Welcome to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library blog! As the special collections and archives library at the University of Kansas, Spencer is home to remarkable and diverse collections of rare and unique items. Explore the blog to learn about the work we do and the materials we collect.
I’ve recently hit 40 and so birthdays have been on my mind, and what is New Year’s other than another sort of birthday celebration? Birthdays have been a cause for partying and remembrance for a long, long time. They’ve been a way families can reinforce bonds, a way to celebrate public figures, and certainly a way to mark the time. As such, we’ve gathered a number of birthday related materials in our collections and in celebrating my own birthday, I’ll share a few with all of you!
Birthday Party for “Mr Jack”, photograph by Topeka Photographer Wolfe, in the Leonard Hollman Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 536(f). Click images to enlarge.
I can’t help but hope that the “Mr Jack” in question is the chicken in the center of the photo, but I suppose we’ll never know.
We also have some heavy hitters, literarily speaking: An invitation sent to William Allen White, at the behest of George Harvey, to attend the 70th birthday celebration of Mark Twain!
George Harvey to WAW, Correspondence in our William Lindsay White collection. Call Number: RH MS 608. Click images to enlarge.
Continuing a trend of journalistic birthday items, we have a lovely collection of letters from Albert T. Reid, known for political cartoons among other things, to his grandson Leonard. This letter shows the sharing of gifts and building of birthday memories, even with those not able to be present.
Letter to Lenno from G.R. in New York, August 13, 1931. Illustrated Letters to Grandgoy Leonard. Call Number: RH MS 1358. Click images to enlarge.
Strengthening the family aspect, we have a poem from the poet William Sotheby (1757-1833) on how gifts (flowers) are lovely, but that “Duty, Gratitude, and Love” are even more precious offerings for a parent’s birthday given that they grew from the parent’s own influence.
The Birthday Offering, from the Personal Papers of William the Poet Sotheby in the Sotheby Family Papers. Call Number: MS 4. Click images to enlarge.
I love the physical detail of the document as well as the reflection present in the poem itself. Here’s a transcript I put together as I know the script is none too clear.
The Birthday Offering
Lov’d Parent! While these flowr’s we wreathe To grace thy natal day, And oer their transient blossoms breathe Pure nature’s simple lay; Oh view, unlike frail bloom of flow’r The heart that greets this blissful hour!
The blossom fades, the flowret falls. There cherished duties grow, Fond memore there the past recalls, And thoughts that grateful glow: And kind affections planted there Spring up beneath a mother’s care.
These purer offerings deign approve Lo! Duty, Gratitude, and Love.
– W.L. Sotheby
We have many more things as well: cake photos, party programs, letters, and more. We would absolutely love to be the inspiration for your next celebration! And Happy Birthday to me. 🎉
Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.
In honor of the upcoming new year, this week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing An Ode to the Sun, For the New Year by Elijah Fenton, published in 1707. The poem comes from Spencer’s Horn Collection, a collection of poems and pamphlets (satirical and panegyrical) concerning John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722). A transcription of the poem can be found via the All Poetry website, and a digitized copy of the entire document can be found via the Internet Archive.
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The front cover and first three pages of An Ode to the Sun, For the New Year by Elijah Fenton, 1707. Call Number: Horn E44. Click images to enlarge.
Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.
This week on That’s Distinctive! we honor National Quilting Day. National Quilting Day is this Saturday, March 18th, and it always falls on the third Saturday of March. Quilting refers to the technique of joining at least two fabric layers by stitches or ties. The quilting practice dates back as far as 3400 B.C.E. It was mainly a practical technique that provided physical protection and insulation. However, decorative elements were often also present, and many quilts are now primarily art pieces. According to National Today, the word ‘quilt’ comes from the Latin word ‘culcita,’ which means stuffed sack; it became adapted to the English language from the French word ‘cuilte.’ The National Quilting Association started National Quilting Day in 1991, and since then it has grown into a global celebration for all quilt lovers and makers. According to Quilt Alliance, one way individuals celebrate National Quilting Day is by hanging their quilts on display outside to educate and inspire their neighbors.
