Mar

Celebrating Women in Science: Marcelle Roigneau Hatt

Over the years the Kitchen Sink has remembered the stories of Cranbrook Institute of Science Director, Dr. Robert Torrens Hatt. But did you know that his wife of 22 years, Marcelle Roigneau Hatt, was also a respected scientist and exhibition curator?

Marcelle Roigneau Hatt by the “big bomb”, Mexico, ca 1947. Photograph by Robert T. Hatt. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

Marcelle was born on October 19th, 1898, in Bordeaux, France, to Hubert and Francine Chetot Roigneau. After moving to America, she took courses at Columbia University in vertebrate zoology, evolution of man, and vertebrate paleontology with Profs. James Howard McGregor and William King Gregory, who both rated her highly among their students. Marcelle worked as a staff assistant in the department of Human and Comparative Anatomy at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. Robert T. Hatt also worked at AMNH from 1928-1935 as the Assistant Curator of Mammals.

Robert and Marcelle were married in 1929. In the Fall of 1930, they traveled together to the Yucatan on a grant-funded expedition to discover evidence of a possible land connection between the Yucatan and the West Indies. The first few weeks were spent at the ruined Maya city of Chichen-Itza where mammals and reptiles were collected. Following this, the Hatts explored a large number of caves in the Yucatan’s low mountains, for the remains of extinct animals. Fossils were obtained in every site excavated, though the numbers were small.

Following the Yucatan expedition, Marcelle was engaged in planning a series of exhibitions as an introduction to Human and Comparative Anatomy. The exhibition, “Top of the World in Yucatan” described her experiences on the expedition with her husband. In 1934, Marcelle was promoted to Assistant Curator in the Department of Comparative and Human Anatomy at AMNH.

Marcelle Hatt and consulting mineralogist, Archibald N. Goddard, standing on a lava front in the forest in Mexico, ca 1947.

Marcelle R. Hatt on horseback in Mexico, ca 1947.

In the Spring of 1935, the Hatts moved with their young sons, Richard and Peter, from New York to Michigan when Robert accepted the position of Director of the Institute of Science. In response to her resignation, the Executive Secretary at AMNH wrote in a letter dated March 27, 1935:

“In transmitting your letter of resignation, Doctor Gregory paid high tribute to the excellent work you have done throughout your connection with his Department, emphasizing especially your invaluable assistance in supervising the preparation and installations of exhibits in the hall of “Introduction to Human Anatomy;” your splendid cooperation in the preparation for labels and guide leaflets and in his researches on the evolution of the skull of vertebrates; and the competent manner in which you handled the sale and exchange of casts and models. Congratulating you on this enviable record and assuring you that you carry with you, in your new field of activities, the best wishes of your associates and colleagues.”

Marcelle continued to work on a variety of projects at CIS during the 1930s and 1940s, including photographing specimens, assisting Dr. Hatt on additional field trips to Mexico, and curating an exhibition of Native American baskets that opened in April, 1941.

Exhibition catalog prepared by the Art Project of the Works Project Administration, Detroit, by the silk-screen process. Printed on the Cranbrook Press, 1941.

“Basketry of the North American Indians” opened on Easter Sunday. The exhibition featured examples of baskets from pre-historic cave dwellers to woven hats, snowshoes, and mats of Modern Michigan tribes. Marcelle Hatt organized the display of 183 specimens and the accompanying catalog.

Visitors at the “Basketry of the North American Indians” exhibition, 1941.

On March 27th, 1951, Marcelle Roigneau Hatt passed away at the young age of 52. Her contributions to Human and Comparative Anatomy live on in the Journal of Mammalogy, Science, and The Science News-Letter of the American Museum of Natural History.

