The University of the Unusual (4)

Anthropodermic Bibliopegy

Three books bound in human skin. Photo from Fugitive Leaves(the blog of the Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia)

  Those of you who bothered to read the fine print above will realize that the subject of this post is a touchy and somewhat sensitive one: books bound in human skin. A few years ago when some of them were found in the stacks at Harvard, I was going to discuss 'anthropodermic bibliopegy', as one of my unusual subjects, but never got around to it. Now that you know what this particular type of leather-bound book binding is called you can quickly learn all about it in the Wikipedia entry. There is also a very good resource devoted specifically to the subject. So I will simply provide the very basics and the essential sources. Then I will switch to a related subject which is even more unusual; it has to do with tattoos.
   Books bound in human skin do exist. There have been a large number of books discovered in libraries and private collections that contain the inscription, 'bound in human skin", but most of them were not. A new technique - Peptide Mass Fingerprinting - makes it easier and less expensive to determine whether the tome is bound in human, cow, goat or pig.
   There are many reasons why pages are held together in such a manner and you will learn all about them by examining the sources provided. Often they relate to the medical profession and one author notes that “Scratching the surface of the history of any real human-skin book usually reveals a doctor was the one wielding the knife.” The largest collection so far confirmed is found in the Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Tattoo Preservation

   In some cases books were bound in the skin of a loved one, or at the request of the owner of the skin to be used. What if you wanted to leave behind, when you died, all of the fine art etched on your body. Could you do so? That is not an unreasonable question to be asked since we now see many more people wearing tattoos than reading books, and it was recently asked by a tattoo artist in Saskatoon. The short answer to it is "Yes".

   The heavily tattooed gentleman from Saskatchewan died recently and requested that his wife save the art. She agreed and the Cleveland company - Save My Ink Forever - did so. The process is a complicated one and your mortician may have reservations, but I will provide the information you need.

Sources:

For the books:

The book image is found in: "The Skin She Lived In: Anthropodermic Books in the Historical Medical Library," Beth Lander, Fugitive Leaves, Oct. 1, 2015.

For a thorough account see: "In the Flesh? Anthropodermic Bibliopegy Verification and Its Implications," Jacob Gordon, RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage, Vol. 17, No.2, Fall, 2016. A copy is available here. 

The site dedicated to the subject is The Anthropodermic Book Project. 

The quote about doctors is from: "A Book By Its Cover: The Strange History of Books Bound in Human Skin," Megan Rosenbloom, Lapham's Quarterly, Oct. 19, 2016. Ms Rosenbloom is involved in the Book Project noted above.

For the tattoos:

"Dead Saskatoon Tattoo Artist's Skin Removed, Preserved to Honour His Work," The Canadian Press, Nov. 14, 2018.
"Kyle Sherwood, the company’s chief operating officer, went to Saskatoon to surgically excise Wenzel’s skin from 70 per cent of his entire body and preserve it with a special formula in a frame.
The entire job will cost about $80,000 and take about three months.
Cheryl Wenzel was in the room with Sherwood when he began removing the skin. I was able to point out which tattoos (Chris) wanted.”

"Saskatoon Widow Has Her Husband's Tattoos- And the Skin They're On- Preserved," Guy Quenneville, CBC News, Nov. 15, 2018. [The tattoo image above is Mr. Wenzel and it is from this article.]

For an update: "We're Back Together: Honouring His Dying Wishes, Wife Preserves Husband's Tattoos," Bryan Eneas, CBC News, April 15, 2019.

If you want to learn more about the process, it is described by the company: Save My Ink Forever. 

Postscript:

I indicated that it was the books at Harvard that I first read about. The subject was approached there with some humour. One article about it has the title "The Skinny on the Harvard Collection" and another has the words "caveat lector" in the web address: See: "The Science of Anthropodermic Binding."
While reading a recent book review about The Millionaire and the Bard (NYT May 22, 2015 I noticed this example of the use of the skin from calves:“There are many beautiful books in the world. The contemporary British collector Alfred Henry Huth, who possessed a First Folio that Folger coveted, also owned a ravishing “Book of Hours” illuminated in the late 15th century by the Flemish master Simon Marmion. Fashioned from the creamiest of vellum — parchment made from the skins of calves, in this case probably stillborn calves, whose skins were the smoothest and whitest of all — the luminous, one-of-a-kind Huth “Hours” looks like a possession fit for a prince of exquisite taste and limitless wealth.”

