THE SHELF

Augustus Hoppin left his  law profession in 1848 to study art and pursue a career as an illustrator.  He became quite successful and widely known for his illustrations for novels.  In 1873, he embarked on a extensive tour of Egypt and soon followed his adventure with a fully illustrated book, On the Nile.  The accompanying narrative disturbingly captures the narrow, patronizing,  and prejudiced views of Anglo travelers during the Victorian period, especially toward those from Middle Eastern culture and religion.  Scattered about are  illustrations describing more lighthearted amusing  moments during the trip, such as when the author learns to ride a camel or partake in a coffee beverage.

“After getting astride of the saddle, comes motion No. 1, which is caused by the animal raising his hind quarters from the ground; this throws you forward, and you lose both your hat and your balance : then comes motion No. 2, which- corresponds to motion No. 1, but with the front quarters; this motion throws the traveller as far backward as he was thrown forward before. These two motions leave the animal and the traveller neither fairly up nor altogether down ; and it requires another motion, No. 3, to bring fore and hind quarters, together with the hump and other adjacent portions, to a “perpendicular;” which act, when accomplished, leaves the rider on the animal’s hump, provided he has clung to the saddle with sufficient tenacity. After the first mount the whole matter is simplified. “

Camel Riding 101

“The Orientals make their coffee as thick as mud, which is repugnant to the European palate ; and the sugar (when they use it) is of the coarsest brown variety, ancl not over clean. There was something, however, about the way we drank it that made even this muddy decoction a delicious tipple.”

Where's the Starbucks?

Description:

Hoppin, Augustus. On the Nile. Boston : J.R. Osgood & Co., 1874.

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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4516636

Repository:

Widener Library

Institution:

Harvard University

For longer than we care to remember, traffic has been a sore point with pedestrians and motorists alike.  In 1914, the Boston Chamber of Commerce published a study on the traffic conditions in downtown Boston with an eye toward establishing a new approach to the problem, one based on serious facts and detailed statistical observations on traffic, rather than anecdotes or simplified data.  Included in the study are pedestrian behavior patterns, urban obstacles,  spikes in congestion, retail deliveries, and overall safety concerns.  In addition to predictable solutions such as, constructing elevated railways, rerouting cars, and widening streets, the study also offers a novel proposal — elevated sidewalks!

Advantages of Elevated Sidewalks

Advantages:
(1) Elevated walkway to relieve sidewalk congestion.
(2) Fewer pedestrians at crosswalks.
(3) Prevent teaming traffic blocks, due to pedestrians at crosswalks.
(4) Fireproof balcony to help fight fires.
(5) Double entrance to stores.
(6) Fireproof exit at second-story level.
(7) Support for trolley wires. Allow trolley poles to be removed
(8) Uniform awnings for first story instead of fluttering canvas of different colors.
(9) Light would not be cut off from stores, as show windows at first floor are now
enclosed by wooden partitions.
Disadvantages:
(1) Stairs to climb. (No worse than elevated structures.)
(2) More difficult police protection.
(3) Obstruction of view from second-story windows.
(4) Removal of snow.

Pedestrian traffic in the morning

Pedestrian traffic in the afternoon

Chaotic intersection

Description:

Boston Chamber of Commerce. Street traffic in the city of Boston :a study made under the direction of the Governing Board of the Under Forty Division, Boston Chamber of Commerce. [Boston : E.L. Grimes, printers], 1914..

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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4452778

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Widener Library

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Harvard University

William Kinnimond Burton, a British engineer, spent much of his career in Japan attempting to eliminate several serious epidemics, including cholera, all due to poor drainage  and sanitary conditions found in the urban centers.   Burton was also an avid photographer,  sending several of his works, including dramatic images of the 1891 earthquake,  to a number of London magazine publications.  Along with Japanese photographer,  Ogawa Kazumasa, he founded the Japanese Photographic Society, the first amatuer photographic organization in Japan.  Burton  was particulary interested in documenting Japanese customs and costumes, and in 1895, along with Ogawa and Professor Jukichi Inouye, he published the first illustrated English account of Japanese wrestling.  This extremely rare publication contains an original colour woodblock print and 12 collotype reproductions depicting celebrated wrestlers in various poses and head to head competitions.

Wrestler announced by the umpire

Ozutsu, the "Great Gun", with the writer alongside

Description:

[Burton, W. K. Wrestlers and wrestling in Japan. Tokyo : K. Ogawa, [1895].

