A nice article about PPL's special collections in today's Providence Journal (original link followed by text):
Bob Kerr: The third floor is where the treasure is
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 28, 2009
http://www.projo.com/news/bobkerr/kerr_column_28_06-28-09_TNERTTD_v13.2bca026.html
Sometimes, it takes an out-of-towner to find the treasures the locals pass by. It takes fresh eyes to see past the familiar, everyday blur. So Piper Smith, a social worker from New York, found the Providence Public Library. Then she found a room on the third floor where a person could get lost for days, maybe weeks. "I love libraries," she told me earlier this week by phone from New York. "And we went up and this man was very kind and we asked if we could look around. He was so welcoming. He showed us all over."
Smith was in Providence to visit her twin sons, Raber and Taylor Umphenour, and Raber's fiancie, Jenni Katajamaki. And when Piper and Raber and Jenni met Phil Weimerskirch on the third floor of the library they brought together more than just an incredible mix of surname syllables. They brought together a shared fascination with timeless works on paper.
In Special Collections at the public library, you can pick up a first edition of Charles Dickens' Little Dorritt in serialized format complete with advertisements. There is the history of printing collection and the Irish literature and folklore collection. There are more than 10,000 items on the Civil War and the history of slavery. There are shelves and shelves of whaling logs that tell in very personal and immediate ways of the often brutal life aboard whaling ships on their years-long voyages. In the children's collection, there is a German book with a xylophone inside.
"Row upon row of mind-bending rarity," says Richard Ring of the things that surround him. Ring is director of Special Collections. Weimerskirch is director emeritus and works part-time and is due to be laid off as part of the brutal cuts at the library. Together, they represent one of those wonderful corners of learning that allows us to feel and smell and settle in with the work of centuries.
Ring handed me a small volume titled Traits De Jeu de Dames A La Polonois. It's about the international game of checkers. There are drawings. It was once owned by Marie Antoinette. She held it, and I held it. I'm going back. I want to sit down with a whaling log. But if not for Piper Smith I would have been just another of those people passing by without a clue as to the rich possibilities close by.
Actually, it was her daughter-in-law-to-be that pointed her toward the library. Katajamaki is a graduate in architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. She studies buildings. She considers the public library at Washington and Empire streets one of the most beautiful and well preserved buildings in the city. And she considers Special Collections and all its enriching books special and fantastic. "There was a medieval manuscript," she said. "There are only three in the world. Usually, things like that are under glass. You can't touch them."
Smith contacted The Journal after her visit to the library. She thinks people should be more aware of what's really there. She finds it sad that more people don't use it. She also finds it sad that the library staff, including Phil Weimerskirch, is being so drastically reduced. "He was so kind and generous with his time," she said. While she was there, she looked at a first edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter.
By the nature of its priceless inventory, Special Collections is not a place for school field trips. It's not a drop-in part of the library, although Ring says if he's there and you ask, he'll be happy to show you around. But due to all the staff cuts, he has been given additional duties at the library. An appointment is a good idea. If you go, you will meet a man passionate about the treasure over which he presides. He speaks of the "materiality of books."
It is a small world he works in, says Ring. But it is a very interesting world and one where the gentleman's handshake still means something. There was a Dutchman who had a book that Ring says was worth two times his annual salary at least. And the Dutchman told him to take the book and check it out "It's based on trust," he said.
So, too, is the use of the material in Special Collections. People are trusted to treat the books with respect and clean hands. Ring is never far away. This is his domain. He does everything -- from writing grants to putting books on the shelves. He came to the public library from the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University in November 2007. "I knew we had good stuff here, really excellent stuff."
It is that, all right. This part of the library is a place to stop and slide out a book and think about where it's been as well as what it teaches. There is a feeling of reverence. As we moved among the stacks, Ring took a book from a shelf. It's the memo book of the chief surgeon in the Confederate hospital at Richmond. It tells of the war in a way historians cannot. And it is just one small piece of this quiet, thoughtful place that so enriches its city.
I want to thank Piper Smith for telling me that it's there.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
The Press in the United States, Part III
The following is a transcription (Part III of III) of an article by Lawrence Wroth in his "Notes for Bibliophiles" column in the New York Herald Tribune, which ran 70 years ago.
The Press in the United States: A Perfect Tercentenary Exhibition, Part III (Conclusion)
[September 10, 1939]
In this department for Aug. 13 and 27 we indulged ourselves with the idea of setting up, with books borrowed from many libraries in this country and England, an exhibition of the first and unusual issues of the Colonial American press to celebrate the tercentenary of its establishment at Cambridge, Mass., in 1639. In those two articles we discussed the early presses of Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina. We continue with the story of the other colonies in which the printing press was found before the conclusion of the Revolution.
The press in New Jersey was established in 1754. Its earliest issue was "The Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly of New Jersey" of April, 1754, issued in the year named by James Parker, who had just moved his establishment to Woodbridge, in that colony. Again the Public Record Office in London would have to be drawn upon for a copy of this first New Jersey imprint for display in our exhibition. We have already spoken of Parker in connection with printing in New York, as one of the most skillful and enterprising printers of the colonies.
The press in New Hampshire was begun by Daniel Fowle, a printer of Boston, who, in 1754, issued a pamphlet entitled "The Monster of Monsters," by Thomas Thumb, which was held to reflect upon the Massachusetts Assembly. After his pamphlet had been condemned and burned by the hangman and Fowle had been reprimanded, jailed, and ordered to pay costs, he turned his back upon Boston and settled with his press in Portsmouth, N. H. The earliest issue of his press in that place was the prospectus of a newspaper. No copy of that prospectus is now known, so that the first number of the newspaper itself, dated Oct. 7, 1756, must be regarded as the earliest known production of the New Hampshire press.
