Rider Broadsides | c u r i o

Streamlining Broadsides

September 5, 2014 by lelgin | Comments Off on Streamlining Broadsides

Over the past year, Digital Production Services has been working on the digitization of one of the Brown University Library’s extensive collections of broadsides. The Rider Broadsides Collection (named for Sidney S. Rider, the Providence bookseller, publisher, and antiquarian from whom the collection was purchased and then subsequently donated to the university) is the largest privately owned collection of materials related to history of Rhode Island. It’s been a great opportunity to see firsthand such historic materials, and the broadsides themselves have been largely straightforward to digitize.

Just one of many historical documents that DPS has digitized as part of the Rider Broadsides collection.

And the ability to digitize these materials efficiently is important when undertaking such a large project; were the materials all fragile, oversize books with foldouts, digitization could easily take years. But the Rider Broadsides have two important qualities that allow for high quality and high speed digitization: they are mostly flat materials, and many of the broadsides are approximately the same size. Books, for instance, with most setups require constant focus adjustments since the distance from the camera to the page changes as one moves through the books. Likewise, materials with size differences require the camera to be raised or lowered (and then refocused) to accommodate these variations and provide the best quality image. The Rider Broadsides, though, allowed us to set the camera height and focus at the beginning of a session, and then digitize a full day’s worth of work without requiring substantive changes in our setup (spot checks for focus and exposure are always made).

However, once the regular size materials had all been digitized, we moved onto the oversize materials, which present more of a challenge. There are just shy of 400 1-Size broadsides, which vary in size from 12″ x 16 ” to 18″ x 24″ (give or take 1/4″). While this may not seem like such a wide range, going from the smaller size to the larger requires us to either reset everything for each shot (including special compensation for vignetting on the larger materials), or to shoot everything as if it were the largest size. The problem with shooting for the largest size object is that we’d be compromising resolution: as the camera moves further from the object, resolution decreases. We had shot all the regular materials at 600 ppi (at full size), so one of our goals is to maintain as much resolution as possible. So we had to devise an approach to digitizing these materials that would maintain the efficiency as well as the quality that we had achieved with the regular-sized broadsides.

Each of the four groups of broadsides, separated and labeled by size and camera settings.

The answer was to separate out the broadsides by size, and create a specific and easy-to-replicate camera setup for each size range. After going through every broadside, I came up with four size categories: 12 x 16, 14 x 19, 16 x 21, and 18 x 24 (all in inches). All the broadsides fit into one of these size ranges, which allow us to maximize resolution for each size. With a fixed set of size ranges, I went about determining the camera setups. Using just a tape measure and camera target, I plotted where on the camera platform a specific size would fall. I them focused the camera on the target, to see precisely where the camera needed to be to cover the entire image area while in focus. I noted the maximum size of an object for that image area, the resolution that could be achieved, and the height that the camera required (this number is taken from the mounted rail on the camera platform). I made labels for each set of broadsides, which I had separated onto different book trucks.

I also made tape labels for each size range that I affixed to the camera rail. This way, regardless of the person working in the camera room that day, and regardless of which group of broadsides they were working on, all the photographer needs to do is check the label on the stack of broadsides to determine the image size, find the corresponding label on the camera rail, move the camera to level with the label, focus, and shoot. We have digitized hundreds of broadsides so far, and this has turned out to be useful not just for effective digitization, but also for easier retrieval of paged materials.

Details of signage and camera rail markings.

Avoiding Moiré

March 25, 2014 by lelgin | 1 Comment

Because we photograph a great deal of prints and engravings, moiré patterning is an issue that we must consistently keep an eye out for. Moiré patterning often occurs during image capture; it can also happen if you’re viewing an image at a certain magnification, but this is easily addressed by changing the magnification. It’s when moiré patterning enters during image capture that you must address it immediately, since it’s difficult to remove without creating more image artifacts.

Moiré patterning happens when your subject has some type of regular pattern – in our case, this is usually regular lines in an engraving, but can also happen when photographing textures on paper or cloth that have a regular weave to them. When the regular pattern of the subject overlaps with the regular pattern of the image sensor, the moiré patterning is born. It’s usually seen as bands of color, or light and dark.

The two images above are examples of both kinds of moiré patterning. The image on the left, with the black-and-white pattern, happened due to image magnification. This image itself was fine, but viewing it at this magnification was problematic. The image on the right, however, shows moiré patterning that happened during the capture process. You can clearly see the bands of color that, rather than being a function of viewing the image, are actually present in the image itself.