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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4138751

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Widener Library

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Harvard University

Dating back to the late 19th century,  a number of anti-smoking advocacy groups  established themselves in the United States, such as the Massachusetts Anti-Cigaret(te) League and Lucy Page Gaston’s Anti-Cigarette League of America. The Massachusetts Anti-Cigarrette League, in particular, was instrumental in the passage of state laws banning the sale of cigarettes to minors.  In a 1900 school committee report,  the Massachusetts Anti-Cigarette League was commended for “the support of all who would protect our boys from contracting a habit that unfits them for school duties and that makes boys mean instead of manly”.  Massachusetts was not alone in the fight, 14 other states enacted laws banning the sale, manufacture, possession, or use of cigarettes, and 22 other states considered such legislation.   Eventually though, the anti-smoking movement fizzled and lost its grip on the political process.  Incidents such as when the governor of Massachusetts (who was also the VP of the Mass. Anti-Cigarette League) was caught smoking certainly did not help!

As part of it’s ongoing public campaign against tobacco, the Mass. Anti-Cigarette league produced postcards of studies, charts, and statistics to support their conviction that smoking was detrimental to one’s health and moral fiber.

College smokers and non-smokers

Description:

[Postcards depicting charts comparing physical condition and academic performance of college smokers with that of non-smokers]

Boston, Mass. : Massachusetts Anti-Cigaret League, [1912?].

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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4929743

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Widener Library

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Harvard University

….and the latest treatments for smoking and some success stories

The Kress treatment to help kick the habit

Description:

The Massachusetts Anti-Cigaret League has conducted a series of clinics administering the Kress Treatment as an aid to persons desiring to break off the cigaret habit. Boston : Massachusetts Anti-Cigaret League, [190-?].

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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4929746

Repository:

Widener Library

Institution:

Harvard University

…and from another organization, this discourse on smoking as a personal right vs a public nuisance.

Is it a public nuisance?

Description:

Abbott, Twyman O. Tobacco smoking :”Justifiable to suppress this most persistent nuisance by use of force” : a legal opinion, San Francisco, Cal., Feb. 21, 1912.

[New York? : s.n., 1912?].

Persistent Link:

http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4929750 

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Widener Library

Institution:

Harvard University

In 1853, when the London Zoo unveiled the first large public “fish tank” or “Aquatic Vivarium”, as it was known at the time, it offered millions of people the opportunity to view fascinating aquatic life up close.  It was Philip Henry Gosse, an  English naturalist, who was the first person to introduce and popularize  the term “aquarium”. In 1854, Gosse published his book, The Aquarium, which sold extremely well and can be credited with setting  off the Victorian craze for household aquariums. Americans were soon on-board and just as passionate about this new hobby.  In 1858, Henry D. Butler published the first popular instruction manual for constructing and maintaining a family aquarium.  Butler’s book states.

The Aquarium has become, within a short period, almost a
necessary luxury in every well-appointed household, both of
Europe and America. It has wholly superseded the old
fashioned fish-globe in the popular affection. Its neatness
and elegance ; its fascinating eombhiation of subtle philosophy
and commonplace every day facts ; its ever-changing,
never-wearying feature, of kaleidoscopic novelty ; its tempting
peculiarity, to thoughtful minds, as an introduction to the
study of nobler and more recondite pages in the volume of
natural history ; all constitute an attraction as chaste as it is
beautiful, as refined as it is irresistible.

Fresh Water Aquarium

Description:

Butler, Henry D. The family aquarium, or, Aqua vivarium :a “new pleasure” for the domestic circle : being a familiar and complete instructor upon the subject of the construction, fitting-up, stocking, and maintenance of the fluvial and marine aquaria or “river and ocean gardens”. New York : Dick & Fitzgerald, c1858.

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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:2012521

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Widener Library

Institution:

Harvard University

Before establishing Lennen & Newell advertising agency in 1924, Philip W. Lennen, published this book for the serious executive, offering tips on how to increase efficiency in the workplace through his own innovative personal system.  As he states in Chapter X:

A WELL GROOMED, smug person, smoking black
cigars — that is the portrait people paint when they
enviously think of the general manager. That picture,
however, is either conjured up before they know him,
or is snapped in the afternoon when the general manager
has cleaned up his work bench— his desk. He
smokes afternoons because he works first— -with a system.