A journeyman printer named James Adams, after several years of service, left the firm of Franklin & Hall, of Philadelphia, in 1761, and went to Wilmington, Del., where, soon afterward, he announced that he had published a schoolbook, a ready reckoner, the "Wilmington Almanack for 1762" and a piece called "The Advice of Evan Ellis to his Daughter when at Sea." No copies remain of the ready reckoner or the spelling book, but two at least of the known imprints of Adams's first year are represented by actual copies. Four libraries, among them the Wilmington Institute Free Library and the American Antiquarian Society, are known to possess copies of the "Almanack," and the John Carter Brown Library has a broadside entitled "The Advice of Evan Ellis to his Daughter when at Sea," printed by James Adams in Wilmington, which, in all probability, is from the edition in question. Perhaps the best known issue of the Wilmington press in the eighteenth century was the celebrated "Discovery, Settlement and present State of Kentucke," by John Filson, which James Adams printed in 1784, though the great map of Kentucky that went with it was engraved and printed in Philadelphia.
Though James Johnston went to Georgia in 1762 and received the appointment of printer to that colony, it is probable that he was not equipped with press and type at that time. At any rate, it was not until April, 1763, that he began the publication of a newspaper, and it was only in June of that year that he printed a group of acts of the Georgia Assembly, some of which had been passed four years earlier. It is generally assumed that the first of these to be mentioned in Johnston's advertisement—that is, "An Act to prevent Stealing of Horses and Meat Cattle"—is the earliest Georgia imprint other than the "Georgia Gazette." Copies of this act and of others of the group are found in the John Carter Brown and the Massachusetts Historical Society libraries.
The first press in Louisiana was set up in New Orleans at that critical moment in the history of the colony when France was in process of ceding it to Spain. The earliest piece brought out by Denis Braud, the first New Orleans printer, was a broadside of 1764 entitled "Extrait de la Lettre du Roi, a M. Dabbadie." This was a notification to the Director General of the colony that Louisiana had been ceded to Spain—tragic news for the French settlers of Louisiana. The only known copy of that broadside is described by Douglas C. McMurtrie in "Early Printing in New Orleans" as in the Louisiana collection of Edward Alexander Parsons, of New Orleans. The early history of the press in Louisiana is of unusual interest because of its participation in the political changes of a period through which the country was, in turn, French, Spanish, French and American.
If we are to pay attention to present-day boundaries, the press in Vermont began in Westminster in 1780 with a Thanksgiving proclamation for that year printed by Judah Padock Spooner and Timothy Green. The beginnings of Vermont printing, however, are more interesting than this, for the first Vermont press was actually established in New Hampshire in the town of Dresden, now called Hanover. At that time Vermont was claiming as hers both banks of the Connecticut River, and Dresden lay on the eastern bank of the river, within the debatable territory. Here in the fall of 1778 the newly established Vermont Republic brought Alden Spooner, a printer of New London, and during the next two years that printer took an active part in the struggle of the Vermont settlers against the governments of New York and New Hampshire in carrying on what was known as the New Hampshire Grants controversy. A thanksgiving proclamation dated Oct. 18, 1778, and a sermon preached by Eden Burroughs, entitled "A sincere Regard to Righteousness and Piety," are the earliest known issues of the Dresden press. A copy of the thanksgiving proclamation could be displayed only by courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library, but either the Library of the University of Vermont or the John Carter Brown Library could be called upon to lend a copy of the Eden Burroughs sermon.
A short-lived printing establishment was set up in Florida when, in 1783, William Charles and John Wells, sons of a loyalist printer and newspaper publisher of Charleston, S. C., fled before the American occupation of that city under Gen. Nathaniel Green. Together with many other South Carolina loyalists, they went to the British colony of East Florida and at St. Augustine began the publication of "The East Florida Gazette" in February, 1783. In 1784 two pamphlets are known to have come from the press. Probably the first of these was Samuel Gale's "Essay II, On the Nature and Principles of Public Credit." The other was the "Case of the Inhabitants of East Florida," which is a presentation of the claims to compensation of the loyalists, an unhappy group who had hardly settled and taken up land in East Florida when they found the country ceded by Great Britain to Spain as the result of the Treaty of Paris. It would not be impossible to make a good showing of these early Florida imprints. A few numbers of "The East Florida Gazette," the first St. Augustine newspaper, are found in the Public Record Office, London. The New York Public Library and the John Carter Brown Library have copies of the "Case of the Inhabitants of East Florida." The only known copy of Gale's "Essay II" in the St. Augustine edition, is in the possession of Mr. Thomas W. Streeter, of Morristown, N. J., who also owns a copy of the "Case of the Inhabitants."
An exhibition of printing in the colonies would be incomplete without reference to certain foreign presses which operated in different parts of the country, especially in Pennsylvania, where the German element was always strong, and where, toward the eighteenth century came great numbers of French refugees from Santo Domingo. The printing establishment of Christopher Sauer, the elder, was responsible for the publication, in 1743, of "Biblia, Das ist: Die Heilige Schrift Altes und Neues Testaments," the second Bible known with certainty to have been printed in America and the first to be published in a European language. The press of the Seventh Day Baptists Monastery, at Ephrata, Pa., began about the year 1745 a long series of books of great interest in the religious and social history of the Pennsylvania Germans. Among these was "Der Blutige Schau-Platz," printed by the Ephrata brothers for the Mennonites of Pennsylvania. Completed in 1748, this book of 1,512 pages was the largest issue of the press in colonial America.
Among the notable French presses of Philadelphia was that established by Fleury Mesplet in 1774, and used by the Continental Congress for its propaganda addressed to the French of Canada. Later in the century, after the Santo Domingan revolution, the press of Moreau de St. Mery issued a number of extremely interesting political and sociological books. In Philadelphia, and in Boston also, French newspapers were published in the eighteenth century, and many pamphlets of interest to refugees from the West Indies and from France were issued.
The exhibition we have discussed in these three articles in "Notes for Bibliophiles" would represent material of fundamental, social and literary interest in the life and history of the United States, and would celebrate the beginnings of one of the most important present-day industries of the country.
The Press in the United States: A Perfect Tercentenary Exhibition, Part III (Conclusion)
[September 10, 1939]
In this department for Aug. 13 and 27 we indulged ourselves with the idea of setting up, with books borrowed from many libraries in this country and England, an exhibition of the first and unusual issues of the Colonial American press to celebrate the tercentenary of its establishment at Cambridge, Mass., in 1639. In those two articles we discussed the early presses of Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina. We continue with the story of the other colonies in which the printing press was found before the conclusion of the Revolution.
