Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, began after the American Civil War as a ceremonial way to remember the soldiers who gave their lives for the country. The first official Memorial Day was celebrated May 30th, 1868. It was a day where Americans would tend to the graves of soldiers and decorate them with flowers in remembrance. There were also poetry readings and orations given. The Sheridan Libraries has copies of some orations delivered on Decoration Day in the 1880's, along with books of poetry written for Memorial Day.

Over the past 150 years, Memorial Day has become a day to honor the people who have given their lives for their country. This year, why not stop by Fort McHenry or Loudon Cemetery for Memorial Day or try this Memorial Day quiz.

For those of you still in the area, please note we will be closed Monday to commemorate the holiday. Our abbreviated scheduled for both buildings will begin Tuesday.

Summer Hours

• Mon. – Sat., 7:30 A.M. – midnight
• Sunday, 1:00 P.M. - midnight

As early as 1876, Daniel Coit Gilman alluded to engineering being a useful part of a university curriculum. Still engaged in working out the details of creating this University, he did not wish to take on the task of determining how engineering could fit into the curriculum. Up to that time, engineering training had focused on teaching mechanics how to assemble and repair machinery. Engineering was seen as an essentially pragmatic field that would not benefit from the University’s philosophy of “learning by doing” (i.e., the seminar method). Gilman was opposed to adding engineering instruction on a "conventional" basis, which would result, he felt, in having “an excellent polytechnicum but not a university.” But he was not opposed to the idea, if it could be done right.

Keep your distance!

Some engineering instruction was already being carried on, mostly in electrical engineering, under the aegis of Physics.  It was possible to earn, separate from the Bachelor of Arts, a Proficiency in Applied Electricity (PAE) certificate. John B. Whitehead earned a PAE in 1893, and a PhD in 1902 and was serving on the faculty as of 1900.

As the university grew in its original location (in the vicinity of Howard and Monument streets), there was no room for engineering, nor was there money to pay for it. Everyone assumed that engineering, when it began, would have to come with outside financial assistance. And that is how it happened. In 1912, the Maryland legislature appropriated $600,000 for a department of “applied science and advanced technology,” and pledged $50,000 per year in future support.  Probably because the University of Maryland was primarily an agricultural school, the legislature specified that the engineering program should be located at Johns Hopkins. There were no restrictions placed on the money, except a requirement to offer scholarships to Maryland students. Space was no longer an issue because the University planned to move to Homewood by 1916.

Maryland and Latrobe Hall

In 1913, the first engineering faculty members were named:  Charles J. Tilden (Civil Engineering), Carl C. Thomas (Mechanical Engineering), and John B. Whitehead (Electrical Engineering), and instruction began in the new Department of Engineering.  Two new buildings were planned at Homewood for engineering – the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Building (renamed Maryland Hall in 1931), and the Civil Engineering Building (renamed Latrobe Hall, also in 1931).  Maryland Hall was built at the same time as Gilman Hall and both were dedicated on the same day – May 21, 1915.  Latrobe Hall was completed in 1916. In 1920, Engineering became a separate division alongside Arts and Sciences.

The status quo continued until 1966 when, in a move that initially was welcomed by nearly everyone, the School of Engineering merged with the Faculty of Philosophy to form the School of Arts and Sciences. Immediately after the merger, as reported to me by former dean Robert Roy, Engineering faculty realized the mistake they had made, when it became more difficult to attract the best faculty candidates, and graduate students as well. In 1979, the GWC Whiting School of Engineering was created and Engineering once again became a separate division within the University.

For further information, consult Mary Ruth Yoe’s Hopkins:  Engineering at the University (1989), written for the tenth anniversary of the Whiting School.  The Whiting School is also planning a new history of Hopkins engineering.

Offered in conjunction with the Alumni Association, Hopkins KnowledgeNET is open to all JHU grads. You'll have free access to some of the library resources you’ve used as a student, including thousands of journal articles and other resources. Contact the Alumni Association at alumni@jhu.edu or 1-800-548-5481 for more information.

For other services that the library offers you after graduation, check out our Info For Alumni guide.

The Red Badge of Courage raises two questions. First, with its straightforward presentation of its protagonist’s initial cowardice and eventual valor, is it a critique of war, an exaltation of battleground bravery, or simply a realistic portrayal of soldierly transformation? And secondly, how did Crane do it? Written thirty years after the war’s end by an author who had never seen military action, The Red Badge of Courage managed to create such a convincing sense of warfare that Civil War veterans claimed to have served with Crane.

