Show Me Something Cool

When high-school student Kira Parrish-Penny and her mother ended their day of touring Dartmouth, they had a choice to make: go back to the hotel or stay a little longer where the tour had ended—at Rauner Library, home of Dartmouth’s Special Collections. They chose the latter. Before they knew it, four hours had passed, and they would have been happy to stay longer. Indeed, for the rest of the night, they couldn’t stop talking about what they’d discovered.

Daniel Webster’s Top Hat

While arguing a Dartmouthrelated case before the Supreme Court in 1818, Daniel Webster, Class of 1801, delivered this famous line: "It is, sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet there are those who love it."

“Rauner certainly wasn’t the only reason I was attracted to Dartmouth,” says

Kira, who is now Class of 2024, “but that day in the collections was magical.

I’ve come to know that all you have to do is ask a librarian to ’show me something cool,’ and your wish will be granted. During that first visit to the collections, they asked my mom and me what our interests were. They brought out some early sketchbooks of the painter Maxfield Parrish (no relation) for my mom. And for me, Robert Frost’s old notebooks.” (Rauner’s Frost collection comprises 45 linear feet of manuscript material as well as the poet’s well-worn suitcase.) “When Jay saw me trying to translate Frost’s scribblings, he brought over a transcript, and the experience just kept opening up.” Jay is Jay Satterfield, head of special collections. Visionary, wise, and obsessively dedicated, Satterfield has a mission to bring the collections, no matter how rare and valuable, into the hands of Dartmouth students, their families, and anyone around the world who would be gratified to experience them. Such diverse and extraordinary artifacts as Daniel Webster’s top hat, a rare first edition of The Book of Mormon, and four-thousand-year-old clay tablets from Babylonia draw visitors from all over the globe.

Delivering magic

“We encourage idle curiosity,” Satterfield says. “That curiosity leads people to look at cool things that suddenly help them see the world differently.” Satterfield is adamant that Special Collections is just one jewel in the

Dartmouth Library’s crown. A cornerstone of the Dartmouth experience for many students, the library offers exceptional staff support for research, teaching, and creative projects.

“We want students to realize they have agency, that their interests and viewpoints matter,” says Morgan Swan, the Special Collections Librarian for Teaching and Scholarly Engagement. “Certain items will speak to one person but not another. We want students to trust that, to connect according to their own interests and values.” Swan points out that in a typical year, Dartmouth faculty from across the curriculum bring their classes in for sessions led by Special Collections staff. In fact, nearly half the undergraduate population will visit Rauner for a class. Although one associates Myers Family Professor of Environmental Science

Ross Virginia with extreme adventures—an Antarctic Valley is named for him— he says he’s as excited to lead a class at Rauner as he is to lead students across

the scrubby tundra of western Greenland. One reason is Rauner’s trove of resources, including The Stefansson Collection on Polar Exploration. “Getting to delve deep into how history and geopolitics intersect with science is my idea of fun. Rauner is a playground for me and my students.”

Virginia notes that there’s actually a massive amount of material beyond the Stefansson Papers. “Dartmouth’s polar resources rank among the premier collections in the world. Letters, photographs, logs—all kinds of materials, each item telling a story that the students put together. I want students to understand that they have unfettered access to these materials. I’ve never seen anything like the depth of this collection and the access we have to it. And Jay and Morgan and the entire library staff go to such great lengths to show us rare and wonderful things that we might not know to look for.”

Digging into the history of medicine

Anthropology professor Sienna Craig echoes that sentiment, although she and the students in her class "The Values of Medicine" are delving into very different resources. “The class is entirely built around materials in Rauner,” Craig says. “We are digging into the story of this thing we call ’western medicine’ and how the values and cultural frameworks that undergird this system have changed over time.”

