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BYU HistoryMiddle Eastern manuscripts in Special Collections
November 4, 2009
Special Collections owns over 50 manuscripts in Arabic and Persian, including this 18th century Koran. This group of manuscripts range in date from the 13th to early 20th centuries and contain diverse texts, including the hadith, Islamic prayer books, Diwan poetry, and medical, juridical, religious, and historical treatises. Special Collections also owns two Coptic Christian liturgical manuscripts written in Arabic.
These manuscripts can be found through the library catalog by searching Special Collections holdings. In the catalog, limit the search to Special Collections and perform a genre search using the keywords “manuscripts, arabic” or “manuscripts, persian.”
International Year of Astronomy
October 13, 2009
To commemorate The International Year of Astronomy, Special Collections is once again highlighting books and manuscripts from our History of Science collection. 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s telescope, and we are displaying some key items related to Galileo and the history of astronomy. Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems and an early description of how to construct his telescope will be exhibited. Other items include Christiaan Huygens’ published account of Saturn’s rings, early 20th-century photographs of the Milky Way, and manuscript astronomical observations by Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delambre, the father of the metric system.
The exhibit will be viewable in L. Tom Perry Special Collections’ lobby area through the month of October.
Philip II letters now available online
September 22, 2009
The library recently completed its newest digital project, the digitization of a collection of letters from Philip II, King of Spain, related to naval wars with France and England during the period 1592-1597. These letters were previously available in incomplete black and white facsimiles. The letters have been re-scanned in full color and the digital collection includes details like outer addresses and wax seals. The letters can be accessed from the HBLL Digital Collections page or from http://lib.byu.edu/dlib/phil2/.
The Three R’s
September 10, 2009
L. Tom Perry Special Collections’ Rare Book Collection includes over 200 American textbooks dating from 1819 to the 1950’s, including readers and spellers, grammar and composition books, and arithmetic texts. The readers include some 17 McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers, which were the most widely-used schoolbooks in America from their introduction in 1836 up until the First World War. The collection provides an interesting overview of children’s education and instructional methods in 19th and early 20th century America.
Here is a look at two items from this collection:
This 1866 arithmetic textbook was once owned by Lucy Woodruff Smith, the wife of George Albert Smith, who served as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from 1945-51.
This Civil War-era reader features hand-colored illustrations on the title page and the first page, shown here. It was published in New York in 1861.
Stationers’ Company Records
August 18, 2009
Special Collections recently acquired the 115-reel microfilm reproduction of the Records of the Worshipful Company of Stationers & Newspaper Makers. The Stationers’ Company was founded in 1403 and was a major force in London’s book trade both before and long after printing technology arrived in England. Throughout the centuries, many of London’s leading printers, publishers, booksellers, and bookbinders have been members.
The Stationers’ Company records are the most important existing source on the history of the English book trade. The microfilm edition reproduces records spanning from 1554 to 1920 and is supplemented by a printed guide by the Company’s archivist. These records contain a wealth of information about the Company’s activities, including membership and financial records and copyright registers for printed books. The records provide quantitative data about the output of the London book trade as well as details about the lives and careers of printers, publishers, and other members of the Company.
Researchers can access the microfilm records in Special Collections’ reading room during our normal operating hours.
New digital collection in French history
July 22, 2009
One of Special Collection’s best resources in early modern history is our French Political Pamphlets collection. It consists of over 2,100 short works printed in France between 1550 and 1650. These pamphlets describe and react to the social, political, religious and economic issues and events of the period, including France’s Wars of Religion, the Edict of Nantes, and the Thirty Years War. Some of these pamphlets are unique resources not held by any other library in the world.
A multi-year project to digitize the pamphlets is now underway. Over 500 pamphlets were digitized during year one of the project and are now available online at http://www.lib.byu.edu/dlib/fpp/. This site includes a fuller description and commentary on the French Political Pamphlets collection and a bibliography of the collection along with browsable images.
Bastille Day
July 14, 2009
Bastille Day is France’s national holiday, which commemorates the storming of the Bastille fortress by the citizens of Paris on July 14, 1789. The storming of the Bastille was the symbolic beginning of the French Revolution and the rebellion of common citizens against the nobility.
