In approximately 1890 while in the throes of a severe illness, an Otoe-Missouria man by the name of Waw-no-she (also known as William “Billy” Faw Faw) experienced a life-changing vision in which two young men appeared and reassured him that he would survive the sickness; a magnificent cedar tree then sprang from the earth accompanied by wild songbirds in fine voice. Faw Faw found deep spiritual meaning in this vision and began spreading the messages he interpreted from the experience. Before long, he had become the figurehead of a movement that preached the resurgence of traditional lifeways, the maintenance of a supportive community built on trust and kindness, and the rejection of pernicious influences wrought by exposure to Euro-American culture (especially land allotment and the consumption of alcohol).

The two men in this group portrait wear bead-embroidered frock coats typical of followers of Faw Faw. The coat worn by the man at far right includes the horse gifting motif. Photograph by William F. Prettyman, ca. 1892.

Adherents of the Faw Faw religion (which included members of the Otoe-Missouria, Ponca, Pawnee, Osage, and other tribes that had been relocated to Indian Territory) wore distinctive articles of clothing that incorporated symbols related to ritual aspects of the faith. Breechcloths and frock coats worn by men were often embellished with spectacular bead-embroidered designs including cedar trees, buffalo skulls, stars, birds, hands, crosses, and human figures posing with horses. By wearing clothing clearly associated with a movement that stood in opposition to the objectives of their colonizers, followers of Faw Faw openly signaled their beliefs through artistic expression. While the Faw Faw religion only lasted from around 1890 to 1895, its beautiful visual legacy remains in many material artifacts and photographs that survive to the present.

Oto Chiefs. The immaculately dressed man seated in the back row far left is William Faw Faw himself. Photography by Lenny & Sawyers, approximately 1891.

When I think about “Resistance” my mind automatically capitalizes the word, and I conjure visions of protests in the street, paint flung on fur coats, tea dumped in the harbor. I dwell on things with high stakes and big consequences, steeped in publicity and fevered debate. In short, I imagine worlds that feel beyond me in my (mostly) quiet library office, where I spend my days bedecked in a cardigan and generally avoiding conflict whenever possible. But in truth, our lives include more acts of resistance than we tend to realize. We might not break the rules, but we sure do bend them. Driving 75 miles per hour in a 70 zone. Reading in bed with a flashlight. Rolling into work five minutes late. Passing a note in class. Which brought to mind one of the favorite things I processed this past year, a stunning volume kept by Marion Shipley while a young teenager at the turn of the 20th century. She filled its pages with exquisitely collaged scenes, colored pencil drawings (including images of cat and elephant butts), newspaper clippings of dashing actors, embarrassing love letters, and several diary entries. The one dated June 7, 1907, is the one that captures my heart, as Marion celebrated having a substitute teacher. “We raised ‘ ’ (look at it upside down). We all drew pictures of each others’ backs and passed them around the class.” And in one of those rare moments of archival serendipity, Marion saved the passed note in her notebook and it stayed safely nestled between its pages all these years.

While students in Marion’s class drew pictures and passed them desk to desk in order to reclaim degrees of power, others used the learning materials themselves to steal some time and agency. Richard M. White, a student at South Carolina College in 1813, wrote himself into being all over his copy of The Elements of Euclid, viz the First Six Books (Philadelphia: 1806), inscribing his name at least 37 times across the volume’s 518 pages. Doing so, the book is more his now than Euclid’s, forefronting his interpretation, his ownership, and his experience beyond all else. In the margin beside a particularly challenging exercise, he scrawled, “Is it not difficult to get knowledge? Yes it is out of Euclid. Ergo.” And elsewhere, in perhaps my favorite addition to the book, is an exquisitely simple and beautifully oversized “Oh Man” plastered across the top of the page alongside two hand drawn geometrical diagrams. You can imagine this student, frustrated and ink-stained, using the text itself to vent his exasperation. Perhaps like the Springfield Seminary, the students here were told that “complaining of lessons” was forbidden, but what if it was done silently in the empty space of the page?

“I have twenty eight pupils, most of them from thirteen to seventeen & some as wild as young colts. I am sometimes inclined to wish them very far away from me[.] [T]hey continue to keep me all the time busy & all the time tired.”