The press in New Jersey was established in 1754. Its earliest issue was "The Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly of New Jersey" of April, 1754, issued in the year named by James Parker, who had just moved his establishment to Woodbridge, in that colony. Again the Public Record Office in London would have to be drawn upon for a copy of this first New Jersey imprint for display in our exhibition. We have already spoken of Parker in connection with printing in New York, as one of the most skillful and enterprising printers of the colonies.
The press in New Hampshire was begun by Daniel Fowle, a printer of Boston, who, in 1754, issued a pamphlet entitled "The Monster of Monsters," by Thomas Thumb, which was held to reflect upon the Massachusetts Assembly. After his pamphlet had been condemned and burned by the hangman and Fowle had been reprimanded, jailed, and ordered to pay costs, he turned his back upon Boston and settled with his press in Portsmouth, N. H. The earliest issue of his press in that place was the prospectus of a newspaper. No copy of that prospectus is now known, so that the first number of the newspaper itself, dated Oct. 7, 1756, must be regarded as the earliest known production of the New Hampshire press.
A journeyman printer named James Adams, after several years of service, left the firm of Franklin & Hall, of Philadelphia, in 1761, and went to Wilmington, Del., where, soon afterward, he announced that he had published a schoolbook, a ready reckoner, the "Wilmington Almanack for 1762" and a piece called "The Advice of Evan Ellis to his Daughter when at Sea." No copies remain of the ready reckoner or the spelling book, but two at least of the known imprints of Adams's first year are represented by actual copies. Four libraries, among them the Wilmington Institute Free Library and the American Antiquarian Society, are known to possess copies of the "Almanack," and the John Carter Brown Library has a broadside entitled "The Advice of Evan Ellis to his Daughter when at Sea," printed by James Adams in Wilmington, which, in all probability, is from the edition in question. Perhaps the best known issue of the Wilmington press in the eighteenth century was the celebrated "Discovery, Settlement and present State of Kentucke," by John Filson, which James Adams printed in 1784, though the great map of Kentucky that went with it was engraved and printed in Philadelphia.
Though James Johnston went to Georgia in 1762 and received the appointment of printer to that colony, it is probable that he was not equipped with press and type at that time. At any rate, it was not until April, 1763, that he began the publication of a newspaper, and it was only in June of that year that he printed a group of acts of the Georgia Assembly, some of which had been passed four years earlier. It is generally assumed that the first of these to be mentioned in Johnston's advertisement—that is, "An Act to prevent Stealing of Horses and Meat Cattle"—is the earliest Georgia imprint other than the "Georgia Gazette." Copies of this act and of others of the group are found in the John Carter Brown and the Massachusetts Historical Society libraries.
The first press in Louisiana was set up in New Orleans at that critical moment in the history of the colony when France was in process of ceding it to Spain. The earliest piece brought out by Denis Braud, the first New Orleans printer, was a broadside of 1764 entitled "Extrait de la Lettre du Roi, a M. Dabbadie." This was a notification to the Director General of the colony that Louisiana had been ceded to Spain—tragic news for the French settlers of Louisiana. The only known copy of that broadside is described by Douglas C. McMurtrie in "Early Printing in New Orleans" as in the Louisiana collection of Edward Alexander Parsons, of New Orleans. The early history of the press in Louisiana is of unusual interest because of its participation in the political changes of a period through which the country was, in turn, French, Spanish, French and American.
If we are to pay attention to present-day boundaries, the press in Vermont began in Westminster in 1780 with a Thanksgiving proclamation for that year printed by Judah Padock Spooner and Timothy Green. The beginnings of Vermont printing, however, are more interesting than this, for the first Vermont press was actually established in New Hampshire in the town of Dresden, now called Hanover. At that time Vermont was claiming as hers both banks of the Connecticut River, and Dresden lay on the eastern bank of the river, within the debatable territory. Here in the fall of 1778 the newly established Vermont Republic brought Alden Spooner, a printer of New London, and during the next two years that printer took an active part in the struggle of the Vermont settlers against the governments of New York and New Hampshire in carrying on what was known as the New Hampshire Grants controversy. A thanksgiving proclamation dated Oct. 18, 1778, and a sermon preached by Eden Burroughs, entitled "A sincere Regard to Righteousness and Piety," are the earliest known issues of the Dresden press. A copy of the thanksgiving proclamation could be displayed only by courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library, but either the Library of the University of Vermont or the John Carter Brown Library could be called upon to lend a copy of the Eden Burroughs sermon.
A short-lived printing establishment was set up in Florida when, in 1783, William Charles and John Wells, sons of a loyalist printer and newspaper publisher of Charleston, S. C., fled before the American occupation of that city under Gen. Nathaniel Green. Together with many other South Carolina loyalists, they went to the British colony of East Florida and at St. Augustine began the publication of "The East Florida Gazette" in February, 1783. In 1784 two pamphlets are known to have come from the press. Probably the first of these was Samuel Gale's "Essay II, On the Nature and Principles of Public Credit." The other was the "Case of the Inhabitants of East Florida," which is a presentation of the claims to compensation of the loyalists, an unhappy group who had hardly settled and taken up land in East Florida when they found the country ceded by Great Britain to Spain as the result of the Treaty of Paris. It would not be impossible to make a good showing of these early Florida imprints. A few numbers of "The East Florida Gazette," the first St. Augustine newspaper, are found in the Public Record Office, London. The New York Public Library and the John Carter Brown Library have copies of the "Case of the Inhabitants of East Florida." The only known copy of Gale's "Essay II" in the St. Augustine edition, is in the possession of Mr. Thomas W. Streeter, of Morristown, N. J., who also owns a copy of the "Case of the Inhabitants."
