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History Room Highlight: May
May is here which means Derby Day is right around the corner! While the History Room may be a bit lacking in thoroughbreds and mint juleps, we do have flamboyant millinery covered.
This eye-catching number was actually a gift to the library from our Japanese sister city's exchange students in the early 2000s. Ever wondered how Bath wound up with a Japanese sister city? The story is a pretty dramatic one. In 1889 the Bath-built merchant ship Cheseborough foundered off the coast of Japan in a storm. Along with its cargo of sulfur--which dyed the sea a sickly yellow--23 crew members, most of them Bath men, were thrown into the surf. Villagers from Shariki witnessed the disaster and raced to assist the crew, lashing themselves to rocks and wading out into the water to pull drowning sailors ashore. Two youths ran 40 miles to the prefectural capital to summon help and newspaper accounts attest that one woman even opened her kimono to hold a man against her bare skin in an attempt to save him from hypothermia. In total seven sailors were rescued thanks to the heroic efforts of the Shariki residents.
Since that day Bath and Shariki--which has since been absorbed into the larger municipality of Tsugaru--have maintained a special relationship, one which was maintained even through World War II. In the present day we have an ongoing exchange program for high school students in the summers. One such delegation came to Bath and gifted the library with this elaborately decorated straw hat--perfect for a summer festival or as inspiration for your next Derby Day look!
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