The Indicator

This column takes its name from the popular printer's mark shown above. Leigh Hunt used the indicator mark, also called a fist, hand director, or index to sign his column in the Examiner and later chose the Indicator as the title for his new journal that ran from October 1819 through March 1821. In an epigraph, Hunt explained that the African indicator bird, when looking for honey, would issue "a cheerful cry" to indicate sweets to its followers. The editors hope that this column serves a similar purpose. The Indicator is used to direct special attention to various topics, including forthcoming programs and speakers, exhibitions, and news of selected acquisitions.

The University of Iowa Libraries Exhibitions Program for 1992

OUR ENVIRONMENT

This exhibition included some of the history of humankind's destructive effect on its natural environment, emphasizing that this is not a development that began with the Industrial Revolution. It illustrated such problems as overgrazing and other agricultural practices which have accounted for the advance of deserts and extinction of plant and animal species. Another part of the exhibition focused on the major global ecological threats, such as deforestation, ozone depletion, and ocean pollution. One of the free-standing cases concentrated on the ecological destruction resulting from the uses of fossil fuels. A third section featured more local ecological concerns such as the effects of "fencerow to fencerow tilling" on soil depletion, the contamination of water by agricultural chemicals, and contrasted some of these problems with approaches that are more ecologically friendly. This section also featured the efforts of J.N. "Ding" Darling and Ducks Unlimited to preserve wildlife habitats.

This exhibition was prepared by David Lepse, David Martin, and Melanie Wilson, with assistance from David Hudson, Christine Tade, and William Welburn and was available from mid-March through mid-April 1992.

CARROLL COLEMAN, PUBLISHER, AND THE PRAIRIE PRESS

This exhibition will honor the work of the late Carroll Coleman, proprietor of the Prairie Press and one of the most influential practitioners of fine printing in the United States. In the course of thirty-nine years, thirteen of Coleman's books were named among the "Fifty Best Books of the Year" by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. His greatest interest as a publisher was in producing the work of living poets in handsome books that sold for modest prices. In doing this, he influenced generations of printers and publishers in the Midwest and across the country. On display will be a generous selection of books from the Prairie Press, samples of Coleman's design work for other presses and publishers, and correspondence from the Coleman archive.

This exhibition, to be prepared by David Schoonover and Rijn Templeton, will be featured from mid-April through May of 1992.

THE SHORT STORY IN ENGLISH

On June 6-7, 1992, The University of Iowa will be the site for the Second International Conference on the Short Story in English, sponsored by creative writing programs at the three Regents' universities. Such writers as John Barth, Joyce Carol Oates, Leslie Marmon Silko, Barry Hannah, Ann Beattie, Robert Coover, Bobbie Ann Mason, David Updike, and W.P. Kinsella have agreed to attend. Scholars, critics, and other writers will discuss a range of topics affecting the short story. The University Libraries will feature an exhibition on short stories, to be prepared by Sandra Ballasch, Margaret Richardson, and Helen Ryan.

THE IOWA SZÁTHMARY CULINARY ARTS SERIES

The University of Iowa Libraries and the University of Iowa Press are pleased to announce an important publishing collaboration, based on the collection of books and manuscripts formed by Chef Louis Szathmáry and donated to the University in the 1980s. Plans call for including reprints, new editions, and translations of rare texts, ranging from the fifteenth century to the present and representing a diversity of cultures, nationalities, and languages. The series is being edited by David E. Schoonover, Curator of Rare Books and of the Szathmáry Collection of Culinary Arts.

Kebobbed oysters and oyster short cake in Iowa? Yes, as well as green corn balls, tomatoes stuffed with eggs, and P.E.O. salad! These are some of the more unusual selections from the P.E.O. Cook Book Souvenir Edition, published in February 1992. First published in 1908 by members of P.E.O. Chapter "M" in Knoxville, Iowa, this text is being re-issued in facsimile. These 575 recipes take modern cooks back to a time when the ability to prepare attractive, delicious dishes with economy and innovation was both a challenge and a major source of pride. In addition to the recipes, the volume features 25 black-and-white views of public buildings and private residences in Knoxville. Although 83 years have intervened since the book first appeared, it is still possible to identify many buildings from these illustrations. This inaugural volume in the Iowa Szathmáry Culinary Arts Series will provide readers with a taste of Midwestern culinary history and demonstrate the P.E.O.'s involvement in an attractive Iowa town.

Nelson Algren's America Eats, to be published in May 1992, presents for the first time a gathering of peoples, regions, states, foods, stories, songs, and recipes, harvested after more than fifty years. Algren collected the information for America Eats in the late 1930s as part of a WPA project to produce a series of guides covering several regions of the United States. A pioneering work in tracing American gastronomy, this book describes types of immigration, settlement, and customs as these factors relate to food, whether among members of national or occupational groups, communities, or regions. With Chicago as his primary base of operations, Algren concentrated on the Midwest, ranging from Indiana to Nebraska and from Minnesota to Kansas. Although he completed his project, the work remained unpublished when the government turned its attention first toward national defense and then to war mobilization.

Algren's personal copy of the America Eats typescript, headed "Am Eats Algren" in pencil in his handwriting, remained in his possession until March 1975, when he held a silent auction of his apartment's contents—appliances, furniture, manuscripts, photographs—before leaving Chicago for good. The typescript then passed directly to his friend Louis Szathmáry, who had immediately recognized its culinary, historical, and literary values. America Eats is a prime example of original research documenting the history and sociology of food.