Along with our ancestors, horses helped build Iowa City, the state, and the nation. In the process, they profoundly shaped human identities. The current Main Library Gallery exhibition, The Pull of Horses on National and Local Histories and Identities, explores the physical and social impact of these huge, powerful animals by screening on a loop the original documentary film The Pull of Horses in Urban American Performance, 1860-1920 at life-sized scale amid displays of local and national equine history. The exhibition contains glimpses of Iowa City town and campus life, as well as national equestrian culture – especially as multitudes of women took up the sport of riding and advocated for suffrage.

Original and reproduction publications, photographs, artifacts, and ephemera from Special Collections, the University Archives, and the Iowa Women’s Archives at the University of Iowa Libraries; the State Historical Society of Iowa; and from private collections share a sampling of stories about life alongside horses from Iowa City’s, and the nation’s, past. The exhibition was curated by Kim Marra, PhD of the University of Iowa Departments of Theatre Arts and American Studies, and Mark Anderson of the Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio at the University of Iowa Libraries.

In celebration of this Main Library Gallery exhibit, the University of Iowa Libraries is pleased to answer this intriguing question for the curious person wandering around downtown Iowa City: 

Where were downtown Iowa City’s horse-related businesses?

It is important to first understand the demand for these businesses. By 1900, according to the Decennial U.S. Census, the state of Iowa was home to 2,231,853 humans and 1,268,000 equines. In Johnson County, out of 24,753 humans, 9,773 were classified as urban, with most of those humans—7,987—concentrated in Iowa City. Equines numbered 18,493 in the Johnson County, with 1,602 living in urban areas. Given the high concentration of urban human population in Iowa City, most of those 1,602 equines were likely living here as well—around 1,000 would be a fair estimate.

To find out which buildings contained horse-related businesses, the curators turned to Sanborn maps and local business directories. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps provide helpful insight when researching the history of an area. The Sanborn Map Company published detailed maps of U.S. cities and towns, which allowed fire insurance companies to assess the fire risk of each building. Overall, these maps show the locations and types of businesses by year, along with structural information. 

There are 186 stables depicted in downtown Iowa City alone in 1899, according to the entirety of that year’s Sanborn Fire Insurance Map. Many of those stables are shown connected to businesses, while others are connected to private homes. Stables are prominently marked with an “X” across the footprint of each building. Most accommodated multiple equines, and the largest, Foster, Thompson, and Shuck Livery (later Foster, Graham, and Schaffer Livery), at 217-221 East Washington Street (current site of The Englert), would have accommodated several dozen. The quantity and placement of all these Iowa City stables give a sense of the extent to which horses were embedded in human life. Other key businesses needed to support working equines are also visible on the map, notably blacksmith shops, harness and saddlery shops, carriage and wagonmakers, feed stores, and veterinary surgeons.

The Main Library Gallery exhibition includes reproductions of the original 1899 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Iowa City in their entirety, and calls out specific locations that correspond with images found in the archives at the University of Iowa Libraries and the State Historical Society of Iowa in Iowa City. 

For those ready to tour downtown Iowa City looking for these historically horsey buildings (or former building sites in many cases), the particular map sections emphasized in this blog post are from the 1899 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Iowa City. Horse-related businesses are highlighted by virtue of their addresses listed in the 1899 Iowa City business directory. Some locations are approximate due to the changing landscape of downtown Iowa City over the years, but all featured establishments include the names of businesses housed there in 1899 and at the time of this post in 2020.

The Pull of Horses on National and Local Histories and Identities will be on display in the Main Library Gallery through March 29, 2020.

 

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Text: Sara J. Pinkham and Dr. Kim Marra
Clippings and cross-referencing: Sara J. Pinkham
Exhibition Support: Friends of the UI Libraries, Arts and Humanities Initiative, Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, UI Theatre Arts Department, UI Department of American Studies

The Main Library Gallery’s current exhibition, Rising Together | Protest in Print, features a few historic examples of protest from Special Collections at the University of Iowa Libraries. Along with these pieces, such as Thomas Paine’s famous 1776 pamphlet entitled Common Sense (x-Collection 973.3 P14c), more contemporary expressions of protest are also present. One of these books was created right here at the University of Iowa. In 2010, members of the Combat Paper Project visited the University of Iowa Center for the Book for a week-long residency. Julia Leonard, co-curator of the exhibition, was there. 