Looking for signs of this, I paged through a notebook kept by an unnamed itinerant New England schoolmaster, where he compiled instructional exercises and explanations, helpful literary selections, and details about the classes he taught over the years. The leather cover is evocatively warped, raising visions of a water-logged teacher riding through the rain to his next class. Amid beautiful pen-and-ink trigonometry diagrams and surveying examples, lists of student names, and other teacher records, appears the ghostly outline of a left hand. I gently placed my hand over it, and my fingers ever-so-slightly reached beyond the ink mark.

Title vignette from Colton’s Atlas of America (New York, 1856)

Colton’s Atlas of America was one of many publications of Joseph Hutchins Colton (1800–1893) who, from 1831, produced railroad maps, immigrant guides, folding pocket maps, large wall maps, and compilation atlases. He was aided by his son, George Woolworth Colton (1827–1901), whose map compilations comprised the contents of the Atlas of America. So what vision of America did the Vignette Title lead us to expect? Native Americans were placed boldly in the foreground and elevated above the landscape, encouraging us to expect some delineation of their own lands among the 63 maps of provinces, states, and territories inside the atlas. But we look in vain. Only on the maps of North America and the United States was a specifically Indian Territory, west of Arkansas, delineated and colored.

The Indian Territory, barely present in the Atlas of America, resulted from the The Indian Removal Act of 1830, whose purpose was described by President Andrew Jackson as “. . . the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.”

Forests gone and hunting grounds lost. Those are the “obvious advantages” observed by the Native people on the rock in the Title Vignette.

Who created this subversive image? The vignette is signed “C.E. Doepler del[ineavit = designed it]” and “C. Wise sc[ulpsit = engraved it]”. C. Wise, the engraver, remains unidentified though his artisanal skills are clear. Carl Emil Doepler (1824–1905), on the other hand, was a German artist resident in New York City in the 1850s. Born in Warsaw, Poland, and trained as an artist in Dresden and Munich, he arrived in the city in 1849 to work as an illustrator for the publishers Harper and Brothers and G.P. Putnam, among others, for whom he created numerous images for children’s books and popular histories. His work address at Harper and Brothers at 82 Cliff Street in downtown Manhattan was only a few blocks away from 172 Williams Street where Joseph Hutchins Colton maintained his publishing house.

Doepler did not stay in New York; he returned to Germany by 1860 where he taught costume design in Weimar and became the costume designer for the city’s theater. He is probably best known for the costumes he designed for early productions of Richard Wagner’s Das Ring des Nibelungen, the great opera cycle concerning mythic Teutonic gods. Doepler’s ideas for how these gods were dressed have influenced productions of the Ring cycle to the present day. The title vignette for Colton’s Atlas of America showed Doepler’s early interest in cultural representation through clothing. His later working methods on the Nibelungen costumes might tell us something about how he created the frontispiece for the Colton atlas. The German scholar Joachim Heinzle has described Doepler’s efforts to produce “historically correct” Germanic costumes through his research in museums and study of early Teutonic weaponry, jewelry, and clothing to achieve what he thought was an accurate presentation of the mythic characters in Wagner’s opera.

Doepler may also have been familiar with the work of Swiss artist Karl Bodmer (1809-1893) who was also well known in Germany for his artistic works. Bodmer accompanied Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied (1782–1867) on his trip from 1832 to 1834 through the interior of North America, traveling up the Missouri River into the heart of the Great Plains, deep in the homelands of the Mandan and Hidatsa, which were also the hunting and traveling regions for several other indigenous groups, such as the Sioux, Assiniboine, Cree, and Blackfoot. The Prince’s matter of fact descriptions of Native Americans, given without editorial nuance, were illustrated by Bodmer’s strikingly detailed colored images and published in German as Reise in das Innere Nord-Amerikas (Coblenz, 1839–41) and in English as Travels in the interior of North America (London, 1843–44). Their joint work created an archive of information for Native peoples of the northern Great Plains.

But what is the “civilization” invoked? Fences and farms, steam and railways, houses and tall buildings, the civilization of Manifest Destiny, a concept coined in detail by John Louis O’Sullivan, who summed it up in his article on the Oregon question in the newspaper, The Eastern State Journal (White Plains, NY, January 29, 1846): “And that claim [to Oregon] is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the Continent which Providence has given for the development [sic] of the great experiment of liberty and federative self government entrusted to us.” However, Manifest Destiny comes at a price. Inside the atlas, a geographical description of North America reveals the cost: “Of the American aborigines few remain. They have vanished from the land before the march of civilization.” In spite of its title, Doepler’s frontispiece, with its foregrounding of Native Americans, resists civilization and the claims of Manifest Destiny.