Special Collections has a few first-hand accounts of the storming of the Bastille, including a political pamphlet entitled La capitale delivrée par elle-même and a celebratory poem, Les nouvelles philippiques, ou, Le Te Deum des françois, après la destruction de la Bastille. These and other primary source materials related to the French Revolution can be found by performing a subject search in the HBLL catalog, using the search string “France History Revolution 1789-1799″.
Family on the Fourth of July
June 29, 2009
Fireworks, parades, and programs honoring the Declaration of Independence and the founders of our nation are common throughout the nation. However, many Fourth of July traditions involve being together with family.
One Provo resident loved to go to Pioneer Park and listen to musicians playing from the bandstand. She developed a dream of having a gazebo in her own yard. She envisioned a “gazebo, decorated with red, white, and blue buntings and flags . . . specifically for a Fourth of July music performance” (FA14 8.7.1.1.1). Her family would sit in the gazebo and play music while she sat in the audience and cried–patriotic tears. In 1990 her dream became a reality and a new family tradition was born.
Another family holds a family reunion every day around the Fourth of July. Part of the reunion involves a gift exchange. “The reason for the gift exchange is similar to gift giving for Christmas. [They] try to keep the Christmas 
spirit alive the whole year through and although gift giving is not [particularly] representative of the Christmas spirit in itself, it reminds us that we should be always giving of ourself. Also, the gift needs to be hand made which makes it more personal” (FA14 8.7.1.3.1).
However you choose to celebrate this Fourth of July, have a wonderful time.
Victorian Gardens
May 29, 2009
Lithographed plate from The Flower Grower's Guide, 1898
Gardening, whether indoors or out-of-doors, was as popular a pastime in the Victorian Era as it is today. Like modern publishers, Victorian printers produced a wide array of books and periodicals for the avid gardener, from deluxe botanical illustrations to how-to manuals and hobbyists’ magazines. Many such works were profusely illustrated. Typically, illustrations were created as wood or metal engravings, which could be left as black and white prints or hand-colored. Lithography was another process which allowed color illustrations to be produced on a printing press. Both lithography and hand-coloring could be highly labor-intensive, and the final products could be quite expensive.
Hand-colored plate from Moore's British Ferns, 1859
The Victorian and Edwardian collections contain a number of illustrated works on botany and gardening, including the cultivation of flowers, vegetables, and that most popular houseplant of the Victorian era, the fern. These items can be found by performing a subject search of Special Collections holdings in the library catalog on one of the following terms:
- Botany
- Floriculture
- Gardening
- Horticulture
Folk Cures from the Flu of 1918
May 7, 2009
With rumors swirling through the airwaves and splattered on newspapers across the nation, the Swine Flu is grabbing the public’s attention. While it appears that it will not turn into the pandemic that was originally forecast, it is interesting to look back at some of the folk cures that were adopted by people during the last pandemic–the flu of 1918.
A woman who nursed the sick in 1918 passed along the following wisdom: cut an onion in half, covering the cut surface with sugar to draw out the juice. Place onion in the oven to warm. The resulting syrup which is derived from the mixture of onion juice and sugar is used to cure the flu. (FA 10 1.9.4.1.1)
One interviewee recalled that during the flu season of 1918 he had to wear a “package of acifidity [sic] around his neck . . . and it looked to me like a plug of tobacco.” (FA 10 1.9.4.4.1)
Another woman recalled that “during the flu epidemic in 1918, when she was 12 years old, a doctor told her mother to pour [sulphur] powder on top of the old fashioned stove several times a day and for the family to live outdoors as much as possible. The sulphur sparked on the stove as it was applied, and the family skied, went sleigh riding and spent hours our of doors and escaped the dread epidemic. The nest year they moved into a small town, the family caught the flu and several members nearly died.” (FA 10 1.9.4.6.1)
If none of these catch your fancy, you might want to resort to a common practice dating to the early days of Sanpete County–”a person should never change his underwear and . . . only bath[e] on Saturday night.” (FA 10 1.9.4.3.1)
New Reformation-era Acquisitions
April 30, 2009
BYU’s Renaissance and Reformation Collection contains over 100 Martin Luther pamphlets in German and Latin, comprising letters, religious and political tracts, and sermons. The most recent additions to this collection are:
- Luther’s “Wider den falsch genantten geystlichen stand des Bapst und der Bischoffen (Against the So-Called Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops),” a 1522 pamphlet which denounces the indulgence trade and clerical celibacy; and
- “Vermanung an die geystlichen versamlet uff dem Richstag zu Augsburg, MDXXX (Exhortation to All Clergy Assembled at Augsburg for the Imperial Diet of 1530).”
