>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington D.C.
>> John Cole: Good
afternoon and welcome
to the Library of Congress.
I'm John Cole.
I'm the director of The Center
for the Book in the Library
of Congress, which
is the reading
and literacy promotion
arm of the Library.
And we promote books, reading,
literacy and libraries here
at the Library of
Congress through programs
such as this Books
and Beyond Talk.
But we also do so around the
country through a network
of state centers for the book
and also reading
promotion partners.
Here at the Library,
it's largely
through the National Book
Festival that we play a key role
in promoting both books and
reading, as well as the Library
of Congress itself and through
Books and Beyond's talks,
such as the one you've
joined us for today.
The Books and Beyond
talks started in 1996,
and from that period,
we had over 300 of them,
and they're basically new
time talks from people
who have new books that
have something to do
with the Library of Congress.
And often, what the
connection is is something
that we determine
in various ways.
The bulk of them are talks
based on our resources.
And of course, we love that.
But some also are
related to projects
that the Library has
funded or publications
that we have supported
that we have every reason
to try to publicize.
All of the talks are not only
they're filmed for our website
and shown on the Library
of Congress and The Center
for the Book website,
so I want to ask you
to turn off all things
electronic.
And we will have a presentation
by our author Stephen Grant
and a brief question and
answer period following
with a book signing at 1:00.
So if you would like
to ask questions,
your asking that question
also gives us the permission,
thank you very much, to possibly
include you and your question
and certainly Stephen's
answer on our website.
I was especially happy
when Stephen approached us
about the possibility of having
a program relating to his book.
Now I have to confess that
this was a number of years ago,
as this book was underway.
>> Stephen H. Grant:
That's the way it goes.
>> John Cole: Because
I have known Stephen
since he gave his first book
talk at the Library of Congress,
which was, I looked it up
today, for his first book.
And it was in relation to that
book which was Peter Strickland,
New London Shipmaster,
Boston Merchant,
First Consul to Senegal.
And he spoke here on
March the 22nd 2007.
And we're very pleased that
he did a whole research job
and a whole writing job and
produced a beautiful book
in the ensuing seven years.
When I first met Stephen after
his talk I told him a couple
of my LC Shakespeare stories.
And while I'm sure
that had nothing to do
with the actual inspiration, he
reminded me of them this morning
when we saw each other again.
One was that my very first
paper that I ever wrote
in junior high school was on
The Folger Shakespeare Library.
It wasn't on the
Library of Congress,
even though I have been
the director of The Center
for the Book since it
was created back in 1977.
But the more I think about that
paper, the less I want to talk
about it because I now
realize I copied it
out of the encyclopedia.
And when I told my wife Nancy
about this, she said ah,
I had a similar experience,
but I had a teacher
who told me this was
something you should never do.
The second experience,
of course,
has to do with the
Thomas Jefferson Building.
And as a historian and student
of the history of the art
and architecture of
the Jefferson Building,
who has worked on several
books connected with them,
I also had a very small
role in the Shakespeare
in America exhibit and the
Library of Congress' part
in it, which was in 2007.
And with Martha Hopkins from the
Interpretative Programs Office,
I cooked up a Shakespeare
tour, a Shakespeare-themed tour
of the Jefferson Building
which I gave about three times.
The idea is one I hope the
Library will pursue even further
ant that is since the Jefferson
Building iconography is filled
with authors and literary
figures to actually take a look
at what is there
and why it's there
and see what we can
extract from that.
And it's also led me to doing
a count in my first book about,
it's called On These Walls,
Inscriptions and Quotations
at the Library of Congress,
to see which authors
were most represented.
And yes, it was Shakespeare,
but it was a close call.
And by that representation
I mean
in the iconography quotations
or inscriptions or images
or if you've seen the wonderful
Jefferson Building and looked
up to see the names
of writers which adorn
that wonderful great hall.
And there's kind
of the hierarchy,
the people who picked
those names, were thinking
of the great classical writers.
But we soon started to slip
James Fenimore Cooper up there
and George Bancroft,
the American historian
got up there soon.
And then pretty soon they
said the heck with it,
we'll do a whole American hall.
And as you go into the main
reading room or you used to go
in the main reading room from
the mall in the front entrance,
they've taken a number
of American figures,
not just writers, that organize
them according to kind of fields
of knowledge, which is
another one of our themes.
But the funny part of that
is they got pretty excited
about getting American names
up there and sometimes mixed
up fathers and sons, which
we learned when we tried
to do the index to the book.
But Shakespeare conquered
all, and the writer that comes
in number two, and you'll
know why when I tell you
when the building was
built, was 1886 until 1897,
and that writer was Tennyson.
So that building is really
Shakespeare and Tennyson.
But today, Stephen is going
to give us a new perspective
on our next-door neighbor.
I stole a line from
him right there.
And I want, I know he will be
telling us about the background
of the book but let me tell
you just for a minute a couple
of things about Stephen himself.
