Harold B. Lee Library

Archive for the “JFC Harrison” Category

• Visiting Victorian London
  Posted June 7, 2011 by Maggie Kopp

  Visiting the UK this summer?  You’re probably bringing along a guidebook to help you navigate, see the sights, and understand the local culture.  Old guidebooks can provide an interesting snapshot of place and time.  For example, Special Collections owns numerous 19th century guidebooks to places in the British Isles, including Scotland, the English Lake District, [...]

• Victorian Valentines
  Posted February 7, 2011 by Maggie Kopp

  Valentine’s Day greetings were just as popular with the Victorians as they are today.  In 1865, the British postmaster general reported that 542,000 valentines were mailed annually within London and more than double that amount sent from London to the countryside.  No wonder that in 1870, one newspaper noted that “[St. Valentine] is the terror [...]

• Online resources from the JFC Harrison Collection
  Posted January 4, 2011 by Maggie Kopp

  The Harold B. Lee Library has scanned and made available the British Social Periodicals held in the JFC Harrison collection online at the Internet Archive.  The collection includes full-text scans of periodicals related to political, cultural, and social movements, including temperance, free-thought, and working-class educational associations.  The digital collection also includes literary items related to [...]

• The Coronation of Queen Victoria
  Posted June 28, 2010 by Maggie Kopp

  Queen Victoria, the longest reigning British monarch in history, was crowned queen on this day’s date (June 28) in 1838.  The young queen inherited the throne at the age of 18, following the death of her uncle, William IV.  During the first months of her reign the public was quite curious about the young queen.  [...]

• New acquisitions: British social history
  Posted April 28, 2010 by Maggie Kopp

  One recent acquisition is a collected set of Harriet Martineau’s Illustrations of Political Economy, along with two continuations of the series: Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated and Illustrations of Taxation. These tales, first issued from 1832-34, brought Martineau literary celebrity. The didactic stories, based on the theories of T.R. Malthus and James Mill, were intended [...]

• Updated list of British social history periodicals
  Posted April 20, 2010 by Maggie Kopp

  The list of periodicals related to British social history has recently been updated to include single-issue holdings and other titles from the J.F.C. Harrison Collection.  The newly-added periodicals cover such topics as free thought, Methodism, and temperance.

• Harrison Collection periodicals now online
  Posted March 29, 2010 by Maggie Kopp

  A select number of British sociopolitical periodicals from the JFC Harrison Collection have recently been scanned and added to the Internet Archive.  A total of 16 volumes from ten periodicals are now available.  Titles include the annual journal of the Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Society, John Bright’s Speeches on questions of public policy, and several titles [...]

• Cooking up a Victorian Christmas
  Posted December 4, 2009 by Maggie Kopp

  For modern readers, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol conjures up images of bygone Christmas celebrations, including the Christmas feast prepared by the Cratchit family, complete with goose and steamed pudding.  Many current cookbooks provide updated recipes for traditional Victorian Christmas fare, but what sorts of sources would a middle- or working-class cook like Mrs. Cratchit [...]

• Stationers’ Company Records
  Posted August 18, 2009 by Maggie Kopp

  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, [...]