Audubon Bird of the Week

Trumpeter Swan

Audubon describes the great mass of this beautiful bird, the largest native bird in North America:

The waters of the Arkansas and its tributaries are annually supplied with Trumpeter Swans, and the largest individual which I have examined measured nearly ten feet in extent and weighed above 38 pounds. The quills, which I used in drawing the feet and claws of many small birds, were so hard, and yet so elastic, that the best steel-pen of the present day might have blushed, if it could, to be compared with them.

The Trumpeter Swan nearly became extinct in the mid-20th century due to hunting. Conservation efforts in the past 30 years have rebounded the populations in three distinct areas, taking the bird out of immediate threat. Efforts to reintroduce the Trumpeter Swan to its original Midwest habitats, however, have largely failed.

Earthquake!

The earthquake that rumbled through Western New York yesterday was just one of several that have occurred in our history.  Curious about these quakes, we checked The Grosvenor Room’s Local History File (LHF) and learned that the earliest recorded quake was in 1857.  A citation on a card in the file led us to this article in an early newspaper, the Buffalo Morning Express:

The LHF is the Library’s most comprehensive resource for Buffalo research. It is an index to select local newspaper articles. References to books, vertical file materials, scrapbooks, and magazines are also included, and cover Buffalo and Erie County people, places, and events. Most citations date from 1930-1982, but some go back as far as the 1890s and as recent as this year.

The cards found under the subject “Earthquakes,” such as the one pictured above, reveal that noteworthy quakes also occurred in 1929 and 1944.

Be sure to check out the Local History File on your next visit to the Grosvenor Room!

Source: Buffalo Morning Express, October 24, 1857: 1

Tim Frerichs: Thursday at noon

At noon on Thursday, June 24, the Rare Book Room of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library is pleased to host a presentation by Timothy Frerichs, a former Visiting Artist at the Linnaeus Gardens at Uppsala University in Sweden.

The Rare Book Room purchased two original sketchbooks and two original folios of Frerichs’ botanical drawings in 2009. Some of Frerich’s drawings are displayed in the  new Rare Book Room exhibit “In the Garden”.

Frerichs’ sketchbooks and folios are entirely homemade, right down to the way the wooden boxes are painted. Here is a special peek at some other pieces in our collection of Frerichs’ work:

Frerichs’ sketches and illustrations of the Linnaeus Gardens was purchased by the library in 2009. The works are hand-bound and housed in encaustic wooden boxes.

Frerichs has received numerous awards including a 2010 Netherland-America Foundation Cultural Grant, a Constance Saltonstall Foundation Grant for Printmaking, two Fulbright awards, the latest a 2007 Senior Lecture Award Fulbright to the Universität Osnabrück, Germany. He is an Associate Professor of Art in the Department of Visual Arts  and New Media at SUNY Fredonia.

2010 Summer Speaker Series

Join us this week for two special guests in our speaker series.

Thursday, June 24, noon at Central Library, artist Tim Frerichs will speak on his experience as a visiting artist at Universität Uppsala Linnaeus Botanical Gardens in Uppsala, Sweden.  Mr. Frerichs artwork and film are featured in our new exhibit, In the Garden: The Art of Botanical Illustration.

On Saturday, June 26 at 2 pm at the Central Library for a lecture by Amy Stewart, expert gardener and New York Times bestselling author of Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities.

Booklist’s Carol Haggas describes Wicked Plants:

There are plants that can kill with a drop of nectar, paralyze with the brush of a petal. From bucolic woodland streams choked by invasive purple loosestrife to languid southern fields overrun by kudzu, some plants are just more trouble than they’re worth. Culling legend and citing science, Stewart’s fact-filled, A–Z compendium of nature’s worst offenders offers practical and tantalizing composite views of toxic, irritating, prickly, and all-around ill-mannered plants.

Mr. Frerichs and Ms. Stewart are presented in collaboration with the Buffalo National Garden Festival, and In the Garden: The Art of Botanical Illustration.  All events and exhibits are free and open to the public.

City Directory Blues – Some Alternate Sources for Locating Your Ancestors

Finding where your ancestors lived is essential to genealogy research.  Knowing their place of residence will help find records pertaining to them.  City directories are a main resource used to locate ancestors, but what if directories do not exist for the time period you need or for the area where they may have lived?  The following resources are available in the Grosvenor Room and may help locate your ancestors:

Atlases – Some atlases show property owners.  Atlases are generally not indexed by name, but you can browse a town to see if an ancestor is listed.  The example to the left shows a section of Akron.  It names property owners and shows building locations.  A list of our Buffalo and Erie County atlases is available here.

Federal and State Census Records – Federal and New York State censuses recorded the city/town of residence.   The U.S. Federal Census 1880-1930 and the New York State Census 1905-1925 recorded an individual’s street name and house number.  The 1855 New York State Census recorded how many years an individual lived in their current city/town.  A list of federal and state census records available in the Grosvenor Room is available here.

Land and Property Transactions – The Library has some land and property transaction abstracts.  These usually have name indexes and list the date the property was purchased and the location of the land.  A select list of our Western New York property resources is in the guide located here.

Voters Lists – Buffalo and Erie County voters lists are available in the Buffalo Collection.  Registered voters are organized by street address within their ward and election district.  Alphabetic name indexes are not included, but browsing smaller towns is usually feasible.

• Buffalo F127.E6 A12 – Official List of Registered Voters: Towns of Erie County.  Most years are owned 1926-1971.
• Buffalo F129.B8 B37 – Official List of Registered Voters City of Buffalo.  Most years are owned 1919-1961.

Alumni Directories – If you know where your ancestor went to high school or college, alumni directories may be available.  These resources often give the city where alumni were living at the time the directory was published.  They sometimes list specific addresses.  The example given here lists not only the graduate’s current place of residence, but also a previous address as well as other important genealogical information.  Click here for a list of our yearbooks and alumni directories.

