century

This rare second edition of Journal of researches... is the final definitive text of Darwin's "first literary child," revised to reflect his developing ideas on evolution. It chronicles his historic five-year voyage on the Beagle to Brazil, Argentina, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Peru, the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, Australia, and other countries and islands along the way. This journey was the most important event in Darwin's intellectual life.

This charming binder served as the exhibition catalog for Man Ray’s second show at the Hanover Gallery in London (April-May 1969). The exhibition featured mid-career painting and sculpture from the 1940s and 50s, with clear stylistic references to Man Ray’s peers, such as De Chirico, Picabia, and Kandinsky. The metal ring binder is polished aluminum, silk-screened in bright red. The yellow-bordered pages include an essay by Man Ray, 17 illustrations (7 in full color), and a checklist.

In the early 1900s, wood sculptures from Africa (long regarded as curios in the West) suddenly caught the attention of Picasso and other artists who were intrigued by the stylized treatment—simple yet powerful—of human and animal figures. Their experiments with this “new aesthetic” announced the beginning of Modernism, the shift from realism to increasing abstraction.

Lectures on Painting contains three lectures given by James Barry (1741-1806), John Opie (1761-1807), and Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), with an introduction by Ralph Nicholson Wornum (1812-1877). The three lecturers were all members of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and they were, as well as Wornum, prominent artists of their time. In addition to being an artist, Wornum was also an art historian, administrator, Keeper of the National Gallery in London, and Secretary for the National Gallery's Trustees.

In 1913 Martha Ornstein, a Barnard College and Columbia University graduate, published her pioneering doctoral thesis on the intersection of scientific advancement and the rise of scientific societies. Her work helped form what would become the "New History" movement of the 20^th century, which helped broaden the study of history and allowed for more diverse and inclusive interpretations of it. This volume is a third edition of her thesis, published in 1938 and acquired by the Smithsonian in 1944. It offers a concise history of the rise and role of certain scientists, societies, j

In Booker T. Washington’s landmark autobiography Up From Slavery, he gives one of the earliest accounts of the "Black Belt." This term was first used geographically for the band of dark, rich soil that runs through the Deep South.

In the lead up to 1963’s March on Washington, several of the decade’s most prominent African American artists joined together in a collective called Spiral. Their efforts culminated in a two-day exhibition in June of 1965. This catalogue is the record of that exhibition; it features an illustrated checklist with works from Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, and more, as well as a complete list of the collective’s members.

Published five years after his death, the editor of Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois incorporated selected works related to certain passages’ subjects. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was an African American author and civil rights activist who focused on advancing education and representation for African Americans. The last of his three autobiographies, this work expanded on his previous essays to provide a new reflective perspective on his 9 decades of life.

How fast could you write a 300 page book? Sensationalist journalist Jay Henry Mowbray turned out this edition of Sinking of The "Titanic" (complete with illustrations and ready for sale) by May 11, 1912, less than one month after the ship struck that infamous iceberg. Speed puts this book into a curious genre—the “instant book.” The instant book narrates a contemporaneous event through a collage of sources, like government hearings or embellished descriptions, coalesced by journalists, then sold door-to-door as soon as possible. But why the need for speed?

This multiple was created by George Maciunas, ostensible leader of the avant-garde movement Fluxus, in conjunction with Yoko Ono’s 1971 retrospective This is Not Here at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY. Yoko Ono, artist, peace activist, and widow of John Lennon has used smiles as a recurring theme since the 1960s. "It is the simplest thing to make yourself healthy and make others feel good," she says about smiling.

This very rare copy of the second edition from 1752 was once owned by rocket scientist Frederick Ordway III, spaceflight visionary and consultant on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, this work of fiction by Voltaire is a work akin to Gulliver's Travels, but set in outer space.

President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were opponents who became close friends. Although their views and methods differed, Douglass had the President’s ear and could give him advice on recruiting African Americans to win the Civil War, emancipation, and how to treat freed slaves. They met inside of the White House three times. Douglass was fortunate to congratulate Lincoln in person at his second Inaugural Ball, just six weeks before the president was assassinated. This book was written by a CUNY Graduate School history professor who specializes in slavery and the South.

Johann Amman (1707-1741) was a Swiss-born doctor and botanist who actively corresponded with both Hans Sloane and Carl Linnaeus. Johann Amman did much to advance the study of botany in Russia—his 1739 Stirpium Rariorum was one of the first botanical works to be published by the Russian Academy of Sciences at Saint Petersburg, at which he was Chair of Botany. In addition, he cultivated a number of the specimens described in the book in the Academy’s Botanical Garden, which he founded.

This seemingly insignificant, slim volume is the catalog for a groundbreaking exhibition curated by Sam Wagstaff at the Detroit Institute of Arts. A renowned curator and collector, Wagstaff is best known as the benefactor of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and poet-musician Patti Smith.

The Expedition Citroën crossed Africa (from October 1924 to June 1925) to establish a reliable automobile link between French territories in West Africa and Madagascar. Tourists, businessmen, and government officials would be able to travel in comfort, riding in Citroën’s new half-track vehicles and lodging in specially built, rather luxurious accommodations. The sixty-three photographs included in this volume are invaluable records of people, customs, and dwellings seen along the way.  The most iconic image is the head elongation and elaborate coiffure of the Mangbetu woman.

