The Special Collections and Archives Research Center recently acquired an edition of Sir Hugh Plat’s The Jewel House of Art and Nature, published in London in 1653.

This collection of “diverse new and conceited Experiments” compiles recipes, household hints, and practical directions on an impressive variety of useful topics, including: “how to write a letter secretly,” “how to walk safely upon a high scaffold with danger of falling,” “to dry gun-powder without danger of fire,” “to help a Chimnie that is on fire presently,” “to prevent drunkenesse,” and “to help Venison that is tainted.” Mixed in among these trinkets are short treatises on “the Art of Memory,” “the Art of Molding and Casting,” a philosophical treatise on soil and marl, and even alchemical experiments. Intended to appeal to an audience as diverse as its contents, the book contains advices useful to travelers, farmers, housewives, soldiers, cooks, merchants, apothecaries, builders, distillers, and brewers, or indeed anyone who had “either wit, or will, to apply them.”

Plat frequently credits the source of his knowledge on these topics. Usually personal acquaintances, these range from seamen who shared various pieces of useful knowledge learned overseas, to clerics and barbers, to laborers and tradesmen.

Plat’s eclectic compilation provides a fascinating glimpse of the daily needs, desires, and concerns of people living and working in the mid-seventeenth century. It has an important place in the history of science, as it reflects what Deborah Harkness has called “vernacular science”—developments in engineering, chemistry, nutrition, medicine, botany, agricultural science, and physics as achieved by the common people as they  experimented and progressed within these areas. The Jewel House of Art and Nature joins other examples of this democratic genre in our rare book collections dating from the 16^th to the 20^th centuries.

What do these things have in common?

OSU is known as “the birthplace of the modern maraschino cherry industry” and Ernest H. Wiegand was the man with the plan. Before learning more about Wiegand’s work, let’s take a step back and dispel some myths about this tasty candy treat.

First off, it wasn’t actually invented here… The garnish originated in Europe and demand was fueled by Americans who had developed a taste for them in cocktails.

By the early 1900s, maraschinos were all the rage in the United States, largely bobbing around in cocktails like the Manhattan. A New York Times story from Jan. 2, 1910, captured the nation’s maraschino-cherry mania: “A young woman engaged a room at a fashionable hotel and, after ordering a Manhattan cocktail, immediately sent for another. Soon she was ordering them by the dozen. The management interfered and someone was sent to expostulate with her; also to find out how she had been able to consume so many cocktails. She was found surrounded by the full glasses with the cherry gone.” (The fruit that made Oregon famous, Verzemnieks, 2007)

However, it is not a myth that production of this bright red favorite was actually perfected just down the street from where I sit typing.

Another myth is the link between Wiegand’s work and prohibition. While there is a maraschino liqueur made from the marasca cherry and Americans clearly loved to drink, Wiegand wasn’t driven by the limits of prohibition in his work; instead, he set out to develop a method of manufacturing maraschino cherries using a brine solution rather than alcohol.

When Wiegand began his research, sodium metabisulfite was being used to preserve maraschino cherries. Some accounts indicate that this preservation method was being used long before Prohibition. Some manufacturers used maraschino or imitation liqueurs to flavor the cherries, but newspaper stories from the early part of the century suggest that many manufacturers stopped using alcohol and artificial dyes before Prohibition (Wikipedia, “Maraschino cherry”).

In any case, even for those Americans who were not looking to add the candies to their cocktails, we do know that cherry consumption in the U.S. was way up; but most were manufactured on the East Coast or imported from the other side of the ocean.

Inara Verzemnieks says in a rollicking blog post from 2006 that everything changed “the day a tall, kindly man sporting a pencil-thin mustache arrived at Oregon State University, and that’s when everything changed.”

When he arrived in Corvallis in 1919 he set out to help cherry growers solve a spoilage problem — the Queen Anne variety, which thrive here, spoiled and became mush when preserved. So from 1925 to 1931, Wiegand looked at ways to develop a new preservation process.

His final solution, which included adding calcium salts to the brine that the cherries soaked in, was revolutionary and is still the standard used in maraschino production today (Oregon Encyclopedia, “Maraschino Cherries”).

So… why bring this up today when real cherry blossoms are beginning to pop all over Corvallis? A few weeks ago Collections Archivist Karl McCreary got a fabulous new addition to our SCARC collections — a Maraschino Cherry Kit, replete with instructions and ingredients for making one gallon of Maraschino Cherries! The kit will become part of RG252, the Extension Family & Community Health collection.

• Want to make your own? The kit contents are Calcium Chloride, Citric Acid, Sodium Meta Bisulfite, Maraschino Flavor, and (of course) Artificial Color. Yes, there are instructions!
• Want to see some pretty pictures? Check out the Flickr set!

This week I took a trip to look at some records, but not the kind I would normally look at…

But the kind I might actually listen to…

A “Record Album” record

The U of O Library had a “Discover Music Sale and Music Services Intro” on April 3-4. Since I live with an audiophile and avid LP collector, we were there bright and early to explore stacks of thousands of de-accessioned vintage 78 rpm records, hundreds of vinyl albums, scores, sheet music, and books.