In honor of National Quilting Day, we share Quilting by former Kansas Poet Laureate Denise Low. The artists book shares six poems on quilting and was released in 1984. The poems are printed on folded leaves that are decorated accordingly. There were 183 copies that were numbered and signed by the author Denise Low and artist/printer Linda Samson Talleur. The copy at Spencer is signed copy number 29. The library also houses Denise Low’s papers.
The box cover of Quilting by Denise Low, 1984. Call Number: B7357. Click image to enlarge.
The poem “The Quilt Again” in Quilting by Denise Low, 1984. Call Number: B7357. Click image to enlarge.
The poem “Wedding Ring Quilt” in Quilting by Denise Low, 1984. Call Number: B7357. Click image to enlarge.
When we talk about the history of the women’s suffrage movement, the narrative is often quite serious in terms of focus and tone. We read the rhetoric and arguments for and against suffrage; we learn about the struggles faced – mockery, ostracism, even imprisonment. But in the midst of all this seriousness existed publications and ephemera full of sass, humor, and wit!
Featured in our new online exhibit, Women’s Suffrage: The Lighter Side, is a selection of items from our collections that show the lighter side of the women’s suffrage movement. Published several years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, these items include satirical essays and poems, popular song parodies, and nursery rhyme re-imaginings.
The cover of Are Women People? A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times by Alice Duer Miller (1915). Call Number: Howey C6148. Click image to enlarge.
Published in 1915, Are Women People? A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times features satirical poems and other humorous writings by Alice Duer Miller to promote the women’s suffrage movement. Many of the poems were originally published individually in The New York Tribune before their publication together in this book. The material in the book is divided into five categories: Treacherous Texts, Campaign Material (For Both Sides), Women’s Sphere, A Masque of Teachers: The Ideal Candidates, and The Unconscious Suffragists.
The cover of The Suffrage Song Book: Original Songs, Parodies and Paraphrases, Adapted to Popular Melodies by Henry W. Roby (1909). Call Number: KAC B29. Click image to enlarge.
A publication from Topeka, Kansas, The Suffrage Song Book: Original Songs, Parodies and Paraphrases, Adapted to Popular Melodies was created by Henry W. Roby and published in 1909. By taking the ideals of the women’s suffrage movement and setting them to the music of a variety of popular songs, Roby’s parodies are not only informative but catchy examples of some of the messaging used in the fight for women’s rights.
The cover of The Gee-Gee’s Mother Goose by Lilla Day Monroe (1912). Call Number: KAC C2. Click image to enlarge.
Another Kansas publication, The Gee-Gee’s Mother Goose by Lilla Day Monroe, is a collection of common nursery rhymes but re-written to incorporate pro-suffrage messages and ideas. For added interest in this 1912 publication, the rhymes are accompanied by related illustrations including scenes from “Three Blind Mice” and “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.”
You are a very dear person indeed to think of me and the word Pulitzer within the same moment. I was amazed to read your letter. It must be every verse-writer’s dream to be considered, some day, for such an honor – but, to say nothing of other poets, this has been a ROBERT FROST year.
–Letter from Gwendolyn Brooks to Van Allen Bradley, April 21, 1950, Call #: RH MS 152:A:1
This year marks the 70th anniversary of Gwendolyn Brooks’s 1950 Pulitzer Prize win for her volume of poetry Annie Allen (1949). Illinois justly claims Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) as one of the state’s most-celebrated literary citizens. Her first collection of verse, A Street in Bronzeville (1945), offered portraits of life in Chicago’s South Side, where Brooks grew up and lived, and she would return to that setting across many of her works. She also served as Illinois’s poet laureate from 1968 until her death in 2000. However, Kansans are quick to remember that Brooks also had ties to the sunflower state. She was born in Topeka in 1917, before she moved a month later with her Kansan parents two states to the east. Spencer Research Library’s Kansas Collection holds first editions of many of Brooks’s books, particularly her early ones, and although her papers reside at the University of California Berkeley and the University of Illinois, Spencer houses a small but significant collection of the poet’s correspondence with Van Allen Bradley (1913-1984). Bradley served as literary editor of the Chicago Daily News, and Brooks occasionally wrote book reviews for the newspaper. Though her relationship with it wasn’t as longstanding or deep as with the Chicago Defender, the influential African American newspaper that combated segregation and racial injustice, several of the letters with Bradley in Spencer’s collection offer insight into her 1950 Pulitzer win.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. Annie Allen. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949. Image courtesy of The Pulitzer Prizes website. Kenneth Spencer Research Library copy at call #: RH B1594.