“There are a number of works [in the exhibit] that I find to be moving and beautiful examples of how print and artistic expression can address social and political issues,” she said. “They can contribute to affecting change, and also provide a ‘snapshot’ of concerns facing particular moments. A piece of personal significance is Paper Soldiers.” (x-Collection N7433.38.C653 P37)

The Combat Paper Project, founded in 2007, “transforms military uniforms into handmade paper.” Their website states: “We believe in this simple yet enduring premise that the plant fiber in rags can be transformed into paper. A uniform worn through military service carries with it stories and experiences that are deeply imbued in the woven threads. Creating paper and artwork from these fibers carries these same qualities. We have found that all of us are connected to the military in a myriad of ways. When these connections are discovered and shared it can open a deeper understanding between people and expand our collective beliefs about military service and war.”

“With us for a week, Combat Paper veterans, local veterans, and UICB faculty and students made paper from military uniforms belonging to participants, printed poetry, prose and images addressing conflict, and produced a collaborative edition,” said Leonard. “During a time when we as a country were confronting the decisions that took us to war, the project brought people from various places and viewpoints together through the sharing of ideas and making of artwork.” The edition was then bound by the UI Center for the Book and added to Special Collections at the University of Iowa Libraries.

Julia Leonard shared more about the experience of working with the Combat Paper Project in this short video:

 

 

Rising Together | Protest in Print is on display in the University of Iowa Libraries’ Main Library Gallery until January 3, 2020. Access to the Gallery is through the Main Library’s North Lobby, and is always free for the campus community and the general public. Visit lib.uiowa.edu/gallery to check open hours.

This exhibition was curated by Julia Leonard, Associate Professor at the University of Iowa Center for the Book and at the School of Library and Information Science; and Kalmia Strong, Creative Coordinator at the University of Iowa Libraries and Program Director at Public Space One, a nonprofit arts organization in Iowa City. Art pieces from Rising Together: An Exhibition of Artists’ Books, Prints and Zines with a Social Conscience, a traveling exhibit from the College Book Art Association, also feature heavily in the Main Library Gallery alongside Special Collections items. Stay tuned for additional behind the scenes videos from the curators!

When Julia Leonard was approached by the College Book Arts Association (CBAA) about hosting their traveling exhibition, Rising Together: An Exhibition of Artists’ Books, Prints and Zines with a Social Conscience, she knew it would be a great fit for the Main Library Gallery and a meaningful way to connect items from the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections to contemporary works. She invited Kalmia Strong to co-curate the exhibition, and together they decided to pair select juried pieces from the CBAA exhibition with carefully chosen works from Special Collections. In addition to Special Collections items, they also chose to include zines from the Public Space One Zine Collection. 

The exhibition overall features artist books, prints, zines, sculptural bookworks, altered books, chapbooks, broadsides, protest signs and banners, and historical examples of printed dissent. These real protest pieces give activism a visual voice, and comment on politics, power, war, immigration, the environment, human rights, and much more.

Zines

Underground and alternative publishing models have been critical to activists, dissidents, and artists for hundreds of years. One of these methods of publication, the zine, surfaced in the 1930s as way for fans of science fiction to trade ideas, fan fiction, art, and more. In the decades that followed, this type of underground self-publication began to gain a wider appeal.

But what is a zine, exactly? Zines in general are self-published, and typically cheaply-produced, publications which have a diverse history and reach. Their most distinguishing trait is that they are driven by the passions of the maker, whether those passions are political, related to fandom, or are responses to mainstream culture. Rising Together | Protest in Print displays a selection of zines drawn from the Public Space One Zine Collection, which features personal zines, and zines concerning anarchist and radical politics dating mostly from the 1990s and 2000s.

