Smithsonian Libraries

Want to Build Your Own Grist Mill? Oliver Evans Explains It All!

Have you ever daydreamed about the books you'd like to have with you in the event you might need to rebuild civilization all over again someday? If so, The Young Mill-Wright & Miller's Guide, written in 1795 by Oliver Evans (1755-1819), should be on your list. This book was instrumental in shaping America's industrial future, during a time when the frontier was located just along the west of the mid-Atlantic states. 

Born and raised in Delaware, young Evans taught himself mathematics and the fundamentals of engineering while learning the practical skills of wagon-making and textile manufacturing in the bustling city of Wilmington. His knack for coming up with creative solutions for improving mechanical processes would be helpful in any time period, but especially in the late 18th century when the American population was growing and expanding into new regions. 

As communities developed, residents needed mills to grind their grain into flour. However, the technical knowledge required to build and run mills was not easily acquired without spending years as an apprentice. Land-grant colleges to educate students in the subjects of engineering and agricultural science were not created until the 1860s, and the few American institutions of higher learning available in the 18th century were expensive, exclusive, and did not emphasize the study of the mechanical and practical arts.

The Young Mill-Wright & Miller's Guide explains the basic concepts of engineering, hydraulics, surveying, arithmetic, and business management so clearly that bright students with little more than an elementary education and a natural mechanical aptitude can understand them. The book is filled with instructions on how to select the best site for a mill, divert a mill-stream, construct the gears, pulleys, chutes and other necessary infrastructure, hire and train employees, negotiate with suppliers, and arrange for the transportation of the raw and finished products. Part 5 of Evans' book, subtitled "The practical mill-wright, containing instructions for building mills, with tables of their proportions suitable for all falls from three to thirty-six feet," was compiled from information supplied by Thomas Ellicott, a miller whose family business helped to develop the town of Ellicott City, Maryland and whose knowledge of a working mill operation provided a useful supplement to Evans' innovative ideas on ways to improve the traditional mechanical design of mills.   

The Smithsonian Institution Libraries has several early and modern reprint editions of The Young Mill-Wright & Miller's Guide in its collections, including the first (1795) edition. Of particular interest are two copies of the 1807 edition from the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology. The 1807 edition has a slightly modified title, The Young Mill-Wright's & Miller's Guide, with the imprint "Octoraro [i.e. Octorara]: Printed by Francis Bailey." Bailey was the official printer of the state of Pennsylvania, and he ran printing shops in both Philadelphia and in his home town of Octorara in Lancaster county. There are two different issues of the 1807 edition, which differ slightly in their type-setting (one notable difference is that the variant issue has the phrase "[Price four dollars bound.]" appearing on its title page). The Dibner Library has a copy of each issue.

The Dibner copy of the standard issue is well-used and missing some of its plates. The book formerly belonged to a family of millers named Switzer, whose ancestors settled in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Two handwritten inscriptions on the preliminary pages suggest that this text was a prized guide for running the family business: 1. "Calvin Switzer, January 5th, [18...], price 550 cents", and 2. "Used by gr. gr. father David Switzer, in the operation of his water-power mill in Madison County, Virginia, gift of Miss Edna Switzer, October 25, 1940."

The Dibner copy of the variant issue, received from the U.S. Patent Office Library, also has an intriguing provenance. The volume is inscribed on the front free endpaper by its former owner: "Department of State Patent Office, 30th Dec. 1808, William Thornton." Thornton (1759-1828) had a many-faceted career as a physician, painter, inventor, and architect. He won the national competition to design the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C., and held the honorary title of Architect of the Capitol. Not content with that achievement, Thornton went on to serve as the first superintendent of the United States Patent Office, an agency that was originally part of the United States Department of State, as indicated by the inscription. Thornton seems to have relied upon this copy of The Young Mill-Wright & Miller's Guide to guide his thinking in a patent dispute in 1827 with a man named Michael Withers. Withers claimed the right to a licensing fee from users of a milling device called a "winged gudgeon," although he was apparently not the inventor of the device. When Thornton challenged the validity of this patent claim, Withers sued Thornton for libel. The Dibner Library copy contains a short newspaper article captioned "To the proprietors of mills throughout the United States" which warns mill owners not to pay royalties to Withers. The article, clipped from an unidentified 19th-century newspaper with the dateline "City of Washington, 7th April, 1827," was quite possibly pasted in the volume by Thornton himself.—Diane Shaw

Illustration captions:

1. Title page for the variant issue of the 1807 Octoraro, Pennsylvania edition of The young mill-wright's and miller's guide, formerly owned by William Thornton. TS2145.E85 1807 c. 2 Dibner Library

2. Plate from the 1807 variant issue, with a detailed diagram showing the inner workings of a grist mill. You can visually track the route taken by the grain from its receipt in raw form at the lower right corner, through the grinding process, to the end when the ground meal is poured into barrels and loaded onto a waiting ship in the lower left corner. 

