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A M E R I C A N � A N T I Q U A R I A N � S O C I E T Y

Robert C. BaronLecture Fund

Robert C. Baron has served asChairman of the American

Antiquarian Society’s Council withdedication, creativity, and boundlessenergy for the decade betweenOctober 1993 and October 2003.While he has made contributions invirtually every aspect of the Society’smany activities, his tenure has beenmarked particularly by his stronglyheld conviction that this should be atruly national and international insti-tution. In this country Bob and hiswife Charlotte led a group of mem-bers and friends to spring meetingsin venues ranging from their homebase in Denver to New Orleans, San

Lapides ElectedChairman of AASCouncil

Julian L. Lapides, a lawyer, formerMaryland State Senator, and col-

lector of children’s books, has beenelected Chairman of the AASCouncil. He succeeds Robert C.Baron of Denver, Colorado, remainsas Chairman of the AAS capital cam-paign, which reached its overall goalof $12 million in August and willcontinue through December 31.

Jack Lapides was elected tomembership in 1981 and joined theCouncil in 1983. He has held vari-ous offices of the Council, mostrecently Vice-Chairman, and heserves on the capital campaign com-

Samuel Guldins gewesenen Predigers in den Drey Haupt-Kirchen zu BernIn der Schweitz sein unpartheyisches Zeugnuss ueber die neue Vereinigungaller Religions-Partheyen in Pensylvanien..., printed by Christoph Saur inGermantown PA, 1744. Gift of Mrs. Donne Z. Hinke, 2003.

This little book is one of theacquisition highlights of the past

year. Clarence Brigham, the head ofAAS for most of the first half of the20th century, could not afford to buyit in 1940 when The ReverendWilliam J. Hinke offered it to AAS for“not less than $50.” Six years later,Mr. Brigham tried unsuccessfully tobuy it. Mr. Brigham’s first letter toReverend Hinke had been kept in thebook, and his daughter-in-law, Mrs.Donne Z. Hinke of Virginia, identi-fied us on the basis on that letter andrecently wrote offering the book to

us. Sixty-three years after Mr.Brigham had to turn the book down,it has come to the Society as a gift.This edition was previously known byonly one copy in a library inStuttgart, Germany. There is somespeculation that it actually was print-ed in Germany, because the typo-graphic ornaments do not match anyemployed by Saur in his other works,although they do mimic his style.

The historical context for thebook is interesting. In Copenhagen in1731, Nicolaus von Zinzendorf met aconverted slave from the West Indies.

The story of the slave’s plight andthat of his people moved Count vonZinzendorf, who brought him into hisMoravian community on his estate inGermany. Two men from that com-munity were sent to the island of St.Thomas to preach the gospel. TheMoravian mission was one of the firstlarge-scale Protestant missionaryefforts, and it expanded rapidly toAfrica, America, and Russia. Countvon Zinzendorf was in Pennsylvaniain 1741 and 1742. He helped estab-lish the town of Bethlehem, and hisdaughter organized the school that

would become Moravian College. Hisinterest in the colonies spurred him towork among the Native Americantribes, and he traveled three timesinto the wilderness to meet represen-tatives of the nations. InPennsylvania, he embarked on a pro-ject to unite all the German sects andchurches into a single synod. Thisengendered an intense controversyand was not successful. The German-town printer Christoph Saur pub-lished works on both sides of the dis-pute. This book argues against Countvon Zinzensdorf’s ecumenical plan.

continued page 3continued page 3

Robert Baron (Right) congratulates Jack Lapides on his election as the new Chairman of

the AAS Council.

Francisco, and Boston, in the year ofIsaiah Thomas’s 250th birthday. Healso presided over the first interna-tional meeting of AAS at the newBritish Library in April 1998. Whenhe assumed the chairmanship, Baronwrote in ALMANAC, “We haveinherited a great institution. It is ourresponsibility to prepare it for thetwenty-first century, passing it on tothe next generation with our found-ing mission intact.” He has now car-ried the Society into the new centuryand, with the completion of the capi-tal campaign, leaves the institutionwith strengthened capacity to collect,preserve, and make the collectionsaccessible to readers.