He graduated from Amherst
College, never suspecting
that he would write the
Amherst-related book he will be
discussing and signing
with us today.
Correct?
>> Stephen H. Grant: Yes.
>> John Cole: I knew it.
He earned his doctorate
in education
from the University
of Massachusetts.
Next, a Middlebury College
master's degree in French
at the Sorbonne in
Paris prior to teaching
as a Peace Corps volunteer
in Ivory Coast, West Africa.
He was a career Foreign Service
officer with the US Agency
for International Development
holding long-term assignments
in Ivory Coast, Guinea, Egypt,
Indonesia and El Salvador.
He currently serves
at the Association
for Diplomatic Studies
and Training in Arlington,
Virginia where he helps
retired diplomats prepare their
manuscripts for publication.
It was in relationship
to this series
that I've already mentioned
that I first met Stephen.
After seven years,
please join me
in welcoming Stephen Grant back
to the Library of Congress.
[ Applause ]
>> Stephen H. Grant:
Thank you very much, John.
The Folger Shakespeare
Library has waited 82 years
for the first book
length biography
that has been written
about the founders.
May I introduce you to your
neighbors across the street.
Eliza Jane Clark Folger,
called Elita [phonetic]
with first son Henry
Clay Folger, Jr.,
born in New York city in 1857.
She was good with figures,
a skill that Henry inherited
and put to use in
his oil business life
and in his book buying life.
Henry holds in his
hands the first
of the 92,000 books he acquired.
Emily Jordan in 1860, the
youngest of three sisters,
all of whom went to Vassar
College in the 1870s.
She was born in Ohio, lived in
Washington D.C. then Elizabeth,
New Jersey and then Brooklyn
for most of her adult life.
Her father campaigned
for Abraham Lincoln,
who appointed her father
solicitor in the treasury.
Emily met President Lincoln
in the Executive Mansion
and wrote a short story
about the meeting.
Henry Folger attended
PS School Number 15
in Brooklyn then the
Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn,
graduating from Amherst in
1879, junior Phi Beta Kappa.
He was fifth in his class.
He excelled in oratory
and in music.
He performed in one of the
early American productions
of H.M.S. Pinafore in 1878.
What surprised people was
that when he came on stage,
he had a booming bass
voice, and at the same time,
when you looked at Henry
Folger, he was a slight man.
He was 5 foot 4 and
weighed 115 pounds.
Emily Jordan went to
Miss Ranney's School
in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Graduated from Vassar in
1879, elected president
of her class for life.
She loved astronomy.
She might have become
an astronomer.
She also liked the theater.
Her older sister started
as a librarian at Vassar
and then was lured
to Smith College
where she became the head
of the English Department.
And if there are any
Smithies in the audience,
Jordan House is named
after Emily's older sister.
This studio portrait from
1885 shows the Folgers
with the Pratts.
Henry Folger is on the right.
He's grown a mustache.
His wife, Emily, is seated,
and her elbow is in the lap
of Mary Seymour Pratt.
Mary Seymour Pratt's
husband is above her.
His name was Charles M. Pratt.
So this Charles Pratt and
Henry Folger were roommates
at Amherst, and Emily
Jordan and Mary Seymour were
at Vassar at the same time.
You know something about the
collection of Shakespeare books
that are across the street, but
you also might be interested
in the fact that Henry
Folger was on the lookout
for books collected by some
of his family and friends.
So at the same time
that he would go
through an auction catalog
and look at the Shakespeare,
for the Pratts, his very
close, his closest friends,
their passion was butterflies.
And Henry bought 1,400
books about butterflies
that he offered to the
Pratts at Christmas
and at their birthdays.
All of these volumes are in
the Amherst College Library.
The father of the
roommate, Charles Pratt,
was Charles Pratt, Sr., pictured
here, who was the founder
of Pratt Institute
in Brooklyn in 1887.
He was head of the
Adelphi Academy Board.
That's where he got
to know Henry Folger,
his son's close friend,
and Charles Pratt became
Henry Folger's mentor.
Charles Pratt was the largest
oil refiner in the country
in 1869, and he will come back
into the story when we get
to the Rockefeller
part of this story.
While you are studying
these faces for recognition,
I will share the fact that two
years ago I wrote an article
for Washington history,
the Journal of the Historical
Society of Washington,
and the editor let it be known
that I was giving them
too many illustrations
of white men in white shirts.
But these are particularly
important for the Folger story.
This is Charles Moore, chairman
of the powerful US Commission
on Fine Arts, who had to
approve the architectural plans
for The Folger Shakespeare
Library
because they were
on Capitol Hill.
He might have been
lukewarm but au contraire,
he thought they were marvelous.
He was sick of columns,
endless columns of pillars.
He was sick of pediments way
up high that you have to crane
in your neck to look at.
So he really approved
of the architecture
of Paul Cret as we'll see later.
This is Alexander B.
Trowbridge whom Folger hired
to be the consulting architect.
