Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Freak Show Images From The Ron Becker Collection, Robert Bogdan

The Courier

This article details the rise of freak shows from 1840 to 1940 in America, drawing from the extensive collection found in the Ron Becker Collection in the Syracuse University Special Collections. The exhibits played upon the superstitions and prejudices of popular American culture, and every exhibit was a fraud of some sort. The photographs of these "human curiosities" fascinated Ron Becker, who amassed a collection of the photos, mostly from the photographers Charles Eisenmann and Frank Wendt.

The Cuneiform Tablets At Syracuse University, Marcel Segrist

The Courier

Among its rare book collections, the George Arents Research Library at Syracuse University has 489 clay tablets written 4000 years ago. All of these cuneiform tablets, composed in the Sumerian language, are accounting records. Although how the library came to have them is not documented, they seem to have been in the collection for at least a halfcentury, awaiting their rediscovery by Professor David I. Owen, chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. The tablets are being deciphered and copied by the present author, who will publish his work.

These tablets were made in the city …