Upon the retirement of thisremarkable leader, Bob’s friends andadmirers have made two sorts ofgifts to honor his tenure. His fellowCouncilors have raised a fund tounderwrite special projects withinthe cataloging department of thelibrary, recognizing that the catalogrepresents the portal to AAS’sunmatched holdings. In addition,former members of the Council andfriends, who have traveled with Bob

mittee and the committee for mem-bership. Jack and his wife Linda,who was elected to membership in1989, are bibliophilic companions inthe truest sense. Between Linda’senergetically astute collecting skillsand Jack’s enthusiastic support, theLapides have amassed a collectionrich in early-nineteenth-centuryBaltimore picture books, elusiveearly puzzles, and visually arrestingstorybooks chronicling the misadven-tures of the shaggy-haired SlovenlyPeter. Together they have created oneof the most important private collec-tions of early American children’s lit-erature anywhere.

A native of Baltimore, whosegreat grandfather was a foundingmember of the Moses Montefiorecongregation in the city, Jack hasbeen very active in the community,particularly in groups dedicated topreservation of the city’s heritageand its natural resources. He attend-ed Baltimore public schools, graduat-ed from Towson State University,and took his law degree from theUniversity of Maryland. When heleft the Maryland State Senate after

New Members The following were elected at the spring meeting in October 2003

Gary Bunker Orem, Utah

Professor emeritus of psychology atBrigham Young University. Bunker isan expert in social psychology and innineteenth-century popular art. Hisnewest book, From Railsplitter to

Icon: Lincoln’s Illustrated Periodical

Profile, 1860-1865, received theEwell L. Newman Book Award fromthe American Historical PrintCollector Society.

Alice Fahs Irvine, California

Associate professor of history,University of California, Irvine. Ms.Fahs, who has twice held fellowshipsat AAS, is the author of The

Imagined Civil War: Popular

Literature of the North and South,

1861 – 1865.

Laurel K. Gabel South Yarmouth, Massachusetts

Head of research for the Associationof Gravestone Studies and author ofnumerous books and articles onearly American gravestone art andcarvers. For her pioneering work inthe field, the Association awardedher its highest honor, the HarrietteMerrifield Forbes award.

Phillip GouldProvidence, Rhode Island

Professor of English and director ofundergraduate studies at BrownUniversity and past president, Societyof Early Americanists. His newbook, Barbaric Traffic: Commerce

and Antislavery in the Eighteenth-

Century Atlantic World, has justappeared from Harvard UniversityPress.

Pamela K. HarerSan Bernardino, California

Collector and researcher of historicalchildren’s literature. With her hus-band, Dr. W. Benson Harer, Jr., shealso shares a collecting interest inEgyptian antiquities, from the pre-dynastic to the Coptic.

David KahnHartford, Connecticut

Executive Director of theConnecticut Historical Society andformer director of the BrooklynHistorical Society. At theConnecticut Historical Society, hehas directed the development of newinteractive exhibits to reach out tofamilies and non-traditional audi-ences and is planning a newConnecticut History Center.

Lucia Z. KnolesWorcester, Massachusetts

Professor of English at AssumptionCollege and former AAS fellow.Professor Knoles is an innovativeteacher, using technology to promotehands-on research in the classroom.She and her students have madeextensive use of AAS collections inthe creation of several web-basedcollections, including “The Lyceum:A Resource for the Study ofAmerican Literature, History andCulture.”

Thomas G. KnolesWorcester, Massachusetts

Curator of manuscripts and archivesat the American Antiquarian Society.As keeper of the AAS archives,Knoles serves as an in-house expert

on the history of the Society, but isalso playing an active role in theshaping of the institution’s future aschairman of the TechnologyCommittee. In their recent work, InUsum Pupillorum: Student

Transcribed Texts at Harvard before

1740, Tom and Lucia Knolesdescribe a Harvard education duringthe college’s first century, when manyof the texts used in instruction weretransmitted in manuscript form.

Thomas P. McDermottWellesley, Massachusetts

Former managing partner of Ernstand Young New England andManaging Partner for the firm’s SouthAmerica Region. Mr. McDermott hasbeen active on numerous volunteercommittees and boards and takes anactive interest in the managementand support of not-for-profit organi-zations. He is executive in residenceat the Institute for Latin AmericanBusiness at Babson College.

James O’GormanWellesley, Massachusetts

The Grace Slack McNeil Professor ofHistory of American Art at WellesleyCollege. In 1998 he received TheHenry Russell Hitchcock Prize fromthe Victorian Society in America andthe Annual Book Award of theSociety for the Preservation of NewEngland Antiquities for his Living

Architecture: A Biography of

H.H.Richardson.

