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Imaging rare, unusual, and intriguing objects at the Brown University Library

Monthly Archives: March 2013

Ninety degrees of separation

March 22, 2013 by | 1 Comment

When I joined Digital Production Services as a photographer in 2008, one of my first projects was a 15th century bible in the collection of the Providence Public Library. The PPL has a significant Special Collections department, and this bible, Biblicum memoiriale emblematicum, is just one of “over 40,000 books, manuscripts, pamphlets, ephemera, newspapers, maps, broadsides, art, and artifacts, representing over four thousand years of human history and culture.” (PPL website) This relatively small (10.5 x 7.6 cm) bible is handwritten, and many sections are composed of paneled illustrations as if it were an early graphic novel format.

The first step in photographing any rare or fragile material is to consult Preservation. My colleague and I immediately brought the book to our preservation specialist to determine both the best overall handling procedures, as well as any shooting restrictions. The book itself was in remarkably good condition; the main caveat was that the book should not be opened more than 90˚ to preserve the spine. We would have to build a foam structure to support the book and ensure that at no time was there any stress on the spine or the pages.

We also had to take into consideration the specific digitization guidelines provided by the institution that would eventually house the digital version of the bible. The images were headed for the Digital Scriptorium, an online image database for medieval and renaissance manuscripts. Each image required a color target (which we include in every image, but usually crop out for display versions), a grey background, and full-spread views rather than page-by-page views. This was actually helpful for us, since given the handling restrictions on the book, we had to shoot full spreads.

foam-supportMy colleague and I decided it would be best to photograph the object using our glass book cradle. Normally, this cradle is used to photograph one page at a time; it holds the book open to a given page, pressed flat against the glass, and supported underneath by a platform that can be raised or lowered to accommodate different thicknesses. In this case, however, we were using the cradle to house the foam supports for the bible, and to very gently hold the book open; no pressure was put on the bible at all. My first task was to build the foam support, as the entire object needed to be surrounded by protective foam. I cut various strips of foam from larger sheets to reinforce the spine as it rested on the book cradle platform. Next, I cut more strips that I folded and secured with tape to support the back and front of the book, with special attention paid to the areas just beyond the spine. The image below illustrates the foam structure, with a large foam block, stacks of foam and other objects surrounding the support for the grey cloth background to rest on.

 
The next issue that I quickly ran into was that while the book would stay open with very little pressure, it was impossible to keep it open to a given page. To keep the book open would have required using pressure on the book, something that was out of the question in this case. To solve this problem, I created a system where I could place a piece of transparent thread across a page of the book to carefully hold the page in place. I brought in the clear thread, and taped each end to a pencil. I found some large binder clips, which I attached to the book cradle both above and below the book (rather far away so that the thread would not dig into the page). I put each pencil through the metal clip of the binder clip, rotated the pencils to achieve the proper tension, and then locked the clips into place. This allowed me to hold each spread open without damaging the book or interfering with its legibility.

setup-main

 

Once I knew I could support the book and keep it open to each spread, all I had to do was ensure that the lighting was as even as possible (even into the gutter), and that my focus level was about one-third of the way into the book, so that the focus would be consistent across the pages. Below is an example of the final product; a page from Exodus. You can view the entire book at the Digital Scriptorium.

Exodus

Rhode Island’s First Political Rivalry

March 14, 2013 by | Comments Off on Rhode Island’s First Political Rivalry

Modern portrait of Hopkins. Collection of Brown University.

Flatbed scanning is a pretty routine task, often done by rote, earbuds firmly in place. Sometimes, however, a piece will catch my eye, make me curious, and send me to journeying across the Internet seeking answers. Such was the case recently, when I was working with items from the Rider Broadsides collection, which chronicles Rhode Island history. I grew up in Rhode Island, and received a bachelor’s degree in History from Brown before returning to the University for graduate studies in Public Policy. The focus of my undergraduate work was early U.S. history. In baseball jargon, this collection was right in my wheelhouse.

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Portion of letter from Hopkins supporters, praising Hopkins and suggesting coalition.

The broadside that caught my attention features text from four letters between Samuel Ward, Stephen Hopkins, and supporters of the two men. I knew that Ward and Hopkins had been colonial governors of Rhode Island – and rivals – but that’s where my knowledge ended. Some research revealed to me that Newport, Rhode Island was the colony’s preeminent city in the early days, but by the 1750s, Providence had become a successful commercial port, and competition between the two cities manifested itself in a political rivalry. Stephen Hopkins, a friend and business partner of the Brown family of Providence, was first elected governor in 1755. Samuel Ward was supported by the Greene family of Warwick, and was aligned with Newport interests. The two men traded power, although Hopkins was far more successful, winning the governorship nine times to Ward’s three.

The broadside was issued in April of 1767, a month before the contentious election of 1767. Ward was the governor, and Hopkins was trying to replace him. The document was published by Ward, and contains the text of several letters to Ward from Hopkins and friends of Hopkins. The Hopkins faction suggests a power-sharing agreement, with the two sides splitting the various colonial offices. One group of Hopkins supporters, however, made the mistake of framing their proposal with a list of statements praising Hopkins and criticizing the current state of the colony under Governor Ward. This list is one reason that the Ward faction gave for rejecting the coalition proposal.

Hopkins won the 1767 election, according to one historian, with the help of, “personal influence, money, and liberal amounts of rum.” Hopkins only served a year before deciding to reach out to Ward to end their competition for the governorship. The ex-governors went on to serve as Rhode Island’s delegates to the Continental Congress; Hopkins became the first chancellor of Brown University.

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Letter from Samuel Ward, rejecting coalition proposal.

