THE BERLIN COLLECTION
A HISTORY
0n July 30, 1891, William Rainey Harper (photo) completed his first month as president of the University of Chicago, an institution which had yet to construct a building on its newly acquired campus on the city's south side. The University was not to open for another fifteen months. There was faith that there would be time to raise the money, build buildings, and recruit faculty and students, but in the meanwhile Harper, his wife, their three children, and a small group of Yale students set out for Berlin.
This voyage was not unlike the only other Atlantic crossing Harper had made three years earlier. Both trips were urged on Harper as a way of preserving his health and renewing energy which he recklessly expended. Besides completing his teaching at Yale, Harper had been maintaining a preposterously heavy schedule of public lectures. Ever since his nomination for Chicago's presidency he had been forced to defend himself from criticism by orthodox Baptists while attempting to move John D. Rockefeller (photo) and the University's Board of Trustees to create a full-fledged university rather than a modest college. At the time Harper submitted his resignation to President Timothy Dwight of Yale in February, Frederick T. Gates (photo) advised John D. Rockefeller that "Dr. Harper is overworked, worn out, physically sensitive and weak in proportion." When Harper accepted the Chicago presidency shortly thereafter, Rockefeller himself admonished him to "have a rest at the earliest moment possible."
As Harper readied himself for the trip, Gates' misgivings increased, and he poured out his
frustrations to Rockefeller:
I cannot persuade myself that Dr. Harper's methods of employing his time have been or promise to be for the highest good of the University. I believe he should abandon his lectures, decline Chautauqua, throw off every outside engagement, and concentrate every energy on the direct upbuilding of the University.... I urged him strongly to drop the European trip for the present. He yielded far enough to curtail it.
Harper agreed to return to Chicago by October 15, but only after Gates had exhausted "every
reserve and [strained] my personal relations with him." Within hours of embarking, Harper fired the
final shot in this skirmish:
Meanwhile, as indicated to you in my last words, I have accepted the proposition subject to the condition named, which is that, should the condition of my health or the character of the presidential duties seem to demand it, at the end of one year I shall be free to resign my position.
If Harper left New York harbor feeling chastised by Gates' insistence on an early return, he remained eager to visit the German universities and to meet with their leaders. There was also the possibility of seeking out recruits for his new faculty. Finally, he had his Yale students, especially James Henry Breasted (photo), who had been engaged to tutor Harper and his family in German. Although gifted in reading written language, Harper, by his own account, "hadn't the slightest ear for spoken language."
He was not unmindful that the new University would require books and that Berlin would be an excellent place to look for them. There were forty-thousand volumes on hand in Chicago, the legacy of the defunct "Old Chicago University," and collections which would come from the Baptist Union Theological Seminary in Morgan Park, soon to be transformed into the University's Divinity School. An assistant librarian, Mrs. Zella Allen Dixson (photo), had already been engaged to operate the library and to implement Harper's scheme for departmental libraries. Some donations of local collections were in the offing, but it was obvious that these would hardly satisfy the demands of the research faculty which Harper was assembling. A large number of books at the University would be one way of forcing the issue of providing a building to house them. Harper was not unaware that books would legitimatize the University's broad commitment to education as well as cast an aura of scholarly respectability over the whole enterprise.
Upon their arrival in Berlin toward the middle of August, the Harpers settled in an apartment on Lützowstrasse, below the Tiergarten and perhaps a mile or a mile and a half from the Unter den Linden (map). Not far off was the American Church at Motzstrasse 6, a likely place for the Harpers to worship. Its minister was John Henry Stuckenberg, a liberal, evangelical Lutheran, and like Harper a native of Ohio and an erudite churchman. It was the Reverend Dr. Stuckenberg who, perhaps after learning of Harper's ambitious plans for the University, called Harper's attention to the large body of books which were available for sale at Unter den Linden 17, the address of the venerable bookselling firm of S. Calvary and Company.
S. Calvary and Company was owned by a seventy-five year old bookseller, G. Heinrich Simon, who had been hoping to sell the firm following the death of his brother and partner in 1885. The brothers had taken over the firm from Dr. Frederick Spiro who had founded it in 1852 with Dr. S. Calvary. Calvary died a year after its establishment, and Spiro sold out to G. Heinrich Simon in 1863. Simon and his brother continued the scholarly tradition of the firm, combining publishing with the sale of antiquarian and second-hand books. The firm supplied scholarly collections in Europe and North America, making its reputation in the fields of classical philology, archaeology, and the natural sciences. Its antiquarian book catalogues covered many subjects, including oriental literature, linguistics, zoology, and botany. The firm's wide reputation was also based on "Calvary's Philologische und Archaeologische Bibliothek," known more popularly as "Calvary's Library." From 1872 until 1894 this series grew to 114 inexpensively priced volumes, including specialized works by Niebuhr, Humboldt, and others, as well as editions of the classics. It also published the proceedings of the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences and those of the Historical-Philological Society of Breslau. Simon was known for his collection of German doctoral dissertations, it being said that he had something like 150,000 of them. But the firm's reputation had declined with Simon's advanced age. It was time to sell, and an en bloc sale would be an ideal solution.
