For centuries, books with interactive flaps, dials, and other moving parts have captivated readers of all ages.
Wheels. They move us, they surround us, they connect us.
What happens when you search for “ wheels” in the Newberry’s catalog?
From the literal to the metaphorical, the wheel appears in a variety of formats, genres, and time periods. Discover the surprising depth and breadth of our collections through this exhibition on the functional, uncomplicated, and expressive wheel.
Exhibition open June 20 through September 23, 2023
Jumping Off the Page by
Suzanne Karr Schmidt
Pop-up books have a longer history than you might think. For centuries, books with interactive flaps, dials, and other moving parts have captivated readers of all ages.
The First Folio at Four Hundred by Jill Gage
As a work of literature, the Shakespeare First Folio is monumentally important. As a physical object, it can be underwhelming. What does the book reveal to us upon closer inspection?
Rare Images from the Great Migration by Will Hansen
A newly acquired set of magic lantern glass slides offer a striking record of the Great Migration, showing the lives Black migrants built for themselves in Chicago and other northern cities.
A New Perspective on Cartography: An Interview with David Weimer
David Weimer, Robert A. Holland Curator of Maps at the Newberry, discusses the potential for using maps as a gateway to learning about the past.
The Newberry’s The “Pop-up” Pinocchio (New York, 1932) is one of the earliest movable books with the term “pop-up” in its title. It was the gift of Richard H. Brown (1927-2019), longtime research head at the Newberry who retired as Academic Vice President in 1994. Dick did not acquire this book as a collector’s item, nor was it one he bought for his studies and writing on American history. Many books he donated across the last years of his life and by bequest were family heirlooms. Some came from his mother’s New England family, including hymnals and devotional books. But there were other children’s books too like The Little Manufacturer, or, The History of Sarah Wright (Boston, 1825), and the popular verse collection, Gems for Boys and Girls (Concord, NH, ca. 1850). Our Pinocchio , however, was published when Dick was five years old, and it is inscribed, “To Dick, AC.”
MAGAZINE STAFF
Editor Vince Firpo and Alex Teller
Designer Andrea Villasenor
Photography Catherine Gass
To make a gift and become a member, visit newberry.org/support or call (312) 255-3581.
We don’t know who AC was, but the gift was obviously important enough for Dick to preserve for the rest of his 91 years. He would be tickled to know that you can enjoy it now in in our exhibit, Pop-Up Books through the Ages .
The Newberry Magazine is published semiannually. Every other issue includes the annual report for the most recently concluded fiscal year. A subscription to The Newberry Magazine is a benefit of membership in the Newberry Associates, President’s Fellows, or Next Chapter.
Unless otherwise credited, all images are from the Newberry collection or from events held at the Newberry.
Above: Front cover and view of whale from Harold B. Lentz’s The “Pop-Up” Pinocchio, 1932. Cover: Pinocchio and Geppetto in danger, in Harold B. Lentz’s The “Pop-Up” Pinocchio, 1932.
Richard H. Brown, 1933.
From Gail Kern Paster
Becoming the Interim President and Librarian of the Newberry is a second bite of a very special apple—the rare cultivar known as an independent research library.
For me, having spent nine years (2002-2011) as Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, becoming the Interim President and Librarian of the Newberry is a second bite of a very special apple—the rare cultivar known as an independent research library. This was not a prospect even remotely in view when I joined the Newberry Board of Trustees in 2013. Then, soon after my Folger retirement, Newberry board service seemed a wonderful chance to learn the collections and institutional culture of another of the world’s great libraries. I wanted to offer the fruits of nine years’ experience—high (exciting acquisitions) and low (leaky vaults). And having reasons to travel to Chicago—the subject of Newberry collections from early years to the present day, a city where I even had family—was an attraction in itself. Writing now, after six weeks in the President’s spacious office, I am invigorated by the dedication of Newberry staff and readers, the diversity and scope of the library’s collections, the imaginative display of exhibition items, and the rich programmatic activities as classrooms fill or Zoom rooms come to life. And Chicago skyscrapers, looming overhead as I walk to work on a sunny day, continue to seem beautiful to one long used to the low profile of the nation’s capital.
Speaking to Newberry staff in April, I promised first to “do no harm.” It is the task of an interim head, after all, to find the midpoint between doing too little and doing too much, bringing a fresh perspective to decisions yet recognizing the wisdom of past practice too. I see evidence every day here of the true resilience of an institution once again in full swing after the rigors of the pandemic. I count on the experience of Newberry staff at this moment of transition to ensure that the library’s work of conservation, acquisition, curation, and public service goes forward undiminished. Each rare book library understands its mission in the service of collection and knowledge-making differently. Most such libraries—the Folger among them— restrict access to their collections to post-doctoral scholars, even as they create public programs and exhibitions designed to attract new audiences, perhaps even future scholars. But the Newberry’s mission has always been a more generous one. And as I walk the long halls of this expansive building, I do so with renewed appreciation of the public spirit that inspired its earliest leaders and continues to inspire its staff today.
Daniel Greene Departs the Newberry
Daniel Greene, President and Librarian of the Newberry from 2019 to 2023, departed the library for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum this spring. Under Greene’s leadership, the Newberry crafted a strategic plan that emphasizes knowledge production, communities of learning, access to the collection, and institutional health. The Newberry’s leadership and staff have already made great strides toward these goals.
Greene’s signature achievements include expanding the library’s exhibitions program, launching a new website with greatly enhanced access to digital collections, continuing to grow the library’s world-class collection with new acquisitions, and establishing the annual Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award at the Newberry Library.
“We are grateful to Daniel Greene for all he has done to advance the Newberry’s mission during his time as President and Librarian,” said Robert Holland, Chair of the Board of Trustees. “Under his leadership, the Newberry navigated the challenges of the pandemic while pursuing new, innovative ways to serve its many audiences. Dr. Greene departs the Newberry after guiding the library on a path to expanding its role as a civic and cultural institution in the city of Chicago.”
Notable happenings around the Newberry. We are always growing and changing. Grounded in history, engaged with the present, looking to the future.
Daniel Greene. Photo by Anne Ryan.
Robert A. Holland Endows Curator of Maps Position at the Newberry
Robert A. Holland, Chair of the Board of Trustees, has made a generous gift to endow the position of Curator of Maps at the Newberry Library. The gift ensures that the Newberry will continue to make its world-class collection of historic maps available to scholars, teachers, students, and members of the public as well as to augment the collection with new acquisitions for years to come.
“It was maps that first drew me into the library,” noted Mr. Holland, who joined the Newberry’s Board of Trustees in 2015 and became Chair in January 2023. “I soon learned of the Newberry’s other world-class collections and that these holdings support a vibrant institution’s promotion of the humanities. I am honored to contribute to these efforts.”
The Pattis Family Foundation and The Newberry Library Announce the 2023 Chicago Book Award Recipient
The Pattis Family Foundation and the Newberry Library are pleased to announce the winner of the second annual $25,000 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award. Toya Wolfe, author of Last Summer on State Street , will receive the award, which celebrates works that transform public understanding of Chicago, its history, and its people. The Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award is open to writers working in a variety of genres, including history, biography, social sciences, poetry, drama, graphic novels, and fiction—all relating to Chicago.
“Toya Wolfe’s debut novel is an endearing, memorable, and page-turning work with broad appeal and deep ‘Chicago heart,’” said Daniel Greene, former President and Librarian of the Newberry and Pattis Award jury member.
