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The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

FRONTIERSHUNTINGTON

SPRING/SUMMER 2005

BOTANICAL SCIENCEUNDER GLASS

Arts and Crafts from Woodstock

EDMUND MORGAN ON

CULTIVATING SURPRISE

P R E M I E R E I S S U E

WHEN WE DECIDED TO PRODUCE A MAGAZINE high-lighting the research and educational aspects of this remarkableinstitution, we thought long and hard about what to call it.The Huntington is a place of rich history and tradition and,

of course, spectacular collections. But it is much more.The Huntington is adynamic, thriving place. Every day, dozens of scholars come through our doorsto study rare books, historical manuscripts, and art objects—including paintings,sculpture, tapestries, furniture, and ceramics.Their research results in countlessworks of nonfiction, documentaries, articles, essays, and even the textbooks thatyoung people read in the history, social studies, and political science classroomsacross America. In the botanical labs, researchers examine and propagate rareplants.And in the gardens and galleries, students and their teachers experiencethe wonders of the Huntington’s collections firsthand. It is a place that functionson the frontiers of knowledge—where new things are learned every day.

It is with this notion of frontier—on the edge of discovery—that we introducethis new publication.

What happens behind the scenes here? What are scholars and studentslearning? What issues are they confronting as they sort through informationand develop their own new findings?

Every person who experiences The Huntington creates a new story ofinteraction.This magazine celebrates such stories.While no collection of articlescan encapsulate the full range and breadth of The Huntington, these offeringsattempt to show how The Huntington intersects with the world around it.

One such story is a profile of Literary Manuscripts Curator Sara S. (Sue)Hodson, who attempts to strike a balance between a researcher’s access tolibrary materials and the right to privacy of an author or subject. Another isa look at the new Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Scienceand how educators are testing and retesting hands-on science exhibits to makesure they stand up to the tough scrutiny of middle school students.

Working on the frontiers of knowledge, to varying degrees, involves risktaking.The Huntington has never before attempted to capture its stories in amagazine format.And yet we do know that what goes on here is extraordinary.

We are grateful to the Annenberg Foundation for providing generous supportto strengthen the Huntington’s communication efforts.The magazine is anopportunity to offer insight into what makes The Huntington special. Pleaselet us know what you think.

STEVEN S. KOBLIK

The Huntington Library,Art Collections,and Botanical Gardens

SENIOR STAFF OF THE HUNTINGTON

STEVEN S. KOBLIK

President

GEORGE ABDO

Vice President for Advancement

PATRICIA DAVINI

Executive Assistant to the President

JAMES P. FOLSOM

Director of the Botanical Gardens

SUSAN LAFFERTY

Nadine and Robert A. Skotheim Director of Education

JOHN MURDOCH

Director of the Art Collections

SUZY MOSER

Assistant Vice President for Advancement

ROBERT C. RITCHIE

W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research

LAURIE SOWD

Director of Operations

ALISON D. SOWDEN

Vice President for Financial Affairs

SUSAN TURNER-LOWE

Associate Vice President for Communications

DAVID S. ZEIDBERG

Avery Director of the Library

MAGAZINE STAFF

Editor

MATT STEVENS

Contributing Writers

LISA BLACKBURN

TRAUDE GOMEZ-RHINE

Designer

LORI ANN VANDER PLUYM

Proofreader

CAROL B. PEARSON

Huntington Frontiers is published semiannually by the Office of Communications. It strives to connectreaders more firmly with the rich intellectual life of The Huntington, capturing in news and features thework of researchers, educators, curators, and othersacross a range of disciplines.

This magazine is supported in part by theAnnenberg Foundation.

INQUIRIES AND COMMENTS:Matt Stevens, EditorHuntington Frontiers1151 Oxford RoadSan Marino, CA [email protected]

Unless otherwise acknowledged, photography providedby the Huntington’s Department of Photographic Services.Photo of Steven Koblik by Michael Taylor.

Printed by Pace Lithographers, Inc. City of Commerce, Calif.

© 2005 The Huntington Library,Art Collections, andBotanical Gardens.All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of the contents, in whole or in part, withoutpermission of the publisher is prohibited.

FROM THE PRESIDENT

TALES FROM A DYNAMIC, THRIVING PLACE

HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 1

[ VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1 ]

BOTANICAL SCIENCE UNDER GLASS 8Planning exhibits for the Rose Hills FoundationConservatory | by Lisa Blackburn

BENEATH THE SURFACE 13The enduring legacy of an Arts and Crafts colony | by Jessica Todd Smith

WHO DECIDES WHAT’S PRIVATE IN

THE PAPERS OF AUTHORS AND

CELEBRITIES? 18Things get personal for a Huntingtoncurator when she catalogs the manuscript col-lections | by Traude Gomez-Rhine

DEPARTMENTS

ACCESSIONS: A look back at the Battle of Trafalgar | by Robert C. Ritchie 2

DISCOVERY: A rare find in Los Angelesphotography | by Jennifer A.Watts 5

ON REFLECTION: Cultivating surprise in research | by Edmund S. Morgan 6

LESSONS LEARNED: Exploring falseconfessions | by Michael P. Johnson 22

BOOKS IN PRINT: Recommended reading 24

SS PP RR II NN GG // SS UU MM MM EE RR 22 00 00 55Contents

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A Page from the RevengeCOMMEMORATING THE 200th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR

by Robert C. Ritchie

[ ACCESSIONS ]

SHORTLY AFTER NOON on Oct. 21, 1805, HMSRevenge, a newly commissioned 74-gun Britishbattleship, moved sluggishly in light breezes anda heavy swell.Across the horizon, 26 more ships

under the command of Adm. Horatio Nelson sailedrelentlessly toward 33 Franco-Spanish ships commandedby Adm. Pierre Villeneuve. England had spent years in afierce and costly war of opposition to RevolutionaryFrance and the ambitions of Napoleon.The two fleetswould collide in an epic battle just off Cape Trafalgarnear the Spanish port of Cádiz.The stakes were high. Ifthe Franco-Spanish fleet won, Napoleon might finally beable to invade Britain.And if the Royal Navy triumphed,he would lose all hope of expanding his empire.

On board the Revenge, Lt. Lewis Hole turned the pagein his logbook and took note of the typical conditions atsea—“Light Breezes and Clear.”Although his commander,Capt. Robert Moorsom, kept the official log of the ship’sactivities, Hole and all young officers like him maintainedlogbooks as part of their training. Usually, Hole recordedthe position of the ship, the weather conditions—especially

the wind—and any notable activities that occurred onboard.This would be a busy day, however, and Hole hadlittle time for details. Nonetheless, his laconic entry—now part of the Huntington’s rich holdings from theNapoleonic era—provides a backdrop to the Battle ofTrafalgar and the death of its hero, Lord Nelson.

Lt. Hole had participated in the Battle of Copenhagenfour years earlier, one of Nelson’s great victories, and wasnow serving with Nelson in what would be the last battlefor both of them. On board the lead ship, HMS Victory,Lord Nelson had ample time to consider the innovativestrategy that would assure an outcome worthy of his ship’s

name. In the age of sail, naval tactics called for enemyfleets to form opposing lines before slowly approachingone another.The fleet that was upwind had the advantagesince it could pick the timing of the clash.The battle wouldthus play out as a series of ship-to-ship actions.The fleetthat captured the most ships or forced the enemy to fleewould earn the victory. But unpredictable winds, fog, andcurrents—not to mention differences in sailing skill—could lead to indecisive outcomes.

Nelson sought a crushing strategy. Rather than forminghis vessels into a single line for a ship-to-ship clash, hedivided his fleet into two squadrons—one that he wouldlead in the Victory, the other led by Adm. CuthbertCollingwood in the Royal Sovereign.The two squadronswould attack perpendicular to the Franco-Spanish fleet,

Nelson paid for his great

victory with his life.

Opposite page: Logbook entry of HMS Revenge for the day of the Battle ofTrafalgar, Oct. 21, 1805. Lt. Lewis Hole’s remarks actually fell under theheading of Oct. 22, since Royal Navy practice dictated that a new day beganat high noon and continued through the following morning. Left: Portrait of Nelson by Lemuel Abbott, date unknown. From JerroldBlanchard’s Life of George Cruikshank (London: Chatto and Windus, 1882),Huntington Library.


4 Spring/Summer 2005

[ ACCESSIONS ]

thereby cutting it in two places.An attack to the middle andrear of the enemy fleet would render the lead ships helplesssince they would be forced to reverse course in order to jointhe fray. The time needed to complete such a maneuverwould all but remove them as a factor in the battle.

