News from the Special Collections Research Center

Exhibits

Passover Haggadot from Durchslag Collection

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Special Collections Research Center

Illustration of Seder dinner - 1867 Livorno Haggadah

Illustration of a Seder dinner from an 1867 Haggadah printed in Livorno, Italy

Archetype and Adaptation: Passover Haggadot from the Stephen P. Durschlag Collection
An exhibition at the
Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery
1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago
April 2 — May 12, 2012
Mon. — Fri., 9 a.m. — 4:45 p.m.
Sat: 9 a.m. — 12:45 p.m. when University of Chicago classes are in session
Free and open to the public

The week-long, springtime Jewish holiday of Pesach, or Passover, is beloved for its symbolic meaning and joyous customs. Passover marks the freeing of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, a narrative with universal appeal as a paradigm for collective and, according to some traditions, personal liberation. The Haggadah (plural: Haggadot), or “telling,” is the collection of prayers, legends, and stories recited on the eve of Passover.

The basic text of the Haggadah derives from the biblical instruction to retell the story of the Exodus each year during Passover in conjunction with a ritual meal called the Seder, or “order” (Exodus 13:8). Over the centuries songs and illustrations have been added to engage children, to whom the story was to be told, and some passages are given added prominence when they resonate with contemporary concerns. Illustrations in medieval manuscripts depict scenes from Exodus, the life of Moses, and Jewish Patriarchs. Many of these scenes continue to appear in early printed Haggadot, but the emphasis shifts to passages drawn directly from the text. The Haggadah has shown remarkable stability and flexibility: thousands of editions in all languages testify to its central role in Jewish life and its ability to incorporate new themes and respond to changing conditions.

This exhibition is drawn entirely from the private collection of Stephen P. Durchslag, the largest known collection of Haggadot in private hands. “Archetype and Adaptation” explores the enduring influence of early printed Haggadot as well as the ability of modern versions to reflect political and social developments such as the Holocaust, Zionism, gay rights, and feminism. The Haggadah embodies the adaptive genius of Jewish practice and the consequent vitality of Jewish life. Items selected for the exhibition exemplify early Haggadah archetypes and later adaptations, framed by facsimiles of medieval manuscripts and modern Haggadot illustrated by noted artists.

Illustrations were often copied and pirated in early printed books. Images were expensive to produce, so woodcuts were reused until they wore out and copper plates made long journeys from one city to another. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, several Haggadot became models for countless later editions. Yosef Yerushalmi has identified four early printed editions that served as “archetypes”: Prague (1526), Mantua (1560), Venice (1609), and Amsterdam (1695). Each of these was shaped by the artistic culture and printing trades of the city in which it was produced—for example, Renaissance Italian borders and architectural frames appear in Venice, copperplate engraving is used instead of woodcut in Amsterdam—and introduced iconography that can be seen in Haggadot produced hundreds of years later. The exhibition traces the movement of these models across continents and time, demonstrating the enduring appeal of the Haggadah story and the infinite variety of interpretation and adaptation it inspires.

Curator: Pesach Weinstein, Ph.D. Candidate, Divinity School

Illustration of the Four Sons from a 1695 Haggadah printed in Amsterdam

The Haggadah: An Exhibition and Lecture Series

The Chicago Center for Jewish Studies, the University of Chicago Divinity School, and the Special Collections Research Center are presenting a lecture series, associated with the exhibition described above. All lectures take place in the Special Collections Research Center and are followed by a reception and opportunity to view the exhibition. All are free and open to the public.