Within two weeks of his arrival in Berlin, Harper received from Simon an offer (doc) for the entire contents of the Calvary stock, which was stated as containing 300,000 volumes and 150,000 pamphlets. The large scale no doubt appealed to Harper's sense of enterprise, for never before had an American university acquired so many books at one stroke. He could also see the Calvary books as part of the strategy that would be necessary once he returned home. He would not only have to confront the unrelenting eye of Frederick Gates and the high expectations of the denomination, but he would also have to enter immediately into a fund-raising drive that would literally create a campus and get the University started within a year. Harper saw beyond the books to the attention which they would draw to the University. If a splash were needed, here was an opportunity to make one.
Simon's offer of August 23 was not perfunctory. It smacked of a teutonic thoroughness and bookselling hyperbole, although it was far from detailed considering the number of books apparently involved. The proposal categorically states that the stock of S. Calvary and Company contained 300,000 volumes and 150,000 pamphlets with strong holdings in philology and the philosophical sciences. For "certain branches of classical philology and principally in classical archaeology the stock forms the richest existing library in the library world so that it is superior to the British Museum and the Royal Library in Berlin." Thereafter, the nine-page account divides the stock into fourteen subject categories, and for each of these are listed the number of volumes, the estimated value, and the "value of our inventure," or inventory. Simon began his description with two hundred manuscripts having an estimated market value of 50,000 marks and an inventory value of 10,000 marks. He noted that the greater part of the manuscripts came from the library of Pope Pius VII and included such "treasures" as three autograph letters of Raphael, the original manuscript of Abbe Rance's work against Mabillon, an unpublished work of Friedrich von Schlegel, and a fourteenth-century Book of Hours "with unknown French poems illustrated by an artist of the early Burgundian school." There was enough here to whet the interest as well as to raise questions.
Simon's methodical description proceeded through palaeography (2,000 volumes), periodicals (25,000), Greek and Roman archaeology (80,000), Greek and Latin classics (80,000), Greek and Latin authors of modern times (3,000), Greek and Roman philology (2,000), general linguistics and Orientalia (2,500), modern languages (4,000), history, the "auxiliary" sciences, and varia (3,000), art, including a collection of illustrated works (1,000), philosophical sciences (6,000), natural history (6,000), and, in the end, 150,000 dissertations and programs. Interspersed with these figures were lists of bookish information: "Middleton's book on Cyclopean walls in Italy which Professor Norton has found only one copy of in the United States no copy in the British Museum"; "a unique set of Lafreri's Speculum Romanae magnificentiae"; "perhaps one of the richest libraries in existence of Greek and Latin classics... embracing all the best editions of all the classics," and so on through the fourteen categories. The letter was heavily laced with inducements which were sure to snare the imagination: "one of the four known copies of Goethe's dissertation," "an unknown poem of Schiller," "the important Denkmahl aus Aegypten in twelve folio volumes in a subscription copy," "a rich collection of Petrarch, even several works missed in J. Fiske's celebrated collection," "a copy of the astronomies by Aldus with hand notes by Aldus himself," and on and on.
The canny Simon began his letter with the price:
The market value of the stock after catalogue prices is between two and three million marks, we have fixed the price to 230,000 marks, the approximate price of our last inventory which gives the prices paid by us for the books with deduction of ten per cent for all the books which have passed once the inventory, the price paid by us is over 245,000 marks.
He concluded his letter by referring to the sale price of the dissertations as "calculated nearly as waste paper."
It was Harper's turn to act, and this he did by attempting to confirm both the content and the value of the books at Unter den Linden 17. He also had to look ahead to securing purchase Funds. A potential donor and the University trustees would require confirmation, and for this he turned to two librarians at the Royal Library in Berlin.
The testimony of the two librarians, Dr. M. Blumenthal and
Dr. R. Münzel, was given in a document
(doc) written by James Breasted with a single emendation by Harper. Harper used this
document, dated September 9, 1891, in his later representations:
The statement herein contained is made by the undersigned after careful examination [last three words in Harper's hand] for recommending in the following particulars the collection of books known as the S. Calvary Buchhandlung:
1. It is such a collection of books as would require many years, incalculable pains, and many thousands of dollars to bring together again, and therefore;
2. Is one not to be found for sale once in a century.
3. It contains one of the largest and most complete collections of periodicals to be found anywhere in Europe.
4. It contains a file of Academy Journals unsurpassed by any in Europe and possesses some complete sets not found elsewhere.