– Gina Tecos, Archivist

Sources:

“Science News.” Science 79, no. 2058 (1934): 8a-11a.
“In Science Fields.” The Science News-Letter 25, no. 684 (1934): 312-13.
Hatt, Robert T. “Notes concerning Mammals Collected in Yucatan.” Journal of Mammalogy 19, no. 3.
The Robert Torrens Hatt Papers, Courtesy Cranbrook Archives/Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.
The Cranbrook Institute of Science Director’s Papers, Courtesy Cranbrook Archives/Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

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Mar

Saarinen (and Students) Expand a Masterpiece

In my work at Cranbrook, I conduct many, many tours of the campus. My favorite are those conducted for students of architecture. Often, the students aren’t here to simply see the buildings or hear the history, but are visiting to compliment a specific course. Just this past Tuesday I led students from Michigan enrolled in a course on architectural ornament on a two-hour tour of Saarinen’s ornament for Cranbrook—this after a ten-day trip to London and Paris to study the same!

Another common purpose for a Cranbrook field trip: to use our campus as a site for a design studio project. As a former architecture student, I know these tours have an even more urgent purpose. The instructor creates a project brief for a building, with a client, site, purpose, and never a budget; the student then spends the semester designing and detailing their proposal. Recently, architecture students from Bowling Green came to campus on a site visit for their final studio project: propose an expansion of the Academy of Art Library.

Aerial shot of county fair at CAA Jun 1958 Harvy Croze photographer copyright cranbrook archives

Aerial view of Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum (left), Peristyle (center), Library (right), and painting studios (far right). Photographed by Harvy Croze during the County Fair, June 1958. Copyright Cranbrook Archives.

We had an instructive conversation with librarian (and client) Judy Dyki, followed by a tour of the building’s main reading room, lower level and storage areas, and down further into de Salle auditorium. The students are now tasked with coming up with an addition to the Library for their final project.

If an addition to Saarinen’s library seems sacrilegious, it shouldn’t. Saarinen himself envisioned the museum and library as parts of a larger whole, a quadrangle made up of housing, a dining hall, and the museum and library, all around the Orpheus Fountain.

CAA Dorms and Dining Hall_CAM1981.45 edited linework boosted

Cranbrook Academy of Art: Proposed Dining Hall and Dormitory, North of Museum and Library. Site Plan (south is to the top of the page). Eliel Saarinen, architect. September 1945. Graphite on tracing paper, 25 x 38 5/8 in. Collection of Cranbrook Art Museum.

Saarinen began work on the design for the museum and library in 1939. It was the last major collaboration of George Booth and Saarinen on the campus, and the most monumental. The buildings opened in 1942, and the aesthetic and functional successes of the museum and library have been written about elsewhere (and are everywhere evident on a visit).

What’s less known is that Saarinen thought the project was incomplete. In a drawing from September 1945, Saarinen shows his proposal for completing the Academy of Art’s campus: an L-shaped addition with a dining hall and kitchen on the east side and dormitories and apartments crossing in front of the Orpheus Fountain toward Academy Way. Also notice the additional building, likely for the Art Museum, further east and linked to the main building by columns similar to those at the Peristyle.

CAA Dorms and Dining Hall_CAM1981.45 edited with CAM addition dining hall and dormitories Adkisson

Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum and Library (extant) in navy. Proposed addition, possibly for the museum, in royal blue. Proposed dining hall in orange, proposed dormitories in dark red, and proposed apartments in light red. Orpheus Fountain at center.

If you look at the rest of the Cranbrook campus, his impulse to hem in the museum and library further makes sense: Saarinen’s buildings are always arranged into quadrangles or terraces. His buildings enclose and frame outdoor space, far more than they sit singularly in the landscape. As built, the museum is unique in that it sticks out as a bar (or, more specifically, a T) away from Academy Way. Though strongly anchored to its site through landscape, fountains, and sculpture, it does not create a courtyard (as he proposed) so much as it forms a wall or monumental gate.

If we look back at Saarinen’s first (and very large) proposal for the Academy of Art, you’ll notice it too is made up exclusively of buildings that form interlocking courtyards and terraces. This design language continued the site planning he executed at the Boy’s School and anticipates the careful interweaving of landscape, building, and stepped terraces seen at Kingswood.