On April 19, 1950, Van Allen Bradley wrote to Brooks,
I have just tried to call you at the South Side Community Art Center [where Brooks worked as a part-time director’s assistant] but got no answer there.
What prompted it was this –
The Saturday Review asked for my Pulitzer choices, and it occurred to me that you are going to win the Pulitzer prize for poetry. Nice thought, isn’t it! Seriously, I hope you do – and I have you as my choice.
But what I am writing about is this –
Suppose you were to win it: We’d want to carry a story about you, who you are, what you have written, etc. etc. A profile no less. And I’d like to write the piece. I wonder if you can supply me – at the earliest moment possible – with the relevant detail: all facts, a biography in brief, your likes and dislikes, your life, your family, etc. etc. […]
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Carbon copy of letter from Van Allen Bradley to Gwendolyn Brooks, April 19, 1950, speculating about her possible Pulitzer win. Gwendolyn Brooks Correspondence Collection. Call #: RH MS 152 A1. Click image to enlarge.
Bradley’s Pulitzer speculation was not the first awards attention directed at poems from Brooks’s second collection. In November of 1949, Brooks had closed a letter to Bradley with good news. “Guess what:” she wrote, “I won a prize from Poetry Magazine this month – The Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize of one hundred dollars!” The award honored “a poem or a group of poems by an American citizen published in Poetry,” and Brooks had won it for “Four poems” published in the magazine’s March issue (three sonnets from the sequence “The Children of the Poor” and the poem “A Light and Diplomatic Bird,” all also included in Annie Allen).
Even with that win under her belt, Brooks’s response to Bradley’s Pulitzer speculation was modest. In the remark quoted at the beginning of this post, she ventured that the prize would go instead to Robert Frost. “I’ll never forget that with all of the other poets to choose from, you voted for me,” she wrote to Bradley, “Thank you; thank you!”
The beginning of a letter from Gwendolyn Brooks to Van Allen Bradley, April 21, 1950. Gwendolyn Brooks Correspondence Collection. Call #: RH MS 152 A1. Click image to enlarge.
While 1949 had been a banner year for Frost—it saw the publication of his Complete Poems and his 75th birthday—the 1950 Pulitzer Advisory Committee was interested in celebrating fresh work rather than past glory. It marveled at the achievement of Frost’s career-spanning collection, but noted he had been awarded the Pulitzer four times previously for essentially the same poems. “A further ‘honor’ to Frost would be not only superfluous but so repetitious as to seem silly,” commented poet and committee member Louis Untermeyer.[i] In Annie Allen, however, the committee saw “a volume of great originality, real distinction and high value as a book, as well as poetry.”[ii] Committee member Alfred Kreymborg commended Brooks’s volume as introducing “further characters out of her South Side background, with Annie herself as the central figure with her peregrinations from childhood through girlhood to womanhood.” He singled out for particular praise The Anniad, “whose title” he wrote, “deftly parodies The Aeneid and whose intellectual sweep over common experience is not only brilliant but profound in its tragic and tragicomic implications.”[iii]
In spite of her assertion that it would be Frost’s year, Brooks nevertheless sent along a biography to Van Allen Bradley with her letter of April 21st. Ten days later, on May 1, 1950, she made history. Annie Allen took that year’s prize for poetry and Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American writer to win a Pulitzer. “I am a very fortunate person, and can’t help but wonder what tragedy is about to befall me, as a sort of ‘compensation,'” she wrote to Bradley on May 6th.
