Category Archives: New Acquisitions

Powell’s Canyons of the Colorado

Posted on by
Reply

Fron­tispiece por­trait of J. W. Pow­ell, Canyons of the Colorado.

“On my return from the first explo­ration of the canyons of the Col­orado, I found that our jour­ney had been the theme of much news­pa­per writ­ing. A story of dis­as­ter had been cir­cu­lated, with many par­tic­u­lars of hard­ship and tragedy, so that it was cur­rently believed through­out the United States that all the mem­bers of the party were lost save one. A good friend of mine had gath­ered a great num­ber of obit­u­ary notices, and it was inter­est­ing and rather flat­ter­ing to me to dis­cover the high esteem in which I had been held by the peo­ple of the United States. In my sup­posed death I had attained to a glory which I fear my con­tin­ued life has not fully vin­di­cated.”  –J. W. Pow­ell, Canyons of the Col­orado.

On August 29, 1869, John Wes­ley Pow­ell and the remain­ing mem­bers of a small expe­di­tion emerged from the Grand Canyon after nearly 100 days of hard­ship and peril. Three months ear­lier, on May 24, they had embarked on a jour­ney down the uncharted waters and canyons of the Green and Col­orado rivers hop­ing to suc­cess­fully nav­i­gate one of the last unknown ter­ri­to­ries in the United States.  Pow­ell, a Civil War vet­eran whose right arm was ampu­tated after the bat­tle of Shiloh, soon found wide­spread acclaim and recog­ni­tion for his remark­able achieve­ment.  His suc­cess and fame led to gov­ern­ment fund­ing for a sec­ond trip in 1871–72, this time to map the rivers and canyons, a task which was aban­doned in the first expe­di­tion in favor of sur­vival.  In 1875, Pow­ell pub­lished an illus­trated account of the expe­di­tions, Explo­rations of the Col­orado River…, which he later revised and enlarged as Canyons of the Col­orado (1895), a copy of which was recently acquired for Prince­ton. The work was pri­vately printed in Meadville, Pennsylvania.

Canyons of the Col­orado pro­vides numer­ous accounts and illus­tra­tions of the per­ils involved in the expe­di­tions, such as run­ning the rapids and sav­ing a man from falling into a canyon by low­er­ing down a pair of britches as a rope:

Pow­ell was also a pro­fes­sor of nat­ural sci­ence (pri­mar­ily self-taught), and his life-long inter­ests in geog­ra­phy and archae­ol­ogy are wit­nessed in the Canyons of Col­orado as well. Powell’s reports sig­nif­i­cantly con­tributed to the sci­en­tific under­stand­ing of the Col­orado River sys­tem and the for­ma­tion of the canyons.  His work also included impor­tant stud­ies of the Native Amer­i­can tribes of Ari­zona, Nevada, and Utah (Pow­ell later served as a spe­cial com­mis­sioner of Indian affairs in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.).

Prince­ton also houses sev­eral stere­o­graphs from Powell’s expe­di­tions, most of which are attrib­uted to either E. O. Bea­man or John K. Hillers.  (For an online sim­u­la­tion of stereo views, see the Getty Museum’s How a Stere­o­graph Works  or cre­ate your own sim­u­la­tion with the New York Pub­lic Library’s Stero­grani­ma­tor.)

1,500 of Princeton’s stere­o­graphs have been dig­i­tized and can be viewed in the Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Dig­i­tal Library’s West­ern Amer­i­cana Collection:

http://pudl.princeton.edu/collection.php?c=pudl0017&f1=kw&v1=stereographs

For those related to Powell’s var­i­ous expe­di­tions, see:

http://pudl.princeton.edu/results.php?f1=kw&v1=powell

Select Bib­li­og­ra­phy:

Fowler, Don D. “Pow­ell, John Wes­ley,” Amer­i­can National Biog­ra­phy Online. Feb. 2000. Access Date: Tue Dec 25 2012 16:44:42 GMT-0600 (CST)

Pow­ell, J. W. Canyons of the Col­orado. Meadville, PA: The Chatauqua-Century Press, 1895.