Cranbrook Academy of Art 1925 plan eliel saarinen copyright cranbrook art museum CAM1928_39

Cranbrook Academy of Art: Proposed plan. Eliel Saarinen, architect. 1925. Pencil and ink on paper, 29 x 39 in. Collection of Cranbrook Art Museum.

Eventually, of course, the museum and library building did receive additions. The first, DeSalle Auditorium by Robert Saarinen Swanson, was underground. The New Studios building by Rafael Moneo extended the building to the east, but further south than Saarinen proposed. Finally, the 2011 Collections Wing by SmithGroup JJR, maintains a remarkable closeness to the scale and placement of Saarinen’s proposed dining hall. By maintaining the same height and narrowing in width to the north, the very large structure respects the scale of the 1942 buildings.

CAA Dorms and Dining Hall_CAM1981.45 edited with Collections Wing New Studios Building and de Salle Auditorium Adkisson

Overlay of built additions to Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum and Library, showing the underground DeSalle Auditorium (1986) in royal blue; the New Studios building (2002) in purple; and the Collections Wing (2011) in green.

That Saarinen’s particular vision for the Academy remains incomplete is part of what has become a long tradition of unrealized dreams at Cranbrook. What I find exciting is simply the ability to dream, to propose new buildings interacting with the old, and engage with what Robert A. M. Stern calls architecture’s ability to hold conversations across time.

While the students for Bowling Green will propose a structure to be placed on what has become sacred ground (and, I imagine, in styles so bombastic or incongruous that I shudder to picture them), the project itself is a rich one. It is exciting, in the pressure cooker of architecture school, to interact on paper or screen with truly great buildings.

What I love about taking design students on tours of Cranbrook is analyzing how Saarinen achieved what he did with his buildings. Not just observing that he designed a beautiful, evocative, and functional Arcadia, but how, in truly tectonic ways, he did it.

We study how bricks are laid, the way stairs are detailed, and how Saarinen aligned (or didn’t align) view sheds and sculptures to create the larger whole. We look closely and analytically. My hope in studying the buildings from an assembly standpoint, and not just historically, is that students can take these lessons into their projects and into their practice. Surely if architects take a few more lessons from Saarinen, the world will be a better and more beautiful place.

– Kevin Adkisson, 2016-2019 Collections Fellow, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

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Combining the beautiful with pleasant labor: illuminated manuscripts and the handprinting press

In celebration of “March is reading month,” I began thinking upon writing about something book-related. As I kept on thinking about it, I discovered more and more fun things, and ended up with a blog post that covers 1300 years of reading-related history that brings us right up to the minute; well, last weekend at least. Sounds like a lot for a short blog post but don’t worry, I’ve squeezed the first 700 years into one paragraph.

And so to begins with illuminated manuscripts, which were written and decorated entirely by hand—the only way to make a book in the medieval period. Reflecting the spiritual focus of medieval society, its art was always divinely-inspired. Illuminated manuscripts are among the most beautiful examples of how medieval artisans sought to create something glorious that was, at the same time, a thing to be used in everyday life. Illuminated manuscripts are most often liturgical texts, such as psalters, which were later superseded by Books of Hours. Medieval literary texts were illuminated as well, including those of Chaucer, Dante, and the tale of Tondal, written by an Irish monk in Germany. One of the most notable of early illuminated manuscripts are the Lindisfarne Gospels, which were written in 715 in the local vernacular rather than Latin. As paper did not enter the European market until the sixteenth century, illuminated manuscripts are made of parchment or vellum. The style of writing or script that you will see in early manuscripts is ‘book hand,’ also known as Anglicana in its slightly differentiated English style, and later texts may use Court or Secretary hand.

A Leaf from the Gutenberg Bible, 1450-1455. Copyright Cranbrook Archives, Center for Collections and Research.