There were formidable risks in such a strategy. TheVictory and Royal Sovereign would be subject to a brutalcannonade from multiple ships before they could bringtheir guns to bear. Nelson trusted that the Franco-Spanishships, many of which had been penned up in Cádiz forsome time, lacked the necessary gunnery skills to aimaccurately in the heavy swell.The Royal Navy, on theother hand, took pride in its masterful skills after yearsof practice.The British ships could thus crash throughand start doubling up on the enemy ships, confrontingthem from both sides.

Nelson’s plan would work best if the Franco-Spanishfleet were in a single-line formation. Unfortunately forNelson,Adm.Villeneuve had steered south after leavingCádiz and then changed his mind and turned north toface the British.As his fleet reversed course, the line splitinto separate squadrons. Ships overlapped one another,presenting a great danger to the British as they brokethrough and found themselves doubled up. But Nelsonwas committed to his strategy and had confidence in hisships, his men, and, above all, his gunnery.

Lt. Hole and the Revenge sailed in Collingwood’ssquadron. Since the Revenge was new and fast, Collingwoodordered it to move up the line.As it came upon the enemyships, Hole had time to record Nelson’s famous signal tothe fleet, which was delivered through a series of flags flyingfrom the Victory:“England expects every Man will do hisDuty.” Then all he and his shipmates could do was wait asthe Royal Sovereign, Collingwood’s flagship, took a poundingat 25 minutes after noon and then pushed its way throughthe line wreathed in smoke. One by one the other Britishships crossed through.As the Revenge sailed into the melee10 minutes behind its lead ship, it was surrounded by four74-gun enemy ships—the Aigle, Achille, Indomptable, andSan Justo—and the 112-gun Principe de Asturias.The Revengedrew heavy fire, losing the ability to steer as the rudderwas shot away, and suffered 79 dead and wounded whilekeeping up a deadly cannonade against the enemy ships.Once free of this maelstrom, and aided by the Polyphemusand Dreadnought, the ship sailed into quieter waters tobegin an extended period of repair. Of this hurricane ofaction, Hole notes only that the Revenge found itself at4:45 p.m. with “4 French Ships and one Three Decker onus at once.”Then Hole is silent until he records the signalto take ships in tow at 5:30 p.m.

Nelson’s strategy had worked and English gunneryproved decisive, but he paid for his great victory with hislife. Nineteen enemy ships were captured, one destroyed,and many others heavily damaged.What remained of theFranco-Spanish fleet crept into Cádiz; a number of shipswere later captured while trying to leave.As was the custom,Hole took note of the weather and his ship’s activitiesbefore beginning a new page: “At noon Fresh Breezes…Clearing away the Wreck.” m

Robert C. Ritchie is W. M. Keck Foundation Director ofResearch at The Huntington.

MARITIME HISTORY

The Battle of Trafalgar is perhaps one of the mostheavily researched events in modern British history.Hole’s logbook is part of the Huntington’s collectionof maritime and naval history, which spans 500years. Holdings from the Napoleonic era includemore than 200 letters and papers by Nelson himself,collections of the papers of admirals Richard Howeand Sir William Sidney Smith, numerous letters fromother naval officers, and the rich correspondenceof Thomas Grenville, First Lord of the Admiralty in1806–7. Hole’s daily record is the first ship’s logfrom the era of the Napoleonic wars to enterthe Library’s collection. It represents yet anotherdimension of a moment that changed history.

The log of the Revenge remained in Lt. Hole’spossession after the battle and stayed with his fam-ily until it was sold at auction in 1983. It was thenacquired by The Huntington in 2000. The log, 260pages total, records the ship’s activities from May 8to Dec. 25, 1805. It also includes details of Hole’scampaign as commander of HMS Hindostan,which served off the coast of Portugal in 1807–8,supplying Wellington’s army during the PeninsularCampaigns. After Trafalgar, Hole would be involvedin single-ship actions but never again in a battle.

The logbook will be on display in October 2005to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the battle.


[ DISCOVERY ]

A Palatial ViewSHEDDING LIGHT ON AN EARLY LOS ANGELES DAGUERREOTYPE

by Jennifer A. Watts

A T FIRST GLANCE, this picture doesn’t looklike much.A low-slung adobe building sitsat the edge of a deserted plaza.The image’smost distinctive feature is the “Johnson &

Allanson” merchant sign at left, just enough evidence tohelp pinpoint the location as Los Angeles around 1858.

Further investigation reveals the structure to be El Palacio,the fashionable residence of Don Abel Stearns, the pueblo’swealthiest citizen.

The recent discovery of a photograph of El Palacio inthe Huntington’s archives raises the total number of knownLos Angeles daguerreotypes to an astonishing two. Butneither still exists. Like the other daguerreotype image, a

view of San Pedro in 1852, this image is a photographicreproduction of the original. Actual daguerreotypesdepicting 19th-century Los Angeles do not appear tohave survived over time. Because the Huntington archivesboast nearly 1 million photographic images, it is notunusual for staff members to make surprising discoveries

as they go through the processof cataloging the collection.But this find stands out simplybecause of the extraordinaryrarity of any Los Angeles imagesfrom the 1850s.

What accounts for this stun-ning lapse in the visual record?Part of the reason may be thatLos Angeles in the 1850s wasneither bustling nor prosperous.It had a reputation for its violentlawlessness as much as anythingelse. It is unlikely that manylandscape images of the hard-scrabble village of only a fewthousand souls were made inthe first place. Even so, an enter-prising few decided to give thephotography profession a go. Dr.William B. Osborne and MosesSearles opened the city’s firststudio in August 1851, a make-shift affair located in El Palacioitself. Portraiture was their stock-in-trade, but more lucrative

ventures, or at least steadier work, soon beckoned. Onlysix men would follow suit in the ensuing decade, andthe majority remained in business less than a year. Notuntil the mid-1870s did photography become stableemployment in Los Angeles. m

Jennifer A.Watts is Curator of Photographs at The Huntington.

El Palacio, the residence of Don Abel Stearns in Los Angeles, ca. 1858.


Cultivating SurpriseAN EMINENT HISTORIAN REFLECTS ON THE SERENDIPITOUS EXPERIENCE OF RESEARCHAND OFFERS A LITTLE ADVICE TO BUDDING SCHOLARS

by Edmund S. Morgan

[ ON REFLECTION ]

IDO NOT EMPLOY MUCH OF A METHOD indoing historical research except to read indiscrim-inately everything I can lay my hands on that mayrelate to whatever topic has excited my curiosity.

I have no system.For me The Huntington has always been a good choice

as the place to satisfy my curiosity in my own disorganizedway. For one thing, it was a long way from home, awayfrom academic duties, where I could not evenbe consulted about them. More importantlyit had all the resources in books and manu-scripts that I was likely to need. It alwayshad a company of scholars with whom totalk and walk at lunchtime, not to talk aboutwhat I was doing—I never do that—butabout ideas great and small. I have never hadsuch stimulating conversation anywhere else.The reason I do not like to talk about myown research while doing it is that I lose theimpulse, the necessity, of putting what I thinkI have found in writing. I firmly believe thattoo much discussion amounts to “talking yourbook away.” But talking about other ideasexcites my own thought processes.

If you have studied any part of historyenough to be curious about it, enough towant to do some research, you already areaware of the generally accepted views, theorthodox views, the controversies among theexperts in the field, what is taken for grantedand what is in dispute.You want to learn a little moreabout some question, and you go to the source materialsthat are presumably the foundation of the orthodox views.You come across something that you had not known about,something that surprises you a little. Cultivate that surprise.Do not say to yourself,“Oh, I didn’t know that,” and goon with your reading. Stop right there.Ask yourself,Whydid I not know that? Is it contrary to what I had been ledto expect? Is it because I did not know enough? Or is it

because the people who crafted the orthodox interpreta-tions did not know enough? Or perhaps their angle ofvision was limited by what came before.

The most exciting research I have done has come fromcultivating what was at first a mild surprise.An example:The first time I taught a course on the AmericanRevolution, I was prepared to offer the received opinionsI had been taught in college.The orthodoxy then was that

the colonists’ opposition to taxation evolved as the Britishimposed new policies.The colonists’ constitutional argu-ments were window dressing for their economic ambitions,which historians then were fond of finding at the bottomof everything. Scholars demonstrated the frivolity of thecolonial position by noting the way the arguments changedas the British shifted the mode of taxation in response tothem. In opposing the Stamp Act of 1765, the colonistsobjected only to internal taxes.When the British repealed

The Repeal, Or the Funeral of Miss Americ-Stamp, 1766. One of the most famous and popu-lar satires commenting on the Stamp Act. From Collection of British and American HistoricalCaricatures (London: 1762–90), plate 25, Huntington Library.


that act and instead imposed external taxes, such asimport duties, the colonists shifted their argument toinclude all taxes.

