Category: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts
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Japanese Soldiers and Civilians during the Second Sino-Japanese War
In 1937, the Empire of Japan invaded the Republic of China, setting off the Second Sino-Japanese War. This conflict–later a part of the much larger Pacific War, the Asian theater of World War II–was the result of many years of Japanese imperialist expansion into Chinese territory, which was fragmented and under the control of various […]
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Lemons or Lemonade? Thomas H. Jones picks Lemonade
It will probably come as no surprise to faithful readers of this blog that I have fallen in love again. My newest historical boyfriend is Thomas H. Jones, a Black soldier in the 4407th Quartermasters Service Company who served in Europe during World War II. We know, from plenty of evidence, that Blacks were not […]
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The Curious Style of William Steig
William Steig is best known as a writer/illustrator of children’s books—or, if you’re younger than forty, as the inspiration for the DreamWorks animated film Shrek. But Steig didn’t begin writing books for younger readers until he was sixty-one. For much of his career he was most well-known as a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, […]
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Joseph Castaldo’s Graphic Score
Joseph Castaldo (1927-2000) was a composer of classical music and a teacher of music theory and composition. He was a talented musician, but at the very early age of 11, he had begun to compose his own pieces and after he returned to the United States after a stint in the United States Army Band […]
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Irene Eber’s “Choice” to Tell Her Story
In the past, when I have studied the Holocaust, my thoughts tended to focus on the people who were murdered and the survivors who witnessed the horror, knew about siblings, parents and kids being killed, and lived with the memories. I had not really thought of the children who were either too young to remember […]
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Unexpected Music: Binding Waste of Folio GrC Ar466 Ef54 1537
The use of manuscript waste in bindings has been a delight to me ever since I first encountered it. As a print cataloger, my professional commerce with manuscripts is largely limited to these fragments, but fortunately the Kislak Center’s Incunable Collection and Culture Class Collection have put more than a few instances of such waste […]
Unique at Penn 