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Newly published in the Claremont Colleges Digital Library is a collection of original architectural drawings of some of the buildings that comprise the beautiful campus of Scripps College, one of the seven institutions of The Claremont Colleges consortium.

Founded in 1926, Scripps College was the first undergraduate institution added to The Claremont Colleges, a system of linked educational institutions organized by Pomona College (1887) in 1925-26.

Architect Gordon Kaufmann prepared a comprehensive campus plan for Scripps College in 1926, and during the next thirteen years, designed eight buildings for the campus, including residence halls, academic buildings and a walled garden. The buildings are Mediterranean in style and are laid out among formal gardens, courtyards, and lawns designed by landscape architect Edward Huntsman Trout.

The Scripps College Architectural Drawings collection includes architectural drawings for Eleanor Joy Toll Hall (1927) and the Ella Strong Denison Library (1931).
FMI, contact Denison Library 909-607-3941 or denison@libraries.claremont.edu

From our collection of art photography, a portrait photograph of Mexican composer Carlos Chávez by Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo, inscribed by Chavez in 1934. Print dimensions: 2 7/8 in. x 3 3/4 in.

Carlos Chávez received formal training as a pianist, but was largely self-taught as a composer. He grew up during the period of intense nationalism in Mexico brought about by the end of the Mexican revolution. His investigation into native folk music and dance were a significant influence in his music. Chávez was also a distinguished teacher and had an active conducting career, working with nearly every major symphony orchestra in the United States, Europe and Latin America.
Álvarez Bravo studied painting and music in Mexico City; in 1922, he began to take photographs. Through his life he knew many of the artists and writers who lived or visited Mexico including Tina Modotti, Diego Rivera, Paul Strand, and Cartier-Bresson, to name a few. In 1930, when Modotti left Mexico, he provided illustrations for Francis Toor’s book Mexican Folkways. In 1938 he met André Breton; Breton published some of Álvarez Bravo’s photographs in Minotaure.
Álvarez Bravo influenced younger generations of photographers in Latin America because of his subject-matter, which often focused on indigenous peoples, and because in his work he combined awareness of current trends in international photography with an appreciation of his own country’s traditions.

For Memorial Day, a World War I poster from our collection of world war posters: “Knowledge Wins…Public Library Books are Free”. This is one of several posters commissioned by the American Library Association. This particular poster was designed by Daniel Stevens, an American illustrator originally from Philadelphia, who was best known for his depiction of Western Americana scenes.

During WWI, ALA created the War Service Committee, which established more than 30 libraries at training facilities and other encampments for soldiers.

Newly digitized from the Bodman Collection, Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library are eleven autograph, signed letters written between members of the Medici family of Florence and others in their social and political circles, including Angelo Poliziano, the Sforza family, Palla Strozzi, and Francesco Guicciardini. Written between 1426 and 1522, these letters touch on a number of issues urgent to the House of Medici including military campaigns, political associations, and the trials of family life.
1478, 20 September:

In 1483, Lorenzo de’ Medici gave his Villa Diana to the poet and then tutor of the Medici children, Angelo Poliziano. In the twentieth century, Harold C. Bodman (1886-1960) and his wife Ysabel acquired the Villa Diana, making it their home of some years. Poliziano’s villa sparked Bodman’s interest in collecting the works of Poliziano and those works produced at the time by the Medici’s “think tank” of humanist scholars, philosophers, artists, and writers. Mr. Bodman’s studies in this area led him to assemble his splendid collection, which he gave to Honnold Library from 1956 to 1960.

Please come visit our new exhibit “Commission for Relief in Belgium, 1914-1930”. It is located on the 2nd floor of the Honnold/Mudd Library. It will be up from Febrauary 16-27, 2009.

Continue reading “Letter from the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce to Reuel Olson”

Special Collections at Honnold/Mudd owns a significant number of 17th century pamphlets, primary sources that are invaluable for scholarship and that form the highlight of this show. Using these pamphlets as documentary evidence, graduate students of Dr. Lori Anne Ferrell’s course “Britain’s Wars of Religion, 1642-1649” examine various aspects of Charles I’s life leading up to, and beyond, his execution. Categories considered are Charles as Exile, Charles as Traitor, Charles as Criminal, Charles as Absolute King, and Charles as Saint.
The exhibition will be on view November 24, 2008-January 30, 2009, in Honnold/Mudd Library.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a discussion and presentation of the pamphlets will take place as part of CGU’s History Forum Series, December 4, 2008 at 4:00 pm, in the Founders Room of the Honnold/Mudd Library.
The presentation is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.