“It is such an incredible blessing to receive the Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award,” said Toya Wolfe. “ Last Summer on State Street is my debut novel, and to win a prestigious award for my first literary endeavor is wildly affirming and will support me as I begin writing a new novel. I am so grateful to The Pattis Family Foundation and the Newberry Library for establishing this award; on behalf of Chicago writers, thank you for all the ways in which you lift us up and cheer us on!”
In addition to awarding Toya Wolfe, the juried panel also recognized Heather Hendershot as the shortlist award recipient for authoring When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America . Hendershot will receive an award of $2,500.
“The Newberry is profoundly grateful to The Pattis Family Foundation for their generosity. Their partnership with the library raises awareness of important works like Last Summer on State Street and fosters conversation about the city of Chicago,” said Gail Kern Paster, Interim President and Librarian.
Robert A. Holland
Toya Wolf
The Legacy of Lifelong Scholar and Supporter of Indigenous Communities, Father Peter J. Powell
The Newberry lost a beloved member of its community on December 15, 2022 when Father Peter J. Powell, a scholar, ethnohistorian, author, and Anglican priest, passed away at the age of 94. Father Powell’s contributions to the Newberry date back more than 50 years. In particular, he had a profound influence on the activities of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies since its founding in 1972.
Peter J. Powell was born on July 2, 1928, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to William and Helena (Teague) Powell. A member of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs Society since 1964, he was the adopted son of the late John Stands in Timber, the distinguished Northern Cheyenne tribal historian, and his wife, Josephine One Bear Stands in Timber.
Ordained to the priesthood in 1953, Father Powell devoted his ministry to Indigenous people. After serving as Priest in Charge at both Holy Cross-Immanuel Church and St. Timothy’s Church, he founded St. Augustine’s Center for American Indians in 1961 to provide supportive services for Chicago’s Native American community. By 2006, when its counseling services were discontinued, St. Augustine’s had served three generations and more than 6,000 Native American families and individuals.
In addition to ministering to Native Americans, Father Powell had a remarkable career as both a scholar and a collector. He received the National Book Award in 1982 for People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies. His collection included two extraordinary books of ledger art, which recently were given to the Newberry by the Powell family, in accordance with Father Powell’s wishes.
“These ledger books have tremendous value for scholars, especially those from Native communities wishing to study their own histories. By gifting them to the Newberry, Father Powell and his family have ensured that they will be cared for and made accessible to all who wish to view them.”
Father Peter J. Powell, c. 1966.
Yellow Nose Whirlwind Ledger, illustration of a battle scene, 1876-1880.
Ledger art is part of a tradition of Indigenous people documenting their own history using pages of ledger books obtained from settlers. “Ledger art offers an important lens into the history of Native people. It depicts everything from scenes of warfare to courtship and bring to life the memories, values, and presence of the communities who authored them. Father Powell’s generous gift enhances the Newberry’s collection of ledger books to the benefit of all those who wish to study the histories and art of Native people,” said Rose Miron, Director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies.
The Yellow Nose-Whirlwind Ledger belonged to Yellow Nose, a Ute boy, who was captured and raised as Cheyenne. He was living among the Northern Cheyenne when the Southern Cheyenne visited them in 1872. It was during this visit that Yellow Nose came into possession of the ledger book, which contains drawings by one or more of the Southerners, likely Old Whirlwind, the council chief, or Young Whirlwind, the prominent Elkhorn Scraper Society chief. Yellow Nose later added his own drawings to the book.
The Wooden Legs Ledger (formerly known as The Little Wolf Ledger ) was bequeathed to Father Powell in 1960. He identified portrayals of warrior victories by Little Wolf, the only man ever to be simultaneously the Sweet Medicine Chief and the Head Chief of the Elkhorn Scrapers Society of the Northern Cheyenne. Father Powell originally named the ledger for Little Wolf, following the Cheyenne custom of naming ledgers for the principal warrior depicted in its drawings. Upon further study in the 1970s, Father Powell discovered that numerous drawings in the ledger were copies of drawings from the American Horse Ledger done by Wooden Legs between 1879 and 1881. Considering this new information, the ledger was re-named for Wooden Legs.
“Marginalizing or erasing the presence of Native peoples fr om historical narratives was, and continues to be, a powerful tool of settler colonialism,” said Newberry Trustee Jean O’Brien, a professor of History and American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. “These ledger books have tremendous value for scholars, especially those from Native communities wishing to study their own histories. By gifting them to the Newberry, Father Powell and his family have ensured that they will be cared for and made accessible to all who wish to view them.”
Father Powell has left a legacy of service and scholarship that will have a lasting impact on the Newberry, the communities he served, and all who knew him. The Newberry is profoundly grateful for all of his contributions and is honored to be the home of these treasured ledger books.
Wooden Legs Ledger, 1879-1881. Top to bottom: exchanging of gifts, dancers and drummers in celebration, couples court each other sharing the special blanket that marked their commitment to each other.
The Newberry Receives $1 Million for Digital Initiatives from The Grainger Foundation
The Grainger Foundation has made a gift of $1 million to support digital activities that will increase worldwide access to the Newberry collection. This generous grant will enable the library to build on its recent successes promoting user engagement with its growing digital collections, opening new avenues for scholarship, teaching, and information sharing. Projects in development include public transcription, mapping, and geo-tagging of Newberry materials; walking tours or other site-specific applications based on the Newberry collection; and classroom exercises for K-12 humanities instruction. The Grainger Foundation’s previous grants to the Newberry have supported its Digital Collections for the Classroom site, which provides primary source materials for K-12 classrooms, as well as the work of its conservation department.
Vince Firpo Becomes the Newberry’s First Vice President for Public Engagement
Leading the newly created Division of Public Engagement, Vince Firpo works with staff across the Newberry and partners throughout Chicago to create enriching and engaging experiences for the library’s diverse and growing audiences. He oversees the departments of Communications and Marketing, Exhibitions, and Public Programs and Adult Education. Bringing these departments together reflects the Newberry’s commitment to better understanding its users and pursuing innovative and inviting ways to connect the public with its collection, learning resources, programs and classes, exhibitions, and staff.
“I am thrilled to step into this new role at the Newberry and am excited to raise awareness of the incredible work that happens at the library every day,” said Mr. Firpo. “The Newberry has much to offer, and I look forward to inviting even more people to learn and explore with us.”
No stranger to the Newberry, Mr. Firpo joined the Development department in 2006 as the Annual Giving Manager. Most recently he served as the Director of Individual Giving from 2017 to 2023, growing the library’s donor base and connecting them to the Newberry’s dynamic range of offerings.
Vince Firpo
Transcribing Social Activism allows the public to interact with the Newberry’s collection items and contribute to our growing database of transcribed materials.
By Suzanne Karr Schmidt
Jumping Off the Page
Pop-ups and movable books (with flaps and dials) were meant for all ages, and they go back much further than most people think.
When is the last time you have played with a book? The Newberry Library has long prided itself on making collections accessible; unlike museums and many other research libraries, anyone fourteen years of age and older can get a free reader’s card to look at, read, and, perhaps most importantly, touch our books. This spring, we have brought this hands-on approach into the Newberry’s exhibition galleries. In Pop-Up Books through the Ages visitors can see a range of fascinating items—covering more than 600 years of history— whose interactivity was built into their very design.
Pop-ups and movable books (with flaps and dials) were meant for all ages, and they go back much further than most people think. The earliest surviving handmade manuscript flap dates to 1121, and the first dial (or volvelle) dates to 1250. Many more movable books survived once letterpress and woodcut printing became commonplace in Europe, though the three-dimensional pop-up spreads with which many of us are familiar first date to the nineteenth century.