Frederick A. Parker, Jr.New York, New York

An investor and outside director ofan asset management company. Mr.Parker is past Governor of theSociety of Colonial Wars, pastPresident of the New EnglandSociety, and serves on the board ofthe Sons of the American Revolutionas well as several other historical andpatriotic organizations.

Sally PierceBoston, Massachusetts

Curator of Prints and Photographs atthe Boston Athenaeum. For the pasttwenty-five years, she has workedwith the Athenaeum’s distinguishedcollection of nineteenth-century lith-ographs, engravings and pho-tographs. The interpretation andexhibition of this collection hasresulted in numerous publications,including Early American

Lithography: Images to 1830 (withCatharina Slautterback and GeorgiaB. Barnhill).

Richard RabinowitzBrooklyn, New York

President of the Brooklyn-basedAmerican History Workshop, a con-sulting group he founded in 1980 tobring together historians, scholars,curators, filmmakers, artists, design-ers, and architects to find new waysof engaging citizens with history. Hiswritings on public history have beenwidely published and he is a frequentpresenter at national conferences.

J.Thomas TouchtonTampa, Florida

Managing Partner of The Witt-Touchton Company (private invest-ment partnership). Mr. Touchton isan important collector of earlyFlorida materials, a Grolier Club

member, a supporter of the Libraryof Congress and the NewberryLibrary, and president of the theTampa Bay History Center.

Albert J. von FrankPullman, Washington

Professor of English, WashingtonState University. His most recentpublication, The Trials of Anthony

Burns: Freedom and Slavery in

Emerson’s Boston (Harvard, 1998),was researched in part at AAS,where he held a Peterson Fellowship.He is editor of ESQ: A Journal of

the American Renaissance

Celeste WalkerBoston, Massachusetts

Associate Editor, Adams Papers. Ms.Walker has been directly involvedwith the publication of more thanfifteen volumes of the series. Ms.Walker is Secretary of the Associationfor Documentary Editing.

Altina WallerStorrs, Connecticut

Professor and Chair of History,University of Connecticut, specializingin nineteenth-century U.S. social, fam-ily, and community history. Herbooks include Feud: Hatfields,

McCoys and Social Change in

Appalachia, 1860-1900 (UNC, 1988)and Reverend Beecher and Mrs.

Tilton: Sex and Class in Victorian

America (UMass, 1982).

Peter WaltherRichfield Springs, New York

Collector of nineteenth-century edi-tions of books written by William T.Adams, better known as “OliverOptic” (1822-1897). Mr. Walther’sresearch at AAS has included locat-ing fiction written by Adams for theserial press. His collection includesfirst editions of Optic juvenile novelsannotated by William T. Adams—books that were acquired from Mr.Adams’ descendants.

Michael WestPittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Professor of English at the Universityof Pittsburgh. His book Transcenden-

tal Wordplay: America’s Romantic

Punsters and the Search for the

Language of Nature won Phi BetaKappa’s Christian Gauss Award.

Susan B.WoodburyWorcester, Massachusetts

A civic leader in Worcester. Mrs.Woodbury is currently chair of theGeorge I. Alden Trust, which sup-ports higher education institutionsthroughout the Northeast, as well as educational organizations inWorcester.

Fellows:Artist fellow (1995) Jeffrey Hatcherwrote the book for the new musical“Never Gonna Dance,” which willopen on Broadway on December 4 atthe Broadhurst Theater. The show isbased on the 1936 RKO film “SwingTime.” Artist fellow (1998)Christopher Cokinos was one of tenrecipients of the 2003 WhitingWriters’ Award.

Members:The Massachusetts Historical

Society has awarded the John F.Kennedy Medal for distinguished ser-vice to the cause of history to AlfredD. Chandler, Jr. Professor Chandler’sThe Visible Hand: The Managerial

Revolution in American Industry wona Pulitzer Prize in 1978. ElizabethFox-Genovese is one of nine newmembers of the National Council onthe Humanities confirmed earlier thisyear by the U.S. Senate, and inNovember she was awarded theNational Humanities Medal.Elizabeth McHenry, who won thisyear’s SHARP Book Prize, has alsoreceived the Hurston/Wright LegacyAward for her book, Forgotten

Readers: Recovering the Lost

History of African American Literary

Societies (Duke University Press).Deanna Marcum has been appoint-ed Associate Librarian for LibraryServices at the Library of Congress.She had served as the President ofthe Council on Library andInformation Resources since 1997.John T. Noonan, senior judge of theU.S. Court of Appeals for the NinthCircuit, is the first holder of the JohnKluge Chair in American Law andGovernance at the Library ofCongress. In October, Jules D.Prown, gave the inaugural WyethLecture in American art at theNational Gallery of Art’s Center forAdvanced Study in the Visual Arts.Marquette University has announcedthat the archives reading room willbe named for Francis Paul Prucha,S.J. In addition to being a leadingexpert on government policy towardNative Americans and a legendaryteacher, Father Prucha assisted indeveloping Marquette UniversityLibraries’ vast research collectiondocumenting Catholicism amongNative Americans and Catholic socialactivism.

