In addition to the over 7,000 linear feet of archival collections made available for study at the University of Houston Special Collections, we are also proud to offer over 100,000 rare and antique books for use in our reading room. Each month we highlight a text from our collections and what makes it so special. This month’s selection is contributed by Library Specialist for Liaison Services and Curator for the new Unique Holdings brown bag lecture series, Kristine Greive.
George Ade’s Fables in Slang is a collection of satirical fables with titles like “The Fable of the Martyr who Liked the Job” and “The Fable of the Professor who Wanted to be Alone.” Originally published in a Chicago newspaper, these tales mock all the personality types of late nineteenth century America. Even better, the fables are thoroughly illustrated in a bold, exaggerated style, and each ends with a sarcastic moral. In “The Fable of the Man who Didn’t Care for Story-Books,” for example, a man decides that contemporary literature is “all a mockery,” describing all the literature he has read and found lacking. The story concludes with the moral that “Only the more Rugged Mortals should attempt to Keep Up on Current Literature.”
“All A Mockery,” from George Ade’s Fables in Slang, illustrated by Clyde J. Newman.
Read a few of Ade’s fables and you’ll join a group of admirers that stretches back over a hundred years. Ade was enormously popular in the early twentieth century; in fact, the advertisement for his other books in the back of Fables in Slang asserts that “Mr. Ade’s books are too well known to require comment here.” He had influential fans, too: Taft held his first presidential campaign rally at Ade’s home, and Theodore Dreiser so admired Ade’s gift for description he even lifted a passage from his fables for use in the original edition of Sister Carrie. In his book on Ade, Lee Coyle locates a passage in the letters of Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh calling Ade “the greatest living American writer, ” an assertion that, while controversial even then, illustrates the name recognition Ade enjoyed in his time. He may not be as well known today, but Ade is forever being rediscovered, with periodic new editions of his works.
Fables in Slang was also recently discussed in The Last Untapped Resource in Houston, the first brown bag lecture in the Unique Holdings series highlighting rare books in our collection. The next event is April 22 and will feature life science books, ranging from centuries old illustrations of mythological animals to contemporary fine press books. In the meantime, why not come to the Special Collections Reading Room and read some fables? Just ask for call number PS1006.A6 F3 1900.
First Homecoming in the Astrodome, 1965 (from the online exhibit, “UH Homecoming Through the Years”)
It’s Homecoming Week, Cougars!
A week’s worth of activities and festivities will be capped off this weekend with Saturday’s football game against the Tulane University Green Wave. In honor of this special week, the University of Houston Special Collections is proud to present “UH Homecoming Through the Years,” an online exhibition curated by our own Matt Richardson and Sara Craig that traces the history of the tradition back to its origins in 1946.
Featuring visual histories of the Homecoming Court, Homecoming Game, and festivities that have traditionally centered around Homecoming Week down on Cullen Boulevard, “UH Homecoming Through the Years” pulls from a number of collections in our University Archives and related items. Daily Cougars and Houstonian yearbooks showcase some significant Homecoming Queen history, the UH Photographs Collection provides remarkable views of our traditions over time, and the Athletic Department Records remind us of some great homecoming victories that signified UH’s rise as an athletic as well as academic power.
As the celebrations of the week call all Cougars back home, be sure to spend some time with a virtual stroll through college days gone by with our newest online exhibit and be sure to visit Special Collections for a closer look at the University Archives.
Edward Lukasek, donor of the Edward Lukasek Gay Studies Collection
Dr. Natalie Houston, Associate Professor in the English Dept. at UH
On Tuesday, September 16th, Special Collections welcomed Edward Lukasek and Dr. Natalie Houston for a panel discussion titled “Life with Books: Collecting, Reading, and Teaching LGBTQI Literature.” Cosponsored by the UH Libraries and the LGBT Resource Center, the event was intended to complement the exhibit LGBTQI Literature: Celebrated Classics and Contemporary Works, which closes on Friday, September 26th.
A rapt audience of faculty, librarians, staff, and visitors enjoyed learning about the role that books played in the lives of the two panelists – Edward Lukasek, a book collector whose private collection was donated to the UH Libraries as the Edward Lukasek Gay Studies Collection, and Natalie Houston, an Associate Professor in the English Department at UH who has taught a number of courses on LGBT literature.
