New digital collections preserve, examine Cornell history | Cornell Chronicle

"Newly published digital collections at Cornell University Library explore areas of Cornell history - from the papers of a nationally renowned, independent poetry press that started as an English professor's pet project in the 1960s; to a collection of historic maps charting Cornell's expansion over the decades; to a trove of glass slides used as visual aids in engineering classes during the 1920s and 1930s."

"Freely accessible online , the three new collections were digitized from materials held in Cornell University Library's Rare and Manuscript Collections, as the culmination of projects led by faculty and graduate students supported by the library's Program for Digital Collections. Marty Cain, Ph.D. '22, explored the publishing files of Ithaca House Press , a small independent poetry imprint helmed from 1969 to 1986 by the late Baxter Hathaway, a professor of English who was instrumental in the founding of Cornell's M.F.A. program in creative writing."

"Cain said he was also fascinated by the "aesthetic collisions" and tensions embodied by the press: Ithaca House was started by a Cornell professor, but it was not affiliated with the university. It featured traditional work by local and regional poets but also published more experimental work by poets outside of New York, including important first books of Language poetry made famous by writers in California's Bay Area."

Cornell University Library published three new freely accessible digital collections documenting aspects of Cornell history. The collections include the papers of Ithaca House Press, historic campus maps tracing campus expansion, and glass slides used as engineering teaching aids in the 1920s and 1930s. Materials were digitized from the library's Rare and Manuscript Collections through projects led by faculty and graduate students supported by the Program for Digital Collections. Marty Cain, Ph.D. '22, researched Ithaca House Press, which operated from 1969 to 1986 under Baxter Hathaway and published both regional traditional poetry and experimental Language poetry first books. Cain also runs the independent Garden-Door Press with his wife, Kina Viola, and noted the press's tensions between local identity and its unaffiliated, independent origins.

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