Contents: (Volume 20, number 2 -- Fall 2004)
October 20: Greek Gods, Human Lives: What we can learn from myths by Diane Speare Triant '68
From the Co-Chairs by Ruth R. Rogers, Special Collections Librarian, and Polly Gambrill Slavet '67
In Adamless Eden: A decade later by Patricia Ann Palmieri
This year's Ruhlman Conference
Special Collections receives gift of rare botanical books
Time to renew? / New Postcards
Andrea Hodgins-Davis '04: Talk with the animals by Alice B. Robinson '46
From the Librarian: Deserted
Library? Not at Wellesley
Micheline Jedrey, Vice President
for Information Services and College Librarian
In 2001 an article appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education that sparked heated debate about the future of libraries. Written by Scott Carlson and entitled "The Deserted Library," the article presented the case that, because of the availability of information resources on the Internet and the resulting changes in research behavior, the physical library building was becoming irrelevant. Reading rooms would be empty and libraries would be reduced to information warehouses. These predictions have not proven to be true for Wellesley. Alumnae who attended the June 2004 Clapp Library tours sponsored by the Friends were witness to the tall towers of books waiting to be reshelved after having been used by students and faculty during the spring semester. We have maintained a steady level of circulation activity of physical items, despite an enormous increase in the e-resources |
to which the Library subscribes. Based on sample counts of individuals entering the Library, the level of traffic has also remained constant, even though students no longer need to come to the "reserve room" to obtain required readings for their coursework because most articles are now provided in electronic form. Why does the Library remain such a vital center of learning on this campus? If it is not simply that the books are |
here, what draws the community to this place? Here are my answers. First, a group of skilled and helpful staff members are ready to guide and assist you to find the information you need to accomplish your work. Second, you will discover beautiful and inspiring settings to do your work that offer ample and comfortable study spaces and access to the latest technologies. The most recent renovation of Clapp Library's entry level, completed in spring 2003, provides clear evidence of the benefits of reinvesting in library buildings, with increased use of the resources and facilities located here. Finally, you will be vividly reminded of both the permanence and the constant renewal of the learning enterprise, surrounded by the record of our intellectual past and by students and faculty who are creating the knowledge of the future. The Library is a place where you can find your own spot along this continuum of scholarship. |
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October
20: Greek Gods, Human Lives: In a season that has seen the ancient Olympic games return to Athens, and a new adaptation of the Iliad reach the silver screen, the Greeks are in fashion. In fact, they have been for the past 3,000 years. The allure of the classical world's philosophy, culture, and art is timeless. Dr. Mary Lefkowitz '57, The Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Classical Studies at Wellesley, wants to make sure that the ancient religious practices are appreciated as well. "Nothing, or virtually nothing, happens without the gods," she writes in her acclaimed book, Greek Gods, Human Lives. Or, as the chorus at the end of Sophocles' tragedy, Women o f Trachis, puts it, "None of these things is not Zeus." Readers who minimize the role of the gods in the Greek and Roman myths and narratives misinterpret their meaning. In her book, Lefkowitz analyzes the storylines of classical works such as Oedipus Tyrranus, the Odyssey and the Aeneid, demonstrating the influence Apollo, Athena and the other deities exercised over mortals. |
