More Carnegie HBCU Libraries on Postcards

 Andrew Carnegie funded library buildings at fifteen Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). I have previous posts about the library at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and the library at Fisk University. The other libraries are located at: Alabama A&M in Normal, AL; Atlanta University in Atlanta, GA; Benedict College in Columbia, SC; Johnson C. Smith Univ. in Charlotte, NC (formerly Biddle Univ.); Cheyney State University in PA; Florida A&M in Tallahassee, FL; Fort Valley Normal and Industrial Institute Fort Valley, GA; Howard University in DC; Knoxville College in Knoxville, TN;  Livingstone College in NC; Talladega College in AL, Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio; and Wiley College in TX. Postcards for the libraries are difficult, if not impossible, to find. Below are postcards showing Carnegie HBCU libraries in my collection.

Carnegie Library, Alabama A&M Univ. in Normal, AL

Carnegie Library, Atlanta University in Atlanta, GA

Library is building on the left.

Carnegie Library, Benedict College in Columbia, SC

Carnegie Library, Florida A&M in Tallahassee, FL

Fort Valley Normal and Industrial Institute Fort Valley, GA
Carnegie Library is building on the left.

Carnegie Library, Howard University in DC

Johnson C. Smith Univ. in Charlotte, NC (formerly Biddle Univ.)
Carnegie Library is building on the right.

   

Gettysburg College’s Student Literary Societies (1831-1924)

Cover mailed by Philomathean Society, circa 1850s

Cover mailed to the Phrenakosmian Society, circa 1880s

As I noted in a previous post about Dartmouth’s student literary societies, early academic libraries were not very friendly to students. As a result students sometimes formed their own libraries as part of student literary societies. Two such literary societies were created at Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) in Gettysburg, PA. They were the Philomathean and Phrenakosmian Societies. I have in my collection of postal librariana covers (envelopes) related to both of these societies (see above). The very attractive cover from the Philomathean Society was mailed sometime in the 1850s (the postage stamp is on the back of the cover), and the Phrenakosmian Society cover was mailed in the 1880s. Both societies were formed at Pennsylvania College in 1831 and both were disbanded in 1924. At some point, as occurred with other student society libraries, their libraries were probably merged with the college library. The archives of the two societies are now part of Special Collections & College Archives of Gettysburg College. The Philomathean and Phrenakosmian Societies existed at other colleges and there is a Philomathean Society still in existence at the University of Pennsylvania.

Library Brand Canned Foods - Champaign, IL

Librariana comes in multiple varieties and formats. One of the more unusual examples of librariana is the label from a can of sweet corn which is shown above. Library Brand Canned Foods was a label for the Eisner Grocery Co. of Champaign, Illinois. Eisner Food Stores was a chain of stores headquartered in Champaign, but located throughout central Illinois. The chain was acquired by the Jewel Companies in 1957. The building shown on the label is the library building of the University of Illinois completed in 1897 now known as Altgeld Hall. It now houses the Mathematics Library of the University of Illinois. 

Gilbert H. Doane, Librarian and Monuments Man

The story of the World War II "Monuments Men", a special Army unit created to help recover art treasures looted my the Nazis, has become well known due to the George Clooney film this year. One of the monuments men was Gilbert H. Doane (1897-1980), Librarian of the University of Wisconsin - Madison from 1937 to 1956. Doane took a leave of absence in 1943-1945 to serve in what was officially known as the Army's Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) program. Although I knew that Doane had served as Librarian of UW-Madison, I didn't know about the monuments men connection until I did some research as the result of a recently acquired airmail letter postal card  sent to Doane from Mexico in 1940 (see above). The letter was sent by a friend of Doane's with the initials D.P. The friend is an artist and the letter updates Doane on the friend's artistic activities including an upcoming show in San Francisco. Doane left the Army with the rank of Major. When he stepped down from his post as UW Librarian he was ordained as an Episcopal priest, and in 1957 he returned to UW as the University Archivist, a post he held until 1962. There is an excellent post about Doane on the UW Archives blog, and also a great post on the Bibliophemera blog.    