Lukasek described collecting books at his favorite thrift shop while living in the Castro district of San Francisco for 17 years. Asked to recommend his favorite work of LGBTQI literature, he chose the trilogy of autobiographical novels by Edmund White: A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony. He praised White’s ability to put the reader in the moment, and said that he appreciated reading about the experiences of a gay man from an earlier generation. Lukasek also described the flowering of literature that followed the early years of the AIDS epidemic, recommending Heaven’s Coast by Mark Doty as a particularly poignant memoir.
Houston has always been a voracious reader. While her major field of interest is Victorian literature, she enjoyed studying with queer studies pioneer Eve Sedgwick as a PhD student at Duke. Arguing that it was unfair to ask an English professor to pick only one favorite LGBTQI book, Houston recommended three favorite authors and works – Michael Cunningham’s A Home at the End of the World, a beautifully written novel about friendship; Carol Anshaw’s Aquamarine, the story of a woman’s three possible lives; and Emma Donoghue’s Hood, which centers on the death of the protagonist’s lover. Houston also talked about her rewarding experiences teaching LGBT literature to UH students.
The panel discussion made for a very special conversation; please enjoy a video from the event below.
Life with Books: Collecting, Reading, and Teaching LGBTQI Lierature — Tuesday, September 16th at 4pm — Evans Room, Special Collections, MD Anderson Library 2nd Floor
On Tuesday, September 16th at 4:00 p.m., the University of Houston Special Collections will host an event sponsored by the University of Houston Libraries and the University of Houston LGBT Resource Center. “Life With Books: Collecting, Reading, and Teaching LGBTQI Literature” will feature talks from book collector Edward Lukasek, the generous donor of the Edward Lukasek Book Collection, and Dr. Natalie Houston of the UH English Department and Co-Director for the Periodical Poetry Index.
“Life With Books…” will take place in the Evans Room of Special Collections on the second floor of the M.D. Anderson Library and will be followed by a reception. Intended to serve as a complement to “LGBTQI Literature: Celebrated Classics and Contemporary Works,” currently on exhibition on the first floor of the M.D. Anderson Library, this panel discussion was scheduled for the last weeks of the exhibit’s run to allow increased opportunities for students to attend. Students of all disciplines, interested in the history and study of LGBTQI literature, are encouraged to attend this unique opportunity to meet and hear from our distinguished panelists. For more information, see the attached poster and we look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday!
The summer 2014 digital issue of Houston History features a piece on the history of Foley’s in the city of Houston
The second digital issue of Houston History (Summer 2014) is on the virtual shelves and features a piece by our own Dr. Tomkins-Walsh, “From the Archives: Remembering Foley’s,” featuring research and images from the Foley’s Department Store Records.
We have written previously, lamenting the demise of a Foley’s presence, influencing and shaping Houston’s downtown, prior to the ultimate demolition of Kenneth Franzheim‘s bold design. For her part, Dr. Tomkins-Walsh addresses the demolition of that building in September of 2013 as something of a catalyst on the collective, public memory that wants not for a building, but instead represents more of a nostalgia and longing for an old figurative pillar and community partner long gone. From its origins as a dry goods store, to an early department store, through the post-war optimism reflected in the construction of Kenneth Franzheim’s icon, to the role it played in the desegregation of Houston, and on into the growth of branch stores that followed the patterns of suburban development, Tomkins-Walsh outlines in detail the symbiotic relationship that Foley’s enjoyed with the community, as well as the rich research potential the meticulous records hold across a number of fields of study.
Foley Bros. on Main St. (1906) – available for high resolution download at our digital library
Subscribers of Houston History may read Dr. Tomkins-Walsh’s article and the rest of the latest digital issue online at the magazine’s website. In addition, a launch party for the summer digital issue is scheduled for Tuesday, August 26th from 5:30pm to 7:00pm at the Houston Texas YMCA (5202 Griggs Rd., Houston, TX 77021). Interested in learning more about the history of Houston as seen through that huge display window on Main Street? Plan a visit to the Special Collections Reading Room and take a closer look at the Foley’s Department Store Records.