Campus Briefs

Henry Lowood

MAC HISTORY  Apple Computer Inc., the company that brought the computer into the American home, has donated 2,000 boxes of its history to the Stanford University Libraries. The eclectic collection includes everything from company newsletters and executive scrapbooks to T-shirts, coffee mugs and decals. Apple had planned to house the memorabilia in its own museum, but overtaken by its financial problems, the company decided to turn the archive over to Stanford. The material will be cataloged and made available to researchers, said Henry Lowood, the university’s curator for history of science and technology collections. Along with telling the company’s story, Lowood said, the collection could help researchers understand the life cycle of a successful startup. “This could provide a solid picture of how to put it all together,” Lowood said. “It could provide a road map.”

Related Information:

• Stanford acquires Apple collections
• Libraries acquire Hawthorne papers

A WINDOW ON GREATNESS  A collection of papers linked to the family of author Nathaniel Hawthorne now rests in a high-security vault at the university. The sheaf of fragile papers ­ with wax seals and Concord, Mass., postmarks ­ includes letters and journals of Hawthorne’s wife, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, and correspondence from relatives, friends and critics. Dating from 1830 into the early 1850s, the manuscripts cover the years of Hawthorne’s greatest literary achievement. They reveal fascinating details of the Hawthorne household and are filled with tidbits about Emerson, Thoreau and Melville, all friends of the family. “In Sophia Hawthorne we are in the presence of a gifted witness and participant in what is one of the richest periods in American letters,” said English Professor Jay Fliegelman.

Campus Briefs (Plain text)

Previous | Next