Colorado Library to Library Postcard

As I have noted in other posts I collect envelopes and other postal items that have been sent to or from a library. I especially like finding items that have been sent from one library to another. The postcard above fits into that category and it has the added distinction of being a picture postcard depicting a library. The postcard is part of the Phoebe Hayes library postcard collection that I wrote about in the previous post. In the message on the postcard the Documents Librarian at the Charles Leaming Tutt Library of Colorado College in Colorado Springs, CO is letting the Documents Processing Librarian at the Denver Public Library know that she has mailed some documents requested from an exchange list and that the postage to be reimbursed will be 31 cents. The postcard was mailed on March 31, 1967. The Tutt Library is depicted on the front of the postcard. Although, government issued pre-paid postal cards are often used to conduct library business, it is rare to see this occur on a picture postcard.

George Lincoln Burr (1857-1938) and the White Library at Cornell

I'm a collector of envelopes (called covers by philatelists) that have been sent to or from libraries. I believe that I have the largest collection of these envelopes in the world. My collection numbers in the thousands. I'm always on the lookout for envelopes that have a special story so I was excited to acquire the envelope shown above. It was mailed to Professor George L. Burr at the President White Library at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY on April 25, 1911. Andrew Dickson White was the co-founder and first president of Cornell University. White, with the assistance of Burr, developed a remarkable personal historical library consisting of more than 30,000 volumes which he donated to the Cornell University Library. Burr served as the librarian/curator of the White collection and Professor of History at Cornell. He was an authority on the witchcraft trials and was editor of Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706. He was President of the American Historical Association in 1916. The envelope is interesting in that it was a souvenir for the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY but was mailed from Buffalo in 1911. It is marked "Personal". I'm putting together a philatelic exhibit titled "Libraries in 20th Century America" and this envelope will make a nice addition to the exhibit.

Chicago's Libraries, A Postcard Montage

My favorite "linen era" library postcard (shown above) was produced by the Curt Teich Company and depicts four Chicago libraries. The Curt Teich Company of Chicago was founded in 1898 and ceased producing postcards in 1978. This postcard was first published in 1937 and was mailed in 1942. The four libraries on the postcard are the Chicago Public Library, the Newberry Library, the John Crerar Library, and the Harper Memorial Library of the University of Chicago. The postcard is addressed to Miss Betty Frances Bryant and the message on the card reads: "How would you like to work in one of these? There is a chance. Dad". The Chicago Public Library building on the postcard is now the home of the Chicago Cultural Center. The Newberry Library continues to occupy the same building that is depicted on the postcard. That is also true for the Harper Memorial Library. The John Crerar Library is now affiliated with the University of Chicago and occupies a building on the university campus. The John Crerar Library occupied the multistory building on the postcard, located on Randolph Street, from 1921 until 1962. The building was demolished in 1981. The American Library Association was located for a period in both the Chicago Public Library building and the John Crerar Library building (see my digital history of ALA). The Chicago Cultural Center, the Newberry Library, and the Harper Memorial Library are all worth a visit if you have time while attending the American Library Association conference in Chicago in June.

Library Postcard Message 1944, Wesleyan University

As I have indicated before I appreciate library postcards which have been sent with a message that relates to the library shown on the postcard. The postcard above was sent by Paul V. Beard while he was an Aviation Cadet in training during World War II at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. Wesleyan University was host to the Navy Flight Preparatory School (U.S.N.F.P.S.) from January, 1943 to August, 1944. The message on the postcard says, "Hi Mom, Here's a picture of the Library. Please put in scrap book. Send more pictures later. Paul". As a member of the Armed Forces Paul was able to send the postcard free. The Olin Memorial Library which is shown on the postcard was completed in 1927 and dedicated in 1928. I wonder if Cadet Beard completed his training in time to see actual combat during World War II.

Early Harvard College Library Bookplate

The design of the bookplate shown here was used by the Harvard College Library from the 1760s through the first part of the 19th century. This particular bookplate was used in a book purchased from a library fund established in 1842 and was received on April 24, 1844. It is a recent addition to my collection of institutional library bookplates. I was fortunate to locate information about the bookplate in an article in the Bookplate Archive of the Libraries & Culture journal. The article was written by W. H. Bond in 1987. The bookplate was designed by Nathaniel Hurd of Boston (1730-1770). Bond's article notes that the original bookplate was used to identify books donated by Thomas Hollis V. Books donated by Hollis were an important part of the rebuilding of the Harvard College Library after a fire destroyed most of the library's collection in 1764. Harvard's electronic library catalog is named Hollis. Harvard has now established an elaborate system of identifying books purchased through named library funds with digital bookplates. 