The first question may be unanswerable. The second invites a bit of detective work. And that’s exactly what some undergraduates did this semester in our class “American Literature on Display.” After reading Crane’s novel, we examined some of the books and magazines of the late nineteenth century that Crane could have used to help him imagine the Civil War battlefields he so compellingly evoked. Students then described their research on our class blog.

We know that Crane read a series of articles about the Civil War in The Century Magazine. The many biographies, memoirs, criticisms and documents published in the “Civil War series” constituted a major national debate, and were eventually collected into a four-volume book. But what exactly did Crane glean from The Century? And what else might he have encountered in American print culture to shape his view of war? As it turns out, publications about the Civil War were voluminous at century’s end; Crane would have had access to a lot of material.

The Century often portrayed “war as a glorious entertainment, rather than a bloody conflict,” according to Katie Naymon. For example, “… the picture that… accompanies an article about the Battle of Bull Run… isn’t completely realistic… the focal point of the picture is a man on a horse, flag-waving, hand raised in victory.”

click any image to enlarge

This chivalric figure of victory seems to have been prevalent in the 1880s; Zoe Ovans discovers another work that also calls up “the image of a magnificent general, astride a gallant horse, posed and ready to outwit the enemy and defend his comrades… The Soldier in Our Civil War, a pictorial history of the American Civil War… focuses on the valor of the soldier in the field of battle… [One] image stands out among the rest: in the section describing the battle of Fischer’s Hill, there is a marvelous two-page spread featuring General Sheridan ‘riding along the lines of the Federal army.’”

Alyssa Zelicof notes, however, that while this volume “hones in on the gallantry and boldness of soldiers such as ‘Colonel Ash, Charging into J.E.B Stuart’s Camp, Near Charlottesville, V.A.’,” Crane’s narrative asks us to question that stereotype: “The sincere depiction of war given by Crane gives insight into the psyche of a soldier in battle, and forces one to question the thought process of soldiers such as Colonel Ash. As he charges gallantly into the camp, is he thinking about his children and wife at home? Although his face reads as unsympathetic, could he be silently praying to make it out of battle alive? Henry’s observations humanize the stoic actions of a soldier, and highlight the false depiction of bravery in war.”

The valor on display in the 1880s was not without precedent, as we learned when looking at materials published during or soon after the war. In fact, it can appear in some shocking places. Rachel Witkin finds a caricature of the heroic horseman in The Siege of Washington D.C.: Written Expressly For Little People, a strangely light-hearted history of 1867 that might help to explain why war often finds so many eager participants: “Children would most likely laugh at how ridiculous the general looks on his horse and think that war is nothing but a game, or think that the general looks important and want to enlist in war. The chapter name is even more chilling, as it suggests that war is a normal way to settle one’s differences. These children will glorify war, like Crane’s ‘youth’ did, and have no idea what’s actually in store for them.”

Civil War-era books not only romanticized war for children, but also romanticized the child who is already at war, as Tiffany Kim observes in A Selection of War Lyrics. The poem “The Color-Sergeant,” she explains, “is about a flag boy, Walter, who dies in battle. Moreover, it is about celebrating his death. A flag gives strong visual representation to otherwise intangible pride and morale. Therefore, the flag boy is extremely important to the idea of war, the idea being to protect what the flag represents. In the poem, Walter is honored for being a brave man and being ‘in the thick of the fight’ (line 14) to carry ‘the flag of the Free’ (line 4). Although he is not the big man on the battle field, he is seen as an important figure and a hero.”

Of course, for most Americans living through the Civil War, newspapers and magazines were important sources of information about wins, losses, casualties, advances. The Confederate press suffered from shortages of supplies and labor; many of the books published in the South in this period are poor in quality. The press of the North, without those constraints, was developing novel ways of delivering the news. Notable in this respect was Harper’s Weekly, with its many newsy illustrations. Since photographs could not be reproduced upon the printing press at this time—and since the paraphernalia of collodion process photography was too cumbersome, slow and fragile for action shots anyway—war-time images were conveyed through wood-engravings by artists like Thomas Nast and Winslow Homer.