Several fifteenth-century printed books with moving parts are on view in the exhibition, along with many other interactive maps and works of ephemera dating all the way up to 2023. There are videos of the books in motion, oversized facsimiles to try out on site, and even a take-home kit to make your own pop-up version of the Newberry Library building. The most recently published pop-up to enter the collection, this imaginative and colorful creation was designed for the exhibition by Chicago artists and friends of the Newberry Shawn Sheehy and Hannah Batsel.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways that movable books can move: dials, flaps, and pop-ups. These components have been used by different audiences over the centuries, and you can find hundreds of them in our collection. Many of these books are unique objects, existing only at the Newberry!
Volvelles with Verve
Rotating dials, called volvelles (from the Latin volvere, meaning “to turn”), began appearing in books for scholars and students in the thirteenth century. The Newberry has the world’s largest collection of copies of one very famous book containing volvelles: the Cosmography, an influential text on navigation and astronomy by German mathematician Peter Apian (1495–1552). You’ll find a whopping twenty-one different copies at the Newberry, dating from the first edition in 1524 to the last in 1609. Eighteen of them arrived in 1920 as a gift from Edward E. Ayer, an early Trustee of the library. He amassed them for their depictions of the interconnections between Europe and the Americas (including an early map mentioning America). But what Ayer did not know was that each of the editions was exceedingly rare.
Each edition of the Cosmography boasts five different pages with moving parts. However, because of the many hands-on ways that the book’s owner could manipulate the different movable devices on each page, copies of Cosmography rarely survive with all their parts intact or even in the correct configurations.
Title page, Peter Apian, Cosmography, 1575 (Spanish)
Lunar dial, Peter Apian, Cosmography, 1524 (Latin)
Upside-down sundial with lead weight, Peter Apian, Cosmography, 1551 (Latin)
Horizon and nocturnal dials, Peter Apian, Cosmography, 1524 (Latin)
Horizon dial, incorrectly placed, Peter Apian, Cosmography, 1575 (Spanish)
The most complicated device primarily acts as a sundial. It requires several strings, a dial, and a pasted-down bar to hold it in place. Perhaps most unusually, it is the book’s only device that the reader is meant to use with the book turned upside down. Truly complete copies make the threads easier to manage by weighing them down, with small lead weights attached to the strings, which seem to have been added to the pre-assembled books by particularly keen owners. Unsurprisingly, only five copies worldwide have fully assembled sundials intact. Two exist in 1540 Latin editions at Johns Hopkins University and in a German castle in Waldburg-Wolfegg; one can be found nearby in a 1548 Spanish edition at the University of Chicago. The final two are
at the Newberry. Ours are a 1551 Latin edition and a 1553 French and Latin edition with charmingly different, but still functionally similar woodcuts. The 1553 edition even supplies an illustration demonstrating the lead weight’s ideal shape.
Apian also produced a much more elaborate, hand-colored astronomy book with twenty-two volvelles in 1540 for the Holy Roman Emperor; this edition included silken threads and precious pearls that slid along them as placeholders. Both this Astronomicum Caesareum (Imperial Astronomy) and one of the Newberry’s sundials (without weights) are on display in the exhibition. With its smaller scale and more affordable price, Apian’s Cosmography was much more practical.
Eclipse dragon volvelle, Peter Apian, Astronomicum Caesareum, 1540. Courtesy of the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Floral Flaps
While the sixteenth-century owners of books by Apian might have used them as a toolkit for timekeeping and other measurements, movable books could be used for less serious pursuits as well. Henry Probasco (1820–1902), a Cincinnati businessman and collector, enjoyed opulent books; the Newberry’s purchase of his private library on December 1, 1890 (just three years after our founding) jumpstarted the library’s collecting of rare books.
Even Probasco’s contemporary facsimiles of medieval manuscripts were resplendently boxed with velvet linings in shockingly bright color, as well as given luxurious bindings. His nineteenth-century hand-drawn edition of the medieval (Roman de la Rose) poem about courtly love is no different. In it, a young man at court takes a long and sensuous journey through a treacherous
castle in order to pluck the one forbidden rose that bewitches him. Probasco (and now the Newberry) owned several printed editions of this poem dating back to the sixteenth century, including one with embossed floral accents on its leather covers.
The nineteenth-century copy from Probasco’s library holds intimate secrets. Decoratively bound with an inset title in the cover, it includes two title pages, one spelling out Roman de la Rose in cut-out and slightly eerie manuscript letters befitting the scrapbooking craze of the time. The second title page, which, like the rest of the book, is a copy of the fifteenth-century manuscript now at the British Library, hews a little closer to the original. Except that there is a trick to it: the entire white area around the text lifts away to reveal a hand-colored print of a classically nude, recumbent woman underneath.
Trick title-page flap with a nude woman copying Titian’s 1538 Venus d’Urbino painting (Uffizi Gallery, Florence), in Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, 13th c. authors, manuscript after the Roman de la Rose (Romance of the Rose), 1848.
The print of the nude woman reproduces a famous sixteenth-century painting of Venus by the Venetian Renaissance painter Titian. The print’s placement is awkward, as the nude’s couch is parallel to the spine of the volume. Still, the goddess’s come-hither glance is unmistakable as she performatively covers her pubic area with one hand. One more surprise awaits at the end of the book. Another colorful print has been added, a somewhat incongruous color lithograph of a bouquet. Absolutely unrelated to the style of the nineteenth-century manuscript (or the fifteenth-century source material), it nonetheless makes a pretty pairing with the topic of the book: the pursuit of love through allegorical flowers. Amid the pansies, primroses, and forget me nots lurks a cut-out section of flowers that lifts upwards to reveal yet another nude woman.
Nestled in the blooms, she is not fully visible, but has curling dark hair and a cloth or towel draped around one leg. The scene is not readily identifiable, but perhaps she was excerpted from an exotic bathing scene involving a harem or the story of Bathsheba and King David.
How did these unexpected flaps get here? Given the fascination Henry Probasco exhibited with the many other prettily bound items in his collection, and the presence of his bookplate in each one, it is quite possible that he knew about these stealthy additions. Would he have been so invested in the commissioning of the binding to insert them himself? Probably not. But he might well have requested that the book binder back the title page and bouquet with the Venus and bather prints, and carve out their flaps. These juxtapositions appear to be unique to this volume; they seem to suit the theme of the text in which they appear, if in an unorthodox and slightly ribald manner.
Profitable Pop-Ups
Another book collector made a hobby out of cutting up illustrations from one source and pasting them into another. John M. Wing’s (1845–1917) personal collection probably did not include pop-up books, but the Wing Foundation on the History of Printing collection at the Newberry, founded by his bequest, contains many books in unusual formats and typographies.
Wing was a strong proponent of extra-illustration: the art of pasting illustrations into other books and creating a hybrid viewing experience with a variety of juxtapositions of medium, colors, and illustration styles. Wing might have appreciated the ingenuity of his contemporary, the Nuremberg-based printer and entrepreneur Ernst Nister (1842–1909), who was a pioneer in movable works with full-color chromolithography. In addition to tiered diorama-like scenes that popped up out of the book as it opened, he produced images with Venetian-blind style flaps and rotating circular windows with “dissolving” scenes, among others. Some of these techniques had been previously used by Dean and Sons in London, but Nister put his own spin on them as he expanded his nineteenth-century empire of children’s books beyond Germany to England and the United States.
