amount of attention to giant flying roaches as to seemlier species, but there is no question that she had a special passion for caterpillars.

Merian's interest in metamorphosis led her to develop a new form of composition. She would depict a single species at each distinct phase simultaneously. She arranged these in a composition on and around the plant that formed its principal food source. In the image on the left several saw-fly specimens pose on a tulip. The caterpillar sits atop a gooseberry at the bottom center, while the adult fly prepares to land on a petal at the top right. In between on a stem and leaf are the pupa and larva. As Ella Reitsma, curator of a recent exhibit, observes about Merian's work, "In the details the drawing is realistic; as a whole it is anything but. The beautifully balanced composition conjures up a seeming realism, for the successive stages in the development of an insect can never be found together! Tricks have been played with time and place” (15)

Despite such innovation, Merian’s work languished for a long time under the misnomer “minor art.’ It has only recently come into its own, with exhibitions in Los Angeles and Amsterdam, and a digital exhibit hosted by The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library Rare Book Collection. She is even the subject of a children’s book. Ingrid Rowland notes her “crystalline accuracy, ” her “incomparable precision,” and the “electric intensity” of her use of color. She asserts, “there is no question that she was an artist. Her disquieting view of life in all its forms has carefully, cleverly shaped every one of the images that seem, so deceptively, to present intimate, dispassionate snapshots of reality.”

Pervading her works is a healthy Aristotelian sense that something must be known in all its variousness. Working alongside this cognitive disposition, and perhaps encouraging it, was a habit that she shared with many contemporaries: collecting. Her life-like compositions conceal the artificial taxonomizing and categorizing that lie behind them, making it appear as if she had discovered, rather than created the scene depicted.

These are qualities that Peter the Great evidently appreciated; he was an avid collector of her work, much of which remains in the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. In 1974 The Leningrad Watercolours is a facsimile edition featuring fifty of the works housed there. It is a large-format edition limited to 1750 copies. Several prints from the collection are available to view in our reading room. The entire collection collection (RARE QH31 .M4516 .A34 1974) is also available to consult.

Select Bibliography

Reitsma, Ella, Maria Sibylla Merian and Daughters: Women of Art and Science. Amsterdam : Rembrandt House Museum, 2008.

Rowland, Ingrid. “The Flowering Genius of Maria Sibylla Merian.” New York Review of Books. April 9, 2009.

Todd, Kim. Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis. Orlando: Harcourt, 2007.

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives Economic Frustration – Then and Now

Economic Frustration – Then and Now

By Super Admin Posted in Resources and Services Special Collections and Archives

Posted on May 14, 2013October 25, 2016

In a tough economy, it's easy to forget that millions of Americans before our time have struggled as well. Cartoonist John T. McCutcheon's comics show that high unemployment and turmoil in the stock market aren't unique to this generation of Americans.

Our McCutcheon comic collection contains original pen-and-ink drawings that date from 1903 to 1944, many of which were published in the Chicago Tribune. While he covered a range of issues of the day, McCutcheon's wit and biting satire shined in his depiction of economic hardships.

1913 Bread Line: He Kept Us out of Work (click to enlarge)

Figure 1 and Figure 2, from 1913 and 1916, both show the depression and struggle of being unemployed. McCutcheon demonstrates his mastery over the medium by using merely a few darker lines to show how isolated and alone his unemployed man is, compared to the happy and joyful families walking down the street.

We've seen a roller coaster ride in the stock market recently, but nothing compares to the Crash of 1929, which led to a decade-long Great Depression. Our last cartoons, Figures 3 and 4, show two instances of men who lost it all on Wall Street, and wonder if they'll ever get it back. Little do they, or McCutcheon know – the worst economic downturn in history is only beginning.

The Bursting of the Stock Bubble (click to enlarge)

John McCutcheon's comics captured the mood of the day, and sometimes it's surprising how much relevance 100-year old sketches can have to our own time. His entire collection of over 300 cartoons and drawings is available to all patrons.