These images served multiple purposes. Certainly, as Rosa Acheson notes, there were depictions of heroes. The cover of the issue for May 3, 1862, for example, contains eleven portraits of military leaders, each one framed like a keepsake. But these portraits seem more informational than epic. “Each portrait is a close up, showing just the torso and face, so we are really able to distinguish what each man looks like. Some of them have glasses, others mustaches. All of them, despite their war uniforms, look like regular men. Of course the public recognition of these men as Civil War heroes was earned. However, the intention here is instead to put a face to the brave actions, to characterize individuals who we otherwise might just consider a small part of the larger story.” Similarly, in a Harper’s picture called “The Captured Flag,” Bianca Kenworthy sees both the familiar image of bravery and an impulse towards factual accuracy that is in line with Crane’s story—and even surpasses it: “the trees and hill of the image’s landscape match those described in passages found in Crane’s novel; Crane’s emphasis on the confusion-laden regiments can be seen in the image by the clusters of people as well as those who are struggling and have fallen or been killed. However, as many similarities as there are, certain key and subtle differences between the picture and Crane’s prose should be noted. For example, Crane divorced his novel from any precise historical context by omitting dates and named locations whereas this image can be dated and placed, lending it a heightened sense of visual credibility.”

The tension inherent in war-time reporting, between baring the pain of sacrifices made and honoring and perhaps mythologizing those sacrifices, comes across even in personal narratives of the time, as Alex Hamm notes in his reading of The Boys in Blue, with its long nineteenth-century subtitle, Heroes of the “Rank and File.” Comprising Incidents and Reminiscences from Camp, Battle-Field, and Hospital, with Narratives of the Sacrifice, Suffering, and Triumphs of the Soldiers of the Republic. “In sharp contrast to the realism of Crane’s work of retrospective fiction, when we look at the visual representations that come from contemporary histories of the war, we see lots of order and decoration… this may have been a sort of propaganda by the illustrators of the 1860s in an effort to inspire the people after the Union victory… we can see the difference between what the people of the era wanted to believe and what they knew really was true.”

Several decades after the Civil War—around the time that Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage—half-tone technology was invented, allowing for the publication of photographs, and soon the war received another series of illustrated treatments. Do actual photographs of the war tell a more accurate story, without the temptations of heroic tales? Was Crane’s work a response, perhaps, to some new, more factual aesthetic? Well, if The Photographic History of the Civil War is any indication, maybe not. As Marah Formanek points out, this ten-volume series was published on the semi-centennial of the war, “as a token of remembrance and an explanation of the soldiers and the battles that occurred between 1861 and 1865. The photograph below depicts a scene of the Confederate soldiers, or the ‘Boys in Gray,’ before their first battle at Bull Run. They are young, jovial, and confident before their first encounter with the true tragedies of war. The photograph is captioned with the comment that, ‘there is not a serious face in the picture.’” Perhaps. But however you read the image, what is clear is that the commentators in 1911 were still expressing a kind of optimism that Crane, in contrast, was intent on challenging.

Watch this space for more from these students! They’ll be creating a digital exhibition to complement and extend “For Love or Money: Art, Commerce & Stephen Crane.”

What’s the theme of this year’s symposium?

The title is Translating the Promise of Nanoscience from Laboratory to Development. In keeping with that theme, this fascinating day will include an interactive session by Justin Klein, a partner with the venture capital firm NEA, entitled Investing in Translational Science: Preparing for the Road Ahead.

Will there be a poster session?

Yes, and presenters from all Hopkins divisions, schools, and departments are invited to submit titles (previously presented titles are acceptable). Prizes will be awarded to the top poster presenters. Here are the poster guidelines.

What does the institute do?

The inbt is a multidisciplinary entity with faculty members in every division at JHU. The scientists, writers, and educators who work with the institute focus on the areas of basic biological sciences, clinical sciences, and public health. Also, there are educational opportunities for undergraduates, graduate students, and post-docs, and the institute even has an animation studio.

For more information, look at the current issue of the institute's Nano-Bio Magazine, or see more questions and answers about inbt.

Where can I find some introductory books about nanoscience and nanotechology?

So glad you asked! On the library catalog’s advanced search screen:

• enter the words introduction and nanotechnology as TITLE words
• choose FORMAT book
• enter PUBLICATION YEARS 2010-2013

You’ll get 50 hits – remember that the results are sorted by RELEVANCE, so the first few pages will give you the best choices.

See you at the symposium!

In addition, there are subject librarians available for individual consultation. Each has specific expertise in online and print resources in nearly every field of study.

Like to do-it-yourself? Try our lists of databases by subject. You will most likely find some very relevant sources there.

And last but not least, we have made research guides for many of the disciplines, departments, and programs. Find an appropriate guide in the homepage drop-down box under GUIDES by TOPIC. These can help you in beginning, and even advanced, research.

