Fall 2014 Illuminating Modern Manuscripts

Fall 2014 Illuminating Modern Manuscripts In light of the attention regularly afforded to such Newberry collection items as the Shakespeare MAGAZINE STAFF First Folio, maps of North America dating back to the beginnings of European colonization, EDITOR and our copy of the Popol Vuh, it may surprise some readers of this magazine to know that the Alex Teller Newberry has a large collection devoted entirely to what we call “modern manuscripts.” Of course, we have lots of notable handwritten documents that were produced before the era of the DESIGNER printing press. Our modern manuscripts are quite different. They include diverse formats from Andrea Villasenor handwritten and typescript items of a more recent vintage to photographs, videos, audio PHOTOGRAPHER recordings, drawings, and maps. The modern manuscript collections contain letters from Catherine Gass Midwest pioneers to their East Coast relatives, notes Chicago journalists took in preparing big stories, records that reveal the inner workings of private companies, and sketches typographers The Newberry Magazine is published semiannually by the Newberry’s made as they perfected a new typeface. Office of Communications and Marketing. Articles in the magazine At the Newberry, collecting materials such as these—especially those related to Chicago and address major archiving projects, the Midwest—was first pursued in a programmatic way in the middle of the twentieth century, digital initiatives, and exhibitions; the under Director and Librarian Stanley Pargellis. Today, items that are among our most frequently scholarship of fellows and Newberry staff; and the signature items and requested entered the collection because of Pargellis’s direct intervention or precedents set by hidden gems of the collection. Every him in the 1940s and 1950s. In the case of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Com- other issue contains the annual report pany (CB&Q) Records, it was as a result of both. for the most recently concluded fiscal year. A subscription to The Newberry In 1943, the CB&Q made a first deposit with the Newberry of private archives documenting Magazine is a benefit of membership in the company’s early history. Further deposits, expanding the chronological scope of the the Newberry Associates. To become a member, contact Vince Firpo at collection, followed in the succeeding years and decades. Pargellis fought hard for that original [email protected]. accession, believing that to provide access to the previously unavailable documents of a major American corporation was to lay the groundwork for a variety of research opportunities. Today Unless otherwise credited, all these opportunities come to fuller and fuller fruition in the Newberry’s Midwest Manuscript images are derived from items in the Newberry collection or from events Collection, of which the CB&Q archives form a significant part. A major cataloging project held at the Newberry, and have been recently completed by the Modern Manuscripts Department, and led by Lloyd Lewis Curator provided by the Newberry’s Digital of Modern Manuscripts Martha Briggs, is making CB&Q materials available to a range of users Imaging Services Office. that even Pargellis could not have foreseen: not just historians and scholars interested in the Midwest or business per se, but also genealogists, graphic designers, photographers, those who Cover image: A Burlington Zephyr crosses a bridge out of Minneapolis. investigate visual culture, and many more. These important constituencies come to the New- Photograph by Russell Lee, 1948. berry to read our modern manuscripts, and in doing so they help bring to life the cultural heritage that we preserve. In this third issue of The Newberry Magazine, we invite you to read about the dynamic ways in /newberrylibrary which this heritage has been built by Newberry staff and donors and is constantly enriched by our readers. Thank you for your support of the Newberry, and happy reading. David Spadafora, President and Librarian Contents 3 FEATURES The Right Track 3 By Alex Teller In 1943 Newberry Director and Librarian Stanley Pargellis convinced a major American railroad to bring their private records out of the shadows and into the library’s collection. It was hard work. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Archives Today 9 10 By Alison Hinderliter and Kelly Kress Woman of Letters 10 By Alex Teller Jerri Dell researches and rediscovers her grandfather, novelist and literary critic Floyd Dell. Maps and Atlases 13 Roger Baskes receives the Newberry Library Award and, in his acceptance speech, shares his thoughts on Chicago, the humanities, and a 13 life of collecting in cartography. Fit to Print and Then Some 18 By Karen Christianson The Newberry began systematically collecting the personal papers of Chicago journalists in the mid-twentieth century. What purpose do these materials serve today? 