Craig notes that the resources she uses in the course are colorful and wide-ranging. “We start by looking at an early anatomy book from 1500 AD, Fasciculus Medicine by Joannes de Ketham, bound in what is probably 15th-century wood. We look at town records of graverobbers from Dartmouth’s medical school archive. In 17th-century letters, we look at what colonists learned from Indigenous communities, including here in Abenaki homelands. We can weave the story of medicine through all these many facets.” She notes

that the students then pull together exhibitions on topics like gender in medicine and medical inequality. The best of the best are exhibited at Rauner. Sovi-Mya Doan Wellons ’24 said that Craig's class inspired her to major in anthropology. “We focused on human-centered medicine. We looked at letters written by medical students or from one doctor to another. We learned about the smallpox epidemic and the development of vaccines—so relevant to what’s happening today,” she says. Excited by the riches in Rauner, Sovi stopped by in advance of her class "Europe in the Age of Wonder" just to get a quick preview of the works they’d be reviewing. When hour three rolled around, however, she was still perusing the maps, illuminated manuscripts, and medical texts from the period. “I couldn’t tear myself away,” she says. “Whenever I can, I tell my friends to head over to Rauner, and invariably, the artifacts and manuscripts blow their minds just as they did mine.”

Look…and do touch

“It’s impressive just how hands-on Jay and Morgan are,” observes lecturer Jeremy Sabella, who taps the collections in his teaching of Religion 1.01:

What Matters. “They want the students to interact with what are sometimes priceless objects. There’s no ’look-don’t-touch’ philosophy. I remember when

I first did a tour of the collections. I was working with two students on an independent study called Religion and Social Struggle. I really wanted the experience to be special. Even though I was a new lecturer, and the project was just for two students, Morgan rolled out the red carpet and invested incredible energy in finding the right materials.” Sabella will never forget the looks on the two students’ faces when

Morgan Swan handed them a medieval book of hours illuminated with gold

The Stefansson Collection on Polar Exploration

Founded as the private research collection of the Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the collection contains expedition records, diaries, biographies, bibliographies, photographs, and many other materials related to the history of the Arctic and Antarctic.

Babylonian cuneiform tablets

Dating back roughly 4,000 years, these tablets were used as the era’s record system. Sesame oil is at the top of the list on one tablet; another tablet is a receipt for four sheep and two lambs delivered on the 10th of the month.

The Book of Mormon

This first edition is one of Rauner’s most requested items. Joseph Smith, who is said to have translated the original text, was born in nearby South Royalton, Vermont.

Medieval Book of Hours

Created in France circa 1440, this book of hours is written in a fine gothic hand of the mid-fifteenth century. Bound in blue velvet with silver clasps, the text is decorated with gold leaf and ink infused with lapis lazuli.

Vintage Wooden Skis

Open to skiers of all abilities, the popular Dartmouth Skiway opened in 1956. The College has sent athletes to every Winter Olympics since the Winter Games began in Chamonix, France in 1924.

Robert Frost’s Suitcase

Rauner Library’s Frost collection is one of the largest in the world. It includes many of Frost’s surviving notebooks, correspondences, images, and this suitcase, which features the poet’s initials in gold above the handle.

and lapis lazuli. “Morgan explained that the family that commissioned it had to make a choice between building a castle or commissioning a book,” he adds. “Religion is such an abstract concept. Whether it’s a handwritten letter from Martin Luther or artifacts from when Martin Luther King Jr. visited campus, these materials make religion real, tangible.”

Happily, you don’t have to enroll in a course to tap the collections, as Christian Dawkins ’22 can attest. As part of the Historical Accountability Student Research Program, Dawkins, a history major, decided to delve into the desegregation of fraternities at Dartmouth. “I decided to focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues in 20th century fraternities, but I touched on the history reaching back to the first fraternity in 1842. The archive is massive— material from every fraternity that has existed at Dartmouth. I discovered racial, cultural, and gender discrimination, but I also found that a student-led referendum in 1954 demanded that every fraternity eliminate its discriminatory clauses. The referendum passed overwhelmingly.” Dawkins will be posting a digital exhibit of the project in the coming months.

A model for veterans’ education

Like Christian, Ryan Irving ’24 tapped the Rauner collections to turn a personal interest into a significant research project. Ryan applied to Dartmouth while serving in Afghanistan as a sergeant in the Marine Corps. He is majoring in government and dreams of doing veterans’ advocacy work after graduation. “Dartmouth is the model for how veterans in education should be treated,”

Ryan says, and that belief was only strengthened when he decided to develop an exhibition on Dartmouth’s military past for Veteran’s Day.

“Veterans’ Day is the Student Veterans Association’s Superbowl,” he says, “so we wanted to provide the campus with an interesting and informative event. We reached out to the Rauner staff and explained that we wanted to do this project. They said, ’Great idea! Let’s do it.” The librarians at Rauner didn’t just help me research. They were passionate and invested.”

