March is Women’s History Month, and Special Collections is celebrating with a small case exhibit entitled “Remembering Dorothy Wordsworth.” Curated by Dr. Paul Westover of the BYU English Department, the exhibit features original material from the library’s Rowe Collection of William Wordsworth, including editions of Dorothy’s poems, journals, and travel writing (such as her account of ascending Scafell Pike in 1818). Also on view is the work of Dr. Westover’s English 374 students, who created a virtual exhibit about Dorothy in Fall semester 2019.
“Remembering Dorothy Wordsworth” will be on display in the Special Collections reading room throughout the month of March.
John Kintzing Kane, 1795-1858
L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a new digitized collection: John K. (Kintzing) Kane papers (Vault MSS 792, Series 1). This is the first series of the larger Kane family papers (Vault MSS 792), which primarily relate to Thomas L. Kane, son of Judge Kane, and Thomas’ wife Elizabeth. The John K. Kane papers series contains correspondence, biographical materials, and other documents related to early Kane family and business activities, as well as the papers of John K. Kane. It includes both personal papers and materials relating to his work as a judge and political figure. Materials date from between 1773 and 1916.
John Kintzing Kane was born May 16, 1795 in Albany, New York to Elisha Kane and Alida Van Rensselaer, and later moved to Philadelphia early in the 1800s. He graduated from Yale in 1814, and studied law in Philadelphia until he was admitted to the bar April 8, 1817. A supporter of President Andrew Jackson, Kane was appointed by him as a commissioner to settle claims with France at the July 4th, 1831 convention. Kane was appointed Attorney General of the state of Pennsylvania in 1845, but soon resigned to become a U.S. District Court judge. Kane married Jane Duval Leiper on April 20, 1819, and together they had six children, including arctic explorer Elisha Kent Kane, and Civil War general Thomas L. Kane. He died in Philadelphia of pneumonia on February 21, 1858.
Punch on March 2, 1867.
L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a new digitized collection: Philip T. Van Zile scrapbook (MSS SC 81). This is a bound scrapbook, dated 1879-1883, which contains newspaper clippings regarding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, polygamy, Van Zile’s work as U.S. District Attorney, and other activities that took place in Utah during the early 1880’s. Many items are accompanied by holograph notations by Van Zile. Also includes letters to Van Zile from William M. Thompson and Robert G. McNiece.
From Wikipedia:
Philip Taylor Van Zile (July 20, 1843—October 26, 1917) was a politician and judge from the U.S. state of Michigan. Van Zile was born in Osceola Township, Pennsylvania. After serving in the army during the Civil War, he graduated from law school at the University of Michigan in 1867.
In 1878 Van Zile accepted an appointment to the office of U.S. District Attorney for the Utah Territory from President Rutherford B. Hayes, as authorized by the Poland Act. On April 1, 1878, he resigned as circuit judge and left for Salt Lake City, where he served for nearly six years.
As part of his duties as District Attorney, Van Zile enforced existing anti-Mormon laws, including the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act and the Poland Act. In 1882 Congress passed the Edmunds Act, which revoked key civil rights from target individuals without trial or due process. Among other things it revoked polygamists’ right to vote, made them ineligible for jury service, and prohibited them from holding political office. This forced the retirement of George Q. Cannon, who had been a delegate in Congress for ten years. Van Zile subsequently lost an 1882 election on the Liberal Party ticket to fill Cannon’s seat in Congress. Of the 33266 registered voters, Van Zile received 4884 votes, while John T. Caine of the Peoples Party received 23039 votes. About 12,000 people were excluded from registering based on suspicion of polygamy.
We are pleased to announce the next lecture in our series in conjunction with the exhibit on the 200th anniversary of the First Vision:
Title: The First Vision Goes to the Movies
Dr. Casey Griffiths, Brigham Young University faculty, Religious Education
Date and Time: Thursday, February 13, 2020 @ 2pm, HBLL Level 1, Alice Louise Reynolds Auditorium
Abstract: In the 21st Century most people encounter Joseph Smith’s First Vision through the medium of film. How has the First Vision been depicted in film throughout the history of the Church? How did the filmmakers approach the translation of this sacred story from one medium to another? And how has film influenced our perception of Joseph Smith’s grand theophany?
Come join us this Thursday for what will surely be an educational and inspirational opportunity to learn more about the tradition of this seminal event in Church history!
L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a new digitized collection: Robert Taylor Burton brass band drum score (Vault MSS 16). This is a handwritten brass band drum score Burton wrote while a member of the Nauvoo Brass band in Nauvoo, Illinois.
From Wikipedia:
Originally called Joseph’s City Band, the Nauvoo Brass Band was formed in 1842 by William Pitt to accompany the public drills of the Nauvoo Legion, and became nicknamed Pitt’s Brass Band. The band performed public concerts and at various other special events.
After the death of Joseph Smith, the band met the wagon returning the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum to Nauvoo, and became part of the procession of mourners into and through the city, playing as it marched directly in front of the wagon. After the bodies were delivered to the Mansion House, they played outside the building for those that came to pay their respects while the bodies were lying in repose.