The consulting architect was
one who would play the role
of the buffer between the client
and the principal architect.
He also became the
consulting architect
for the Adams Building.
And if you look at the
Folger Shakespeare Library
and the Adams Building, you
probably do that every day,
and you compare the aluminum
grill work and the windows,
the tall, narrow windows,
you can see the affinity.
This is Dwight Morrow who
had been ambassador to Mexico
and was a partner
at J.P. Morgan.
His role was important because
he was the financial brains
behind the decision of Amherst
College to accept the phrase
in Henry Folger's will.
I would like Amherst College to
administer The Folger Library.
We'll get back to
the will in a minute.
Folger had misgivings
about having a government
institution administering his
private research library.
Dwight Morrow is better known
for his having been
the father-in-law
of Charles Lindbergh.
The terms of Folger's will were
that if Amherst College did not
agree to administer The Folger,
the next choice would have
been University of Chicago.
If they had declined, then it
would have been the Library
of Congress who would
have an opportunity
of managing The Folger.
And Dwight Morrow was
the one who had to look
at the finances in 1932.
Folger had left behind a
fortune when he died in 1930,
which was worth about half
that a couple of years later.
This is the French-born
architect, Paul Philippe Cret
who was chosen by Alexander
Trowbridge with no competition
to be the principal
architect of The Folger.
He was already known
in Washington.
He had designed the
Pan-American Union.
He had designed also
the Federal Reserve.
He was a professor
of design at Penn.
His neoclassical style
pleased the Folgers very much.
He had a strong French
accent, and often,
Folger needed an interpreter
for meetings with him.
Perhaps you will agree with me
how much more interesting men
with white shirts are if they
have a book in their hand.
And you will also perhaps
see some friends here.
This is Dr. Abraham Simon Wolf
Rosenbach of Philadelphia,
the erudite book dealer
who provided more books
to Henry Folger than
anyone else.
He had a PhD in English
literature.
He played Henry Folger off
another collector Henry E.
Huntington of The
Huntington Library and Museum.
But these were times when both
of his clients displayed an
amazing amount of cordiality
in their relationships.
There were no fights.
Henry would say Dr. Rosenbach,
I will let Mr. Huntington
have this one,
but the next one is for me.
The Rosenbach Library
has the correspondence
with both customers,
which is fun to read.
It's in their museum
on Rittenhouse Square
in Philadelphia.
James Waldo Fawcett
of The Washington Evening
Star was hired by Emily
after Henry Folger died to write
the biography of Henry Folger.
He abandoned the project
at an early stage,
leaving the field open
75 years later for me.
There is Henry Huntington,
who had deeper pockets
than Henry Folger.
He was interested in a lot
more than Shakespeare, however.
And you can visit in San Marino,
California, the LA suburb,
his library, his museum
and his extensive gardens.
Three biographies have already
been written about Huntington,
one of them commissioned
by The Huntington.
And that's 1,100 pages,
so if you look at both
of the collectors who
whom I devote one chapter
of their rivalry,
it's about time
that we have a Folger biography.
Herbert Putnam is probably
a familiar face to many
of you here, longest
serving Librarian
of Congress for 40 years.
In 1928, there was a very
moving exchange, cable exchange,
between Herbert Putnam
and Henry Folger.
We'll get to some of the
details, but you are aware
that in the middle 20s, the
Library of Congress was looking
for additional property
since the now called
Jefferson Building was running
out of space.
And they came upon the
nearby plot number 760
and had legislation
going through Congress
so they would have
the whole plot.
As it happened, Henry Folger
had been secretly buying
up 14 red brick row houses
called Grant's row and read
in the paper that what he
had been doing was perhaps
for naught.
And he wrote a cable to
Herbert Putnam saying do I have
to look somewhere else for a
location to build my library?
I have bought these homes
over an eight-year period.
This is Herbert Putnam's
daughter, Brenda Putnam,
sculptor, who designed the
Statue of Puck which is
in the West Garden
of The Folger.
Actually, the one that's
in the West Garden now is
not the original marble one
because it had been a victim of
vandalism as well as erosion.
So if you want to see the
original one, you go inside
and just to the left
of theater of entrance,
and the one you see
outside is cast aluminum.
One of the last papers
that Folger signed before
he died was the contract
with Brenda Putnam
for the Puck Statue.
At the same time, Emily
Folger was advancing money
to a different woman sculptor
to make another statue of Puck
for the same location
in the West Garden.
So while Emily and Henry saw
eye-to-eye on most things,
every now and then you
will read in this book
that a few times they differed.
The caption of the statue, Lord,
what fools these mortals be.
If you look at the
statue, some people think
that Puck is looking
at Congress.
But if you look at the statue
carefully, and then you turn
around and you look at the eyes,
where the eyes are facing,
it was not Congress.
It was the Library of Congress
where her father worked.
Several years later, a man
by the name of Peter Gazzola
from Rye, New York, knocked on
the Folger door and he said,
I was the model for Puck.
