Special Collections was open on Saturday, October 24th, and we had about 35 visitors for Family and Friends Weekend.  Some came with very specific interests, including viewing the 1711 charter of the William Penn Charter School signed by Penn and with his great seal, but others came in as family clusters and were drawn to the displays we made available for them.  There was a good bit of ooh-ing and ahh-ing, as they inspected:

• The 1711 King James Bible and its miniature version
• A 1683 plat survey of Philadelphia by William Penn’s surveyor, Thomas Holme (see illustration), which is essentially the  lay-out of Philadelphia even today

• Amos Nattini’s lithographic illustrations of all 100 cantos of Dant’e Divine Comedy, along with a miniature version of the famous text
• The Germantown Quaker Protest Against Slavery, 1688, the first such protest in North America
• Maxims by William Penn published in the Select Works of William Penn, 1771, along with a miniature of the maxim on Time
• A photograph of a dorm in Barclay with army gear in evidence in the 1940s when a percentage of the students were army men
• A pointed letter by Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas to his friend Fred Rodell, class of 1926, indicating dismay at a meeting of the other justices while he (Douglas) was away that overturned his vote for a stay of execution in the Rosenberg spy case
• And last, but by no means least, the extraordinary illustrated chemistry notebook of Maxfield Parrish while a student at Haverford in 1890.

The event by all counts was most satisfactory.

The publication of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium caelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) caused a stir among both scientific and religious communities in the mid 16th century. Postulating that the earth turned on its axis and with the other planets orbited the sun, Copernicus’s work challenged the long-held theories of Ptolemy that claimed the earth was the center of the universe. Likewise, De revolutionibus was condemned by the Church for challenging the centrality of man and the literalness of the Bible. Haverford’s copy includes underlinings and marginal annotations in two hands, including passages to be censured. This volume is part of the William Pyle Philips Collection of Rare Books, which contains many fine volumes representative of Western humanistic thought.

“The Haverford Hebrew Bible” was a gift of J. Rendel Harris, 1890. Part of the J. Rendel Harris “Oriental” Manuscript Collection, the Bible is the oldest Hebrew Bible located in North America and one of the treasures of Special Collections. In addition to the standard columns of biblical text, each page of the Haverford Hebrew Bible is bordered by intricately woven lines of textual marginalia that serve as a concordance on selected passages of the main text. Side margins are decorated with colorful abstract ornaments and at the beginning and end of the volume are “carpet pages,” richly colored patterns of diamond shapes and interlocking chains that resemble the patterns of carpets.

This exceptional bible was copied in Spain in 1266 by “Solomon, son of Moses.” Remaining in Spain until the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, the Bible then made its way to Egypt. Three further changes of ownership are documented in the Bible itself: one in 1714-15, one in 1755-56, and the last in 1890 when it was acquired by J. Rendel Harris, professor of Ecclesiastical History at Haverford. Harris’s gift of the Bible plus 46 additional Semitic language manuscripts form the nucleus of the J. Rendel Harris “Oriental” Manuscript Collection.

The Germantown Quaker Protest Against Slavery of 1688 is best known as the first organized protest against slavery to have been penned in North America. Written by four Germantown Quakers, this extraordinary document raises objections to slavery on both moral and practical grounds at a time that Pennsylvania Quakers were nearly unanimous in their acceptance of the institution of slavery. It took another 88 years of activism among a growing number of Quakers before the Society of Friends would completely denounce slavery among its membership, and by this time the Germantown Quaker Protest had been completely forgotten. The document came to light again in 1844 and served as an important tool to the Quaker abolition movement of the 19th century. It was misplaced in the 20th century and was only re-discovered in 2005 in the vault of the Arch Street Meeting House. This document is but one famous example of the extensive records of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, which are divided between Haverford’s Quaker Collection and Swarthmore’s Friends Historical Library. A larger image and transcript of the protest can be found in Triptych: the Tri-College Digital Library.

The artist and illustrator Maxfield Parrish attended Haverford for three years but did not graduate. Among the many items in the Parrish collection is his notebook containing descriptions of thirty-three chemistry experiments carried out between February 7 and May 23, 1890, as well as a preliminary outline of laboratory procedures and equipment. In addition to the text written in india ink in Parrish’s distinctive hand, many of the experiments are illustrated with fanciful and highly decorative watercolor and ink drawings. These illustrations range from small head and tail pieces to double page representations of experiments being carried out by elfin lab assistants. The Chemistry Notebook is prized not only as a record of academic activity at the end of the 19th century but also for its unique glimpse into the formation of an important artistic talent. While sanctioned artistic outlets were very meager during Parrish’s tenure at Haverford, the college has since amassed a fine collection of artworks, most of which are available for personal study in Special Collections.

William Penn’s publication on The Excellent Priviledge of Liberty & Property was the first American printing of his translation of the Magna Carta and Haverford’s copy is the sole surviving example. In addition to the text of the Magna Carta, Penn includes in his pamphlet a summary of his charter for the colony of Pennsylvania, the Second Frame of government, and the Constitution of 1683. In all, the small publication serves to express Penn’s views on the political and civil rights of his colonists as English citizens. Once owned by Phineas Pemberton, an original member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and passed down to his grandson John Pemberton, the volume was deposited at Haverford by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1932. Additional material relating to the establishment and early governance of Pennsylvania may be found in the Papers of William Penn and other parts of the Quaker Collection.

The first printing of Shakespeare’s complete plays of 1623 is known today as the “First Folio” and it might rightly be considered the Holy Grail of rare book collecting. Haverford owns a copy of the First Folio as well as each of the three subsequent printings of 1632, 1663/64, and 1685. In addition to the texts of the comedies, histories, and tragedies, the First Folio contains what many consider to be the most authentic engraved portrait of Shakespeare. Originally selling for £1, surviving copies of the First Folio have set record prices at auction in recent years. Haverford’s four Folios were purchased at auction in 1946 by William Pyle Philips HC ‘02 and together with over 100 other titles form the core of the William Pyle Philips Collection of Rare Books. The collection reflects Philips’ life-long interest in Shakespeare as it contains many of the poet’s works, texts that inspired him, texts of his time, and works inspired by him.

Flight print by Joan Miro

When the Nazis occupied Paris in June 1940, thousands of European refugees fled to the south of France. In August of that year, the young American journalist Varian Fry arrived in Marseilles with a list of imperiled refugees taped to his leg. Over the course of the next year Fry, on behalf of the Emergency Rescue Committee, arranged for the escape of over 1,200 artists, politicians and intellectuals, most to the United States. His work was secretive and dangerous, and ultimately he was expelled from France for protecting Jews and anti-Nazis.

In the mid-1960s, in order to raise funds for what by then had become known as the International Rescue Committee, Fry began assembling a collection of prints on the subject of refugee flight. Twelve artists contributed to the project including several whom Fry had saved during the war: Eugene Berman, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Viera da Silva, Adolph Gottlieb, Wifredo Lam, Jacques Lipchitz, André Masson, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, Edouard Pignon, and Fritz Wotruba. 300 copies of the portfolio were produced in 1971 before the artists destroyed the plates.