The Sun of Prosperity… (click to enlarge)

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives Historic Doodles

Historic Doodles

By Super Admin Posted in Resources and Services Special Collections and Archives

Posted on March 18, 2013October 21, 2016

The week before spring break is traditionally a difficult time for students to remain focused on their books. Our collection of historic textbooks offers evidence that this trend is not new. Wide margins have always provided opportunities to practice one's signature. The bald pates of historic personages have always asked to be filled in with comb-overs.

Historic textbooks are an excellent resource, not only for those investigating the history of pedagogy, but also for those interested in getting a picture of the values and ideologies of any given historical moment. Ours is a diverse collection, comprising volumes from 1770 to 1929 and representing such core subjects as Arithmetic, and "Rhetorick," as well as less conventional subjects. American Handy Book of the Brewing, Malting, and Auxiliary Trades sits next to a handwriting manual. Some textbooks defy disciplinary boundaries altogether. The title page of Thomas Wise's The Newest Young Man's Companion of 1770 (right) announces that it includes "a compendious English grammar, letters on compliment, arithmetic and bookkeeping, a compendium of geography, the management of horses, and the art of painting in oil and water colours."

Though in many respects historic textbooks differ from their modern counterparts, in one respect they are the same. They all bear witness to their owners' distraction. Paste downs can be filled in with faces. Margins provide space for recording personal notes that will perplex later generations, such as "This is a day of days," (below) scrawled next to the life cycle of the mosquito.

In between reading about the Monroe Doctrine and the history of the American flag, a student using an 1885 edition of A Brief History of the United States found time to compose the following message to the reader: "Before you find out what I have got to say, page 28 you'll have to see." On page 28, the student continues, "It grieves me to think of the trouble you have taken but look on page 4." There follow a total of seven directions until the final injunction concludes, "You fool don't you know better than to chase this book from cover to cover?"

One wonders if amidst so many pages of instructions, students liked to issue some of their own. Ella Allen was a seventh grader at Potts School in 1920. She provides the following instructions on the pastedown of Primer of Sanitation, Being a Simple Textbook on Disease Germs and How to Fight Them. "If this book should go to Rome, Just give it a kick and send it home." Her book did not make it to Rome–Potts School was in Columbia, Missouri. But maybe Ella made it to Italy one spring. One would hope she had paid enough attention to her primer to avoid the Roman fever that did away with so many of her headstrong, fictional contemporaries.

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives The Importance of Thomas Bodley 400 Years Later

The Importance of Thomas Bodley 400 Years Later

By Super Admin Posted in Resources and Services Special Collections and Archives

Posted on January 28, 2013October 21, 2016

Today marks the 400^th anniversary of Thomas Bodley’s death. Although his name is not as well known on this side of the Atlantic, Bodley’s contribution to research and learning has had lasting impacts in the English-speaking world for centuries.

Though English, Bodley spent his childhood and adolescence abroad in Europe. He had the misfortune to be born into a Protestant family in the last year of the reign of Henry VIII in 1545. After the short reign of Henry’s son, Edward, Mary took the throne and spent the entire five years of her reign persecuting Protestants. His family escaped to mainland Europe, and there, Bodley studied under the tutelage of John Calvin in Switzerland and attended services by John Knox. When Mary died and was succeeded by Queen Elizabeth, the family returned and Bodley enrolled in Magdalen College at Oxford University.

After finishing college, his career took him to Parliament and eventually he served as a diplomat and sent on secret missions to the Netherlands, France, and Denmark. In 1596, he returned home and settled back in Oxford. Two years later, Bodley was given a large dinner in his honor. It is speculated that it was that fateful evening in 1598 when 53 year-old Thomas Bodley, while speaking to old friends and colleagues, came up with the inspiration to do one last project that would make his name live on 400 years later.

Over 120 years earlier, the main library at Oxford University had been presented as a gift from Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. However, after Queen Elizabeth had ascended to the throne, the library had been stripped and abandoned. In 1598, after the dinner in his honor, Bodley determined to restore the library and spend the rest of his life working in it. Oxford immediately and graciously accepted his offer. In 1600, Bodley began collecting books to donate to the library that would use his name.

