B. A. Rodrigues Ottolengui Collection

The B. A. Rodrigues Ottolengui Collection consists of various newspaper clippings, theater programs and advertisements, as well as theater tickets which feature performances by a number of members of the Ottolengui family. Notable in this collection is a scrapbook given to Benjamin Adolf Rodrigues Ottolengui by his mother and father, Helen Rodriguez Ottolengui and Daniel Ottolengui. The scrapbook features a handwritten poem by Daniel Ottolengui entitled, “The Blackbird,” which is in the style of a burlesque of Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Raven.” Published shortly after the end of the United States Civil War, this poem relates Daniel Ottolengui’s thoughts on newly freedmen.

This collection was digitized and made freely available online through the generous support of the Council on Library and Information Resources.