Any recognition of
this gentleman?
This is William Adam Slade
who was the first director
of the Folger Shakespeare
Library.
He was detached from
the Library of Congress
where he was chief bibliographer
in October of 1930.
He was the Folger's choice
to be the first director
of The Folger.
And it was, the appointment
was made
by the Amherst College trustees.
Four years later, the
Amherst trustees sent
out a very curt message.
Mr. Slade will be returning
to the Library of Congress
and doing work he prefers to his
present administrative duties.
So there had been a falling out
between the Amherst trustees
and this man who was a
Phi Beta Kappa graduate
of Brown University in
1898, a prolific writer.
He had published
a book of sonnets.
Emily liked him, but the
trustees thought he was a
weak administrator.
Another person familiar to
many people in the Library
of Congress is John
Franklin Jameson.
He was head of research at
the Carnegie Institution,
cofounder of the American
Historical Society
and later curator of manuscripts
at the Library of Congress.
In 1919, the Folgers
came to Washington D.C.,
and Henry asked his
classmate, Jamie, he said,
do you think I should build
my library in Washington?
Jameson said, 40 years
ago I would have said no.
But now, I would have
said, now I say yes.
And so this man, Jameson,
who was the valedictorian
of his class, was looked up
to by Henry who was only fifth
in his class, and they
kept up a friendship.
They also kept up a friendship
because Jameson was
the class secretary
for the class of
1879 at Amherst.
And in 1904, Jameson asked
Folger, what have you been doing
for the last five years.
And here's what Folger wrote.
I can report no children born,
no books written,
no degrees received.
The nights have been employed
in bringing together a
library of Shakespeareana.
In the gathering of books,
I have been signally
fortunate during these years.
Quite beyond my greatest hopes
and have made a collection
of material illustrating
Shakespeare
which I believe will
soon be notable.
You may recognize this picture.
It's on the cover
of my biography.
It was taken in the
Founder's Room of The Folger.
Emily is wearing a purple
velvet gown that belonged
to the Shakespearean actress
Julia Marlowe who wore it
when she played Portia.
The Folgers spent every spring
vacation in Hot Springs,
Virginia at The Homestead,
luxury resort.
They stayed in the
same accommodations.
Emily went there mainly for
her health, to take the baths.
Henry went there to play golf.
And in order to get from the
accommodations to the bathhouse,
you had a long serpentine
corridor.
And the [inaudible] who would go
to The Homestead developed the
custom of dressing up as they go
from accommodations
to bathhouse and back.
And Emily wore her Julia
Marlowe Portia gown.
Frank Salisbury and his wife
on a trans-Atlantic journey.
Salisbury was known as
Britain's painter laureate.
He painted the Folgers
in two oil portraits
which are in the Reading Room.
He painted John D. Rockefeller,
Jr. He painted Marjorie
Merriweather Post,
and this painting
is at Hillwood.
You've probably seen it.
He was also the first artist
to paint Queen Elizabeth II.
This is the Salisbury
portrait of Emily,
which is in the old
Reading Room at The Folger.
She's in her academic robe.
She's wearing Vassar pink.
In her hand, she has
a fan from a scene
from Henry V. Henry is
wearing his Amherst purple
and white hood.
In his hand he's holding
one of his favorite books,
a 1619 compilation of
Shakespeare plays referred
to as the Pavier quartos.
Henry received an
honorary degree
of letters at Amherst in 1914.
These are the Hoovers, president
and first lady Lou Hoover
as they are walking
into the Folger Library
for its dedication
on Shakespeare birthday,
April 23rd, 1932.
Hoover has been our only
president who is a bibliophile.
At the end of the ceremony,
Emily was quite emotional
because she had to go through
this ceremony of dedication
without her husband who
died two years earlier.
And the first lady
saw this and got up
and helped Emily off the stage.
The Folgers attended his
45th reunion at Amherst.
Here they are.
They each attended their 50th
reunions at Amherst and Vassar,
fairly rare for the time.
This is a poignant moment
when in 1932 Emily is looking
at the portrait of
her deceased husband.
She now is wearing
an Amherst robe
because she has received an
honorary doctorate in letters.
Folger saved a lot of
items that I was able to go
through in the underground
vault.
He saved a lot of
correspondence.
He dealt with 600 book
dealers, 150 in London alone.
So he has the correspondence.
He has the invoices.
He has the bid lists
that he sent
and the mailing labels,
such as this one.
This man was Henry
Folger's boss for 49 years.
This is the young
John D. Rockefeller
who founded the Standard
Oil of Ohio in 1870,
relocated to New
York two years later.
He bought out Charles Pratt
who was the largest oil
refiner in the country.
Rockefeller was not
college educated,
and he admired Folger who was.
If any of you own the volume
or have seen the volume America
by Alastair Cook, you might
remember on page 256 this image
of John D. Rockefeller in
the center wearing gloves.