To motivate others to donate money and books, he created a large book bound in vellum, a “Benefactor’s Book”, which would remain on display in the center of the library. The book would contain the names of all those who had contributed to the library. This novel idea is used to this day in libraries around the world.

The Bodleian Library is one of six legal deposit libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland. A copy of every book, CD-Rom, website, and other public materials published in the UK and Ireland is deposited at the Bodleian. As such, space is limited and larger facilities are used as depositories to hold all of the materials the Bodleian possesses. Some of the treasures of the Bodleian include a copy of the Magna Carta, one of 42 complete 1455 Gutenberg Bibles still in existence, the Ashmole manuscripts, the Song of Roland, the Book of Hours (shown here) and the Codex Bodley.

Special Collections has various items relating to the Bodleian Library and its long history. The items depicted in this blog post are all materials you can find by visiting us up on the 4th Floor West in Ellis Library. We would be happy to help you and answer any questions you might have.

home Events and Exhibits, Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives Giovanni Boccaccio turns 700

Giovanni Boccaccio turns 700

By Super Admin Posted in Events and Exhibits Resources and Services Special Collections and Archives

Posted on January 9, 2013October 21, 2016

Giovanni Boccaccio was born seven hundred years ago in Tuscany, Italy. Special Collections and Rare Books celebrates this important anniversary by displaying editions of Boccaccio’s work as well as that of influential contemporaries and predecessors.

Boccaccio made an inauspicious start as the illegitimate son of Boccaccino di Chellino. He was adopted by his father, but along with security and status came the duties associated with being an acknowledged scion of the merchant class. Boccaccio received training in banking and law–both of which he resented– before abandoning both for poetry.

Though Boccaccio is best known today for The Decameron, he wrote over fifteen works, many of which were valued over The Decameron in his own lifetime. Beyond the passing tides of literary taste, what remains certain is that Boccaccio’s work reflects the uncertainty of his era. Fourteenth-century Italy, with its dynastic wars, popular uprisings, and plagues favored resourcefulness. There were times to cast off the past, and there were times to cling to past models. Boccaccio began writing in the vernacular early in his career with Caccia di Diana of 1334. It is to this phase that we owe The Decameron, a work that has been called the “epic of the merchant class” and "Boccaccio’s human comedy that stands next to Dante’s Divine Comedy." His work would take a sober turn after he became acquainted with Petrach. With Petrarch’s encouragement, Boccaccio studied the classics and began writing in Latin. To this phase we owe the existence of De genealogia deorum gentilium.

Highlights of our exhibition include a combined edition of De genealogia deorum gentilium and his other reference work, de montibus & siluis de fontibus: lacubus: & fluminibus, published in 1494 in Venice. The Italian translation, Geneologia degli dei, published in 1547, also in Venice, will also be displayed. Other items of interest include sixteenth-century works of Ovid, Petrarch, Dante, and Villani. These include a first edition of the Italian translation of Dante’s De Volgare Eloquenzia.and an edition of Petrarch published by the famous printer, Aldus Manutius, in 1533. We will also display of early twentieth-century deluxe editions of Boccaccio’s Decameron, rated PG-13 for the portrayal of clerics in compromising poses.

Branca, Vittore. Boccaccio: The Man and His Works, trans. Richard Monges. New York: New York UP, 1976.

Serafini-Sauli, Judith Powers. Giovanni Boccaccio. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982.

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives The Struggles of Abolitionism and the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation

The Struggles of Abolitionism and the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation

By Super Admin Posted in Resources and Services Special Collections and Archives

Posted on January 1, 2013October 21, 2016

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.