April 1
“The Haggadah and the Jewish Imagination”

5:00 p.m. — Introductory comments in the Exhibition Gallery – Stephen P. Durchslag
5:30 p.m. — Lecture: The “Haggadah” and the Jewish Imagination – David Stern, Moritz and Josephine Berg Professor of Classical Hebrew Literature, University of Pennsylvania
6:30 p.m. — Reception and Exhibition Viewing

April 22 – 5:30 p.m.
Marc Michael Epstein (Vassar College)
“Birds’ Head Revisited: Identity, Politics and Polemics in the Birds’ Head Haggadah”

May 6 – 5:30 p.m.
Vanessa Ochs (University of Virginia)
“The Coconut on the Seder Plate: A Biography of the Contemporary Haggadah”

May 13 – 5:30 p.m.
Katrin Kogman-Appel (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
“Popularizing Books in a Manuscript Culture: The Visual Language of the Late Medieval Haggadah”

“We Are Chicago” exhibition documents 120 years of UChicago student life

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Special Collections Research Center

We Are Chicago Exhibition

“We Are Chicago: Student Life in the Collections of the University of Chicago Archives” is a new exhibition in the Special Collections Research Center highlighting student experiences over a span of 120 years. Drawn from the historical collections of the University Archives, the exhibit features recent donations as well as rarely seen materials from the University’s past. Costumes, photographs, T-shirts, letters, posters, publications, and memorabilia combine to make this the largest and most inclusive exhibition in the ongoing Special Collections archival series, Discover Hidden Archives Treasures.

“We Are Chicago” includes an interactive comment board that allows students, alumni and other exhibit visitors to post a memory about their time here at the university. Another highlight is a slide show displaying digitized photographs from the Chicago Maroon student newspaper, a collection donated to the Archives by the Chicago Maroon in 2010.

Tracking student life on campus is an archival challenge. More than 300 Registered Student Organizations exist at the University. Understanding the history of student life is equally complex. Since the university’s founding in 1892, students have organized an amazing array of social, academic, cultural, residential, athletic, literary, and political groups.

“We Are Chicago” displays some of the most intriguing documents, photographs, and artifacts from these groups. Some were donations presented by individual alumni and their families. Others were responses to appeals in the alumni magazine or gifts of student organizations, fraternities, and clubs. Taken together, these unique historical items show the range of the archival collections, but they also suggest the many gaps waiting to be filled. The University Archives welcomes donations from alumni, students, and community neighbors who have historical materials on student life that can be preserved and made available to the students and researchers of the future.

This exhibition runs January 17 to March 23, 2012, in the Special Collections Exhibition Gallery, located on the first floor of Regenstein Library. The gallery is open Monday through Friday, 9:00am-4:45pm, and, when classes are in session, Saturdays 9:00am-12:45pm.

The Graphics of Revolution and War: Iranian Poster Arts

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Special Collections Research Center

Posters are a powerful medium to convey ideological messages and stir viewers to sympathy and action. Mass-produced and widely distributed, they reach a large audience with their striking design and dramatic, often blunt, messages.

"There is no god but God." ca. 1980

A newly launched Library Web exhibit, The Graphics of Revolution and War: Iranian Poster Arts, explores how posters were used for mobilization and communication during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). This permanent online exhibit was collaboratively produced in conjunction with a loan exhibition of the University of Chicago’s posters on display at the Indiana University Art Museum from October 15 to December 18, 2011. The exhibition was guest curated by Professor Christiane Gruber, University of Michigan, and her doctoral student Elizabeth Rauh. The website was produced and designed by Elisabeth M. Long, co-director of the University of Chicago’s Digital Library Development Center, and Brad Busenius, web and graphic design specialist.

The posters in the exhibition were selected from the Library’s Middle East Poster Collection. The Guide to the Middle Eastern Posters Collection 1970s-1990s includes links to digital images of all of the Iranian posters in the collection. The image above is from the Middle Eastern Posters Collection: Box 2, Poster 39.

Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary: Children’s Books and Graphic Arts

Posted on August 22, 2011 by The University of Chicago Library

In Nina Sakonskaia's Mamin most (1933), children and adults collaborate to "model a new world."

Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery
1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois
August 22, 2011—December 30, 2011
Mon.-Fri., 9:00 a.m.-4:45 p.m.
Sat: 9:00 a.m.-12:45 p.m. when University of Chicago classes are in session.

