14

642 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION

6.22 AEtna] Mount Aetna in Sicily was believed to have been named for the
nymph Aetna, daughter of Uranus and Gaea. According to Simonides (c. 556-468
BCE), she mediated between Hephaestus and Demeter in a dispute over the possession
of Sicily. Both Greek and Latin literature indicates that the mountain itself was
the location of Hephaestus's forge, where he and the Cyclops made thunderbolts for
Zeus. Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology,
3 vols. (London, 1849), I:54.
6.27 Daniel Webster] Lawyer, politician, and brilliant orator, Daniel Webster
(1782-1852) was born in New Hampshire and educated at Dartmouth College. His
career as a successful lawyer led him into politics, and he served in numerous elected
and appointed positions for the rest of his life. His service in the Senate is especially
noteworthy for his speeches on Federalist issues, and he is considered by some to
have been one of the best senators in United States history. Always a nationalist,
Webster clashed with states' rights advocates, such as John C. Calhoun, in Congress.
Usually, however, he was able to work out compromises to avoid talk of secession.
He was an outspoken opponent of slavery, especially the spread of slavery in the
expansion states. Robert Y. Remini, Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time (New
York, 1997); ANB, 22:865-68.
6.35 editor of newspapers, doing all of the editorial work] Although he had the
help of many different assistants over the years, Douglass was the principal editorial
voice of the North Star (1847-51), Frederick Douglass' Paper (1851-60), and
Douglass' Monthly (1859-63), all based in Rochester, New York.
McFeely, Frederick
Douglass, 147-59, 167, 169, 182, 230.
7.10-11 chained to desks. . .times at Oxford] Books were an expensive commodity
in the Middle Ages; thus, university libraries tended to have small collections
reserved for the use of graduate students. Libraries at Oxford and other universities
divided their collections into two sections, one for lending and a chained (reference)
area exclusively for study. In chained libraries, the best copies of important works
were secured with chains to rods above the shelves. A student could pull a book down
and lay it flat on the desk below but could take it no further. This system prevented
theft, assuring that a text would be available when a scholar required it. Alan B.
Cobban, English University Life in the Middle Ages (Columbus, Ohio, 1999), 51-52,
88-90; Fred Lerner, The Story of Libraries from the Invention of Writing to the
Computer Age (New York, 1998), 85, plate 7; Burnett Hillman Streeter, The Chained
Library: A Survey of Four Centuries in the Evolution of the English Library (London,
1931), 127-260.
7.12 Lyceum] The lyceum movement in the United States began in the 1820s as
an attempt by the northeastern white Protestant middle class to build communal culture
through public debate and lecture. Lyceums, organized by local associations,
emphasized mutual instruction and social inclusiveness. Many individual lyceums,
however, excluded blacks or admitted them without granting them the privileges
white members enjoyed. By the 1840s, the lyceum's educational mission evolved,