In order to prepare reading assignments for the course,I wanted to use selections from original sources. I went tothe pamphlets that historians often cited to illustrate theshifting colonial position.When I could not find any clearexamples, I was a little surprised. I was teaching at BrownUniversity, where I had the resources of the John CarterBrown Library at hand. I began reading other pamphletsand newspaper articles against the Stamp Act. Soon I wasmore than a little surprised and more than a little excited.There was no real shift. From the beginning to the endthe colonists objected to all taxes. Maybe they meant whatthey said. (It is a good idea to assume that people do.)After several years of shotgun research, reading everythingI could find, British or American, from the appropriateyears (much of which I found at The Huntington), I wasable to write, with the able assistance of my first wife,Helen Mayer Morgan, a book on the Stamp Act crisis.

I could cite other examples of cultivating surprise frommost of the books I have written. But I want to offer acouple of other pieces of advice to anyone drawn tointellectual pursuits—from young scholars to armchairhistorians. First, and probably most idiosyncratic, try toforget philosophies of history and theories of historicalcausation: Marxist, Straussian, postmodern, or whatever.You probably have one, conscious or unconscious, but trynot to let it get in your way. Cultivate that surprise whenthe documents don’t seem to support your views. Next,try to keep your research and your writing together.Don’t wait until you think you have entirely completedyour research before beginning to write.As soon as youbegin to see connections between things that you had notnoticed before, start writing what you think you have foundout about them, even if these writings seem fragmentary.Don’t get too systematic. Don’t make elaborate outlineswith headings and subheadings. Don’t spend a lot of timearranging your notes. Stop stalling and start writing.

This is especially important if you are following theshotgun approach.Write while you still have the excitementof discovery.You may later have to scrap what you write.I do a lot of scrapping before I finish: paragraphs, pages,

chapters. But I don’t really know what I think until I tryto write it. If I have great difficulty putting an idea intowords, it is probably because the idea is fuzzy and needsthinking through. I have sometimes been embarrassed tofind that I was holding two inconsistent ideas at the sametime. It can be very helpful to have someone go over thesepreliminary drafts, not necessarily a historian, but someonewho can grasp your argument and view it, so to speak,from the outside, which my present wife does. She can betenacious in questioning possible inconsistencies, large orsmall, or infelicities in writing. I reason that if she doesn’t“get” the argument, I may need to recast or clarify it.

Besides clarifying your thinking about a subject, writingabout it will focus the rest of your research.You willprobably have narrowed the target and saved yourselffrom some irrelevant work.You now have a tentativetheme, a more clearly defined question to guide whatyou do next.You may also discover that the materialshave presented you with a different and more interestingquestion than the one you began with. Don’t hesitate tochange. Go with what excites you. Research should befun.Yes, it requires a lot of scut work, sifting through stuffthat yields no gold. But if you lose the excitement, thecuriosity that drove you to it in the first place, what’s thepoint? Unless you feel a compulsion, you may be in thewrong business. m

Edmund S. Morgan, author of more than a dozen books on earlycolonial American history, is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Historyat Yale University. He has made numerous trips to the HuntingtonLibrary since first serving as a research fellow during the academicyear 1952–53.

Write while you still have the

excitement of discovery.

Edmund S. Morgan. Photo by Michael Marsland, Yale University.


Science Under GlassPLANNING EXHIBITS FOR A NEW CONSERVATORY

by Lisa Blackburn

T he team of independent evalua-tors filed into the Huntington’sBrody Teaching Lab, where

members of the Botanical educationstaff waited, somewhat nervously, togreet them. Introductions were made,refreshments were offered, and a briefdiscussion of the group’s goals andobjectives ensued. Once these prelim-inaries were out of the way, the teammembers dispersed around the roomand took up their stations to beginthe work at hand.

Peering into the eyepiece of amicroscope, one evaluator adjusted thefocus slightly, took another look at thespecimen under the lens, then spokein an excited whisper to a womanstanding nearby.

“Mom! Look at this. It’s awesome!”Mother and son were soon bent

over the microscope together, exam-ining a leaf ’s stomata in the wondroustopography of 100x magnification.

These “scientific experts,” studentsfrom elementary and middle schoolsin the Pasadena area, are among severalfocus groups that have conductedfield tests of exhibits under develop-ment for the Rose Hills FoundationConservatory for Botanical Science,

scheduled to open at The Huntingtonin October. The Conservatory willfeature a series of exhibits and exper-iments designed to engage youngstersin hands-on science, using real scien-tific instruments and living plants toexplore the mysteries of the naturalworld.Three distinct environments—tropical rain forest, cloud forest, andbog—will serve as habitats for diversebotanical displays and interactiveexhibits that examine the ways plantsadapt to their environments. TheConservatory’s educational componentsare funded by a $1.75 million grantfrom the National Science Foundation.

Although kids ages 9 to 12 andtheir families are the Conservatory’starget audience, the development ofexhibits is far from child’s play. Athree-person team led by KittyConnolly, Conservatory project man-ager, has devoted thousands of hoursto painstaking research, exhibit design,and field-testing.

“Our goal is to give children achance to practice science on livingplants,” says Connolly.“There’s nothingquite like this in the United States.Other botanical gardens have prima-rily passive exhibits. In this new space,

kids will be building science skillsthrough the use of real tools.”

That means that one of the firstthings the exhibit team had to do washit the books.

Connolly and her colleagues KarinaWhite and Katura Reynolds spentmonths conducting extensive researchon everything from biology to educa-tional theory, poring over textbooks,science journals, and scholarly papersas they gathered fresh ideas for pre-senting science to youngsters. Theysought to challenge and inspire youngminds without oversimplifying thecontent. Meeting regularly withmembers of an advisory board com-posed of educators, scientists, andconsultants, the staff developed exhibitsthat would explore sophisticated con-cepts playfully. “Algae Identification,”for example, introduces children tothe microscopic world of—forgive theexpression—pond scum and uses akid-friendly matching game to helpthem hone their scientific observationskills as they compare and identifydifferent forms of algae under power-ful magnification.

From nursery to library to drawingboard to computer, the exhibit team

ities, reading skills, or learning styles.Some exhibits might require a facili-tator to lead or maintain them, whileothers could engage grown-ups in thelearning process along with the chil-dren. The team even addressed thequestions of traffic flow and the dura-bility of exhibit materials.

Connolly and her colleagues con-tinually evaluated and reevaluated eachexhibit. Many ideas were abandonedearly in the process because theyfailed to meet the necessary criteria.Others proved impractical for heavyvisitor use or for the moist climateof a conservatory. As the winnowing


conducted experiments with specimenplants, created intricate botanicalillustrations, and compiled extensivedata. Several file drawers were soonoverflowing with notes, sketches, anddrafts of label text for exhibits withnames like “Listening to Trees,”“Spices from the Rain Forest,”“Hitchhiking Seeds,” and “Gotcha!”

“We like to use the pollen anal-ogy to describe this process,” jokesReynolds.“Create as much of it as youcan and hope that some of it will stick.”

All of the exhibits had to meetspecific criteria. First and foremost,they had to present concepts or

phenomena that children couldactively observe. Living plants—themore diverse, the better—were to beused whenever possible. Exhibitsshould highlight interdependencies,showing the connectivity betweenplants, animals, people, and the envi-ronment. And they should encourageactive involvement through the use ofscientific tools, such as meters formeasuring humidity in the air or theamount of nitrogen in different soils.The designers incorporated sensorylearning through touch, smell, andsound, while also assuring accessibilityto visitors with different physical abil-

Children interact with exhibits before providing feedback to educators. Carlos Chan, age 10, tests how plants use their leaf tips to shed water in a wet environ-ment. Erendida Cruz and Magdalena Alvarez wait their turn. Photo by Lisa Blackburn.

popular, and occasionally the reversewas true. But we’re building theseexhibits for children, so their responsesare what matter most. Putting theseexhibits in front of them was a realeye-opener.”

The team conducted a series ofevaluation sessions over the course ofseveral months, some taking place in astructured classroom setting at localschools, others offered informally fordrop-in Huntington visitors. Theboys and girls who participated inthe trials represented a broad demo-graphic mix of age groups, ethnicbackgrounds, economic levels, andacademic achievement.

Johanna Jones led some of theearly sessions. She is a consultant withRandi Korn and Associates, Inc., amuseum evaluation and audienceresearch firm from Alexandria, Va.“The keystone of evaluation is havingclear goals and objectives,” she says.“You want to see if your messages aregetting across. How are kids using theexhibits? What are they taking away?Does the information make sense?Are they tripping up on certain terms?”She discovered, for example, thatyoungsters frequently stumbled overthe word “fertilize.” Its reproductive


process continued, the more promisingideas advanced to the next stage:prototyping—that is, the creation of aworking model—and testing.

