By WATT P. MARCHMAN

The Rutherford B. Hayes Memorial Library

N AUGUST 12, 1955, President Dwight the former President's papers to Wash- O D. Eisenhower approved a joint res- ington. Instead, Hayes sought, olution of the House and Senate of the with the cooperation of the state of , "to provide for the accept- to establish a research institution upon ance and maintenance of Presidential li- the family's estate. With President and braries, and for other purposes." Thus Mrs. Hayes' books and papers as a nu- was created Public Law 373 which gives cleus, the library was to specialize in the official sanction to the trend of establish- period of the former President's life. ing as separate libraries research institu- Colonel Hayes envisioned an institution tions of American history surrounding which would preserve his parents' Ameri- the times of the Presidents of the United cana as well as retain something of the States. atmosphere of their times. The recent fund-raising campaign and The first step was to deed to the state ground-breaking exercises for the Harry of Ohio, as a gift, the historic 25-acre S. Truman Library in Independence, Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio, where Missouri, have helped to focus public President Hayes had made his home after attention on the subject of Presidential 1873. Then Colonel Hayes offered the libraries and their place among special Presidential collections. Accepting the li- libraries. brary, Presidential diaries, letters, scrap- When a President leaves the White books and memorabilia, the state of Ohio House, he follows the precedent estab- appropriated $50,000 to build a fireproof lished by George Washington and fol- building to house the materials in Spiegel lowed by all his successors in office, tak- Grove. Colonel Hayes contributed an ing his correspondence, memoranda, equal amount, and the first wing of the books, pictures, memorabilia, in fact ev- present structure was erected. A structure erything except the official papers of his of classic architecture in gray Ohio sand- office. In early times the collection num- stone, the building was formally opened bered but a few thousand items; in re- to the public on May 30, 1916. It was the cent times, a few million pieces. first of the separate Presidential libraries The personal papers and records of to be established. Newton D. Baker, Sec- many early Presidents were scattered or retary of War, represented President destroyed by the ex-Presidents or by their Woodrow Wilson at the dedication exer- heirs. A few Presidential collections in cises, and all organizations with which whole or in part, have found their way President Hayes had been associated sent into the Library of Congress. representatives to take part in the cere- The heirs of President Rutherford monies. B. Hayes, nineteenth President of the When the original building was com- United States, and particularly his sec- pleted, Colonel Hayes discovered that it ond son, Colonel Webb C. Hayes, re- was not large enough to contain the mu- sisted the several appeals made to return seum and library he had in mind, or to provide for future growth of the library. Mr. Marchman is director, the Hayes Thereupon he contributed funds for the Memorial Library. erection of an annex, somewhat larger in