Nister hit upon a foolproof method: accessible languages and pictures of anthropomorphic cats. One of the most memorable books in Pop-Up Books through the Ages is an 1890s publication with German text. Nister provided the unsigned lithographic illustrations and the paper engineering for each of its panoramic, three-dimensional scenes; the book was initially published by another Nuremberg publisher, Theodor Stroefer. The opening on view in the exhibition shows four naughty kittens in children’s clothing wreaking havoc in their school or playroom, just as a shocked older lady cat enters, a proxy for adults
Flap bouquet with a nude woman, added to Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, 13th c. authors, manuscript after the Roman de la Rose (Romance of the Rose), 1848.
everywhere. The colors are bold, the details are charming, and the three distinct layers cast dimensional shadows that invite the reader in for a closer look. Nister would evidently keep the original artwork, as he reused this cast of characters on the cover of a different book around 1895 that was published with E.P. Dutton in New York called The Children’s Tableaux
Focused on the novel format of each interactive element, the book contained additional pop-ups inside. However, it is not the pop-ups but the alterations in the flat cover image that are most suggestive of Nister’s business acumen. Nister repurposed the content of this book for different markets and different languages. For example, on the cover of an edition in English, Nister used clever wordplay to appeal to his audience. The cat at the piano plays sheet music now entitled “Caterwauls for Two Paws.” Next to the piano, another cat reads “Mouse Tales both Short & Long” while seeming to relish every morsel. Perhaps the most literary joke is the overturned blue book in the corner, reading “Milksop’s Tales” instead of Aesop’s.
These details show Nister’s ability to shift between two and three-dimensional applications, as well as languages. By fitting his interactive images with different translations depending on the market, he could repurpose content almost indefinitely.
The fact that pop-up books of all time periods were popular enough to undergo translations and graphical reinterpretations confirms the flexibility of the medium, and the ease with which it was received by each generation. Only a small subset of the Newberry’s vast collection of pop-up books are on view in Pop-Up Books through the Ages; after you visit the show, feel free to call up others in the Newberry reading rooms, where you can touch them with your own two hands.
Suzanne Karr Schmidt is the George Amos Poole III Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Newberry.
Pop-Up Books through the Ages is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Professor James H. Marrow and Dr. Emily Rose, Alan Templeton, Diane and Richard Weinberg, and The Movable Book Society.
The exhibition will be open through July 15, 2023.
Naughty schoolroom kittens, popping up in Ernst Nister’s Immer froh tagaus, tagein: ein PanoramaBilderbuch (Always happy day-in, day-out: a panorama picture book), c. 1890, and as a flat image in Nister’s Children’s Tableaux, c. 1895.
By Jill Gage
The First Folio at Four Hundred
What is the First Folio and why do people care about it so much?
The first time that I ever visited the Newberry as a reader was to see a single book that I had heard about in my survey of seventeenth-century English literature: Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, published in London in 1623—perhaps better known simply as the “First Folio.” I remember being so excited when my professor told me that I could see the book at the Newberry, and I also distinctly recall the ceremonial-like process that the staff went through in preparing to give me the book. They used special gloves to remove the book from its handmade box before setting it up on a cradle made specifically for it (the cradle even had its own custom box!). Then the staff placed the book in front of me in the reading room and left me to examine it on my own.
To me, the First Folio did not look particularly special; it did not even really look that old. Sure, the book used the long “s” (which looks like an “f”) and it was exciting to see the few annotations by a contemporary reader, but otherwise it did not look so different from the modern anthology that I was reading in my class. Little did I know, as I left the library that day, disappointed, that the book would interest me for the next twenty-odd years.
I relate the story of my own first encounter because as soon as I began working at the Newberry as a Special Collections Reference Librarian, I witnessed similar scenes on a regular basis. Sometimes people came into the reading room, as I had, excited to see the book, only to leave after just five minutes or so. Similarly, instructors bringing students in for presentations would beg me to show it, insisting that it would change their lives forever. I lost count of how many times an instructor would gesture excitedly towards the book while enthusing, “There it is!” while students glanced distractedly at their phones. I thus realized very early on in my Newberry tenure that it is a mistake to look at the book as the end-all be-all of Shakespeare, or as an object with the power to enlighten us immeasurably simply by gazing upon it. Yet a careful examination of the book offers up many fascinating stories of its creation.
What is the First Folio and why do people care about it so much? Printed in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, the book is the first published collection of his plays: it includes thirty-six, eighteen of which had not previously been printed. Without it, plays such as Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and The Tempest might never have survived. Although Shakespeare’s contemporary Ben Jonson published The Workes of Ben Jonson in 1616, that collection included poetry, making the
Shakespeare folio the first collected edition that included plays only. It is estimated that between 750 and 1,000 copies were printed; 235 survive. The Newberry’s copy is the only one in Chicago, and one of two in Illinois (the University of Illinois owns a copy as well).
To give a bit of perspective, the First Folio was one of about five hundred works published in London in 1623, ranging from small sermons and religious tracts to almanacs to animal husbandry manuals to histories to plays. The Newberry holds about fifty of these 1623 works, including a royal proclamation about the navy; The Feminine Monarchie, the first English work on beekeeping; the intriguingly titled A Bride Bush, or a Direction for Married People; John Webster’s play The Duchess of Malfi; and Andre Favyn’s Theater of Honour (more about this title below).
Perhaps more so than what it is, it is useful to mention what the First Folio is not . It is not a defining list of everything that Shakespeare wrote. It is not the first printing of Shakespeare’s plays. Having died seven years before the book’s publication, Shakespeare was not involved in its creation. Finally, it is not a rare book. Love’s Labour’s Lost, the earliest printing of Shakespeare that the Newberry owns, survives in only a dozen copies; the first printing of Hamlet survives in just two copies, one of which was on view at the Newberry as part of our 2016 exhibition Creating Shakespeare.
It is precisely its non-rarity, though, that makes the book so worthy of study. Scholars have slavishly pored over every aspect of its creation and dissemination; some scholars have even spent their entire careers literally examining every letter. The number of surviving copies, and the fact that 82 copies can be found in one place (the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC), make comparisons relatively easy. These comparisons are useful because, as it turns out, no two copies are exactly the same—due to various changes and corrections that were made to the text while the printing of the book was in progress. These variations make the First Folio both a delight and a vexation for scholars.
As we prepare to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of the folio in November, I’ve been thinking about how the book shaped my interest in, and taught me a lot about, how people made and sold books in early seventeenth-century England.
The Rights to Shakespeare
One of the first things that I noticed when I looked at the Newberry’s folio was that a former owner had written “Troylus and Cressida” on the Catalogue of Plays (i.e. the table of contents) at the front of the book, squeezing it at the top of the Tragedies section, just above Coriolanus—an accurate reflection of where the play falls in the volume. At first, I thought that maybe the printers had messed up and had accidentally forgotten to include the play in the catalogue, but I soon learned that this handwritten addition told a much greater story about the intricacies of publishing the book.
The folio was published by Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard, whose father, William, was chosen as the printer. Because William Jaggard printed playbills for Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men, and had been involved in an earlier attempt to print a collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays with his friend Thomas Pavier (who owned the rights to four plays), he was well-placed to negotiate printing rights for the folio.
In the early seventeenth century, printing rights differed from our modern system of copyright. Authors did not own the rights to their own work; publishers could register works with the Stationers’ Company, thereby gaining the right to print them. The publishers of the folio had to negotiate with several different people to obtain the rights (two, John Smethwick and William Aspley, became partners in the publishing syndicate of the folio and are listed at the back of the book). The publishers had the most difficulty gaining the rights to Troilus and Cressida. In fact, some copies of the First Folio already had been sold by the time that Troilus was printed and added to the volume. Therefore, it was not included in the catalogue of plays at the beginning of the book, which is why it needed to be added by hand, either by an owner or perhaps even the bookseller. Its late addition also explains why the play is not paginated (it would have messed up the pagination already in place). It was such a revelation to me to learn that the little annotation in this one Newberry copy could open so many windows into book history.