With the help of Morgan Swan and other members of the library staff, Ryan and his team of campus veterans organized a powerful exhibition with letters from and about soldiers and artifacts such as a badly damaged helmet worn by a Dartmouth veteran who survived D-Day. He also showcased prominent veterans like Dartmouth President Emeritus James Wright, who helped draft language for the Yellow Ribbon Program in the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill.

“Dartmouth has amazing stories to tell from the Revolutionary War to Afghanistan,” Ryan adds. “It didn’t seem right to let them go untold.” He already has begun to plan an exhibition for next Veteran’s Day.

Omar De La Osa Febles ’25 similarly found a welcoming committee in the staff at Rauner. Before he enrolled, he took a pre-college course as part of the First Year Student Enrichment Program, which allows first-generation students to preview the Dartmouth experience. “The course was called Culture, Identity, and Belonging,” Omar says, “and it looked at the school’s culture and how we could converge our own individual cultures with Dartmouth’s to shape a new identity for the school.” He worked closely with archivist Peter Carini researching the continually morphing cultural identity of Dartmouth. The experience solidified his bond with the Special Collections. “I realized that this was a place to call home. I felt I belonged here.”

Not surprisingly, Omar now works at Rauner. “Working in the collections is like working in the shipping and handling department of a history factory,” he laughs. “My job is to get this collection into the hands of the community. I want everybody to have the experience I’ve had in getting to know it. There’s nothing like it anywhere.”

JOE EARLES ’23

HOMETOWN: ATLANTA, GEORGIA MAJORS: HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY

Joe Earles ’23 walked to school—2,193 miles, to be exact—to begin his second year at Dartmouth. Conquering the Appalachian Trail, the world’s longest hiking-only footpath, which runs directly through the Dartmouth campus, has been on Joe’s bucket list since his sophomore year of high school. The 147-day trek took him from his hometown near Springer Mountain, Georgia through Hanover and up to the Northern Terminus at Katahdin, Maine. His favorite part of the journey is one that many a Dartmouth student have trekked: the 50-mile stretch of trail that the Dartmouth Outing Club maintains from the Ledyard Bridge over the Connecticut River to Route 112 in Woodstock, NH.

During the pandemic and before embarking on his epic hike, Joe took a gap year to intern on three different political campaigns in his home state of Georgia. He also worked as staff on Raphael Warnock’s Senate campaign and volunteered at a COVID19 vaccine distribution site in Southern Atlanta. “It was electric,” Joe says. “It was amazing to be able to campaign all across the state and meet the coolest, most passionate people. It felt like we had the power to do something really good.”

An aspiring history and geography major, Joe credits the passion of his professors for transforming his worldview. Some of his all-time favorite classes include “Civil Rights in the United States in the 20th Century,” “Colonialism, Development, and the Environment in Africa and Asia,” and “Geographical Information Systems (GIS).” His intellectual conversations with peers, he says, continue far beyond the classroom. “Those were the biggest things that stood out to me about Dartmouth—both the unparalleled outdoor culture and the amazing number of people who are interested in class and in discussing what they’re learning with one another,” Joe says.

Outside of class, Joe is a member of the gender-inclusive Greek house Alpha Theta, Gospel Choir, the Disco Troll ultimate Frisbee team, and the Dartmouth Outing Club’s Cabin & Trail group. Ever the adventure seeker, he hopes to take advantage of the D-Plan’s flexibility to either pursue more political work during the 2022 election season or complete the Te Araroa, an ambitious thru-hike in New Zealand, in a future winter term.

Joe is still pondering his post-Dartmouth options. Whether that means politics, teaching, or pursuing a career in spatial research mapping, his ultimate goal is to do what will help change the world for the better. Joe commends both his professors and his peers as superb teachers. “My professors have absolutely made me more of a learner and challenged me to think harder and be more compassionate. It’s really, really exceptional to be in a space where everybody is interested in what they’re studying. I learn so much just by talking with my peers.” —Sydney Wuu ’24

Walks of

Life

PHOTOGRAPH BY DON HAMERMAN Pictured: On a stretch of the Appalachian Trail in Hanover