224 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES area than the original building. Con- struction was well under way by the time of the centenary celebration of the birth of President Hayes on October 4, 1922. The library and museum building was placed near the Hayes residence in beau- tiful, wooded Spiegel Grove, facing what was at the time the main entrance to the grounds, a triangular plot covered by a virginal growth of forest trees. The main floor and the basement floor of the li- brary building are reserved for museum canteens, stirrups, powder horns, and pis- displays and offices. The research library, tols given to President Hayes by Sarah study area and staff offices are on the Smith Stafford, of Trenton, New Jersey. second floor. Hundreds of souvenirs and memorabilia The library of nearly 10,000 volumes of President and Mrs. Hayes include the accumulated by President and Mrs. military field equipment used by Hayes Hayes, their correspondence, consisting as a colonel, later brigadier general, in of some 150,000 or more pieces, their pic- the Civil War, as well as many other tures, photographs, maps, scrapbooks, the things associated with earlier and later President's several diaries, and hundreds periods of his and Mrs. Hayes' life. of personal items were removed from the There is the stately old carriage used residence in Spiegel Grove and placed in by President Hayes in Washington and the new fireproof building. Provision was later in Fremont, Ohio. It was used for a made to keep intact all the Hayes papers time by President Garfield. Many of and the personal library during any sub- Mrs. Hayes' elaborate gowns worn at sequent growth of the research institu- White House receptions, including her tion. There followed the mammoth task simple wedding dress worn at her wed- of organizing, sorting, checking, arrang- ding in 1852, are on exhibition in mod- ing, cataloging and filing, to provide ern museum cases. Also on display is $ ready reference for scholars and students. magnificent doll house given to President In the museum, certain aspects of Hayes' ten-year-old daughter, Fanny, American history and biography are when she was in the White House. There graphically illustrated. There may be are hundreds of relics of the American seen interesting original letters written Indians presented to President Hayes by and signed by all the Presidents of the Indian delegations to Washington or by United States from the time of George Indian agents. The exhibit includes Washington to the present; many per- thousands of items gathered from all sonal objects associated with the Presi- parts of the world by Colonel and Mrs. dents, including a pair of gloves of Abra- Webb C. Hayes: a sizable collection of ham Lincoln, his slippers, an original Chinese and Korean curios, a magnificent handbill of Ford's Theatre for the per- weapons collection, and objects from In- formance on the night he was assassinat- dia, the Philippine Islands, South Amer- ed, a book from his private library, The ica, Alaska, the Holy Land and the is- Last Men of the Revolution, and a fine lands of the South Pacific. old desk which he used. A collection of The library collections have grown American Revolution items, mostly of a steadily since 1916, and continue to grow military nature, includes leather helmets daily. At present there are about 60,000 worn by a private American soldier and volumes in the research library, thou- a captain, a Hessian helmet, American sands of pamphlets and periodicals, an

MAY, 1956 225 important group of maps, a large collec- books of an earlier and later date; pro- tion of photographs, prints and pictures, ceedings of executive sessions of the Sen- a number of important newspaper files, ate; correspondence on Indian affairs; and a manuscripts division containing Civil War regimental records of Hayes' more than a half million pieces (the regiment; notebooks used for his various Hayes papers form the nucleus). The li- political campaigns for Congressman and brary has an expanding department of for the three terms he ran for the gover- microfilm, all modern aids to research norship of Ohio; and other materials. and writing, and a staff ready to provide The manuscripts division contains also the researcher with excellent individual collections of materials about all the cooperation. More and more students Presidents of the United States and the and writers from all parts of the nation papers of the children of President and are making use of the research possibili- Mrs. Hayes, as well as numerous rela- ties for projects in American history. tives. Sizable groups of papers of inter- The Rutherford B. Hayes Memorial est and significance include: collections Library is intended to be a research cen- of papers of I. H. Burgoon, Mary Clem- ter for the study of American history for mer, Governor William Claflin of Mas- the period between the Civil War and sachusetts and Mrs. Claflin, Benjamin the beginning of the twentieth century. Franklin Coates, A. L. Conger, George Emphasis continues to be placed on ev- William Curtis, Andrew E. Douglass, ery phase of the life and times of Presi- Minnie L. Failing, Gustavus A. Gessner, dent Hayes, and on his special interests Murat Halstead, General Russell Hast- and contributions. The library is par- ings, Colonel William E. Haynes, Eliza- ticularly strong in printed sources on the beth Mitchell Heyl, William Dean How- following subjects: the Civil War; recon- ells, John Little, General James B. Mc- struction in the South following the Civil Pherson, Warren P. Noble, J. P. Rey- War; the Spanish-American War; civil nolds Company military escutcheons, Dr. service reforms; currency; monetary and John B. Rice, William K. Rogers, Admi- prison reforms; Ohio history since 1840; ral Charles O'Neil, Anne Tressler Scott, Sandusky (Ohio) Valley history; educa- John Sherman, William Henry Smith, tion, particularly in the South; this his- the Stem family, Colonel F. W. Swift, Dr. tory of the Negro and his problems; bib- James W. Wilson, and many others. liography; social history; general Ameri- The microfilm files include: copies can biography; the American Indian; from public and private depositories of American travel and description; and papers of many of Hayes' contemporaries, American local history. important newspaper files for the Hayes The Hayes papers contain: the bulk of period, the official records of the Hayes correspondence received by the President gubernatorial administration in Ohio, and Mrs. Hayes during their lifetime; a and several hundred rolls of film repre- few thousand copies, or originals, of let- senting the first step in collecting at the ters they wrote; the diaries of President Hayes library the records created by the Hayes in 28 volumes; his White House Hayes administration in Washington. notes and memoranda for cabinet meet- To the south of the library and mu- ings; social registers of the White House; seum building is the Hayes homestead, a several volumes in manuscript of ab- stately mansion surrounded by majestic stracts of letters received by the Presi- old trees. The home, preserved and main- dent between 1877 and 1881; 130 vol- tained privately, is still the residence of umes of scrapbooks of newspaper clip- President Hayes' descendants and not pings kept during the Hayes administra- open to the public at any time. It was tion, as well as numerous other scrap- built in 1859-60 by Sardis Birchard,