From and Ensign article by William Purdy, June 1980:
Only three members of the band arrived in the Salt Lake Valley with the first company in July 1847: William Clayton, William Pitt, and Robert T. Burton, trumpeter. However, by 6 October 1848, there was enough of a band to play at conference, and the band took a leading role in celebrating the Twenty-fourth of July, 1849.
In April 1850, the band formally reorganized itself, this time at the home of Robert Burton in Salt Lake City. Nineteen of the old members continued and four new members were added. They decided on two major projects: by July they wanted straw hats, white dress coats, white pantaloons, sky-blue sashes, and white muslin cravats to outfit every band member for the celebrations on the Fourth and Twenty-fourth of July.
January 17, 2020 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of poet and novelist Anne Brontë. Anne, the youngest child in the Brontë family, was particularly close to her sister Emily, who was two years older. Anne was too young to attend the Cowan Bridge school where the eldest Brontë girls died (immortalized as Lowood School in sister Charlotte’s novel Jane Eyre). She was largely educated at home alongside Emily by their aunt and later by Charlotte, Anne’s senior by four years.
Emily and Anne’s imaginary kingdom of Gondal, invented when the sisters were in their early teens, became an important creative force for both girls. Though none of the tales survive, many of Emily and Anne’s poems were written as part of their Gondal saga and Emily’s Wuthering Heights seems to have origins in the Gondal stories. Charlotte angered Emily by discovering her private poetry notebook in the autumn of 1845. To keep the peace, Anne revealed her own poems and helped Charlotte persuade Emily to publish a selection of all three sisters’ verse. The sisters chose masculine-sounding pseudonyms – Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell – to deflect gender-based criticism. Though they only sold two copies, favorable reviews fed the Brontës’ ambitions to become authors.
Anne, like Charlotte, earned a living as a governess; the difficulties she encountered inspired her first novel, Agnes Grey (1847). Her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) shocked and enthralled Victorian audiences with its portrayal of a woman fleeing an abusive marriage. Both novels proved popular in spite of (or perhaps because of) criticism of their coarse realism, but Anne was not able to enjoy her success. She succumbed to tuberculosis in May 1849, only a few months after Emily’s death from the same disease. After her death Charlotte suppressed The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in an attempt to protect her sister’s reputation, and over time, Anne’s work was compared unfavorably to that of her sisters. Today, both novels are regarded as major works of art for their expression of women’s independence and integrity, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is seen as a major feminist literary text.
The L. Tom Perry Special Collections has recently digitized a small collection of about 50 Arabic manuscripts. The images can be accessed at https://archive.org/details/arabicmanuscriptsbyu. The manuscripts date from the 13th to the 20th centuries, and include scientific, legal, grammatical, and religious texts (such as an 18th century Qur’an and several hadith and prayer books). A holdings list of the manuscript collection can also be found on the History of Printing Collection page.
Ansil Perse Harmon (1832-1908)
L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a new digitized collection: Ansil Perse Harmon diary (MSS 971). This is a handwritten diary documenting Harmon’s daily activities as a farmer in Holden, Utah, from 1882-1885. Also includes his patriarchal blessing.
Ansil Perse Harmon was born 5 April 1832 in Conneaut, Pennsylvania, to Jesse Perse Harmon and Anna Barnes. He was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 7 April 1840. His family was part of the exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, in the later 1840s, and eventually arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in September 1848. He would later be named a captain to two companies in 1861 and 1862, and helped bring others to Utah. He married Rosalind Chandler on 29 November 1862, and they had nine children. Harmon would move his family from Salt Lake City to Deseret, Utah that same year. He would later take four additional wives: Matilda Barnes, Mary Marcy, Harriet Mead Cole, and Lucy Marcy.
After moving to Holden, Utah, Harmon served a mission for the Church in the United States from 1874 to 1875. He served in the local bishopric in Holden for several years, and worked as a farmer in the community. Ansil Perse Harmon died on 12 September 1908 in Vermillion, Utah, and was buried in Holden, Utah.
We are pleased to announce the next lecture in our series in conjunction with the exhibit on the 200th anniversary of the First Vision:
Title: The First Vision: A Comparative Analysis between the Community of Christ and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Keith J. Wilson, Brigham Young University faculty, Religious Education
Katy Pratt Sumsion, Brigham Young University student
Date and Time: Thursday, November 21, 2019 @ 2pm, HBLL Level 1, Alice Louise Reynolds Auditorium
Abstract: Most observers of the beginnings of Mormonism view the First Vision which young Joseph Smith received in 1820 as the wellspring of this religious movement. However, up until the death of Joseph Smith, this event was seldom mentioned as the impetus for the Restoration. Historians have shown that it was not until the late 19th Century before the Vision became institutionalized in the LDS and the RLDS churches. Since then the Vision has at times dominated the narrative in both major branches of the Restoration. But in more recent times the trajectory has tapered off for the LDS and has bottomed out for the RLDS/Community of Christ. This presentation will chronical the path of the First Vision in both the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the RLDS/Community of Christ and discuss the implications of these trajectories.
Come join us next Thursday for what will surely be an educational and inspirational opportunity to learn more about the tradition of this seminal event in Church history!