Correcting the viewing problem is a non-issue; one must simply view the image on a different monitor or at a different magnification. Correcting the patterning that happens during capture is actually almost as simple: it’s all about the orientation of the original. Because moiré patterning is a function of the relationship between overlapping patterns, all we have to do to correct this is change that relationship; put another way, we have to change the alignment of the patterns. For this object (from our Rider Broadsides collection), I had been photographing all objects in the collection aligned as relatively straight verticals to the sensor. To correct the alignment, I simply tilted the image so it was crooked in the capture (it’s important that this isn’t a 90˚ tilt, but a more arbitrary tilt). This corrected the problem immediately. Below is the final image, as well as a detail of the most problematic area of the object.

“Absolute money”

March 13, 2014 by btylr | Comments Off on “Absolute money”

The Rider Broadsides collection, currently being digitized by the Library, contains unique examples of cultural-political ephemera from the 17th–20th centuries. Shown below are front and back views of an “absolute money” bill, c. 1880, spoofing the period’s Greenback movement. (The majority of materials in the Sidney S. Rider Collection — a wide variety of pamphlets, manuscripts, broadsides, ephemera, scrapbooks and newspapers — are related to Rhode Island history.)

The Art School Down the Hill

November 7, 2013 by lelgin | Comments Off on The Art School Down the Hill

Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design are within steps of each other, so it’s no surprise that the two have a great deal of overlap in the community. While my full time work is as a photographer at Brown, I have taught photography at RISD (also my alma mater) in their Continuing Education department since 2002. I often use examples from my work at Brown to talk about lighting, lens selection, and other photographic techniques. I was advisor to RISD|CE’s digital photography certificate program for ten years, and during that time I would bring students to Brown to view our studio setup, and talk about the safe handling and digitization of cultural heritage materials.

It is due to my personal connection to RISD and RISD|CE that I was so excited to come across materials over a century old from RISD while photographing at Brown. I’ve been working on digitizing broadsides from the late 1800s, and have found several items from RISD, including bulletins introducing their evening drawing courses for men, art needle work courses for women, listings of their daytime, evening, and youth course schedules, and even an application to the school. As we continue to work our way into the turn of the century, I’m hoping we find even more.

The RISD bulletins are part of the Rider Broadsides collection, which contains a wide range of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, broadsides, ephemera, scrapbooks and newspapers from the 17th through the early 20th centuries. Named for the collector, Sidney S. Rider, Rider Broadsides is the largest private collection of Rhode Island-related materials, and we expect this digitization project to keep us busy for the better part of the academic year.

Like Fishes Swimming in the Air

May 9, 2013 by rness | 1 Comment

Digital Production Services recently began digitizing broadsides from the Sidney S. Rider Collection on Rhode Island History. Rider was a Providence bookseller, publisher, and antiquarian, who presented the library with his collection (the largest private collection of materials related to Rhode Island), in 1913. The broadsides are being chronologically digitized with our Aptus-II 12 camera back, after being registered in our internal tracking system by our student assistants. To introduce the registration process to a student, I pulled a broadside from a box of 18th century materials. The item was dated March 16, 1752 and was published in Newport. The single sheet is a public notice for a course of experiments and lectures on the “newly-discovered Electrical FIRE: containing, not only the most curious of those that have been made and published in Europe, but a number of new ones lately made in Philadelphia.”

The broadside states that the daily lectures, given by Ebenezer Kinnersley, would take place in the council chamber at the Newport courthouse, at 3pm over the the course of a week, or two, in March of 1752. Two columns list topics of the lectures, facts regarding the nature and properties of electricity (“that our Bodies at all Times contain enough of it to set a house on Fire”, and that it has “An Appearance like fishes swimming in the Air.”) An explanation of Mr. Muschenbrock’s wonderful bottle (the Leyden jar), is also promised.

Ebenezer Kinnersley was a scientist, inventor and lecturer, involved with Benjamin Franklin’s electrical experiments in Philadelphia. In 1751, encouraged by Franklin, he traveled to New York, Boston, and Newport delivering lectures on “the Newly Discovered Electrical Fire”. It was during this series of lectures that Kinnersley first announced the effectiveness of the lightning rod, and made practical suggestions on how houses and barns might be protected from the “destructive violence” of lightning. The broadside indicates that the explanation of the cause and effects of various representations of lightening will prove to be “a more probable hypothesis than has hitherto appeared.” Kinnersly’s Newport lecture took place in March of 1752, a full three months before Franklin’s kite experiment.

Anyone sufficiently interested in enlarging their minds by attending the lectures, which were hoped to be “worthy of Regard & Encouragement”, could procure tickets “at the House of the Widow Allen, in Thames Street, next Door to Mr. John Tweedy’s.” Newport residents could not satisfy their interest in electrical fire for free, however. Tickets for the event would cost the curious thirty shillings.

Rhode Island’s First Political Rivalry

March 14, 2013 by Matthew McCabe | 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.

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.

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

c u r i o

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

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