3. Another plate from the 1807 variant issue, with a cross-section of the wheel mechanism. The jaunty fish-shaped weathervane at the top of the building is a particularly whimsical touch.

4. Handwitten inscription of William Thornton, appearing on the front free endpaper of the 1807 variant issue. 

Mickey Mouse debuts in sound in 1928

After losing the rights to his original animated character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney created a new character named Mortimer Mouse who was quickly renamed Mickey Mouse. Mickey first starred in two silent cartoons in 1928: Plane Crazy and Gallopin' Gaucho.  However, Mickey's third animated appearance, in Steamboat Willie, released on November 18, 1928 had sound—and the rest is history. 

Steamboat Willie propelled Mickey Mouse to stardom, becoming Walt Disney's most popular character and one of the most famous cartoon characters in the world.  Initially he was drawn by Ub Iwerks with Walt himself providing Mickey's voice. By 1932 Walt Disney had received a special Oscar for the creation of Mickey Mouse.

Mickey would go on to star in more than one hundred shorts, appear in the 1940 movie Fantasia as the Sorcerer's Apprentice, and serve as the mascot of The Mickey Mouse Club, one of the most popular children's shows of 1950s. Mickey continues to be one of the most recognizable cartoon characters to this day, with his popularity never seeming to wane.

The two books above are just two examples from the Smithsonian American Art / National Portrait Gallery Library's pop up book collection featuring Mickey Mouse: Mickey Mouse and the Martian Mix Up and Mickey Mouse Waddle Book. Other libraries, including the Cooper Hewitt Library and the National Museum of American History Library also have material featuring this famous fellow.—Doug Litts

Happy Birthday, President Theodore Roosevelt

October 27 marks what would be the 151^st birthday of the 26^th President of the United States and youngest to hold office. He became president in 1901 at 42 years of age after the assassination of President William McKinley. Theodore Roosevelt is considered by scholars to be one of the greatest American Presidents. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end to the Russo-Japanese War and was responsible for the completion of the Panama Canal.

While known as an avid hunter, his lifelong love of the outdoors and study of natural history has been somewhat overlooked. In a new book entitled, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, author Douglas Brinkley writes exclusively about Roosevelt as naturalist, conservationist and hunter. He details what might be his greatest achievement, the creation of 150 National Forests, 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 4 National Game Preserves, 6 National Parks, and 18 National Monuments. A total of 234 million acres of wilderness preserved for future generations.

So part of President Roosevelt’s legacy is making such wonderful places as the Grand Canyon, Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, Mesa Verde in Colorado, and Dry Tortugas in the Florida Keys—just to name a few—part of our federal public lands systems. This book is available in the Libraries'  Natural History Library.—Robin Everly

The Ronald Smeltzer Rare Book Donation

A few moths ago the Libraries received two valuable rare books from Ronald K. Smeltzer, collector and bibliographer.

Nicolas Bion (1652-1733), Traite de la construction et des principaux usages des instrumens de mathematique, 3rd edition, Paris, 1725.

The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology holds the first and second editions of Bion’s work on instrumentation. However, this newly donated third edition is a much enlarged and extended version of the previous two. The lavishly illustrated volume is complete in its original late Baroque leather binding. The allegorical frontispiece is by Scotin, and the portrait of Bion was engraved by De Larmession. The work describes a number of instruments: instruments of navigation, compasses, solar and lunar quadrants, optical instruments, lunettes and telescopes, microscopes and mirrors. Due to his theoretical and practical scientific work Bion was awarded with the official title, “the engineer to the King.” Donating Bion’s Mathematical instruments Ronald Smeltzer provided us with an exquisite early edition of a classic that had been missing from the Dibner Library collection.

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society; Volume 1. Philadelphia, 1771.

The only scientific periodical to appear in America before the Revolution, and the oldest scholarly journal published in the United States with a continuous history to this day. Its first series recorded society activities and reported on scholarly research in various disciplines both in the humanities and the sciences. Today the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society is a highly respected series of monographs, five of which are currently published every year. Recent authors include John M. Forrester on the Physiologia of Jean Fernel; Michael Chenoweth on 18th-century Jamaican climate, and Joseph Mali and Robert Wokler on Isaiah Berlin. Ronald Smelzer’s donation, the 1771 first volume of the Transactions of the Philosophical Society complements beautifully our run of this important American journal.—Lilla Vekerdy

Related articles by Zemanta

• Harvard acquires Updike archive (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Darwin Anniversary Symposium: We Have the Books!

