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The Annual Meeting of the Society
Preview of Providence
From primary sources on New World colonization to private tours of Newport's most lavish "cottages," there's something for everyone at the Manuscript Society's 2011 Annual Meeting, June 1-5 in Providence, Rhode Island. Meeting Chair Alfred Lemmon has arranged an agenda of engaging exhibits at exclusive venues.
Check-in for the Annual Meeting will take place at the Providence Renaissance Hotel Wednesday, June 1 (a week later than usual to avoid conflicting with Brown University's commencement). After an optional tour through the gardens along Benefit Street, members will gather for an evening reception and fun auction at the hotel.
Day one of tours will begin with an optional sunrise excursion to the river walk. But the true starting gate of the Annual Meeting is the John Hay Library. Society member Frank Williams, a retired judge, and library staff members will be our speakers. Home of Brown University's special collections, John Hay Library has 2.5 million items, from Babylonian clay tablets and Egyptian papyri to books, manuscripts, and ephemera. The holdings include 300,000 monographs, 725,000 manuscripts, and more than a million archival files and records. Among the more notable pieces are collections of American poetry and plays, the history of science, Lincolniana, and military history. Other collections within the library are devoted to the writings of authors such as Poe, Thoreau, Zola, and William Blake. On a lighter note, the library has Elizabeth Barrett Browning's tea set, Amy Lowell's cigars, and 5,000 toy soldiers.
After lunch at the Brown University Faculty Club, we will proceed to the John Carter Brown Library, a resource for scholars since 1846. The library houses an internationally recognized, continually expanding collection of primary sources related to North and South America history before 1825. The collection, normally open only scholars actively engaged in research, features 50,000 rare books printed before 1825 and 16,000 reference books printed after 1825. Complementing these holdings are extensive materials concerning European exploration and travel in the Western Hemisphere, including the first Latin edition of the Columbus letter of 1493. Other documents record the impression the New World made on European culture as well as the economic incentives for colonization, the character of the early settlements, and the response of native populations to the arrival of the Europeans.
Friday will find the Manuscript Society at the Rhode Island Historical Society Library. Founded in 1822, the RIS has extensive collections on the state's history, comprising some 5,000 manuscripts and 100,000 books and printed items. Manuscripts dating from 1635 represent labor and business records, church records, custom-house papers, ship logs, diaries, and more. Printed material extending as far back as 1589 include local, military, economic, social, political, and ecclesiastical histories; municipal and corporate publications; and the largest collection of Rhode Island newspapers and pre-1800 imprints. The collection is especially strong in local civic history, genealogy, environmental, and architectural history.
Next, we will pay a call to the John Brown House Museum, built in 1788 for its eponym, a businessman, politician, China Trade pioneer, and slave trader. From there, we will proceed to the Providence Athenaeum, an independent membership library opened in 1838.
For lunch we will adjourn to the Hope Club, one of America's oldest private social clubs, founded in 1875. In that rarefied atmosphere, we will hold our business meeting.
Our tour will resume in the afternoon at the Rhode Island School of Design's Fleet Library. The library's Dale Reading Room for Archives + Special Collections has nearly 12,000 important and rare printed books and periodicals dating from the sixteenth century. The material encompasses the fine arts, architecture, photography, decorative arts, and design. Holdings include the Gorham Manufacturing Company Design Library, the Lowthorpe Collection of Landscape Architecture, the Ordewer Collection of American Typography, the Stanley Moss Collection of Pop-up Books, and the Jack Lenor Larsen Collection of Textile Swatches. An Artists' Books Collection features archives of internationally known book artists Carol Barton, Ruth Laxson, and Angela Lorenz.
On Saturday we will travel to Newport, Rhode Island, for a tour of the Naval War College Museum and the Marble House--built between 1888 and 1892 for William K. Vanderbilt, grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. The house was a social landmark that helped spark the transformation of Newport from a relatively relaxed summer colony of wooden houses to the now legendary resort of opulent stone palaces.
Lunch will follow in another historic setting, the White Horse Tavern. Constructed in 1652 as a private residence, the building was converted to a tavern in 1673. Following lunch, we will visit the Redwood Library and Athenaeum, the nation's oldest lending library, dating from 1747. On our return to Providence, cocktails and dinner at the Renaissance Hotel will cap off the day. Our keynote speaker, Professor Linwood Fisher, will focus his talk on Native American manuscripts in the Colonial Era.
On Sunday, our bonus day, we'll return to Newport to visit the International Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum, housed in the historic Newport Casino. Our tour will take us to the Hall of Fame Information Research Center, opened in 2000. Then we'll take in another historic "cottage." The Elms was the summer residence of Pennsylvania coal magnate Edward Julius Berwind. Its design, by Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer, was modeled after d'Asnieres, an eighteenth-century chateau outside Paris. Constructed in the early twentieth century at a cost of $1.4 million, the house is complemented by Classical Revival gardens, recently restored.
After luncheon at The Elms, we travel to Touro Synagogue—the oldest synagogue in the United States. Our extra day in Newport will conclude with a visit to the Division Street 18th Century house which has been beautifully restored by Manuscript Society member Nick Scheetz.
For the Annual Meeting, the Manuscript Society has secured a rate of $169 plus tax from the Marriott Renaissance in Providence, a hotel with a storied history. Abandoned while still under construction in 1928, the neo-classical Masonic temple crumbled steadily until an $87 million renovation transformed it into a business hotel that opened in 2007.
To make hotel reservations, call 1-866-630-0704 toll free and ask for a booking with the Manuscript Society block of rooms. Or register online when you sign up for the Annual Meeting at http://www.manuscriptsociety.org. The cost of this year's event is $500. Reservations close April 15.