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and henceforth the process of making books was changed. The Gutenberg Bible, as shown in the image above, is one of the earliest books printed using the printing press and it follows the Vulgate translation by St. Jerome that is also one of the earliest illuminated manuscripts. The introduction of the printing press did not put an end to beautifully decorated texts; they became handprinted and illuminated, rather than handwritten. George Gough Booth studied the work of the ancient printers, from Gutenberg and Ulrich Zell—from whom William Caxton learned the craft, to Caxton’s successor Wynkyn de Worde, and Nicholas Jenson. It is Jenson that Booth states perfected the art of printing by improving the Roman characters. The Cranbrook Papers are printed in a modern adaptation of Jenson’s Roman typeface.

The Cranbrook Papers, Volume 4 George Gough Booth Papers (1981-01) 5:2. Copyright Cranbrook Archives, Center for Collections and Research.

Inspired by the work of ancient printers and William Morris’ Kelmscott Press, Booth established the Cranbrook Press in 1900. Text was created using a Lion Reliance Press, then the initials and borders were illuminated by hand by Booth himself. Between 1900 and 1902, nine books were printed and decorated in this way, including reprints of books such as the “Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers” by Caxton, and “Utopia” by Sir Thomas More. The Cranbrook Press also produced original works such as the monthly broadsheet, the “Cranbrook Papers,” and books such as the “Pleasures of Planting”.

Lion Reliance Printing Press used at the Cranbrook Press, 1900-1902. Copyright Cranbrook Archives, Center for Collections and Research.

The Cranbrook Papers, Volume 4 George Gough Booth Papers (1981-01) 5:2. Copyright Cranbrook Archives, Center for Collections and Research.

By studying the materials in the George Gough Booth Papers at Cranbrook Archives, we can learn about and understand his motivation and vision for the Cranbrook Press:

“…work most agreeable to my tastes and inclinations that combined the beautiful with pleasant labor and inspired by the record of ancient printers and the modern endeavors of Wm. Morris. I have sought here to begin a modest work for the pleasure of striving to do good work not out of harmony with my chosen life work”.

Although the Cranbrook Press ceased in 1902, Booth’s vision to combine the beautiful with good work has an enduring presence at Cranbrook Educational Community. The materials that are preserved and made accessible at Cranbrook Archives help us remember and perpetuate this vision in each of the institutions that form the community.

Last weekend, the Center for Collections and Research hosted an event in collaboration with Signal-Return in Detroit that really shows how the archives can inform our knowledge of local history and inspire the cultivation of handcrafted art. The event, ““Work Most Agreeable”: George Booth and the Cranbrook Press,” was a presentation and hands-on letterpress workshop where participants created handprinted poster with one of George Booth’s mottos using the traditional letterpress method that Signal-Return still employs.

Letterpress Workshop process. Copyright Cranbrook Archives, Center for Collections and Research.

A poster using one of George Gough Booth’s mottos handprinted at the Letterpress Workshop at Signal Return. Copyright Cranbrook Archives, Center for Collections and Research.

The Center of Collections and Research hosts many events throughout the year, you can see what’s coming up next here and join the newsletter to keep up to date.

– Laura MacNewman, Associate Archivist

Mar

When the March Winds Blow

It is hard to think of Spring during this week of frigid temperatures, but I promise it is coming. Soon, the Cranbrook House and Gardens Auxilary will be out planting their gardens around Cranbrook House. In honor of the coming Spring, this week I share George G. Booth’s feelings on planting from his Pleasures of Planting and Other Thoughts which was printed by the Cranbrook Press in 1902.

George G. Booth, The Pleasures of Planting and Other Thoughts, Title Page. Printed by The Cranbrook Press and finished on August 30, 1902. Courtesy of Cranbrook Academy of Art Library.

The Cranbrook Press was established in the unused attic space in the Shelby Street office of the Detroit Evening News in 1900. In two short years, the Press produced nine books. Pleasures of Planting was one of three books written by George Booth printed on the Press. In it, he writes:

Don’t, I pray you, envy the man who has builded a house, or reared a monument in marble or granite; for I say unto you most truly that the cap-stone has no sooner been let unto its place and the builder attained the joy he dreamed of, than the work of his hands begins to decay and crumble before his eyes.