Mannen van beteekenis in onze dagen ; -- d. 6, 1876?, Portrait of Charles Darwin

This well-attended event at the National Museum of Natural History on September 12, 2009, featured ten speakers, with an introduction by Cristián Samper who reminded the audience that next year is the 100th anniversary of the Museum, which owns the largest natural history collection in the world.  Janet Browne focused on the role of anniversaries in reviewing, reassessing, boosting, or "rebooting" theories in biology. Jonathan Coddington observed how "tree thinking" in evolutionary biology was "invented" by Darwin, prospered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, then was forgotten for some time and is now back in favor. Jim Lake examined the role of cooperation in the evolution of prokaryotes, especially how two groups of prokaryotes, actinobacteria and clostridia, led to double-membrane prokaryotes (which include cyanobacteria, the photosynthetic organisms that made oxygen a significant component of earth's atmosphere). Gene Hunt noted that the fossil record helps understand the transformation of species as well as the history of life more broadly, and discussed gradualism, punctuated equilibrium, and stasis as models for the evolution of biological features. Peter Crane discussed the origin and early evolution of angiosperms. Douglas Erwin examined the Cambrian explosion, noting that "diversity begets diversity through a process of ecosystem engineering." Vladimir Nabokov, his serious interest in blue butterflies, and the evolutionary significance of butterfly wing color were the subject of  Naomi Pierce's talk. P.E. Ahlberg tackled the question as to whether fish fins and the limbs of terrestrial animals are not merely analogous but also homologous structures. Hans Sues discussed the fossil record for the origin of mammals.  Finally, Richard Potts gave an overview of what we have learned about evolution since Darwin, stressing the importance of adaptability.

The speakers cited several important books, all of which are part of the Libraries' collections. If you'd like to take a(nother) look at some of these classics in natural history, you can find them in the Libraries catalog:

• Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin.  London: Jonathan Cape, 1995-
• Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de, 1744-1829. Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres.  Paris: J.B. Baillière, 1835-45.
• Cuvier, Georges, baron, 1769-1832. Le règne animal distribué d'après son organisation, pour servir de base à l'histoire naturelle des animaux, et d'introduction à l'anatomie comparée.  Paris: Deterville, 1817.
• Prothero, Donald R. Evolution: what the fossils say and why it matters.  New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
• Hughes, Norman F.  Palaeobiology of angiosperm origins: problems of Mesozoic seed-plant evolution.   Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
• Origin and early evolution of angiosperms. Charles B. Beck, ed.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1976.
• White, M. J. D. (Michael James Denham), 1910- Modes of speciation. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, c1978.
• Johnson, Kurt, and Steven L. Coates. Nabokov's blues: the scientific odyssey of a literary genius. Cambridge, Mass.: Zoland Books, 1999.

This was also the opening day for the much-awaited exhibition,  Since Darwin: The Evolution of Evolution.

A few images from the symposium and exhibition are available here.

An Entomological Coloring Book for 19th-Century Ladies

Would a fine 19th-century British lady be likely to shriek and swoon onto a fainting-couch upon seeing these images of monstrous-looking insects?

Or would she eagerly pick up a paint brush and contemplate which colors she should use for the thorax and stinger?

The English author, physician and scientist John Hill (1714?-1775) was certain that the sight of an amazing creature like the Mottled Saw-Fly, with its bulging eyes and curly antennae, would catch the fancy of artistically-inclined ladies. How do we know? The following two-line advertisement printed on the title-page verso of Hill's book, A Decade of Curious Insects (London: Printed for the author, 1773; QL466.H646 1773 SCNHRB) provides the answer:

"Ladies who may chuse [i.e. choose] to paint these insects themselves may have sets of the cuts on royal paper printed pale for that purpose."

A prolific author renowned for his literary quarrels with such luminaries as the satirist Henry Fielding and the Shakespearean actor David Garrick, John Hill helped to popularize the study of natural history. These insects are carefully engraved in larger-than-life detail (their actual size is illustrated by the smaller versions at the foot of each plate). Hill proudly noted on the title page that his illustrations were created with the assistance of the recently invented "lucernal microscope," which used an artificial light source such as an oil lamp to enhance the magnification of scientific specimens.

Although none of the plates in the Cullman Library's copy of A Decade of Curious Insects are painted, there are other books in the collection that also attest to the talents and interests of female scientific illustrators. The best known is Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), whose artistry, skill, and love of nature—even in its most creepy-crawly aspects—is demonstrated in her gorgeous images of the insects and plants (see bottom plate) of Surinam in Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium (1705; fQL466.M57X SCNHRB).

