On the occasion of his 200^th birthday, a twenty-panel traveling exhibit celebrating the life and achievement of Louis Braille will be on display from June 18 to July 12 in the lobby of Middleton Library.  In conjunction with this event, Special Collections in Hill Memorial Library invites you to view a new exhibit, on display in the library’s lecture hall, related to the history of disabilities.  This exhibit highlights a wide range of materials from LSU’s rare book and manuscript collections.  In addition to Braille, examples of early alternative writing systems for the blind, such as the Moon and New York Point Alphabets, are featured, as well as a map for the blind dating from about 1873.  Other materials, including a Helen Keller letter, trace the history of caring for the deaf, dumb, blind, and mentally handicapped from the eighteenth century to the present.  One exhibit case focuses on Louisiana history and includes photos and other materials related to state institutions for the disabled.

Stanocola Refinery Band

Exhibition features photographs from 1909

On display through August 15, 2009

In 1909, Standard Oil executive John Adam Bechtold was one of a team sent by Standard Oil to establish operations in Baton Rouge.  On April 13, 1909, Standard Oil filed a charter in Baton Rouge. An excerpt from that document outlines the magnitude of activities planned by the company:

To prospect and bore for, mine, market and sell petroleum and gas; to purchase, transport, sell, produce, refine and export petroleum and its products, and to manufacture the by-products therefrom arising; to buy and sell naval stores; to lease or construct, maintain and operate pipe lines, with proper pumping stations and storage tanks for the distribution and storage of petroleum or gas, and in connection therewith, to erect, maintain and operate a telegraph or telephone line or lines; to charter, own and operate ships, tugs, barges and other vessels for the transportation of petroleum and its products, and to lease or own or operate wharves and docks, tanks, cars and other equipment necessary for the transportation of petroleum and its byproducts by land or water, and generally to have, hold and exercise all such incidental powers and privileges as relate to the objects herewith above set forth.

Fortunately for us, Bechtold was an amateur photographer, who was fascinated by the great adventure of building a refinery.  He focused his lens on the construction, catching mule teams as they graded earth to build the refinery, men as they wait to be paid, the destruction caused by the 1909 hurricane, and the arrival of the first trainload of crude from Muskogee, Oklahoma.  He also photographed family and friends, giving us a glimpse of Baton Rouge at a time when horses and mules still provided much of the transportation in town and the Stanocola Band provided entertainment at civic events. 

The exhibition includes more than 30 images reproduced from an album the Bechtold family put together, which has been preserved and passed down to Mrs. Marna Shortess, J.A. Bechtold’s granddaughter.  More than a dozen images in the original album are also on display, as well as materials from the Libraries’ Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, which show the importance of Standard Oil and its successor companies in the history of Baton Rouge. 

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “map?” The tattered road atlas stuffed under the seat of your car?  The large wall map in your dreaded high school history class?  Or perhaps more romantic images of one-legged pirates and treasure maps marked with a big red ”X”?

A new exhibition at LSU Libraries Special Collections explores the many different kinds of maps that have been produced from ancient times to the present as well as the many different meanings they have had.  “Mariners, Meridians and Monsters: Exploring the History of Maps in Fact and Fiction,” will be on display in the upper gallery of LSU’s Hill Memorial Library beginning March 23 and running through August 15, 2009.

Highlights of the exhibition include Abraham Ortelius’ 1579 world atlas, Peter Heylin’s Cosmographie (1679), early maps of the Pacific and the poles, an 18th-century reproduction of the ancient Roman road map known as the Peutinger Table, archeological maps from Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, and even a map for the blind. There are also sections on humorous maps, maps in fiction and mythology, and bird’s-eye views.

The second half of the exhibition is devoted to maps of Louisiana. Included are Louis Hennepin’s 1683 map of North America (the first map to name Louisiana), important maps of the Mississippi River, an early Spanish plan of Baton Rouge, manuscript maps of local plantations, and a wide selection of other maps tracing the history of the Civil War, LSU, and tourism in Louisiana.

The library is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. When classes are in session, the library is open Tuesdays until 8 p.m.

For more information on the exhibition, contact Michael Taylor, assistant curator of books, at (225) 578-6547.

In November 2006, Nancy Sharon Collins, a New Orleans stationer, rescued several cases of steel dies from a stationery shop that flooded during Hurricane Katrina.  Many of the dies date back to the early 1900s and are valuable not only from an artistic standpoint, but also as artifacts documenting the social history of New Orleans. 

Ms. Collins recently donated this  collection to the LSU Libraries’ Special Collections.  In recognition of her generous gift, a selection of dies, along with engraving tools and several specimens of stationery, are currently on display in the Hill Memorial Library lecture hall. 

“To me,” Ms. Collins writes, “each idiosyncratic letter, each imperfectly cut line on those preciously wrapped, funny, sugar-cube sized blocks scream a special language, a specific time and a now-familiar place called New Orleans…. If we think of these hand-engraved dies as discreet representatives of real individuals… we can imagine their stories and dream we know something about their lives.”

The exhibition will be on display through March 28, 2009.  For more information, contact the Special Collections information desk at (225) 578-6544.

“Audubon at Oakley: Louisiana Selections from Birds of America” and “The Pathway of Promise: 1500 Years of Religious Texts and Moral Guidebooks” open on December 1, 2008 and run through February 28, 2009. Each exhibition showcases treasures from our holdings, including John James Audubon’s original pencil sketch studies and a variety of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious texts from the Middle Ages to the present.

While the two exhibitions focus on very different subjects, both examine devotion to and exploration of the natural and spiritual world. Each, in its own way, invites us to gaze skyward, to heaven.

For more information, visit www.lib.lsu.edu/special/exhibits.

Images:

Detail from Noah and the Flood, Biblia de San Luis, 13th century
Detail from Carolina Parrot, plate 26, Birds of America folio edition