PW Lennen’s progressive plans for being more  efficient at work

Just three motions of the hands bring the correspondence to the top of the desk

Tidy up the desk

Description:

Lennen, P. W. How to double the day’s work :how to systematize yourself and your desk : managing your work today, planning your work of tomorrow, handling your routine and correspondence, saving time and multiplying results. Chicago ; New York : System Co., 1909.

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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4893278

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Widener Library

Institution:

Harvard University

Philip Wallys boyhood memories of his visit to New York offers a peak into social conditions in the city during the middle of the 19th Century.

“I thought New York was a great city, where men
wore their Sunday clothes every day, and were free-
and-easy-happy-fellows-with-gigs, like my uncle Tom ;
and, of course, I wanted to go and see it.” — Philip Wallys

Wallys is soon to be disabused of this notion!

“Perhaps these men and women have a good time—
but I think I would rather be one of the dogs.
You will see, too, men and women going about
the streets — and they start early, too — with sacks
on their shoulders, and an iron hook in their hands
they poke into any pile of rubbish or filth, and hook
out anything that has value.”

“Mahometans are forbidden to drink wine and brandy,
and New Yorkers are not ; and that there are not
eleven hundred grog-shops in one ward in Constantinople,
as there are in New York. It is also true,
that in Turkey people are not so craving to get
rich as in New York ; and are not tempted to steal
from the time they are born.”

Description:

Wallys, Philip. About New York :an account of what a boy saw in his visit to the city. New York : Dix, Edwards & Co., 1857.

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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:3988794

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Widener Library

Institution:

Harvard University

In this inscribed gift copy to Harvard College, Fisher Howe offers a detailed account of his 1850 journey throughout the Middle East.

“I am waiting, not without some impatience, for the forthcoming “Oriental and Sacred Scenes,” by our esteemed friend, Fisher Howe, Esq. Mr. Howe is a matter-of-fact man, and has the faculty of transferring you to the very spots he describes, and enables you to see them as they actually are.”—Horace Holden

Description:

Howe, Fisher. Oriental and sacred scenes :from notes of travel in Greece, Turkey, and Palestine. New York : M.W. Dodd, 1854.

Persistent Link:

http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4460866

Repository:

Widener Library

Institution:

Harvard University

Alexander Russell Webb (1846-1916: journalist, publisher, and U.S. ambassador) is noted as the first American to have converted to Islam.  Raised as a Presbyterian,  Webb eventually abandoned his Christian upbringing to investigate other faiths, ultimately converting to Islam in 1888.  Ironically, while he declared himself a Muslim, Webb had not even met a single Muslim.  Soon afterwards, he toured India, where he met a number of Muslims and gave speeches.  Upon his return to the U.S in 1892., he established the Oriental Publishing Company in New York and began The Moslem World, the official organ of the American Muslim Propagation Movement.  In this work, published in 1893, Webb tells his own story and explains the American Islamic Propaganda Movement and its proposed benefit to the American public.

In his introduction, he states:

“The almost universal disposition, among liberal-minded Americans,
to know more of the Oriental religions than their ancestors
knew, has been productive of at least one good result, viz., the
breaking away from soul-destroying religious superstitions; and the
development of an independent, fearless spirit of thought and investigation,….

The primary purpose of this book is not to destroy nor weaken
any creed or system of theology, nor to make proselytes for Islam,
but to arouse and encourage among English-speaking Christians a
spirit of calm, persistent and unprejudiced investigation to bo
applied to their own as well as other systems of religion.”

Description:

Webb, Alexander Russell. Islam in America :a brief statement of Mohammedanism and an outline of the American Islamic propaganda. New York : Oriental Publ. Co., 1893.

Persistent Link:

http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:2562348

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Widener Library

Institution:

Harvard University

Islam in America :a brief statement of Mohammedanism and an outline of the American Islamic propaganda.

Walter Crane (1845–1915), mostly known for his children’s book illustrations, was also a strong supporter of the socialist cause throughout his life . In this 1907 publication, Crane began to blend his political views with his artistry to produce a rather interesting take on the standard children’s book reader.

Big Bad Monopoly spoils the fun

Willie’s Birthday and HOW HE LEARNT ABOUT STATE MAINTENANCE

Description:

The child’s socialist reader. London : Twentieth Century Press, 1907.

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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:1313688

Repository:

Widener Library

Institution:

Harvard University