Coronelli & Nolin, Le Nouveau Mexique… (Paris, c.1687)

Posted on by
Reply

Vin­cenzo Maria Coro­nelli and Jean Bap­tise Nolin. Le nou­veau Mex­ique, appelé aussi Nou­velle Grenade et Marata, avec par­tie de Cal­i­fornie selon les mem­oires les plus nou­veaux. A Paris: Chez J.B. Nolin, sur le Quay de l’Horlogeà, l’Enseigne de la Place des Vic­toires Vers le Pont-Neuf, Avec Priv­i­lege du Roy, 168 (sic).

A new acqui­si­tion for Princeton’s His­toric Maps & West­ern Amer­i­cana col­lec­tions, Coro­nelli and Nolin’s Le nou­veau Mex­ique… is described in Philip D. Burden’s The Map­ping of North Amer­ica II (Raleigh Pub­li­ca­tions, 2007) as “the most momen­tous map of the Amer­i­can south-west pub­lished to date [1687] and would remain sem­i­nal for decades to come” (Bur­den, 307).  The pri­mary impor­tance of the map is the depic­tion of the Rio Grand, which is accu­rately described as flow­ing south-east and dis­charg­ing into the Gulf of Mex­ico instead of the Gulf of Cal­i­for­nia: “La Riu du Nort tombe dans le golfe de Mex­ique, et non pas dans La Mer de Californie.”

The map also promi­nently fea­tures sev­eral Indian pueb­los, includ­ing Acoma, Nambe, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, and Taos, as well as Apache and Navajo tribes.

The first printed state of the map has a regret­ful omis­sion in the date, which is printed as “168.”

Wheat’s Map­ping the Trans­mis­sis­sippi West, 1540–1861 (Insti­tute of His­tor­i­cal Car­tog­ra­phy, 1957–1963) dates the map as 1685, while Bur­den sug­gests a later circa 1687 print­ing.  A sec­ond state of Le nou­veau de Mex­ique… did not appear until in 1742.

Select Bib­li­og­ra­phy:

Bur­den, Philip D. The Map­ping of North Amer­ica II: A List of Printed Maps 1671–1700. Rick­mansworth, Herts., U.K.: Raleigh Pub­li­ca­tions, 2007.

Wheat, Carl I. Map­ping the Trans­mis­sis­sippi West, 1540–1861. Six vol­umes. San Fran­cisco: Insti­tute of His­tor­i­cal Car­tog­ra­phy, 1957–1963.

Sappington’s Theory & Treatment of Fevers

Posted on by
Reply

As I have long since departed from the the­ory and prac­tice in which I was prin­ci­pally taught, and am now engaged in writ­ing against them, it may be proper that I should give my rea­sons to the pub­lic for doing so.  —John Sap­ping­ton, The­ory and Treat­ment of Fevers.

The library has recently acquired one of the ear­li­est books pub­lished west of the Mis­sis­sippi and the first med­ical book printed in Mis­souri, John Sappington’s The­ory and Treat­ment of Fevers … Revised and cor­rected by Fer­di­nand Stith, Arrow Rock [Mo.], Pub­lished by the Author, 1844.

The book, Sappington’s first and pub­lished by the author in aproximatey16,000 copies, went against con­tem­po­rary med­ical treat­ment of fevers, which included blood­let­ting, vom­it­ing with the use of emet­ics, and admin­is­ter­ing Calomel or Mer­cury Chlo­ride as a purga­tive, and instead advo­cated the effi­cacy of his own anti-fever pills. Sap­ping­ton had found both med­ical and com­mer­cial suc­cess in fight­ing fevers with the release of his “Dr. Sappington’s Anti-Fever Pills,” which he began to sell in 1832. The ingre­di­ent respon­si­ble for their effi­cacy was qui­nine, a sub­stance derived from the bark of a South Amer­i­can tree. It was soon dis­cov­ered that the pills were highly effec­tive in the treat­ment of malaria (a dreaded and wide-spread dis­ease for south­ern fron­tier set­tlers), and in 1835, Sap­ping­ton founded Sap­ping­ton and Sons to meet demand and widen dis­tri­b­u­tion.  The The­ory and Treat­ment of Fevers, how­ever, was not a com­mer­cial or adver­tise­ment ploy to sell more pills, which Sap­ping­ton had been suc­cess­fully sell­ing for nearly a decade by the time of the book’s pub­li­ca­tion. Rather, the author pro­fessed a benev­o­lent desire and pur­pose for the book and even went so far as to included the ingre­di­ents for his lucra­tive anti-fever pills:

Although the author has vended pills to a large amount, and real­ized con­sid­er­able sums of money by his sales, the peo­ple have also saved a great many dol­lars by using them; been relieved of much pain and suf­fer­ing, and very many lives have no doubt been saved and pro­longed. The author con­sid­ers him­self dri­ven to this alter­na­tive, more from motives of benev­o­lence than from those of self-interest. (79)

Sappington’s Anti-Fever Pills “were sim­ply com­posed of one grain qui­nine each, three-fourths of a grain of liquorice, and one-fourth grain of myrrh, to which was added just so much of the oil of sas­safras as would give to them an agree­able odor” (79).

Princeton’s copy con­tains the book­plate of H. P. Engle, M. D., undoubt­edly the county physi­cian Harry P. Engle of New­ton, Iowa:

A bio­graph­i­cal sketch and pho­to­graph of H. P. Engle, M. D., can be found in the Stan­dard His­tor­i­cal Atlas of Jasper County, Iowa, while Dr. Engle’s early adop­tion of the auto­mo­bile and its ben­e­fit to county physi­cians can be read in “The Most Sat­is­fac­tory Invest­ment for the County Physi­cian Harry P. Engle, M.D. New­ton, Iowa.”

The Sap­ping­tons went on to became a very promi­nent and influ­en­tial Mis­souri fam­ily.  A detailed account of Dr. Sappington’s life and his legacy, includ­ing por­traits of fam­ily mem­bers and pho­tographs of his Anti-Fever Pills and related ephemera, can be found on the State His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of Missouri’s His­toric Mis­souri­ans, Nurses & Doc­tors, web­site: John S. Sap­ping­ton (1776–1856). The his­tor­i­cal soci­ety also houses the Sap­ping­ton Fam­ily Papers.

Select Bib­li­og­ra­phy:

Eimas, Richard (Ed.). Heirs of Hip­pocrates: The Devel­op­ment of Med­i­cine in a Cat­a­logue of His­toric Books in the Hardin Library for the Health Sci­ences, the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa. Third Edi­tion. Iowa City: Pub­lished for the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa Libraries by the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa Press, 1990. Avail­able online: Heirs of Hip­pocrates.

Mor­row, Lynn. “Dr. John Sap­ping­ton: South­ern Patri­arch in the New West.” Mis­souri His­tor­i­cal Review. Vol 90, no. 1 (Octo­ber 1995): 38–60.

Sap­ping­ton, John. The­ory and Treat­ment of Fevers … Revised and cor­rected by Fer­di­nand Stith.  Arrow Rock [Mo.]: Pub­lished by the Author, 1844.

The American Indian Souvenir Playing Cards, ca. 1900.

Posted on by
Reply

“Fifty-three of the best pho­tographs of the homes and faces of the Pueblo Indi­ans, taken in the last few years by A. C. Vro­man of Pasadena, are inge­niously arranged and excel­lently repro­duced for The Amer­i­can Indian Sou­venir Playing-Cards; and a zarape in col­ors illu­mi­nates the back of each card. It is a hand­some and typ­i­cal col­lec­tion. Lazarus & Melzer, Los Ange­les, $1.”

–Adver­tise­ment from The Land of Sun­shine: The Mag­a­zine of Cal­i­for­nia and the West (Vol­ume XIII, June-December, 1900).

Thanks to a gift of Don­ald Far­ren ’58, the depart­ment recently acquired two sets of sou­venir play­ing cards illus­trated with half-tone repro­duc­tions of pho­tographs taken by noted pho­tog­ra­pher of the South­west, A. C. Vro­man.
Adam Clark Vro­man was born in La Salle, Illi­nois, in 1856, and moved to Pasadena, Cal­i­for­nia, in 1892 in hope of find­ing a bet­ter cli­mate for his wife, Ester H. Gri­est, who was dying of tuber­cu­lo­sis.  Fol­low­ing her death in 1894, Vro­man and an asso­ciate opened a store in Pasadena spe­cial­iz­ing in books, sta­tion­ary, and pho­to­graphic sup­plies.  The suc­cess of the store, which is still in oper­a­tion today as south­ern California’s old­est and largest inde­pen­dent book­store, Vroman’s Book­store, pro­vided Vro­man with the means to pur­sue his many inter­ests, includ­ing ama­teur pur­suits in archae­ol­ogy and his­tor­i­cal doc­u­men­ta­tion of the Amer­i­can Southwest.