226 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES bachelor uncle and legal guardian of Rutherford B. Hayes Memorial Library, Hayes, as a summer home for his neph- in keeping with the recommendations of ew. The old trees surrounding the house the National Historical Publications bear the names of well-known men who Commission, suggesting that the Hayes have been guests at Spiegel Grove. correspondence and papers be published. Along the southern ridge of the Spiegel Several books have been published dur- Grove estate, for nearly a half mile, ing the past few years in which the au- winds a famous old Indian trail, the San- thors have acknowledged research aid dusky-Sioto route, traversed by the In- received from the Rutherford B. Hayes dians before white settlement and later Library. The most extensive recent use used by General William Henry Harri- of the source materials in the library was son as a military supply route during the made by Harry Barnard in writing his War of 1812. By the side of the trail, on Rutherford B. Hayes and His America a quiet wooded knoll and enclosed by an (1954). iron fence, is the monument of Vermont Authors of other recent books making granite marking the final resting place use of the manuscript resources of the li- of President and Mrs. Hayes. brary include J. J. Perling, Presidents' At each of the six entrances to the Sons (1947); Hampton M. Jarrell, Wade Spiegel Grove estate are impressive iron Hampton and the Negro: The Road Not gates that once guarded an entrance to Taken (1949); Jessie Pearl Rice, /. L. M. the White House grounds before and Curry: Southerner, Statesman and Edu- during the Hayes administration. cator (1949); Bess Furman, White House The Rutherford B. Hayes Memorial Profile (1951); Holman Hamilton, Zach- Library and the Spiegel Grove estate are ary Taylor: Soldier in the White House operated jointly by the state of Ohio, (1951); C. Vann Woodward, Origins of through the Ohio Historical Society, and the New South (1951) and Reunion and by the Rutherford B. Hayes and Lucy Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and Webb Hayes Foundation, founded in the End of Reconstruction (1951) ; T. R. 1921 by Colonel Webb C. Hayes. The Hay, James Longstreet (the Politician) state provides for the care and mainte- (1952); Bell I. Wiley, The Life of Billy nance of the grounds and the library and Yank, the Common Soldier of the Union museum building and provides most of (1952); James H. Rodabaugh, editor of the physical improvements. The Hayes The Governors of Ohio (1954) ; and Foundation is interested in the use of the M. B. Schnapper, The Grand Old Party, resources and improvement of facilities the First Hundred Years of the Republi- for research and investigation in Ameri- can Party: A Pictorial History (1955). can history. The growth and develop- Numerous dissertations and theses have ment of all branches of the library are been written from resources in the li- supported by the foundation, collections brary, and there is usually one or more are acquired to improve the resources, in progress every year. and library equipment added when need- The library maintains a prompt and ed. liberal interlibrary loan service for its Recently the trustees of the Hayes books. Its printed resources are included Foundation have authorized a program in the union catalog of the Library of of publication of source materials of Congress and the regional union cata- American history, principally from re- logs located at Cleveland and Columbus, sources in the manuscripts division of the Ohio.

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