Tag Archives: history

The Young Federalist

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It’s not everyday you get to hold history in your hands! But when Princeton University sophomore Abigail Readlinger gifted us a copy of her children’s novel, I just had to facilitate a connection between her love of American history and our special collections. Later, I asked Abigail to write about her experience and share the inspiration for her charming book…

Firestone Library’s Special Collections gave me the chance to travel through time. Among its vast array of original documents and fundamental texts is Alexander Hamilton’s very own copy of The Federalist Papers. Writing in the late 1780’s, Hamilton—along with John Jay and James Madison—drafted this series of eighty-five essays in hopes to encourage the ratification of the new Constitution. These Federalist Papers, as evidenced by their substantial contribution to the adoption of our government, are ones of profound and utmost importance. They reveal the nature of American political thought and a corresponding guide by which we ought to live by.

I myself am somewhat obsessed when it comes to The Federalist Papers. Forced to read them during my freshman year of high school, I became immediately attached. I had always loved American history, and The Federalist Papers seemed to transport me directly into the minds of our great Founding Fathers. Desperately bored during the pandemic, but armed with my love for The Federalist Papers, I began to write what is now a published children’s book: The Young Federalists.

The Young Federalists. Written by Abigail Readlinger and illustrated by Stephanie Fliss Dumas. Mascot Kids, an imprint of Amplify Publishing Group, 2022

The story follows the journey of the Kennedy siblings—Reagan, AJ, and Dolley—as they travel through time, meet Alexander Hamilton and discuss (over a cup of tea!) the importance of Federalist No.1. Just as Hamilton endeavored to inspire his generation through his writing, so also do I hope to inspire mine. The value of the American way is timeless—from then to now, for old and for young.

So when I heard Hamilton’s personal copy of The Federalist Papers just so happened to be located in my own university’s special collections, I jumped at the opportunity to see it.

I still cannot quite articulate the feeling of flipping through the pages of a book both so informative in my life and belonging to one of my most beloved heroes. In 2024, author of The Young Federalists, I was holding the same book that Alexander Hamilton, author of The Federalist Papers, once held over two hundred years earlier.

The Federalist Papers. Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Just like the characters in my book, I was having my own time travel adventure. Visiting special collections, peering over the handwritten scribblings of Hamilton’s notes, and experiencing history hands on, has been by far one of my favorite Princeton experiences. There is so much to explore in our university’s incredible collection, and to have had this opportunity has really been beyond my wildest dreams.

Would you like to see inside this copy of The Federalist Papers? You’ll find a digitized version here. All are welcome to conduct research in Special Collections at Princeton University. If you are interested in visiting, you will find more information here. Do you have a question for Abigail? Email or visit her Instagram.

A Very Concrete Example of a Library

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Over the years, I have found myself in a number of interesting libraries and literary settings, but today I wanted to share one that is truly unique. The entire room…in fact the entire mansion is constructed of poured concrete. This unusual library is just one of the rooms in Fonthill Castle, the Victorian home of the eclectic and eccentric Henry Chapman Mercer in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

An “archaeologist, anthropologist, ceramicist, scholar and antiquarian,” Mercer had the home built between 1908-1912. It has over forty rooms, extensive grounds, a multitude of fireplaces, and a plethora of windows (including a little one I spotted embedded in a chimney!). The mansion’s exterior and frame was crafted exclusively from poured concrete. Much of the interior is concrete as well, including shelves, desks, chairs, even dressers!

The library was one of the larger rooms we viewed during the educational tour. It was two levels with vast windows and a massive fireplace. You might notice the abundance of tiles. One of Mercer’s passions was ceramics and tile, and he hand-crafted almost every tile you see in his home. Also, if you’re wondering how to get to the second level of the library, shhhhhh there is a secret staircase behind the fireplace.

Mercer was a true scholar. He loved the discovery and acquisition of knowledge. So books weren’t confined exclusively to his private library. He had multiple studies throughout the mansion (he actually followed the path of the sun through his home, capitalizing on the reading and writing light it allowed him). Each study held collections of books and artifacts from his extensive world travels.

The home tour was fascinating, but we were wholly unprepared for Mercer’s other building, a six-story castle (also made of reinforced concrete) that now serves as the Mercer Museum. If a photo is worth a thousand words, I leave you with this, and urge you to see the museum for yourself!

In addition to Fonthill Castle and Mercer Museum, I can also highly recommend Doylestown as a charming and laid back travel destination. There are plenty of shops, eateries, ice cream stands, and parks. It’s extremely walkable, and don’t miss the independently-owned Doylestown Bookshop. It’s fabulous!

Visiting Percy Jackson…in Texas

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Today, I am delighted to introduce guest blogger Dr. Miranda Sachs! Miranda studied History at Princeton University, and graduated in 2011. She worked extensively at our library, both in special collections and with me in community outreach. Miranda earned her PhD at Yale, and is now an assistant professor of European History at Texas State University.

That’s where she met Percy Jackson.

Or more accurately, that’s where she visited the Rick Riordan archive in Texas State’s Wittliff Collections. The collections “collect, preserve and present the cultural heritage of Texas, the Southwest & Mexico through works of the region’s storytellers—writers, photographers, musicians, filmmakers and other artists,” and Riordan’s papers and ephemera are part of the Southwestern Writers Collections (along Sandra Cisneros, Sam Shepard, Naomi Shihab Nye, Cormac McCarthy, and J. Frank Dobie to name a few).

Miranda found some incredibly cool stuff, and I will now turn the post over to her very capable hands. Take it away, Miranda!

Many, many years ago I was an undergraduate at Princeton and I had the privilege of working for Dr. Dana. It was the best job ever. I did things like glue lizards onto visors for a Holes watch party or tell jokes using a shark puppet. Dr. Dana introduced me to Percy Jackson and I loved the books. I even got to dress as a Greek lady for Princyclopedia, an event that Dr. Dana used to organize.

Miranda, on right, being fabulous. Department of Special Collections, Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University Library.

Since my time at Princeton, I’ve become a professor of French history. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that Texas State, the university where I teach, has the personal collection of Rick Riordan, the author of the Percy Jackson books. I reached out to my old friend Dr. Dana and she sent me on a quest to check out what Rick Riordan sent to the Witliff Collections.

Because of the new Lightning Thief mini-series, the library has some of the highlights from Riordan’s collection on display. As soon as I walked in the door, I saw a shirt for Camp Half-Blood. The display case had a replica of Riptide used for the film and some neat photos of Riordan speaking to kids. It also had hand-written copies of stories Riordan wrote as a kid! The room where I got to look at the documents had art on display from the covers of some of the books.

The archivist let me look at some of Rick Riordan’s childhood stories. It turns out that Riordan was writing fantasy and mythology even back then. One story was about a god named Jzais living in a world called Tharcas. He wrote some of these stories by hand and others with a typewriter (yup, he was a kid before the computer.)

All the stories were on the original pieces of paper on which he’d written or typed. It was fun to look at stories he wrote in junior high school (back in 1978) and see comments from his teachers. One story called “The Ring of Fire” received 100/100!

Rick Riordan was a teacher before he was a writer. One of the boxes in the collection includes a photo album with pictures from the final class of students he taught in 2004. Six years later, he went back to visit the school and those kids were seniors. Many of them wrote letters sharing how much he had meant to them as a teacher. They still remembered the story of Gilgamesh because he had told it to them with funny voices. Multiple kids recalled that they had carried out a mock trial using Hammurabi’s Code in his class. It seems that Riordan was a creative teacher who got kids excited about the ancient world even before he published the Percy Jackson books.

My favorite thing to look at was fan letters from kids. Some of the kids were harsh critics. A 7th grader named Caitlyn complained that the books droned on, and it took too long to get to the exciting parts. A boy named Sean was confused why Percy was dry when he came out of the water given that his father was the sea god. Others asked great questions. They wanted to know his favorite character and his favorite band. A girl named Lauren asked “ARE YOU A HALF BLOOD?” Another girl was curious if he would consider casting Arnold Schwarzenegger as Zeus in the film adaptation. (Sorry.)

Mostly, the kids wanted to express how much they loved the books. By the time Sea of Monsters came out, Riordan was getting multiple letters each day. It was super cool to see evidence of how much those books meant to kids. It was also cool to think that Riordan chose to save the kids’ letters. He decided they needed to be preserved in the archive alongside his fancy prizes and the early drafts of his books.

Before I left, I asked to hold Riptide. It was surprisingly heavy. I guess I’m not a demigod…

Photo by Katie Salzmann

We would like to thank Texas State University for so generously sharing their collections, and to Miranda for being awesome (as always!). Miranda is also an author! She published a book all about kids in nineteenth-century Paris called An Age to Work: Working-Class Childhood in Third Republic Paris.

Collections images courtesy of Miranda Sachs