A 1902 Letter and the Library Career of Charlotte Templeton (1877-1970)

As sometimes happens with my approach to library history, the recent acquisition of a piece of postal librariana led me on a chase for more information about the item. It's a May 18, 1902 letter to Mrs. Robert Templeton in Sturgeon Bay, WI  from her daughter Charlotte in Omaha, NE.  The letter was written on Omaha Public Library stationery and begins with: "It has come around to my Sunday to work again already and I am in the reference room. It is a hot windy day so I am not kept very busy." The letter which is eight and a half pages long is full of news about Charlotte's life and includes other references to her work at the library. Some excerpts: "I am pretty well acquainted with some of my employers - Miss Tobitt [Edith Tobitt served as Director of the Omaha Public Library from 1898 to 1936] is noncommittal as to what I am to do except that I am to have the cataloguing of the Spanish books. I will like it if I can do it at all." "I wish I was one of the girls going to Madison this summer. Lillian Snell, Miss Hammand, Miss O'Brien, Miss Parsons, and Miss Swartzlander are all going. The girls are all expected to go sooner or later but I shan't do it unless I think I can't possibly go to a library school for a regular course. I think that my experience will be invaluable to me if I ever go." This second excerpt refers to the Summer Library School conducted by the Wisconsin Free Library Commission in Madison, Wisconsin, the predecessor of the current School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. After working at the Omaha Public Library in the reference department from 1902 to 1904 Charlotte Templeton did go to "a library school for a regular course" at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. After library school Charlotte became Director of the Oshkosh (WI) Public Library in 1905. She only stayed in Oshkosh for a little over a year before returning to Nebraska as Secretary of the Nebraska Library Commission in 1906. She worked there until 1919. She then became Secretary of the Georgia Library Commission where she worked until 1923. On September 1, 1923 she became head of the Greenville Public Library in South Carolina. In an interesting coincidence, I also served as director of the Greenville Library (now the Greenville County Library) over 50 years later. In September 1931 Charlotte left Greenville to become librarian of the Atlanta University Library in Georgia, a historically black university. She resigned from that position in 1942. Charlotte was a co-founder, along with Mary Utopia Rothrock, of the Southeastern Library Association in which she served as Secretary and President. Another interesting coincidence, I also served as Secretary of the Southeastern Library Association. Charlotte was also active in the American Library Association where she served as a Second Vice-President. I haven't been able to find out anything about Charlotte after leaving Atlanta University. 

Destruction of Stanford's Library in 1906

"It was soon after sunrise April 18, 1906, that the ground now solid underfoot began to heave, to tremble. As one journalist described the sensation of the earthquake, 'It pounced on the earth as some sidereal bulldog, with a rattle of hungry eagerness. The earth was a rat, shaken in the grinding teeth, shaken, shaken, shaken, with periods of slight weariness followed by new bursts of violent rage.' Everyone had supposed the massive construction and modest dimensions of this building would ensure its safety. As a matter of fact, the splendid masonry was stripped off that steel frame under the dome like flimsy paper from a bill-board. The walls that looked as if they might outlive Europe's cathedrals crumbled like lumps of sugar at afternoon tea."  The previous quotation is from the back of a stereoview (see above) showing the destruction of the newly completed library building at Stanford University in Palo Alta, California by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Fortunately, the new library was not yet occupied. More about the impact of the earthquake on Stanford University including the library can be found on the University's website. The stereoview was created by Underwood & Underwood a major publisher of stereoviews. Stereoviews are double images of a scene on a card that when viewed with a stereoscope appear to be three dimensional. Several decades before libraries appeared on picture postcards they could be viewed on stereoviews. I only have a handful of stereoviews in my collection of librariana.

Yale University Library and World War I

One of the biggest challenges faced by historians is the absence or loss of historical records which in many instances have been deliberately disposed of. The historian's best friends are those individuals who have the vision to acquire and preserve records that document important historical events. John Christopher Schwab, Yale University Librarian 1905-1916, was one such individual. In the early stages of World War I when the United States was still neutral, Schwab and the Yale University Library, as documented in the letter and circular above, aggressively sought to collect "the ephemeral publications on every phase of the present war which appear as well in the neutral as in the belligerent countries." The two items are in my collection along with the envelope in which they were contained addressed to a Yale alumnus in Natal, South Africa and mailed on May 1, 1915. It's difficult to determine where the materials collected by Yale in this effort are currently located, but Yale does have an extensive portal to its World War I resources on its website.

