By JOHN Y. COLE
The Library's Great Hall was the setting recently for an event that celebrated publication of a reference work devoted to biographies of prominent Americans.
On Jan. 8, Oxford University Press and the Center for the Book sponsored a reception for the publication of American National Biography. This 24-volume reference work, 10 years in the making and containing more than 17,000 biographies, was recently published by Oxford University Press under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies. The event coincided with the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA).
"The Library's Great Hall was the right place to mark the publication of this major reference set,"said Edward W. Barry, the president of Oxford University Press. "Surrounded by the great names of the past, we were delighted to present a publication that honors the personalities that have shaped the American present. These books are nothing less than a collective portrait of America's history."
The program for the evening included many distinguished scholars, administrators and foundation officials. Winston Tabb, associate librarian for Library Services, represented the Library. In addition to Mr. Barry, other speakers included John H. D'Arms, president of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS); Stanley N. Katz, president emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies; Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities Emeritus at City University of New York; Richard Ekman, secretary of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and William R. Ferris, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
In his welcoming remarks, Mr. Tabb invited AHA members to return to the Library the next day for an open house to visit seven reading rooms, hear several presentations about the collections and about doing research at the Library and to tour the restored 1897 Thomas Jefferson Building.
Individuals who shaped the Library of Congress are well represented in American National Biography, which contains biographies of people who died before 1996. In addition to the many essays about members of Congress, presidents and other public figures who contributed to the Library's development, there are approximately two dozen biographies of Library of Congress officials, staff members and benefactors. These include essays about seven Librarians of Congress: John J. Beckley, by Noble E. Cunningham Jr.; Archibald MacLeish, by David Barber; George Watterston, by Martin J. Manning; and Luther H. Evans, L. Quincy Mumford, Herbert Putnam and Ainsworth Rand Spofford, by this writer.
Other biographies of Library figures include: former Rare Book chief Frederick Goff, by Larry E. Sullivan; philanthropist Lessing J. Rosenwald, by Leonard Dinnerstein; author and book dealer Ephraim Deinard, by Jacob Kabakoff; former Music Division chiefs Oscar G.T. Sonneck and Carl Engel, by Christine Hoffman and Carol June Bradley, respectively; bibliographer Appleton Prentiss Clark Griffin, by John D. Knowlton; classifier Charles Martel, by this writer; cataloger J.C.M. Hanson, by Martin J. Manning; music philanthropist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, by S. Margaret
William McCarthy; ethnomusicologist Frances T. Densmore, by Elaine Keillor; archivist John C. Fitzpatrick, by Richard J. Cox; editor Worthington C. Ford, by Robert L. Gale; folklorist John Lomax, by J. Marshall Bevil; architect Paul J. Pelz, by Frances M. Brousseau; and illustrator and benefactor Joseph Pennell, by Patricia de Montfort.
American National Biography includes 17,450 biographies written by 6,100 scholars and writers. The general editors are John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, both from Columbia University. A 13-member editorial board helped design the project. Seventeen senior editors identified and shaped the substantive areas to be covered. The 24-volume work, which includes five indexes, sells for $2,500. For further information about the set itself and plans for an electronic version, contact Oxford University Press or Rentsch Associates, telephone (212) 397-7341, fax: (212) 397-7381, e-mail: rentschjw@aol.com.
Biography at the Library of Congress
In his remarks on Jan. 8, Mr. Tabb pointed out that the American National Biography's predecessor, the Dictionary of American Biography, published in 20 volumes between 1927 and 1936, was compiled in the 1920s in special offices at the Library of Congress set aside for the publication's editors and writers.
On Nov. 9-10, 1983, at the suggestion of Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin, the Center for the Book sponsored a symposium about the writing, publishing and influence of biography. More than 30 biographers joined with publishers, editors, librarians and readers to exchange ideas about what was then — and remains today — the most popular form of nonfiction in the United States. Most of the biographers had used the Library of Congress in their research, and many were working at the Library on new books at the time of the symposium.
In his welcoming remarks, Dr. Boorstin thanked participants "for the part you have played in teaching us and entertaining us with American lives and lives of the world's heroes"and "for helping us make this great library a forum of our culture and a forum for those who have helped enrich."
He also pointed out several of the connections between the Library of Congress and biography:
"This genre has an intimate and vivid relation to history, to the resources and making of the Library of Congress. Our three buildings — named after Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison — commemorate figures who have invited some of the best talents of American biographers. Our manuscript collection is largely a collection of biographic sources. Here on Capitol Hill, of all places, we are at a point of intersection of individual and collective biography, of the characters, hopes, ambitions and frustrations of individual men and women, and vectors of social purpose."
The symposium mixed short, formal presentations with much discussion and many stories and anecdotes about biographers and their subjects. The presentations were: "The Question of Biography,"by editor Samuel S. Vaughan; "The Art of Biography,"by Edmund Morris, whose The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979) had recently appeared; "George Washington in Print and on Television,"by Washington's biographer James Thomas Flexner, whose work was the basis for a forthcoming miniseries about Washington on CBS Television; and historian David McCullough, whose presentation was titled "Biography in the City of Washington. Mr. McCullough, like several other speakers, remarked on the Library of Congress's rich resources for biography, pointing in particular to two "marvelous"collections in the Manuscript Division that at the time were still "largely untapped": the James G. Blaine collection and the Agnes Ernst Meyer collection.
Today, biography is central to the Library's activities in yet another way: through the collections being digitized by the National Digital Library Program. Many of the collections have a biographical focus and several of these, such as the American "life history"interviews from the Federal Writers' Folklore Project of 1936-1940, are among the most popular LC collections on the Internet.
John Y. Cole is the director of the Center for the Book.
An illustrated 75-page booklet based on the symposium, Biography & Books, was published by the Library of Congress in 1986. It includes the presentations by Mr. Vaughan, Mr. Morris, Mr. Flexner and Mr. McCullough, plus summaries of discussions on "What Is Biography?" and "Biographers and Their Subjects," and a reading list on "The Art and Practice of Biography." Single copies are available at no cost from the Center for the Book as long as the supply lasts. Requests should be sent to the Center for the Book, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20540-4920. Requests should be in writing or via e-mail: cfbook@loc.gov.