“Library record sale”

The range of music was incredible, from foreign language sets to adventures in reading records, square dancing to Shakespeare, jazz gems to “background music.”

Although I’m not an avid LP collector, I am avid picture taker. So I spent some time photographing some of my own favorite record album covers, which you’ll find in a delightfully colorful set on Flickr, with gems such as those you see below.

Enjoy!

Oh my, how I love a good mystery! Guest blogger Mike DiCianna has been working on this puzzler and needs the help of or blog-o-verse — so step up and put your thinking / researching caps on!

Magic Square in front of Hovland Hall

Outside the main entrance of Hovland Hall, at the base of the steps is a small bronze plaque of a “Magic Square.” Who or what group placed it there? When? What magical significance does the number 34 have to this building? Inquiring minds need to know.

We have received a couple of research requests about the magic square in the past week. Perhaps this is due to the fact that it had been covered by a trash can for some unknown period of time, but now this bronze plaque is exposed for passers-by to ponder its mystical meaning. The magic square adds up to 34, all directions, corner to corner and diagonally. At first, 1934 seemed to be a connection, but after a search of yearbooks, Barometer articles, and other assorted archive records came up blank. There does not appear to be any record of this installation anywhere — and historical researchers are never satisfied by a dead end like this!

Hovland Hall has gone through many incarnations since being built in 1919. Originally, the building was known as the “Horticultural Products Building,” and still has that name over the main door, but it was renamed for the first time in 1941/42 to “Food Technologies.” By 1950, this name changed again to “Food Industries” and again in 1952 to the “Farm Crops Building.” By the 1980s, Hovland hall was known as the “Computer Science Building.” It has also had parade of college departments tenants, acting as a home to students of Horticulture, Food Technologies, Computer Sciences, and Philosophy. Of these diverse disciplines, who would be the most likely to embrace the Magic Square?

One likely suspect is the Computer Science Department, given their love of numbers. Or perhaps this mystical, magical square is philosophical? Another clue may lay in the renovations of the building during the late 1960s when the steps were changed from their original style since the small bronze plaque does not appear to be close to a century old like its host building.

Hovland Hall, 1989. Computer Science Dept Photograph Collection, 1972-1998 (P 240)

Any information about the history and purpose of the Hovland Hall Magic Square would be greatly appreciated by SCARC. Hopefully there is someone with a memory of the event or dedication of this plaque. This little mystery begs to be solved — after all it is a “Magic” Square!

The Special Collections & Archives Research Center is pleased to announce that the Guide to the John D. Lattin Papers is now publicly available online.

The collection represents the work of entomologist John Lattin during his four-decade career at OSU and includes extensive professional correspondence, research projects, publications, Entomology Department materials, biographical and employment records, and more.

John Lattin joined the staff of the Oregon State University Entomology Department in 1955. During his time at OSU, Dr. Lattin specialized in Hemiptera or “true bugs” and conducted research on the reaction of insect populations to evolving environmental conditions such as climate change, the appearance of invasive species, logging, and the introduction of pesticides. Much of this research was focused on Pacific Northwest forests and conducted in the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest.

Lattin also served as the curator of the University’s entomology museum, a role that required him to manage and grow the university’s insect collections through cooperation with other universities, laboratories, and private collectors. In service of his students and colleagues, Lattin immersed himself in an international insect specimen trading network made up of museum curators, researchers, and hobbyists. His own field work gave him the opportunity to collect species of insects unique to the Pacific Northwest and trade them for exotic specimens from around the globe. Lattin’s correspondence is filled with records of his efforts in procuring samples for OSU and disseminating specimens from Oregon. Lattin’s research and collecting efforts took him all over the United States and abroad to the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

In a survey conducted in the mid-1970s, the OSU entomological collection was ranked in the top 25 collections of its kind out of almost 600 collections across the United States and Canada.  It grew to more than 2.5 million specimens under his guidance and was both a source of professional pride for Lattin and a valuable teaching tool for entomology, zoology, and biology students.

Jack Lattin’s instincts as a collector were not confined to insect collecting. Lattin began cultivating a personal collection of rare books on the history of entomology in the early 1950s. Though his collection was originally intended for personal research use, it became a crucial teaching tool when he began teaching an Historical Entomology class in 1955. Over the next forty years, his collection would grow to encompass hundreds of books, all carefully chosen from his worldwide network of rare book dealers specializing in entomology.

When Jack Lattin donated his entire research library to the OSU Libraries in the 1990s, the rare books of his collection were absorbed by Special Collections, where they established a strong foundation in historical entomology. Today, the collection is valued not only for its entomological content, but also as a rich source of examples in the history of printing. From gorgeous hand-colored engravings in the 18^th century to fine chromolithographs in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the collection showcases the change in scientific illustration techniques over time.

Related materials include the Entomology Department Records (RG 027), and the papers of Norman Anderson, Ralph Berry, Ernst Dornfeld, Louis Gentner, Paul Oman, Paul Ritchter, and Herman Scullen.