One of the keys to designingappealing botanical exhibits for chil-dren is to make the most of yourassets: the plants themselves. “We’reusing the most charismatic plants wecan find to demonstrate each exhibit,”explains Connolly.“Things like pitcherplants really engage visitors’ imagina-tions.” She slides an exhibit across thetable to illustrate her point. Pinned toa board is the dissected form of along, funnel-shaped leaf filled withdead bugs, arguably exuding moreyuckiness than charisma. It’s “Countthe Corpses,” a delightfully graphicexamination of the digestive habits ofthe carnivorous Sarracenia plant and

one of the most popular exhibits thathas been tested to date.

Such charismatic attractions call forequally engaging graphics. Reynolds,a botanical illustrator by training,brought her artistic skills to the project.Many of the exhibits include colorfulplant diagrams or depictions of pro-cesses that are difficult to show in realtime. “Many people learn best whenthey are able to visualize things,” shesays.“It’s one thing to say,‘This leaf hasspecial glands that create nectar,’ butkids will have a better idea of whatthat means if they can see a picture ofit. Scientific jargon can be off-putting,but a good illustration can get peopleexcited about the topic.”

Perhaps the most critical aspect ofthe design process was field-testing—observing real kids interacting withthe botanical exhibits. The feed-back from kids helped identify thehits and misses and pointed outwhere fine-tuning was needed tomove closer to meeting the learninggoals for each exhibit. The resultswere often surprising.

“One of the amazing things ishow completely unpredictable thekids’ responses were,” says White.“Sometimes things we thought theymight not like turned out to be very

“We like to use the pollen analogy to describe the

research and planning process: Create as much of

it as you can and hope that some of it will stick.”

– Katura Reynolds, botanical illustrator

Erendida Cruz, 9, uses a paintbrush to move pollenfrom one flower to another. Photo by Lisa Blackburn.

connotation was entirely missed asyoung imaginations conjured upmanure rather than pollen. Jonessuggested changes to the label text toput the term in its proper context.

Another exhibit that benefitedfrom field-testing was an explorationof the parts of a flower. In the earlyprototype,children looked into a micro-scope to observe a close-up view of aneatly labeled pistil or stamen.Informative, but not very engaging,the education team found. After thefirst round of evaluations, the micro-scope was replaced by a goose-neckedvideoscope that allowed kids to selecttheir own views, manipulate thefocus, and project the microscopicimages onto a TV screen. A furthermodification made it even moreinteractive by the simple addition of asmall paintbrush, which kids used tomove pollen from one flower toanother while observing the pollina-tion process enlarged on the screen.

Taking their assignment as evalua-tors seriously, the youngsters talkedcandidly with Jones and the Huntingtonteam. Their opinions were as diverseas the children themselves.

“I liked the moss,” said BenSymes, 12, who had studied the plantsin the “Tiny!” exhibit up close with amagnifying glass.“I never knew therewere so many different kinds, and allthose different shapes and colors.” Hewas less enthusiastic about the “LeafDiversity” display: “Kinda boring,” heoffered sheepishly.Ten-year-old Carlos


Chan, on the other hand, rated theleaves very favorably.“I liked learningthe names of all the different shapes,”he explained, picking up a laminatedexample of a palmate (or hand-shaped) leaf and comparing it to thefeatherlike pinnate.

Working with sophisticated toolswas a novel experience for manyof the participants, who, like DanBar-Sever, 11, found that it height-ened their interest in both the plantsand the scientific process. A sleekchrome and glass refractometer in thenectar exhibit was one of Dan’sfavorites.“The way it measured sugarlevels was very interesting. It’s reallycool, because in addition to learningabout plants you have a chance to usethe equipment.” Yet even the simplestexhibits attracted their share of

enthusiastic reviews. The decidedlylow-tech “Drip Tips” employs a plasticsquirt bottle to illustrate how rain forestplants shed water by channeling itdown the center of their leaves andoff the elongated points on their tips.Younger children, in particular, foundthis activity fascinating.They enjoyedgiving the leaves repeated squirts andclosely scrutinizing the results.

The thrill of new discoveriescaused more than one participant toconsider familiar plants in a moreinquisitive light.After using a high-techvideoscope to explore “Pollen on theMove” with a flamboyant stargazerlily under magnification, MagdalenaAlvarez, 10, shyly suggested the inclu-sion of “more flowers that we know,like roses.” It was a telling comment,expressing a young girl’s desire to

Stiff hairs that pointdownward keep insectsfrom escaping the pitcher.

Smooth inner surfaceis hard to climb.

Sweet nectarattracts insects. Long flexible hairs cause

insects to slip and fall.

A diagram by botanical illustrator KaturaReynolds shows how the carnivorous sun pitcherplant (Heliamphora) digests insects.


apply her newfound knowledge tothe natural world outside her ownfront door.

Following field-testing, the educa-tion team reviewed the comments,adapting some exhibits while scrap-ping others. The finalized exhibits,

more than 50 in all, have now beenhanded off to fabricators for con-struction and installation. Plants thathave been nurtured in the greenhouses

and nursery will soon take up residencein their new home in the Conservatory.

Several dozen youngsters will bewatching with proprietary interestas the doors are thrown open to thepublic for the first time in October.They have a personal stake in thenew endeavor.

“I want to go there when itopens,” says Ben Symes,“so I can findout if the exhibits I like are there.”

And that’s only natural. Whenyou’ve helped to plant the seeds, youwant to be on hand to see them whenthey flower. m

Lisa Blackburn is the CommunicationsCoordinator at The Huntington.

“We’re using the most charismatic

plants we can find.”

– Kitty Connolly, project manager

Above: Reynolds’ illustrations of a carnivoroussundew (Drosera regia) demonstrate how a planttraps an insect on its sticky surface before rollingits leaves around its prey.

Right: Katalina Gamarra, 11, looks for victims ona sundew (Drosera capensis). Photo by Don Milici.

a hundred and one years ago, craftsmen at an artscolony in upstate New York assembled a simple, boxycabinet out of poplar wood. Standing about six feet tall,four feet wide, and slightly less than two feet deep, itremains a handsome piece today, with muted greenstain and a carved door panel depicting the large,magnolia-like flowers of the Liriodendron tulipifera—alsoknown as the yellow poplar or tulip poplar that growsthroughout the eastern United States.


Beneath the

SurfaceBY JESSICA TODD SMITH

The tulip poplar panel of the cabinetdesigned by Edna Walker and producedat the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in 1904.

THE ENDURING LEGACY OF A SHORT-LIVED FURNITURE ENTERPRISE


While eye-catching, the panel’smodest surface decoration belies thecomplex and rich story that can befound beneath the surface. The tulippoplar cabinet—recently acquired byThe Huntington—can trace its lineageto the 19th-century British Arts andCrafts movement while simultaneouslyinvoking its authenticity as a fine spec-imen of early-20th-century Americanfurniture making. The cabinet’s pro-genitor was British expatriate RalphRadcliffe Whitehead, whose lofty aspi-rations to establish an arts colony inthe United States culminated in thefounding of the Byrdcliffe ArtsColony in Woodstock, N.Y., in 1902.Although he set out to finance thecolony by manufacturing and sellingfurniture, he closed his shop afteronly two years of oper-ation. Nonetheless, thecolony survived in vary-ing forms for many yearsand still exists today as anartists’ retreat. Its furnitureendures as a particularlyeloquent testimony to theearly intermingling ofthe British and Americanart and design reformmovements.

The founding of theByrdcliffe Arts Colonymarked the fulfillment of alifelong dream. Born intoa wealthy textile-manu-facturing family in 1854in Yorkshire, England,Whitehead realized earlyin life that his aspirationswere not suited for indus-try. In 1873 he entered

Oxford. Emboldened by his study ofthe social and artistic philosophies ofJohn Ruskin, he set out to master theprinciples that underlay the wide-spread movement toreinvigorate the designand manufacture ofgoods for everydayuse in people’s homes.Ruskin, too, had beenborn into wealth butdevoted energy and money to theGuild of St. George, a utopian com-munity in Sheffield that attemptedto combine artistic principles withnotions of morality and craftsmanship.He railed against the dehumanizingeffects of industrialization, perhapsvalidating Whitehead’s decision toabandon his family’s business. Ruskin’s

influence had also been strong in thecareer of William Morris, who tookRuskin’s attack on unrestrained laissez-faire economics a step further by

espousing revolutionary socialism.Ruskin himself did not adopt strictsocialist principles, but he strived touse his wealth to elevate the stature ofmanual labor. Ruskin’s political viewsmay have been more palatable toWhitehead, who nonetheless regardedhimself as equally a disciple of Morris,at least in terms of the design ofobjects. The exhortations of bothRuskin and Morris to observe natureclosely and to use materials honestlythus formed the basis of Whitehead’sapproach to art and life.

