Th e Library's 50th Year The uarto -SI; ED Q UA RTERLY F OR T HE CLEMENTS LIB R AR Y ASSO CIATES "UMBER '<>2. SEPTDIRER. 1973 Th e Commodore R eappears suffi cien tly mod est to be purchased from our general fundsl The latest accession includes 67 l·~l I L SE VEN YEARS ago, American scho lars con­ loose letters and document, an order book and cluded that the papers of Oli ver H azard Perry a letter book covering the crucial summer and had been lost or destroyed in the century and a fall campaign on Lake Erie in 1813. and a per­ lulf since the naval hero's dea th in 1819. One of sonal account book exhibiting Pen~ ' s finances th e ma jor contributions of the Clements Library from July, 1815 to November. 1818. The pur­ o historical scholarship in the past decade has chases add imm easurably to the collection 's value been the fillin\'; of this a??arent void with the. as a source for historical research. >.<qui. ition 01 the \' en~ \'apers. Our collecti on . the only Oliver Hazard Perry letters to be found It is probably safe to say that the Perry collec­ in a un ified body in any institution, now n um­ tion is now complete. It is exac tly this sort of bel' 9 12 letters and documents as well as four purchase which so fully justifies the existence of manuscript diaries. a letter book containing 78 our institu tion. Through a combination of de­ letters, an order book, and account books. tective work, loyal financial support, close dealer It was an exciting fall in 1966 when several contacts and patience, we were able to reassemble months of negotiation brough t us the first known an historically vital body of manuscripts that was collection of manu scripts. Perry's career spanned unknown and divided among heir s. T he Oliver me turbulen t era of undeclared naval warfare Hazard Perry papers, in quant ity much as Perry with France in th e Caribbean. \797-98, Tripol i must have lell them at his death . protected, in 1804- 05. the War of 1812. the Med iterranean shelved, and catalogued in accord with the high. after the W ar, and a diplomatic mission to Vene­ est archival sta ndards, are available for future zuela in 1819. Because the en tire Perry famil y generations of historical scholars. figures so prominently in early Ameri can naval h istory, thi s coll ection of 482 letters proved to be a research gold mine. Later, the same owner sent the diary of Perry's last cruise. ' Botany in A merica T o our considerable surprise but unbounded ONE OF THE P RI M E items in the summer's exhibi­ elation, we learned in June of this year that tion, "Botany in America," was the newly ac­ another descenda nt, possessor of 430 additional quired set of A merican M edical Botany by J acob letters dat ed between 1812 and 1819. was willing Bigelow. botanist and professor of materia med­ to part with his collection through a dealer. ica at H arvard. Lavishly illustrated with full \ Vith the simultaneous successful conclusion of page drawings, it was issued in Boston in three the 50th anniversary fund raising campaign, the volu mes, 1817-1 821 under the author's super­ timing of this inte lligen ce could not have been vision. It is genera lly considered to be the earliest better. Exhibiting their characteristic enth usi­ example in th e Uni ted Sta tes of a book with asm, the Board of Governors unhesitatingly made plates prin ted in color. In the first part. the en­ the purchase with funds of th e Clements Library gravings were colored in the usual fashion by Associates. hand, bu t continuation of that slow method Our excitemen t was therefore predictable when seemed impossible to Bigelow. Therefore, in the one more small lot of Perry papers, rich in 'Var remai ning parts, he successfully experimented of 1812 material, surfaced in J ul y at a price wit h adding the colors d irectly to the copper- easte rn Un ited States, and the first Am textbook in botany by Banjamin Smith ""'....L 1803. The exhibi tion was in troduced by the piction of an Indian garden in Carol ina De Bry's 1590 ed ition of Thomas H ariot's R e Organic Farming J o"" T AYLOR (1753--1824) known as "T ayler THE CLEMENTS LIBRARY ASSOCIATES Caroline Couutry" would al so he called a J of The University of Mi chigan sonian Democrat today. Consistently, he es states' rights and agrariani sm whil e in the B OARD OF G OVERNORS gin ia House of Delegates and in the U.S. (Ap pointed b y the Regents of the University) His writings also champion ed these causes a the enlargement of the national government, Ca rl W . Bonbright, Flint Like Thomas Jefferson, he too was deeply Edward W. Bowen , Ba)' City __________ grossed in the managemen t of a country es R ob ert P. Briggs, Elk Rap ids,cHAIRMAN In particular , T aylor was alarmed by the Tale C. E.Frazer Clark, Jr.j ilo01{;/ield Hills wh ich the fertility of th e land was being El y Corning, Flint----' hausted, a condition which necessitated Thom as--N:,6oss, Ann Arbor spread of large plantation s to ever fresher ( ......