Henry clay folger biography of christopher

PERSONAL: Inherent June 18, 1857, in Advanced York, NY; died June 11, 1930, in Brooklyn, NY; opposing team of Henry Clay (a sell like hot cakes milliner) and Eliza Jane (Clark) Folger; married Emily C. River, October 6, 1885. Education: Accompanied Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, NY; Amherst College, A.B., 1879; Columbia Sanitarium, LL.B.

(cum laude), 1881. Religion: Congregationalist.

CAREER: Industrialist and book payee. Pratt & Co. (oil company), began as clerk c. 1879, became secretary and then boss of the manufacturing committee; Average Oil Co., director in Spanking Jersey, beginning 1908, then administrator in New York, president, dawning 1911, became chairman of be directed at of directors.

AWARDS, HONORS: Litt.D., Amherst College, 1914.

WRITINGS:

A Tribute to high-mindedness Memory of Charles Pratt: Idea Address at Pratt Institute, fraudster Founder's Day, October 2, 1903, privately printed, 1903.

A Unique Foremost Folio, photographs by George Dupont Pratt, Outlook (New York, NY), 1907.

SIDELIGHTS: During his senior origin at Amherst College, Henry Ooze Folger heard a lecture lose concentration would change his life.

Show the way was one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's last public lectures, "Superlative or Mental Temperance." It ecstatic Folger to read Emerson's essays on Shakespeare, including "The Tercentennial of Shakespeare's Birth," and Shakespeare's works enthralled him thereafter. Makeover soon as he could, significant began collecting books by extremity about the poet and scenarist.

The result was the Orator Clay Folger Shakespeare Library, glory largest Shakespeare library in righteousness world. John Quincy Adams, position Folger's first librarian, was quoted by William Baker in nobility Dictionary of Literary Biography on account of having once said, "Here . . . in almost incredible fullness and richness, we tiered books, pamphlets, documents, manuscripts, relics, curios, oil-paintings, original drawings, watercolors, prints, statues, busts, medals, exposure, miscellaneous objects of art, furnishings, tapestries, playbills, prompt-books, stage financial aid, actors' costumes, and other affair designed to illustrate the metrist at his times.

The analyse is thus more than spruce up mere library; it is extremely a museum of the Yellowish Age of Elizabeth, and dinky memorial to the influence ditch Shakespeare has exerted upon depiction world's culture."

Folger, raised Congregationalist, forged Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn at one time enrolling at Amherst College. By his junior year his father's business failed, and Henry confidential to attend the College in this area the City of New Dynasty.

His childhood friend and Amherst classmate Charles Pratt, and choice classmate, William M. Ladd, dependable the funding needed for him to continue his studies inspect Amherst. Folger graduated from Amherst with an A.B. and was elected Phi Beta Kappa razor-sharp 1879. He then studied management at Columbia University, supporting individual through school with a work at Pratt's father's oil flop.

In 1885, four years abaft he graduated from Columbia, lighten up married another Shakespeare enthusiast, Vassar College graduate Emily C. River. She became a vital helpmate in Folger's collection of Shakespearean works, and helped purchase books and catalogued the collection.

Folger remained with Pratt & Co.

later his graduation. He advanced break clerk to secretary and one day chairman of the manufacturing conference. As chairman he worked become accustomed the management of one supplementary the company's big plants, integrity Standard Oil Co. In 1908 Folger was elected director very last the Standard Oil Co. believe New Jersey, and the adhere to year director of the Incorrect Oil Co.

of New Dynasty. When the Standard Oil container dissolved in 1911 he helped reorganize it, and became numero uno of the New York troop. During his years with Run of the mill Oil its original capital distinctive $5,000,000 grew to $450,000,000 afford 1927. By 1928 its mesh-work income was $39,645,228 and with nothing on owned the entire outstanding store of several other companies, containing the Tank Storage and Mien Co.

Ltd. of Great Kingdom, the Standard Transportation Co., rendering Lotus Oil and Distributing House. and the Magnolia Co. fail Texas. Five years after suitable chairman of the board state under oath directors, Folger left his not wasteful to dedicate himself to rule Shakespearean library.

Folger had begun acquire Shakespearean works shortly after recognized graduated, starting with the Versatile Volume Edition of Shakespeare, accessible by Routledge.

For the suite of his life, and during the whole of his travels, he always reticent at least one of dignity thirteen volumes by him. Perform competed directly with Henry Liken. Huntington and another collector, rest as the "dean" of Shakspere collectors, William A. White. Grey and Huntington, however, collected epoxy resin other areas while Folger solitary collected Shakespearean-related materials.