The Byrdcliffe Arts Colony used watercolors to promote its furniture. Edna Walker’sillustration dates to around 1904, shortly after the completion of the cabinet. TheHuntington acquired both items in 2004.

THE PANEL’S MODEST SURFACE DECORATION

BELIES THE COMPLEX AND RICH STORY THAT

CAN BE FOUND BENEATH THE SURFACE.


By 1894,Whitehead had settled inMontecito, Calif., with his secondwife, Jane Byrd McCall, whom hehad married two years earlier. Raisedin a distinguished Philadelphia family,McCall spent much of her early lifetraveling between the United Statesand Europe. She and Whitehead metin Italy and quickly discovered com-mon interests, both having studiedunder Ruskin in England. After theymarried, they continued to travel fora couple of years, eventually decidingto leave Europe for America. TheirMontecito home, known as Arcady,became the center of an informalartistic community, attracting localmusicians, writers, and painters.

Although an idyllic locale, theWhiteheads’ rustic oasis still fell shortof utopia.The couple shared the dreamof creating a community of men andwomen who could create arts andcrafts in a healthful, beautiful setting.Whitehead set out to find the ideallocation. Accompanied by writerHervey White and artist Bolton Brownin 1902, he explored sites in Virginiaand North Carolina before ending upin Woodstock. Whitehead’s compan-ions were committed exponents of theArts and Crafts ideology. White hadstudied at Harvard University withCharles Eliot Norton, a close friendof John Ruskin and the first presidentof Boston’s Society of Arts and Crafts.Brown had established the departmentof drawing and painting at StanfordUniversity.Together with Whitehead,White and Brown imagined an Artsand Crafts collective that would takeroot among the poplars, chestnuts,maples, and oaks near a farming com-munity in the Catskill Mountains.

Whitehead was thrilled with thesetting. Writing home, he describedthe bucolic landscape within fivehours of New York City. Indeed,Whitehead knew that a manufacturing

operation would need to be in closeproximity to its market. He wouldlater use the convenient train serviceto transport furniture to McCreery’s,a retailer that also sold pieces byGustav Stickley’s firm United Craftsand by Elbert Hubbard’s Roycrofters.But more important to Whitehead’sgrand design, artists would thrivesurrounded by nature. He purchasednearly 1,200 acres cobbled togetherfrom seven adjacent farms and oversawthe construction of the first five ofsome 30 buildings that would eventu-ally occupy the principal site at the edgeof woods. Faithful to Ruskinian designprinciples, the rural buildings tookshape amid frameworks of exposedoak and chestnut. They included ametalworking shop, a pottery studio,a woodworking shop, a large studiofor art classes, a library, a guesthousecalled the Villetta Inn, and his own

home—White Pines.Whitehead beganassembling a team of artists and crafts-men that would make furniture andother crafts for generations to come.

Or so he hoped.Ralph and Jane named the colony

Byrdcliffe, a combination of Jane’smiddle name and the second half ofRalph’s middle name. The design ofthings made at Byrdcliffe also wouldrepresent a melding of British andAmerican aesthetic principles. Indeed,the tulip poplar cabinet and other fur-niture produced at the colony possessa peculiarly “pure,” early Morris-inspired style. They tend to be boxyand rectilinear, with simple linesforming frames for carvings or paint-ings in the manner that Morris and hiscohort promoted for the furnishingsof Red House, Morris’ home outsideLondon in the 1850s.Yet at the sametime the cabinet doesn’t adhere to the

ARTS AND CRAFTS AT THE HUNTINGTONHenry E. Huntington assembled a significant collection of manuscriptsfor William Morris’ published writings and material related to theKelmscott Press in the early 1900s. After purchasing the archive ofMorris and Co. in 1999, The Huntington became one of the majorcenters in the world for the study of William Morris and the largestoutside of England. The acquisition added more than 1,000 designsand full-scale cartoons for stained glass, seminal archival docu-mentation of the firm’s business, hundreds of designs for wallpaper,printed and woven textiles, carpets, tapestry, and embroidery, aswell as more than 100 of Morris’ figure drawings.

In 1990 The Huntington, in partnership with the Gamble House andthe University of Southern California, opened a gallery devoted tothe work of the brothers Charles Sumner Greene and Henry MatherGreene. Examples of Greene and Greene designs, supplementedwith long-term loans and materials from the USC archive, constituteone of the best overviews of their work in a public collection.


structural principles of Morris’ “archi-tectural” furniture. For example, thedrawer is held together by glue andnails rather than by interlocking ele-ments that could be easily disassem-bled. Cabinets manufactured by suchwell-known companies as Craftsman,the Roycrofters, and Rose Valley areall, in this respect, much closer to theclassic Arts and Crafts practice. AsByrdcliffe expert Robert Edwards hasobserved, the working drawings forthe furniture came with few instruc-tions—the quality of constructionseems to have been, relatively speaking,a matter of indifference.

Whitehead thus differed from hisBritish mentors in a significant way.While other British disciples of Ruskinand Morris sought to place craft andfine art on the same level, thus elevat-ing the importance of the craftsman,Whitehead—like Morris himself—did not actually give credit to the peo-ple building the furniture. Authorshipwent to the artist who designed thecarving or painting that adorned thepiece.Perhaps as a result, the decorationof Byrdcliffe furniture seems to havebeen treated with more care than theconstruction of the forms.

A number of different artistscontributed to the ornament of thefurniture. Edna Walker was one of the

colony’s principal designers. Alongwith Zulma Steele, another promi-nent Byrdcliffe artist, she studiedunder the renowned art teacher ArthurWesley Dow at the Pratt Institute, aprogressive art school in Brooklyn. Inkeeping with the tenets of Ruskin,Walker made nature studies depictingindigenous flora and plant motifs,such as the tulip poplar, which sheadapted as decorations for variousforms of Byrdcliffe furniture.

Furniture production was a col-laborative process.A floral study wouldbe made into a full-size rendering ofthe design and transferred onto thewooden panels.The panels were carved,sometimes painted, and the surround-ing panels were stained. No otherfiller, sealer, or finish was typicallyapplied. The wood grain showedthrough, making it a part of the dec-orative scheme. Because pieces couldbe made to order, many are unique.The Huntington’s tulip poplar cabinetis one of only two known examplesof the design.

Remarkably, Byrdcliffe’s furnitureenterprise folded after two years ofproduction.The furniture was expen-sive to make and to ship, but thatwas only one of several factors thatcontributed to the decision to halt production.Whitehead did not oppose

the use of machinery and, in fact, pro-vided equipment for his workshops.However, more industrialized shops atcompanies such as United Crafts andRoycrofters succeeded in producinguniform products in larger quantities.Other companies had more success

It is an exciting moment for Byrdcliffe scholarship. Anexhibition titled “Byrdcliffe: An American Arts andCrafts Colony” has been organized by Nancy E.Green and curated by Tom Wolf for the Herbert F.Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. It willconclude its tour of five venues at the WinterthurMuseum, Garden and Library (June 11 to Sept. 5,2005). The exhibition is accompanied by a book ofthe same title, which served as the source of much ofthe information in this article.

The Huntington’s tulip poplar cabinet has joined amajor exhibition examining design reform,“InternationalArts and Crafts,” organized by Karen Livingston withLinda Parry for the Victoria and Albert Museum inLondon, where it will be on view through July 10,2005. That exhibition will conclude at the Fine ArtMuseums of San Francisco (de Young) from March 18through June 18, 2006. At the end of that run, thecabinet will return to the Huntington’s collection in theVirginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art.

ON DISPLAY IN THE UNITED STATES AND ENGLAND


with marketing anddiscovered loyal and

wealthy local clientele.The firm of Greene and

Greene, founded by brothersCharles and Henry Greene, repre-

sented the high end of Arts and Craftsproduction, offering architecture andinterior design for the Californiahomes of wealthy clients. Byrdcliffefurniture was less expensive than thatof Greene and Greene, though morecostly than average mass-producedwares or items created by more entre-preneurial outfits. As such, it fell intosomething of a gap in the market.

The enterprise also may have beenaffected by its deciduous workforce.Every winter, Ralph and Jane packedup and went back to California,while most artists and craftsmen onthe property retreated to less rusticenvirons. Such a seasonal interruptionmight have its purpose in nature, butit wreaked havoc on a business. Themaking of furniture at Byrdcliffeceased in 1905.

