Yale Bulletin and Calendar

August 23-30, 1999

Volume 28, Number 1

Exhibits at Beinecke Library
celebrate the pioneering spirit

The determination of pioneers intent upon discovery is a theme in two exhibits on view at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

The larger of the two is "RUSH!" which explores the land and mineral rushes in the American west. It is being offered in commemoration of the 150^th anniversary of the California Gold Rush.

A small exhibition titled "Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Digital Age" documents the career of the Cambridge University mathematician and scientific reformer who is considered a pioneer of computer design.

Both exhibits are free and open to the public.

Rushing for gold

In 1850, a man named William Swain wrote to his wife about his search for gold in California: "I have picked up a lump worth 51 dollars which cost me no more labor than stooping down to take it up but such day's work as these are not a common thing. It is also necessary to say that I have spent whole days in tramping along these rock hills & shores and not found a shillings' worth of gold."

Swain's letter describing the challenges he faced in the competition for California gold is among an array of original materials -- including maps, photographs, guide books, posters, broadsides, prints, illustrations and advertisements - that offer a glimpse into the lives of those with a quest for gold. Threaded through these materials are letters and diaries that tell the stories of individual people who participated in the rushes, ranging from fathers separated from their families to women who went west in search of fortune.

The first North American rush took place in 1829, when gold was discovered in Georgia. The exhibition includes original documents related to Georgia's state land lottery by which claims were parceled out to prospectors despite numerous treaties with the Cherokee. In 1830, the Cherokee Removal Act was passed and more than 13,000 native people from the area were marched westward. Five thousand of them died on the way.

The California Gold Rush followed in 1849, and after it came rushes to Pikes Peak in 1859; the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1874; Leadville, Colorado in 1877; Coeur d'Alene in Idaho in 1883; and, at the end of the century, to Alaska. Among the materials that document these rushes are photographs and stereopticon views of the Klondike and Yukon, as well as advertising materials aimed at the mining populations.

Though life in the mining camps was difficult, memorabilia such as an 1875 invitation to a "basket picnic and subterranean ball" at Leavenworth Mountain, Colorado, provide evidence that mining life was not devoid of entertainment, according to Kristie Starr, a graduate student in history who arranged the exhibit under the direction of George Miles, curator of Western Americana at the Beinecke.

The challenges faced by families who were separated during gold rushes are reflected in the letters of such individuals as Stephen Crary and Rowena Campbell. Crary returned east from California in 1854 and married Campbell, only to leave again in 1860. "Dear Rowena partner of my joys and sorrows," he wrote, "how shall I tell you that I am about to separate myself from you and my little ones. God knows how long. I have made up my mind to try my fortune again in the gold fields of California."

Six months later, his wife replied: "Now you will say I am getting on a hateful streak well! I have felt hateful for the last week it is such bothering work to be man & woman both that I get so discouraged that I don't know what to do sometimes I sit right down & almost give up." Her solitary life came to an end the following year, when the family was reunited in California.

The subject of the gold rush as it has been depicted in literature and movies is represented in the exhibition by such items as the first edition of Mark Twain's 1872 work "Roughing It," which is based on his travels in the West in the 1860s. Other items on view include a memoir of the California gold rush by Sarah Royce, mother of the philosopher Josiah Royce, and "Lady Sourdough," the recollections of Frances Ella "Fizzy" Fitz, who struck it rich at Ophir Creek, Alaska, in 1906. The exhibition opens with movie memorabilia from such films as "Cimarron," "Paint Your Wagon" and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown."

Also featured in the exhibit, which is on view through Oct. 2, is a small packet of gold dust, placed together with a letter from an Alaskan gold miner named Walter D. Haws. "You will find herewith a sample of the fine gold we are now mining," he wrote in the letter. "Examine it through a strong magnifying glass and imagine how a man feels when he makes a discovery of this precious metal, especially in nugget size!"

Digital Age pioneer

Books, letters, manuscripts and documents related to the life of Charles Babbage (1791-1871) provide a glimpse of the accomplishments and challenges he experienced as a pioneering inventor.

The exhibit features letters and Babbage's own writings, as well as books and other documents that were donated to the library by Alfred Van Sinderen '45, the former chair and CEO of the Southern New England Telephone Company, shortly before his death in 1998.

In addition to being a mathematician and scientific reformer, Babbage was a physicist, social engineer, statistician and philosopher of science, as well as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. His earliest invention was a "difference engine," as he called it, a precursor to today's calculator. Later, he invented the Analytic Engine, which was equipped with an input mechanism using perforated cards, a memory or "store," a central processing unit and an output device capable of printing the results on paper or cards.

"This is the fist time a calculating engine was envisioned which could take action according to its own prior results -- a fundamental concept of modern computer design," Van Sinderen has noted.

Various letters on view in the exhibition document the challenges Babbage faced in maintaining government subsidies for his research. Due to the lack of ongoing support, his difference engine was never built, and Babbage became a critic of British government policy regarding science. Several of his published attacks on government policies are on view. Other items on display include his writings and letters to document his other interests, which included magnetism, actuary tables, population statistics, the economic implications of mechanization, geothermal shifts in the earth's surface, taxation, and the evils of street music.

The exhibit also includes the first detailed account of the "Analytic Engine," which was written in French by Luigi Federico Menabrea (later prime minister of Italy) and published in 1842. An English translation was made the following year by Byron's daughter, Lady Lovelace, who was Babbage's friend and admirer. The work, according to D. Allan Bromley, Sterling Professor of the Sciences and dean of engineering at Yale, is "the most important paper in the history of digital computing before modern times."

"Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Digital Age" will be on view through Sept. 16.

The Beinecke Library, located at the corner of Wall and High streets, is open for exhibition viewing Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturdays in September, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. It is closed Labor Day. For further information, call 432-2977 or visit the library's website at www.library.yale.edu/beinecke/.

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