Member and Fellow Notes

Do We Have Your E-Mail?

Many notices of events, links to new exhibits on the website, and other bulletins from the Society are sent by e-mail. If we do not have your e-mail address, and you would like to receive timely notices,please send a message with your e-mail address to: aas@mwa.org.

Farber Gravestone Collection

Aunique collection of historic gravestones is now available through the AASwebsite: americanantiquarian.org. More than 13,500 images, documenting

the sculpture of more than 9,000 mostly pre-1800 gravestones, comprise theFarber Gravestone Collection. The American Antiquarian Society converted thephotographic collection to digital form and with help from David Rumsey’sCartography Associates, provides free public access online.

The Farber Gravestone Collection reflects the work of the late Daniel Farber|of Worcester, Massachusetts, and his wife, Jessie Lie Farber, who photographedhistoric gravestones for more than 20 years. Others whose work is incorporatedinto the collection include Harriette Merrifield Forbes, who worked in the 1920smainly in Massachusetts, and Dr. Ernest Caulfield, who documented Connecticutgrave markers.

These gravestones, America’s earliest form of sculpture, are a significant formsof artistic expression as well as valuable records of biographical information.

In a description she wrote of the collection, Jessie Lie Farber said the digitalimages of the gravestones show “ the sternness of the Puritan seventeenth century,replaced by the ‘Age of Reason’ of the eighteenth century, and that in turnreplaced by the nineteenth-century’s extravagance, love of nature, and free expression of sentiment. The twentieth century, punctuated by two world wars|and a depression, is by comparison secular, straightforward and business-like.”

Map collector David Rumsey, owner of Cartography Associates and a memberof the AAS Council, says the unique nature and rich history contained within thecollection inspired him to donate the resources needed to bring it to the Internet.Rumsey’s own historic map collection is available for free public review online, and he has supported Internet access to other important cultural heritage resources,including a collection of historic Japanese maps from the East Asian Library atBerkeley. “ In many ways the grave markers are similar to maps because they com-bine historical events and artistic expression, and they also embody location becausethey are about places,” Rumsey says of his fascination with the collection.

Lapidius continued from page one

thirty-two years of public service,Jack returned to school and took aMaster of Liberal Arts degree fromthe Johns Hopkins University. Hemaintains a small, private law prac-tice with an emphasis on wills, estatesand†trusts, and he and Linda indulgetheir avocation of collecting children’sbooks by traveling to book fairs andvisiting dealers whenever possible.Jack says, “Linda sparked my interestin collecting early American children’sbooks, and I have joined her in col-lecting as a partner, chauffeur, andfront man. She is the true collectorand scholar of the team.” Lindaspoke at the first Collectors’Roundtable, organized by NancyBurkett and now a popular part ofevery Annual Meeting.

When Jack joined the Council in1983, John Jeppson was chairman(called President at the time) and theSociety was in the early stages of acapital campaign for acquisitions,conservation, and personnel. Jack andLinda made a gift to establish theirbook fund, and Jack has pitched inon projects touching virtually everyaspect of the institution since then,including service as Secretary forForeign Correspondence! By talent,sympathies, and experience Julian L.

Baron Lecture Fund from page one

to various of the spring meetings,have created a permanent endowedfund to underwrite a public lectureseries in his honor. The annualRobert C. Baron Lecture will begiven by an AAS member who haswon a major prize or similar recogni-tion (Pulitzer or Bancroft prize,National Book Award or MacArthurfellowship, for example). The lecturewill offer the speaker the opportuni-ty to reflect on an honored work orbody of work at least five years afterthe fact and, with the benefit ofhindsight, to put it in current con-text, or even to imagine a newapproach or different conclusion.

In October 2004, the inauguralRobert C. Baron Lecture will bedelivered by Bernard Bailyn, a mem-ber of AAS since 1960, who servedon the Council from 1969 to 1978and as Vice-President for most of histenure. He will talk on his NationalBook Award-winning study TheOrdeal of Thomas Hutchinson thirtyyears after it was published in 1974.

