I Feel Dirty

There are times when I have to catalog books that I don't agree with. There are times when we have to add books to the collection about artists who disgust me. Then there are times - like today - when I have to catalog a book that nearly brings tears to my eyes. It evokes for me a time when people were legally horrible to one another and things were even worse than they are now.

The book is an 1897 printing of the work Kemble's Coons published in New York by R.H. Russell & Son.

It's about African-American children and it's as bad as you think.

It came into the collection as part of a multi-thousand volume donation that was pretty much taken sight-unseen. While we've gotten mostly amazing things from this donation, we did get a few things here and there that were... well, let's just say they're things I wouldn't have gone out to look for.

So, you may ask, if it's so horrible, why are you adding it? Two reasons: a. it illustrates the work of Edward W. Kemble (1861-1933), a reputable American artist who illustrated all of the editions of Huck Finn published during Mark Twain's life, and b. because, right or wrong, it's a part of American art history.

When I first pulled the book onto my desk to start the cataloging process, I quickly found the record in OCLC, downloaded it, and quickly put the book back on the cart. Similar to the erotica incident, I didn't want anyone to walk into my office and see this on my desk.

I even felt like I should cover my tracks about downloading the record for this record of human dispicableness in the union catalog. Well, we're not the only library that owns this book. (Still, not very comforting.)

In an article entitled "Illustrating Slavery in Mark Twain's Text," University of Virginia American Lit Professor Stephen Railton discusses African Americans and slavery in Twain's books. The paragraph about three-fourths of the way down, entitled "Kemble's Images of African Slavery," speaks specifically about Kemble's illustrations. Kemble was obviously part of a tradition where stereotyping and looking at African Americans as the "other" was simply how it was.

Uck.