An exhibition of printing in the colonies would be incomplete without reference to certain foreign presses which operated in different parts of the country, especially in Pennsylvania, where the German element was always strong, and where, toward the eighteenth century came great numbers of French refugees from Santo Domingo. The printing establishment of Christopher Sauer, the elder, was responsible for the publication, in 1743, of "Biblia, Das ist: Die Heilige Schrift Altes und Neues Testaments," the second Bible known with certainty to have been printed in America and the first to be published in a European language. The press of the Seventh Day Baptists Monastery, at Ephrata, Pa., began about the year 1745 a long series of books of great interest in the religious and social history of the Pennsylvania Germans. Among these was "Der Blutige Schau-Platz," printed by the Ephrata brothers for the Mennonites of Pennsylvania. Completed in 1748, this book of 1,512 pages was the largest issue of the press in colonial America.
Among the notable French presses of Philadelphia was that established by Fleury Mesplet in 1774, and used by the Continental Congress for its propaganda addressed to the French of Canada. Later in the century, after the Santo Domingan revolution, the press of Moreau de St. Mery issued a number of extremely interesting political and sociological books. In Philadelphia, and in Boston also, French newspapers were published in the eighteenth century, and many pamphlets of interest to refugees from the West Indies and from France were issued.
The exhibition we have discussed in these three articles in "Notes for Bibliophiles" would represent material of fundamental, social and literary interest in the life and history of the United States, and would celebrate the beginnings of one of the most important present-day industries of the country.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Th Press in the United States, Part II
The following is a transcription (Part II of III) of an article by Lawrence Wroth in his "Notes for Bibliophiles" column in the New York Herald Tribune, which ran 70 years ago.
The Press in the United States: A Perfect Tercentenary Exhibition, Part II
[August 27, 1939]
In this department for August 13, we proposed to set up an exhibition of first and notable issues of the Colonial American press, celebrating in this way the beginning of printing in the United States by the press established at Cambridge, Mass., in 1639. Because of the wide dissemination of those first issues of the presses of the Colonies, a perfect, or nearly perfect, collection of them could be made for exhibition purposes only in the imagination. It is in the imagination, therefore, that we proceed with our borrowing for the purposes of our display of some of the rarest books known to the collector. We have already brought together, in our earlier installment, the "firsts" of the presses of Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York.
Printing began in Connecticut with the establishment of a press at New London in 1709 by Thomas Short. The first issues of Short's press in that place and year were a separate "Act (for emitting Bills of Public Credit)" and a broadside entitled "By the Honourable Gordon Saltonstall Esq. Governour . . . of Connecticut . . . A Proclamation for a Fast." The first of these could be contributed to the exhibition only by the Yale University Library; the second, by the Massachusetts Historical Society. The most important of the early issues of the Short press and one which would occupy a prominent place in the exhibition is "A Confession of Faith . . . Consented to . . . at Say-Brook September 9th, 1708." This celebrated "Saybrook Platform" was printed in New London in 1710, though it seems likely that its publication did not occur until a year later. Short's successor in New London was Timothy Green, one of whose early publications was the "Acts and Laws of Connecticut" of 1715. Timothy was a descendant of Samuel Green, the well remembered printer of Eliot's Indian Bible and other important works of the Cambridge press. Beginning their devotion to printing with long service to the earliest press of the United States, the Green family is found active in the operation of establishments in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maryland down to the year 1839, almost 200 years of continuous service to the craft by the members of a single family, an unusual American record.
James Franklin's conflict with the Massachusetts authorities, arising out of certain publications in his "New England Courant," was responsible for the establishment of the press in Newport, whither he and his wife, Anne, removed in the year 1727. Their earliest publication of that year, John Hammett's "Vindication . . . of his separating from the Baptists" has disappeared completely from knowledge. The earliest extant Newport imprint, therefore, would be the copy of Poor Robin's "Rhode-Island Almanack for the Year 1728" (printed in 1727), which would be represented in the exhibition by copies from the almanac collections of the Library of Congress and the Boston Public Library. Various libraries would be able to produce works that issued from the Newport press in 1728. The Rhode Island Historical Society has two or three items of that year including James Honeyman's "Faults on All Sides," a copy of which is also found in the John Carter Brown Library. This seems to be the most extensive book up to that time issued from the Newport press.
Printing began in Providence in 1762, when William Goddard established his press there and issued, first, a broadside announcing the fall of Morro Castle at Havana, and second, a circular for a theatrical performance. Neither of these can be shown in the exhibition because copies of them have not been located in any collection of today. The earliest issues of the Goddard press in Providence now to be found are a broadside "In Memory of Obadiah Brown" and a prospectus soliciting subscriptions to the "Providence Gazette," which began publication on October 20, 1762. Both these pieces are known in unique copies in the Rhode Island Historical Society.
The prohibition of the press in Virginia by special orders of the King, in 1682, was effective in its operation for nearly fifty years. It was not until 1730 that William Parks, then public printer of Maryland, added to his duties the same office under the Virginia government and opened an establishment in Williamsburg. His earliest publications were "All the Publick Acts of Assembly in Virginia" of 1730; an edition of "The New Virginia Tobacco Law," and a ready reckoner known as "The Dealer's Pocket Companion." None of these imprints is known today in an actual copy. The earliest of his issues of that year known to exist is the unique "Charge to the Grand Jury" by Governor Gooch, which is found in the Archives of Fulham Palace and, if shown, would have to be loaned to our exhibition by the Bishop of London. The other known publication of that year is "Typographia, an Ode on Printing," by John Markland. This is the earliest American contribution to the literature of typography. The only recorded copy of the poem is found in the John Carter Brown Library. That library could also contribute to the exhibition a copy of the "Virginia and Maryland Almanack for 1732," the earliest extant copy of an almanac published south of Pennsylvania, though Parks began his almanac publishing three years before the date of this item with John Warner's "Almanack for the Year 1729," published in Annapolis in 1728.