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"The polytheists or 'pagans' had some serious religious ideas, even though we monotheists condescend to them," Lefkowitz says. "The book encourages a multi-cultural approach to religion." Lefkowitz is preeminently qualified to understand Greco-Roman worship. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate in Greek at Wellesley, she received her Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Radcliffe, holds honorary doctorates from Trinity, Grinnell, and the University of Patras (Greece), and is an Honorary Fellow at Oxford. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, and other distinguished publications, Lefkowitz also has spoken on national radio and television. When Lefkowitz addresses a Friends of the Library audience on October 20 (4:15 p.m. in the Clapp Library Lecture Room), she will describe a religion very different from our own notion of divinity. The Greek gods, like today, are undying, powerful, and revered. Yet they "exist primarily to please themselves, not to serve humanity," concerning themselves with the human condition only in sporadic and unpredictable ways. It is a religion of realism, where difficult conditions, defeat, and death suffuse the myths as they do mortal life. When the gods do choose to intervene, they provide the moral structure. In Homer's Trojan War epic, the Iliad, Zeus facilitates a Greek victory because the Trojans have violated the laws of hospitality in abducting Helen. When modern-day interpreters ignore the gods, as they did in the summer film, Troy, that moral component collapses. "Leaving out the gods suggests that mortals can control what happens," Lefkowitz says. "But the Iliad sends the opposite message. It shows clearly how the gods, if they choose, can determine the course of the war and [the just fate] of the combatants." Realizing, though, that the intervention of the gods is capricious, the ancients learned self-reliance. "It is a religion for adults, offering responsibilities rather than rewards," Lefkowitz concludes. "These same stories can still provide a guide to life in our own times." |
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Katherine McCanless Ruffin, Book Arts Program Director (far right), demonstrates letterpress printing for a group of young alumni touring Clapp Library during Reunion weekend. |
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From
the Co-Chairs
Ruth
R. Rogers, Special Collections Librarian, and Polly Gambrill Slavet
'66
It was wonderful to see many of you this spring at our exciting Friends of the Library programs. These included "Treasures in Your Attic" featuring Ken Gloss, noted book appraiser; "Women of Mystery," with alumnae mystery writers Katherine Hall Page and Diane Mott "Davidson; and a - workshop on screwpost albums with Book Arts Instructor Katherine McCanless Ruffin. Each program was well attended and enriching.
At Commencement, the Friends honored the 33 graduating seniors who have worked in the library during their college careers at a reception with their parents in the newly renovated Sanger Room and Brackett Reading Room.
Friends board members Debby Rempis and Pamela Worden have created a new series of Friends of Library postcards from archival photos depicting Wellesley in the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s. The newest postcards, as well as photographs from past Friends of the Library events, can be seen at our website, www.wellesley. edu/Library/friends.html
With great enthusiasm we announce that Susan Fromson Saul '65, and Margaret Darasz Hadzima '73, have become the newest members of the Steering Committee. And with the deepest gratitude for her tremendous service to Wellesley's libraries, we announce the resignation of Lia Gelin Poorvu, '56, one of the founding members of the FOL.
On Wednesday,-October 20th-,--our fall program will feature alumna and faculty member, Mary Lefkowitz '57, discussing her most recent book, Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn From Myths.
This Newsletter is the last developed by Wanda Lankenner MacDonald '72, our Newsletter Editor for the past eight years. Wanda is stepping down due to the demands of her teaching career in the English Department at Tufts University, but plans to continue serving on our Steering Committee. Julia Hanna Brown '88 is currently making the transition with Wanda to take over the job of Editor. (See interview, page 6.)
Thank you to our many loyal and generous supporters, and welcome to our new members and life members. Our FOL Endowment Fund drive has passed the $58,000 mark, and is still growing toward our goal of $150,000. We look forward to sending you updates about your dollars at work for Wellesley's libraries.
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Mystery food writers Diane Mott Davidson '70 and Katherine Hall Page '69 revealed their modus operandi in Collins Cinema on April 25 under the expert questioning of moderator Phyllis Meras,'53, former editor of Wellesley. Prior to the panel discussion, 90 mystery fans of all ages gathered under sunny skies outside Collins Cafe to taste-test sugar and spice cookies from Page's The Body in the Cost, lemon butter wafers from Davidson's The Lost Suppers, and other delicious treats concocted by the caterer/sleuth protagonists in the authors' mystery novels.