$12 Million Capital Campaign Reaches Goal

On the last day of July, Campaign Committee Chairman Bob Baron madean additional pledge of $4,320 to bring the Campaign to the $12 mil-

lion total. Just a few weeks later, we received a grant of $250,000 from theGeorge I. Alden Trust for endowment to help underwrite the cost of aid andservices given to fellows in residence at the library. The campaign total stoodat $12,272,000 as of the date of the Annual Meeting on October 17.

The purpose of the campaign is to strengthen the institution’s capacity tocarry out its basic mission: “to collect, preserve, and make available materialsprinted in America before 1877.” Phase I of the Campaign was to raise $8million for a new state-of-the-art book stack wing to protect and preserve thecollections and provide room for growth. We have exceeded the campaigngoal and are closing in on raising the full amount expended on the project.Costs of the new building and renovations to the existing stacks totaled $8.7million; and we have raised $8.4 million. A Challenge Grant of $800,000from the Kresge Foundation was instrumental in spurring us to reach andexceed the goal by August 31, 2002.

Phase II was for $2.5 million in endowment to underwrite acquisition ofcollections materials. We have gifts and pledges totaling almost $3 million,which has increased the acquisitions endowment by fifty percent and doubledthe number of individual book funds held by the library. On July 31, we suc-cessfully claimed a Challenge Grant of $450,000 from the NationalEndowment for the Humanities for acquisitions endowment.

The final phase of the campaign has a goal of $1.5 million of endowmentfor outreach programs and fellowships or for unrestricted support of theSociety. With two months to go in the campaign, we had gifts and pledgestotaling almost $1 million. About two-thirds of the members of the Societyhave made a special gift to the capital campaign, leaving about 250 memberswho have not yet made a campaign contribution. By December 31, we hopeto receive at least fifty gifts from new donors, bringing the participation rateto over seventy percent of the membership.

Lapides is well prepared to follow inthe footsteps of the leaders that havecome before him. (See the back pageof this issue for a related article onpast Presidents of the Society).

Annual Meeting

The 191st meeting of the American Antiquarian Society was held onOctober 24, and the highlight of the meeting was the election of Julian L.

(Jack) Lapides to succeed Robert C. Baron as Chairman of the Council. SidLapidus (different spelling and no relation) of New York was elected vice chair-man, and Lawrence Abramoff, Worcester bookseller and publisher, was electedas a new member of the Council. AAS Treasurer James Donnelly presented thegood news that the endowment had grown by fifteen percent to just over $42million, after three years of steady declines. Membership Committee ChairmanCheryl Hurley presented a slate of twenty new member candidates, who wereelected, and President Ellen Dunlap gave the report of the Council.

The weekend of activities that surround the annual meeting started on Fridaymorning with the first ever new-members orientation. At lunch members met thevisiting research fellows and learned of their research projects. A CollectorsRoundtable before the business meeting featured Charles B. Wood, a collector ofbooks on salmon fishing; Wayne Franklin, a biographer of James Fenimore Cooperand collector of Cooper editions and related materials; and Robert Bradbury, acollector of miniature books—all smaller than a dollar bill folded in half.

On Saturday, participants explored various ways in which history is told. Apoet, a book artist, a painter, a non-fiction writer, a dancer-choreographer, anda writer who is creating an online museum of disabilities—all former AAS cre-ative artists fellowship holders, reflected on how their residency at AAS hadshaped their art. A visit to Old Sturbridge Village with a talk by its presidentBeverly Sheppard introduced the challenges and rewards of a living historymuseum. Finally, AAS member Clay Jenkinson brought history to life with hisportrayal of Meriwether Lewis in Antiquarian Hall.

The spring meeting will be in Pittsburgh, April 15-18, and the 2004 annualmeeting on Friday October 22, with special events surrounding it. Please markyour calendars.

Greg Nobles of Georgia Tech presented this year’s James Russell Wiggins Lecture on

Aububon’s marketing of his Birds or America. Nobles (left) chats with former Wiggins

Lecturer Robert Gross.

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AAS HERITAGEAt this fall’s Annual Meeting Julian L. Lapides became the 22nd leader

elected by the Society’s members. The position, now called Chairman of theCouncil, was formerly President, and ALMANAC here presents thumbnail sketch-es of the distinguished first eleven presidents.