5. It contains an extraordinary rich and valuable collection in classical philology including some very rare copies.
6. It contains one of the richest collections in classical archaeology to be found anywhere, including some works not found even in the Royal Library of Berlin and the British Museum.
7. It contains one of the largest collections of dissertations and pamphlets in Europe which would be entirely unique in America.
8. It contains in general many rare and unique works many of them not to be found elsewhere.
9. Finally, we regard this library at the price named (180,000 marks) as an exceedingly rare and valuable opportunity to place in America such a collection of books as has never gone there before and will be to the University of Chicago an acquisition of inestimable value.
There is no account of the procedures followed by the two librarians but their role appears to have been perfunctory. Their document was in part based on Simon's proposal of August 23, embellished by Harper. The new price of 180,000 marks was apparently the result of further bargaining.
Confirmation of the collection's value was also secured from Hugo Bloch, the manager of a
branch of Koehler's Antiquarium, also on Unter den Linden. Harper turned to Bloch as an expert
from within the antiquarian book trade, receiving from him a four-page
document (doc) extolling the
virtues of the collection for Chicago. Bloch began by stating that "the library offered to Prof. Harper
from Dr. Simon is one of the best and richest I ever have seen." Thereafter, he enumerated
highlights and special features. "The monetary value of the palaeographical collection," he wrote,
"can scarcely be estimated;
I never have seen a similar one and the largest libraries of Europe or America might envy the Chicago University Library if this precious treasury gets into its hands; if I only take out a few works, such as the Bastard, Lafreri's Speculum (the most complete copy perhaps in existence) and about 3 or 4 others, the monetary value of them alone would amount to at least 30,000 M, if I altogether suppose that such fine copies as the mentioned works really are, can be estimated at all: But in this perhaps richest of all departments are so many works of the highest value that it would be a vain attempt to appoint even only the most important ones; I estimate the selling value of this department alone at at least 180,000 M.
In effect, Bloch was suggesting that the market value for this segment of the collection equalled
the price for which the whole was being offered. He thought that the "real value of the whole
collection will surely attain one and a half million marks" and concluded his account with the
following:
I could only congratulate Prof. Harper and the Chicago University Library for this very fine and most profitable purchase and if they would spend still another $15,000 for filling up the few deficiencies they would surely possess a library which would not fail to attract the students from every quarter.
Harper also sought the assistance of Richard Mead Atwater, an alumnus of Brown, studying the
technology of the German glass industry.Atwater, whom Harper may have met at the American
Church, was the source of suggestions for possible appointments at the University, especially in
chemistry. This interest., combined with his personal interest in books, led to his involvement. On
September 9, Harper wrote him:
I am sorry not to have seen you again. The fact is that my time, day and night, has been taken up with the Calvary Library. The matter is finally settled. I shall see you before leaving Berlin for good and tell you the details. I may say that the price is less than 180,000 marks without duplicates. The royal librarians say that the contract is unique and most advantageous. Will you not write me a letter emphasizing the opportunity, and the value in general, the desirability of having such a library in America.
Within two days Atwater responded (doc), taking some credit for bringing the collection to Harper's
attention as well as praising G. Heinrich Simon:
I have your note of the 9th and am very glad to learn that you have settled satisfactorily the terms for the Calvary Library. I am glad that this noble collection of books will go to America, and with a little twinge that it did not occur to me to get it for Brown. I am glad that it goes to Chicago, and that I had a little hand in the matter in bringing it to your notice. It was a pleasant return for the very satisfactory way in which Herr Simon has done my book business. He is an ideal merchant, of the highest standard of honor and of personal interest in the specialties of his customers. You will find him a valuable correspondent in the future and he will act for you in his special lines in the future development of your library. I take it for granted that the Library is yours, assured that your friends in the Corporation will not hesitate in the matter. It would I think be a great mistake to lose the Library for your University.
Within a week of this exchange with Atwater, Harper received the formal offer (doc) from Simon. Although the document, dated September 14, had been the result of discussions between Simon and Harper, many crucial issues were left poorly defined. This carelessness would cause grief for the firm as well as for the University in the immediate months and years to come. It is not known what passed between Simon and Harper in their direct discussions, but the first of the contractual terms stated that the price of the collection or stock was 230,000 marks with duplicates, or 180,000 without duplicates. Unfortunately, duplication was not defined and eventually there would be dispute between them over the word's precise meaning. The second stipulation was equally vague. It stated the number of volumes in the collection to be 350,000 or 280,000 without duplicates, while the number of dissertations and programs was 150,000, or 120,000 without duplicates. These round numbers were without trustworthy supporting documentation. In anticipation of possible adjustment it was stated that "should the number fall short of this number, deduct a proportional sum of 20 pfennig a volume for books and 5 pfennig for dissertations and programs." The conflict which developed out of this vagueness was the method of counting and what in effect would constitute a "volume."
