Digitization alert! We digitized the “Father Rector’s Office and President of Boston College scrapbook, which documents BC and Boston history from 1919-29. It's full of photos, clippings, and more. Check it out: https://library.bc.edu/iiif/view/BC1986-020F-151714

Recently, Rene and Patricia Moran visited us to learn more about their father Joseph, BC class of 1950 and former Boston FBI agent. They looked through records about intramural sports, the English Department, and Sodality. Have a BC alum you’d like to learn more about? Contact us!

Digitization alert! We recently digitized materials by and about Irish patriot and suffragist Maud Gonne. The materials include correspondence, photo, articles, Women's Prisoners' Defence League records, and more. Check them out: https://findingaids.bc.edu/repositories/2/resources/254/digitized

Cleanse your timeline with our Friday morning reading room vibes

In Spring 2024, Professor Pheme Perkins' students visited Burns Library and wrote rhetorical analyses of items in our collections. Read Michael Tran ‘27's exploration of a palm leaf manuscript of Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises! http://bit.ly/4n5945e

We kicked off our semester by hosting sections of Making of the Modern World: Design, Ethics, and Engineering. We shared wiring plans for St. Mary’s Hall, a Boston Elevated Railway photo album, a mining diary, environmental engineering plans from the Everglades, and much more.

Happy Birthday, @bostoncollege.bsky.social ! #dyk that Boston College’s first campus was in Boston’s #SouthEnd? This postcard shows one of its first buildings. https://library.bc.edu/iiif/view/BC1987_012_ref1543

Our new exhibit "A Part to Play: Culture, identity & resistance during Northern Ireland's Troubles" is now open. Curated by Paloma Carroll-Ryan, it explores the cultural sphere of the Troubles, considering visual art, music, sports, and language. Drop by anytime we’re open to view the exhibit.

Time for a #StudentWorkerPick! Our student worker Rachel recently uncovered this adorable photo of a Sister of the Society of the Sacred Heart holding a baby on the Newton College of the Sacred Heart campus. Follow us for more nun/baby content.

In 1891, Pope Leo XIII wrote his famous encyclical letter on the “condition of labor.” Often called the “Pope of the Workers” Leo XIII used the lens of Scripture and Catholic doctrine to address issues such as child labor, fair wages, workers’ rights, and poverty.

Step back in time to 1952 when the BC/Fordham game was played on Braves Field, now known as Nickerson Field on the Boston University Campus. Go Eagles!

Our friends at @bostoncollege.bsky.social Digital Scholarship used a police station record book living at Burns Library to create a dataset of arrests, crimes, and public service in Boston’s crowded North End in the 1850s. 🧵 @universalhub.com @hubhistory.com @gigi4district1.bsky.social

#otd in 1911, Sally Fairchild snapped this photo of Hakone Lake and pasted it in her diary writing “A day full of happiness. A perfect view of Fuji at sunrise with the reflection in the quiet lake.” Read all of Sally’s digitized diary and see her photos: https://library.bc.edu/iiif/view/bc-2022-172

Perhaps of interest to listeners who enjoyed our recent podcast about Boston's 1894 newsboy strike. www.hubhistory.com/episodes/bos...

On #InternationalDogDay, check out these dogs selling newspapers on the Boston Common in the early 1900s. 🐕 Browse the digitized album where these photos live: https://library.bc.edu/iiif/view/BC2023-014-168625

Happy First Day of Class, @bostoncollege.bsky.social Eagles! We're so glad you're back. Classrooms, circa 1967, Box: 57, Folder: 81. Newton College of the Sacred Heart records, BC-1988-031. John J. Burns Library.

On August 22, 1911 Sally Fairchild traveled with a friend from Yumoto to Hakone Lake (also known as Ashinoko Lake). Her friend took a rickshaw, but Sally walked. 🧵

Digitization Alert! We just digitized 2 albums documenting life in the Boston area between 1895 and 1915. @universalhub.com @hubhistory.com 🧵

Caitriona Lally spent a couple of weeks on campus as our Burns Summer Fellow for 2025! She explored correspondence held in the @burnslibrary.bsky.social archive to explore that practical side of writing, a topic closely tied to current discussions on state funding for Irish contemporary writers

On August 15, 1911, Sally Fairchild wrote in her diary “I sat a long time before the Great Buddha. In February, we saw the statue first. And this week very often. And each time it seems the greatest work of art.”🧵

This summer, we’ve hosted three of our Build-A-Book workshops for #BC Experience students. One of our attendees created this cool collage cover for their book - we love it!

On August 11, 12, and 13, of 1911, Bostonian Sally Fairchild and her traveling companions spent three "perfect days" traveling to Japan's Mount Fuji and climbing its slopes.

For #InternationalBookLoversDay, here's a bookplate created by Austrian artist Rose Reinhold. It lives in the Boston College Collection of Bookplates. Drop by Burns Library anytime to see the whole collection!

Love this vibe for #InternationalCatDay This collage painting was created by artist Alden Marin for author John L'Heureux and lives in his papers at Burns Library. Marin seems to have created a number of cat artworks for L’Heureux, visit us to see them all!

We got to hang out with 44 @bostoncollege.bsky.social F1RST students yesterday! We did a practice research session together and shared some of our favorite primary sources with them. We had an awesome time and we're looking forward to seeing all of them again.

