Pseudoscience consists of a body of knowledge presented as being derived from scientific experiments and methods while simultaneously failing to present evidence of its veracity. Belief in various pseudoscientific ideas has been widespread in different historical periods, and even in the present day. The 19th century in particular saw a flourishing of pseudoscientific ideas, including spiritualist ideas ...
This week's blog post explores several cookbooks from our Culinary Collections, focusing on one main ingredient – corn. Corn is a coarse grain with origins in the Americas. Although its birth place is debated, Mexico is often cited with a date range of 5,000 to 25,000 years ...
Baedeker's travel guides, produced by publisher Karl Baedeker and his descendants beginning in the 1830s, were hugely popular with European audiences travelling around neighboring European nations and the far-flung reaches of their colonial empires. Baedeker wanted travelers to find ....
Found in the Arnold Court Collection on Polar Exploration within Special Collections & Archives are two official reports of USRM Corwin, one from 1881 and the other 1884. Both are essentially ship’s logs that report information including weather conditions, navigation coordinates, reports on ....
Ours is a society anchored on identity--whether a screenname you use online, a driver's license with your name and physical description, a passport that allows you to come and go in particular countries, or the absence of any of the above. Passports and identification documents in the Old ...
Today you might take a class online and correspond with a teacher and fellow students through an online learning management system like Canvas. Before the Internet, there were a number of ways that students connected with education, including printed correspondence courses sent through the mail. Correspondence courses served as an early form of distance education, and allowed for the flow of ideas and cultural norms...
Trade cards are small, rectangular cards that typically have promotional text on one side, and a decorative image on the other side. These cards first became popular in the late 17th century in major European cities, and became extremely popular in America beginning in the late 19th century. The increase in domestic products and the desire to advertise them led to the widespread printing and distribution of trade cards...
Playing the classical guitar is an art that many people appreciate and enjoy. However, an often overlooked but equally important art form is the building of the guitar itself. The craft of making string instruments, or lutherie, requires extensive knowledge of the many properties of wood and the ability to utilize and manipulate...
Sex and gender play important roles in our culture and daily lives. Sex is a biological difference based on the primary sex characteristics which include the traits essential for reproduction. Gender is the socially-created and learned distinction that specifies the physical, behavioral ....
The Richard Fish Collection documents the career of professional photographer Richard Fish. Fish’s work combined the technical and philosophical influence of his mentors with a personal sense of artistic and emotional depth, creating a complex and distinctive style of ...
