Dear Partners in Leisurely Labor,
For this entry, I want to highlight the digital collection at University of Maryland, a mid-size but nice to navigate site.
One of their newest additions is a book of drawings from a Confederate soldier who was imprisoned in a Union camp in Point Lookout, Maryland for the last year of the Civil War. The illustrations are oddly funny–almost like a Robert Crumb or Art Spiegelman comic. I’ve attached a close-up from one of my favorite drawings, called “A Prisoner’s Dream,” featuring an unusually buxom woman playing a mandolin. (Read whatever Freudian symbolism you’d like into that.)
The site also has a nice exhibit of World’s Fair imagery, searchable or organized by location. Journey back to a time when “The World of Tomorrow,” (Trylon and Perisphere included) was just one architect’s dream!
I will say the one singular disappointment of the U. of Maryland archive is that there Jim Henson collection is only viewable from their campus. Which just goes to show, sometimes you do have to leave your computer after all.
Lazily yours,
Stephen
The Lazy Scholar 