He is walking back to Standard
Oil Company on 26 Broadway
from antitrust hearings
in the Customs House.
He looks very glum, as do the
two young attorneys behind him
who probably were up all night
preparing statements for him.
On the right, you will see
delighted messenger boys happy
to get out for part of the day.
And on the left, you will
see a man holding a package
on the left.
That is Henry Folger
who literally is
Rockefeller's right-hand man.
Folger had an almost
encyclopedic memory
about the history
of the company.
And when Standard Oil was asked
to write about the history,
he's the one that wrote that.
In his hand he's probably
carrying stenographic
trial records.
He was also very calm
and unflappable during
interrogations.
This is a 1919 letter
from John D. Rockefeller
to his accountant.
In 1919, Rockefeller
was 80 years old.
He had stepped down from
being head of Standard Oil
of New Jersey, but he still was
very much involved in decisions
and kept on sending messages
to many of his colleagues.
And the line that I
particularly draw your attention
to is I regard Mr. Folger's
paper as good as gold
and his collateral of the best.
What had happened was that
Henry Folger needed money
to buy Shakespeare, and
he had run out of his own.
Yes, he had a good salary.
Yes, he had a lot of
Standard Oil investments,
but when you look at the
Arshin [phonetic] Catalog
and you see what's coming
up and you need to get money
in a hurry, you go to the
people who have the money
and will loan it to you.
In 1919, Henry Folger
had advanced
from being a statistical clerk
in 1879 to being president
of Standard Oil of New York
that later became
Mobile Oil Corporation.
And when he says that his
collateral is of the best,
the collateral that he
used was Standard Oil
of New York collateral.
I mentioned that the
Folgers saved everything,
such as correspondence,
mailing labels.
Henry saved all of
his cancelled checks.
They are in four archival
boxes that I postponed
until I had looked at everything
else because how was I going
to go through 10,000 checks?
However, I discovered
a goldmine,
a checkbook is an autobiography.
It shows where your values lie.
This is a check for $53,000,
which is $800,000 today,
to John D. Rockefeller
in repayment
for a loan to buy Shakespeare.
One of the perks of being a
senior executive during the
first 20 years of
the last century was
that you had an oil
tanker named after you.
This is the H. C.
Folger launched
in San Francisco in 1916.
And would you expect
Henry Folger
to be there for the christening?
He didn't go.
I know what he was doing
that day because I've been
through his correspondence.
He was applying for a loan
for $20,000 from a bank
to buy more Shakespeare.
These oil tankers
held 100,000 barrels
of petroleum products
in 18 storage tanks.
And this vessel made many
crossings during the first war.
Once a torpedo missed
The Folger by 50 yards.
Henry Folger loved golf.
He and Rockefeller
played every morning at 10
when their schedules
permitted it.
Henry was not powerful on the
fairway, but he was deadly
on the green, which is where
you make most of your shots.
He's playing with a
Schenectady Putter,
which later was outlawed due to
the intervention of Bobby Jones.
Folger won a number
of Senior Cups,
and I have visited the Nassau
Country Club in Glencoe,
and they said I think we
have one of these cups
in the basement,
and they found it.
Have any of you heard that
John D. Rockefeller used
to hand out coins to people?
He had his valets stuff
his pockets with nickels
and dimes every morning, and
he would give these to friends,
complete strangers,
but on the golf course,
if someone like Folger
would sink a 16-foot putt,
he'd get a few dimes.
Folger never did
anything with them.
He put them in the
top bureau draw.
But after he died, Emily
opened the drawer and said hmm,
I have an idea what I
can do with these dimes.
And she had a watchband
made out of the dimes.
Each of the mercury
dimes is dated 1920,
and they're in the
Folger Library vault.
In 1956, the CEO of Mobile
Oil wrote to the director
of The Folger Library
and said, we have come
across Henry Folger's
partner's desk that he used
with great pleasure
for many years.
Would you like to have it?
It's a walnut partner's
desk with ornaments,
drawers on both sides.
And the Folgers said yes,
we'd love to have it.
And since that time,
it's been used
as the Folger's director's
desk in an office
that looks out on the Capitol.
This may be difficult for you
to see, but this is a sketch
that Henry Folger made in his
hand in 1918, and he sent it
to a real estate agent.
It's a sketch of four locations
near the capital that he had
in mind for his library.
The letter, which was sent
from the homestead said,
please inquire very cautiously
about these four
locations for my library.
Can you see the numbers
one, two, three four,
or is it too difficult?
This image is in my book,
so you could look at it
at leisure if you took it home.
So number two is
where The Folger is.
Across the street is
the Lutheran Church
to the Reformation Number
Four, also built in the 30s.
And north of that church
is the Supreme Court built
at the end of the 30s.
But when Folger was looking at
the properties in 1918, 1919,
the site for the Supreme
Court was identified
as future government building.
And the fourth location number
one is where The Madison is now.
This is Grant's Row.