Portrait of Ellen S. and George G. Booth in the Oak Room at Cranbrook House. Photo by PD Rearick.

Choose, rather, for yourself the most delightful and beneficial of exercises, and plant. Plant when the March winds blow – plant when the gentle rains of springtime pour blessings on the earth – plant where the mother of us all permits it. Work not for glory in cold bricks and stone alone, but plant living things, and watch with joy the increasing glory of your labor.

Cranbrook House Dining Room with flowers on the table

Cranbrook House Dining Room. Photo by PD Rearick.

Stone, and iron, and brass cannot put flowers at the bedside of the sick, nor fill the air with odors of sweetness or furnish a soft and coll bed for the birds; neither will the grandest monumental piles fill the heart of the poet with sweetest songs or make us feel so truly that “God is good;” but under spreading branches of the trees rest is found, love flourishes, and all humanity drinks at the well of life.

Where ever you go, plant – rear monuments of elm and maples, of poplars and beech, and trees bearing fruit, and plant on your right hand and on your left the rose, lilac, snow-ball and syringa. Strew at your feet the sweet, life-giving flowers of summer, and live out your days in happiness.

Cranbrook House and Gardens Auxiliary volunteers plant in the Sunken Garden. Photo by Eric Franchy, Cranbrook House & Gardens.

There is something magnificent in such work. It fills the earth with beautiful scenes; wealth is added to the land, which grows richer daily; “there is something in it like the work of creation.”

Cranbrook House and Gardens Auxiliary volunteers plant in the gardens around Cranbrook House. Photo by Eric Franchy, Cranbrook House & Gardens.

Plant and see your plantation arriving at greater degrees of perfection as long as you live. If you want to be helpful; if you love your country; if you have regard for posterity – plant. You cannot be excused if you fail in this duty. Just put a few twigs in the ground and do good to one who will make his appearance in the world fifty years hence, or perhaps make one of your descendants easy or rich at such a trifling cost.

“If man find himself averse to planting, he must indeed be void of all generous principles and love of mankind,” and so I say unto you – Plant.

– Leslie S. Mio, Associate Registrar

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Mar

Loja Saarinen: Lady of Fashion

If this were an article for Harper’s Bazaar it would be an imagined interview between a reporter and Loja Saarinen, but since my status is beneath lowly, I won’t presume. Loja Saarinen is a fascinating person in many respects: she was professionally a sculptor, photographer, textile designer, maker of architectural models, landscape designer, teacher, weaver, entrepreneur, designer in general, without mentioning the unquantifiable but no less important aspects of her life. Married to architect Eliel Saarinen and mother of two extraordinarily gifted children, she must have been party to some incredible family discussions on style, architecture, design of practically everything, including fashion.

Daughter Pipsan Saarinen Swanson briefly led a fashion course at Cranbrook Academy Art, and she and her mother made many of their own clothes. Even though the ready-made clothing industry was growing, women in the 1930s and beyond who had sewing skills but not necessarily the money for special garments would make their own. Commercial patterns abounded: Vogue, Butterick, Simplicity, McCall, among others not all of which survive today.

Here is a Vogue pattern from the times:

Courtesy of Etsy.com

Remember this look.

Considering Loja Saarinen’s formal training in sculpture in Paris and her own textile designs, not to mention her model-building skills and creativity, one must assume she was ideally set up for making her own special clothes. They would be unique. What could be better? And then there was the wonder of downtown Detroit’s J. L. Hudson’s vast floor of fabrics.

Fabric Department at J. L. Hudson Company Department Store, 1920s. H.W. Brooks, Commercial Photographer. Courtesy of the Detroit Historical Society.

Of course, the essence of fashion is being appropriately dressed. Working from the informal to the more formal attire, one may examine a few photographs of Loja Saarinen as samples of her impeccable taste and ingenuity.

