On one of Columbia Professor Andrew Dolkart’s recent walking tours through lower Manhattan, we stopped at the corner of Broadway and John Street to study the Corbin Building. When it opened in 1889 it was one of the tallest commercial buildings in New York City. Designed by Francis Kimball, the terracotta structure is close by publisher’s row, where most of the large newspapers were located and a block away from Mathew Brady’s studio, along with other photographers and opticians along lower Broadway.

Near the top of the building, just under the penthouse, we saw the words “Optical Journal” on one side and “Jeweler’s Circular” on the other. Dolkart pointed out that while the building was financed by Austin Corbin, president of the Long Island Railroad, most of the floors were rented to various companies. These top floors held the offices of the Jeweler’s Circular Publishing Company, where in 1898, the American Association of Optician was established and a monthly journal printed.

These texts are some of the few period advertisements left in lower Manhattan. Like the rebinding of books and magazine, the renovation and reconstruction of the area has removed most of the print advertising, so valued by researcher and historians.

A few 17th and 18th century tombstones found north of Boston. Above “An aged person that had seen but nineteen winters in the world.”

John Milton (1608-1674), 1800s. Earthenware. Acquired from the estate of Charles Grosvenor Osgood, 1964. Museum Objects collection. Ex 4980

This Staffordshire figurine of Milton comes from the estate of Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), Holmes Professor of Belles Lettres. “His course in English Literature and the Classics was long a favorite among undergraduates,” wrote Alexander Leitch, “and the breadth of his interests is revealed by the subjects of some of his early works: The Classical Mythology of Milton’s English Poems; the Middle English poem, The Pearl; Selections from the Works of Samuel Johnson … In 1935 [Osgood] was persuaded to write a history of English literature for classroom use. It was called The Voice of England. ‘I have small excuse, I know,’ he wrote in the preface, ‘for rehearsing the old tale herein set down, except that it is an old story, and a good one, and many are the ways of telling it.’ Osgood’s way, reviewers agreed, was one of the best, and one colleague doubted that any textbook was ever written with such grace and lucidity.” A Princeton Companion (1978).

His work includes:

Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), The Classical Mythology of Milton’s English Poems (New York: Henry Holt, 1900). Annex A, Forrestal: Princeton Coll. P96.6948.03

Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), Milton’s ’Sphere of Fortune’ … [n.p., 1907] Annex A, Forrestal: Princeton Coll. P96.6948.05

John Milton (1608-1674), The Poetical Works of John Milton (New York: Oxford University Press [c1935]). Firestone Library (F) PR3550.F35

Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), Poetry as a Means of Grace (Princeton: Princeton University Press; London, H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1941). Firestone Library (F) PN1136 .O8 1941

Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), The Classical Mythology of Milton’s English Poems (New York: Haskell House, 1964). Firestone Library (F) PR3592.M96 O8 1964

In the spring of 1952, the headline “Tragedy on University Place” ran in the Daily Princetonian (Vol. 75, No. 55, March 29, 1951). 36 University Place had been the home of the Graphic Arts Collection, five galleries, a reference library, meeting rooms, and living space for the curator of Graphic Arts, Elmer Adler. In 1948, the Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library opened its doors and by 1952, space on the second floor was completed to house the Graphic Arts Division. Not everyone was happy about this. As we are in the midst of yet another renovation, it is instructive to read the comments of an earlier generation. The author “w.e.b.” wrote:

“The [Julian] Boyd Economy Plan brings to mind several of the grievous errors that exist in the Firestone Library— some which have occurred, and one of far more significant implications which is yet to come. We are not speaking of the “Crime of ’48,” its bastard Gothic design. Far abler voices from points as far distant as our own Architecture Department have long been heard on this touchy subject. …
The Graphic Arts Room can be seen as another example in this “perfectly planned” library. The Graphic Arts is primarily concerned with prints and the showing of them to students. Therefore a first consideration ought to be to its wall space. And thus where did they locate the Room in the new library? In some interior section unsuitable for regular office space for that very reason? No, sir, they gave it a corner site on one of the upper floors; we, right here in Princeton, probably have the Graphic Arts room with the most window space in the whole world. And this little distinction cannot be attributed to oversight or accident. Mr. Elmer Adler, the first and current Curator of Graphic Arts here, remarked on the fact of these windows, but it was pointed out to him by a responsible official that one could get a marvelous view of Nassau Street from the location. Mr. Adler had to remark that if he managed to get up the stairs to the room, it was his job, and that of the room, to show them prints, not selected landscapes.

Our Way of Life Threatened

But what is done is done; about these mistakes we can only laugh and perhaps wonder. Not so, however, is the case of the outcome of the whole Graphic Arts Program here at Princeton. Another mistake, of far deeper significance, is scheduled to occur at the end of next year. The story is simply this: We are privileged at present to have here at our college the outstanding authority in the field of Graphic Arts, in the person of Elmer Adler. At the moment, he, together with his magnificent book and print collects, is located on University Place in that yellow bit of wandering architecture known as “36.”