My name is Grant, but I'm
not related to Albert Grant
who was an engineer from
Milwaukee, a union veteran
who built these red brick
row houses in the 1870s
of an Italianate design.
These were the 14 houses that
it took the Folgers eight
and a half years to buy
up one after the other
when the leases expired or
when the real estate agent
representing the Folgers
could persuade the owners
to look for another location.
This face probably
will not be familiar.
This is George D. Olds,
professor of mathematics
at Amherst, president of
Amherst between 1924 and 1927.
On March 23rd, 1928, he
wrote to Henry Folger.
I have just taken lunch with Dr.
Putnam and congratulated him.
I wish you could see his
enthusiasm over your gift.
He at once took me
out to the end of one
of the north corridors
in order that I might see
with my own eyes the
site you have been
so quietly and wisely providing.
The setting will be
perfect for your jewels.
I'm in the middle of
several weeks of research
and here have found the library
an ideal spot for the scholar.
It's not alone that the material
is at hand and available
at a moment's notice but of only
minor importance is the fact
that every member
of the staff seems
to have caught the contagion
of Dr. Putnam's sympathetic
personality, and one lives
in an atmosphere of
rare helpfulness.
So I rejoice beyond words
in your benefaction.
Washington is fast but coming
or actually is the intellectual
center of our country.
So, this other strong voice
from Amherst College is similar
to the attitude of Folger's
classmate Jameson saying
that this is time to have
such a rare cultural
contribution to the US Capitol.
I think it's quite interesting
that a college president,
as soon as he stepped down,
hastened to the Library
of Congress to do research.
I wonder how often
that takes place today.
This man is George A.
Plimpton, who at the time, 1928,
was president of Ginn, and
he was chairman of the board
of trustees of Amherst College,
grandfather of the mid-20th
century author and editor
of The Paris Review,
George Plimpton.
Plimpton wrote to Henry
on April 9th, 1928,
which is 86 years ago today.
My dear Folger, I am glad
that the question as to
where your Shakespeare
books will go has finally
been settled.
And it seems to me
very satisfactorily.
I have had a good many
talks with Herbert Putnam,
and if he lives long enough,
he is going to make Washington
from the book standpoint
a mecca for scholars.
And as you know, Herbert
Putnam lived to be 94.
Grant's Row is now gone forever.
On December 24th, 1929, Herbert
Putnam wrote Henry Folger.
We are watching with
absorption the rapid progress
in the demolition
of the old building.
Indeed, our employees on that
side confess that the thrill
of it keeps their eyes
away from their desks.
Calvin Coolidge.
Amity Shlaes in her
biography last year
of Calvin Coolidge writes
that she consulted Calvin
Coolidge's White House
appointment books, which are
in the manuscript of the vision
of the Library of Congress.
Well, I did too,
and I was amazed
at how empty the
appointment calendar was.
Day after day, except for his
daily briefing of the press.
What I was looking for and
what I found was a meeting
that took place between
Robert Loose [phonetic],
who was the republican
chair of the House Committee
on the Library who went to see
President Coolidge to lobby
to add The Folger
Library to plot 760
and to change the legislation
so that it wouldn't
only be the annex,
which became The Adams
Building but one quarter
of that plot would be
devoted to The Folger.
And that is what happened.
Calvin Coolidge was an Amherst
classmate of Dwight Morrow.
And they were both math students
of Professor George Olds.
Coolidge became the chair
of The Folger Committee
of the Amherst trustees.
This is a photo of the
library before it opened.
You can see scaffolding
around the low relief
freezes on the left.
And you see there
are no columns.
There's no high pediment.
You see the aluminum grillwork
and the tall, narrow windows.
A crowd is gathering around
President Hoover's limousine
on April 23rd, 1932,
Shakespeare 368th birthday
when the library was dedicated.
This was the largest cultural
gathering in D.C. to date.
And if some of you are, lived
in Capitol Hill and grew
up on Capitol Hill
for a few generations,
it could be that your great
grandparents were in this crowd.
On May 1st, a small
plane from Hoover Airport
where the Pentagon
is now, took off
and took the first aerial
picture of The Folger Library,
which you can see on
East Capitol Street.
Here is a closeup.
This is a letter from Henry
Folger to Herbert Putnam
which I found in the
manuscript division.
It's dated January 1930, six
months before Folger died.
And he's referring, Folger
is referring to a book
which had come out
about Dr. Putnam.
And he says I have, and
it was a 550-page book.
And Folger writes, I have been
wondering a great deal whether I
will ever be able to get a
550-page published in my honor.
I found this quite surprising,
because Folger was
very reticent,
very self-effacing, very quiet.
But toward the end of his
life, he perhaps began
to think I have my name
attached to a library,
but will someone write about me?
And it's taken a long time for
that to happen in a book form.
I'm often asked now
since the book is
out to provide a photo,
an author's photo.
My publisher asked me
and [inaudible] asked me,
and the one that is my favorite
one is in the jacket flap.
And I am standing
between the Folgers
and underneath a
bust of Shakespeare.