– President Lincoln’s public response to Horace Greeley’s open letter published in the New York Times, August 22, 1962

The first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before the cabinet: From the original picture painted at the White House in 1864. : Premium engraving from &quot;The Independent.” / Painted by F.B. Carpenter. Engraved by A.H. Ritchie

Today, the brand new start to a New Year, marks the 150^th anniversary of what is arguably the most important document of the 19^th century. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not outlaw slavery, nor make former slaves citizens, the Proclamation did announce that all slaves in the Confederates States that were still under rebellion were free and ordered the Union Army to treat any slaves they found in the rebellious states as such. However, there were five slave states not under rebellion. Of the estimated 4 million slaves in the United States at the time, the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to 3.1 million.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God

– Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863

Paper presented to the General Anti-Slavery Convention on the essential sinfulness of slavery and its direct opposition to the precepts and spirit of Christianity

Slavery, of course, had been a contentious issue not only in American history, but in the history of many different nations for centuries. At Special Collections, we have many different print and microform sources on the subject of slavery and abolitionism. Even though slavery nearly tore apart the United States, a great majority of our sources were published in London. Before and after the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 by the British Parliament, abolitionists from all over wrote impassioned speeches and sermons decrying the evils of slavery. Pictured here is one such speech delivered by Reverend Benjamin Godwin of Oxford to the General Anti-Slavery Convention.

One of the greatest, and certainly the most earnest, British abolitionists was William Wilberforce. Wilberforce took up the cause of ending slavery in 1787. It took a full twenty years of fighting before Wilberforce saw his first victory.

emancipation0003 — A letter on the abolition of the slave trade: addressed to the freeholders and other inhabitants of Yorkshire

The Slave Trade Act of 1807 ended the commerce of buying and selling human beings throughout the British Empire, but it did not end slavery itself. Buoyed by his success in 1807, Wilberforce and his compatriots assumed that a full ban on slavery would be forthcoming. They were wrong. It took another twenty-six years for slavery to end throughout the British Empire, only three days before Wilberforce passed away at the age of seventy-three. The story of his lifelong work to end slavery was told in a major motion picture, Amazing Grace, which was released in 2007 to coincide with the 200^th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.

Back in the United States, many of the great statesmen of our nation changed their mind on the subject. Thomas Jefferson is known as a slaveholder, but also someone who spoke on the eventual dismantling of the institution. In 1807, Jefferson signed into law a bill that banned the importation of slaves into the United States. In Missouri, our very own Representative James S. Rollins, known as the Father of the University of Missouri, was also a slave owner. Rollins was reticent at first to completely abolishing slavery. However, he opposed the expansion of slavery and the secessionist movement that turned into the American Civil War.

emancipation0001 — Speech of Hon. James S. Rollins, of Missouri, on the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Despite initially stating that the Emancipation Proclamation was legally void, he was eventually one of the most important supporters of the 13^th Amendment in 1865, which completely outlawed slavery everywhere in the United States. His speech on the floor of the House was pivotal in bringing in the two-thirds majority needed for the amendment to become law. That speech is reproduced in a volume in Special Collections’ MU collection.

As for President Lincoln, his Emancipation Proclamation fundamentally changed the Civil War. The proclamation provided for the addition of former slaves into the Union forces, increasing the number of soldiers and sailors by almost 200,000. While the Confederate States were being depleted of fighting men, the Union was gaining more. Furthermore, the proclamation ignited a new fervor in the north, the idea that with every square mile of ground gained by the Union was more land that was now free from bondage and slavery gave the North the needed boost and a moral imperative to win the war. Today, the original Emancipation Proclamation resides in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. alongside other famous documents including the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and one of the original copies of the Magna Carta.

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives A Visit From St. Nicholas (and other tales of Santa Claus)

A Visit From St. Nicholas (and other tales of Santa Claus)

By Super Admin Posted in Resources and Services Special Collections and Archives

Posted on December 18, 2012October 21, 2016

The legend of St. Nicholas of Myra has taken so many twists and turns over the centuries that he is barely recognizable to us anymore. Instead, he has been replaced by a jolly, bearded, portly man in a red suit and cap and coal black boots. For this installation of Scripta Manent, we will trace the history of St. Nicholas/Santa Claus/Father Christmas/Kris Kingle, just in time for Christmas. The real St. Nicholas was born in Asia Minor during the third century in the city of Myra (in present-day Turkey). He was the only son of wealthy Christian parents named Epiphanius and Johanna according to some accounts and Theophanes and Nonna according to others. His wealthy parents died while Nicholas was still young and he was raised by his uncle—also named Nicholas—who was the bishop of Patara.