The first printers of South Carolina were George Webb, Eleazer Phillips jr., and Thomas Whitemarsh, all three of whom appeared in Charleston at about the same time as the result of actions at cross purposes by the Assembly and the Governor and Council. Late in 1731 a compromise was brought about as the result of which all of the three printers were given employment. Whitemarsh and Phillips established newspapers in 1732, but before this important service had been performed George Webb had brought out at least two pamphlets which must be regarded as the first issues of the press in South Carolina. Copies of these were discovered by Douglas C. McMurtrie a few years ago in England. They comprise a small pamphlet entitled "Anno Quinto Georgii II. Regis. At a Council . . . Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1731," and a broadside proclamation by the governor dated "Nov. 4, 1731." For the exhibition we are discussing it would be necessary to borrow both these pieces from the Public Record Office in London, where we have already found so many unique early American imprints, more especially, of course, such as relate to the governmental affairs of the colonies. Philips and Whitemarsh died in 1732 and 1733 respectively, and after his first publication of 1731, George Webb disappeared from the scene. The press was put upon a firm basis in South Carolina only when Lewis Timothy, a Huguenot who had been a journeyman of Franklin's, went to Charleston in 1733, and took up the work begun by Whitemarsh, a former associate in Philadelphia.
In our display of South Carolina printing we would want to see also "An Essay on Currency," which Timothy published in 1734 and which, until the discovery of the two Webb imprints, was regarded as the earliest issue of the South Carolina press in book or pamphlet form. That work would have to be borrowed for the exhibition from the Charleston Library. The most striking of the publications of the early Carolina press is unquestionably the edition of the "Laws of the Province of South Carolina," compiled by Nicholas Trott and printed by Lewis Timothy in 1736. This was one of the earliest English-American books to be printed with a rubricated title-page.
To secure a proper representation of the work of the first printer of North Carolina, James Davis, of Newbern, it would be necessary again to go to the Public Record Office, that great repository of documents relating to England and her colonies, where would be found his first imprint, the "Journal of the House of Burgesses," of September, 1749. All the North Carolina imprints which antedate the volume containing the Acts of Assembly, published in 1751, are to be found only in the Public Record Office. The "Collection of all the Acts of Assembly of North Carolina," of Newbern, 1751, is the earliest publication of the North Carolina press existing in any considerable number of libraries.
The Press in the United States: A Perfect Tercentenary Exhibition, Part II
[August 27, 1939]
In this department for August 13, we proposed to set up an exhibition of first and notable issues of the Colonial American press, celebrating in this way the beginning of printing in the United States by the press established at Cambridge, Mass., in 1639. Because of the wide dissemination of those first issues of the presses of the Colonies, a perfect, or nearly perfect, collection of them could be made for exhibition purposes only in the imagination. It is in the imagination, therefore, that we proceed with our borrowing for the purposes of our display of some of the rarest books known to the collector. We have already brought together, in our earlier installment, the "firsts" of the presses of Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York.
Printing began in Connecticut with the establishment of a press at New London in 1709 by Thomas Short. The first issues of Short's press in that place and year were a separate "Act (for emitting Bills of Public Credit)" and a broadside entitled "By the Honourable Gordon Saltonstall Esq. Governour . . . of Connecticut . . . A Proclamation for a Fast." The first of these could be contributed to the exhibition only by the Yale University Library; the second, by the Massachusetts Historical Society. The most important of the early issues of the Short press and one which would occupy a prominent place in the exhibition is "A Confession of Faith . . . Consented to . . . at Say-Brook September 9th, 1708." This celebrated "Saybrook Platform" was printed in New London in 1710, though it seems likely that its publication did not occur until a year later. Short's successor in New London was Timothy Green, one of whose early publications was the "Acts and Laws of Connecticut" of 1715. Timothy was a descendant of Samuel Green, the well remembered printer of Eliot's Indian Bible and other important works of the Cambridge press. Beginning their devotion to printing with long service to the earliest press of the United States, the Green family is found active in the operation of establishments in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maryland down to the year 1839, almost 200 years of continuous service to the craft by the members of a single family, an unusual American record.
James Franklin's conflict with the Massachusetts authorities, arising out of certain publications in his "New England Courant," was responsible for the establishment of the press in Newport, whither he and his wife, Anne, removed in the year 1727. Their earliest publication of that year, John Hammett's "Vindication . . . of his separating from the Baptists" has disappeared completely from knowledge. The earliest extant Newport imprint, therefore, would be the copy of Poor Robin's "Rhode-Island Almanack for the Year 1728" (printed in 1727), which would be represented in the exhibition by copies from the almanac collections of the Library of Congress and the Boston Public Library. Various libraries would be able to produce works that issued from the Newport press in 1728. The Rhode Island Historical Society has two or three items of that year including James Honeyman's "Faults on All Sides," a copy of which is also found in the John Carter Brown Library. This seems to be the most extensive book up to that time issued from the Newport press.
Printing began in Providence in 1762, when William Goddard established his press there and issued, first, a broadside announcing the fall of Morro Castle at Havana, and second, a circular for a theatrical performance. Neither of these can be shown in the exhibition because copies of them have not been located in any collection of today. The earliest issues of the Goddard press in Providence now to be found are a broadside "In Memory of Obadiah Brown" and a prospectus soliciting subscriptions to the "Providence Gazette," which began publication on October 20, 1762. Both these pieces are known in unique copies in the Rhode Island Historical Society.
The prohibition of the press in Virginia by special orders of the King, in 1682, was effective in its operation for nearly fifty years. It was not until 1730 that William Parks, then public printer of Maryland, added to his duties the same office under the Virginia government and opened an establishment in Williamsburg. His earliest publications were "All the Publick Acts of Assembly in Virginia" of 1730; an edition of "The New Virginia Tobacco Law," and a ready reckoner known as "The Dealer's Pocket Companion." None of these imprints is known today in an actual copy. The earliest of his issues of that year known to exist is the unique "Charge to the Grand Jury" by Governor Gooch, which is found in the Archives of Fulham Palace and, if shown, would have to be loaned to our exhibition by the Bishop of London. The other known publication of that year is "Typographia, an Ode on Printing," by John Markland. This is the earliest American contribution to the literature of typography. The only recorded copy of the poem is found in the John Carter Brown Library. That library could also contribute to the exhibition a copy of the "Virginia and Maryland Almanack for 1732," the earliest extant copy of an almanac published south of Pennsylvania, though Parks began his almanac publishing three years before the date of this item with John Warner's "Almanack for the Year 1729," published in Annapolis in 1728.
