College and Research Libraries


B y B E R N A R D V A N H O R N E 

The Hayes Memorial Library 
Bernard Van Home is librarian of the 

Hayes Memorial Library, Fremont, Ohio. 

TH E H A Y E S M E M O R I A L L I B R A R Y o r i g i -nated in the g i f t by C o l o n e l W e b b 
C . Hayes, son of the nineteenth President 

of the U n i t e d States, R u t h e r f o r d B . 

Hayes, of his late father's twenty-five acre 

estate, his papers, books, and mementoes, 

together w i t h a generous endowment to 

the state of O h i o . L a t e r he gave part of 

the cost of a fireproof building to house 

the library and museum. T h e whole is 

under the supervision of the O h i o State 

Archaeological and Historical Society as 

a state memorial. A n interesting parallel 

might be d r a w n by the H a y e s M e m o r i a l 

L i b r a r y and the recently announced 

F r a n k l i n D e l a n o Roosevelt L i b r a r y to be 

established at H y d e P a r k , N e w Y o r k . 

T h e plans for the t w o institutions are 

strikingly similar. 

Content of Collection 

T h e collection is of interest both as a 

most complete association record of an 

important public figure and for the intrin-

sic scholarly value of the books and manu-

scripts. T h e lack of unified direction in 

the purchasing program of the endowment 

has made the original collection of Presi-

dent H a y e s still the main though a notable 

one. First in uniqueness is the correspond-

ence. I t numbers about seventy-five 

thousand pieces covering the period from 

i 8 6 0 to 1893. T h e r e are letters on every 

important question, and, in addition, let-

ters w h i c h reflect H a y e s ' interest in 

humanitarian movements and in • educa-

tion. F o r this reason, names that could 

not ordinarily be expected to appear in a 

set of primarily political papers are very 

numerous. T h e papers have all been 

calendared, arranged, and filmed. 

In many respects the pamphlets, w h i c h 

number over ten thousand, correlate w i t h 

the papers. T h e y , too, reflect the patterns 

of controversy and the tendencies of the 

e r a : social, economic, and political. T h e 

Coughlins, the Dies, and the Borahs of 

that day reached for the pen instead of the 

microphone to make felt their w e i g h t in 

public opinion and most of the resultant 

matter made its w a y to the desk of the 

President. Fortunately, he saved all of it. 

M u c h that was to others trivial, he, w i t h 

a real sense of the value of a complete 

image and a highly-developed respect for 

social documentation, saved. 

T h e subjects covered in some detail in 

the manuscript and pamphlet collections 

can only be briefly indicated. Students of 

education w i l l find material on the estab-

lishment of the school system in the South 

a f t e r the C i v i l W a r . President Hayes w a s 

one of the organizers as w e l l as President 

of the Board of T r u s t e e s of the Slater 

F u n d . H e w a s a trustee, too, of the 

Peabody F u n d . T h e s e w e r e not simply 

nominal posts. H e w a s deeply interested 

in the w o r k of both agencies and main-

tained an active correspondence w i t h the 

general agents, A t t i c u s G . H a y g o o d and 

58 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



J. L . N . C u r r y . T h i s material found in 

the memorial is really a part of other 

groups scattered in such collections as that 

of the H o m e Missionary Society, the U n i -

versity of Chicago, the O b e r l i n Archives, 

the D a n i e l C o i t G i l m a n Papers at Johns 

Hopkins, and smaller related collections 

in many of the historical societies of the 

South. 

T h e interest of both President and M r s . 

Hayes in the temperance movement and 

their concern over prison reform brought 

material into the collection on questions 

that are still of immediate social concern. 

O t h e r s that might be mentioned are the 

civil service reform, resumption of the 

specie payment, polygamy among the M o r -

mons, Chinese exclusion, and the organiza-

tion of the U n i t e d States Geological 

Survey. 

T h e value of the book collection is some-

w h a t difficult to estimate. It lacks the 

rounded character that should characterize 

a library, as distinguished f r o m a private, 

collection. P a r t of it shares the ad-

vantages of the manuscript collection in 

reflecting the public opinion of the day. 

T h i s is a more personal part. T h e rest, 

which includes almost all of the valuable 

items, w a s the result of a vigorous effort 

on the part of the President to collect a 

really good library of American history. 