The Characters of the Folio
Even before printing began, the publishers needed to provide sources which the compositors working within the print shop could reference while setting the type. A variety of sources, including both manuscripts and previously printed copies of the plays, were used to compose the text of the book. The compilers attempted to use what they thought of as the most authoritative text for each play. Even though 18 of the plays had already been printed, most of the plays in the folio were edited using various combinations of printed quartos, foul manuscripts (i.e. drafts), fair manuscripts (i.e. finished copies), and manuscript prompt books (complete play texts marked with entrances, exits, stage cues, etc.).
After the plays were transcribed for printing, they were distributed to the compositors, who set the type for printing. This distribution was known as casting off, and it estimated how many words would fit on a single page. Casting off was essential because it helped the printer predict how much paper would be needed for a job. It was also vital to the distribution of labor within a print shop because the pages of a book were not printed (or even typeset) in numerical order. Compositors were handed a certain number of manuscript pages and expected to make that text fit on a single page. They used specific patterns, called impositions, for setting pages of type based on how many times the printed sheets would be folded, which in turn, determined the size of the book. Folios, by definition, are books whose sheets are folded only once, while quartos (the format of earlier editions of Shakespeare’s plays) are folded twice. The more times a sheet is folded, the smaller the final book.
The rights to publish the play Troilus and Cressida were obtained after production of the book began, and so the title of the play was not printed but was added here by an early owner of the book.
Everyone working within the print shop worked on their own little pieces of a book, knowing that if they followed the correct patterns, the book would look right when everything was printed and folded together. For a folio book, the two pages printed on one side of a single sheet of paper were printed together, with the two pages of type arranged in what is called a forme. So, working from the prepared transcriptions of the plays, compositors had to set each piece of type individually, taking it from a specially prepared case filled with all the type they might need. When a page was completed, it was locked into the forme. Once each forme was ready, it could be printed while the compositors moved on to other pages. Once the sheet was printed, it was hung to dry, so another forme could be used to print the other side.
A typecase was designed to allow compositors to find and set each piece of type quickly and accurately.
Variable spacing was used above and below headings to allow the typesetter to fit all of the text that was supposed to be on the page within the allotted space, as shown in these two examples.
While this method of working ensured that the print shop ran efficiently, it also sometimes created problems that we can see reflected in the folio. Remember, casting off was just an estimation, so sometimes a compositor realized that he had too much or too little text for a single page. Because he needed to fit that particular text onto that particular page, he had to figure out creative solutions to make it work. As a result, some pages in the folio have text that is either squeezed together or extremely generously spaced. It was oddly thrilling for me to see these “mistakes” in the Newberry’s copy. Sometimes, compositors could add or save room on the page by how they used space around scene titles. For example, on two different pages of Henry VIII, one can see that “Scæna Tertia” employs generous spacing, while “Scena Seconda” is tighter. A different example of crowding appears in The Tempest, with two lines by different characters squeezed onto the same printed line (on the facing page, we do not see this problem). Similarly, on the last page of Much Ado About Nothing, verse is printed as prose, words are omitted, and abbreviated forms are used to save space. Conversely, we see the compositor attempting to fill up space on other pages. In Titus Andronicus, for instance, at the foot of one page, a single line of verse is printed as two lines. Seeing passages that had been tightened up or spread out made me appreciate the problems faced by the compositors—and their creative solutions as well.
Combining two lines of dialogue into one line as seen on the left, enabled the typesetter to fit all the necessary text on the page. Normal spacing with individual speakers on separate lines (from the same play, The Tempest), appears on the right.
In Much Ado About Nothing, the typesetter used abbreviations and ran the final lines together to save space, barely fitting all of the text on the page.
Left: A Christian Dictionary, printed by William Jaggard shortly before the First Folio. Note the misspelling of his name at the bottom of the page.
Below: The letters “n” and “d” set next to each other, were damaged during the printing of the Dictionary
Being able to actually see the printing discrepancies in the folio also helped me to comprehend how busy Jaggard’s print shop must have been. The Shakespeare folio was not the only book printed in Jaggard’s shop in 1622–23. Other books produced there were (in roughly chronological order): Thomas Wilson’s Christian Dictionary (of which the Newberry has two copies, one with Jaggard’s name misspelled on the title page—oops!); Augustine Vincent’s Discoverie of Errours; William Burton’s Description of Leicestershire; and André Favyn’s Theater of Honour, this last book being printed simultaneously with the Shakespeare folio. Each of these books has its own story to tell. For example, some pieces of type were damaged while printing the Christian Dictionary (the first English dictionary of the Bible); these same pieces of broken type can be seen in the Shakespeare folio. On one page of the Dictionary, the “n”
The damaged letters, now set separately in different words, appear in a passage of the Merry Wives of Windsor in the First Folio, proving the order in which the pages from each book were printed.
and the “d” in one instance of “and” were damaged together, most likely nicked after being set in the forme. We can see these damaged letters—used separately—within one passage of The Merry Wives of Windsor in the Shakespeare folio. This tells us that the Dictionary was printed before Shakespeare, and the type was re-used.
Generally, gently damaged type would be re-used until it became unreadable. Once you start looking for it, damaged type within the Shakespeare folio is quite easy to spot. By examining these damaged letters, scholars have been able to trace the order in which some of the plays were printed and also when corrections were made during printing. While some scholars have suggested that the Shakespeare folio is poor quality printing, Jaggard was a well-known and in-demand printer who took pride in his work. In fact, a preface written by Jaggard in Discoverie of Errours harshly
criticizes an author, Ralph Brooke, who complained that Jaggard had made many mistakes in printing one of his works: “[Brooke] hath . . . grossley abused, both the Printer and his Reader. . . . I appeale to everie mans reason, whether any of those palpable errors . . . can be justly charged against the Printer.” Evidence of Jaggard’s skill can be seen in The Theater of Honour, a book largely about chivalric orders throughout Europe that includes numerous detailed illustrations. The book also shares woodcut headpieces and tailpieces with the Shakespeare folio (again, damage to several of these pieces has allowed scholars to trace the printing order of the two books). And while the two books are different in content, they share a similar style on the title page that is immediately identifiable.
There were so many people involved in the creation of the Shakespeare folio and so many moving parts (literally!) that it is astonishing that the book got made at all. The Newberry has an incredible collection of seventeenth-century English books, and
I have been lucky to have had the opportunity to study them for twenty years. Starting with the Shakespeare First Folio can take one in so many directions: Shakespeare before the 1623 folio and after; Shakespeare’s contemporary playwrights; all the printers of Shakespeare, and all the publishers; the books printed alongside Shakespeare and those printed in other London print shops that year. One can learn what it was like to be in the book trade, or to be a collector, or a reader in the period. As with Shakespeare’s work itself, the folio does not exist in a vacuum, but jostles amongst the work of others. And the “errors” in printing seem somehow so appropriate for an author who was so interested in the complexity of life—of holding the mirror up to nature.
Jill E. Gage is the Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing and Bibliographer for British Literature and History at the Newberry.
The First Folio (shown above) opened to the play King Henry the Eighth, and the book Theater of Honour, both use the same artwork for the head pieces, decorative bands that appear above the titles, and the tail pieces, decorative shapes that appear at the end of the section.
By Will Hansen
Rare Images from the Great Migration
In October 2022, the Newberry acquired a very rare group of images documenting the Great Migration—the movement of thousands of African Americans from the South to Chicago and other cities in the North in the early twentieth century. Produced by the Methodist Episcopal Church, likely in 1922 or 1923, “The Negro in the City” is a set of 44 glass lantern slides, accompanied by a pamphlet with captions for each slide. The Newberry acquired the slides with their original carrying case. Together, they form a spectacular visual record of this monumental shift in Black lives in the United States, especially showcasing the place of the Black church in this story.