So take heart! And take advantage of your library's services.

click any image to enlarge

Written by Carla Ruas, Archives Assistant

During the Second Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902), photographers had to work with slow cameras and heavy tripods, which left them at risk of getting shot and even killed. So instead of capturing the line of fire between the British Army and Dutch settlers, they preferred to focus their lenses behind the scenes. The results are images which don’t zoom in the action but might have an even greater value to history. This is evident in two photograph albums located in Special Collections: the Boer War - Natal Photograph Album and the South Africa-Transvaal Photograph Album.

By the turn of the century, Kodak had begun producing smaller cameras, such as the Brownie Box and A1 Folding camera. But technology was still very slow, which made it difficult for photographers to capture ongoing battles (to the discontent of news editors). This limitation might have contributed to history after all. The Natal Photograph Album includes photographs taken by a photographer with the initials J.E.M.while he was trailing behind the British army. They show a panorama of the battlefields, and once printed on paper, captions and notes were added to indicate the position of the British infantry and Boer trench lines. This information is now evidence of the war’s groundbreaking military strategy.

The same is true for the album's photographs portraying crews of the Royal Navy posing next to 4.7” naval guns. Photographer Benjamin William Caney captured one of these scenes just after Pieter’s Battle in 1900. The guns used in this battle are extremely important, since their introduction eventually led to British victory, after months of disadvantage due to long range Boer artillery.

Other pictures in the Natal Photograph album, taken by an unknown photographer, reveal snapshots of British military life, including one that shows an improvised game of rugby in one of the camps. The Transvaal Photograph Album, on the other hand, shows the rise of Johannesburg in Boers' hands and the exploration of gold mines. And in both albums there are pictures of local tribes and Africans who worked in the mines or ‘volunteered’ in the war.

These images might not depict familiar war themes like combat, death, and blood. But they have what philosopher Roland Barthes once called the “essence of photography”: they serve to bring the past into the present. Having frozen a period of time by capturing uniforms, facial expressions, and military strategy, the Natal and Transvaal photograph albums contribute greatly to an understanding of history.

Browzine lets you browse digital journals; it's a step closer to thumbing through a print issue. Browzine alerts you to new issues, lets you save articles, send them via email, and send to Zotero.

Since Browzine has to work with the publishers, not ALL the journals JHU readers have access to are currently included in Browzine. For instance, I've added Science, Applied Physics A, and Art History to my bookshelf. But Nature wasn't available as of 4/16/2013.

Watch the video to learn more about Browzine. If you try it, let us know what you think!

It means that the US Green Buildings Council (USGBC) recognizes that we've incorporated a lot of green construction and operations in the building, including:

• Increasing the use of natural lighting to reduce energy consumption
• Using energy efficient lighting with sensors in the teaching and study spaces
• Establishing sustainable cleaning and landscape programs
• Running efficient HVAC systems with CO2 monitoring
• Conducting waste stream audits to benchmark recycling programs and identify opportunities to maximize material conservation
• Reusing marble from Gilman and Shriver for the new beach stairs and south entrance

What's even more exciting is that we're the first building on campus to achieve this distinction!

But we're not ones to rest on our laurels. We'd love to hear your thoughts on how the Brody's working. Click here to tell us your thoughts on the temperature, lights, and other aspects of the building. The survey is open until midnight, May 14. As an incentive to participate, there will be a random drawing at the end for three $25 Daily Grind gift certificates.

• Before you leave for the summer, return any books you no longer need to the library. You can return books at Circulation or at one of the drop boxes—there is one in MSE outside of the guard’s desk and one in the BLC in the vestibule of the B-level entrance.
• If you still need your books, renew them! You can renew online through your library account. You can also use your library account to see a list of everything you still have checked out. If you have trouble renewing your books, contact circmail@jhu.edu.
• Any books you choose to keep are still subject to recall. Leave those books somewhere accessible so that they can be returned if needed. If someone recalls a book, you will have ten days to return it.
• Don’t forget to return dvds, reserves, temporary locker keys, headphones, chargers, etc. These items cannot be checked out for an extended time period.
• Don’t forget to return any Interlibrary Loan materials you might have before leaving campus. Check your ILL account online to see if renewals are possible for your items.

Remember the 2 R’s, and you’ll be able to have the more traditional R’s in peace: rest and relaxation. And if you are here this summer, catch an O’s game or two, and, either way, remember that the library is here to help you all year round! If you need anything always feel free to Ask a Librarian.