Freeman obtained prominence in her field, referred to as “one of the best known and most beloved librarians in the country” by the Cleveland Plain Dealer upon her retirement in 1940. Photograph courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Marilla Waite Freeman.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. https://digital collections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-bef2-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

The Novel Club met to discuss James Hilton’s Lost Horizon in December 1935, two years after its initial publication. Four years later the novel would top Simon & Schuster’s list of mass-marketed Pocket Books. Lost Horizon related the story of four people kidnapped while fleeing conflict in the fictional city of Baskul and taken to the Tibetan Kunlun mountains. They were brought to a utopian valley where the inhabitants lived to be hundreds of years old and moderation was the rule of the land. This valley was home to the mythical lamasery called “Shangri-La,” which has since become a catchphrase meant to invoke images of a paradise, typically in a location perceived as distant and exotic.

Freeman compiled a list of discussion questions for the group along with a biographical sketch of Hilton, using information received from his publishers and from Hilton himself. In his correspondence with Freeman, Hilton praised her reading of the tale: “I wish I could explain more fully in a letter the philosophy of the book, but I can see from your own suggestions that you have read it with much sympathy and understanding” (September 3, 1935). As an homage to Marilla Freeman, a few staff members here at the Clements Library chose to host our own book club to read and discuss the novel using her questions as a guide.

The most striking of Freeman’s questions asked if the “world cataclysm” that Hilton warned about was already upon them. Looking back, Hilton’s words feel prophetic, coming between world wars: Hitler rose to power two years before the club met to discuss Lost Horizon; they were a few years into the Great Depression; and the first major drought contributing to the Dust Bowl had occurred the year before. Unfortunately, most of the Novel Group responses were not recorded, so we can only speculate how the group might have responded to this question. Our book club discussed our perception that a cataclysm has been ongoing for some time now, and that maybe there has never been a time when the feeling of impending doom fully disappears.

In the novel, one of Shangri-La’s central purposes was to act as a repository for a large library of books and art, reflecting Hilton’s very real worries about these treasures being lost in times of conflict. He expressed this fear in an interview, stating that, “If humanity rushes on at its present headlong speed it must inevitably crash sooner or later. When that time comes I’m afraid all the precious things in this world will be lost—books, pictures, music . . . ”. This focus on Shangri-La as an archive piqued the interest of the Novel Club here at the Clements Library, calling to mind a Japanese print in our collection marked with a stamp indicating that it was held in a bomb shelter throughout WWII for its safety.

Freeman wondered if “Eastern mysticism” was one of the main draws of Hilton’s story. The Clements group reflected that Hilton referenced “Eastern” themes and ideas in a manner that may not have been challenging to white audiences of the time. While reading this book and watching the original film adaptation, depictions of Tibetan and Chinese characters stood out as racist caricatures. Although Shangri-La is in Tibet, it’s explained that Tibetan and Chinese people don’t have the stamina to live as long as white people. The leader and founder of the lamasery, the High Lama, is himself a French Christian. On top of this, the film adaptation casts a white man in the main speaking Chinese role, for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

Freeman’s correspondence with James HIlton revealed the author’s hope that his novel would focus attention on his fear that “the world has reached a parting of the ways in which a decision must be made between the reign of violence and that of the quieter life; otherwise, civilization as we know it will perish from the earth.”

While many of these depictions were viewed as offensive by our book club today, we did wonder if the novel’s portrayals came across as progressive in its day. Conway, the main character of the story, settles into Shangri-La quite quickly. This is in part because of the decade that he spent living in China, leading him to feel “at home with Chinese ways,” hinting at the positive effects of a non-Western culture. While Hilton did seem to have a real reverence for Tibet, he never actually visited the region: “I entertain a lot of dreams and illusions about it that would probably be rudely shattered. I prefer to keep them intact,” he explained in an interview. One of my coworkers brought up the point that something similar might happen in our work, where something we write with the intention of being inclusive and respectful might be considered offensive to future readers.