The first printers of South Carolina were George Webb, Eleazer Phillips jr., and Thomas Whitemarsh, all three of whom appeared in Charleston at about the same time as the result of actions at cross purposes by the Assembly and the Governor and Council. Late in 1731 a compromise was brought about as the result of which all of the three printers were given employment. Whitemarsh and Phillips established newspapers in 1732, but before this important service had been performed George Webb had brought out at least two pamphlets which must be regarded as the first issues of the press in South Carolina. Copies of these were discovered by Douglas C. McMurtrie a few years ago in England. They comprise a small pamphlet entitled "Anno Quinto Georgii II. Regis. At a Council . . . Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1731," and a broadside proclamation by the governor dated "Nov. 4, 1731." For the exhibition we are discussing it would be necessary to borrow both these pieces from the Public Record Office in London, where we have already found so many unique early American imprints, more especially, of course, such as relate to the governmental affairs of the colonies. Philips and Whitemarsh died in 1732 and 1733 respectively, and after his first publication of 1731, George Webb disappeared from the scene. The press was put upon a firm basis in South Carolina only when Lewis Timothy, a Huguenot who had been a journeyman of Franklin's, went to Charleston in 1733, and took up the work begun by Whitemarsh, a former associate in Philadelphia.
In our display of South Carolina printing we would want to see also "An Essay on Currency," which Timothy published in 1734 and which, until the discovery of the two Webb imprints, was regarded as the earliest issue of the South Carolina press in book or pamphlet form. That work would have to be borrowed for the exhibition from the Charleston Library. The most striking of the publications of the early Carolina press is unquestionably the edition of the "Laws of the Province of South Carolina," compiled by Nicholas Trott and printed by Lewis Timothy in 1736. This was one of the earliest English-American books to be printed with a rubricated title-page.
To secure a proper representation of the work of the first printer of North Carolina, James Davis, of Newbern, it would be necessary again to go to the Public Record Office, that great repository of documents relating to England and her colonies, where would be found his first imprint, the "Journal of the House of Burgesses," of September, 1749. All the North Carolina imprints which antedate the volume containing the Acts of Assembly, published in 1751, are to be found only in the Public Record Office. The "Collection of all the Acts of Assembly of North Carolina," of Newbern, 1751, is the earliest publication of the North Carolina press existing in any considerable number of libraries.
The Press In the United States, Part 1
The following is a transcription (Part I of III) of an article by Lawrence Wroth in his "Notes for Bibliophiles" column in the New York Herald Tribune, which ran 70 years ago.
The Press in the United States: An Ideal Tercentenary Exhibition
[August 13, 1939]
Many libraries have been putting on exhibitions this year to celebrate the tercentenary of the establishment of printing in the United States at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1639. No library in existence has all the things needed to make a complete showing of first printings in each of the original colonies but it is possible to have a good deal of fun constructing imaginatively the best possible exhibition and, still in the realm of fancy, borrowing for it unique titles from their owners. Such an exhibition could be held anywhere the fancy suggests, but because of the association between the first Cambridge press and the "College," we might plan to set it up in the Treasure Room of the Harvard College Library.
It is impossible, of course, to make such an exhibition perfect, even in dreams. There is no copy known, for example, of the very first thing printed by Stephen Day on his press in Cambridge, that is, the "Oath of a Free-man," the celebrated formulary used by the Massachusetts government which, though a simple broadside, had implications of considerable importance in the political life of the country. The earliest printed form known to us at present of the "Oath of a Free-man" appears in a pamphlet of London, 1647, by John Child, entitled "New-England's Jonas cast up at London."
The second thing printed by the Cambridge Press was an almanac of which also no copy is known to be in existence today. Its third issue, the earliest of which there exists a known copy, has the distinction of being regarded as the first book printed in the United States. This was the "Whole Booke of Psalmes," translated from the Hebrew by a committee of Massachusetts divines and printed in Cambridge in the year 1640. Though one of the most valuable of all books it is not by any means the rarest. Seven public libraries in the United States and England and three private individuals in the United States would be able to contribute eleven copies in varying states of completeness to our ideal exhibition. Without doubt the best copy to display as our beginning entry would be the perfect John Carter Brown Library copy, which first belonged to Richard Mather, one of the translators, and the editor of the volume. Another production of the Cambridge Press which would find place in this exhibition would be a "Declaration of Former Passages and Proceedings betwixt the English and the Narrowgansets," a piece known more popularly as the "Narragansett Declaration," and sometimes characterized as the first historical writing to proceed from the American press.
Another Cambridge book of special significance is the "Book of the General Lawes and Libertyes of the Massachusets" of the year 1648. That cornerstone of the structure of American legal and constitutional publication could be displayed only if the Huntington Library were able to lend its unique copy. John Eliot's translation of the Bible into the Indian language, Cambridge, 1663, marks the high point of the New England effort to Christianize the Indians. Copies of that and of the "Platform of Church Discipline" of 1649 could be borrowed from a good many public and private collections.
When the Cambridge Press went out of existence in 1692 a printing house had already been operating in near-by Boston for seventeen years. Increase Mather's "Wicked Man's Portion," printed in Boston, by John Foster in 1675, is said to be the earliest issue of the press in a city that ranked as the most distinguished publishing center of the country throughout the greater part of the Colonial period. In addition to this book our exhibition would have to show as an important publication of the early Boston press, William Hubbard's "Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians." The presence in this volume of a woodcut map of New England made by John Foster, the printer, gives it consequence as the first illustrated book of the United States.
The dissemination of printing in the United States was by no means regular and orderly in its geographical progress. The establishment of the press in Boston in 1675 was succeeded by the setting up of a press in Jamestown, Virginia, by William Nuthead in 1682. Unfortunately Nuthead was prohibited the exercise of his craft after he had run off a few trial sheets of the Assembly Proceedings. No copies of these are known to exist, and the press of Virginia does not find representation in our exhibition until nearly fifty years later. But the Jamestown printer, William Nuthead, removed to Maryland and established himself as a printer in St. Mary's City. The earliest known product of the Maryland press, a blank form, was printed sometime before August, 1685, and would have to be procured from the Land Office at Annapolis, Maryland.
