Littlejohn Collection

Pamphlets and Books from the Littlejohn Collection Part II

In this post I want to show you just a couple of the interesting rare books that will be part of the Littlejohn Collection.

I'll start with the younger of the two items: The History of the American Indians, by James Adair. This particular volume was published in 1775 (coincidentally a conspicuous year in American history), and is sometimes referred to as "Adair's Indians." The first image here is the title page, which contains the very long but period-appropriate full title.

This work by Adair was one of the first anthropological or "scientific" works considering Native Americans.
Below is the table of contents, and below that image is a detail from that page.

Detail:

You will note the heading I have focused on: "Observations, and arguments, in proof of the American Indians being descended from the Jews." This was a very trendy theory of the time, and is yet another excellent example of European colonists attempting to incorporate the existence of these aboriginal people into their world view. (The most illustrative example of this practice is, of course, Columbus calling the natives he encountered "Indians," a usage meant to buttress his claim that he had found a western passage to India.)

Adair, with rhetorical flourish typical of his era, argues his theory in page after page -- almost 200 in all -- before moving on to other observations of the Native Americans of the Southeast.

Those readers familiar with religious history will note that this Indian-Jewish hypothesis is similar to that asserted by Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormonism, and ostensible author of the Book of Mormon. It is not too far of a leap to guess that Smith got some of his ideas regarding the Native Americans from Adair's book, or one similar to it. (For more on this, check out this list of books about Native Americans pre-dating the Book of Mormon. It is from a website authored by former members of the LDS Church.)

This well-cared for tome also includes a very nice fold-out map depicting the American continent as it was then understood.

Let's move on to an even older book: The Anatomy of Plants with an Idea of a Philosophical History of Plants, by Nehemjah Grew, M.D. This item was published in 1682, nearly one hundred years before "Adair's Indians." Below is an image of the title page:

You may have noticed a very distinct feature of this book (which was also present in the Adair images). Often, in words that you'd expect to contain a lower-case 's,' there will be a letter that looks quite similar to a lower-case 'f.'
Look at these details of the words 'History' and 'pass':

These are variants of the same phenomenon. This letter is known as the "long s," and would have looked totally unremarkable to a 17th or 18th century reader, although by that time it was in its (relatively) last days. The long 's' is a remnant of the switch-over from handwriting to printing. (Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid-1400's; the long 's' was out of use in the U.S. after the 1820's.) For those who are confused by the rules of use for the long 's' (as I often am), check out this informative blog post: "The Rules for the Long S."

Here are a few images of the "dedication" pages of the book, in which you notice prolific use of the long 's':

This dedication also serves as something of a summary of the book. Now, I'm no biologist, but if you give it a quick read I'd imagine that we'd agree that Doctor Grew's terms (and spellings) are quite unlike those we use today.

In closing, let me share with you an image (and its detail) from the appendix this book. The illustrations are marvelous in their detail and painstaking clarity.

Detail of image above:

As I said, this is just a small sample of the books that will be in the collection -- we expect to have at least 1000 books of great diversity in the collection.

Pamphlets and Books from the Littlejohn Collection Part I

Today I want to showcase some items from a part of the collection that I have neglected in previous posts. I may have mentioned in earlier posts that the Littlejohn Collection at Wofford College will contain some books, but I have yet to share any with you.

Mr. Littlejohn collected a wide variety of published materials: hardbacks, paperbacks, pamphlets, art books, picture books, rare books -- the list goes on. I'll come nowhere close to doing the breadth of the collection any justice in this brief post, but I would like to post a few examples from the collection.

A considerable strength in the collection in terms of published materials is the number of 19th century pamphlets. There are now several dozen here in the Black Science Annex. A considerable portion of them date from or discuss in some manner the American Civil War or War Between the States. The one I am about to show you, however, bears only a tenuous connection to that era -- but that doesn't make it any less interesting.

 

These first three images are from a Senate report from the Committee on Internal Improvements and is dated May 30, 1855.  As you will see, it is concerned with "the use of Camels on the Plains."

As the country expanded during the 1840's and 1850's locomotive technology and rail construction lagged behind as the frontier surged West. The main mode of transportation was horse and mule, yet frontiersmen noted that these animals struggled to  cope with the dry and hot conditions in the Southwestern desert.  Apparently, several public figures touted camels as the solution to this problem. One of these figures was none other than the future President of the Confederate States Jefferson Davis. In 1855, the year in which this pamphlet was published, Davis had risen to the office of Secretary of War in the Pierce administration. With his blessing, camels were procured from the Middle East, and the fascinatingly ill-fated U.S. Camel Corps was born.

These next images are of a pamphlet published in 1915 entitled: "Lincoln, as the South should know him." What is interesting, to me at least, about this pamphlet is the context in which it was written. In 1915, the Great War (or World War One) was raging in Europe, but the United States had not yet entered the war (and would not do so until 1917). You will notice from the excerpts on the title page (second image) and from the text of the opening page (third image) that a main motif of the pamphlet is the comparison between the acts of Germany's Kaiser and those of Abraham Lincoln.

To give my two cents, I suppose what I find interesting about this pamphlet (aside from the convergence of historical events - 'history making history,' to coin a phrase) is that the author appears to be trying to kill two birds with one stone: a) making an argument for isolationism (the platform on which Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1916) by minimizing the acts of the Kaiser, while b) making a villain out of Lincoln by recounting and emphasizing the inhumanity and brutality of his actions. (Note that the pamphlet was printed by a chapter of the Children of the Confederacy; not to imply that all ex-Confederates or descendants thereof are or were so vehemently anti-Lincoln.)

Please keep watch for the conclusion of this post (Part II), which will feature some very old and very interesting rare books in the collection.