1812-31 Isaiah Thomas. Thomas, of course, was the founder of the Society, andhis collections remain the heart of the library. He contributed the property andthe funds for the first Antiquarian Hall and did everything for the institution,including, as noted in the following entry in his diary of 1822, when Thomaswas age 74: “Cut the grass in the orchard back of the garden, and back of theA.A. Library.”

1831-41 Thomas Lindall Winthrop. A successful merchant and politician,Winthrop served as a state senator and as lieutenant governor of Massachu-setts. He was a dedicated antiquarian and is the only person ever to serve asPresident of AAS and of the Massachusetts Historical Society at the same time.

1841-53 Edward Everett. Clergyman, professor of classics, university administra-tor politician, diplomat, and orator, Everett was elected to Congress for fiveterms, was appointed Envoy to Great Britain, served as President of Harvard,and was appointed Secretary of State to fill the vacancy caused when fellowAAS member Daniel Webster died. He has the misfortune to be rememberedprimarily for giving the main speech at the dedication of the NationalCemetery at Gettysburg before President Lincoln made his brief remarks.

1853-54 John Davis. A Whig politician, Davis was elected to Congress for fiveterms, served one term in the Senate, and was elected governor ofMassachusetts twice. He was born in Northborough, Massachusetts, graduat-ed with honors from Yale, practiced law in Worcester, and was married to thesister of historian and AAS member George Bancroft.

1854-84 Stephen Salisbury II. In addition to being a very successful merchantand one of the wealthiest men in central Massachusetts, Salisbury was anamateur historian and archaeologist, who published several articles inProceedings. He was a generous philanthropist who supported many nonprof-it institutions and donated the property and the funds to build the second,more spacious Antiquarian Hall at Lincoln Square.

1884-87 George Frisbie Hoar. A native of Concord and graduate of HarvardCollege and Law School, Hoar practiced law in Worcester and began a politi-cal career that spanned more than fifty years when he was elected to the statehouse of representatives in 1852. In 1876 during his fourth term in the U.S.Congress, he was selected as one of the Republican members of the Electoral

Commission that decided the contested election of 1876 in favor ofRutherford B. Hayes (who was elected a member of AAS in 1890). Hoarserved in the U.S. Senate from 1877 until his death in September 1904.

1887-1905 Stephen Salisbury III. A businessman and amateur archaeologist likehis father, Salisbury had a deep interest in Mexico and Central America. Heboth sponsored and participated in expeditions to the Yucatan. He served onthe AAS Council during the last ten years of his father’s presidency and suc-ceeded to that office three years after the elder Salisbury’s death. His generousbequest of $200,000 allowed the Society to build the current AntiquarianHall, located appropriately on Salisbury Street.

1905-1907 Edward Everett Hale. Nephew of Edward Everett, author, andUnitarian clergyman, Hale was born in Boston, graduated from Harvard, andserved as pastor in Worcester 1842-56. He served as pastor of the SouthCongregational Church in Boston 1856-1903 and as chaplain of the U. S.Senate from 1903 until his death in 1909. He is most famous today as theauthor of the short novel The Man Without a Country, which was first pub-lished anonymously in the Atlantic Monthly in 1863.

1907-1927 Waldo Lincoln. A fourth-generation member of AAS, Lincoln was thegreat-grandson of Levi Lincoln and the grandson Levi Lincoln, Jr., who wereboth charter members in 1812. Lincoln hired librarian Clarence S. Brigham in1908, and in partnership with him transformed the Society into a modernresearch library on a secure financial basis with a clear policy for building thecollections. He donated his personal collection of cook books to AAS, provid-ing the basis for what is one of the country’s finest collections of earlyAmerican books on cookery.

1927-29 Charles Lemuel Nichols. A prominent physician in Worcester with alarge practice in homeopathic medicine, Nichols was also a book collectorand bibliographer. He was particularly interested in books published inWorcester in the eighteenth century. His collections included almanacs, chil-dren’s books, and books on Massachusetts history.

1929-1933 Calvin Coolidge. While thirteen U.S. Presidents have been membersof AAS, only one has served as President of AAS. Coolidge is also the firstleader of AAS who was not from Boston or Worcester; he returned toPlymouth, Vermont, upon leaving Washington in January 1929 and was elect-ed President of AAS the following October. In his speech accepting leadershipof the Society, Coolidge said that he could again be called “Mr. President.”Coolidge also donated printed materials and manuscripts to the Society.