----J oli'il"R . Dykema, Detroit tory. On his own land he experimented \IIi ­ ----- \Villiam C. Finkenstaedt, Detroit principles of scien tific management which he H arlan H. Hatcher, A rm ArboT would be helpful to others, particularly s David W . Kendall, Detroit landholders. As early as 1803 h e wrote a J ames 1\1 . Klan cnik, Chicago of agricultural essays published in a Georget J am es S. Schoff, N ew York newspaper. T en years later these 6 1 essays w _ J am es Shearer II, Chicago collected and published under th e title of A m t M rs. David F. Up ton, St. Joseph by a "Citizen of Virginia." It is this first editi Lee D. van Antwerp, Northbrook, Ill . published in Georgetown, D.C., which the Howard H . Peckham, Director of th e brary has now acquired. Library. SECRETARY In th e preface the publishers pred ict th is boai of American practices will supplan t Eurc peaa texts which are totall y unsuitable for the Ames-­ plates before printing. never before done on so jean situation. The essays by T aylor which (oJ.. large a scale here. low ed the glowing optimism deal with the spe­ This treatise also signified the wid espread int er­ cifics of crop rotation, fallow land, manurinz est in medical uses of plants. An earlier example plowing under of crops, orchards and livestock, in th e exh ibition arranged by M rs. Haugh was Not th at he neglects the underlyin g philosophies. the first book on plants published in the New There are chapters on the economy of agricul­ W orld , in Mexi co Ci ty in 1615. T he au thor, Dr. ture, the pleasures of agriculture, and the right! Francisco Hernandez, had been sent over from of agric ulture. Two are on the ever present ques.­ Spain in 1570 to investiga te curative plants. A tion of slav er y. Though deploring it, he express<:> more recent example, remarkable for its appear­ more concern at this point about the probl em of ance during the time of early settlemen ts in idle groups of freed slaves for whi ch there is no Michigan , was the Botanic Lum inary, a peri odi­ provision , and recommends their placement in cal p ublished in Saline in 1835-36. the North or in Africa. He devotes several pages Other prize books sho wn from our collections to refu ting views on emancipation in Jefferson's included the first Canadian flora, Jacques Cor­ Noles on the State of Virgi nia . Hut above all nut' s Canadensium Plantarum, 1635; the grea t he a bhors the overseer left in cha rge by an ab­ English Herball by John Gerard, 1597; the mon­ sen tee landlord. Such a manager has little inter­ umental Natural History by Mark Catesby, est in good agricultural practices and leaves after 1731-43, with its vivid examp les from south- impoverishing the land. ) Iovers and Shakers ary rem ains to th e comp u tor. In th e near future the final results of thi s summer's samp ling project E OF THE coun try's leading rar e book for a comp lete ro ster of th e soldiers and sailors ians met at th e Clements Library on May of th e Revolutionary War will be tabulated a t - The group is not organized formally, but has th e Universit y's computing center. (T h is is one meeting annually for severa l years to di s­ of th ree investi gations bein g pursued a t the Li­ common problem s. T h is time th e all-da y brary.) m concerned what appeals, if any. rare libraries can make to foundations. Since Finding out the number of m en who served during the war mi ght seem a simple question, latt er do not want to promote competition but th e more work we do, the more com plicated gran ting funds for acquisitions, what types it becomes. l\fan y m en , of course, served several programs would they support? The wh ole ic was exp lored with several foundation exec- en listments in a number of different re giments.