Welcome again! Here is a collection (no pun intended) of recently created and updated finding aids. Our processing team is working remotely to get these resources up, and we hope you will find them useful! More to come in the near future.
This collection was processed by Processing Student Assistant Chris Babbitt.
“The scrapbook contains correspondence from Lenora Little to her boyfriend, and later husband, Bill, as well as a few letters written to friends and family. All letters within the scrapbook are hers. Due to censorship requiring all information about Army activity to be kept out of correspondence from servicemen, information about Bill, his rank, and his life in the Army are left undiscussed. Lenora mostly discusses their relationship and her life during the [Second World W]ar.”
“Le Menuet de la Cour” drawing attributed to Le Couteur
This collection was processed by Amanda Brent.
“Original pencil drawing of a couple performing the minuet, with accompanying musicians and onlookers, presumably set in a French ball. The drawing is titled ‘Le Menuet de la Cour’ which translates from the French to ‘The Minuet of the Court.’ The drawing is attributed to Le Couteur, created circa 1775. There is an inscription on the back from 1819.”
Caricature drawing of Nazi officers and onlookers singing around a piano by Zora Simeunovic
This collection was processed by Amanda Brent.
“A caricature of three men in military uniforms, presumably members of the Nazi Party, and two women making music around a piano with small dogs. The seated man on the left holding a dog appears to be an emaciated Adolf Hitler, while the standing male figure, sweating profusely, sings in German. The first words of his song appear to be ‘Ach Gott, ich bin so wud’ which may be misspelled lyrics translated to ‘Oh god, I am so dignified.’ The drawing was created by a person named Zora Simeunovic. Simeunovic is a Serbian surname.”
This collection was processed by Amanda Brent.
“Mezzotint print of ballet dancer Rose Colinette Didelot as the character Calypso from the ballet ‘Telemachus in the Island of Calypso’ attributed to Conde & Reynolds after the drawing by Charles Henard, made circa 1791. Includes a description in both English and French which reads ‘Mdme. Rose Didelot in the Character of Calypso in the Ballet of Telemachus Composed by Mr. Dauberval.’ The image features Didelot posing in classical costume and in a Grecian setting.”
Hand-colored printed broadside illustration of costumed characters from the opera “Oberon”
This collection was processed by Amanda Brent.
“Hand-colored printed broadside illustration of costumed characters from the opera ‘Oberon’ by Carl Maria von Weber, created circa 1820s. From left to right are the characters Oberon, Titania, Sir Huon of Bordeaux (written in German as Huon), Reiza (Rezia), Sherasmin (Scherasmin), Fatima, Caliph of Baghdad (Kalif von Bagdad), Roshana (Roschana), Almanzor (Almansor), and Turk Officer.”
Engraving of a scene from Act III of “The Beggar’s Opera” by William Blake after William Hogarth
This collection was processed by Amanda Brent.
“Engraving of a scene from Act III of ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ by William Blake after a painting by William Hogarth, created in 1790. The original painting was created in 1731, with multiple iterations afterwards, and the engraving was commissioned by John Boydell in 1788…The image represents a performance of [the opera] at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a theatre in London, England, in 1728. The scene depicts the opera’s central character, a highwayman named Macheath, chained and under sentence of death between his two lovers – the jailer’s daughter, Lucy Lockit, and the lawyer’s daughter, Polly Peachum.”
This collection was processed by Amanda Brent.
“Single lithograph from the bound volume ‘Ce Qu’on Dit et Ce Qu’on Pense,’ translated from the French to ‘What We Say and What We Think,’ created by the Swiss lithographer Jean-Gabriel Scheffer in 1829. The volume features multiple lithographic illustrations of various instances of people demonstrating that what they are saying to others is not what they are, in fact, thinking.”
Cordelia Jones free papers issued by the Loudoun County, Virginia court
This collection was processed by Elizabeth Beckman.
“Free papers for Cordelia Jones, a free Black woman, in Loudoun County, Virginia. The paper declares that she is ‘free born’ and the daughter of Mary Jones, register no. 548. The paper gives a detailed physical description of Cordelia, including her height and scars. The papers are signed and sealed by Charles Binns, the Clerk of the Court.”
This collection was processed by Amanda Brent.
“Content warning: Racist imagery. Harper’s Weekly broadside featuring a double page illustration by Thomas Nast of the Grand Masquerade Ball – also known as the Bal d’Opera – at the New York City Academy of Music, which was held on Thursday, April 5, 1866. The illustration features caricatures, drawn by Nast, of famous and important people of the 1860s surrounding a scene from the ball itself.”
St. Emma’s Military Academy catalog and postcard
This collection was processed by Elizabeth Beckman.
“St. Emma’s Military Academy was a school for African American boys in Powhatan, Virginia. It was founded in 1895 as the St. Emma’s Industrial and Agricultural Institute…The school was located at Belmead, which had been a plantation where Philip St. George Cocke enslaved hundreds of Black men, women, and children…Program catalog and postcard sent by a student from St. Emma’s Military Academy, a high school for African-American boys in Powhatan, VA. The catalog, probably created in the 1930s or 1940s, contains details about the course of study and life at the school. The postcard, from 1943, is written by Ernest Noble to his mother Sadie Noble in New York City.”
Image: Detail from Lenora Little scrapbook, C0326, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.
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