Here is Loja on a relaxed afternoon standing with husband Eliel Saarinen in the 1930s:

Eliel and Loja Saarinen at Cranbrook copy neg CEC493 copyright Cranbrook Archives

Eliel and Loja Saarinen. Copyright Cranbrook Archives.

This looks like a take on a peasant dress with its loose sleeves and wide flat fell seams and flared, lightly gathered skirt. What says hand-made to me is the embroidered belt. While it is possible Loja bought the dress and altered it to fit sleeve length and hem, I think this would have been easy enough to whip up. It is casual, comfortable and different enough to mark her as a person with an eye for good design who is not going to be dressed like anyone else.

Here is a dress in tasteful black which looks a lot like the above Vogue pattern:

Loja Saarinen in Saarinen House Dining Room c 1940 copy neg CEC490 Courtesy Cranbrook Archives

Loja Saarinen in her dining room, c. 1940. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

The sleeves are a bit longer. Note the Chemex coffeemaker as accessory.

Next is a design so Loja-esque, given the proliferation of triangles all over the campus in every medium you can think of, including in her own contributions, this fabric and the garment have to be Loja Saarinen designs.

I am not sure what the pale fabric is, obviously soft and drapey, but the design could be embroidered or appliqued ribbon. (Family boost: she’s sitting in one of the Eero-designed auditorium chairs.)

Loja Saarinen c 1934 Copyright Cranbrook Archives

Loja Saarinen, c. 1934. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

This is one of the best examples of Loja’s sense of style, though probably not her own work. She is warm, stylish and utterly without fuss. Attention PETA, this is before the days of reasonable-looking faux fur. The coat is a thick wool with light-colored top-stitching down the sleeves and front bodice panels.

Eliel and Loja Saarinen at the rear of Saarinen House copy neg CEC491 Copyright Cranbrook Archives

Eliel and Loja Saarinen. Copyright Cranbrook Archives.

Dress-up clothes, we have them: a lovely photograph of a younger L. S. Swirls of fabric and triangle earrings.

Portrait of Loja Saarinen by Max Habrecht 1932 copyright Cranbrook Archives

Portrait of Loja Saarinen, 1932. Max Habrecht, photographer. Copyright Cranbrook Archives.

This looks like a dress with swaths of color in the bodice such as you might see in her rug design. This could be silk satin, or what was called “art silk.” It looks bias-cut, which would make for a good fit, but which is unforgiving for the seamstress. You can’t see her hair very well, but it appears fashionably cropped.

In the following Crandemonium photograph Loja’s attire looks like a variation on a theme. I suspect this is a top she made for the occasion, worn over a separate skirt. Eliel Saarinen’s jacket has matching color stripes. The Saarinen column hats make the outfit for both party-goers. Loja’s dress has a train as befits the queen of Crandemonium. The orb of office for King Eliel is a grapefruit.

Loja and Eliel Saarinen at Crandemonium Ball Feb 1934 Copyright Cranbrook Archives

Loja and Eliel Saarinen at the Crandemonium Ball, Feb. 1934. Richard G. Askew, photographer. Copyright Cranbrook Archives.

At last a color photograph. This may be the same top with a matching skirt, and quite a few years later, but now we see the Saarinen choice of color (Family boost: another Eero chair.)

Loja Saarinen in Vaughn Road home c 1962 Courtesy Cranbrook Archives

Loja Saarinen in her Vaughn Road home, c. 1962. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

Loja Saarinen was not a self-promoter. Her work speaks for itself. Her hand is in so many aspects of design all over the Cranbrook campus. This is just a glimpse at a few (fashion) design choices Mrs. Saarinen made about herself. She told Virginia Christ-Janer in a 1964 interview, “With our family [art is] a disease.” More than that, the Saarinens were all so capable, why would they not keep designing? Just like Karl Lagerfeld, to design is to breathe.

For a last word on anything to do with fashion, from all-time humorist Mark Twain: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

–Lynette Mayman, Collections Interpreter