The Soviet Union was a world in pictures. Its creation in the wake of the Russian revolutions of February–March and October–November 1917 was facilitated by a vibrant image culture based largely on new media technologies. Its periodic re-makings – during Stalin’s Great Leap Forward (1928–1932), World War II (1941–1945, the Thaw (1956–1964), Perestroika (1987–1991) – were all accompanied by new media revolutions.

Two of the most striking manifestations of Soviet image culture were the children’s book and the poster. Both of these forms testify to the alliance between experimental aesthetics and radical socialist ideology that held tenuously from the 1917 revolutions to the mid-1930s—and did so much to shape a distinctly Soviet civilization. The children’s books and posters in “Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary” plot the development of this new image culture alongside the formation of new social and cultural identities, from the beginning of Stalin’s Great Breakthrough in 1928 to the reconstruction and regrouping that followed World War II.

“Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary,” drawn entirely from the collections of the University of Chicago Library, was created by the collaborative efforts of eight graduate students, one former undergraduate and two faculty members at the University of Chicago. Led by Professor Robert Bird, the participants, representing a range of academic disciplines, from history to art history and Russian literature. discuss topics such as “The Collective,” “The Individual,” “Transportation,” “Do It Yourself,” and “Military Preparedness,” and individuals including Aleksandr Deineka and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

An associated web exhibit is available online.

Exhibition highlights rare collection of Soviet children’s books and graphic art

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Susie Allen at the University of Chicago

In Nina Sakonskaia's Mamin Most (“Mom’s Bridge”) from 1933, children and adults collaborate to "model a new world."

A new exhibition at the University of Chicago Library gives visitors the chance to view the former Soviet Union through the eyes of its youngest citizens. “Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary,” which opens Aug. 22 at the Special Collections Research Center, features rare Soviet children’s books and other graphic art from 1927-1948.

The works in the exhibition demonstrate the singular role of children in the Soviet Union, said Robert Bird, associate professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures and the College. Bird, along with Matthew Jesse Jackson, associate professor in art history, visual arts and the College, and nine UChicago students, helped to organize the exhibition.

Following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, “children were seen as the first recipients of this way of doing things, but also the pioneers in building this new world,” Jackson said. “They were being asked, from the very beginning, to live in a world that did not yet exist.”

Exhibition highlights include imaginative picture books like North, South, East, West, which unfolds to reveal information about each region of the Soviet Union; and Tsepplin, in which a young boy imagines a hybrid Zeppelin-linotype machine that creates newsprint in the sky.

The books and posters featured in the exhibition also draw attention to the broader changes in the regime. As Soviet political ideology became more entrenched, the playful and experimental mood of the early period gave way to “a much more narrative and realistic mode of expression,” Bird said.

Bird was the first to call attention to the collection of children’s books and systemically study them. Some of the children’s books highlighted in the exhibition were given to the library as part of the R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. Training Library archive, while the origins of others remain uncertain. In addition, the exhibition highlights several rare Soviet-era posters donated by E.M. Bakwin.

In Nina Sakonskaia's Mamin most (1933), children and adults collaborate to "model a new world."

The “exhilarating” discovery of the archive occurred as Bird was preparing to teach a 2006 course on Soviet culture. and he included study of the books as one of the required activities for students. “I wanted to instill an appreciation for the moments of discovery we have as scholars,” Bird explained.

In collaboration with Bird and his students, Library staff began to review and catalogue portions of the collection, only to discover the materials were rarer than they had realized. “All of these books are scarcely held. We were holding the only copy of many of them,” said Alice Schreyer, director of the Special Collections Research Center. Thanks to the cataloguing effort, “we’ve let the scholarly community know in a much more robust and detailed way that the books are here for them to use.”

As they delved more deeply into the collection, Bird, Jackson and their students developed the idea for an exhibition in Special Collections. That idea grew to include a web exhibition and a print catalogue, which the Library published and the University of Chicago Press distributed.