So, my friends at the Library of
Congress, when tomorrow you gaze
at the Folger Shakespeare
Library across the street,
please do so with a
fuller appreciation
of this great American
story from the Gilded Age,
the couple who earned good money
and did good things with it.
Also remember that
it was a love story.
Henry and Emily loved each
other, and both loved Will.
Theirs was the greatest
ménage-a-trois in all
of Angelo American
literary history.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> John Cole: We do have
times for a few questions.
>> Stephen H. Grant: Sarah.
>> Thank you very much, Stephen.
[Inaudible].
Thomas Jefferson --
>> Stephen H. Grant:
Oh, of course.
I sit corrected.
I sit corrected.
And somewhat embarrassed.
Yes.
>> What sparked Mr.
Folger's [inaudible]?
>> Stephen H. Grant: There's
several answers to that.
If you go to the
Folger Library --
>> John Cole: Stephen, could
you repeat the question?
>> Stephen H. Grant: I'm sorry.
What parked my original interest
in what sparked the Folgers'
interest in Shakespeare.
If you go to the Folger library,
among the public spaces you
can visit is the Founder's Room
where there is a ticket stub,
remember, he saved everything.
It's a ticket stub to a
lecture in May of 1879.
It was in College Hall, which
is an auditorium at Amherst.
It was to hear Ralph Waldo
Emerson, age 76, decrepit,
helped up to the
lectern by his daughter.
The subject of his oration
was not Shakespeare,
but it led Folger to read
what Emerson had written
about Shakespeare.
And since Folger had studied
oratory and was a good orator
and had won prizes in
oratory, that is certainly one
of the aspects which
played a role.
Folger was in a Shakespeare
reading group
when he was at college.
The first book that is
in the Folger collection,
in the Shakespeare area, was the
Complete Works of Shakespeare,
published in 1875 by
Lippincott in Philadelphia.
And this was inscribed to
Henry from his younger brother
when Henry was a freshman.
I don't have a brother,
but I can't imagine
that someone younger
than a freshman
in college would buy Complete
Works of Shakespeare and give it
to an older brother,
but there it is.
I've held it in my hands.
There was a Shakespeare
prize essay at Amherst.
And Folger wrote the essay,
but he lost the award.
He didn't win.
And Emily used to joke that it
was because he lost the prize
that he decided to go into
collecting Shakespeare.
But Henry said that had he
not collected Shakespeare,
he would have collected
early music.
That was one of his passions.
He also said had he not
collected Shakespeare,
he would have collected
Frankliniana, anything to do
with Benjamin Franklin.
The first Folger who came form
the New World in the 1660s,
Henry Folger, settled
on Nantucket Island.
Married a woman Mary Morrow
whom he met on the crossing.
They had ten children.
The last child was Abiah Folger
who married Josiah
Franklin, the candlemaker.
And they had a son,
Benjamin Franklin.
So Folgers and Franklins
were related going back
to the Nantucket
and the Boston days.
Another question?
Yes.
>> How much of the
collection [inaudible]?
>> Stephen H. Grant: How much
of the collecting continues
today at The Folger.
Well, there's someone
else in this room,
Dan Simone who would be more
apt to give a full answer.
But what I will say is
that the Folgers collected
about 92,000 books, a
lot more than books,
but that was the
figure for the books.
Mainly centered around
Shakespeare but touching
on the main period
of 1475 to 1715.
And it wasn't only literary, but
it also looked at the political
and medical and horticultural
and armorial areas
and many more.
The funds that the Folgers
provided for the endowment was
to include not only
payment of staff
but also expansion
of the collection.
So what started out to be
92,000 books I believe now is
about 275,000 books.
There have been a lot of gifts
which have added
to the collection.
But it's still a
vigorously active collection
and probably two-thirds
of the people who come
to use the collection are
not looking at Shakespeare.
They're looking at
other items of interest.
Yes.
>> I was a student
of O.B. Hardison,
and I know he was the head
of The Folger for many years
after Mr. Folger died, and I was
wondering you did any research
on him or an allusion
to him in your book.
>> Stephen H. Grant: The
questioner worked for --
>> Well, studied under.
>> Stephen H. Grant:
Studied under O.B. Hardison
who was director of The
Folger from 1969 to 1984.
I still see his widow,
Mary Frances Hardison.
And the question is whether
I have done any work related
to him and the period
where he was director.
You'll see that the last chapter
in the book, the epilogue,
traces the Folger
since the Folgers.
So I went from 1932 to 2012.
And I go through
director by director.
It became quite clear to me
that of all the directors,
there were more innovations
under the Hardison
directorship than any other.
And I've talked to a number
of people who worked with him,
and he was a fountain of ideas
and kept his staff very busy.
One of the staff persons
was Elizabeth Griffith
who later became head
of Madeira School.
She was a docent and
reported that one day,
O.B. Hardison called her
in to his office and said,
we have to find out from any
living Folger relative what they
can tell us about the founders.