For other samples in this blog under the category of the university of the unusual see: The Guinea Worm and The Ingestion of Foreign Objects. 

Satan In Cincinnati

The Devil is in the Details

[Additional proof that stupidity and silliness were around before this century and prior to the invention of the Internet]

   While waiting in a line recently I noticed the logo above that you will recognize and remembered the other one which you probably don't. For years it was the trademark of the Procter & Gamble Company which is based in Cincinnati. Supposedly it represented the man in the moon and the cluster of stars stood for the 13 colonies. In the 1980s, however, it looked sinister to some, particularly if you stared at the logo in a mirror and saw 666 in the curls of the moon man's beard. This symbol of Satanism and the sign of the Antichrist was found throughout households on products ranging from Pampers to the box of Ivory Snow and clearly there was reason for concern.  The Satanic rumour spread quickly and people were urged to boycott P&G, which apparently many at the competitor Amway thought was a great idea. The switchboard in Cincinnati was receiving 5,000 queries a month about the logo and although P&G fought hard and spent a lot of money, it was ultimately abandoned.

Sources: [for those who think I make stuff up]
   Most of what you will want to know is found in the Wikipedia entry for P&G under "Logo Myth".

"P&G Drops Logo: Cites Satan Rumors: Man in the Moon Loses Job" Sandra Salmans, New York Times, April 25, 1985.
"P&G Trying to Exorcise the Devil Rumor," Pamela Moreland, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 22, 1982.
"Rumor in Minnesota Says 'Moonies' Run Procter & Gamble,"Lawrence Ingrassia, The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 26, 1980.

I could go on. The marketing nightmare lasted into this century: "Amway Loses Appeal in Case With Rival P&G," The Globe and Mail, Oct. 2, 2001.

There are also rumours about the Siren in the Starbucks logo, but I will leave it to you to find them. If you go to Snopes and search for Starbucks you will see they have suffered a number of their own marketing nightmares.

Post Script: (the spot reserved for editorializing)
Peeing in Philly: 
Among the  Starbucks marketing problems there is the one that arose in Philadelphia when two black men were arrested in a Starbucks for doing nothing. They were waiting for a friend and asked to use the bathroom. As an elderly white guy, I would probably not have been arrested, but I don't think they would have let me use the facilities. Perhaps the Starbuck's staff overreacted to the black men's request just as Starbucks overreacted in their response to the bad publicity. They said that they now would treat anyone who walked in as a customer even if they did not buy anything (as if there were already not enough of them sitting there using their laptops.) And, they closed stores for employee training which, one imagines, might have upset many of the employees who were already 'woke' and some of whom would have been 'of colour'. Bad ideas, both of them.
"Mandatory Implicit Bias Training Is a Bad Idea: It's All the Rage. And It's Seriously Counterproductive," Lee Jussim, Psychology Today, Dec. 2, 2017.
  As an old white guy with an aging bladder, I admit I am likely to benefit from all of this and look forward to the elimination everywhere of signs such as this one.

"The American Lakes" - Book Series

     This is another post about books that are published in a series. Part of the purpose of such a post is to call attention to interesting books which otherwise may be overlooked.

     The ten books in The American Lakes Series were published by Bobbs-Merrill in the 1940s. The first five cover all of the Great Lakes. The next five concern thirteen other lakes which are scattered throughout the United States. The titles of the books are provided along with some sample reviews.

The Great Lakes

     We are on the eve of a long weekend to celebrate what is known (for now) as “Victoria Day”. In the area surrounding the Great Lakes it is likely to be cool and rainy, so reading about the lakes will be more enjoyable than swimming in them.

    These books were written in the 1940s by professional historians for popular consumption. The academic historians of today are generally forced to produce books suitable only for professional consumption by other members of the academies.

    It is highly likely that you will find something of interest about either the condition of the lakes or the attitudes of the historians as you read these books which were written about 75 years ago. If you happen to be a university student, be warned that the word “savage” was spotted in one volume when the author is discussing the early indigenous occupants of this continent.