On August 6, 1911, Sally Fairchild made a second trip to Japan’s Mt. Haruna. On "a day of clouds," she and her companions hiked past a lake to a temple which she described as “the most beautiful we have seen.”

Let Burns Library plan your next literary themed holiday.

🚨Digitization Alert!🚨 We’re excited to announce that we have digitized poetry, notebooks, and unpublished manuscripts by W.B. Yeats. These materials live in the Boston College Collection of Yeats Family Papers and we are delighted to make them more accessible!

Today is the Feast Day of St. Ignatius of Loyola! We find evidence of St. Ignatius all over our collections, even if we aren’t looking at materials about him. This bookplate lives in an 1856 edition of “Notice sur le P. Jérome Natalis”is one example.

Happy #PaperbackBookDay! This paperback copy of Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana took a trip into space with Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Grechko. When Grechko returned to planet earth, he sent Greene the book with a beautiful note in the front cover. Want to look at it yourself? Contact us!

We love this 1963 Orbital Flight Handbook from the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama that now lives in our collections. Want to take a look at it yourself? Contact us!

🚨Digitization alert! 🚨 We digitized parts of the David Goldstein and Martha Moore Avery papers! Avery and Goldstein were friends who met in Boston socialist circles. They converted to Catholicism, disavowed socialism, and then worked to take down the very causes that they had promoted. 🧵

When Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Hunger flooded Boston in the 1840s, many of them settled in Boston’s Fort Hill, the present day financial district. Historical documents from the period give us clues about life in Fort Hill. 🧵@universalhub.com @hubhistory.com @bostonirish.bsky.social

On July 20, 1911, Sally Fairchild and her companions traveling in Japan took an all day trip to Mt. Haruna. Sally and her friends, the Irwins, along with their servants climbed the mountain on foot while one of their party was carried up in a chair. 🧵

In the early 1900s, the Trade Union Labor Council engaged in a little reverse psychology when they warned Medford voters, “BEWARE OF SOCIALISM.” Link: findingaids.bc.edu/repositories... 🧵 @universalhub.com @hubhistory.com

We don’t have Labubus but we do have whatever these are. 🤷

In 1893, a Saturday night out in Boston might have been dinner at the Boylston Cafe (Salads of all kinds! Oysters of all styles!) followed by a show. Take a look at this souvenir program from the Boston Press Club to see some of the options.

hbd to John Quincy Adams, original mewer link to original: https://bc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01BC_INST/1nm9l4s/alma99137867788701021 #JohnQuincyAdams #Mewer #Mewing #HistoricalMewing

This email between poets Andrea Wyatt Sexton and Doug Lang isn’t groundbreaking research but it made us smile. Have you found anything in our collections that warmed your heart? Email, 1999 October, 2007-2015, II, Box: 1, Folder: 17-19. Doug Lang papers, MS-2019-020. John J. Burns Library.

On July 6, 1911, Sally Fairchild journeyed to the Ikao hot springs on the side of Japan’s Mt Haruna. She snapped these photos of the village and mountain and wrote that the spring “had almost a magic effect on our creaky bones.” Read the full diary here: https://library.bc.edu/iiif/view/bc-2022-172

On July 4, 1861 Boston printer and Union soldier, Michael Leary penned this letter to Nellie Desmond. Michael didn't have a festive day, but recovered from a 5 mile march through the rain. He fought at Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, and was discharged in 1865. We hope he got to be with Nellie!

Today is both #NationalPostalServiceWorkerDay and #NationalJokeDay, which means its a good day to share this envelope. Envelopes, 1938 - 1943, Shared box: 4421. Boston College collection of illustrated envelopes, BC-2023-006. John J. Burns Library.

In 1886, Sister Mary Francis Clare, “the Nun of Kenmare” published “Advice to Irish Girls in America.” Our favorite chapter might be “Protestants Arguing About Religion." What's yours? Want to read the whole thing? We just digitized it! Link: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/bc.ark:/13960/s2kqscvfjk1

Did you know that Marvel Comics put out a Raiders of the Lost Ark comic in the same year as the movie? A copy lives at Burns Library. Contact us to take a look! #RaidersOfTheLostArk #MarvelComics #1980s

We love our summer researchers! Always exciting to see what they uncover in our collections

In 1865, the 1st Women’s Suffrage Society in England formed. Over 4 decades later, English women still fought for voting rights. This pamphlet from our collections shows the rhetoric that women suffragist countered. English women did not fully gain voting rights until 1928. http://bit.ly/3ZE9VQx

This handwritten volume of Irish prose and poetry dates from the 1820s. We know two of the scribes are Michael Mac an Bhaird and Padruic Mac an Bhaird, both of County Leitrim. This volume has been digitized, see it here: https://findingaids.bc.edu/repositories/2/digital_objects/1691

We see resting beach face. What do you see? Speculate wildly about her thoughts in the replies Happy Solstice from "Plates from Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles, and made easy to those who have not studied mathematics." 1800 bc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...

Happy #Pride! One of our favorite resources at Burns that documents Boston's #LGBTQ+ history is our our issues of the #GayCommunityNews. We're sharing some excerpts from a 1983 issue. 🧵 @fenwayhealth.bsky.social @universalhub.com

If I squint, I can see the YMCA on the left and high end grocer S. S. Pierce on the right.