We have nothing.
And she put together
a questionnaire,
sent out to the Folgers
nephews, nieces,
grand-nephews, grand-nieces.
The Folgers had no children.
And unfortunately, the project
never got off the ground.
She left to work on a biography
of Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
and I remember calling her
up and I said, Elizabeth,
I'm sure you have some
working papers somewhere,
lots of files I could
go through.
Nothing. But what I
was able to do was
to meet six grand-nieces
of the Folgers.
They're all octogenarians.
And they don't remember Henry,
but they remember Emily.
And the Folgers were
single-minded
in their attention
to Shakespeare.
They allowed family
visits only twice a year,
Thanksgiving and New Year's.
And it was the same routine.
People, kids were go over the
whole house, open every door.
What did they find?
Books. Books.
Books. There would be a repast,
and all of the children were
expected to recite poetry
after which Emily would give
each one a $5 check and a book.
So, the fact that I was
able to meet grand-nieces is
about the best I could
do, because I came along
to this project, my graduation
from Amherst was 84
years after Henry's.
So I've met only one person
who attended the dedication
on April 23rd, 1932, and I said,
what did you remember about it?
She said, my leggings itched.
Yes.
>> What about Jane F.
Allen, Jane Folger Allen,
I don't know if she's alive now.
>> Stephen H. Grant: All right,
the question is what
about Jane F. Allen.
>> Jane Folger.
>> Stephen H. Grant: Folger.
>> Yes. Jane Folger Allen.
>> Stephen H. Grant:
Jane Folger Allen.
I must admit, I have
not heard that name.
But let me say this, Peter
Folger who came in 1660 is the,
I guess, the progenitor of
Folgers all over the country.
But the one who was
even more better known
than Henry is perhaps his
uncle, James A. Folger
who founded Folger's Coffee.
There are also Folgers
in Washington D.C.
I've met three or four.
There's a Lee Folger.
There's John Folger.
So there are a few Folgers.
I don't know the ones
that you have mentioned.
Do we have time for one
more question, John?
>> John Cole: Yes we do.
>> Stephen H. Grant: Yes.
>> I was struck by
the difference
between the almost
modern [inaudible].
>> Stephen H. Grant: Yes.
>> My other question is --
>> Stephen H. Grant:
I think we're going
to stop with that one.
So, the design of the
Folger strikes the viewer
as being quite interesting
from the exterior
and for the interior.
And the gentleman has
put his finger on one
of the first dilemmas, which
took place in discussions
between client and architect.
Henry Folger wanted an
Elizabethan exterior.
The architect said,
that won't work.
You can't do that
on Capitol Hill.
You can have it, you can
have an Elizabethan interior,
and we'll work with you on that.
And that is exactly
what happened,
and the Folgers accepted
the architect's very
strong position.
>> John Cole: But it was
a compromise in a way
by having the figures,
I mean there's a Shakespeare
element to the exterior.
Somebody had to be a
salesperson to persuade him.
Is that true?
>> Stephen H. Grant:
That's a good point.
You do have, you do have
Shakespearean figures
on the outside.
>> John Cole: I meant
quotations.
>> Stephen H. Grant:
That's right.
That's true.
And that's right.
So the Folgers selected
the scenes
and selected the captions.
And the only relief frieze
that Folger saw before he
died was the one of King Lear.
And Lear was Folger's
favorite Shakespeare character.
And he visited the studio
of the sculptor whose
name was John Gregory,
British born in New York.
And looked at, and when
he went home, he said,
I think to Gregory when he
left, you've done a fine job.
I will sleep well tonight.
And then the next morning, he
wrote his consulting architect
with four suggestions
for changes.
He wanted much more
agony in the face.
He wanted to see the
veins in his arms.
So he was, while he was around,
you might say micromanaging.
At least --
>> John Cole: But
he bought the idea.
>> Stephen H. Grant: Yes he did.
>> John Cole: I think that's
probably what counted.
>> Stephen H. Grant:
Yeah, that's right.
>> John Cole: Lucky that it was
his favorite character he saw.
>> Stephen H. Grant: Right.
>> John Cole: And admired.
>> Stephen H. Grant:
And the Folgers insisted
that these friezes be at
eye level, not out of sight.
>> John Cole: Any other
questions for Stephen?
Well, Stephen, thank
you so much.
This has really been thoughtful.
I have a quick question.
Is there a separate, I think the
answer is no, but I'll ask it.
There's no separate
book on the building,
on the construction
of the building?
Or is there a pamphlet?
>> Stephen H. Grant: I
don't know of a pamphlet.
I do know of a couple of books
about Cret as an architect.
>> John Cole: I do
know, though --
>> Stephen H. Grant: Yeah.
>> John Cole: But not about the
construction of the building.
>> Stephen H. Grant: Not yet.
>> John Cole: Okay.
Another one, right.
Well, please join me in thanking
Stephen for a wonderful talk.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.