In 1895, Vro­man took his first trip through the South­west, vis­it­ing Ari­zona and New Mex­ico, which he doc­u­mented exten­sively through pho­tog­ra­phy.  Between 1895 and 1904, Vro­man con­tin­ued to explore and doc­u­ment the South­west, col­lect­ing South­west­ern Indian arti­facts and pho­tograph­ing Native Amer­i­can vil­lages and the peo­ple and cus­toms of the South­west­ern Indi­ans (Apache, Hopi, Navajo, and Pueblo).

 

The Depart­ment of Rare Books and Spe­cial Col­lec­tions holds sev­eral indi­vid­ual Vro­man pho­tographs and three pho­to­graph albums, all of which can be viewed online in the Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Dig­i­tal Library. Two of the Vro­man albums rep­re­sent (at least in part) the cul­tural stud­ies of the Museum-Gates Expe­di­tion of 1901, led by Peter God­dard Gates, a Cal­i­for­nia phil­an­thropist, and Dr. Wal­ter Hough of the United States National Museum.  Vro­man served as the offi­cial pho­tog­ra­pher of the expedition.

Vro­man was a man of many inter­ests, and after 1904 his atten­tion turned abroad with tours in Japan and Europe, which included col­lect­ing Japan­ese net­suke and pho­tograph­ing Euro­pean archi­tec­ture.  His last tours in North Amer­ica, in 1914, were of the Cana­dian Rock­ies and the East Coast.  Vro­man, who died of can­cer in 1916, left a sub­stan­tial col­lec­tion of Indian arti­facts to the South­west Museum, and his Cal­i­for­ni­ana col­lec­tion and six­teen albums of platino­type prints from his var­i­ous expe­di­tions were given to the Pasadena Pub­lic Library, where they are still avail­able to view by appoint­ment.  Vroman’s col­lec­tion of Japan­ese net­suke is now part of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum of Art, which described the col­lec­tion as one “con­sid­ered to be the finest and largest in the United States at that time [1910].  This group of 2,500 pieces had been assem­bled by A. C. Vro­man of Pasadena, Cal­i­for­nia, and was pur­chased and pre­sented to the Museum by Mrs. Rus­sell Sage, one of the Metropolitan’s first great bene­fac­tors” (Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum of Art Bul­letin, Fall 1980).

Select Bib­li­og­ra­phy

Apos­tol, Jane. Vroman’s of Pasadena: A Cen­tury of Books, 1894–1994. Pasadena: A.C. Vro­man, 1994.

Mautz, Carl. Biogra­phies of West­ern Pho­tog­ra­phers: A Ref­er­ence Guide to Pho­tog­ra­phers Work­ing in the 19th Cen­tury Amer­i­can West. Nevada City, Calif.: Carl Mautz Pub­lish­ing, 1997.

Pow­ell, Lawrence Clark. Vroman’s of Pasadena. Pasadena: [s.n.], 1953.

Vro­man, A. C. Pho­tog­ra­pher of the South­west: Adam Clark Vro­man, 1856–1916. Edited by Ruth L. Mahood with the assis­tance of Robert A. Wein­stein. Intro­duc­tion by Beau­mont Newhall. [Los Ange­les]: Ward Ritchie Press, 1961.

Watts, Jen­nifer and Andrew Smith. Adam Clark Vro­man: Plat­inum Prints, 1895–1904. Los Ange­les: Michael Daw­son Gallery; Santa Fe: Andrew Smith Gallery, Inc., 2005.

Webb, William and Robert A. Wein­stein. Dwellers at the Source: South­west­ern Indian Pho­tographs of A. C. Vro­man, 1895–1904. New York: Gross­man Pub­lish­ers, 1973.