The proposal makes fourteen additional stipulations. Harper had until November 1 to accept the offer, which would give him two weeks to find funding upon his return to Chicago. Payment was to be made in three parts, one half on January 1 1892, and one-quarter portions each on January 1 of 1893 and 1984, with an interest charge of five per cent after the first payment. If the offer were accepted, the University would have storage space rent-free until February 1892, when a charge would be made at the rate of 500 marks a month. There were provisions for securing additional scholarly periodicals and for the packing and binding of the books, as well as for the compilation of a list of all the books purchased. There was also the vague stipulation that Calvary would "sell no books belonging to the collection between this date and Nov. 1, 1891, except duplicates, and keep an account of such sales, the sums of which shall be deducted in case the duplicates are purchased."
While en route to England and Chicago, Harper received word in Paris on September 23 that all
was not as it should have been at Unter den Linden 17. Atwater apparently informed him of activity
around the Calvary book stock which was supposed to have been suspended pending the
University's decision. Harper immediately wired Atwater:
Please visit Doctor Simon or his clerk. Say I have received word that the library is being tampered with. Obtain evidence that this is incorrect. In any case telegraph facts immediately to Hotel Binda. Perhaps will sail Saturday.
Atwater responded the same day: "Am investigating. Hope to report facts tomorrow."
On the next day Atwater, along with the Reverend Dr. Stuckenberg, wired Harper that their investigation did not confirm his suspicions. As a precaution against loss they recommended that the librarian Blumenthal be asked to compile a list of 3,000 random titles from the stock without Simon's knowledge. But Harper had made other plans for safeguarding the University's interests.
Harper now engaged Hugo Bloch to act formally as the University's agent in the matter. He also recruited James H. Breasted and Charles Chandler (photo), both of whom were to join the University faculty. Breasted had remained in Berlin to take classes at the University of Berlin while Chandler had already been hired as a professor of Latin. The two would become Harper's most reliable informants about the status of the Calvary stock.
Soon after his departure from Berlin, Chandler wrote a detailed letter (doc) which described the chaotic state of the Calvary stock and his attempt to make some sense of it. A Mr. Noltenius, apparently the principal clerk, had begun to make lists but said "that no one can say just what is on hand." The partial catalogues which existed were inadequate, and "Mr. Simon's additions are in a hand so minute and irregular that neither Noltenius nor myself can make out all the words." The stock was in great disarray, and he noted that "someone must have been outrageously careless with some of the finest works." But Chandler continued that it was "a great pleasure to dig around such a collection, though the work is awfully dusty and tiring; once in I am obliged to stay until evening, for I am too black to go upon the street by daylight."
While calling attention to some of the important individual works he came upon, Chandler also commented that he was not finding the large, illustrated publications of museum collections that he expected to locate. Yet he was still stunned by the "bewildering richness" of a place "full of treasures and surprises."
He was quick to identify the problem of the duplicates which had been so lightly passed over
in the proposal for the sale. This issue probably confused Harper further as he made his way back
to America. "By the way," Chandler asked
are you sure that you and Mr. Simon are at one in your understanding of the word duplicate! In the strict sense of that word there are few duplicates, very few I think among the rare and valuable books; but in the ordinary sense of the term, there are many duplicates and triplicates of valuable works, and it would be the greatest pity not to have duplicates and triplicates. Do you understand to the certainty what Mr. Simon's idea in the matter is!
Further news of the collection came while Harper was attending the meetings of the Baptist Union of Great Britain in Manchester. Breasted informed Harper (doc) of Bloch's astonishment when he had received Harper's letter raising the question of possible tampering with the collection by Simon. Bloch and Simon were not friendly, Breasted reported, and he doubted that they were in collusion. Bloch had demanded the installation of a telephone on the Calvary premises so that he could be in closer contact with the collection.
In the meanwhile, Harper, in partial justification for all this activity, wrote Gates that "I shall be able to show you that my time has been given almost exclusively to University matters. You can't understand how I have grown. I am almost ready to pledge myself to spend six weeks abroad every year."
On the day Harper embarked from Southampton, Chandler wrote an encouraging letter (doc) which would reach Harper in Chicago. He said that while the treasures of the Calvary stock are apt to be overestimated by librarians and collectors, the "substantial value of the collection lies in its astonishing richness in standard editions of all degrees of rarity." In a burst of enthusiasm he wrote that "here is a glorious opportunity for Chicago, the likes of which is extremely unlikely to occur again in our times, if ever.... To get them all at once would be a brilliant thing for the new University, and would give great eclat to its library, as soon as the value of the acquisition becomes known." As further encouragement for Harper he added that the price without the duplicates was regarded as "very low."
