RCAH 202, Spring 2023 -- Living with the Dead -- Resources in Special Collections: Home

Andreas Vesalius De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body, 1543) was the first modern work on human anatomy.

Vesalius intersects with your course topic in two interesting ways:

• Prior to Vesalius, the Western world still considered the ancient Greek scholar, Galen (born 129 C.E.) as the highest authority on human anatomy. It was believed that the knowledge of the past could not be improved upon.
• Thirteen centuries later, Vesalius pioneered the practice of dissection to gain understanding of human anatomy. (Galen had never dissected a human body!) Thus, the recent dead made a profound contribution to human knowledge.

Special Collections has a 1555 edition of De Humani Corporis Fabrica (brought to class.) An annotated translation into English is also available.

Brought to class:

• Indo-Hispanic Folk Art Traditions II: A Book of Culturally-based Year-round Activities with an Emphasis on Day of the Dead... K-12 (1994)
• Laughing Souls: The Days of the Dead in Oaxaca, Mexico (1969)

More on Day of the Dead in Special Collections

Epitaphs are the inscriptions on grave markers. In the 1700s and 1800s collections of epitaphs were common.

Brought to class: A Collection of Epitaphs and Monumental Inscriptions... (1806)

More collections of epitaphs in Special Collections

Photo from takomabibelot on Flickr. Creative Commons license.

Artisans of the fine press movement idealized the book aesthetics of the Middle Ages. Their work can also be understood as part of the larger Arts & Crafts movement. The Kelmscott Press, founded by William Morris, was the most admired practitioner.

Brought to class:

• [Collection of illuminated manuscript leaves] circa 1400
• Kelmscott Press History of Reynard the Fox, 1892

More Kelmscott Press volumes in Special Collections.

A haggadah (plural haggadot) is a book or booklet containing the service for a seder, the ritual meal for the Jewish holiday of Passover.

Special Collections has about a dozen haggadot that were acquired and cataloged individually.

The Sylvia B. Kruger Haggadah Collection includes 80 haggadot, from the 1920s to 2006. Box 3 of this collection was brought to class.

Lev Raphael is an American writer of Jewish heritage who has published both fiction and non-fiction.

His book My Germany (2009) concerns his parents' experiences during the Holocaust and his own feelings about German history and culture.

Raphael's papers are held in MSU Special Collections. Files concerning My Germany are in box 9 (folders 17-20) and box 9.5 (folders 1-33.)

Brought to class: box 35, folder 22.5, with notes & drafts for a presentation at the Yom Hashoah Holocaust memorial service at Congregation Shaarey Zedek, East Lansing, 1994.

Here's the finding aid (archival term for a collection inventory) for the Lev Raphael papers. Click Collection Organization for an outline of the holdings.

Seen in class: Frances Hodges Receipt Book, 1834

More manuscript cookbooks in Special Collections, from oldest to newest:

• Anna West, her book (1684)
• Receipts for cookery (1700s)
• Anne Western (1716?)
• Mrs Mary Ockold, her receipt book (1722)
• Margaret Jones recipe book (1724)
• Guilhelmi Corne, Cures and Recipes (1753-1815?)
• Anne Bannister, Heckfield (1758)
• Elizabeth Pettigrew's book (1773)
• Mary Hale's cookbook (1780)
• Margaret Firth's book (1782)
• Receipts (late 1700s to early 1800s?)
• Receipts (1800s?)
• A.H. Best Cookbook (1800s?)
• Manuscript cook book (1816)
• Mrs Lewis receipt book (1831-1875?)
• Mrs Austen's Receipt book (1835)
• Receipt book (1853-1870?)
• Alice McMurran cooking and baking recipes (1887-1912?)
• Mary A. Addoms Durand cookbook (1895)
• Cooking notebook for waitress course (1899)
• Cake, dessert, and other recipes (1900s?)
• Cooking ideas... Walter French High School, Lansing (1930s?)

Art Spiegelman's classic graphic memoir of his father's experiences in the Holocaust. Copies in Special Collections:

• Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History (1986)
• Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began (1991)

Also available as an ebook (MSUnet logon required)

Volume 1 of Maus (My Father Bleeds History) is also available on 2-hour loan at the Main Library Circulation Desk, call number D810.J4 S643 1986. (Longer hours than the Special Collections reading room.)

Brought to class:

• Daybreak (2011)
• Night of the Living Dead: The Beginning (2006)
• Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus - by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, with engravings on wood by Lynd Ward (1934) Lynd Ward was a visual artist known for "wordless novels." His illustrations for Frankenstein are as brilliant as the novel.

More zombies in Special Collections:

• Find all items with zombies in the subject headings.
• Some zombie stories only have the subject heading horror comic books. If the word zombies isn't in the title, it won't come up in the search linked above. I used Google to find recommendations, like this article 10 Best Zombie Comics, Ranked on cbr.com.

Brought to class:

• A School History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1890, by Edward A. Johnson (1893)
• The Struggle for Freedom and Rights: Basic Facts About the Negro in American History, Detroit Public Schools (1963)

Extinction Scares Me, by Wael Taleb (2016)

I Listen to the Snow Shrouding Me Forever, by Christine Kermaire (2010)

Pansy's Hexagons, by Elsi Vassdal Ellis (2015)

[Scrapbook of botanical illustrations], 1886

Still, by Jenna Rodriguez (2015?)

Brought to class: Hunger of the Heart: Communion at the Wall (1995)

More on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Special Collections