Recent Acquisitions

Archives and Special Collections continues to develop its holdings through the generosity of donors and through acquisitions that support research, teaching, and learning at Loyola University Maryland and Notre Dame of Maryland University. This page highlights new additions to our collections.

Stereograph card collection, 1896-circa 1989

Discovered tucked away in a cabinet in Loyola’s Computer Science department, this collection of homemade and commercially produced stereocards provides a great overview of the format. Stereocards are the 19th-century version of virtual reality. Two nearly identical photographic images are mounted on a card and, when viewed through a stereoscope, appear to be a single 3-D image.  

Stereocards were popularized in the mid-1800s, reaching the peak of their popularity from 1870 to 1920. Publishers created sets that could be purchased as tourist souvenirs, that represented far-flung locales that could be “visited” through this technology, or that were used as educational tools. Some, as in our set, depict humorous situations. 

Our set includes a vintage wooden stereoscope viewer, ready for you to use and experience this Victorian technology for yourself!

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1925)

This first edition of Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness novel, centered on a day in the life of a wealthy London woman in the interwar period, was published in 1925. It includes the original dust jacket designed by Woolf’s sister Vanessa Bell. The abstract flowers in the design may allude to the novel’s opening line, “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” 

 

 

 

 

Council of Trent, Sacrosancti et oecumenici concilii Tridentini... (Lyon: Antoine Laurens, 1705)

This early 18th-century publication from the Catholic Church’s ecumenical council contains a detailed engraved title page with the signature “Soror Isabella” in the lower right corner. Elisabetta Piccini learned the art of etching and engraving from her father, Giacomo Piccini. After joining the Venetian Convent of Santa Croce, she changed her name to Isabella and continued her engraving work. Proceeds from her work, such as this title page, were given to her convent.