At left, Gigi Barnhill, Program Committee Chair; Phyllis Meras; Diane Mott Davidson; Katherine Hall Page. |
Calendar |
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August 24 - November September 13 - October 8 October 13 - December 2004 October 20 November 10 |
In Adamless Eden: A Decade Later
Patricia Ann Palmieri
In her recent New York Times review of Mona Lisa Smile, Katha Pollitt cited In Adamless Eden, my book documenting the entirely female and feminist Wellesley faculty community of 1875-1930. Pollitt reminded her audience that at its beginning, Wellesley was a beacon of feminism, and that Mona Lisa Smile captured the later conflicts and diminished expectations of what Betty Friedan termed the era of the "Feminine Mystique." During the Progressive Era of Wellesley's founding, many male college presidents and professors worried that career-minded, single women graduates would flood the professions and feminize them, and attacked Wellesley's academic community as a feminist citadel. In particular, many early alumnae followed the example of their female professoriate and resisted marriage, opening themselves to accusations of "race suicide." But by the 1930s, Wellesley's founding generation appeared to be unusual-giants who would not be replaced. With World War II, even Wellesley recruited more "happily married" male faculty. By the 1950s, institutions and popular culture had changed. The separatist female worlds of women's colleges no longer seemed fashionable; male professors were "privileged," and marriage elevated.
Nevertheless, President Diana Chapman Walsh was right in noting that Mona Lisa Smile is fiction, for the film does not capture the richness of 1950s Wellesley. The professor, played by Julia Roberts, who supposedly brings a free-spirited, rebellious West Coast sensibility to a sedate art history department, is a caricature. And many angry alumnae from the film's era wrote to the New York Times, taking issue with its one-dimensional portrayals of their intellectual lives. In the 1950s, Wellesley's art history department was not a backwater, but innovative: women went on to graduate school, embracing careers over home economics. Innovations in teaching art history and in interpreting new movements were alive and well. This more complex picture fits with recent revisionist historical interpretations of the 1950s generally. Joanne Meyerowitz's edited volume, Not June Cleaver, for example, looks beyond stereotypes. She notes in her essay that even the women's magazines from which Friedan derived mangy, of her ideas carried articles about women in careers and in politics. What Mona Lisa Smile does robustly capture are the student-faculty relationships and women's culture that survived from Wellesley's founding years into the 1950s. Against new social currents, friendship and the bonds of Wellesley triumphed.
Still, it is important to remember that just as homosexuals were considered a menace during the Eisenhower era, so were single women. During these years, women graduates deviating from the larger cultural prescription were no longer looked to as exemplars. Under attack, feminism fell silent until reborn in the 1960s. Since women's college graduates led that rebirth, Wellesley remains an important, indeed strategic, academic institution in American culture. One expression of Wellesley's renewed significance is Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Today, when I contemplate the pioneers about whom I wrote, women such as Katharine Lee Bates, Vida Dutton Scudder, Katharine Coman, and Emily Greene Balch, I believe that despite enormous social and technological change, they would recognize that their intellectual achievements, political engagement, and commitments to each other and to the College remain prized and applauded. Linking knowledge and service, this remarkable community of women shaped successive generations of students, influencing still the direction of American political and social culture.
Patricia Ann Palmieri, Adjunct Associate Professor of History, St. John's University, and Adjunct Lecturer in Modern American History, FIT/SUNY, is the author of In Adamless Eden: The Community of Women Faculty at Wellesley (Yale University Press). She is currently at work on her second book, Chances Are: Staying Single in America in the 20th Century.
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This year's Ruhlman Conference, held April 28, 2004 offered a rich array of student presentations. Included among the offerings was a talk by students titled "Not Your Average Book: A Semester in the Book Arts Lab."As a bonus, participants were guided through the process of creating their own keepsake of the event. |
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The Ruhlman Conference fosters collaboration among students and faculty across the disciplines and offers an opportunity for members of the Wellesley College community to come together in celebration of student achievement.
The 2005 conference is scheduled for May 4.
Special Collections Receives
Gift of Rare Botanical Books
Ruth R. Rogers,
Special Collections Librarian
When David W. Swetland telephoned Special Collections last winter and said that he would like to donate a book in honor of his wife, Jean (Tommy) Thomas Swetland '43, his casual manner belied the magnitude of the 19th century "opus" he intended to give. The books, which arrived several months later, were as massive in size as they are in antiquarian renown. Measuring 23"x19" and weighing about 40 pounds each, the two-volume folio first edition of Dr. Robert Thornton's Temple of Flora (1799-1810) is one of the most famous botanical books ever printed. Twenty-eight gorgeous, full-page flower prints are preceded by extravagant calligraphic title pages, portraits of nobility, allegorical poetry, and mythical scenes, justifying its description as a monument to England's romantic idealism.