This acquisition was made possible through the support of the Society of Collectors, a group of donors who provide funds for the acquisition of materials. We thank them for making this exciting addition to the collection possible.
Title Slide, Slide 0
“The Negro in the City” was produced by the Church’s Committee on Conservation and Advance from its office in the Methodist Book Concern building in Chicago—just a few blocks from the Newberry. The slides were intended for presentations at churches and Methodist community centers (referred to as community houses). Presenters discussed the steps the Methodist Episcopal Church was taking to help the rapidly growing African American populations in cities as part of its “home mission” activities. Slide 17 outlines their ten-step program for such activities, including training new pastors, erecting new city churches, building community houses, facilitating employment opportunities, and providing community workers and nurses.
Slide Case
A 1923 report on the Educational Department of the Committee states, “Our church has taken the lead in the production and distribution of lantern slides. . . . The recent decision of the Council to offer this material to the churches free of rental has doubled the demands of this division.”
The slides now at the Newberry were preserved in their original storage and carrying case, including padding to protect the fragile glass slides.
Lantern slides were used with a magic lantern or stereopticon to project images for viewing in lectures. Later made obsolete by both motion pictures and more inexpensive 35mm slides and projectors, lantern slides are generally hand-colored prints of black-and-white images. Two layers of glass provide a slight three-dimensional effect. Although lantern slides were replaced by other technologies, their beauty remains unmatched.
The set of 44 slides now at the Newberry is the most complete set known to remain extant. One slide, of a church in San Antonio, Texas, is missing; the title slide shown above is numbered as “Slide 0.” No photographer is identified for any of the slides, though the General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church states that they are “the product of professional photographers . . . hired to do photographic essays.”
“Negroes Picking Cotton,” Slide 1
The slides are arranged to show a perceived progression—from the rural South, to life and industrial work in primarily Northern cities, to religion and community services provided by the Methodist Church for the growing populations of African Americans in these cities. They begin with an image of workers in cotton fields.
Captions for the slides in the accompanying pamphlet were written by Committee member William Watkins Reid, an Irish immigrant and journalist who worked in public relations for the Methodist Board of Missions. Overlooking the presence of women and children in the slide, he states, “For three hundred years the Negro has planted and gathered the most important crops of the South. For 250 of those years he planted and gathered them as a slave. . . . When the chains were broken, most of the Negroes remained in the fields. To-day they still plant and gather most of the crops of the South.”
The title slide shown here was scanned using reflective light to capture its physical appearance, including the descriptive text on the left edge. All subsequent slides are shown scanned with transmissive light and appear similar to how they would look to an audience as they were projected on a screen.
“A Young Negro,” Slide 6
The suggested captions for each image in “The Negro in the City” are generally sympathetic to and encouraging of African Americans, but sometimes essentializing, condescending, and paternalistic. Despite (or perhaps in reaction to) the “red summer” of white supremacist violence in Chicago and other cities just a few years prior, in 1919, the captions tend to elide or understate the systemic racism faced by African Americans in the North.
After images and captions relating to the development of “expert” skills by African Americans in sugar mills and other facilities in the South, and the demand for workers in northern industries during World War I, the caption for this stunning image (its subject unidentified by name) states:
“The young Negro received luring offers to leave the South and enter the industrial life of the North. Agents sought him out; they offered good wages, railroad fare, and a chance for promotion.”
“And the young Negro listened eagerly. He was more educated than his ancestors; he felt more keenly the white man’s injustice and discrimination against him; he was dissatisfied in his condition as a poor tenant; he wanted school and home and church in which he could bring up a family; he wanted a chance to make good. “
“Negroes in Foundry,” Slide 7
The African American population of Chicago nearly doubled during World War I alone, topping 109,000 by 1920. A series of slides depict African American workers in industrial cities of the North, such as the workers shown here in a foundry. One slide lists “corporations of high industrial standing” such as Ford and other car makers, employing Black workers in Detroit. Another caption states, “Employers have found the Negro a good workman in the industries. . . . The Negro has enjoyed his newer freedom and greater opportunity in the North and Middle West. There is every indication that the Negro is going to stay in our industrial cities.” Such images and statements seem intended for white audiences questioning the work ethic and permanence of these newly arrived populations, and therefore the need to financially support the new, booming urban African American Methodist congregations.
“Negro Tenement House District,” Slide 12
Slides showing tenement housing and a group of children on a city street hearken back to the photojournalism work of Jacob Riis and others who exposed housing conditions in New York City in the 1880s. They are accompanied by slides showing population growth in major cities and a map of Chicago showing the “Black belt” on the city’s South Side. The map is intended to illustrate “the way in which the Negroes crowd into one section of the city, forming almost a distinct community of their own”—presenting this as a choice, and not as a necessity driven by discrimination and racist violence. On the other hand, another caption highlights the serious problems of inadequate housing conditions and landlords who charged African Americans higher rents than white tenants.
While the captions frame these images as problems in need of a solution that the church can help provide (through the provision of recreational activities and buildings as well as religious support for Black families), a sense of community and promise is also palpable in these outdoor scenes where families mingle and children play.
“Reading Room, Scott Memorial, Detroit,” Slide 27
While public buildings and services such as public libraries may not have been officially segregated in northern cities like Chicago and Detroit, official policies, segregated spaces, and inadequate resources for the rapidly increasing population could make newly arrived African Americans feel unwelcome or uncomfortable—contributing to the popularity of Black-organized and Black-funded opportunities for education and socializing such as the reading room at Scott Memorial.
Scott Memorial Church was founded in 1909 in Detroit as the first Black Methodist church in Michigan. As the caption says, the church made “a heroic effort to serve the large Negro population of the city,” including “A Methodist Brotherhood, a Boy Scout organization, industrial classes for men and boys [and] industrial, social, cooking, and other groups and classes for women and girls,” as well as the crowded reading room shown here.
“A Social Service Worker,” Slide 15
This powerful image shows a social worker visiting a family that recently arrived in a city, with the pamphlet emphasizing that “churches often have, in addition to pastors, visiting nurses, social service workers, teachers, and deaconesses. Many of these young women are proving their usefulness in making the first connection between the church and the new arrivals in the city.”
The photo illustrates the close quarters and barebones facilities available to most African American families newly arrived in cities. The photographer also artfully reminds viewers of the father not present in the image (and presumably at work) with the inclusion of the hat hanging on the corner of the headboard; the patriotism and pride of African American families’ sacrifices during World War I are alluded to by the homemade flag and small calendar with an image of a bald eagle.
“Stewart House, Gary, Ind.,” Slide 35
The settlement house movement, of which Jane Addams’s Hull House is the best-known example, is typically thought to have been in decline by the 1920s. While the influx of African Americans into neighborhoods previously populated by European immigrants is thought to have contributed to that decline, “The Negro in the City” includes a number of examples of settlement houses founded to support the Great Migration’s newcomers. Stewart House was founded in 1921, with support from both the Methodist Episcopal Church and the U.S. Steel Corporation, along with Black community members in Gary. That winter Steward House served more than 5,000 meals, provided 1,500 nights of lodging, helped 144 new residents find employment, and facilitated 1,200 nurse visits, while “95 percent of the adults who were aided made some contribution in work toward the support of the settlement.”
“South Park M. E. Church, Chicago,” Slide 37
A series of eight slides near the end of the presentation focus on the congregations, buildings, and services provided by two of the major Black Methodist churches in 1920s Chicago: South Park Avenue Church at the corner of South Park Avenue (now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive) and East 33rd Boulevard, and St. Mark’s, located at that time at 15th Street and Wabash Avenue. Obliquely addressing the sensitive subjects of segregation in the denomination and white flight in Chicago, one caption points out, “South Park Church was until a few years ago the home of a white congregation. It has been transferred to a growing Negro congregation.” The caption goes on to summarize the growth and pride of Black congregations: “In 1917 this Negro congregation worshipped in a store where three men standing with hands outstretched could span the building.”
“Champion Basket Ball Team,” Slide 41
St. Mark’s basketball team, champions of the YMCA’s 1921–22 Chicago Church League, is shown here. Basketball was still a developing sport in 1922—just 13 years after backboards and nets had been introduced to the game, and more than two decades prior to the founding of the National Basketball Association. The importance of recreational and social activities supported by the church is emphasized here. Another slide discusses St. Mark’s newly purchased community house, with plans to provide “a public library, kindergarten, social and club rooms, classrooms, gymnasium and baths.”
“Lunch Hour—Wahneta Day Nursery, Chicago,” Slide 40
Illustrating the support services provided by and for Black Chicagoans during the Great Migration, this stunning image shows women from St. Mark’s Woman’s Home Missionary Society leading a prayer before lunch for children at the church’s day care facility. Low wages, inflated housing costs, and societal pressures for African Americans in Chicago and other cities led to large numbers of families in which both parents or single parents worked outside of the home, with few options for child care available to newcomers who had not yet developed networks of mutual aid with neighbors or friends. As the caption indicates, “Here working mothers can leave their babies and small children during the day and know that they will be safe in good hands.”
Will Hansen is Director of Reader Services and Curator of Americana at the Newberry.
By Haku
A New Perspective on Cartography
An Interview with David Weimer
In the fall of 2022, David Weimer arrived at the Newberry in the dual role of Robert A. Holland Curator of Maps and Director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography. Weimer has devoted his professional and scholarly work to the interdisciplinary potential of maps. Collaborating with staff across the Newberry, Weimer has started adding new acquisitions to the library’s map collections while integrating maps into programming for scholars, teachers, students, and lifelong learners.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Dave closely examines a page from Bernardo Silvano’s edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia (1511).
Photo by Anne Ryan.
Newberry Magazine: How did you become interested in maps, and when did you know you’d devote your career to them?
Dave Weimer: For a lot of people, maps and geography are almost synonymous. But geography was the last thing on my mind as I found my way into maps. I had never really thought much about maps until encountering maps made in the nineteenth century for people with blindness and low-vision while researching the history of blindness in the United States. These atlases were printed in raised lines and letters at the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston. And they just totally blew me away. I wasn’t interested in what these maps said about the individual states in the early United States. Instead, they raised really foundational questions for me like: What is a map? And why have maps been so important both in the present and in the past for different groups of people?
NM: Let’s talk about two of those groups: teachers and students. You’ve written and presented frequently on maps as pedagogical tools—specifically on the role maps played in education in the nineteenth century. How did teachers and students engage with maps at this time in US history?
DW: Teachers and educators did a lot of experimenting! Public education really took off in the United States in the nineteenth century and that, in turn, meant more and more people needed books they could teach with. In addition, geography was a much more important general subject for schools than it is today. Therefore, many different authors started popular educational series that are, like textbooks today, translating complex subjects into simpler lessons for children of different ages. But you also had a lot of mapmaking as part of regular education. School boys and girls would draw maps—everything from simple maps of their classroom to elaborate world maps. You also had children embroidering maps as part of their studies. One of my favorite educational tools was the slate globe—students would draw longitude and latitude lines in chalk and then draw different parts of the world using those lines as guides.
NM: How can maps be used in the classroom today? What can students learn from maps that they may not be able to learn from other kinds of materials?
DW: Obviously, maps can help students learn geography, and a lot of the nineteenth-century education I just described is about using maps to understand geography. Maps, particularly maps
World map by Frederick de Wit, 1660.
from different parts of the world and different time periods, can help students understand how geographic relationships change over time. But, even beyond geography, maps can be a powerful invitation into interdisciplinary thinking. Maps are themselves such collaborative productions that they require critical readers to see them from multiple perspectives. And that really opens up a world of stories that students can think about telling through research in the humanities.
Take, for instance, the 1660 world map by Frederik de Wit. De Wit is the “author” because he drew a map that is the basis for this print and, presumably, oversaw the final product to make sure errors didn’t creep into his map. But he was what’s called an “arm-chair geographer.” He didn’t travel and map the entire world through firsthand surveying. He compiled and worked from lots of textual and cartographic sources from other geographers, cartographers, and explorers. In that sense, the map invites a critical reader into the historiography of geographic knowledge.
De Wit also didn’t make this map. A different team of artisans did the engraving and they had varying amounts of control over the decorative aspects of the map. So, here you have a whole new
set of art historical questions about design and the visual allegories on the map. You can keep digging into all the different pieces of the map and it just keeps taking you in more and more directions. Students often find it exciting to be able to interpret the many characteristics of a map like this.
NM: As Robert A. Holland Curator of Maps and Director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, you wear two different hats at the Newberry. How are you handling your dual role? Do you approach the Newberry map collection differently as Curator of Maps compared to Smith Center Director?
DW: The most exciting thing about being in both roles is being able to think holistically about the relationship between the research activities that happen here and the future of the library’s map collection. Being in both roles is a testament to the important link between our collecting practices and our commitment to fostering inspiring research in the humanities. This collaboration between parts of the library happens all the
John Ogilby’s late 18th-century maps of Britain’s roads does not have a consistent orientation. Just as when a digital map guides you along a route, this strip map follows the direction of the road and tells you where north is with a series of compass roses along the way.
time—for instance, our Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts will often pop over to the folks at the Center for Renaissance Studies to discuss if they would use a book in their programming before she decides to buy it. For me, it’s a shorter walk! I’m always thinking simultaneously about how visitors and scholars will use what we collect and also how our programming in the Smith Center can help spotlight our incredibly wide-ranging cartographic material.
NM: What excites you about the Newberry map collection?
DW: So many things! Between the Edward E. Ayer collection of American Indian and Indigenous Studies materials and the Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana, the Newberry can tell interesting cartographic stories about Indigenous life in the Americas. We also have an astonishing collection of Early Modern cartography in the Novacco collection of Italian maps, our collection of manuscript Portolan charts, and, of course, our Ptolemaic atlases. I love showing students how cartographers explored different ways of being true to the tradition of this second-century geographer while also trying to include new information that European travelers were bringing back to Europe about the Americas and East Asia. More than anything else, I’m excited to find materials here that have been underused
or whose stories we have yet to tell. I don’t know what those are yet—it’s only been a few months so far!
NM: How do you think maps can be integrated into existing Newberry programming—for example, public programs, exhibitions, and adult education classes?
DW: I want maps to be everywhere! Part of what is so interesting about maps is that they pop up in all sorts of disciplines and add to so many different kinds of stories. To make that happen I want to build on the strong internal partnerships with the other research centers here and the amazing team in adult education and teacher programs. More broadly, I want to build events here at the Newberry that connect with local and global communities that are using maps. For instance, I want to learn more about the printmaking communities in Chicagoland to see who is doing art that incorporates maps. With that community of artists, I could create an event that puts our collections in conversation with their artwork. I like to think about this work as going in two directions: first, finding ways to bring maps into stories and topics where people might not expect maps to have an important role to play and, second, connecting to communities and practices where people are using maps but where the general public might not expect maps to be important.