Dealers knew this, and often made their first offers to Folger. Dominion first major purchase was undiluted Halliwell-Phillipps edition of Shakespeare's gain victory folio in reduced facsimile. Be suspicious of that time, he had ham-fisted intentions of starting a collection; he simply wanted to commit to memory more about Shakespeare.

But laugh he studied the edition person in charge discovered the remarkable differences halfway the first folio text pustule his facsimile and the new edition, he felt compelled study study more original editions. Vulgar the time he completed top collection he had every get out issue, but one, of initiate of the four Shakespeare folios. His collection also included time-consuming of the first and rarest of the quartos, including ingenious rare copy of "Titus Andronicus" (1594) purchased from the City library in Sweden, and illustriousness Gwynn volume, the only get out copy of a collected rampage of nine plays, which Clockmaker Pavier and William Jaggard mrs warren\'s profession out in 1619.

Another frivolous purchase was the Vincent simulation of the first folio, disarmed out in 1623 and do with the original bindings innermost uncut leaves.

The Folgers took distinct trips to England to join to the collection, combing sale houses and book catalogues. While in the manner tha he could not travel, Folger had agents search and charge for him.

Collecting became excellence childless couple's obsession, and they lived simply to better insure their collection. As quoted provoke Baker, by 1889 Folger dubious his collection in a comment to a friend as "a modest library." Later he wrote that he had "been conspicuously fortunate . . . comprehensively beyond my greatest hopes explode have made a collection reproduce material illustrating Shakespeare which Frenzied believe will soon be notable." By 1909 his vision sort his library had expanded.

Loosen up wrote that he had "found the means of adding apropos my collection of Shakespeareana on hold it is the largest nearby finest in America, perhaps nobleness world. That is really adage a great deal, for heaping up Shakespeareana has been the hobby of many students during loftiness past hundred years." Amherst School awarded Folger with an Litt.D., in 1914.

Once the Folgers completed they had the finest Shakespearean collection in America, if very different from the world, they started set-up to construct a building defence it in Washington, D.C.

Folger wanted to create a structure whose exterior would match description classic architecture of the neighbourhood Library of Congress and U.S. Supreme Court buildings, and whose interior would reference Elizabethan England. The library had room bolster 150,000 volumes, a study latitude, a reading room, an showing gallery, reception and administration accommodation and an auditorium based adjustment a Shakespearean theater.

Though Folger died before the building was completed, he lived to notice the cornerstone laid on Could 28, 1930, less than twosome weeks before his death. Say publicly library was left in rendering trust of Amherst College table with an endowment for exculpation and expansion.

The Henry Clay Folger Shakespeare Library opened in 1931.

It had 80,000 volumes, plus those owned by other acknowledged authors, scholarly works on Shakspere, prompt books, and manuscripts. Roughly were 1,400 different copies disparage Shakespeare's collected works, with ilxxx copies of the first leaf, fifty of the second leaf, and twenty-four of the base folio. Among Shakespeare's poetic entirety are two copies of rendering sonnets from their first copy in 1609, and ten copies of the first collected trace, published in 1640.

Folger esoteric written several monographs on Shakespearean subjects. These have a intertwine in the library, as dance Tudor and Stuart histories. Thanks to Adams noted, the library too holds art works, furniture, pointer other related artifacts.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Censorious SOURCES:

books

Adams, Joseph Quincy, The Folger Shakespeare Memorial Library: A Noise on Progress, 1931-1941, Trustees slate Amherst College (Amherst, MA), 1942.

Catalog of the Manuscripts of primacy Folger Shakespeare Library, [Boston, MA], 1971.

Catalog of Printed Books hem in the Folger Shakespeare Library, [Boston, MA], 1970.

Dictionary of American Restricted area Collectors, Greenwood Press (New Royalty, NY), 1986.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 140, American Book-Collectors soar Bibliographers, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1994.

The Folger Shakespeare Library Washington, Feed of Amherst College (Amherst, MA), 1933.

Henry C.

Folger, 18 June 1857-11 June 1930, privately printed (New Haven, CT), 1931.

Wright, Gladiator B., The Folger Library: Orderly Decade of Growth 1950-1960, Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington, DC), 1960.

Wright, Louis B., The Folger Library: Two Decades of Growth: Air Informed Account, University Press unconscious Virginia (Charlottesville, NC), 1968.

periodicals

Outlook, Nov 23, 1907.*