Thornton dedicated the book to Charles Linnaeus, whose pioneering work in plant classification he admired. Driven to bankruptcy to publish it, Thornton gave his entire fortune to this work, sparing no expense on artists or materials. He hired many of the most famous artists and engravers of his time, who incorporated combinations of mezzotint, aquatint, stipple and line engraving, and exceptional hand coloring. Prized by collectors for its art more than its botanical use, it is not surprising that very few complete copies exist, most having been taken apart and sold as separate prints.
The Friends of the Library played an important role in Mr. Swetland's gift to Special Collections. When he and his wife Tommy were visiting the Library during her Reunion in 2003, they attended the tour of the Library's fourth floor, sponsored by the Friends. They took such delight in seeing the rare books and spending time printing a keepsake in the Book Arts Lab that they decided to support the Library by donating their fine copy of Thornton's Temple o f Flora. With deepest gratitude, and in honor of David and Jean Swetland, we will share this treasure with the Wellesley College community in an exhibition of the books, along with other botanical works from Special Collections, in the fall of 2004. See the Calendar in this Newsletter for details.
After enjoying a tour of Special Collections sponsored by Friends of the Library, David W. Swetland donated the two-volume work in honor of his wife, Jean (Tommy) Thompson Swetland '43.
An exhibition of this and other botanical works will be on display at Clapp Library from September 13 to October 8.
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"Tulips" from Dr. Robert Thornton's
Temple of Flora. |
Changing of the Guard
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The fall is a time for reflection as well as new beginnings. In the following conversation, outgoing Newsletter Editor Wanda Lankenner MacDonald '72 (left) shares thoughts on her eight-year term with incoming Editor Julia Hanna Brown '88 (right). |  |
JHB: What professional experiences preceded your taking the job of Newsletter
Editor?
WLM: When I succeeded Liz Cabot in 1997, I'd been teaching secondary-
and college-level writing since earning my Ed.M. from Harvard in 1990.
Before teaching, I'd been editing and writing since my graduation from
Wellesley. My first job was as Assistant to the Editor of the New
York Review of Books; my last before
Harvard was as a textbook editor at
D.C. Heath. As Assistant Director of Public Information at Harvard Business
School in the late '70s, I published a faculty/staff newsletter.
JHB: When you started as Editor, what was your goal?
WLM: During my first year, I existed awash in particularities: my goal
was simply to stay afloat. The Newsletter was a four-page, desktop
publication then, but commissioning articles to showcase the libraries'
holdings and demonstrate their needs, getting articles in shape on
time, and seeing them through production with Documents Librarian Betty
Febo - this was huge. When June Stobaugh took over as alumna Co-Chair,
my job got even bigger! She recognized the Newsletter as FOL's major
outreach and proposed doubling its size and upgrading its look to reflect
this
importance. June was a dynamo-she suggested articles, took photos, conceptualized
layout-and we worked
together as a team. I concentrated on the editorial, developing my sense
of its scope and voice. For example, I added "From the Librarian" to
provide a context for each Newsletter's articles through Mich Jedrey's
unique knowledge and experience.
JHB: You've been Editor for eight years. Is there a highlight?
WLM: The high point was compiling "Echoes of the Past: Voices and
Views" on the 125th anniversary of the College's founding. For me,
the libraries have always existed in the wider context of a Wellesley
education and its meaning. As the anniversary approached, I drew on College
Archivist Wilma Slaight's help in giving a voice to the founding figures
of the College's and Library's first 50 years.
A special center section, the piece presented many quotations epitomizing
the aspirations and devotion of the female professoriate that defined
Wellesley at its beginnings. A sequel in the next issue did the same
for the next 75 years. I'm especially grateful to Pat Palmieri for agreeing
to revisit her incomparable In Adamless Eden, from which I borrowed material
for the first 50 years, in this last issue for which I commissioned articles.