In 325, Nicholas attended the Council of Nicaea. There, Nicholas was a staunch anti-Arian and defender of the Orthodox Christian position that Jesus was fully divine and fully human, and one of the bishops who signed the Nicene Creed. Legend holds that he was so angry with Arius (who taught that Jesus was only a man) that Nicholas punched him in the face. However, the most famous legend associated with St. Nicholas is that of the poor man with three daughters. In the tale, the man could not afford a proper dowry for his daughters. Hearing of the poor man's plight, Nicholas decided to help him, but being too modest to help the man in public, or to save the man the humiliation of accepting charity, he went to his house under the cover of night and threw three purses (one for each daughter) filled with gold coins through the window opening into the man's house. There are different variations of the story. One has Nicholas throwing the bags down a chimney. Another embellishes the story and has a daughter’s stocking hanging over the embers of the fireplace to dry, where the bag of gold dropped straight in.

FatherChristmastrial — The Examination and Tryal of Old Father Christmas by Josiah King, 1686

In the ensuing centuries, the story of St. Nicholas has evolved. Beloved by children all over the world, St. Nicholas/Santa Claus/Father Christmas/Kris Kringle brings gifts to good boys and girls on Christmas (and sometimes coal to bad children). However, he has not always been the most beloved of figures. In 1686, Josiah King published a pamphlet called The Examination and Tryal of Old Father Christmas. In the pamphlet, Father Christmas is put on trial by those who worry that Christmas is becoming too materialistic and too much of an excuse to party and commit debauchery. In the end, Father Christmas is acquitted of his charges, and yet he is admonished by the judge to remember that Christmas is about Jesus.

Although Father Christmas was usually thinner and wore a green coat, the modern idea of a rotund jolly man in a suit came about with the publication of A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clark Moore in 1823. However, Moore’s Santa was an elf with a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer. It was Thomas Nast’s subsequent illustrations that helped cement the image of the modern Santa Claus in the minds of most Americans. The idea that Santa Claus resides at the North Pole may also be attributed to Nast. One of his illustrations is entitled “St. Claussville, N.P.” Another depicts two children drawing Santa’s route to their house from the North Pole.

santa blog0004 — Merry Old Santa Claus by Thomas Nast, 1889.

One of the most famous writings involving Santa Claus came from a newspaper column in the New York Sun. Little 8-year old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor asking if there really was a Santa Claus. As her letter says, her father told her that “if [it is] in the Sun, it’s so.” Her letter was answered eloquently and reassuringly by Francis Pharcellus Church, whose line “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” is often quoted more than a century later. It remains the most reprinted editorial ever to run in any newspaper in the English language.

christmasoverseasgifts — Christmas Overseas Gifts by Graves, 1945.

In the 20^th and 21^st centuries, the image of Santa Claus has been used for all sorts of advertisements. The most famous may be the Coca-Cola Santa Claus, which debuted in the 1920s. During World War II, Santa was depicted with a helmet to ask Americans at home to send Christmas gifts overseas to soldiers fight in Europe and the Pacific. However, not everyone is thrilled with the overexposure of Santa Claus. Fred Rinne’s hand drawn artist book, God Santa Christ depicts Santa Claus as a creation of a consumer culture. As he writes:

Santa Christ/is the protecting god/of the consumerist economy/Belief in Santa Christ/is crucial to that/vague entity known as/"our way of life".

santa blog0003 — God Santa Christ by Fred Rinne, 2003

However, it is the spirit of giving to those in need that the original St. Nicholas represents. It is our hope here at Special Collections that this spirit touches you, dear reader, and that you intently research local and national charities before giving to those in need this season. By doing so, you keep the spirit of St. Nicholas and Santa Claus alive. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone. See you in 2013!

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