UC Berkeley Library Celebration

The Doe Library of the University of California Berkeley Library is celebrating its centennial with a variety of activities tomorrow (March 21). I thought I would pay tribute to this event by featuring a couple of vintage envelopes from my postal librariana collection.  When the first envelope above was mailed by the Berkeley Library on October 9, 1888, the library had been in operation for 19 years. It's initial collection consisted of 1,036 books which were donated by the College of California. The envelope is addressed to C. R. (Charles Russell) Orcutt, a famous California horticulturist. The second envelope above was mailed by the Bancroft Library on October 29, 1891. The Bancroft Library was the personal library of Hubert Howe Bancroft which focused on the history of California and the West. The Bancroft Library which included 60,000 bound volumes and 10,000 manuscript items became part of the UC Berkeley Library in 1905. There is a nice chronology of the UC Berkeley Library's history on its website. Happy birthday Doe Library!

First Separate Academic Library Buildings in US

The first library building built solely to serve as a library was at the University of South Carolina in 1840. It is shown on the postcard to the left. Academic libraries prior to this time were located in campus buildings that served multiple purposes. My source for this information is Kenneth E. Carpenter's book The First 350 Years of the Harvard University Library (Harvard University Library, 1986). According to Carpenter, Gore Hall, built at Harvard in 1841, was a close second. Carpenter also points out that although the University of Virginia built a library in 1825 it was put to a variety of uses. The University of South Carolina building is still used as a library. It houses the South Caroliniana Library. Gore Hall at Harvard is shown on the postcard below. Carpenter notes that to decrease the risk of fire Gore Hall only had a small furnace and users and staff had to wear hats and coats in the winter. Gore Hall was replaced by the Widener Library building in 1915 on the same site.

Azariah Turns 150 Today

Photo of Root from Oberlin College Archives

Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Oberlin (OH) College Librarian and ALA President Azariah Smith Root (1862-1927). I wrote a post about Root for December 15, 2009. It is partially reprinted below. I also have a blog post about Oberlin's card catalog.

Azariah Smith Root served as the Librarian at Oberlin College from 1887 to 1927. Root was responsible for transforming the library at Oberlin into one of the best college libraries in the nation. Root's original involvement with the Oberlin College Library began before his appointment as librarian with a project to catalog the library's collection in 1885 using the Dewey Decimal Classification System. Root played a major role in acquiring a grant of $150,000 from Andrew Carnegie in 1905 for a new college library building which also served the community of Oberlin as a public library. He developed a detailed description of what should be included in the new library which is considered to be the first library building statement written by a librarian. Root was also heavily involved in librarianship at the national level and served as President of the American Library Association (ALA) in 1922. He was actively involved in promoting quality library education and training. This included work with others that resulted in the certification of library schools by ALA. Root served as director of the American Correspondence School of Librarianship which was established in 1923 until his death in 1927. Azariah's library has evolved into the Seeley G. Mudd Center. The Carnegie building (see history) still survives on campus housing older collections of the library and offices for a couple of college departments. Root has been honored by Oberlin College through the naming the position of director of the library as the Azariah Smith Root Director of Libraries which is currently held by Ray English. The history of Oberlin's library is preserved by an outstanding College Archives. Herbert F. Johnson has written an excellent biography of Root in the Dictionary of American Library Biography (Libraries Unlimited, 1978).

Football Postal Librariana, 1892

On Dec. 1, 1892 a person who signed his name as  "THE" sent a postal card designed to acknowledge gifts to the Library of the Leland Stanford Junior University in California to Charles H. Hull, a faculty member at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Instead of a gift acknowledgement, however, the postal card contained a personal message part of which read, "Hurrah for Walter Camp, who arrives from the East today to coach our f. b. team for two years. Leland Stanford Junior University is now just plain Stanford University, and it consistently has one of the highest ranked football teams in the nation. The Walter Camp referred to in the postal card is considered to be the father of American football. The identity of  "THE" who signed the postal card is unknown. I contacted the Stanford Library but there is no record of someone with those initials being affiliated with the library. The postal card itself is unusual in that it is, at 6 1/8 inches by 3 3/4 inches, the largest postal card issued by the United States Post Office Department. It was issued in 1891 the same year that Leland Stanford Junior University was founded.