The one recorded response of the original Novel Club was to the question regarding the success of the novel, which the members attributed to “Its peace, its picture of a place of refuge from the present world unrest.” Freeman’s discussion questions for the Novel Club included the prompt, “What would we do if a Novel Club picnic should meet with the experience related in this book?” Like the character Mallinson who spent the entirety of the story looking for a way to escape, perhaps some would resent being kept away from their friends, family, and the life that they had built back home. Others, myself included, viewed Shangri-La as a restful opportunity to take a break from our busy day-today lives.

In the novel, one of Shangri-La’s central purposes was to act as a repository for a large library of books and art, reflecting Hilton’s very real worries about these treasures being lost in times of conflict.

The importance of rest and relaxation is emphasized throughout Lost Horizon. Upon hearing the phrase “slacker” being used in a negative manner, a resident of Shangri-La remarks, “Is there not too much tension in the world at present, and might it not be better if more people were slackers?” The 1973 musical film adaptation of the book includes the very charming song “The Things I Will Not Miss,” which features a long-term inhabitant of Shangri-La expressing her desire to leave the lamasery and a woman who was more recently brought there wishing to stay. The one thing that both characters fully agree on is that they would not miss work, which I feel is a sentiment most of the audience past and present can relate to. The focus on (moderate) relaxation in the story feels revolutionary and freeing to imagine.

Joining the previous members of Cleveland’s Novel Club across time was a very moving and impactful experience. The opportunity to slow down and analyze a piece of literature with my colleagues helped me to better understand my fellow staff members and the novel, and to share a literary experience with like-minded book lovers of almost a century ago.

Monteith’s Map-Drawing and Object Lessons (New York, 1869).

Hair Album

The Clements Library collection includes a number of hair albums, but the newly purchased Maria Marsh Hair Album 1850–1853 stands out for several reasons. The album contains around 100 hair samples, an unusually large number, and there is work to be done in tracking some of the relationships represented in the album. Other albums tend to contain intricately worked hair samples, but these are quite simple, many with a blunt cut where one can almost feel the snip of the scissors close to one’s ear. Also intriguing are these beautiful metallic hearts that are used to affix the hair to the album pages, adding an extra element of affection and care. The most heartbreaking is the sample taken from the head of an unnamed infant who died at four months of age. The hair was too short to loop, and only one side shows evidence of scissors, since the infant’s feathery hair had not yet grown long enough for a first haircut.

The Frank Reade series

Awaiting cataloging and shelving at the Clements is a single-volume compilation of periodicals from the Wide Wake Library, including 20 issues from the Frank Reade series and 15 issues from Beadle’s Half-Dime Library (featuring Broadway Billy and Deadwood Dick), originally issued between 1883 and 1890. The Frank Reade series was the first science fiction periodical in the world and has been referred to as the lost ancestor of steampunk. Featuring the adventures of several generations of the Reade family, the series channeled the optimism and excitement of the age, sparked by the seemingly unlimited possibilities of electricity, steam power, and other advances. Boy inventor Frank Reade produced robots, submarines, airships, automobiles, and any number of ingenious devices which played key roles in the stories. The series captures a moment in time before corporations took over the business of inventing, Thomas Edison was a hero, there was collective optimism about the beneficial uses of technology, the myth of the American West was taking shape, and the spread of these new inventions served to connect distant parts of the country.

Author Harold Enron wrote the first four issues of the Frank Reade series, including, The Steam Man of the Plains. As described by Enron, the steam man “was a structure of iron plates joined in sections with rivets, hinges or bars as the needs required…. The hollow legs and arms of the man made the reservoirs or boilers. In the broad chest was the furnace…. The tall hat worn by the man formed the smoke stack. The driving rods, in sections, extended down the man’s legs, and could be set in motion so skillfully that a tremendous stride was attained, and a speed far beyond belief.”

The Children’s Hour

Several photographic items related to children and their experiences, including interactions with 19th-century print culture, have come into the Clements Library recently.

A beautiful tintype of an unidentified young woman who is a little older, possibly African American, holding a photo album.

The Children’s Hour

Three small pamphlets, the largest measuring 6 x 4½ inches, Additions to our children’s literature and tiny book collections include three recent finds. In a tiny pamphlet, Rufus Merrill (1803–1891), one of the biggest provincial publishers (Concord, NH) took a firm stand in the perennially thorny dog vs. cat debate. Book About Dogs and Cats (Concord, N.H.,1856) reports that cats are undesirable, “self-willed and forward to the last degree,” whereas when it comes to dogs, “No other animal is gifted with so much sagacity or is so faithful to his master.” This pamphlet additionally gives us the name of an owner, signed inside the back cover by Theodore Huff on October 1, 1860, so it may be possible to connect this item to an individual and his life circumstances at the time he acquired it.