They found an enthusiastic partner in Schreyer. “We always want exhibition projects to not only feature marvelous materials in the collection, but also be an opportunity [for students and faculty] to perform research and present that work to a larger audience,” she said.

“Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary” is part of the Soviet Arts Experience, a 16-month, citywide effort to showcase art created under the Soviet regime. The exhibition runs Aug. 22 to Dec. 30 at the SCRC. For more information, please visit http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/curex.html or call 773-702-8705.

The bold colors and abstract crowds in the illustration (left) show a May Day celebration in a 1932 edition of Elizaveta's Tarakhovskaia's Bei v baraban!

The bold colors and abstract crowds in the illustration show a May Day celebration in a 1932 edition of Elizaveta's Tarakhovskaia's Bei v baraban!

A University of Chicago news release

Media contacts

Susie Allen
News Officer for Arts, Humanities, and Divinity
The University of Chicago News Office
sjallen1@uchicago.edu
(773) 702-4009

Rachel Rosenberg
Director of Communications
University of Chicago Library
ra-rosenberg@uchicago.edu
(773)834-1519

Firmness, Commodity, and Delight: Architecture in Special Collections

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Special Collections Research Center

Image from Vitruvius Pollio. De architectura libri decem. Florence: P. Iunta, 1522.

Special Collections Research Center
Exhibition Gallery
1100 East 57th Street, Chicago

May 9, 2011—July 29, 2011

“Firmness, Commodity, and Delight” celebrates the opening of the new Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery and the imminent completion of the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library. The exhibition is being presented in conjunction with “500 Years of the Illustrated Architecture Book,” a city-wide festival marking the publication of the first illustrated book on architecture, an edition of De architectura libri decem by the first century B.C.E., Roman architect Vitruvius Pollio.

Vitruvius identified three elements necessary for a well-designed building: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas. Firmness or physical strength secured the building’s structural integrity. Utility provided an efficient arrangement of spaces and mechanical systems to meet the functional needs of its occupants. And venustas, the aesthetic quality associated with the goddess Venus, imparted style, proportion, and visual beauty. Rendered memorably into English by Henry Wotton, a 17th-century translator, “firmness, commodity, and delight” remain the essential components of all successful architectural design.

Drawn from the holdings of the Special Collections Research Center, this exhibition suggests the diversity of the Library’s architectural rare books, manuscripts, and archives and their rich potential for research across a broad range of topics in the arts of building and design. Included are theoretical works and popular manuals, records of the University’s physical development, papers of urban planners, postcards and ephemera, photographs, and architectural drawings and blueprints.

The largest single piece in the exhibition is a huge architectural print, Piante della frabriche esistenti nella Villa Adriana [Rome: 1781-1789], created by Giambattista Piranesi (1720-1778) and completed by his son Francesco Piranesi (ca.1756 – 1810). Spanning eleven feet in length, this richly detailed etching records Piranesi’s survey of the surviving ruins of Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli. Depicted as if incised on a massive block of stone held in place by metal brackets, the plan displays the vast scale of the emperor’s country retreat, an estate covering more than 250 acres.

The earliest manuscript in the exhibition is a 15th-century copy of De re aedificatoria, Leon Battista Alberti’s influential Renaissance architectural treatise. In 1485, De re aedificatoria became the first work on architecture to be issued from a printing press, a year before the appearance of the earliest printed edition of Vitruvius. Acquired for the University of Chicago as part of the Berlin Collection in 1891, the manuscript on view reflects the hands of ten different scribes and may have been based upon, or edited in comparison with, the printed edition.

One of the most unusual of the printed books in the exhibition is a work by John Smeaton (1724-1792): A Narrative of the Building and a Description of the Construction of the Edystone Lighthouse with Stone (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1813). Smeaton was recommended by the Royal Society to design a lighthouse to stand on the Eddystone Rocks, a hazard to navigation nine miles off the English coast that had already claimed two earlier lighthouses. As Smeaton shows through the fascinating plates in this book, he took the inspiration for his lighthouse from a novel source, “the natural figure of the waist or bole of a large spreading Oak.” Reinforced by dovetail stone joints and marble dowels, Smeaton’s tree-trunk-shaped lighthouse remained in use until 1877.