Charles Williamson and His Report on Training for Library Service

Today is the 135th anniversary of the birth of Charles Clarence Williamson (1877-1965) who conducted a study of the training for library service in the United States for the Carnegie Corporation in in 1919-1921. The "Williamson Report" was completed in 1921 and later published as Training for Library Service in 1923. According to Robert Leigh the Williamson study "became the major program for discussion and action regarding library education for the next quarter century".  Williamson conducted his study after working at the New York Public Library as Head of the Economics and Sociology Division and as Head of the Municipal Reference Library. In 1926 Williamson was given the opportunity to put his ideas about library training into practice (or as he said "Put up or shut up.") when he received a joint appointment as Director of Columbia University Libraries and as the University's School of Library Service. He served in that capacity until his retirement in 1943. Ironically, Williamson himself had no formal training as a librarian. Williamson's life and library career is documented in the book The Greatest of Greatness: The Life and Work of Charles C. Williamson (1877-1965) by Paul A. Winckler (Scarecrow Press, 1992). Winckler also wrote the entry for Williamson in the Dictionary of American Library Biography (Libraries Unlimited, 1978) which is the source of the information in this post.

The Libraries of Louvain Revisited

"On the night of 25 August 1914, around one or two o'clock in the morning, several fires broke out in the medieval Belgian city of Louvain, which had been occupied for about a week by invading German troops. The fire lasted three days, during which time the Germans did not allow authorities to combat it. The result was the destruction of much of the city, including the famed library of the Catholic University of Louvain." So begins an overview of the history of the Louvain University Library written by Phillip A. Metzger for Libraries & Culture. Following its destruction in World War I the library was rebuilt in 1928, but sadly it was destroyed again in World War II. I wrote an earlier blog post about the destruction of the libraries in Louvain in 2009. I also created a webpage about the destroyed libraries on the Library History Buff website which includes images of a number of postal artifacts in my collection. I recently added the two postcards shown above to my collection. The first shows the library after its destruction in 1914 and the second shows the interior of the new library built in 1928. I also have a previous related post about "Fire - The Enemy of Books".

On the Brink of World War II

When the Yale University Library mailed the envelope above it was only days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which precipitated the entry of the U.S. into World War II. The envelope was mailed on December 3, 1941 to the Library (Bibliotheque) of the Universite Libre in Brussels, Belgium.  U.S. mail to Europe was already being examined by censors and the label on this envelope indicates that this was accomplished by Examiner 5141. Belgium had been invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940 and was an occupied country. According to the website of the Universite Libre de Bruxelles the university closed its doors in 1941 to avoid collaborating with the Nazis. The envelope has what philatelists refer to as an auxiliary marking - "Return to Sender Service Suspended". Postal service was suspended by many countries during World War II. The envelope was returned through New York City and has a date stamp of July 28, 1942, almost eight months after it was first mailed. Since the envelope doesn't include any contents, there is no way of knowing for what purpose it was sent. An interesting piece of postal librariana.      

Union College (NY) Semi-Centennials

I recently became aware that this year was the semi-centennial of the Schaffer Library at Union College in Schenectady, NY. The last event of their year long celebration was a lecture by Jeremy B. Dibbell, writer of the PhiloBiblos blog. This reminded me of a piece of postal librariana in my collection related to the Philomatheon Society of Union College. The Philomatheon Society was one of the student literary societies at colleges and universities that I have written about previously. The item in my collection is a stampless folded letter written in 1848 by a former member of the Society in regard to a circular that he had received announcing a publication related to the semi-centennial of the Society.  The circular also contained an appeal to the alumni of the Society for funding to enlarge the Society's library. The writer of the letter J. Petrie, who was at that time a student at Auburn Theological Seminary, proposes to donate a book (Rational Psychology by Hickok, to be published in early 1849) to the library. He requests two copies of the semi-centennial publication which is available now in digital form from the Internet Archive. The publication indicates that at the time of the semi-centennial there were 115 members of the Society and about 3,000 volumes in the library.