One might expect to find a morality tale when opening the next item, Who Stole the Grapes, published by the Sunday School Union in New York between 1856 and 1858; but one may be surprised by the lesson learned. Rather than a wayward child deterred from a life of crime, the bad actor in the story was a spiteful teacher, who framed the boy for the theft. Falsely accused, the boy recognized the virtue in not seeking revenge against one’s persecutors.

The last item is an illustrated pamphlet titled Jerry, Jenny and Jim, published by the Chicago Corset Company between 1882 and 1889. An example of how things were circulated and re-circulated, the backsheet advertisement for a dry goods store in Fargo was likely added to the item after its arrival in the Dakota Territory. The story concerns Jim Jumbletum, his wife, and his mule. But the footnote text that runs throughout the story contains information on Ball’s H.P. corsets, including the endorsement of the corset’s elastic side section, which “emits no disagreeable odor, and will not heat the person or decay with age.” It’s an odd combination of an amusing illustrated story for kids with an extended, very specific ad for corsets. At the end Jim learns the importance of purchasing the right corset for his wife.

Developments

Graphics materials in the archives have a unique ability to represent the complexities of the human experiences and foster empathy, but also create challenges in processing, housing, and conservation as our fastest growing collections area.

By definition, marginalized voices exist at the periphery of mainstream narratives. Taking the time to identify and illuminate hidden details is often the job of collection processors and catalogers and it can be easy to take for granted the time and skill required to ensure that the materials are  well represented and discoverable. The Clements Library has demonstrated the impact funding can have on elevating the accessibility and usability of records. Through grants from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Frederick S. Upton Foundation, we were able to take the extra research time required on the Richard Pohrt Jr. Collection of Native American Photography to ensure that the correct people are identified in the photos, and to include the various English and Indigenous language versions of their names. And this fall we welcome a 2-year graphics cataloging fellow, Annika Dekker, through new funding provided once again by the Delmas and Upton Foundations to assist in organizing and describing other materials in the Graphics Division. Archivists must carefully curate and provide descriptive metadata to ensure that future generations can comprehend the significance of these artistic pieces accurately.

While you have seen in this issue of the Quarto that there are ample examples of Arts and Resistance throughout the collection, I have been thinking a lot about the Graphics Material Division lately. We bid farewell to Clayton Lewis as he retired as curator in June. Through a crowdfunding campaign, friends and colleagues are raising money in his honor to set up the Clayton Lewis American Visual Culture Fellowship. Supporting the travel of visiting researchers, helps to offset the funding cuts in humanities departments around the country and encourages creative research with the Clements collections.

Events

Ice Cream Social

100 years old never looked so good! On June 15, the Clements Library gathered staff, friends, family, students, and the greater community of Ann Arbor on the south lawn of the Clements to celebrate its birthday. The community enjoyed complimentary ice cream and activities such as making their own spy quills containing secret messages, coloring pieces from the Clements collection, and checking out a 1923 Duesenberg. Though it seems the best activity of the evening was the unplanned gathering under the 100 year old portico to avoid the rain shower. There’s nothing quite like the detail from an Albert Kahn building. It was a great birthday party and we can’t wait for more in the future!

Staff News

Celebrating the Retirement of Clayton Lewis

We bid farewell and happy retirement to long-time Curator of Graphics Material, Clayton Lewis, on June 20 at the Ann Arbor City Club. In addition to a reception, the program featured speakers sharing stories as well as presentations of gifts in Clayton’s honor. Clayton worked as adjunct faculty to the University of Michigan School of Art and in the field of commercial printing before becoming the first Curator of Graphics Material at the Clements in 2002. He greatly expanded the holdings of the Clements, and worked with donors to secure major collections including the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography and the Richard Pohrt Jr. Collection of Native American Photography. We wish him all the best on his travels, with scenery to enjoy and an easel by his side.

New Staff Members

The Reader Services Division welcomes Emma Schneider to assist in the reading room and with curatorial projects. Emma graduated from Kalamazoo College with a degree in religion, and has previous experience working as an outdoor adventure guide, and organizing the archives at Interlochen Arts Academy.