While still in New York, Harper made his first move to secure the purchase price of $45,000 (or 180,000 marks) for the Calvary books. It would have been tactless to approach John D. Rockefeller but why not his younger brother William? William was wealthy in his own right, although not known for his philanthropic impulses. The plan was to approach William with the help of President Faunce of Brown, an old friend and ally of Harper. A request for a meeting received an immediate rebuff Rockefeller would be happy to see Faunce and Harper if the call was to be of a "social nature," but if it were for a "business chat," Rockefeller asked to be excused.
But Harper showed no reticence in the letter (doc) he sent to William Rockefeller. He gave a recent
history of the collection and the opinions of the various experts he had enlisted, closing his remarks
with "a few important facts:"
1. The purchase of the library would be one of the greatest book-deals ever made, and would produce a profound impression in the literary world.
2. Its possession would place 200,000 valuable books in the West which cannot be found there now, many of which cannot be found anywhere in America.
3. Its possession would give the University of Chicago, at once, a library which would stand favorable comparison with the best in the land.
4. Another such opportunity will not come in a century.
5. It would take 20 years, and the cost of this collection in salaries alone, to obtain it.
6. The price is undoubtedly a small one, and the terms of payment easy. 10,000 volumes might be selected worth the amount named.
7. Its possession will compel at once the erection of a building to house it.
8. Since leaving Berlin, I have been informed that a Mr. Loeb (of a Jewish banking house) has offered the sum named to be paid November 2 if we cannot make the necessary arrangements.
9. I am to make an effort the coming winter to raise $500,000 to $1,000,000 in Chicago for buildings. This is all we can reasonably hope to do in Chicago, and it is felt that nothing should be allowed to interfere with this effort.
10. The collection, one feels, ought to be the purchase of one man, bear his name, or such a name as he may designate.
11. In addition to the $45,000 for purchase, the sum of $5,000 will be needed for completing to date certain portions of the library; $5,000 to $10,000 for binding and $5,000 for packing and shipping.
Harper's plea fell flat. Rockefeller's telegram simply stated: "It will be impossible for me to do anything as indicated in your letter of the 19th."
Undismayed, Harper headed for Chicago while Gates wrote John D. Rockefeller about "Dr. Harper's great library scheme, and the apparent promise. Dr. Harper is making manful attempts to carry it without appealing to you, and I am inclined to think he will succeed."
On October 27, five days after returning to Chicago, Harper placed the whole matter before the Committee on Organization and Faculties of the Board of Trustees. The Committee recommended (doc) "that the Board purchase the Berlin Collection in accordance with the terms proposed by Dr. Simon, in case the purchase money, $45,000, is subscribed and that Koehler's Antiquarium be made the agent of the University in making the purchase, and packing and shipping the books." This text of the resolution contained the first use of the name "The Berlin Collection" for the Calvary books.
The resolution was accepted by the Board of Trustees on the same day that they appointed Harper "to conduct further negotiations and conclude the business." To Harper's jubilation, the money was quickly secured from members of the Board. Always hoping for Gates' approbation, Harper immediately wired him in New York: "Rust, Ryerson, Hutchinson, Kohlsaat, and others subscribe the necessary money, Hallelujah." Goodspeed waited a day to give Gates further details. "I have only a moment to write. Rust began the subscription with $12,000. Kohlsaat followed with $6,000, and Ryerson and Hutchinson assured the rest. Walker said, 'No. I want to secure a scientific building.' And if we can get the Academy of Science Collection, he is pledged to see a $50,000 wing of the Collections building go up. He will give or get the money."
Beyond Goodspeed's account of the event there is only one piece of unsubstantiated evidence concerning the subscriptions for the library, and that is an undated document (doc) titled "Calvary Library" which is divided into paid and unpaid subscriptions. The paid subscriptions were listed as Martin A. Ryerson, $11,250 H.H. Kohlsaat, $5,988.28; C.L. Hutchinson, $1,000; Byron L. Smith, $1,000; A.A. Sprague, $1,000; C.H. McCormick, $1,000; and C.R. Crane, $1,000 for a total of $22,238.28. The unpaid subscriptions were listed as H.A. Rust, $11,250; W.R. Harper, $5,625; and C.J. Singer, $1,000 for a total of $17,875. All the above names with the exception of Harper's are listed as donors on the collection bookplate and elsewhere.