Other recent acquisitions include works by Ulrich von Hutten, Huldrich Zwingli, and Martin Bucer. All are available for research and can be accessed in the Special Collections reading room.
Easter in another Time
April 9, 2009
In the 1920s Easter was not hailed with an abundance of chocolate candy and jelly beans. “In Florence’s family, the notion of the Easter Bunny was not celebrated on Easter with new clothes or surprises, like many people do today. On the day before Easter Sunday, each member of her family would organize their own Easter baskets. They would all color their eggs and put candies in the basket along with sandwiches and luncheon foods. Because candy wasn’t an everyday occurrence in the early 1900s, it was cherished much more by children than it is now. In their baskets they would have chocolate rabbits and hard sugar coated candies that were soft in the middle. After the baskets were prepared, the family didn’t have an Easter Egg hunt with their eggs, instead they would go out to the foothills in Morgan [Utah] and have a picnic together. If the weather was bad, they would all go out to the hayloft in their barn and have a picnic out there. Easter was a time to enjoy their treats, but also a time to enjoy being together as a family during their picnic” (submitted by Myra Durrand, 1993).
Families often gather at Easter for some type of activity. One family chooses to make their Easter dinner a reminder of Christ. A special dinner “is something that has been passed down in my family for many generations. I remember, even as a small child, that Easter dinner was a special one. My family would be planning it for days in advance. Then the day would come and my family would gather around the table and read from the Bible about Jesus. We would light candles and try to make everything (as much as possible) as it was when Jesus was live. We [ate] food at this meal that we feel Jesus ate when he was alive, to honor him and his memory and to remember what he did for us. It was a special time of year for us, and we would all look forward to it. Traditional Easter meal: fish (usually steamed), unleavened bread (usually bagels), grapes, raw vegetables (carrots, celery, etc.), grape juice” (collected by Gwyn Bevard, 1988).
Another family has a child who passed away. Each Easter Sunday they gather around the grave and the father reads the account of the resurrection of Christ from the scriptures. A family prayer is said and the family meditates upon the meaning of the day. Before they leave they place a lily on the grave.
How does your family celebrate Easter?
Managing the 17th Century Household
March 23, 2009
Looking for ways to live providently during tough economic times? Take the advice of this collection of six tracts printed in London in 1657 entitled, “A Way to Get Wealth.” Subtitled “six Principall Vocations, or Callings, in which every good Husband or Huswife, may lawfully employ themselves,” the tracts give advice on planting your own crops and raising your own animals, from cows and horses to goats and rabbits. It even provides directions for building your own fishponds and orchards. Besides improving land to raise plants and farm animals for income, the tracts instruct “Husbands” how to raise hunting dogs and fighting cocks, and “Housewives” are given a variety of home remedies for illness and recipes for the table, as well as information on cloth-making, brewing, and making flour, butter, and cheese.
Celebrate Astronomy with Special Collections!
February 23, 2009
2009 is being commemorated worldwide as The International Year of Astronomy. This year marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s telescope, and activities to celebrate the history and impact of astronomy and science are taking place on the local, national, and international levels.
Here at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, we will celebrate the International Year of Astronomy with a month-long display of highlights from our History of Science collection during March 2009. The exhibit will repeat in October. We will be showcasing some of our most important works of Renaissance Astronomy, including a copy of Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems and manuscript astronomical observations by Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delambre, the father of the metric system.
Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, 1809-2009
February 12, 2009
Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln are both in the news this week, since today marks the 200th anniversary of both men’s births. Television and radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and museums are all offering the chance to learn more about Darwin, Lincoln, and their legacies. But did you know that you can study Darwin and Lincoln from their original writings just by coming to BYU Special Collections?
Special Collections owns several first editions of Darwin’s work, including On the Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, and the narrative of his voyage on the Beagle.
The manuscript collections contain a pardon issued by Lincoln in 1864 as well as letters and legal documents dating from his presidency and his time as an Illinois lawyer in the 1840’s and 1850’s. Special Collections also owns an 1863 copy of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by the US Government Printing Office.
These books and documents can be found in the library’s catalog by performing an author search and limiting your search to “HBLL Special Collections.”
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