March Evening Program

This presentation explores the appropriation, adaptation, and translation of the picture book Michaelmas Day or The Fate of Poor Molly Goosey. Originally issued by London publisher Dean & Co. ca. 1843, it was quickly reprinted in Philadelphia by George S. Appleton; in about 1850 the text was Americanized and issued by Boston publisher Wier & White under the title Thanksgiving Day. Ca. 1870, New York publisher D. Appleton & Company translated the picture book into Spanish and issued it as La Historia de La Gansa Amorosa for sale in the emerging Hispanic book market in North and South America, enlisting picture book manufacturer McLoughlin Brothers. Tracing the transnational, trans-lingual history of Molly, this study illuminates the use of recognized holidays to reach new markets.

Laura Wasowicz is Curator of Children’s Literature at the American Antiquarian Society. In this capacity, she oversees the growth, description, and use of the AAS Children’s Literature Collection comprised of 30,000 American children’s books issued between 1650 and 1899. She has written on various aspects of American children’s book publishing, picture book iconography, and children’s reading habits, including essays published in A de Grummond Primer: Highlights of the Children’s Literature Collection (University Press of Mississippi, 2021) and other publications.

Zoom begins promptly at 6:30 PM CT/7:30 PM ET.

Preregistration required via website. Zoom presentation is free and open to all.

Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest.

Even if you can’t attend at the scheduled time, if you’re interested, please register. After the program, we’ll send an email to all registrants, asking if you’d like a link to the complete recording. That way you can see the program even if you couldn’t attend live, ran into technical issues, or simply wanted to watch it again.

April Midday Program

Quick. What are the two flattest U.S. states? Here’s a hint, neither correct response starts with “Kansas.” First place honors belong to Florida and second … to Illinois, where many folks like to say that, “On a clear day, you can see the back of your head.”

That’s one reason that people first encountering the American West as they ventured from the Midwest were awestruck. Some of those encounters were captured on film – in stunning black and white – and our speaker, Megan Friedel, will be sharing examples of that photographic history with us. She’ll be drawing on the Rare and Distinctive Collections (which includes books and maps) at the University of Colorado Library.

An Amherst graduate, Megan received an MLIS as well as a MA in history from Simmons College. She has served as president of the Society of Rocky Mountain Archivists and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Western Archives.

Western photographs from the eighteenth century often appear as small images clustered on a page in history books or as part of extraordinarily expensive set of collectible volumes. Here’s your chance to see them richly portrayed and in the company of an expert.

Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest.

Please register if you’d like to see this program, even if you can’t attend. After the program, all registrants will receive an email offering an opportunity to request a link to a recording of the complete program.