19th-Century Mother-of-Pearl Photograph Album

We like to think we have many jewels in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' collections in the figurative sense, but here is a lovely volume bound in precious mother-of-pearl with silver filigree ornamentation and gauffered (decorative blind-stamped) gilt edges, dating from the second half of the nineteenth century.

This exquisite book, currently on display through September 7, 2009 at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City as part of the exhibition Shahzia Sikander Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection, was most likely an album for a collection of photographic portraits. The album is empty now, but the names of the Italian revolutionary Garibaldi and the French author Chateaubriand are still faintly visible in pencil on the interior leaves, which are decorated to look like picture frames.

The story behind the creation and history of this particular album is only partly known. Most likely the volume is of European origin (for instance, the lithographed pages of the album feature the French copyright notice, Déposé). The remarkable workmanship of the jeweled cover, however, may have originated in the Middle East or Asia, where there is a long tradition of fashioning decorative items using mother-of-pearl. An old ink inscription on the front free endpaper of the volume is signed Angela Matilde Aròstegui y Castillo, either a former owner or perhaps someone who presented this album as a gift.

This volume was accessioned into the Cooper-Hewitt library's collections in 1959, where it aptly illustrates the power of the art of design, combining the utilitarian album format with precious materials to create an unforgettable historical artifact. (Z269.3.F55M68 1850z CHMRB)—Diane Shaw

Edgar Allen Poe, Master of the...Mollusk?

In 1839 Haswell Barrington And Haswell of Philadelphia published The conchologist's first book: a system of testaceous malacology, arranged expressly for the use of schools, in which the animals, according to Cuvier, are given with the shells, a great number of new species added, and the whole brought up, as accurately as possible, to the present condition of the science. by E. A. Poe.  Was Edgar Allen Poe really an amateur naturalist and mollusk enthusiast, or merely an impoverished novelist willing to do anything (even plagiarism!) for a buck? 

In fact, Poe was hired to write the preface and introduction, and to translate from the French Georges Cuvier's descriptions of the animals, but it was Thomas Wyatt who originally wrote the textbook on conchology. In later years, Poe was accused of plagiarism (by his biographer and literary executor R. W. Griswold) but it seems that attributing the authorship to Poe was likely done to increase interest in the title and to avoid copyright issues with Wyatt's original publisher, Harper & Brothers.

To confuse the issue of authorship further, Wyatt's book was largely based on that of Scottish naturalist Thomas Brown, who published his The Conchologist's Textbook... in Glasgow in 1833. 

2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allen Poe.  The conchologist's first book... is the only volume "by" Poe that went to a second edition in his lifetime. The Biodiversity Heritage Library has select editions of all the titles above available in full-text if you'd like to compare for yourself!

For more information on Poe's work on conchology (the study of mollusks) Cornell University has an online exhibition Nevermore: the Edgar Allen Poe colleciton of Susan Jaffe Tane which includes images from Poe's own copy of the first edition; and The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore has bibliographic notes on the work and much more.—Keri Thompson

Botanica Magnifica

As a follow up to our post from last week…you can watch the CBS News Sunday Morning segment on Botanica Magnifica  in an eight minute clip on YouTube. Enjoy!—Liz O'Brien

Treasures from the AA/PG Library - Album of cartes-de-visite

The Smithsonian American Art Museum/ National Portrait Gallery Library (AA/PG) grew out of the Smithsonian’s National Museum, later known as the “National Gallery of Art”. In 1937 the Andrew Mellon gift of art was given to the nation to form the beginning of the collection of what is now know as the National Gallery of Art. As a result, the Smithsonian's National Gallery of Art became the National Collection of Fine Arts (NCFA). When plans were underway for the new National Portrait Gallery in 1964, the NCFA library collections were combined with those for the new Gallery. The Library collection was then developed to reflect the missions of the two museums with strong holdings in American art, as well as American history and biography. In 1980, the NCFA was renamed the “National Museum of American Art”; then in 2000 it became the “Smithsonian American Art Museum”.

The AA/PG Library's collection has many special treasures in its collection which we will feature over time.  The first is a book of cartes-de-visite featuring many prominent American artists. The carte-de-visite was a type of photographic calling card that became popular with the development of photography during the mid-19th century.  Collecting cards featuring famous people became popular - similar to collecting baseball cards today.  Collectors could then mount the cards in pages in an album like the one reproduced here. The anonymous person who collected the cards in the AA/PG Library's album must have been interested in American art because the majority of identifiable people are American artists. Future posts will examine some of those represented.

The artists represented on this first page of the album are (clockwise, starting at the top left): Thomas Sully, Samuel Morse, Sully again, and Rembrandt Peale. —Doug Litts