  It should be noted that the books are also about the land and people around the lakes. One of the reviewers of the book about Lake Pontchartrain suggests that it is mostly about New Orleans. Perhaps the most interesting chapter in Landon’s Lake Huron is the one about an amazing medical experiment involving the exposed intestines of a voyageur. (See: Chapter 13: “William Beaumont: ‘Backwoods Physiologist’,”). The author, Professor Landon, was the University Librarian and a member of the history department at the University of Western Ontario. The copy of Lake Huron I borrowed from the Western libraries is signed by him.

Lake Huron

Lake Huron, Fred Landon, Bobbs-Merrill, 1944

“Here is history, biography, legend, anecdote, mystery and economic and social text. “Lake Huron is the first volume in the “American Lakes Series, edited by Milo M. Quaife. Fred Landon has provided his successors with a model which will cost them blood, sweat and tears to equal.” "Lake Huron, First Volume in 'The American Lakes Series': Lake Huron by Fred Landon," Oscar Cargill, New York Times, March 26, 1944.

“He just makes the past and the present of the central Great Lake so full of color and drama that the reader’s only consciousness of the author is the occasional wish that he would expand some incident further.” “Fred Landon’s History of Huron Inaugurates Great Lake Series,” William Arthur Deacon, Globe and Mail, June 17, 1944.

“It is good news that at last the Great Lakes are to be the subject of a series of books by an accomplished group of historians....” “Here is history warmed by love of the land and the water. More of Lake Huron lies in Canada than in the United States, and it is fitting that a Canadian historian should have told this story.” “Huron First in Series of Lake History, Walter Havighurst, Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar. 26, 1944

[Havighurst is the author of another book on the Great Lakes - The Long Ships Passing - which you can still order from the University of Minnesota Press.]

“To supply a very real historical need [for histories of the Great Lakes], then, Dr. Quaife has planned the American Lakes Series, and fortunately he has persuaded Professor Landon, sometime freshwater sailor, veteran journalist, and member of the history department of the University of Western Ontario, to write the first volume.” Edward P. Alexander, Pacific Historical Review, Sept. 1944 Vol. 13, No 3.

"The editor of the series, Mr. M. M. Quaife, hopes to appeal to the general public; and accordingly Professor Landon omits the critical apparatus of professional historical books and chooses the most dramatic happenings for his narrative, including the experiments of Dr. William Beaumont of Mackinac on the partly open stomach of Alexis St. Martin in the eighteen-twenties. He has used the reports of early travellers on the lakes and some publications of local societies but makes no claim to exhaustive research." W.B. Kerr,  The Canadian Historical Review, 1944, Volume 25, Issue 4.

“Those who have never gazed upon its limitless horizons cannot read this book without feeling that they have missed something very much worth while, and those to whom some of Huron's vast area at least is familiar will feel the haunting desire to return.” Lawrence J. Burpee, Minnesota History, 01/1944.

Lake Superior

Lake Superior, Grace Lee Nute, Bobbs-Merrill, 1944.

“Altogether a book to be highly recommended, to the serious student as well as the general reader." Lawrence J. Burpee, The American Historical Review, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Apr., 1945), pp. 553-554.

Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan, Milo Milton Quaife, Bobbs-Merrill, 1944.

“The story set forth in both Lake Michigan and Lake Superior is a breath-taking tale of vanishing men and vanishing things.” Oscar Cargill, New York Times, Aug 27, 1944.
[Both the Superior and Michigan books are discussed  in this review.]

"Third to appear in the "American Lakes Series," this is the very readable work of the editor and may be viewed as the pattern for the group. Neither geography nor travel guide, the book is rather a regional history designed apparently for popular consumption but not without a substantial foundation of research. Like its river counterparts, it is not so much the history of a lake as of a locality…” American Historical Review, Vol.50, No.3, April, 1945.

Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario, Arthur Pound, Bobbs-Merrill, 1945.

 “Many American readers will enjoy most the chapters devoted to Ontario’s Canadian shores.”Mr. Pound sketches its story from the day in 1615 when Etienne Brule first saw the lake right down to the contemporary war boom in a volume which successfully combines geology, history, biography, statistics and folklore.” "The Story of Lake Ontario," Carl Bridenbaugh, New York Times, June 17, 1945.

This reviewer writes that "this is the best book written about Lake Ontario," but he notes that it seems to have been written for an American audience and that much of the Canadian material will be familiar to Canadians.  “How Lake Ontario Stretches from Quebec to Mississippi," William Arthur Deacon,' The Globe and Mail, July 14, 1945.

