Awesome Archives

One of my favourite places on this planet

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 21:36:58 -0400

One of my favourite places on this planet:

sarahjla:

Shakespeare and Company, one of my favourite places on this planet, is now selling their rare books online. *dies*

fuckyeahroadtrippostcards: Yellowstone Park Map from around...

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 19:19:32 -0400

fuckyeahroadtrippostcards:

Yellowstone Park Map from around 1974

The Return of the Archivist

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 17:00:30 -0400

The Return of the Archivist:

rch-commonplacebook:

Answering the most important questions in the archives world. I mean, is there a better reason to become an archivist other than to look at really hot photos of dead guys? I’ll let you decide that one.

Dublin Core Generator

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 14:33:39 -0400

Dublin Core Generator :

meta-everything:

Library school student in my class found about this site during a “write Dublin Core in HTML META tags assignment.” Now everybody in my class uses it whenever a “write Dublin Core in this particular syntax” assignment comes up.

silentcuriosity: Men of the 14th (County of London) Battalion,...

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 12:18:06 -0400

silentcuriosity:

Men of the 14th (County of London) Battalion, London Regiment (London Scottish) halted while on a march in Maida Vale, London, on 7 November 1914.

collective-history: The Chinese Water Torture Cell is a...

Thu, 31 May 2012 21:28:02 -0400

collective-history:

The Chinese Water Torture Cell is a predicament escape made famous by Hungarian-American magician Harry Houdini. The illusion consists of three parts: first, the magician’s feet are locked in stocks; next, he is suspended in mid-air from his ankles with a restraint brace; finally, he is lowered into a glass tank overflowing with water and the restraint is locked to the top of the cell.

hadrianestou: This is how the tower of the Cathedral of...

Thu, 31 May 2012 14:35:12 -0400

hadrianestou:

This is how the tower of the Cathedral of Mechelen should have looked like, if they didn’t run out of money. With 167m it would be the highest church in the world.

perplexingly: 14th-century King Arthur manuscript, The...

Thu, 31 May 2012 12:17:51 -0400

perplexingly:

14th-century King Arthur manuscript, The Rochefoucauld Grail

wiscohisto: Here’s Aldo Leopold’s younger brother, Frederic,...

Wed, 30 May 2012 21:37:55 -0400

wiscohisto:

Here’s Aldo Leopold’s younger brother, Frederic, munching on an apple in what has to be 1904’s cutest golfing outfit. Frederic grew up to run the family office furniture business, the Leopold Desk Company.

He was also very active in the conservation movement, like his famed brother (apples don’t fall far from the sibling tree either). Frederic was particularly concerned about the fate of the wood duck, which faced extinction by the 1930s. Leopold introduced him to one of his graduate students, Arthur Hawkins, who got him started designing houses for wood ducks. He also conducted extensive studies of their mating and nesting habits.

It’s unclear what happened to his golf game after this photo.

via: Aldo Leopold Archives, University of Wisconsin Digital Collections

The Leopolds were connected with the Muries, another conservation family, and it’s their papers that I worked on during my internship last summer.

Treasure trove uncovered in a library

Wed, 30 May 2012 19:19:56 -0400

Treasure trove uncovered in a library:

While preparing for a massive renovation of its 100-year-old facility, librarians at the Russian State Polytechnical Museum found more than 30,000 pre-revolutionary books and magazines.

…

As the books were packed into boxes, the empty racks were dismantled. Behind one of these racks, the librarians found a plywood wall that sounded hollow when tapped.

“We moved the cover aside and found books behind it. When we removed the wall completely, we saw piles of books stacked up to the ceiling.” said Kukhtevich.

Stumbling onto a secret library has got to be one of the best things to happen to a person ever.

This Site is a Museum of the Electronic Sound of the Past

Wed, 30 May 2012 17:00:35 -0400

This Site is a Museum of the Electronic Sound of the Past:

thomasraukamp:

Remember when Louis CK was ranting about how everything’s awesome and nobody’s happy? If you’re one of the people who can relate to how far we’ve come along in the past decade or two, you’re going to love the Museum of Endangered Sounds.

