Peek in the Stacks

Sport, athletics, and the quest for fitness have been important parts of American life for over a century. What was originally called "Physical Culture" emerged in Europe and the US during the 19th century, and resulted in a fundamental reorientation of life and cultural ideals in the US by the turn of the twentieth century....

William Hogarth was an 18^th century English painter and printmaker, best known for his satirical and moral works. In his early career, Hogarth worked as an engraver, decorating coats of arms, bookplates, and creating illustrations for books. While he started producing his own works in the early 1720s, he did not gain significant recognition until 1731, with the publication of his first moral work A Harlot’s Progress. This work and many later moral works typically consisted of a series of paintings that told a story...

Kitty Bell, born in Paris, France, moved to Shanghai, China in the mid-1930s when she was adopted by a family who lived there. She was 8 years old when she arrived in Shanghai, and attended various schools as she grew up, including Sacred Heart in Shanghai. She also attended the Holy Ghost Convent in Tsingtao, a small seaport and industrial center on the Yellow Sea in northeast China....

James F. Dargan was born in the town of Randolph, Norfolk County, Massachusetts in 1843. Dargan was the eldest of six children born to Irish immigrants, and by the age of seventeen worked as a boot maker in his father’s shop. On September 17, 1862, at the age of nineteen, he enlisted in the Union Army, 4th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry....