Saturday, May 30, 2015

ALA in San Francisco 1891 Revisited

The blog of the American Library Association Archives recently had an excellent post about ALA's 1891 meeting in San Francisco. That reminded me of an earlier post that I made on this blog about that same ALA meeting. I'm reposting it below.


My collection of postal libraiana consists primarily of envelopes that have no contents. Occasionally, however, I will come across the contents with no envelope, and sometimes those contents contain an interesting story. Such is the case with a three page letter (partially shown above) written by George T. Clark to his cousin Ida on November 10, 1891. At the time he wrote this letter, Clark was Deputy Librarian for the California State Library in Sacramento. The most interesting part of the letter is a paragraph in which he discusses the 1891 Conference of the American Library Association in San Francisco. It reads in part: 

"Last month the American Library Association held its annual conference in San Francisco, one of the same kind that I attended at the Thousand Islands [1887 ALA Conference]. But California is so far away that not so many attended this year as usual. Only about fifty came from afar but they represented states all along the line from Massachusetts to Colorado. A Worcester man, S. S. Green, was president. The week they were here I spent with them in San Francisco, and enjoyed witnessing the effect upon them of a little experience of California. Local committees had arranged for their reception here in Sacramento, San Francisco and at other places they visited so I hope they carried pleasant memories of their visit home with them. Even nature exerted herself to entertain them and the very first night showed her appreciation of their presence by touching us up with the liveliest earthquake we have had in years.”

Clark went on to become Librarian of the San Francisco Public Library in 1894 where he served for thirteen years. In a strange flashback to his mention of the 1891 San Francisco earthquake in the letter above, he was Librarian of the SFPL during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake that destroyed the central library along with two of its branches. He became Librarian of Stanford University in 1907 where he completed his career. Clark helped found the California Library Association and served as its second president in 1898.


Tuesday, May 12, 2015

A Special Leather Library Postcard - Sandusky, OH



I’ve written previous posts about leather library postcards for Sedalia, MO and Arcola, IL. I’ve added another leather postcard to my collection of library postcards which is special because the message on the card concerns leather library postcards and led me to a magazine article about leather library postcards. The library depicted on the postcard is the Sandusky (OH) Public Library. It was addressed to John Coulthard c/o of the Western Stamp Collector in Albany, Oregon. The postcard was mailed by Bertha Seiche of Sandusky, OH in December 1937 and the message reads: “Dear Sir: Saw your article on ‘Bright Ideas in Post Cards’ in W.S.C. and I bought this one only last week in a local book shop. Will pass it on to you. I can get more at the same place.” I was intrigued by the message and wanted to find out about Mr. Coulthard’s “Bright Ideas in Postcards”.  With the help of the American Philatelic Research Library, I got a copy of Coulthard’s article on “Bright Ideas in Postcards”.  It turns out that the title was facetious, and a more appropriate title would have been “Not So Bright Ideas in Postcards”. Coulthard wrote: “Still dizzier was the fad for leather postals that swept card collecting circles in ’06, ’07, and ’08. No one, of course, kept track of the vast herds of cattle who shed their hides to make a card collector’s holiday, but their number must have been legion. And to handle the inane, wobbly things must have given many a mail clerk a headache.” He ended the article with: “Hunt out your local supply [of postcards], if grandpap didn’t use them to half sole his shoes, and add one to your cover collection. It is irrefutable proof that people in the ‘00s weren’t bright every day all day long.” The book shop in Sandusky must have held on to this leather library postcard for several decades since it was an early 20th century postcard. The mail clerk who handled this one in 1937 must have been pretty surprised. Fortunately, it went safely through the mail so I could add it to my collection years later. This post is adapted from a blog post that I wrote for the Philatelic Literature & Research Blog