[Read on]

art-of-swords: Silver Tibetan Dagger with pierced goldwork and...

Wed, 30 May 2012 14:41:01 -0400

art-of-swords:

Silver Tibetan Dagger with pierced goldwork and inlaid turquoise

A most beautiful dagger from the Tibetan/Bhutanese region. The sheath, grip and pommel exquisitely chiselled from gilt-silver in the finest quality pierced and openwork technique sometimes known as derge, after the Tibetan province where it originated.

The gilt-silver deeply pierced and incorporating various symbolic motifs throughout, including intertwined dragons and a garuda-like face design, inlaid with semi-precious turquoise stones.

The openwork sheath mounted on a red felt (wool) ground which forms the lining for the inner sheath to house the blade. The blade itself is a stout four-sided stiletto type designed for punching and stabbing through armour, rather than cutting with an edge. An unusually high quality knife circa 1800. 39 cms overall.

Source & Copyright: Ashoka Arts

The original 1596 first edition of the second part to Edmund...

Wed, 30 May 2012 12:14:24 -0400

The original 1596 first edition of the second part to Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene – disposed into twelue bookes, fashioning XII. morall vertues is free to view online through the Internet Archive and Public Domain Review.

smithsonianmag: During WWI, Carrier Pigeons Were Used to Send...

Wed, 23 May 2012 21:41:31 -0400

smithsonianmag:

During WWI, Carrier Pigeons Were Used to Send Urgent Messages

The British Western Front in France: Tanks kept in touch with the infantry by carrier pigeons which were released and carried messages back.

Photo: Courtesy of Nationaal Archief

Ed note: During the First World War, Allied birds outperformed their rivals and saved thousands of lives—all thanks to the efforts of one London pigeon fancier.

Trapit Discovers: Margaret Sanger Papers Project Blog

Wed, 23 May 2012 19:21:35 -0400

Trapit Discovers: Margaret Sanger Papers Project Blog:

trapitdiscovers:

Sanger with Japanese Senator Kato. Image via.

The Sanger Papers Project at New York University is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and making widely available over the Internet the work and archives of Margaret Sanger—the woman who started planned parenthood. I spent a summer working…

"All the documents of “homesteaders” stealing land from Native Americans is bumming me out."

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:03:16 -0400

“All the documents of “homesteaders” stealing land from Native Americans is bumming me out.”

- We got a range of reactions to our recent series on the Homestead Act’s 150th anniversary - from angry to enthusiastic to, well, bummed out.

The Homestead Act is a difficult document. When we think of homesteaders, most of us probably think of “Little House on the Prairie” and not the Trail of Tears*.  In many cases those recent immigrants who may have been disenfranchised at home and eager for opportunities of their own were now participating in the dispossession of another culture.   It’s hard not to be conflicted.

But as the National Archives, we are supposed to present the records in our safekeeping. Our job is not interpret them beyond explaining the context of the time, although we exist for researchers, historians, and the public to use our records to research, understand, and interpret the past. However, we don’t always have the records from both sides—a challenge faced by many researchers and historians.   As it was we could only allude to the impact on Native Americans with the digitized items that we found on short notice (thanks to some amazing colleagues who came through in a pinch), so this is a reminder to us to delve more deeply into our holdings to give a fuller idea of the documents that we hold, even if this part of history is difficult one to acknowledge.

Yes, history can get us down too: it’s full of stolen land, genocide, child labor, war, disasters and murder.  But we’re obligated to present the records of U.S. history—the good, bad & ugly. If you’re not bummed out sometimes by our posts, then we’re probably not doing our job.

Of course we hope that’s not always the case—and we appreciate everyone that took time to comment, reblog or retweet with their own opinions on these posts.

