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Beyond the Reading Room

Anecdotes and other notes from the U-M Special Collections Research Center.
Detailed illustration from Audubon's Birds of North America of a nest in a tree with birds sitting around it.

Posts in Beyond the Reading Room

Showing 331 - 340 of 387 items
Opening page of the text of The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen. 1928 Fine Press Edition with chapter heading of red shoes and leaves.
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  • Juli McLoone
Fairy Tale Fridays: The Red Shoes
Hans Christian Andersen's “The Red Shoes” tells the story of an orphan girl whose uncontrolled desire for material pleasures and social status leads to her downfall.
Verstille's Southern Cookery book cover
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  • Rashelle M Nagar
Beyond the Recipes
Curator JJ Jacobson's guest lecture in undergraduate seminar Race and Culture in the American South (History 262/AmCult 263) introduces students to Special Collection materials at U-M while also demonstrating how to use cookbooks as primary sources.
Book Cover with an image of Uncle Sam weighing a man and a woman in an old-fashioned scale.
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  • Jacqueline L Jacobson
Pies for Pi Day
Every year, March the 14th, 3/14 or 3.14, is Pi Day. Once century, however, the date is 3/14/15, making it an extra special Pi Day. Tomorrow is such a day. In celebration, we present a Suffragist pie recipe from a 1915 suffrage charity cook book.
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  • Julie Herrada
A Recon Project in the Labadie Collection
A long-desired recon project finally gets attention.
African American woman holding a frying pan
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  • Jacqueline L Jacobson
Diverse City - African American History Month
One thread that runs through Southern cookbooks is the figure of the African American in the kitchen.
Poster for Screening Event: Food Chains documentary
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  • Athena Jackson
FOOD CHAIN$ Screening @ U-M Library: Joseph A. Labadie Collection Connection
Mark your calendars for a free screening of FOOD CHAIN$: The Revolution in America's Fields documentary.

March 3, 2015 | 4pm to 6pm | Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery
Bull's head watermark in Isl. Ms. 836
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  • Evyn Kropf
Watermark Wednesdays: Bull's head
This Wednesday's watermark feature: bull's head motifs in watermarked papers from the Islamic Manuscripts Collection
Close-up photograph of someone typing on typewriter
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  • Juli McLoone
Typist for a Day: Harlequin Creature Typing Bee
Feeling nostalgic for print-forms gone by? Or eagerly seeking the next production medium for your postmodern creativity? Either way, come join the Harlequin Creature typing bee in the gallery of Hatcher Graduate Library on Wednesday, February 18th from 11:30am-4:30pm.
A plate of chocolate macaroons on a wooden table
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  • Jacqueline L Jacobson
February Recipe of the Month: Chocolate Macaroons
Historic American recipes for chocolate baked goods are much less intense than modern ones.19th and early 20th century American recipes for chocolate cakes and cookies, such as this month's recipe from Emma Francis Voris' ca.1893 New Columbian White House Cookery are quite mild.
Louis Troncet. Arithmographe Troncet. Pour les quatre opérations. Calculateur mécanique instantané. Librairie Larousee. Paris, 19 rue Montparnasse, 19, ca. 1900.
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  • Pablo Alvarez
An Early Example of a Portable Calculator? Indeed, the Arithmographe just Arrived!
Portable calculators are older than we think. For our History of Mathematics Collection, we have recently purchased an example of a small manual calculator, whereby anyone could quickly perform each of the four basic mathematical operations. It was designed by the Frenchman Louis-J. Troncet in 1889.