The next day, Goodspeed described the excitement at the Board meeting including Edward Ayer's declaration to give his Indian collection to the University. "All this," he explained to Gates, "has come directly out of the library effort. I feel even more satisfaction in this because it is the consummation of the movement you and I inaugurated two years ago. As Harper says, the work was really all done. It only needed the library incident to bring everything to a point and a conclusion." Harper had correctly perceived the effect of the Calvary books. The purchase and its consequence did not fail to move Frederick Gates, who wrote to Goodspeed: "I have written Mr. Rockefeller the details, and added some hopeful words about the entire situation. Things are moving, and now the momentum gained will make the triumphs easier... I am serenely happy over the whole situation...."
With the money pledged, Harper immediately wired Simon that his offer was accepted and that Hugo Bloch was to act as the University's agent. The deadline had been met. There was also a full measure of publicity.
The day after the Board's action The New York Times had it as a first-page story under the headline, "A Valuable Library Bought, the Treasures Secured by the University of Chicago." Calling it "one of the largest book deals ever consummated in America," the story contained the long run of figures covering the collection's contents. "The price paid for the library is not made public. The catalogue price is between $600,000 and $700,000, and the estimated bookseller's price $300,000. Those who profess to know say that there are 15,000 volumes in the library worth the purchase price." This information would have come directly from Harper. The news quickly spread across the country.
Two days after the Board's vote, Harper had a letter from William G. Gale, whom he was
attempting to lure from Cornell as professor of Latin:
The newspaper announced the purchase of the library mentioned in your letter. You have accomplished the incredible. And the manner of the doing of it is a most hopeful omen; for you have touched the heart and opened the purse of Chicago.From another aspect the purchase is most happy. The library has been collected from a standpoint wholly nonutilitarian. You have interested businessmen in precisely those things which the atmosphere of Chicago would seem unfavorable to. Whoever may go to you in Latin, I am glad your start has been precisely of this kind.
Now you will need a library building. You, and your architect, should see ours at Cornell, just completed. It has some grave faults, architectural and otherwise. And yet it is the best building of its kind in the country and wonderfully cheering and inspiring. In itself alone, it is one of the strongest inducements to hold a professor here.
A dour view of the acquisition came from E. Nelson Blake, president of the Board of
Trustees, who wrote from his home in Arlington, Massachusetts:
I saw the Associated Press account of the library purchase, also the "Inter Ocean" account of the library in Wednesday's paper. I am very sorry that some outsider could not have been induced to aid you to that extent on that exclusively, for all taken from such friends as those four, lessen the am't from them for buildings, which are so essential just now. I know and fully appreciate all that can be said in favor of the purchase, I know it was a chance of a life-time, but you can not have everything at once, and you must have the buildings. The great reason in favor of the purchase after all is the reputation it will give us everywhere, in connection with our other puffs, and the important lever of success may make you invincible in your soliciting for buildings, but the coming of the new library makes the library building almost a necessity.
Writing a few days later, Blake noted that the purchase had created a great stir on the Pacific coast, but he was still concerned that it might dry up sources by "causing people to think that we are sufficient for all our needs."
John D. Rockefeller congratulated Harper. In the happy glow of success, Harper wrote to Gates that "the sentiment of the city is thoroughly aroused by the library business. Everybody is pleased about it. The testimonies concerning the value of the library are coming in every day; e.g. Gunsaulus, who knew its contents perhaps better than I myself did, from men all over the West and South who know the collection. The editorial in the Boston Herald Monday morning sets us up at great rate. I think the moral effect of the library is worth very much more than the cost of it."
While Harper basked in public acclaim, the problem of physically securing the collection quickly became complicated. The arrival of Harper's wire accepting the Calvary offer caused an immediate retreat (doc) by Herr Simon. "It seems," he wrote Harper, "that there will be no more than 120,000 volumes of books and 80,000 dissertations" instead of the contracted 280,000 volumes and 150,000 dissertations. Heinrich Simon beseeched Harper for understanding, but Harper not only had his obligations to his donors, who were looking over his shoulder as his trustees, he also had seen to it that the larger figures were known across the country. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, neither side wished to withdraw. Harper needed the books and could not repudiate his own publicity, and Simon was ready to retire from business. Simon also had further cause for panic because provision for a rebate was included in the contract for all undelivered volumes 20 pfennig per book and 5 pfennig per dissertation. This provision as well as the definition of the term "volume" would be at issue for years to come (doc).
Harper had little patience with such arcane matters as the definition of a "volume." He had less than a year to prepare the University for its opening and was carrying "a load that is fairly crushing him to earth." So Gates commented to Rockefeller as he reported on another crucial library matter that could not escape notice: "There is no provision, except students' fees, for modern books in any of the departments. The graduate students can do very little without them. The head professors are much worried on this point. The income of at least $200,000 should be temporarily set apart for this until someone endows the library."