(* Admittedly the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and Trail of Tears predate the Homestead Act but the effects are similar.)

timelightbox: The Brooklyn Bridge opened to the public on May...

Wed, 23 May 2012 14:37:21 -0400

timelightbox:

The Brooklyn Bridge opened to the public on May 24, 1883.

Photographs of the work-in-progress bridge, like this one by Eugene de Salignac, are now available to the public through the New York City Municipal Archives. See more here.

mediumaevum: The Hereford Mappa Mundi is the largest intact...

Tue, 22 May 2012 21:39:57 -0400

mediumaevum:

The Hereford Mappa Mundi is the largest intact Medieval wall map in the world and its ambition is breathtaking – to picture all of human knowledge in a single image. The work of a team of artists, the world it portrays is overflowing with life, featuring Classical and Biblical history, contemporary buildings and events, animals and plants from across the globe, and the infamous ‘monstrous races’ which were believed to inhabit the remotest corners of the Earth.

0 - At the center of the map: Jerusalem, above it: the crucifix.

1 - The Paradise, surrounded by a wall and a ring of fire.

2 - The Ganges and its delta.

3 - The fabulous Island of Taphana, sometimes (possibly mis-)interpreted as Sri Lanka or Sumatra.

4 - Rivers Indus and Tigris.

5 - The Caspian Sea, and the land of Gog and Magog

6 - Babylon and the Euphrat.

7 - The Persian Gulf.

8 - The Red Sea (painted in Red).

9 - Noah’s Ark.

10 - The Dead Sea, Sodom and Gomorrha, with River Jordan, coming from Sea of Galiliee; above: Lot’s wife.

11 - Egypt with the River Nile.

12 - River Nile [?], or possibly an allusion to the equatorial Ocean; far outside: a land of freaks, possibly the Antipodes.

13 - The Azov Sea with Rivers Don and Dnjepr; above: the Golden Fleece.

14 - Constantinoples; left of it the Danube’s delta.

15 - The Aegean Sea.

16 - Oversized delta of the Nile with Alexandria’s Lighthouse.

17 - A person skiing.

18 - Greece with Mt. Olymp, Athens and Corinth

19 - Misplaced Crete with Minotaur’s circular labyrinth.

20 - The Adriatic Sea; Italy with Rome, honored by a popular heptameter: Roma caput mundi tenet orbis frena rotundi [Rome, the head, holds the reins of the world].

21 - Sicily, and Carthage, opposing Rome, right of it.

22 - Scotland.

23 - England.

24 - Ireland.

25 - The Baleares.

26 - The Strait of Gibraltar (the Pillars of Hercules).

collective-history: Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the...

Sun, 20 May 2012 23:23:37 -0400

collective-history:

Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the Destroyer or Transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power, he lives a life of a sage at Mount Kailash. In the Shaiva tradition of Hinduism, Shiva is seen as the Supreme God and has five important works: creator, preserver, destroyer, concealer, and revealer (to bless). In the Smarta tradition, he is regarded as one of the five primary forms of God. Followers of Hinduism who focus their worship upon Shiva are called Shaivites or Shaivas (Sanskrit Śaiva). Shaivism, along with Vaiṣṇava traditions that focus on Vishnu and Śākta traditions that focus on the goddess Shakti, is one of the most influential denominations in Hinduism.

timelightbox: Alice Austen, Smokers 1891. When Deputy Photo...

Sat, 19 May 2012 12:24:32 -0400

timelightbox:

Alice Austen, Smokers 1891.

When Deputy Photo Editor Paul Moakley isn’t at the TIME office, he’s working as the caretaker and curator of the Alice Austen House in Staten Island. Alice Austen was one of America’s earliest and most prolific female photographers — and now Alice, her legacy, and her home needs your vote.

Here’s how you can help preserve an important part of the history of photography:

1. Go to http://www.PartnersInPreservation.org/

2. Find Alice Austen, which you do by clicking “A - Z”

3. VOTE.

4. Log in with your facebook account. Confirm the Vote.