By Matthew Wittmann, Curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection Rather unfortunately, an evening performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865 is perhaps the most remarked upon theatrical event in American history. Harry Hawk, who played the “cousin” character Asa Trenchard, delivered this risible line in Act II: “Don’t know the manners Read More
Posted by HL Blog Staff
The Legacy of Harold Terrell at Houghton Library
By Peter X. Accardo, Scholarly and Public Programs Librarian As part of our observance of African American history month, Houghton Library has taken an opportunity to research and reflect on the life and work of the library’s first African American colleague, Harold M. Terrell, Jr. At a time when the Harvard College Library employed very Read More
Introducing Houghton Library’s New Digital Archivist
By Monique Lassere, Digital Archivist, Houghton Library Hi, everyone. My name is Monique and I am Houghton Library’s new Digital Archivist! I started working at Houghton in May 2020. My job sits within the Manuscript Section and revolves around the born-digital collections Houghton acquires in the form of media like hard drives and floppy disks, Read More
Cosmic Visions: Illuminating Dante’s Divine Comedy
By Madeleine Klebanoff O’Brien Last summer I conducted independent research at Houghton Library through Harvard’s remote Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program undergraduate fellowship. Inspired by Houghton’s collections, I created an allegorical map of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The Comedy follows Dante through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. It is a cosmography, a “total vision” of Read More
Baking with Emily D.
By Emily Walhout, Reference Assistant, Public Services and Christine Jacobson, Assistant Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts Around this time of year, Team Cake’s thoughts turn toward fruitcake. Emily Dickinson’s “black cake” to be precise—a 20-pound cake darkened by molasses and boasting 8 pounds of combined raisins, currants, and citron. The original manuscript of the Read More