For many years, the William H. Hannon Library’s special collections were affectionately called the university’s “attic.” We have worked to untangle inaccurate imagery that may arise from that term by teaching students and researchers about our professional standards of careful stewardship. However, our continuing strategy of collecting a broader range of historical artifacts does bring to mind the joy of discovering the unexpected.
In that sense, this year’s acquisitions may indeed seem like a treasure trove of attic-like proportions. The objects we selected represent our commitment to building special collections that preserve a diversity of lived experiences to better support the needs of scholarship and student learning. Here is a sample of some of our new arrivals.
The manuscript log of the whale ship Elbe describes its exploits from 1833 to 1837 in a crisply legible hand, with doodles, whale stamps, and other ephemeral jottings embellishing the text. We also added a whalebone corset busk with decorative scrimshaw carved upon it, a typical gift a 19th century sailor might make for a loved one while he was away at sea.
Our colonial Latin America book collection grew to include two Jesuit works printed in Nahuatl: Gerónimo de Ripalda’s “Catecismo Mexicano” (1758) and Ignacio de Paredes’ “Promptuario Manual Mexicano” (1759). These books provide important evidence of how the missionaries used local language to facilitate their message to Indigenous communities. We also acquired 18th century biographies of two Mexican nuns, Michaela Josepha (1755) and Maria Ignacia Azlor y Echeverz (1793), the latter founded a convent dedicated to educating girls and women.
Other works that expand our religious holdings include two Tibetan woodblocks used for printing Buddhist texts, circa 1900, and the “Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi” (1507), a sumptuously illustrated retelling of the Passion by humanist Matthias Ringmann.
Selective purchases brought us a variety of 19th century objects that transport us back in time to pivotal societal change. An 1898 board game, “Jeu de l’Affaire Dreyfus,” was published in the French newspaper L’Aurore to promote the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus, a military officer of Jewish descent who was wrongly accused and later convicted of treason. The structural grandeur of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair is captured in a deck of cards that provides instructions for two card games and converts into two puzzles depicting the fair. A French lady doll made by François Gaultier, circa 1875-1880, documents how fashion trends spread beyond the pages of women’s magazines into the realm of toys, paving the way for the appearance of Barbie and others in the next century. Our doll sports a wig made of real human hair and a gown that was probably sewn at home.
We made great strides to increase our gender studies holdings, historically one of the largest gaps in our collections. Among the new additions are several contemporary zines, a first edition of Virginia Woolf ’s classic novel “Orlando” (1928), and 14 issues from the Lesbian Tide, the first nationwide lesbian periodical in the United States.
We are grateful for the many gifts to the library’s special collections this year, including the contributions of university community members to the Inclusive History and Images Project, which actively seeks to recover marginalized LMU voices for preservation in the university archives. Additionally, we are proud to acknowledge a major gift of the collection of Regina J. Venegas-Drucker and Bruce Drucker — donated in memory of Zipper, Principe de Milagros, their beloved dog — that includes more than 100 couture garments and shoes designed by fashion luminaries including Alexander McQueen (pictured above), Issey Miyake, and Coco Chanel, showcasing how cultural and gender perspectives are translated into dress.
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