In fact, Whitehead had neverexpressed any great interest in actuallyselling his furniture.Watercolors—likethe one of the tulip poplar cabinet byWalker—were his only promotional

tools.They proved much less effectivethan the commercial catalogs and mag-azines used, for example, by Stickley.Aside from these drawings, no otheradvertising for Byrdcliffe furnitureis known. The wealthy Whiteheadwas able to support the communitywithout the added revenue he hadhoped the sale of Byrdcliffe furniturewould bring.

Examples of furniture created atthe Byrdcliffe Arts Colony are quiterare.Only 50 pieces are known to exist.A fortuitous result of Whitehead’sfailings as a businessman is the pristinecondition of the tulip poplar cabinet.The piece never sold and remained atWhite Pines until it was inherited in1983 by the heirs to the estate. TheHuntington acquired the cabinet andWalker’s watercolor directly from thefamily in 2004. Thanks to a long

period of benign neglect, the cabinetnever fell victim to refinishing. Itbears the signs of surface oxidationassociated with the natural agingprocess of furniture.

Ralph Whitehead’s production offurniture was a short-lived experiment.The drawings of the tulip poplar cabi-net and all other Byrdcliffe pieces datefrom 1903 to 1905, but all signed fur-niture bears the date 1904. Yet theByrdcliffe Arts Colony continues toexist as a retreat and school for artists,and surviving examples of furniturelike the tulip poplar cabinet continueto produce layers of meaning thattranscend one moment in time. m

Jessica Todd Smith is the VirginiaSteele Scott Curator of American Art at The Huntington.

THE COUPLE SHARED THE DREAM

OF CREATING A COMMUNITY OF

MEN AND WOMEN WHO COULD

MAKE ARTS AND CRAFTS IN A

HEALTHFUL, BEAUTIFUL SETTING.

Left: Jane Whitehead at easel,ca. 1895. Attributed to RalphWhitehead. Silver print.Courtesy of The WinterthurLibrary: Joseph DownsCollection of Manuscripts andPrinted Ephemera.

Below: Ralph RadcliffeWhitehead, ca. 1895. Photoby J. Caswall Smith (British,active ca. 1890s). Platinumprint. Courtesy of TheWoodstock Byrdcliffe Guild.

THINGS GET PERSONAL FOR A

HUNTINGTON CURATOR WHEN

SHE CATALOGS LITERARY

MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS

It was Lord Kinross who first setSara S.Hodson, the Huntington’scurator of literary manuscripts,on her path to becoming an

authority on privacy issues. LordKinross—or Patrick Balfour,3rd BaronKinross, as he was officially known—had been a British author and jour-nalist from the 1940s to the 1970s.He wrote widely on history and politicsand is perhaps best known for his his-tory of modern Turkey, Atatürk: TheRebirth of a Nation (1964).

Kinross, who died in 1976, hadalso been a well-connected socialite.He was among the privileged anddecadent youth of 1930s Britishsociety. The circle included prominentwriters and artists of the era, many ofwhom he met while a student atOxford University.Throughout his lifehe corresponded with the photogra-pher Cecil Beaton and the writersEvelyn Waugh, John Betjeman, andChristopher Sykes, among others.

PRIVATEWho Decides What’s

in the Papers of Authors and Celebrities?

by Traude Gomez-Rhine

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Although The Huntington rec-ognized the overall value of theKinross archive when it purchasedit from a London bookseller in 1980,Hodson particularly coveted thecorrespondence files as a resource forscholarly research.

As Hodson began cataloging thematerial, she discovered how muchintrigue the files truly held: Kinrosshad been a confidante to an astonishingnumber of people who poured theirhearts out in personal letters.The wifeof a famous Englishman had confidedto Kinross that she was pregnant, butnot with her husband’s child. Hodsonknew that both the husband and wifewere still alive and wondered whetherthey would want this information madepublic. Also of concern to Hodsonwere the myriad letters from gay menwriting intimately to Kinross abouttheir lives. Many of the subjects mightlikely still be living, and Hodson didnot want to be responsible for disclos-ing information that could potentiallybreach their privacy.

“I realized that no archivist coulddetermine whether the private mattersin the letters had been confided toKinross alone or constituted more gen-eral knowledge,” says Hodson. “Withno family available for consultation, Ihad to decide whether opening theconfessional letters for research wouldreveal intimate information aboutpeople who would have no idea thattheir private letters had been housedin a research library in California.”

A relatively new curator at the time,Hodson faced a question of ethics thatmanuscripts curators and archivists havebeen increasingly confronting in theirwork with modern literary collections:Should an institution consider theprivacy rights of a living person whenopening a set of personal papers forresearch? If so, how should curatorsand archivists establish restrictions onusing the material?

Hodson’s dilemma resulted in partfrom the increasing tendency of insti-tutions to collect contemporary literaryarchives, oftentimes by authors stillliving.The Huntington’s first acquisi-tion from a living writer came in 1987,when it obtained the archive of Britishauthor Kingsley Amis (who died in1995). The Huntington now main-tains about a dozen literary archives ofliving authors who range from theLos Angeles playwright Lucy Wang toBritish novelist Hilary Mantel (whorequested that The Huntington seal herpersonal diaries during her lifetime).

There are four basic forms of inva-sion of privacy recognized in law,says Karen Benedict, chair of theCommittee on Ethics and ProfessionalConduct of the Society of AmericanArchivists (SAA): Intrusion into anindividual’s seclusion or solitude, orinto an individual’s private affairs;

public disclosure of embarrassing pri-vate facts about an individual; publicitythat places the individual in a falselight in the public eye; and appropri-ation, for another person’s advantage,of the individual’s name or likeness.Public figures or individuals give uptheir privacy rights when they giveor allow information about them tobecome a matter of public record orto be discussed in a public place.

The courts have held that the rightto privacy dies with an individual (therationale being that the dead can nolonger be embarrassed). But what hap-pens to the rights of correspondentsand subjects who may show up inthe papers of the individual who hasdied? “The privacy of so-called thirdparties, people who may be representedin a collection, can be the most worri-some and difficult to deal with, becausethey had no voice in deciding the fate

Sara S. (Sue) Hodson stands watch over the literary archives collection at The Huntington. Photo byLisa Blackburn.


of the papers, and because they areunlikely to be consulted about anypotential sensitivity in the collection,”says Hodson.

For many years institutions andcurators such as Hodson were left towrestle with their own consciencesin deciding whether or not to imposerestrictions and seal part of an archive.Most troubling to Hodson was thatin the process they might imposetheir own values, inadvertently cen-soring materials.

In 1992, responding to the grow-ing interest in issues of privacy amongits members, the SAA,North America’soldest and largest national archivalprofessional association, crafted a codeof ethics that reads:“Archivists respectthe privacy of individuals who created,or are the subjects of, documentarymaterials of long-term value, especiallythose who had no voice in the dis-position of the materials. Archivists

neither reveal, nor profit from, infor-mation gained through work withrestricted holdings.”

This code signifies a good start,perhaps, but it doesn’t provide specificguidance for determining when and

where to place restrictions.Hodson, an admitted neo-

phyte in privacy matters at thattime, was not involved in the

formulation of the code. Butshe has since worked tobring clarity to these

issues for herself and others,and in the process she has become

a noted authority, one of fewer than adozen within her field across thecountry. A founding member of theSAA’s Privacy and ConfidentialityRoundtable, she speaks and writesregularly on privacy and confidentialitytopics, helping other archivists grap-pling with these issues.

A prevailing reason for the uncer-tainty among archivists is that the fearof breaching someone’s privacy moreoften constitutes an ethical concernthan a legal one, says Hodson. In fact,rarely is a manuscript repository suedfor invasion of privacy or for revealingprivate information. The more likelyparty to face suit is a researcher orbook publisher. Nonetheless, reposi-tories must still contend with legalramifications.

Institutions have sought protectionin various ways.The Bodleian Libraryin Oxford had a long-standing policyof sealing all letters by living individ-uals. The institution came under firefor this policy in 1993 when EricJacobs, the authorized biographer ofKingsley Amis, requested copies ofsome Amis letters housed there. Evenafter Amis himself requested thecopies, the library declined to producethem,citing its firm policy. Ultimately,after much public hoopla, the libraryproduced copies for Amis, whoturned them over to his biographer.

“I would be stunned if an Americaninstitution sealed all records,” saysHodson. Institutions, after all, don’twant collections that they cannot use.Some libraries even refuse to takecollections with any kind of seal,declaring such restricted archives awaste of shelf space.

“When curators and archivistsestablish restrictions on the use ofpersonal papers, they need to rememberthat the fundamental purpose for thekeeping of archives and manuscripts isto promote their use,” says KarenBenedict of the SAA.This obligationmust be balanced with the “privacyrights of both the donors and theindividuals or groups who are thesubject of the material, especially thosewho had no voice in the creation, use,or disposition of the material.” Sheadds that decisions about restrictionson use should be made at the time theinstitution acquires the collection as anessential part of a written agreement.

