© The contents of this finding aid are the copyright of the University of Chicago Library
© 2016 University of Chicago Library
The collection is open for research.
When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Stewart, Donald E. Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
Donald Edwin Stewart was born on August 26, 1927, in Chicago, Illinois, to Charles and Lillian Stewart. He had two siblings, Lillian and James. As a young boy, Stewart grew up listening to the University of Chicago’s radio-broadcast roundtable discussions on the Great Books. With a well-developed interest in literature, he enrolled at the University in 1947. Prior to his entry into UC, Stewart had spent one year at Wright Junior College and one year in the Army as a teenager. While at the University, Stewart was a student of the Great Books program, officially created only a year prior in part by university president Robert Hutchins and Mortimer J. Adler.
Stewart graduated from UC in 1950. With his sights set on the editor-in-chief position of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Stewart applied for and was granted a position as an editorial assistant. Within a few years, he was promoted to assistant to the managing editor. While at Britannica, Stewart met Barbara Fletcher. The two married in 1955, and had two children, Judith and Jeanne. After moving to Evanston, Illinois, both Stewart and his wife became involved in the nuclear disarmament movement and protests against the Vietnam War.
By 1951, Stewart had been promoted to the editorial staff of the Britannica. In 1965, he became managing editor. One of Stewart’s lasting contributions to the Encyclopædia was the reorganization from the traditional A-Z format to the current Micropedia and Macropedia. Following the philosophy of Britannica chairman, Mortimer Adler, Stewart and the rest of the editorial staff at Britannica sought to expand the reach of the work beyond a mere reference book to a systematic categorization of omne scibile (everything knowable). The effort received mixed reviews, but the overhaul to the Micro- and Macropedia format has endured. Stewart later left Britannica in 1973.
In 1974, Stewart became the associate executive direction for publishing at the American Library Association. He retired in 1981, but continued to perform freelance work and consulting for various publishing companies. He died in his home in Evanston on June 8, 2005.
The Donald E. Stewart papers contain a wide range of material including internal memos, various correspondence, reports, articles, books, manuscripts, catalogues, oral history transcripts, magazine and newspaper clippings, and physical artifacts (such as a section of brick from the Mandel Building, the Britannica’s head offices).
The collection follows the alphabetical subject and name organization established by Stewart, who grouped together original and copied materials documenting the work of individual Britannica editors, contributors, and staff. Documents in the collection date from 1923 to 2001, but the bulk are from Stewart’s years at the Encyclopædia, from the 1950s into the 1970s. The final box in the collection contains the two artifacts, a medal which was crafted to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the company and a sample of brick from the building which housed the original offices of EB.