Houghton Library Blog

Join Us for Houghton Library’s 75th Anniversary Symposium: Who Cares?

8 June 2017 Emilie Hardman News

banner image of brick wall covered in ivy with the words "Who Cares?" in graffiti

October 5-6, 2017
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Free to register

The symposium is limited to 200 participants to encourage productive and dynamic dialogue in a more intimate setting. We expect demand to exceed our supply of seats, so please register early to secure your spot.

This year Houghton Library, Harvard College’s primary rare books and manuscripts library, marks its 75th anniversary. We’ve acknowledged the occasion in many ways, but with this symposium we seek to resist the themes of comfortable reflection, appreciation, and celebration that attend anniversaries. Instead, we intend to examine the legacy, mission, and future of the library, and others like it, through the lens of the question: who cares?

More than a provocation, this question is an earnest interrogation of roles and responsibilities of special collections and archives in an ever-shifting social, cultural, intellectual, and technological landscape. Who cares for special collections? Why do we open our doors? How will we move forward? These questions have no fixed answers, consensus is unlikely; it’s this uncertainty we welcome as we engage in substantive, productive conversation. To that end, we’ve invited speakers and panelists who connect to our collections in a range of ways – as creators and collectors, readers and interpreters, colleagues in cultural heritage from around the world – and asked them to grapple with these questions.
The symposium will feature keynote lectures by Jamaica Kincaid and Johanna Drucker; remarks from Drew Gilpin Faust, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Sarah Thomas, and Thomas Hyry. We are also pleased to feature papers and presentations from Tez Clark, Jarrett Drake, Maria Estorino, Arthur Fournier, Michelle Habell-Pallan and Sonnet Retman, Angela Lorenz, Marcyliena Morgan, Trevor Muñoz, Jay Satterfield, Liz Ševčenko, Jordan Alexander Stein, and Chris Wilde.

Our hope is that you’ll join us as well. Learn more and register online: https://houghton75symposium.org.

The Start of Something Big

5 June 2017 John Overholt Events and Exhibitions

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017.

In 1746, a consortium of London publishers approached Samuel Johnson, a rising star in the literary world, with a proposal: write an English dictionary. In the end, Johnson was equal to the task, but only after nine years of mammoth intellectual labor. Although the practice of lexicography has advanced considerably in the centuries since, Johnson’s Dictionary is still regarded as a tour de force, appreciated for the wit and trenchancy of its definitions, and the erudition underlying its illustrative quotations. Samuel Johnson’s stamp on the writing of English is profound and lasting.

Everything started from this modest manuscript, now visibly cracked from the corrosive ink used to write it. Over the course of a handful of pages Johnson lays out his plan for a work that would grow to two enormous volumes: how he will choose the words to define, how he will determine their proper spelling, from which authors he will draw quotations.
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Collections Now Available for Research: June 2017

1 June 2017 John Overholt Collections in Focus

Houghton Library is pleased to announce that the following collections now have descriptive finding aids and are available for research in the library’s reading room.

American Repertory Theatre Records, 1979-2012 (MS Thr 1605) – processed by Adrien Hilton, Jennifer Lyons, and Dale Stinchcomb

Fredric Woodbridge Wilson Collection of Costume Designs for Theater, Musical Comedy, Pantomime and Opera, 1841-1909 (MS Thr 1625) – processed by Irina Klyagin

Donald Hyde and Mary Hyde Eccles Iconography Collection, circa 1700-1999 (MS Hyde 100) – processed by Rick Stattler, edited and uploaded by Adrien Hilton

Jamaica Kincaid papers, circa 1950-2013 (MS Am 3097) – processed by Melanie Wisner

Edward Jackson Lowell Papers, 1881-1893 (MS Am 800.2) – processed by Ashley Nary

Murray Anthony Potter Papers, circa 1900-1915 (MS Am 863-MS Am 871) – processed by Ashley Nary

Hilary Putnam Papers, circa 1950-2012 (MS Am 3126) – processed by Melanie Wisner

Simon Vinkenoog Papers Concerning Timothy Leary and Hallucinogenic Drugs, 1960-2001 (MS Dutch 22) – processed by Susan Wyssen

Most Creative: John Lithgow’s Harvard Years

24 May 2017 one response Dale Stinchcomb Events and Exhibitions

It’s been a year of milestones for actor and Harvard alum John Lithgow, who this week celebrates his 50th class reunion. Last April, he was fêted with the 2017 Harvard Arts Medal at the kick-off of Arts First, the annual festival of student creativity he helped launch 25 years ago.

Watercolor of Winston Churchill in The Crown by John Lithgow

Self-portrait as Winston Churchill in The Crown. 2016MT-55

Fresh from on-screen successes in Netflix’s The Crown and NBC’s crime mockumentary Trial & Error, Lithgow has earned a reputation as a consummate performer; his two Tonys, five Emmys, and a laundry list of accolades make it impossible to imagine otherwise. Yet the former history and literature major once nursed ambitions of becoming a painter. His undergraduate years, he recalls, were “the most active and creative of my life.”

The artistic license of those formative years has proven impossible to recreate. “It was the last time I worked in the theater for the pure, unfettered joy of it,” he has written. “Some of the work was excellent, much of it was dreadful, but its quality was never really the point. Joy was the point.”

Here’s a joyous look back at just a few of Lithgow’s extracurricular entanglements, compiled from his memoir, Drama: An Actor’s Education, with illustrations from the Harvard Theatre Collection.

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Tags: John Lithgow

Open House 75: Houghton Library Staff Select

16 May 2017 ameze Events and Exhibitions

The 75^th anniversary of Houghton Library has provided an occasion to reflect on the library’s founding and history, to connect with friends and supporters old and new, and to consider the challenges and opportunities that will shape our future. Throughout our 75^th year, we have carried out a series of events, publications, and other activities designed to promote the library and its collections, programs, and services. The first of our series of 75^th anniversary exhibitions HIST 75H: A Master Class on Houghton Library featured a partnership with Harvard faculty, nearly fifty of whom selected for display and narrated a collection item of personal or professional significance. Now it is Houghton staff’s turn to take the stage with Open House 75: Houghton Library Staff Select.

Open House 75 showcases memorable collection items encountered by staff during careers at the library that range from four months to over forty years. A microcosm of Houghton in breadth and depth, highlights from Open House 75 range from a Renaissance letter written by Michelangelo and a missive stained by Hemingway’s sweat, to a moving instance of gay fandom and women writers on domesticity and revolution. Among the notable “firsts” represented are the diary of the first American meteorologist and an Edison lightbulb that illuminated America’s first electrified theater. Cultural treasures from Liberia and Japan are presented alongside everyday objects such as a Roman coin and a Panama hat; taken together, these and other objects in the exhibition suggest the rich variety of human experience housed within Houghton’s walls.

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