The Huntington does acceptarchives that come with restrictionsin place, understanding that mostrestrictions eventually expire. AndHodson and her colleagues, whogenerally use their own discretion in

privacy matters, tend to ask donorsto identify sensitive material. Thisposition has the advantage of drawingon the donor’s intimate knowledge ofthe people, situations, and issues rep-resented in the archive. Families willoften want longer restrictions thancurators do, says Hodson, perhapsmotivated by a desire to safeguardreputations. The process is then oneof negotiation in which donor andcurator agree on the duration of a

Letter to Kingsley Amis from Philip Larkin, March 27,1983, Huntington Library. The correspondencebetween Amis and Larkin was notable for its vulgari-ties and diatribes.

The right to privacy dies

with an individual.

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restriction based on how long thesubjects are likely to live.

Indeed, the process often involvescompromise. For example, in 1999The Huntington acquired the papersof the author Christopher Isherwoodfrom Don Bachardy, Isherwood’s lifepartner. Isherwood is best known forThe Berlin Stories, about his life in Berlin in the 1930s (later adapted into

the musical Cabaret). The collectionincludes Isherwood’s diaries for mostof his adult life, some of which havebeen published volume by volumein expurgated form since 1996 byHarperCollins. Editor KatherineBucknell, in consultation withBachardy, had omitted passages thatcould be embarrassing to living people

named in the diaries.HarperCollins’ attor-neys further exam-ined the manuscriptfor sensitive material.However, a survivingfamily member threat-ened legal action afterthe book was published,claiming it revealed cer-tain inappropriate infor-mation. Despite his strongbelief in free and openaccess,Bachardy reluctantlyimposed a 30-year restric-tion on the original diaries inthe Huntington’s Isherwoodarchive (again, based on theages of the diaries’ subjects).The Isherwood papers other-wise are available for scholarlyresearch and are among themost heavily used collectionsin the Library.

And what of the Kinrosspapers? As it turned out, the

matter resolved itself with the passageof time and the intrusion of Hodson’sheavy workload. Huntington staffmembers are just finishing catalogingthe collection, which will finallybecome available to researchers laterthis year.

Hodson says that since her initialexperience delving into privacyissues, her views on the subject havechanged somewhat; she is less willingthan ever to impose restrictions andmore concerned with the possibilityof censorship. Still, she concedes,there are few easy answers in thedelicate act of balancing the public’sright to know with an individual’sright to privacy. Meanwhile, the SAArevised and updated its code of ethicsin February 2005. In the end, though,archivists must simply rememberHodson’s dictum: “It is in our handsto safeguard the privacy of those whocannot do so themselves.” m

Traude Gomez-Rhine is a staff writerat The Huntington. For further reading,see Sara S. Hodson’s article in TheAmerican Archivist (vol. 67, fall/winter2004), the semiannual journal of theSociety of American Archivists.

Letter to Sophia Hawthorne from Nathaniel Hawthorne,July 24, 1839, Huntington Library. The author’s wifecrossed out extensive passages in numerous letters afterher husband’s death.

Among the items inthe Kinross collection is a handmadescrapbook of mementos and snapshots from a friendidentified only as KGE, ca. 1950s.

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Captive MindsWHAT CAN HISTORIANS LEARN FROM FALSE CONFESSIONS?

by Michael P. Johnson

[ LESSONS LEARNED ]

WHEN JESSE AND STEPHEN BOORN

were arrested for murdering theirbrother-in-law, Russell Colvin, theyinsisted they did not do it. But circum-

stantial evidence—charred bones, an old hat, a knife,and a button—implicated the two brothers fromManchester,Vt., especially since everybody intown knew that they had wrangled withColvin for a long time.The year was1819, and Colvin hadn’t been seenor heard from since 1812. Puttingthe pieces together, the villagersimplored the brothers to face factsand confess to the murder.

With pressure bearing down on him, Jessecaved in, pinning the murder on his brother. He supportedhis claims with vivid testimony about the crime. Stephenthen confessed, describing in great detail how he hadclubbed the man to death and then buried him. Hisensuing tale about covering his tracks corroborated thecircumstantial evidence: he had dug up Colvin’s remains,reburied them under a stable that later burned, and thentossed some of the charred bones in a river. He stashedthe rest of the bones along with other objects in a holeunder a stump.The jury quickly convicted both brothersand sentenced them to hang.

In a lucky twist of fate, the brothers’ lawyer managedto locate Russell Colvin, who was alive and well on afarm in New Jersey.The brothers’ lives were spared.

Why had the Boorns confessed to a crime they didn’tcommit? Their confessions, it appears, had been cobbledtogether by their accusers—their neighbors. During the

seven years since Colvin disappeared, Manchester villagersmust have pieced together a murder story from remnantsof bone and clothing and suspicious behavior by theBoorns. Collectively scripting the murder—ghostwriting

it, in a sense—the villagers then pressured theBoorns to claim that the tale was theirs, con-

fessing to a murder that never happened.Scholars investigating historical records

from other legal cases have much to learnfrom more recent events.Today, DNA

evidence can exonerate suspects whomake false confessions. Moreover, strict

guidelines have been developed toregulate interrogations, in an earnestattempt to keep the justice systemfrom running amok, as it did somiserably in the Boorns’ case.Even so, while guidelines donot permit physical torture ofsuspected criminals, they doallow psychological pressure. Itis permissible, for instance, forinterrogators to lie to suspectsto pressure them to confess.Interrogation methods aredesigned to make suspects feel

cornered, to feel that they have noalternative but to spill their story.Confessions, interrogationexperts say, come from “cor-nered minds.” But how, youmight ask, do suspects with

Interrogators’ questions compose a script the

cornered suspect echoes, piece by piece, until

a coherent story emerges.

Illustration adapted from S.R.Wells’ New Descriptive Chart,ca. 1869, Huntington Library.


cornered minds invent false confessionsthat are persuasive? How do they know

what to say? They listen to their interrogators, much

as the Boorns listened to their neighbors.Theinterrogators know the general details of the

crime and can imagine how the suspect did the deed.Their questions compose a script the cornered suspectechoes, piece by piece, until a coherent story emerges.

Consider a tape-recorded interrogation of a murdersuspect in Florida in 1992.After insisting to seven inter-rogators for nine hours that he was innocent, the suspectgave two contradictory confessions. He pieced togetherhis story from exchanges such as the following:

INTERROGATOR: “O.K., think of [the victim] layingthere on the floor.What—what is underneath him? Isthere tile, carpet, or something else? Think about it. Closeyour eyes. I’ve got mine closed.There was somethingunder him. I remember it.”

SUSPECT: “[I] wasn’t paying attention. I was scared.”INTERROGATOR: “Was it a blanket underneaththat you remember or a…tarpaulin or something

like that?”Can you guess the right answer? The

suspect’s cornered mind could, and he spentmore than four years in jail awaiting trial onmurder charges until his contradictory con-fessions—scripted by interrogators—wereruled inadmissible by an appellate court.

If interrogation in post-Mirandapolice stations produces cornered minds,imagine how torture raises the stakes forthe accused to say what interrogatorswant to hear.A Human Rights Watchofficial recently commented,“Lawenforcement professionals in thiscountry understand that torture is a

wonderful technique for getting con-fessions from innocent people and a lousy

technique for getting the truth out ofguilty people.”

So what does all this mean to his-torians? Certainly that scholars should

approach archival materials with theskepticism of a well-informed juror in a criminalcase. Historical documents from minds cornered by tortureand intimidation are of special significance.Torture wasvividly documented in witchcraft interrogations. Churchofficials believed that the truth of confessions roughlycorrelated with the severity of tortures.They carefully

recorded victims’ testimony as torture escalated frombeatings to burnings, thumbscrews, the rack, and worse.Attentive inquisitors noted the victims’ anguish, interpretingit as evidence that torture was working.After repeatedtorture, an accused witch in 16th-century Germany pro-claimed that “she [wished] to God she could rip open herheart, so that [the inquisitors] could see it, she knows thatshe is innocent.” Her statement clearly called for more

torture, her questioners con-cluded. Renewed punishment

led her to doubt her innocenceand admit to her inquisitors that“she could not believe anything,she did not know whether Godwas with her or not. She haddone nothing, she just could not

believe in Christ…she was damned, damned,damned.” This woman’s plea eloquently expresses the des-peration of a cornered mind that twisted a true confessionof innocence into a false confession of guilt under theinfluence of torture.

