Published: Germany, 1934 Walter Gropius, a noted pioneer of modern architecture, founded the Bauhaus in 1919 in Weimar, Germany. The school focused on architecture, design, crafts and art with the goal of imbuing students with an understanding of the arts and craftsmanship. Students at the Bauhaus trained in workshops that provided practical, hands-on experience across disciplines. The workshops stressed collaboration with industry and the production of high-quality items that could be mass-produced and sold at a reasonable price. The most commercially successful products to come out of the Bauhaus workshops were the wallpapers designed in the mural-painting workshop. Bauhaus wallpapers […]

Published: New York, 1933 Variously praised as a major exposé and criticized as unfounded sensationalism, this wake-up call to American consumers, describing the harmful chemicals found in products they used every day, was a bestseller when it was published. Who could resist such thought-provoking chapter titles as “A Steady Diet of Arsenic and Lead,” “Prescriptions, Magic, and Poison,” and “The Quack and the Dead”? The MIT community certainly couldn’t resist. The Libraries accessioned this book on 1 February 1934. Very little time had passed since its publication, and interest in the title hadn’t waned. Our copy’s date-due slip is covered […]

Published: Washington, 1932 Francis LaFlesche was the son of the last Omaha head chief. He eventually became an ethnologist for the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution. Among many notable accomplishments, his effort to capture and preserve a record of tribal culture yielded hours of recordings of Osage chants and ceremonies that would otherwise have been lost forever. The Library of Congress, which now holds the recordings, considers LaFlesche’s Osage work “very probably the most exhaustive documentation of complete Indian ceremonies ever produced.” This volume, published the year he died, remains the definitive dictionary of the Osage language […]

Published: Paris, 1931 The use of cameras was not permitted during deliberations at the League of Nations (1919-1947), but the press corps did include pictorial reporters, illustrators, and cartoonists. Among them were the creators of the Testament de Genève. After meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1922, Aloysius Derso and Emery Kelen, both Jewish expatriates from Hungary, would collaborate for some thirty years. Known for their humorous reports on current affairs and politics, they directed their gaze and their wit to the goings-on in the world of diplomacy at the League of Nations. In the Testament de Genève, Derso & Kelen’s […]

Published: Boston, 1930 When the Boston Stock Exchange was organized in 1834, the typical trading scene was a far cry from the chaotic, electronic scene of today. “In the old days,” we learn, “there were no telephones, no tickers, no wildly gesticulating crowds. A ‘seat’ was a literal fact at that time, for every member had a particular chair and desk and was forbidden to trade out of it.” The text maintains this light and informative tone. At the same time, though, the Exchange exploits the opportunity presented by this publication to boldly endorse its own existence. It reminds readers, […]

Published: Philadelphia, 1929 85 years before MIT’s sesquicentennial, the United States celebrated a 150th birthday of its own. The Sesqui-Centennial International Exhibition was held in Philadelphia from May 31 through November 30, 1926 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. As the introduction to this text breathlessly declares, the fair “invited the American people to assemble at the most sacred spot on the American continent; upon the most important date in the entire history of political liberty; and to commemorate an event farther reaching in its effect than any which has transpired since the […]

Published: New York, 1928. Walk into any rare book library and chances are the librarian could retrieve a modest selection of fine leather bindings. Made from materials of the highest quality and crafted by expert hands, these bindings are generally found on books befitting such special treatment – literary landmarks, important first editions, and unique manuscripts are good examples. It’s much less common, however, to see a fine binding on an ordinary Funk & Wagnalls English language dictionary from 1928. This particular dictionary was bound for and sold by Yamanaka & Company, a prestigious international firm specializing in Asian art […]

Published: Baltimore, 1927 Upon graduating from MIT in 1881, Edward Royal Warren left his native Massachusetts and headed west to the silver fields and mining camps of Colorado. He worked for 20 years as an engineer, all the while observing Colorado’s wildlife. Around 1900, he began to devote himself entirely to natural history. In the 40 years that followed, this “amateur” became the foremost authority on Colorado’s mammals, writing the two go-to books on the subject, in addition to publishing nearly 100 articles on mammals and birds. One indication of the esteem in which his colleagues held Warren is the […]

Published: London and New York, 1926 Countless people love Shakespeare’s Tempest. As with so much of Shakespeare, there are also innumerable people who don’t think they know the play at all but who still, in a sense, can be said to love it too: it’s filled with such beautiful imagery and such gorgeous poetry that pieces of it have become treasured parts of our shared language. Full fathom five thy father lies Of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and […]

Published: New York, 1925 This survey of French bridges was printed in France in an edition of 1000 by the American Institute of Architects. MIT’s copy is number 841. It’s tied prettily with three golden cloth ribbons – a charming but practical feature, since the folio pages are not bound, and could otherwise become separated from the volume. That’s one reason why this book and others like it (whether because of age, scarcity, or fragility) are shelved in the secure and climate-controlled Limited Access Collection of MIT’s Rotch Library. The frontispiece quotes Paul Séjourné (a French engineer who was awarded […]