Lake Erie

Lake Erie, Harlan Hatcher, Bobbs-Merrill, 1945.

"Lake Erie completes the American Lake Series as far as the Great Lakes are involved. Those who are interested in the great inland seas of North America may well take pride in the fact that their history has been done in a way which should be acceptable both to the historian and the general reader.  These five volumes will for many years be both the basic outline and the point of departure of the history of the Lakes and their environs.” R. Carlyle Buley,  Indiana Magazine of History, Vol.2, No 2, June, 1946.
[Hatcher also wrote a general history of all of these lakes. See: The Great Lakes, Harlan Hatcher, Oxford University Press, 1944. For a review see:  The American Historical Review, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Jul., 1945), pp. 817-818.]

The Other Lakes 

Lake Pontchartrain

Lake Pontchartrain, W. Adolphe Roberts, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1946.

“The striking thing about this volume on Lake Pontchartrain - one of the American Lakes series - is that it contains so little about the lake. Most of its pages are given over to the city of New Orleans - its founding, its growth, its charming ways and its unusual attitudes.”
“W. Adolphe Roberts Writes Vivid New Orleans Story,” Avery Craven, New York Times, Oct. 20, 1946.

Lake Champlain and Lake George

Lake Champlain and Lake George, Frederick F. Van de Water, Bobbs-Merrill Co. 1946.

"Lake Champlain and Lake George is consistently a good book, with no dull passages or chapters to mar the pleasure of the reader.” Stephen H.P. Pell, New York History, Vol. 28, No.2, April, 1947, pp. 214-217.

The Great Salt Lake

The Great Salt Lake, Dale E. Morgan, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1947.

The well respected Wallace Stegner had this to say about this work: 

“Even from a book from a popular series one may expect accuracy in the important facts of history. One does not usually expect precision and definitiveness, especially when the book in question must cover centuries of time. It is therefore something of a tour de force that Dale Morgan has accomplished, for The Great Salt Lake is both panoramic and precise, both popularly readable and historically important.” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Aug., 1947), pp. 330-331.

Lake Okeechobee

Lake Okeechobee: Wellspring of the Everglades, Alfred Jackson Hanna and Kathryn Abbey Hanna, Bobbs-Merrill Co. 1948.

“The Hannas have written a book which will have a wide appeal, and their treatment of the subject matter is excellent.” Junius E. Dovell, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Nov., 1948), pp. 567-568.

Sierra-Nevada Lakes

Sierra-Nevada Lakes, George and Bliss Hinkle, Bobbs-Merrill Co. 1949.

"This book is about 8 lakes, but is particularly good about Lake Tahoe -”Eight Western Lakes: Sierra-Nevada Lakes,” George R. Stewart, New York Times,  April, 17, 1949.

“It would be difficult to find any couple - or anyone - better versed in the lore of this hinterland than the Hinkles." John Walton Caughey, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Mar., 1950), p. 714 

“The book is well written, and the point of view is often fresh and stimulating.” August Fruge, Pacific Historical Review,Vol. 18, No. 4 (Nov., 1949), pp. 524-525.

Sources:
    None of these books are yet available for reading via the Internet. All are available through book dealers such as AbeBooks, although purchasing the set would be expensive. The entire book series and all of the other titles mentioned above are found in the Western Libraries.
   Interesting information about Grace Lee Nute, the author of Lake Superior, is found at the Minnesota Historical Society. 

Post Script: (the usual bonus stuff)
   If you were intrigued by the reference to the medical experiment at Mackinac see the Wikipedia entry for William Beaumont ("the Father of Gastric Physiology").
   Milo Quaife, the editor of the American Lakes Series and author of the volume on Lake Michigan, was killed in a car crash near Sault Ste. Marie in 1959. See: "Historian Dies in Crash: Milo Quaife, 79, Specialized in Midwestern Subjects," New York Times, Sept. 4, 1959.
   Enjoy these lakes while you can. Last summer it was reported that even Lake Superior is experiencing algae blooms. Things are likely to get worse. It has just been announced that copper mining will be allowed in the Boundary Waters Wilderness area in Minnesota. See: "Trump Administration Opens Minnesota Wilderness Area to Copper Mining," Valerie Volcovici, Reuters, May 15, 2019.