Although both parties were apprehensive, one half of the purchase price was dispatched to agent Bloch on December 29, 1891 (doc). The remaining amount fell due in two equal parts on January 1 of 1893 and 1894. To protect the University until the questions of numbers and rebate were settled, Bloch withheld a third of the 94,100 marks from Simon. Even with this precaution, Harper remained uneasy and asked Chandler and Breasted for reassurance. Despite the exaggerated numbers, Chandler advised Harper that "it would have been a matter of unceasing regret if the opportunity had been lost" and not to walk away now from a "first-rate bargain." Thus Chandler had not only to contend with Harper's doubts, but he was also caught between Simon, who was "very tricky not dishonest, but capable of pretending to misunderstand orders," and the obsequious Bloch, who was "very fond of being authorized."
In early February, Bloch deflated the Calvary stock to fifty or sixty thousand volumes. Chandler
reported to Harper (doc):
I do not feel at all certain that Simon has any consciousness of having misrepresented anything or of having any very considerable overestimate, he would simply and with considerable plausibility say that the astounding discrepancy was due to Mr. Bloch's way of counting.... In fact, without having agreed upon a definition of the word "volume," I do not see how... we can hope for an agreement about the number.
The controversy over the numbers was temporarily put aside as Simon and Bloch prepared the books for shipment. On May 13, 1892, Bloch wrote Harper (doc) that 242 boxes containing 57,630 volumes and 39,020 dissertations were en route via Hamburg insured for 500,000 marks. Bloch implored Harper "not [to] refuse me your perfect satisfaction" by this effort. Shortly after the books arrived in late June and were placed in storage on 55th Street, just off the campus, Simon died (doc), leaving S. Calvary and Company without direction.
By January, 1893, a temporary building for the library (photo) and gymnasium (photo) had been erected on the present site of Hutchinson Court. Its construction was one of the many expenses which put the University's budget in a precarious state, a chronic condition which persisted throughout Harper's presidency. The financial panic which struck the country in 1893 further depressed the University's finances. With deficits piling up, it took two dunning notes (doc 1,doc 2) from Calvary to get 17,961 marks from the University in late February, 1893, less than half the amount due. To compound the confusion, Hugo Bloch decided to allegiance from the University and to become manager of Calvary (doc 1, doc 2). Although payment was in arrears, Calvary continued to complete and bind journals for the University.
The next dun (doc) would come on October 21 from Bloch, who demanded that $5,000 be sent within four weeks or Calvary would "be forced by yourself to take other steps." Pleading with Harper, Bloch asked, "but what can we do, if not only you do not pay, but you do not even answer our letters!" On December 7, 1893, Calvary received 23,000 marks which was to be the University's last payment.
Then, after a year of no apparent exchange regarding the books, the final round began with a warning that Calvary expected $6,000 early in 1895. Henry A. Rust had now become the University Comptroller, and a drastic change would take place in the University's dealings with Calvary. On Rust's own account: "I looked into the matter, and with such a wide difference as regards the number of books that seemed to be originally contemplated and the number actually received, that I was bewildered and unable to understand the basis upon which payments before had been made." Rust requested that Bloch submit "copies of agreements and a statement of deliveries, giving numbers and values of books, etc." because of his ignorance of the transaction.
Bloch was shocked (doc). He wondered why Rust had asked him "all those questions" about the original transaction "whereas President Harper himself can give you the best information you would ever desire, having himself made and concluded the whole matter here in Berlin!" While submitting a statement covering the University's account, Bloch asked that the balance of 40,645 marks be paid immediately. Perturbed that it had been necessary to write Harper fifteen times, Bloch was now prepared to take legal action. Worse, he could not resist reminding Rust to "please take care that your letters are sufficiently stamped; we had nearly regularly to pay for insufficient stamping."
Rust's response at the end of February was swift and pointed (doc). He told Bloch that the University was withholding payment but that Bloch would be advised promptly after study of the account, and that settlement would be made "of any balance that may be found to be due."
By late May, 1895, Rust's evaluation of the account and the events surrounding it was completed. He concluded that the University had overpaid Calvary 74,000 marks! Rust's accounting was simple. He looked at the original 1891 agreement calling for the delivery of 280,000 volumes and 120,000 dissertations and found that there was a shortage of 81.4 per cent for volumes and 67.5 per cent for dissertations. It was time for the lawyers. In response to a notice (doc) from Calvary's attorney that he would be compelled to "use further means," the University's attorney responded (doc) that "the commencement of legal proceedings by Messrs. Calvary & Co. will furnish the University with the desired opportunity to bring forward its large counter claim."
Harper returned to Europe in 1898 and saw Bloch. This resulted in a
long, heavily underscored letter
(doc) from Bloch once again summarizing the events of the past seven years. Rust sent the letter to
Noble B. Judah, the University's attorney, who commented (doc):
I feel very much complimented with your suggestion that I could possibly successfully cope with the poetry and idiom of the communication. Being only an ordinary individual much held down to the grinding unpoetic side of things, I beg leave to submit to you herewith a form of letter for Dr. Harper. I do not pretend that it is at all equal to the occasion, though I am sure it in substance represents what will be in your mind as a proper answer to the business part of the communication.