Here he runs his Print Club, his Graphic Arts seminars, his Book-Collecting Contests, his many exhibits and guest lectures. But to enter 36 University Place is to do more: it is to enter a world apart from the rest of the campus.

The house is old and badly planned; the walls creak with the weight of the pictures hung there. But the pace is slow, the tempo quiet and the human touch has not been replaced by the grim efficiency of a Firestone carrel patrol. Small groups — from the University and from the town — gather there, and as its doors are always open to all, interesting people with interesting things to say somehow seem to gather. It is perhaps a backwash in the great tide of efficient administration, but it is the type of thing that gives one meaning to spending four years in the New Jersey damp. But like the dink and the old-fashioned cane-spree, it too is to pass.

Mr. Adler retires next year; he will have a successor, but his collections will be removed to their bright cases in some slot high in Firestone, where only a grad student may come across it looking for Beowulf in the original.

36 University Place will be straightened out and made quite efficient; some say as a new “Prince” office, others as administration space. But it doesn’t really matter; the old ways, the old high teas, the old conversations will be gone. We noticed in the paper that in the first three months of 1951, Harvard already has been given almost three million dollars, while we are still straining with the five-year-old Third Century Fund. When we are alumni and are asked to support Princeton, let’s be sure that there is enough of Princeton left to support. If we are to give our money to chrome and tinsel, I suggest the Johnson & Johnson Plants on Route 1; it fits there.” —w.e.b.

James Mosley wrote, “Stencils were used in the 17th and 18th centuries in France and Germany to make the texts of big liturgical books. They were also used for marking playing cards.

The first description of how the stencils themselves were made was written in the 1690s for the Description des Arts et Métiers – the account of all trades that was prepared by a little group of specialists for the Academy of Sciences in Paris but most of which was not published at the time, leaving Diderot to carry out the idea in his Encyclopédie.

In the 18th century you could buy your own alphabets, in plain but elegant roman letters or elaborate fancy script, or get labels or visiting cards cut to order. Some that Benjamin Franklin bought from a supplier called Bery in Paris are among his surviving possessions in Philadelphia.” — http://typefoundry.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html

In the 19th century, Philadelphia became a center for stencil artists, such as Theodore Rue seen here. With these advertisements, he promotes the pochoir labeling of linen, which could have been for commercial packaging or personal decoration. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired one of his original metal stencils, seen above.

Possibly Richard Notfelde (skeleton)

The Day Collection of Memorial Brass Rubbings, ca. 1980s. Graphite on paper. Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of Kent Day Coes of Upper Montclair, New Jersey and H. Vinton Coes, Class of 1936 of Sussex, New Jersey, in memory of their grandfather Harry Kent Day and their mother Agnes Wickfield Day Coes.

2. Sir Rodger de Trumpington, crusader; 1289, Trumpington, Cambridgeshire

3. Sir Robert de Saptvans; 1306, Chartham, Kent

16. Robert Wyvil; 1375 – Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire

18. John de Campeden; 1382 – Chapel of St. Cross, Winchester

19. Sir William de Bryene; 1395 – Seal, Kent

27. Judge John Martyn and Anna, his wife; 1436, Graveney, Kent

28. Jane Keriell; about 1461, Ash, Kent

31. Christina Phelip; 1470 – Herne, Kent

32. William Gysborne (half-figure of a priest); 1451, Farningham, Kent

33. Robert de Brentyngham (half-figure); about 1380, East Horsley, Surrey

35. Lady Catherine Howard; about 1520, Stoke, Suffolk

38. Sir Thomas Isly and wife; 1520, Sundrldge, Kent

42. Lady Fyneux; 1539, Herne, Kent

50. Thomas Hamon; about 1620, Rye, Sussex

65. Nicholas Canteys; 1431, Margate, Kent

68. A civilian and wife; 1480 – Chelsfield, Kent

75. John Rusche; 1498, All Hallows, Barking, London

76. Thomas Sibill and wife; 1519, Farningham, Kent

77. Lodewyc Cortewille and his wife Colyne Van Caestre; 1496 and 1504, from Corteville, France now in the Museum of Economic Geology, London

81. Nicholas le Brun; 1547, Jeumont, France, now in the British Museum

85. Dame Joan de Favereham and her son John; about 1370, Graveney, Kent

86. Cardinal Frederic Casmir; 1510, Cathedral of Cracow, Poland

no number. Peryent and wife Joan; 1415, Digswell, Hertfordshire

no number. Edvarod Valontyne and wives Agnes and Joan; 1559 and 1570, Thanet, Kent

no number. Skeleton (not otherwise identified); 1446, Margate, Kent

no number. Sir Robert de Bures; 1302, Acton, Suffolk

no number. Fitzhugh, crusader; about 1320, Pebmarsh, Essex

no number. Knight, possibly a crusader

no number. Sir William Tendring; 1408, Stoke, Suffolk

For information on how to get started with a collection of your own, see: http://www.mbs-brasses.co.uk/brass_rubbing.htm The Monumental Brass Society, a website for those interested in any aspect of monumental brasses and incised slabs of all dates in all countries.