Two items in the exhibition show how diligently architectural books often have been used by their owners. A copy of an eighteenth-century builder’s guide by Abraham Swan, A Collection of Designs in Architecture, Containing New Plans and Elevations of Houses, for General Use (London: Printed for and sold by the author, 1757), reveals extensive pencil sketches of structures in the bottom margin of one page and a drawing of a proposed orphan asylum on a separate sheet. Two centuries later, a copy of Mademoiselle’s Home Planning Scrapbook (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1946) by Elinor Hillyer, shows the same intensive use; a former owner of the book, perhaps influenced by its advice for newly married young women, tucked in two hand-drawn sketches of floor plans for a suburban house.

Frank Lloyd Wright is represented in the exhibition by two important pieces. In one, a letter written in 1907, Wright furiously challenges a negative review of his designs by Chicago poet and journalist Harriet Monroe; Wright’s tone was so harsh he later apologized to Monroe. Documenting the same creative period of Wright’s career is an original annotated blueprint of the Frederick C. Robie House (1908-1910), one of Wright’s acknowledged masterpieces. This blueprint and others used by H. B. Barnard, the building contractor for the house, were later given to the Library by Barnard’s son along with construction photographs and other records.

In addition to these highlights, “Firmness, Commodity, and Delight” displays works by a wide range of other architects including Vitruvius, Andrea Palladio, Giacomo Barocio da Vignola, Inigo Jones, James Gibbs, Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, Addison Mizner, Schmidt, Garden & Erikson, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Murphy/Jahn, and Booth Hansen. Two noted landscape architects, Humphry Repton and Horace William Shaler Cleveland, are also featured.

“Firmness, Commodity, and Delight” was curated by Daniel Meyer. Patti Gibbons, Kathi Beste, Ann Lindsey, and Nadja Otikor were responsible for production and installation. Information on campus planning was provided by Mary Anton, Richard Bumstead, and James Cook of University of Chicago Facilities Services. Loan items were generously made available by Booth Hansen Associates and Murphy/Jahn, Inc.

Gallery Hours
Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-4:45 p.m.
Saturdays: 9:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. when University of Chicago classes are in session.

Explore the History of Chicago Jazz, Online and in Person

Posted on September 8, 2010 by Special Collections Research Center

[Sun Ra and His Myth Science Arkestra, Fate in a Pleasant Mood, Saturn SR9956-2-B, 33 1/3 rpm, 1965]

The Chicago Jazz Archive at the University of Chicago Library’s Special Collection Research Center invites all community members to explore the history of Chicago jazz online and in person this September:

1. View and hear our new Web exhibit, Sounds from Tomorrow’s World: Sun Ra and the Chicago Years, 1946-1961. While living in Chicago, Herman Poole “Sonny” Blount became Sun Ra—the leader of the Arkestra and a composer and arranger of some of the most avant-garde jazz of the time. He was also the architect of a philosophy that informed his music, his life, and the lives of those around him: a synthesis of Black Nationalism, Egyptology, futurism, occultism and Southern Baptist preaching. This Web exhibit explores Sun Ra’s Chicago years through images and sound recordings of his poetry and music, vinyl records and album artwork, promotional materials and early controversial broadsheets.

2. Visit the Special Collections Research Center to consult the original materials shown in the Sun Ra Web exhibit and thousands of other publications, photographs, articles, posters, programs, ticket stubs, and other ephemera of musicians, clubs, record companies, and jazz organizations found in the Chicago Jazz Archive.

3. Visit our updated Chicago Jazz Library Guide for information on researching the history of Chicago jazz at libraries across the city.

4. Stop by the Chicago Jazz Archive table at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on September 25. The Special Collections Research Center is a member of the Hyde Park Alliance for Arts and Culture (HyPa), which co-produces the festival.