In order to exhibit an item from the Nuthead Press of greater interest than its legal forms, it would be necessary to borrow from the Public Record Office, London, the only known copy of an important broadside printed by William Nuthead in 1689, entitled "The Address of the Representatives of their Majestyes Protestant Subjects in the Province of Maryland." The Nuthead Press was succeeded by the press of Thomas Reading, who in 1700 published the first Maryland book of collected laws, the earliest work of the sort printed outside Massachusetts, known today by the unique and imperfect copy in the Library of Congress. Reading was followed in Annapolis by the well remembered printer William Parks, afterward established in Williamsburg; and by Jonas Green, whose editions of Bacon's "Laws of Maryland," published in Annapolis, in 1765, is one of the handsomest and most elaborate publications of the Colonial printing house.
The press in Pennsylvania was begun in Dec., 1685, with the printing of William Bradford's "Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense," an almanac which could best be shown in the exhibition by borrowing two copies, that one owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the variant in the private library of Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, of Philadelphia and New York. The press in Pennsylvania held the premier position among Colonial presses throughout the second half of the eighteenth century.
No exhibition of American printing would be adequate without a representation of the work of Benjamin Franklin. Every one would expect to see displayed a copy of his "Cato Major" of 1744, and since the Historical Society of Pennsylvania has shown by a recent publication the splendid typographical qualities of his Indian treaties it would be necessary to put in a few specimens of those important and handsomely printed documents. An excellent example of the group would be the "Minutes of Conferences, held with the Indians at Harris's Ferry," published by Franklin & Hall in 1757.
It might have been said of William Bradford by his contemporaries that he had the unworldly quality of choosing troublesome friends and remaining loyal to them. Such a comment would arise from the fact that Bradford supported George Keith, the rebel Quaker, in his attacks upon the Pennsylvania ruling organization, and so got into trouble with the government. The feeling of the authorities was so strong against him that when he was released from prison he found it desirable to remove himself to New York, where, in 1693, he established the first press in the small town later to become the metropolis of the country. Because of the difficulty of deciding what was the first issue of Bradford's New York press it would be necessary to display two books in our exhibition. One of these would be a copy of "New England's Spirit of Persecution Transmitted to Pennsilvania . . . in the Tryal of Peter Boss, George Keith, Thomas Budd and William Bradford," a narrative largely prepared by George Keith and today found in several American collections, and "A Paraphrastical Exposition on a Letter from a Gentleman in Philadelphia to his Friend in Boston," a poem by John Phillips directed against Samuel Jennings, who had presided at the Bradford trial. It would be necessary to draw upon the private collection of Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach for the only copy of "Paraphrastical Exposition" known today.
Among the more notable successors to Bradford in New York were John Peter Zenger, whose trial for libel in 1735 was an important incident in the long struggle for the liberty of the press; James Parker, James Rivington and Hugh Gaine. From Zenger's list of publications one would display his "Charter of the City of New York," 1735, and from Parker's the "Charter of the College of New-York in America," as representing works of typographical excellence as well as historical importance.
The Press in the United States: An Ideal Tercentenary Exhibition
[August 13, 1939]
Many libraries have been putting on exhibitions this year to celebrate the tercentenary of the establishment of printing in the United States at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1639. No library in existence has all the things needed to make a complete showing of first printings in each of the original colonies but it is possible to have a good deal of fun constructing imaginatively the best possible exhibition and, still in the realm of fancy, borrowing for it unique titles from their owners. Such an exhibition could be held anywhere the fancy suggests, but because of the association between the first Cambridge press and the "College," we might plan to set it up in the Treasure Room of the Harvard College Library.
It is impossible, of course, to make such an exhibition perfect, even in dreams. There is no copy known, for example, of the very first thing printed by Stephen Day on his press in Cambridge, that is, the "Oath of a Free-man," the celebrated formulary used by the Massachusetts government which, though a simple broadside, had implications of considerable importance in the political life of the country. The earliest printed form known to us at present of the "Oath of a Free-man" appears in a pamphlet of London, 1647, by John Child, entitled "New-England's Jonas cast up at London."
The second thing printed by the Cambridge Press was an almanac of which also no copy is known to be in existence today. Its third issue, the earliest of which there exists a known copy, has the distinction of being regarded as the first book printed in the United States. This was the "Whole Booke of Psalmes," translated from the Hebrew by a committee of Massachusetts divines and printed in Cambridge in the year 1640. Though one of the most valuable of all books it is not by any means the rarest. Seven public libraries in the United States and England and three private individuals in the United States would be able to contribute eleven copies in varying states of completeness to our ideal exhibition. Without doubt the best copy to display as our beginning entry would be the perfect John Carter Brown Library copy, which first belonged to Richard Mather, one of the translators, and the editor of the volume. Another production of the Cambridge Press which would find place in this exhibition would be a "Declaration of Former Passages and Proceedings betwixt the English and the Narrowgansets," a piece known more popularly as the "Narragansett Declaration," and sometimes characterized as the first historical writing to proceed from the American press.
Another Cambridge book of special significance is the "Book of the General Lawes and Libertyes of the Massachusets" of the year 1648. That cornerstone of the structure of American legal and constitutional publication could be displayed only if the Huntington Library were able to lend its unique copy. John Eliot's translation of the Bible into the Indian language, Cambridge, 1663, marks the high point of the New England effort to Christianize the Indians. Copies of that and of the "Platform of Church Discipline" of 1649 could be borrowed from a good many public and private collections.
When the Cambridge Press went out of existence in 1692 a printing house had already been operating in near-by Boston for seventeen years. Increase Mather's "Wicked Man's Portion," printed in Boston, by John Foster in 1675, is said to be the earliest issue of the press in a city that ranked as the most distinguished publishing center of the country throughout the greater part of the Colonial period. In addition to this book our exhibition would have to show as an important publication of the early Boston press, William Hubbard's "Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians." The presence in this volume of a woodcut map of New England made by John Foster, the printer, gives it consequence as the first illustrated book of the United States.