The transaction was brought to a conclusion with this exchange. Harper's Presidential Reportfor 1897-98 stated in its Library statistics that the Berlin Collection contained 175,000 volumes. The next year's Report modified this figure by adding "not entirely delivered." But there would be no further books from Calvary. How "175,000" was contrived is beyond recall.
As a final note to this episode, Zella Allen Dixson received a
letter (doc) in 1901 from A. B. Meyer,
Director of the Königliches Zoologisches und Anthropologisch-Ethnographisches Museum of
Dresden. He asked how much the University had paid for the Calvary books. The question was
referred to Harper, who responded (doc) by saying: "There have been some questions in dispute and I do
not think it is possible at present to make a definite statement."
During the next half century the books from Unter den Linden 17 were slowly absorbed into the Library's collections. Most were identified by a simple, unadorned bookplate naming the nine donors, which remains the sole identification of the books to this day. Notice was given early that books "not yet distributed are held in trust for the advantage of all divisions of the Library without individual preference of one over the other." The temporary library-gymnasium bulged with shelves doing double duty and the accumulation of "unclassified masses." The assistant librarian reminded anyone who would listen that "there is much accessioning of books in special collections urgently needing to be done." The books from Calvary had not produced the library building Harper had hoped for, and it was only with his death in 1906, in his fiftieth year, that plans began to construct a library that would be his memorial.
But the collection did yield other results. The University Library became the largest in the city, and by 1896 it was the second-largest university collection in the United States with 340,000 volumes, the Berlin Collection contributing its uncertain but dominant share. This rapidly achieved status was used by Harper to lure faculty and also to give a sense of stability to the University. It was another reminder that the University was beginning on a monumental scale, and that it had assumed monumental commitments to the future. In the meanwhile, the Berlin books overwhelmed a struggling library staff that had to contend with a research faculty which the books themselves had helped create. It also cooled any urge to make similar en bloc acquisitions for two decades, until the opening of the Harper Memorial Library gave impetus as well as space for the growth of the collections.
A single, officially sanctioned number was never assigned to the Berlin Collection. The numbers varied depending on the occasion and the audience for whom they were intended. "One of the largest book deals ever made" was soon part of library mythology, and it became convenient to round off the numbers at a quarter of a million books and manuscripts, and occasionally more. But the books which arrived in Chicago during the summer of 1892 were the only ones which the University received under the contract signed by Harper and Heinrich Simon, and these were carefully recorded as being 57,630 volumes and 39,020 dissertations. By the time both parties had become completely estranged, the University had paid Calvary 106,000 marks, or approximately $28,382 including shipment and other incidental costs.
The books themselves have outlasted the foibles of the participants, becoming the foundation for the grander aspirations of the Library and the University. The combination of great treasures and row upon row of standard texts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries placed the University Library in the noble company of the great seats of European learning. The rigor with which the University pursued the past made it an immediate part of the working "apparatus" of the institution. Ironically, many of the collections' greatest treasures, the Lafreri Speculum and Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux, for example, were part of the Library's general collections until recently. Decades later, when Harper's purchase was dimly remembered, these, and multitudes of other books, were being rediscovered.
The broad pattern of the collection's content was reasonably presented in the early outlines. The manuscripts were relatively small in number but they were the foundation of the University's later collection. Many came from the library of the marquis of Taccone and not from Pope Pius VII's library as touted; the autograph letters of Raphael turned out to be spurious. The Library's collection of incunabula also had its beginning with the Berlin Collection, but the real impact came from books printed during the later Renaissance and into the eighteenth century. In one stroke, as it were, the Library had books on many subjects, some of which were not to become academically favored for decades to come. The history of science and technology is an example. In more traditional subjects such as palaeography and classical philology, there was not only an immediate scholarly audience at the founding of the University, but both subjects became deeply rooted in the University and part of the Library's holdings. The topography and physical remains of ancient monuments of Rome was another theme that ran through the collection and that, in turn, stimulated further development by the Library. The richness of the journals and proceedings of the European academies placed the University in immediate touch with the tradition of European erudition and research.
There is a certain profundity to the books in the Berlin Collection. Many are weighty tomes, dense with learning and fact. Such books permit discoveries only by those who are disciplined and well prepared. An eighteenth-century edition of Reineke de Vos is a charming and occasional reminder of the lighter side of the collection. For those not prepared to make such discoveries or whose interests are elsewhere, the books are a reminder of a civilized tradition of learning and intellectual curiosity which is one of our glories and obligations.
Robert Rosenthal
April, 1979
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