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James Baldwin, 1955 September 13, by Carl Van Vechten The provenance of the James Baldwin Early Manuscripts and Papers collection is a matter of some intrigue. The donor, Bart Kaplan, acquired the papers through eminent domain, after his company took possession of a storage building in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sometime in the early 1960s. The space in which they were stored had apparently once belonged to a publishing company which had left behind a suitcase containing these materials from James Baldwin. The relationship between Baldwin and the publishing company, as well as how a small parcel of his earliest literary effects was left with them, is uncertain.
Documenting the construction of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, this collection of photographs captures the transient stages of a massive, three year project. One of the largest buildings in the world devoted entirely to rare books and manuscripts, the library was designed to have room in the central tower for 180,000 volumes and in the underground book stacks for over 600,000 volumes; it now contains well over 500,000 volumes and several million manuscripts. The building, of Vermont marble and granite, bronze and glass, was designed by Gordon Bunshaft, of the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; the George A. Fuller Construction Company of Hamden, Connecticut was the general contractor.
New Haven resident William H. Townsend made pen-and-ink sketches of the Amistad captives while they were awaiting trial. Twenty-two of these drawings were given to Yale in 1934 by Asa G. Dickerman, whose grandmother was the artist's cousin. Townsend, who was about 18 years old when he made the drawings, is buried in the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, beside the Yale University campus. Call Number: GEN MSS 335
New Political Alphabet, or, a Little Book for Great Boys This twenty three page book of alphabet rhymes was published in Windham, Connecticut in 1813, by Samuel Webb. For the letter A: "Great A stands for Adam’s administration and B for betraying the rights of the nation." This rhyme refers to John Adams, the second president of the United States and a conservative Federalist who signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. Although the New Political Alphabet was published twelve years after Adams left office, the author likely remains anonymous due to the political tone of this rhyme.
“I have no Knowledge of it at all,” wrote Ezra Stiles of alchemy. “I never saw Transmutation, the aurific Powder, nor the Philosophers Stone,” the early President of Yale College continued, “nor did I ever converse with an Adept knowing him to be such. ...
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