18 DEPARTMENTS Dear Walter 2 RETROSPECT: The Shakespeare Exhibition That T’was 21 RETROSPECT: Recent Events 22 PROSPECT: Upcoming Events 52 21 ANNUAL REPORT Letter from the Chair and the President 26 Continuing Education 29 Research and Academic Programs 30 Honor Roll of Donors 36 Board of Trustees and Volunteer Committees 47 22 Staff 48 Financials 50 The Newberry Magazine 1 22 Dear Walter Walter L. Newberry exploits a rift in the space-time continuum to respond to friends of the library. Follow the blog at www.newberry.org/dear-walter; submit a query to [email protected]. Dear Walter: Dear Walter: The Newberry building is so I recently finished watching the World Cup this summer, beautiful. Who designed it? and was hoping to feed my newfound love for the game — Jenny Arches-Chesterton, of soccer. What do you recommend? Illustration by Tom Bachtell Evanston, IL — Franklin S. Weeper, Fort Collins, CO My Dear Ms Arches-Chesterton, My Dear Mr Weeper, The news I relate herewith may elicit a Smirk or some other Soccer: the word’s utterance requires the most oppressive Expression of Bemusement, but no matter: the veracity of Phonemes of Midwestern speech. It verily takes up residence— my Reply is beyond reproach. Construction of the Newberry establishes a Domicile—in the nasal passages, wouldn’t you building in which you presently stand (or sit, which is perhaps agree? As for the Object to which it refers, I am a gentleman of more likely the case) and enjoy the Fruits of Scholarship stirred Leisure, a citizen of the Mind, and so cannot pretend to declaim up quite the controversy—a Charybdis of competing Wills and upon it as an Authority. Give me the “Sport” of gathering Visions toward the finale of the 19th C. the final volume of Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of The Newberry opened its doors to the Public in 1887, the Roman Empire from the topmost shelf in my Study any and the Great Institution would christen more than a few Day of the Week. However, I grant all queries an equality of additional portals with the act of Door-Opening. Amid a series consideration, and shall vouchsafe a Reply. of temporary locations, the Board of Trustees initiated plans The Newberry does have in its Collection, Dear Franklin, for a permanent home for the library, securing the services of a Volume that may prove edifying to your Soccer-addled mind: architect Henry Ives Cobb. Cobb was a gentleman of relative Athletics and Football, published in 1894 as part of the Badminton Callowness and inexperience (a mere 29!). An unaffiliated Library of Sports and Pastimes series. Perhaps a smattering of observer with a Cynical inclination might divine a concealed background information will be of some Utility. Motive: the selection of a youthful architect who would readily For a good deal of Time, while the Glorious 1800s defer to President and Librarian William Frederick Poole. That (from which yours truly hails) waxed their way mid century, Unaffiliated Observer with a Cynical Inclination might be “Football” was played primarily among the youthful Britons correct. fortunate enough to attend a Public School. Of course, in Poole was something of a Luminary in the field of Library contrast to the Semantics on this side of the Atlantic, British Science, and he harbored uncompromising views regarding “public” schools were the province of the Elite: those whose the design of libraries. Chief among these was the belief that a Genealogy included William the Conqueror and Beowulf and library’s collection must be dispersed among its Rooms so that so on and so forth. The exclusivity of the Pursuit, however, did Readers may interface—there’s one for all you MILLENIALS— not suppress a litany of Opinions and Sentiments regarding the with the items directly. No centralization of storage, no Cabal Proper way to engage in It. Each school, seemingly, promoted of Corrupt Librarian-Gatekeepers for Old Mr. Poole! Neither its own Rules, which varied according to the Allowances would he countenance any Pomp or Grandiosity. “Convenience made for the hands and feet. For reasons that should be Self- and utility shall never yield to architectural effect,” he once told Evident, this inconsistency would prove untenable; with the the American Library Association. passage of Labor Laws (adieu, 16-hour workday!) and the Cobb proved no obedient underling, however. The young ensuing Democratization of Leisure, the demand became all the architect returned from a trip to Europe in 1889 with visions of greater for a codification of rules capable of governing a larger centralized storage and Architectural Effect. Poole, ever-attuned collection of Players. Two unified systems emerged: that which to his Rivals, published his views in Chicago’s newspapers we recognize today as Rugby, and…FOOTBALL—ahem, soccer. in order to galvanize Public sentiment in his Favor. The A culmination in this movement to Codify the rules Newberry’s Board of Trustees sensed a public relations Fiasco of of the game arrived with publication of Athletics and Football unprecedented proportions and intervened, placating Poole and by Montague Sherman (which includes, lest we forget, “a retaining a few of Cobb’s architectural Predilections.

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