Authentic early images of West Africans are rare—and quite sought after. David Boilat offers us just such a portfolio in Esquisses Sénégalaises, published in 1853. The twenty-four color plates are remarkable for their attention to details of clothing, jewelry, hair styles, skin color, and facial features. His accompanying text describes, with remarkable equanimity for his time period, pertinent customs and behaviors ranging from the admirable to the deplorable—all judged from the local point of view.

This 1773 collection of poems was the only edition of Phillis Wheatley's work printed in her lifetime. Wheatley was first brought to the United States at age 7 or 8 to be sold into slavery. She was purchased by John Wheatley of Boston and taught to read and write. Having been tutored in the classics by Mrs. Wheatley, Wheatley began to write poetry herself and became well-known for it in Boston's domestic circles. A trip to England in 1773 brought her under the patronage of the Countess of Huntingdon who arranged for this 1773 English edition of her poetry to be published.

On August 31, 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer rode a bus with 17 other African Americans from her hometown of Ruleville to Indianola, Mississippi to register to vote. She was refused her legal right to register. When she returned home, she was fired by her employer and her family was thrown off the land where they had been sharecroppers. This injustice lit a fire inside Mrs. Hamer and put her on a path to becoming an important leader for the Civil Rights Movement in the South. This book tells the life story of this strong, indomitable woman who marched with Dr.

This copy of a 1784 tribute to the Montgolfier Brothers was owned by the author, Comte d'Imbert de La Platière. A tipped-in engraved portrait of the author appears at the end of the book. Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier invented the globe aérostatique, a hot air balloon made of fabric and paper, and tested its flight through summer and autumn 1783 in France. The first manned, untethered flight took place in a Montgolfier balloon piloted by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes on November 21, 1783 in Paris.

The beautiful embossed cover of this 1884 book hints at the delights found inside this paean to the big wheel bicycles of the late 19th century. The author S. Conant Foster was an avid cyclist himself, and his collection includes poems both humorous and somber. One is an ode to a fellow member of a Boston cycling club who died in 1880. But most are lighthearted celebrations of bicycling, and many feature lovely illustrations, including one by renowned American artist Childe Hassam.

This is a large, thin book with vivid black and white photos throughout. As a young Washington Post reporter covering jazz during the 1930s through 1940s, the author William Gottlieb (1917-2006) took many pictures of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Dizzy Gillespie.  Before he died, he willed for all his photographs to be put in the public domain. This was carried out four years after his death. The Golden Age of Jazz consists of more than two hundred photos and captions, which are visual thrills for jazz fans.

The author of this book, Arnold Shaw (1909–1989) was a songwriter, pianist, composer, and music publisher who wrote a dozen books on 20th century pop music, including two books on Frank Sinatra and a biography of African American pop sensation Harry Belafonte. He founded the Arnold Shaw Popular Music Research Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1985 and taught there for a decade. This 600-page long guide to the history of R&B has eight parts, with seven chapters each. Those chapters are broken out into 25 sections each, which are called grooves.

In the words of the author himself, this tome is responsible for "the bringing to light of many curious facts, so far as I am aware, never before noticed" about the role of ale and beer in the history of mankind. Starting in ancient Egypt, Bickerdyke traces the evolution of beer and brewing up through the late 1800s.

Julius Rosenwald (1862–1932) was a businessman, billionaire and philanthropist. His net worth was $80M at death (equaling about $1.4B today).  He was half owner of Sears--he saved the company during the infamous financial panic of 1893--and he donated millions to educating African Americans in the South in the 1920s. He also donated to the Tuskegee Institute. In this biography, Mr. Ascoli paints a portrait of Julius Rosenwald, aka, "JR." This book, which was signed by the author, has 450 pages and features black and white photographs.

This copy of one of Jules Verne’s most celebrated adventure tales has an elusive past. With no publication date, an annotation on its inside cover dated ‘1925,’ and a blind stamp minted 1932 on the title page from the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences, this book presents just as much wonder itself as the story it features. The Smithsonian Libraries Research Annex (SLRA) discovered that this copy of Verne’s work, among others, had been released by Chicago-based publisher M.A. Donohue in the early part of the Twentieth Century.

First published in 1942, Beryl Markham's "West with the Night," account of her expatriate life in Africa as a well-born English woman, horse trainer, and bush pilot was well received by critics, including Ernest Hemingway. She was the first woman to fly from Europe to North America solo in 1936. Her original book was re-published in the 1980s and was acclaimed by new readers who made it a best seller. This particular edition was published in 1989 and contains photographs and illustrations not in the original work.    

The eponymous “stubborn dirigible,” Zep, goes against orders during a flight in order to save his crew and passengers from a terrible storm in this children's book. In the wake of many zeppelin disasters in the 1930s—both in America and abroad—this book resists disaster and excites the young imaginations who looked to the sky for inspiration and adventure. Published by Rand McNally and Company in 1935, The Stubborn Dirigible was one of many children’s books released by the famous cartographic corporation.

Irish author Thomas Keightley, who was active during the 19th century, is considered a pioneer in the field of modern folklore studies. In his groundbreaking work, "The Fairy Mythology," he concludes that similar myths developed in different locations spontaneously, in the vein of the Brothers Grimm's approach, in which they compared the myths of one region to similar tales in other, unrelated regions. This upended the widely held belief that there was a common source to similar myths.