NM: Many of us use maps only on our phones, through apps like Google Maps. How do these digital maps influence the way we move through space and relate to the world around us?
DW: Let me take a slightly different angle on your question because the topic of how these new forms of maps influence our wayfinding practices is really a question for a geographer and a UX [user experience] designer. I am fascinated by how different visual techniques on maps come and go based on the needs of travelers and the affordances of different media. We have hundreds of thousands of road maps at the Newberry, mostly from the middle of the twentieth century in our collections from the Rand McNally, Gousha, and General Drafting companies. By and large, these maps are rectangular, have north at the top, and maintain a consistent scale throughout the page. You can fold them into a smaller rectangle and store them in a glove box, a back pocket, or the side of a car door. Your map app, however, recalls a different tradition of road maps, namely the strip map, where you follow a straight path on the map but the cardinal directions are not static. When you turn left on Clark Street toward the loop from the Newberry, the top of your phone shows the road ahead of you even as north swings from your right to the bottom of the phone. Strip maps are a very old form, made popular in John Ogilby’s Britannia Atlas in 1675, but with roots in Medieval itineraries. That is to say, maps are always changing based on the modes of transportation that people are using, what other technology is available to them, and all sorts of other cultural conditions. I love being able to help people
understand how these changes have happened and will continue to happen in the context of the long history of mapmaking.
NM: For anyone who may not have much experience viewing or reading physical maps from the past, how do you introduce them to these materials?
DW: I usually start with a pair of maps—one that is familiar and one that is disorienting. For instance, let’s say you just walked into the Newberry and asked me how to read a map. I might bring out two world maps. One is a straightforward map of the world for, let’s say, a US-based reader, that has the Atlantic Ocean in the middle and the Arctic Ocean at the top. The other will still be a world map, but it will have a different orientation. During World War II, Richard Edes Harrison made a series of maps centered on the Arctic to emphasize how air travel was changing geopolitical relations. Another great option is McArthur’s Universal Corrective Map of the World from 1979, which is basically the opposite since it’s centered on the Pacific Ocean and has South at the top—and includes a direct screed against the hegemony of the Northern Hemisphere. That kind of pairing helps people start to see the deliberate choices—like north being at the top—that have gone into even the most familiar maps. Once you start seeing how many aspects of a map are choices that have become assumed conventions, then you can really begin to critically deconstruct why maps look the way they do and the kinds of political and cultural stories they are telling.
Richard Edes Harrison’s 1944 Look at the World forced readers to see the world in new ways by changing the orientation and focus of his maps. Harrison centers this world map on the Arctic to illustrate how air travel has profoundly affected global politics.
The Recent Past
Surviving the Long Wars: Exhibition Close-Up and Poetry Reading
From the US “Indian Wars” to the “Global War on Terror,” the exhibition Surviving the Long Wars: Residues and Rebellions and the related programming—which coincided with the second Veteran Art Triennial and Summit—explored the multiple overlapping histories that shape our understanding of warfare, as well as alternative visions of peace, healing, and justice generated by diverse communities impacted by war.
Military veterans and poets Erika Renee Land, Monty Little (Diné), Dunya Mikhail, and Carlos Sirah presented poetry exploring the disparate effects of war and the search for a path toward solidarity. Through their expressive work they created an opportunity for members of the audience to deepen their understanding of the impact of war.
To view a recording of this and other events, visit the Newberry’s YouTube channel.
youtube.com/user/thenewberrylibrary
Monty Little (Diné), poet
Erica Renee Land, poet
Carlos Sirah, poet
Mahwish Chisty, visual artist
Surviving the Long Wars: Residues and Rebellions exhibition. Photos by Anne Ryan.
Dunya Mikhail, poet
The Recent Past
The 2023 Newberry Award Celebration
On May 5, several hundred friends of the Newberry gathered for the Newberry Library Award Celebration to honor Ken Burns. In his forty-year career, Burns has directed and produced some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; and, most recently, The U.S. and the Holocaust. His films have been honored with sixteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Oscar nominations. In September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and in November of 2022, Ken was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
Upon accepting the Newberry Library Award, Burns observed, “At the heart of the films— and why this evening is so meaningful to me—are archives and libraries…A good deal of my professional life is defined by discovery in those places.” In a conversation that spanned topics from technological advances to American optimism, Burns and former Newberry President Daniel Greene discussed Burns’ views on our current moment in American history, as well as Burns’ role as “America’s Storyteller”. “[Ken Burn’s] tellings of history might influence more Americans than anyone else right now,” Greene noted during the program.
Sponsored by Kirkland & Ellis and chaired by Newberry Trustee Adele Simmons, the Award Celebration raised significant funds for the Newberry’s collections and programs.
Gail Kern Paster, Newberry Interim President, welcomes friends and supporters of the Newberry.
Photos by Anne Ryan.
The Newberry Award
Ken Burns accepts the Newberry Award from Adele Simmons, the 2023 Newberry Award Celebration Chairperson.
Ken Burns, Adele Simmons, and Daniel Greene.
Ken Burns and Daniel Greene discuss the importance of research and storytelling.
Ken Burns shared insights into his approach to filmaking and how he determines what subjects to cover in his films. Ken Burns and former FCC Chairman Newton Minow
The Recent Past
Novelists on the Craft of Writing
The Newberry hosted two New York Times bestselling authors on April 13, 2023. Rebecca Makkai (I Have Some Questions for You, The Great Believers) and Meg Wolitzer (The Female Persuasion, The Interestings) delighted attendees with an insightful and humorous conversation centered on the craft of writing. They shared personal stories and experiences that touched on the art of world building in literary fiction, the ways in which female writers are perceived differently than men, and tips on how to be successful in your own writing.
This program, held as part of the popular “Conversations at the Newberry” series, served as an introduction to a new partnership with StoryStudio Chicago. Beginning this fall, the Newberry will present talks curated by StoryStudio Artistic Director Rebecca Makkai that will pair major visiting authors in conversation with local discussion partners. Unlike bookstore or festival events promoting an author’s latest book, these talks will highlight the author’s whole career, with a focus on the craft of writing. Perfect for readers and writers alike, each event will celebrate one author’s work—a glimpse behind the creative curtain. “We are thrilled to be partnering with Rebecca Makkai and StoryStudio to bring authors such as Meg Wolitzer to the Newberry and showcase their passion for and knowledge of the written word. This event was the perfect way to kick off what will be an exciting new programming series at the Newberry,” said Vince Firpo, Vice President for Public Engagement.
To view the conversation between Rebecca Makkai and Meg Wolitzer, visit bit.ly/MakkaiWolitzer.
DIY Pop-up Books
The magic of movable books is in the transformation of the page through flaps, dials, and images that—quite literally—spring to life. Visitors to the Newberry got a chance to learn about the fascinating history of this literary art from exhibition curator Suzanne Karr Schmidt, and had an opportunity to construct their own pop-up creations. The DIY part of the program was led by Hannah Batsel, a book artist, writer, and illustrator based in Chicago and Shawn Sheehy, a Chicago-based paper engineer, book artist, and workshop instructor.
This program was held in conjunction with the Newberry exhibition Pop-Up Books through the Ages , which is generously supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Professor James H. Marrow and Dr. Emily Rose, Alan Templeton, Diane and Richard Weinberg, and The Movable Book Society.
Meg Wolitzer and Rebecca Makkai. Photo by Anne Ryan.
Shawn Sheehy leads a demonstration on making a flap book. Photos by Anne Ryan.
Hannah Batsel (blue shirt) assists as participants assemble their own pop-up Newberry.