Image Source Alumni Directory: Buffalo LD7501 .B947 – Buffalo Female Academy: Twenty-fifth Anniversary, 1851-1876.  Buffalo, NY: A.L. Freeman & Co., 1876. Page 94.

Image Source Atlas: Folio F 127.E6 S7 1866 – New Topographical Atlas of Erie County, New York.  Philadelphia: Stone & Stewart, 1866. Page 69.

Illuminated Manuscripts

The Grosvenor Rare Book Room collection has several examples of hand-illuminated, medieval manuscripts. Among the illuminated manuscripts in the collection is a two-volume Book of Hours from the 15th century presented to the Buffalo Library in 1886 by James Fraser Gluck, a local attorney and library curator. It is written in Latin and contains nine illuminations within decorative borders and four illuminated initials.

Book of Hours; 15th Century. Gift of James Fraser Gluck to the Buffalo Library, 1886. Gluck Manuscript Collection.

French Book of Hours; 15th Century. 50 Original Leaves From Medieval Manuscripts, compiled by Otto Ege.

A book of hours is a type of prayer book. Each one starts with a liturgical calendar, followed by brief extracts from the Gospels. Over the course of the 15th century, and certainly by the end of the 16th century, the rosary became more popular than the Book of Hours as a form of prayer. One reason for this shift in popularity was that the Book of Hours calls for varying what prayers are said each hour, day or season, rather than the much simpler devotions called for when using the rosary. Ideally, a Book of Hours was intended to be used every day, 8 times per day.

The Rare Book collection also includes Otto Ege’s Fifty Original Leaves From Medieval Manuscripts from Western Europe dating from the 12th through the 16th century. Set number 11 of 40 was presented to the library by Mr. and Mrs. Franz Theodore Stone in 1964 on the occasion of the dedication of the new Buffalo & Erie County Public Library.

German Psalter; Mid-13th Century. 50 Original Leaves From Medieval Manuscripts, compiled by Otto Ege.

Otto Ege was Dean of the Cleveland Institute of Art and lectured on the history of the book at Western Reserve University. Ege selected fifty manuscript leaves, primarily from religious works, to illustrate the art of the manuscript during the period of its greatest development and influence. He prepared the text which accompanies the set over a period of forty years.

Take a closer look at the German Psalter at right.  This scribe used a fish with a grinning expression as an illustration at the end of a line.  As a result, these books of psalms are often called “laughing carp” psalters.

Audubon Bird of the Week

Roseate Spoonbill

Audubon describes his encounter with the spoonbill:

This beautiful bird is usually fond of the company of our different Herons, whose keen sight and vigilance are useful to it in apprising it of danger, and allowing it to take flight in due time. When the Spoonbills are by themselves and feeding, they can easily be approached by those who, like yourself perhaps, are expert at crawling over the mud on hands and knees, through the tall and keen-edged saw-grass. I well recollect my own success when, after having seen three of these precious birds alight on their feeding grounds, about a quarter of a mile from where I stood, I managed, after something short of half an hour, to get within shot of them.

Audubon Bird of the Week

Snowy Heron or White Egret

Audubon describes the snowy heron’s graceful flight:

“While migrating, they fly both by night and by day, in loose flocks of from twenty to a hundred individuals, sometimes arranging themselves in a broad front, then forming lines, and again proceeding in a straggling manner. They keep perfectly silent, and move at a height seldom exceeding a hundred yards. Their flight is light, undetermined as it were, yet well sustained, and performed by regular flappings, as in other birds of the tribe.”

A little Lafayette Square history

Tonight is the first “Thursday at the Square” concert of the season, and Lafayette Square in downtown Buffalo will be filled with music lovers.  Once known as “Court House Park,” Lafayette Square was renamed in 1879 in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, who visited the then village of Buffalo in 1825.  The Court House stood approximately where the Central Library is now located, and was the site of the trial of the infamous Three Thayers in 1824. The Court House was first replaced by the Buffalo Public Library in 1887, and the current Buffalo & Erie County Public Library building has been on the site since 1963.

 Throughout the years, the Square has been the site of gatherings for various events and speeches, including the Liberty Loan drives of 1917 & 1918.   Want to learn more about Lafayette Square, the Marquis’ visit, the Court House, or Library history?  Visit the Grosvenor Room for books, newspaper articles, scrapbooks, and more on these fascinating Buffalo topics!

Image Sources: Postcard: Grosvenor Room postcard collection. Court House: Reproduced from City of Buffalo: Its History and Institutions.  Buffalo, NY: Matthews, Northrup, & Co., 1888.

Botanical Exhibit Lecture – June 24 @ Noon

Join us on Thursday, June 24 at noon, for a lunchtime talk given by Tim Frerichs.  Mr. Frerichs is an artist and Associate Professor of Art at SUNY Fredonia.  His work has been widely exhibited, including the Western New York Book Arts Collaborative, Everson Art Museum, and an upcoming exhibit at Centro Internazionale Della Grafica, in Venice, Italy.  Currently, Linnaeus’ Garden Walk, a film by Frerichs, as well as a selection of his artwork, is featured as part of our exhibit In the Garden: The Art of Botanical Illustration.

Frerichs describes his artistic process:

My artwork involves questioning of established approaches for or representing nature. As an element of my working methodology, I gather and record site-specific objects found during my walk of the site. I strive to create a visual dialogue examining how collecting and collection processes (whether scientific or cultural) represent our perceptions of the natural world. I am especially interested in how these perceptions change.

For more on Tim Frerich’s work, visit his website.

Lunchtime Talk  · Thursday, June 24, Noon · Central Library

Free and open to the public.