“I am just beginning to believe it really happened”: Closing of letter from Gwendolyn Brooks to Van Allen Bradley following her Pulitzer win, May 6, 1950. Gwendolyn Brooks Correspondence Collection. Call #: RH MS 152 A1. Click image to enlarge.
The brief two-page (auto)biography that Brooks sent to Bradley on the eve of her win is worth reading in its entirety. We encourage you to come in and examine it (alongside other Brooks materials) once the danger of coronavirus subsides and our reading room re-opens or to submit a remote reference request. Typed on South Side Community Art Center letterhead, Brooks begins her biography with a recognition of her familial ties to Kansas.
Kansas roots: The beginning of a biography Gwendolyn Brooks sent to Van Allen Bradley with her letter dated, April 21, 1950. Gwendolyn Brooks Correspondence Collection. Call#: RH MS 152 B3. Click image to enlarge.
After providing further biographical details and information on her family, schooling, career, past honors, and projected future publications, the thirty-three-year-old Brooks, with a mix of good humor and commitment, offers up a brief account of her literary start. She also provides, in response to Bradley’s request, her likes (“Country peace, fresh air, elbow room, affectionate friends, book-stores, music, modern art, looking at other people’s beautiful houses, strawberries in rich, cold cream, orange pie, apricot pie”) and dislikes (“cruelty and confusion”). She then concludes her biography with one final self-effacing but playful detail: “Date of death from shock: The day I win a Pulitzer prize.”
Likes and dislikes on the eve of the Pulitzer Prize: Detail from the end of the biography Brooks enclosed with her letter to Van Allen Bradley, April 21, 1950. Gwendolyn Brooks Correspondence Collection. Call#: RH MS 152 B3. Click image to enlarge.
As we mark National Poetry Month during a time of social distancing, we encourage you to explore Brooks and her Pulitzer-winning volume Annie Allen through some of the numerous resources available online:
Several poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, including “The Rites for Cousin Vit” from Annie Allen, are available online at Poetry Foundation. There you’ll also find back issues of Poetry Magazine, including the March 1949 issue containing the four poems from Annie Allen that earned Brooks the Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize.
Listen to Gwendolyn Brooks read her own poetry in a recording made on January 19, 1961 for the Library of Congress’ Archive of Recorded Poetry And Literature at https://www.loc.gov/item/94838388/. Brooks’s reading includes poems from Annie Allen starting at the 11:55 minute mark, including “The Rites for Cousin Vit” (at 19:24), as well as several of her other best-known poems, such as “Kitchenette Building” (at 0:34) from A Street in Bronzeville (1945) and “We Real Cool” (at 22:50) from The Bean Eaters (1960).
Finally, commemorate Brooks’s Pulitzer Prize win and her Kansas roots with this trading card produced in 2016 by the Kansas State Historical Society.
Elspeth Healey Special Collections Librarian
[i] Remarks by Louis Untermeyer, quoted in a letter from Henry Seidel Canby to Dean Carl W. Ackerman, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, on behalf of the Pulitzer committee—Henry Seidel Canby, Alfred Kreymborg, and Louis Untermeyer, [1950]. Reproduced in “Frost? Williams? No, Gwendolyn Brooks.” The Pulitzer Prizes. Accessed 6 April 2020. https://www.pulitzer.org/article/frost-williams-no-gwendolyn-brooks
[ii] Letter from Henry Seidel Canby to Dean Carl W. Ackerman, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, on behalf of the Pulitzer committee—Henry Seidel Canby, Alfred Kreymborg, and Louis Untermeyer, [1950]. Reproduced in “Frost? Williams? No, Gwendolyn Brooks.” The Pulitzer Prizes. Accessed 6 April 2020. https://www.pulitzer.org/article/frost-williams-no-gwendolyn-brooks