Looking back at events like the Ward-Hopkins controversy makes us realize that we’ve always had factions in America, and we’ve found ways to move past them. This broadside, while a piece of Ward propaganda, was also an attempt to provide the “Freemen of this Colony” with both sides of the debate so they could “form a true Judgment of the Proposals which have passed between the Two Parties.” The day has passed when such pamphlets were universal touchstones that spurred debate. Modern media fragmentation makes it easy to go through life without exposure to contrasting views. I imagine men like Samuel Ward and Stephen Hopkins would have found such lack of meaningful debate objectionable.

~Matthew McCabe ’09 MPP ’14

Visualizing Temperance

March 8, 2013 by | Comments Off on Visualizing Temperance

quote from M.D.

Ideally, data visualization techniques can facilitate discovery of trends within data sets, exposing previously unnoticed interconnections among and between data points, or otherwise confirm or dispute assumptions, which in turn can fuel further inquiry. But data visualization techniques, in the broadest sense, are also used for more message-driven or even outright propagandistic purposes. In many cases, the two modes of analysis — open-ended inquiry, on the one hand, and message-driven campaigns, on the other — quickly become intertwined in practice.

Below are some examples from the library’s “Alcohol, Temperance, and Prohibition” digital collection (a subset of the Chester H. Kirk Collection on Alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous). As noted in the digital collection’s accompanying online essay by Leah Rae Berk, the graphs, while visually convincing, are usually designed to suit exaggerated or predetermined causal claims, or else present only fragmented analyses, to stress the (no doubt oftentimes significant) influence of alcohol, above all else:

…A number of Temperance and Prohibition Era posters, like a number of the religious pamphlets, used a logos format to make a pathos appeal. These posters contained graphs and statistical information, presenting moral claims as factual information, such as “Alcoholism and Degeneracy,” “Intemperance as a Cause of Poverty Greatly Reduced Since Prohibition” and “Drink, A Great Cause of Immorality.” The poster “Drink, A Great Cause of Immorality” showed the results of a study of 865 Immoral Inebriate Women, claiming that 40% of their immorality was due solely to drink, including as evidence a statement by a medical expert: “There is no apparent reason why any of the persons…should have become immoral but for preceding alcoholism.” “Intemperance as a Cause of Poverty Greatly Reduced Since Prohibition” presented a graph that tracked the drop in poverty as a result of increased temperance, therefore conflating intemperance and immoral behavior with greater social ills like poverty….

"Drink Impaired Scholarship"

“Drink Impaired Scholarship”

BrownTown and Traces of the Past

March 1, 2013 by | Comments Off on BrownTown and Traces of the Past

BrownTown, c.1947

BrownTown with Marvel Gymnasium in background, c.1947

Historic photographs of a particular place often depict a community no longer present, while exhibiting architectural and geographic traces that we can recognize. It is these traces that connect us to the past, and which also distance us from it. The work that I did preparing digital images for Images of Brown, allowed me an often nostalgic, and sometimes surprising view, into a place that I have called home for nearly 30 years, the East Side of Providence, Rhode Island. The area is an historic one, much of the architecture and terrain today is similar to as it was a over a century ago, and very familiar to me. Which is why, I stopped and took notice when I was reviewing several images which were captioned BrownTown. What was this BrownTown? I recognized surrounding buildings, but never knew that a BrownTown existed. I crossed the street to the Brown University Archives and began consulting the folders of material on the construction, maintenance, and eventual destruction of BrownTown, Providence, Rhode Island.

The corner of Elmgrove Ave. and Sessions St., 1946

Cement posts being installed on the corner of
Elmgrove Ave. and Sessions St., c.1946

After the end of World War II, The G.I. Bill encouraged many World War II veterans to seek a college education. Brown reacted by opening The Veterans Extension Program in the fall of 1946, bringing the University into the national spotlight as a leader in assuring veterans education. From 1,400 applicants, 486 WWII veterans were accepted to the University through a streamlined application process. Over 100 of these students were married and either had children or were expecting. There was a critical housing shortage nationwide, including Providence. Where would they live?

The problem was uniquely solved when the U.S. Government War Surplus Division donated a dozen former Navy barracks to the University, and the city offered to lease to Brown, the Sessions Street Playground at the Corner of Elmgrove Avenue and Sessions Street. (Currently, the site of the Jewish Community Center of Rhode Island). Eight barracks would fit on the lot. They were brought in sections from the Coddington Point site in Newport, and set up on cement posts. This temporary emergency housing was given the name, BrownTown, and on December 9th, 1946, 100 families moved in to the furnished apartments.

Brown Town, Joe Schaefer’s room

Each of the units had an icebox, hotplate, and a tiny iron sink. Flower pots and flower beds distinguished the different residences, as did the informal naming of the “streets”, or rows, between the barracks after wartime locales, Guadalcanal, Normandy, Pearl Harbor, etc. In local newspapers, Brown is described as being a good landlord, pets were allowed, and rent was low at $26-$42 a month. BrownTown’s population exploded.  At one time, the hundred families in Brown Town had a total of 120 children. Fifty babies were born during the summer of 1947.  Student residents juggled academics with family life, attending baby caring clinics, forming babysitting pools, and building play pens, to keep children out of Elmgrove Avenue, described at the time as a speedway for motorists.

Brown Town was a thriving community for four years, but it was erected as a temporary community, and in 1950, after the inaugural class graduated, half of the buildings were removed. BrownTown was fully razed on June 1951. The fleeting phenomena of BrownTown is summed up in a student essay titled The Suburban History of BrownTown 1946-51,  as a “quick life and death of a suburban suburbia.”