The dissemination of printing in the United States was by no means regular and orderly in its geographical progress. The establishment of the press in Boston in 1675 was succeeded by the setting up of a press in Jamestown, Virginia, by William Nuthead in 1682. Unfortunately Nuthead was prohibited the exercise of his craft after he had run off a few trial sheets of the Assembly Proceedings. No copies of these are known to exist, and the press of Virginia does not find representation in our exhibition until nearly fifty years later. But the Jamestown printer, William Nuthead, removed to Maryland and established himself as a printer in St. Mary's City. The earliest known product of the Maryland press, a blank form, was printed sometime before August, 1685, and would have to be procured from the Land Office at Annapolis, Maryland.
In order to exhibit an item from the Nuthead Press of greater interest than its legal forms, it would be necessary to borrow from the Public Record Office, London, the only known copy of an important broadside printed by William Nuthead in 1689, entitled "The Address of the Representatives of their Majestyes Protestant Subjects in the Province of Maryland." The Nuthead Press was succeeded by the press of Thomas Reading, who in 1700 published the first Maryland book of collected laws, the earliest work of the sort printed outside Massachusetts, known today by the unique and imperfect copy in the Library of Congress. Reading was followed in Annapolis by the well remembered printer William Parks, afterward established in Williamsburg; and by Jonas Green, whose editions of Bacon's "Laws of Maryland," published in Annapolis, in 1765, is one of the handsomest and most elaborate publications of the Colonial printing house.
The press in Pennsylvania was begun in Dec., 1685, with the printing of William Bradford's "Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense," an almanac which could best be shown in the exhibition by borrowing two copies, that one owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the variant in the private library of Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, of Philadelphia and New York. The press in Pennsylvania held the premier position among Colonial presses throughout the second half of the eighteenth century.
No exhibition of American printing would be adequate without a representation of the work of Benjamin Franklin. Every one would expect to see displayed a copy of his "Cato Major" of 1744, and since the Historical Society of Pennsylvania has shown by a recent publication the splendid typographical qualities of his Indian treaties it would be necessary to put in a few specimens of those important and handsomely printed documents. An excellent example of the group would be the "Minutes of Conferences, held with the Indians at Harris's Ferry," published by Franklin & Hall in 1757.
It might have been said of William Bradford by his contemporaries that he had the unworldly quality of choosing troublesome friends and remaining loyal to them. Such a comment would arise from the fact that Bradford supported George Keith, the rebel Quaker, in his attacks upon the Pennsylvania ruling organization, and so got into trouble with the government. The feeling of the authorities was so strong against him that when he was released from prison he found it desirable to remove himself to New York, where, in 1693, he established the first press in the small town later to become the metropolis of the country. Because of the difficulty of deciding what was the first issue of Bradford's New York press it would be necessary to display two books in our exhibition. One of these would be a copy of "New England's Spirit of Persecution Transmitted to Pennsilvania . . . in the Tryal of Peter Boss, George Keith, Thomas Budd and William Bradford," a narrative largely prepared by George Keith and today found in several American collections, and "A Paraphrastical Exposition on a Letter from a Gentleman in Philadelphia to his Friend in Boston," a poem by John Phillips directed against Samuel Jennings, who had presided at the Bradford trial. It would be necessary to draw upon the private collection of Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach for the only copy of "Paraphrastical Exposition" known today.
Among the more notable successors to Bradford in New York were John Peter Zenger, whose trial for libel in 1735 was an important incident in the long struggle for the liberty of the press; James Parker, James Rivington and Hugh Gaine. From Zenger's list of publications one would display his "Charter of the City of New York," 1735, and from Parker's the "Charter of the College of New-York in America," as representing works of typographical excellence as well as historical importance.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Mighty Corliss
On June 1 we opened a small exhibition of photographs which were printed from a selection (3 dozen or so) of ca. 1900-era glass negatives in our collection. It was written up in several places, including here:
We hope at some point soon to create a joint catalog through which we will sell a limited number of prints of these negatives. The two Corliss prints will be issued in a limited run (no more than 20 sets) in an appropriate portfolio box, accompanied by a history of the Corliss engine, which became the signature display in the Centennial Exhibition:
http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/ppet/centennial/page1.asp?secid=31
The centerpiece is really the Corliss engine, and we have two (2) 1876 negatives which measure 20x24 inches. Here is a scan of one of the prints (all of them were developed by the AS220 Community Darkroom):
We hope at some point soon to create a joint catalog through which we will sell a limited number of prints of these negatives. The two Corliss prints will be issued in a limited run (no more than 20 sets) in an appropriate portfolio box, accompanied by a history of the Corliss engine, which became the signature display in the Centennial Exhibition:http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/ppet/centennial/page1.asp?secid=31
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Wild winds and wild men
Just acquired this nice item--a printed Act (London, 7 April, 1803) allowing whaling vessels involved in the Greenland fishery to complete their crew rosters at certain ports (other than their hailing ports) for the season. This Act was passed in the midst of an uneasy peace between Georgian Britain and Napoleonic France: the Treaty of Amiens was 25 March 1802, and hostilities were renewed on 18 May 1803 (a year later Napoleon would declare himself Emperor). From the text: "Whereas it may be difficult, in the present circumstances, for the masters or owners of ships employed in the fishery carried on in the Greenland seas and the Davis's Straights . . . it shall and may be lawful for any ship or vessel which is not provided with the full complement of men . . . at the port from which such ship or vessel shall be fitted or cleared out, to proceed from thence to any of the ports in the Forth of Clyde, or in Lough Ryan, or to Lerwick in the Isle of Shetland, or Kirkwall in the Orkneys [etc.]."
According to Basil Lubbock's The Arctic Whalers (1937), "It was the custom for both English and Scottish whalers to recruit the younger members of their crew from the Shetlands and Orkneys, whose natives, besides being naturally hardy, were unequalled as boat men; they were, at the same time, steady, hard-working men, and far less given to drunkenness than either the Scottish or English seamen. At the time . . . of the outward bound whaling fleet Lerwick was probably one of the most lawless town[s] in the British Isles. This period of the year in the Shetlands was noted for what was called its Greenland weather, viz., that of wild winds and wild men."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