T h e original collection of books and 

pamphlets, together w i t h w h a t has been 

purchased since, numbers about thirty 

thousand items. In it can be found an 

excellent group on N e w E n g l a n d local 

history, and much on western travel for 

the first half of the nineteenth century 

including the O h i o V a l l e y . T h e Revolu-

tion and the W a r of 1 8 1 2 are w e l l covered 

by early, some of them rare, secondary 

works. T h e r e is a small, interesting col-

lection of Revolutionary W a r pamphlets. 

Purposes of the Memorial 

T h e conception Colonel Hayes had of 

the memorial w a s not that of a static 

institution. B y the establishment of 

several sections of the endowment fund, 

he provided for the expansion of the 

library and the possible undertaking of 

other projects meant to serve scholarship. 

A program has been formulated by the 

director, D r . C u r t i s W . Garrison, to 

pursue these objectives. In order to avoid 

the unprofitable dispersion of effort over 

a wide field, activities have been limited 

to the era of Reconstruction in A m e r i c a n 

history. P a r t of the income is being spent 

as a grant-in-aid f u n d to assist w o r t h - w h i l e 

projects begun by competent scholars w h o 

need assistance to complete the research. 

L a r g e r projects involving collaboration 

are considered on their merits. 

The Library's Role 

T h e library's part in the program is 

t w o f o l d : the first is to aid the foundation, 

its committees, and its grantees in all w a y s 

possible in their w o r k , both in F r e m o n t 

and elsewhere; second, to develop at the 

memorial a bibliographical center in its 

scholarly field of interest. Both of these 

services w i l l demand the expansion of the 

resources of the library by the purchase of 

reference and source material. T h r o u g h 

microfilming, the manuscript collection is 

being filled out by the copying of related 

material from w i d e l y scattered points. A 

collection of state documents of the South 

for the Reconstruction Period is being 

built up. W o r k has been begun on the 

assembling of a bibliography on L i b r a r y 

of Congress cards and the analysis of other 

bibliographies. 

T o supplement the general program of 

the memorial, the library has under con-

(Continued, on page 75) 

DECEMBER., 1940 59 



Mohrhardt, chairman, was editor of A 
List of Books for Junior College Libraries 

published by the American Library Associa-
tion in 1937. A supplementary compilation 
is desired to extend this list, especially in the 

direction of vocational and semiprofessional 
education. 

T h e Commission on Junior College T e r m -
inal Education is a subsidiary of the Ameri-
can Association of Junior Colleges. 

The Hayes Memorial Library 
(Continued from page 59) 

sideration a project to put on film 
bibliographies that have proved uneco-
nomical to publish in the usual way. 
M a n y of these are in the hands of in-
dividual compilers, institutions, societies, 
and such agencies as the Historical Records 
Survey. Only those in the field of Ameri-

can history will be considered, and the 
work could only be done on the under-
standing that the films would be made 
available to libraries and scholars, gen-
erally on the basis either of loan or sale. 
Suggestions and comments on the project 
are earnestly invited. 

T h e Hopkins Transportation Library 
(Continued from page 62) 

In 1870 the Board of Immigration of 
I o w a issued Iowa, die Heimath fiir Ein-
wanderer. T h i s was also published in 
English and Dutch. In the Stanford copy 
of the German edition is laid a leaf ad-
dressed (in G e r m a n ) to all Germans who 
wish to come to America, and signed by 
Ebenezer Cook, vice-president and land-
commissioner of the Chicago, Rock Island 
and Pacific railroad. O n the recto of this 
leaf is a map showing the route from 
Chicago to Council Bluffs. 

Probably the most outstanding item of 
the Pacific railroads material is the report 
of the chief engineer, William J . Lewis, 
of the Pacific and Atlantic railroad com-
pany dated December 13, 1851. T h i s 
report is accompanied by a folded map of 
the route between San Francisco and San 
Jose as located by M r . Lewis, September-
November, 1851. 

T h e r e are also extensive manuscript 

correspondence files of M a r k Hopkins 
dating from 1863-1885 dealing with the 
Central Pacific, W e s t e r n Pacific, and 
Southern Pacific railroads in matters of 
construction and administration. These 
include a large file of letters from Collis 
P. Huntington. 

T h e comment may be made that em-
phasis has been placed on the earlier litera-
ture. It is true that the demand is more 
likely to come for contemporary material, 
but the historical background must not be 
neglected. 

T h a t there is interest in historical ma-
terial is shown in M r . T h o m a s R. T h o m -
son's Check List of American Publications 
on Railroads before 1841, galley sets of 
which several university and private 
libraries received for checking. It is to be 
hoped that the publication of this will 
prompt the compilation of similar check 
lists on canals, bridges, roads, etc. 

DECEMBER., 1940 75