Giant swing in Weihsien, China, April 1917

Marjorie Rankin Steurt took this photograph of a giant swing built outside the walls of the city of Weihsien, China, in April 1917.
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Mrs. Steurt’s diary entry about the swing from April 4th, 1917:
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Marjorie Rankin was born in Pennsylvania in 1888 to evangelical Protestant parents. She received a BA from Mt. Holyoke College in 1911 and later received an MA and PhD from Columbia University. Her first teaching position was in 1911 in a rural school for African Americans in Alabama. In 1912, she traveled to China as a missionary and teacher at the Christian college in Weihsien. From 1926-1927 she moved on to Cheeloo University in Tsinanfu, the capital of Shentung. In 1929 she became the director of an experimental school in Nankai, in Tientsin; when the university was destroyed by the Japanese in 1932 , she moved back to the United States for good.
Mrs. Steurt was interviewed in 1970 about her life and career in China, and the transcript of her oral history is available to read in Special Collections: Call number XC 14 OR24 ST46. She gave to us her papers shortly thereafter. The finding aid to her papers, and those of other American missionaries in China that are in our Special Collections, can be found on the web at the Online Archive of California. http://tiny.cc/12thW

Elbert Wickes Collection, specifically the Abbey Players, Dublin

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Photo of the cast of “The Far Off Hills”, by Lennox Robinson, playwright, director, and producer at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Ireland (undated, probably 1931) photo credit: De Mirjian
The Wickes Collection was assembled by Elbert A. Wickes, theatrical impresario and manager of lecture tours for world celebrities during the 1930s-1940s. The collection brings together papers and books (often inscribed to Wickes) of the celebrities whose tours he arranged; much of the material relates to the Abbey Players of Dublin whose three American tours he produced and managed. Among the papers are photographs, scrapbooks, memoranda, correspondence, financial documents and contracts, and theater memorabilia.
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playbill, Elbert Wickes Collection, Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library

Sarah Siddons in the Philbrick Collection

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Caricature of English actress Sarah Siddons by A. E. Chalon. From the Philbrick Collection in Honnold Library Special Collections.
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Manuscript note to Mrs. Inchbald by Sarah Siddons. From the Philbrick Collection in Honnold Library Special Collections.
One of Britain’s greatest stage actresses, Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) was best known for her interpretations of Shakespeare’s major women characters, especially Lady Macbeth.
In response to the number of queries we receive about our holdings of Sarah Siddons manuscripts, we are beginning to digitize our collection of her letters, manuscripts, and engravings from the Philbrick Collection in Honnold Special Collections. These digitized manuscripts will accessible through the Claremont Colleges Digital Library (CCDL) by summer 2009.
The Philbrick Collection is a major research collection on the history of English, American and, to a lesser extent, French drama of the late seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries. It is supported by an extensive collection of modern critical, biographical, and reference literature. Many of the greatest names in English theater, David Garrick, Edmund Kean, and the several members of the Kemble family, among others, are represented here in published memoirs, biographies, original manuscripts, and portraits. The Philbrick Collection consists of over ten thousand books, pamphlets, and periodicals; two thousand letters by well-known individuals associated with the theater; two hundred framed portraits, posters, photographs, and set and costume designs; a large collection of loose portraits; English and American playbills; manuscripts; and several stage models. The late Dr. and Mrs. Philbrick both graduated from Pomona College. Their collection was dedicated in Honnold Library on November 8, 1986.

Student organized exhibition

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The students of GRMT134: Stereotypes in Advertising, taught at Pomona College by Prof. Felix Kronenberg, are organizing a series of three exhibitions in Honnold/Mudd Library through the end of spring semester of Special Collections’ World War I and World War II posters and ephemera as well as imagery and advertising of current world events.
The first of these exhibitions is “Axis of Evil: Depiction of the Enemy in WWII Propaganda”. A version of this in-library exhibition is on the web here:: http://blogs.pomona.edu/grmt134-2009s/exhibit-1/
The students in this interdisciplinary course are exploring the depiction of the other in the world of advertising, looking at various stereotypes, pertaining to categories such as nationality, ethnicity, gender, or age, from a cultural studies perspective.

Yone Noguchi manuscript

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This manuscript poem, along with a letter and a photograph, were found folded into a book owned by Ramiel McGehee in Special Collections: American Diary of a Japanese Girl by Yone Noguchi (London, Elkin Mathews; Tokio, Fuzanbo, 1912) Honnold Miscellaneous Manuscripts: HM 151
Dancer and designer Ramiel McGehee was a friend of many artists and writers in the Los Angeles art scene, including Merle Armitage, Edward Weston, and in the Bay Area, poet and novelist Yone Noguchi. McGehee was a serious student of oriental art and philosophy; his book collection on Japanese art and culture was given to Denison Library, Scripps College after his death.