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Total Eclipse of the Heart(land)

In honor of today’s total solar eclipse, the Spencer Research Library staff was curious about our collection holdings related to this celestial phenomenon. We found two reports detailing previous solar eclipses, one from South America in 1889 and one from the United States in 1900. 

“A Spin Down the Road”: Photographs of Kansas Cyclists

“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.” -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes stories, in Scientific American, 1896

May is National Bike Month, so this week we’re sharing some photographs from the Kansas Collection that show turn-of-the-century Kansans with their bicycles.

Gegrindswile: KU’s Old English Word

Three Old English leaves call KU Libraries home, and one contains a one-and-only word!

Spencer Research Library holds three Old English leaves, each with its own fascinating story. The leaf shown above (in its recto and verso sides) is an early 11th century glossary giving brief definitions of difficult Latin words. Most of the glosses are also in Latin, but some are in Old English. The two sides of the leaf cover the Latin words interkalares to istingum.

Though rather weathered-looking, the leaf contains perhaps the sole surviving instance of an Old English word: gegrindswile. Like many words of Germanic origin, gegrindswile is a compound.  Its two parts —gegrind and swile– survive in other texts, but this leaf is the only instance recorded in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus of the two combined. Together they form a single word meaning “a swelling caused by friction, a chafing or galling (of the skin),” which glosses the Latin word intertrigenes.

Louie Chester Walbridge Photograph Collection

The Louie C. Walbridge Photograph Collection, housed in Kenneth Spencer Research Library, visually tells the life story of a man who made the decision to move to Russell County, Kansas shortly after turning 23. 

President Eisenhower: Abilene’s Greatest Son

Happy President’s Day! 

Abilene, Kansas is a small city of under 7,000 people, but it managed to produce one of the most influential U.S. presidents. The only president to come from Kansas, Dwight D. Eisenhower served 8 years in the office from 1953-1961. Here he worked ceaselessly to deescalate the cold war and poured his energies into working towards world peace. But before he became the 34th President of the United States, Eisenhower served as the commanding general of the U.S. troops in Europe during World War II. After Victory in Europe Day on May 8, 1945, then General Eisenhower returned to his hometown of Abilene. Here at the Spencer Research Library, as a part of our Kansas Collection, we have General Eisenhower’s Homecoming train brochure signed by the man himself and the Abilene Reflector-Chronicle issue reporting on his historic return. If you’re interested in learning more about our nation’s only president from Kansas, check out this great entry in the Kansas Historical Soceity’s Kansapedia, book a trip to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home, or come visit us here at Spencer Research Library!

Goin’ Courtin’ at Spencer Research Library

Published in 1896 in Kansas City, Missouri, Social Life; or The Manners and Customs of Polite Society by Maud C. Cook is just one of several 19th and early 20th century etiquette books housed at Spencer. In addition to the etiquette of courtship and marriage, Social Life also details the proper etiquette for everything from correspondence to childcare and so much more. While some of the content may no longer be directly applicable in today’s society, many of the tenets regarding courtship and marriage are rather insightful.

“Intuition, our own selfhood, is nature’s highest teacher, and infallible; and tells all by her ‘still, small voice within,’ whether and just wherein they are making love right or wrong.”

Modern translation: Trust your instincts. No one knows you better than you know yourself. From choosing a partner to guiding the progression of your relationship, if something feels wrong, trust that feeling.

Collection Feature: Presidential Inauguration

Tickets to the Presidential Inauguration have likely changed over the decades, but you can view two from 1889 in the Spencer Research Library. 

Dancing Cheek to Cheek: A dos-à-dos binding

This book from Special Collections is really two volumes in one, in what is called a dos-à-dos binding, from the French, “back to back.” As the name implies, these two books share the same back covers, so that no matter how it is held, the reader opens to a front page of text. Geoffrey Glaister in The Encyclopedia of the Book (New Castle, DE: 1996) notes that this style was particularly popular in England in the period from 1600-1640.