On display: 

Strong Hearts, Rod Coronado 
Force Fed, Miss Kristie
Chainbreaker, Shelley Lynn Jackson
American Dream: Free Enterprise, Seth M. Ferranti

Sharing the case with these zines are a few examples of Cartonera publications and samizdat. Cooperative Cartonera publications were pioneered by the Eloísa Cartonera collective following Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, and now are popular through Central and South America and Europe. Cartonera books are made using inexpensive printing methods and feature uniquely hand-painted cardboard covers sources from cartoneros, or cardboard collectors. They usually contain literary texts, some of which are politically oriented. Samizdat was a dissident underground publishing endeavor in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries following Joseph Stalin’s death. Works protesting the suppression of freedom of expression and other unsavory policies, or works containing material deemed “subversive,” were often produced by hand-copying or by using a typewriter and carbon paper. While most samizdat was written, underground music/audio and visual art were also part of this movement.

On display: 

Poesia y Politica: antología de poesía irreverente, Eloísa Cartonera, 2012
Ayotzinapa: Desaparicio Political, Pensaré Cartoneras, 2014
Russian Samizdat Art, Charles Doria, editor; Willis Locker and Owens; New York, NY; 1986

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Rising Together | Protest in Print is on display in the University of Iowa Libraries’ Main Library Gallery until January 3, 2020. Access to the Gallery is through the Main Library’s North Lobby, and is always free for the campus community and the general public. Visit lib.uiowa.edu/gallery to check open hours.

This exhibition was curated by Julia Leonard, Associate Professor at the University of Iowa Center for the Book and at the School of Library and Information Science; and Kalmia Strong, Creative Coordinator at the University of Iowa Libraries and Program Director at Public Space One, a nonprofit arts organization in Iowa City. Excerpts from the exhibition’s annotated guide to items from the University of Iowa Special Collections were included in this blog post. Stay tuned for additional behind the scenes videos from the curators!

 

University of Iowa faculty and staff are cordially invited to submit Main Library Gallery preliminary exhibition proposals for January 2021 – December 2022. Preliminary proposals must be received by November 22, 2019.

About Exhibitions in the Main Library Gallery:
Exhibits at the Main Library Gallery give the campus community and the general public access to items from the rich collections of the University of Iowa Libraries, including those which are rare and historically significant. Exhibit curators select unique objects, photos, papers, and books from these collections to tell stories about a range of fascinating topics, some of which have included: 

• ground-breaking space discoveries of UI professor James Van Allen
• Shakespeare’s First Folio, a rare volume of the bard’s plays published only one year after his death
• Star Trek movie memorabilia from the personal collection of Wrath of Khan director Nicholas Meyer
• the accomplishments and legacies of African American Hawkeyes
• early movie making in Iowa as seen through the lens of Frank Brinton
• a celebration of Walt Whitman
• Some exhibitions make exclusive use of UI Libraries collections, while others incorporate loaned items or traveling exhibitions from partner institutions and organizations.

Curatorial Commitment:
Curators thoroughly research their topic of choice, make selections for display from Libraries collections, are actively involved with the exhibit production team from start to finish, and are able to serve as subject matter experts for the duration of the exhibition. While the exhibit is on display, the curators are committed to providing a selection of public programs, including guided tours. Curators may also be involved with class visits to the Main Library Gallery, as their availability permits. Class visits are mainly from University of Iowa students and faculty, though community schools may also have an interest in learning more about certain topics. Curators should expect to devote at least 15 months to exhibit production, including providing in-person education for visitors as needed while exhibits are open.

Selection Process
Short preliminary proposals, or statements of interest, will be collected between October 18 and November 22, 2019 and reviewed by the Gallery Advisory Team. If your statement is selected by the team to move into the second round of the selection process for Main Library Gallery exhibits, you will then be asked to complete a more thorough form with greater detail about your proposed project. This will include information about your vision for curricular initiatives and tie-ins, potential funding you can bring to the project, detailed learning objectives for visitors, possible campus and community partnerships, a more complete abstract, a list of proposed University of Iowa Libraries objects and/or loaned objects to display in the exhibition, and more. The due date for second round proposals is December 13.

Exhibitions for 2021 and 2022 will be selected in January 2020 from finalist proposals submitted in the second round.

Submit your short preliminary proposal here.

Thank you for your interest, and we look forward to hearing your ideas for the Main Library Gallery! If you have questions about your submission or the selection process, please contact Sara J. Pinkham, Exhibition and Engagement Coordinator for the Main Library Gallery.