Please feel free to contact the Special Collections Research Center with any questions!

The one that got away: On “Haiti: Celebrating a Vibrant Literary and Musical Culture”

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Special Collections Research Center

By guest blogger Sarah Wenzel, Bibliographer for Romance and English Literatures

There are always items that "belong" in an exhibition but simply don’t fit , either physically into the cases or into the narrative formed by the other items on display. One example is a play in Special Collections that is not on view in “Haiti: Celebrating a Vibrant Literary and Musical Culture,” the current exhibition on view through September 2010 on the 3rd floor of the Regenstein Library. The exhibition celebrates the vibrant cultural life of Haïti; the play reflects 19th-century African-American appropriation of the Haïtian revolution as representative of heroism and of the dignity denied to African Americans in the post-Civil War United States.

“Haiti: Celebrating a Vibrant Literary and Musical Culture” focuses on the connections between Haïti and Chicago, as well as the musical and literary culture of the island. Haïti and its citizens have been important to Chicago from the beginning, as Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable, often cited as the founder of the city, was a native Haïtian.

[Click on images to enlarge. An imaginary view of the site of Chicago in 1779 (then called Eschikago).... [Chicago] : A.T. Andreas, c1884. Regenstein Map Collection.]

During the 19th- and early 20th-century, Haïti was seen by other previously enslaved peoples as a bright example of independence and of citizens of African descent holding positions of power. Similarly, Haïtian literary culture was held as superior, and as a model for writers of other nationalities.

During the Columbian Exhibition of 1893 held in Chicago, the Haïtian pavilion was the first “national” edifice to be dedicated. Although it was not necessarily architecturally significant, it became extremely important to African-American fair attendees and those interested in civil rights. Frederick Douglass, who had been the United States’ ambassador to Haiti, was asked by the Haitian government to represent the republic at the fair. Among others, he was joined by the young poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar and activist Ida B. Wells. The pavilion became a focus-point for African Americans and those supporting African-American causes.

A History of the World's Columbian Exposition Held in Chicago in 1893 provides not only an image of the pavilion itself, but also this elaborate color map showing its location in the grand scheme. It is notable that the Haïtian pavilion is not located with other Latin American countries, but rather is adjacent to Germany and New South Wales.

Dessalines, a Dramatic Tale: a Single Chapter from Haiti's History is as an example of the regard in which Haïti was held among African Americans. Its author, William Edgar Easton (b.1861), takes liberties with history in order to advocate for “a healthy and substantial race pride,” portray the honor and value of “the Negro” and to decry the effects of slavery : “minds are not made captive by slavery’s chains, nor were men’s souls made for barter and trade” (p. vii).

Easton’s ancestors had fought for independence in the United States as far back as the Revolutionary War, and in Haïti. A leading figure in African-American society, he sought to write in an elevated style that he hoped would lead to a “happier era inaugurated by the…production of legitimate drama, written exclusively for Negro players and meeting…with the full endorsement of the brother in white.” (p. vii).

In addition to the the playscript, the volume includes "A Tribute to Haïtien Heroism” by Norris Wright Cuney and Frederick Douglass’ speech delivered on the occasion of the dedication of the Haïtian pavilion at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.

The materials in Special Collections enrich and give depth to the exhibit, illustrating the long connection between Chicago and Haïti – a connection that continues to this day – and the important ideological role that Haïti played in 19th-century African-American rhetoric.

News from the Special Collections Research Center

Exhibits

Passover Haggadot from Durchslag Collection

The Haggadah: An Exhibition and Lecture Series

“We Are Chicago” exhibition documents 120 years of UChicago student life

The Graphics of Revolution and War: Iranian Poster Arts

Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary: Children’s Books and Graphic Arts

Exhibition highlights rare collection of Soviet children’s books and graphic art

Explore the History of Chicago Jazz, Online and in Person

The one that got away: On “Haiti: Celebrating a Vibrant Literary and Musical Culture”

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