Torture was such a normal feature of slavery that it isseldom explicitly mentioned in the surviving documentsof slave conspiracies. During slavery’s 250-year history inthe United States, hundreds of slaveswere executed for conspiring to riseup against their owners.Typically,the evidence against them camefrom confessions by one or moreslave suspects who had been beaten until they decidedto tell their interrogators what they wanted to hear.Such confessions were crucial in the prosecution of thelargest and most ambitious slave conspiracy in Americanhistory, the Denmark Vesey plot in Charleston, S.C., in thesummer of 1822. Confessions by a handful of cooperativeslave witnesses—all of them cornered by the court’s threat

of execution—sent 35 black men tothe gallows, the deadliest civilianjudicial proceeding in Americanhistory. One witness, a slave by thename of Monday Gell, spent 16days in jail before admitting his roleand identifying dozens of fellowconspirators.The court commuted

his death sentence, imposing exile inexchange for his testimony.

Instead of taking those confessions at face value, a skep-tical investigator today must assess how the interrogatorsmight have scripted a story like the one told by theBoorn brothers—persuasive, but not true. In the case of


[ LESSONS LEARNED ]

Denmark Vesey and his so-called coconspirators, thecourts literally left a paper trail of their script. Shortlyafter the completion of more than 40 trials in Juneand July of 1822, the Charleston Court of Magistratescompiled all the testimonies into one record: An OfficialReport of the Trials of Sundry Negroes. In it the courtsummarized the case against Vesey and his cohorts.Theproblem, though, is that the so-called Official Reportcontains thousands of contradictions with the actualcourt transcript.While the report describes Veseycross-examining the witnesses in his own trial, thecourt transcript indicates that the witnesses’ testimonytook place before Vesey was in custody! The report isa fabrication that simply advocates the position of theprosecution. Historians have tended to use the OfficialReport rather than the actual court transcripts, unin-tentionally colluding with the entrapment of allegedslave insurrectionists.Thus in the miscarriage of justice,a historical script not only supported the executionof 35 defendants but also held historians captive formore than 170 years.

New conclusions about a cold case such as theVesey plot have implications beyond guilt or inno-cence. Certainly this is not to say that confessions byalleged criminals are never accurate.And vindicationof Vesey and 34 other defendants does not lead to theconclusion that slaves never resisted their oppressors.Finally, is Vesey no less of a hero? He might not haveled an insurrection against slave masters, but he didinsist on his innocence until the very end, despitethe incriminating “evidence” of confessions fromsupposed conspirators.

Coerced confessions must be recognized for whatthey are: the creations of those seeking them. Corneredminds become scripted minds. One shudders to thinkof the masses of innocent people who have succumbedto such a fate—and the degree to which such horrorstories persist to this day. From a human rights per-spective, for those long gone, there is little that canbe done. But perhaps a more skeptical reading ofhistorical confessions can at least offer a small measureof justice for those who were compelled to say whattheir executioners wanted to hear. m

Michael P. Johnson is professor of history at Johns HopkinsUniversity. He is the Los Angeles Times DistinguishedFellow at The Huntington for the academic year 2004–5and is conducting research for a book with the working titleConjuring Insurrection.

Books in PrintEvery year, more than a thousand scholars use the Huntington’scollections in their research. Here is a sampling of recentlypublished books based on research in the collections.

WHITEWASHED ADOBE: THE RISE OF LOS

ANGELES AND THE REMAKING OF ITS

MEXICAN PAST | William Deverell

University of California Press, 2004

Deverell shows how a city that was oncepart of Mexico came of age through

appropriating—and even obliterating—the region’sconnections to Mexican places and people. WhitewashedAdobe uncovers an urban identity—and the power structurethat fostered it—with far-reaching implications forcontemporary Los Angeles.

JACKSONIAN ANTISLAVERY AND THE POLITICS

OF FREE SOIL, 1824-1854 | Jonathan H. Earle

University of North Carolina Press, 2004

Linking their antislavery stance to a land-reform agenda that pressed for free landfor poor settlers in addition to land free

of slavery, Free Soil Democrats forced major politicalrealignments in New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,and Ohio.As Earle shows, these political changes at thelocal, state, and national levels greatly intensified the sec-tional crisis and brought the nation closer to Civil War.

BOUND FOR FREEDOM: BLACK LOS ANGELES

IN JIM CROW AMERICA | Douglas Flamming


Bound for Freedom is the first full account of Los Angeles’ black community in thehalf-century before World War II.

Flamming takes his readers from Reconstruction to theJim Crow era, through the Great Migration, the RoaringTwenties, the Great Depression, and the build-up toWorld War II.This history evokes community life andpolitical activism during the city’s transformation fromsmall town to sprawling metropolis. Flamming shows thatthe history of race in Los Angeles is crucial to the under-standing of race in America.

DANGEROUS INTIMACY: THE UNTOLD STORY

OF MARK TWAIN’S FINAL YEARS | Karen Lystra


Dangerous Intimacy recounts the final years ofMark Twain through the letters and diariesof those who witnessed them firsthand.

Lystra supplements Twain’s own autobiographical writingswith the diaries and letters of his daughters. She also drawsupon the diary of Twain’s secretary, Isabel Lyon, who failedin her calculated attempt to become the second wife ofthe widowed author but succeeded in exiling Twain’syoungest daughter, Jean.

ISHERWOOD: A LIFE REVEALED | Peter Parker

Random House, 2004

Parker has written the definitive biographyof Christopher Isherwood, whose novels andshort stories (including those that inspiredthe musical Cabaret) have always been

assumed to be largely autobiographical. Parker presentsthe story of a life that evolved from a conventionalEnglish boyhood to that of one of the most acclaimedwriters in America.

THE ENGLISH ATLANTIC IN AN AGE OF

REVOLUTION, 1640-1661 | Carla Gardina Pestana

Harvard University Press, 2004

Between 1640 and 1660, England,Scotland, and Ireland faced civil war,invasion, religious radicalism, parliamentary

rule, and the restoration of the monarchy. Pestana connectsthese cataclysmic events and the development of planta-tions from Newfoundland to Surinam. She presents acompelling case for rethinking assumptions about empireand colonialism and offers an invaluable look at the cre-ation of the English Atlantic world.

OKFUSKEE: A CREEK INDIAN TOWN IN

COLONIAL AMERICA | Joshua Piker

Harvard University Press, 2004

Piker uses the history of Okfuskee, an18th-century Creek town in Alabama, toreframe standard narratives of both Native

and American experiences. By comparing the Okfuskees’experiences to those of their contemporaries in colonialBritish America, the book provides a nuanced discussionof the ways in which Native and Euro-American historiesintersected with, and diverged from, each other.

THE ELOQUENT PRESIDENT: A

PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN THROUGH

HIS WORDS | Ronald C. White Jr.

Random House, 2005

Ronald C. White Jr. is among themany scholars who first foundinspiration for a topic while miningthe stacks at the HuntingtonLibrary. He actually credits a 1993Huntington exhibition—“The LastBest Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise ofAmerica”—with inspiring his two books on Abraham Lincoln.

White, who first taught about Lincoln in the history departmentat UCLA during and after the Huntington exhibit, is currentlyprofessor of American intellectual and religious history atSan Francisco Theological Seminary and concurrently aHuntington research fellow. In 2002 he wrote Lincoln’sGreatest Speech: The Second Inaugural Address. In this bookhe explores the meaning of Lincoln’s 703-word speech in abroad historical and theological context.

White’s current book expands his inquiry to 11 majorspeeches, addresses, and public letters, all composed duringLincoln’s presidency. Although White’s focus is on documentsthat have long been part of the public record, he exploresLincoln’s editorial decisions by using rare letters, diaries,books, pamphlets, and manuscripts found at the Huntingtonand other libraries. For example, a printer’s proof of Lincoln’sfirst inaugural address contains hand-written suggestionsfrom Orville H. Browning, a friend from Illinois. In responseto Lincoln’s request for advice, Browning had praised thepresident-elect’s draft, but revised one passage that couldantagonize citizens in the South. Lincoln implemented thesuggestion. The printer’s proof was purchased in 1920 byHenry E. Huntington.

–Matt Stevens

BA

CK

FLAP

Photo by Lisa Blackburn

On the CoverHOW SWEET IT IS!

Katalina Gamarra,11, and Amanda Sandoval, 15, areamong the many students who have helped test exhibitsfor the new Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory forBotanical Science, which is set to open this coming fall(page 8).

The two girls are using a refractometer to measurethe amount of sugar in nectar. After dropping a sampleonto the window of the instrument, they look through theeyepiece. Light bends into different angles when passingthrough different sugar solutions. A small scale chartsthe percentage of sugar in each sample.

Peeking in on the action is a Eucrosia bicolor, a relativeof the daffodil from Ecuador.

Photo by Don Milici

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