JHB: Looking back, what do you feel you've achieved?
WLM: The very best Newsletter issues, in my estimation, have been those
in which I've done the least, just asked
others to write about what they know best. Overall, I've tried to produce
an informative, concise, clear-voiced record of the truly humbling variety
of ways in which the Wellesley College libraries, those who work in them,
and those who use them to teach form the heart of a Wellesley education.
As I work with my Tufts students - I've been a lecturer in English there
since 1999-I realize as never before how much I learned as an undergraduate
from studying with gifted faculty like Beverly Layman, Robert Garis,
and Arthur Gold and from using the College libraries. I'm thankful for
the chance the Friends have given me these last eight years to act on
my gratitude for the education I use every day.
please send a check payable to:
Debra Carbarnes, Friends of the Library,
Wellesley College Library, 106 Central Street,
Wellesley, MA 02481-8239
or use our new secure online Membership form
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Andrea Hodgins-Davis '04:
Talk with the Animals
Alice B. Robinson '46
Deeper, richer, more meaningful communication-isn't that what all of us seek? Not one to let language or speech limit her aspirations, Andrea Hodgins-Davis has pursued communication in the animal kingdom. Always interested in animal behavior, she wondered how she could study the topic at Wellesley. The answer emerged out of a course in cetacean biology and conservation offered through the Maine Studies Consortium at Brandeis University. Through that course she met Dr. Patrick Miller of MIT, who invited her to work with him on several killer whale communication studies. That led to a summer as an intern at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Then, from February to June 2003, Hodgins-Davis served in Antibes, France, as an acoustician and general project manager for a study of whale vocal learning.
Hodgins-Davis spent her senior year concentrating on her Honors thesis, which called called on her knowledge of physics and computer science as well as biology. "In January I hit a place in my thesis where I needed to work with completely unbroken concentration," she recalls. "I would show up at eight or nine every morning with a gigantic box of spectograms in one arm and my laptop computer on my other shoulder." It was in her thesis carrel in the Science Library that she brought order out of the seeming chaos of pulsed calls, whistles, and clicks, finding eleven discrete call types and several subtypes.
Hodgins-Davis was also a member of Shakespeare Society and played flute for Fiddleheads, the on-campus Celtic band. The New York native says that Wellesley's academic reputation and focus on women's education were two of the main reasons she applied. She especially appreciated working with Professor Emily Buchholtz, her adviser and senior project director in the biology department. Overall, Andrea says her Wellesley education "helped me learn methods of critical thinking across a variety of disciplines." What lies ahead? In August, Hodgins-Davis landed a job as a research assistant at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where she will study the genetics of zebrafish
Friends
of the Library
Steering Committee 2004-2005
Diana Chapman Walsh '66
Founding Member
Mary E. Jackson '24
Co-Chairpersons
Ruth R. Rogers
Polly G. Slavet '67
Newsletter Editor
Julia H. Brown '88
Production Editor
Debra Carbarnes
Photo Editor
Dorothea Widmayer '52
Steering Committee
Georgia Brady
Barnhill '66
Molly S. Campbell
'60
Barbara Coburn '52
Carol Cross DS '02
Beverly M. Dillaway '78
Kerin D. Fenster
'64
Kathryn K. Flynn, ex officio
Julia Hanna Brown '88
Margaret D. Hadzima '73
Deborah Holman '89
Micheline E. Jedrey
Janet Si-Ming Lee '98
Katherine H. Page '69
Elizabeth Pierre '97
Deborah T. Rempis '68
Alice B. Robinson '46
Susan F. Saul '65
June M. Stobaugh '66
Diane S. Triant '68
Pamela W. Turner '65
Mary Jane Waite DS '01
Virginia B. Wickwire DS '81
Dorothea Widmayer '52
Pamela Worden '66
Emeritae
Claire M. Broder '61
Janice L. Hunt '52
Lia Gelin Poorvu '56
Elinor Bunn Thompson
'37
Sigrid R. Terman '47
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Wellesley College Library, Date created: September 7, 2004, Last modified: September 16, 2004