RLIN ID No.
NYGG05-A10019
Main Entry
Hroswitha Club.
Title
Records and publications,
1944-1999.
20 record boxes (20 linear
feet)
Organization and
Arrangement
Organized
in four series: Series I Hroswitha Club Administration [boxes 1-2]; Series II
Hroswitha Club Activities [boxes 3-8]; Series III Correspondence [box 9];
Series IV Miscellaneous publications [boxes 10-20].
The
Hroswitha Club of women book collectors was founded in New York City in 1944
and took its name from a 10th century female German poet
(Hrotsvitha, ca. 935-ca. 975). Meetings were scheduled three to four times a
year during the winter months and held at the homes of members as well as at
major libraries and private collections, mainly in the northeast. In 1948, the Club founded its Sarah
Gildersleeve Fife Memorial Library (named after one of the Hroswitha Club’s
founders) consisting of books pertaining to Hroswitha, books by members and
books of general interest.
In
1965 the club issued its major publication, Hroswitha of Gandersheim: Her
Life, Times and Works. In 1990, the Hroswitha Club officially ‘simplified’
its activities in order to continue. The 200th meeting was held in
1994.
Deposited by Hroswitha Club
at Pierpont Morgan Library; donated to Grolier Club, 2004.
Records
include minutes of meetings (documenting the activities of the Hroswitha Club
from its founding in 1944 to 1995); catalogues of periodicals and books
acquired for the Sarah Gildersleeve Fife Memorial Library; obituaries of
members; photographs and various manuscript materials. The collection includes
manuscript material related to Hroswitha of Gandersheim: Her Life, Times and
Works by Anne Lyon Haight and others (1965), “Abbie Pope” (The Book
Collector, 1984) and Notes on woman printers in Colonial America and the
United States, 1639-1975 compiled by Marjorie Dana Barlow (1976). Also:
correspondence files, (1950-1989) regarding publications of the club, exhibits,
acceptances and resignations, elections of officers, and general club business.
Publications Note:
Publications Note:
Barlow, Marjorie Dana. Notes
on woman printers in Colonial America and the United States, 1639-1975 /
compiled by Marjorie Dana Barlow. New York : Hroswitha Club ;
Charlottesville, Va. : distributed by the University Press of Virginia, 1976
Publications Note:
Unpublished finding aid
including the list of miscellaneous publications available in repository.
Names
Barlow, Marjorie Dana.
Bartlett, Henrietta Collins,
1873-1963.
Fife, Sarah Gildersleeve.
Granniss, Ruth S. (Ruth
Shepard), 1872-1954.
Greene, Belle da Costa.
Haight, Anne Lyon.
Hrotsvitha,
ca. 935-ca. 975.
Hunt, Rachel McMasters
Miller, 1882-1963.
Marquand, Eleanor Cross,
1873-1950.
Hroswitha Club.
Subjects
Book clubs (Discussion
groups). New York. New York. 20th century.
Book clubs. United States. 20th
century.
Book collecting. Societies.
Book collecting. United
States. 20th century.
Private libraries New York
(State) New York
Women as book collectors.
United States. 20th century.
Societies and clubs. United
States. 20th century.
Genres
Announcements. United States.
20th century.
Loose-leaf binders. United
States. 20th century.
Membership lists. United
States. 20th century.
Minutes. United States. 20th
century.
Photographs.
Occupation (as reflected
in collection)
Book collectors. United
States. 20th century.
Women book collectors. United
States. 20th century.
Location
Grolier Club, 47 East 60th
Street, New York, N.Y. 10022-1098.
The
Hroswitha Club of women book collectors was founded in New York City in 1944 by
Mrs. Robert Herndon Fife (Sarah Gildersleeve Fife) to provide an opportunity
for female bibliofiles to exchange ideas and knowledge about books and
collecting (much after the style of the Grolier Club). She asked the following
collectors and scholars to meet with her: Mrs. Roy Arthur Hunt, Mrs. Allan
Marquand, Miss Belle da Costa Greene, Miss Henrietta C. Bartlett, Miss Ruth
Grannis, and Mrs. Sherman Post Haight (Anne Lyon Haight). As a result they established the Hroswitha
Club, named after the 10th century German abbess who was a
playwright, scholar and poet (Hrotsvitha, i.e. Hroswitha, ca. 935-ca. 975). The
official inauguration took place at a meeting at the Cosmopolitan Club on
November 16, 1944. Elected members included authors, bibliographers, librarian
curators and private collectors and their collecting interests were quite
diverse. One member had a collection on boxiana, another on military costumes,
another on Walt Whitman, and there were members who shared similar collecting
interests that included children’s literature, botany and books to do with
printing. Meetings were scheduled three to four times a year during the winter
months and held at the homes of members as well as at major libraries and
private collections, mainly in the northeast.
The
important activity of visiting collections, public and private, was always
maintained by the organization and members were often accorded the courtesy of
opening any case for closer examination of the exhibited items. During a
meeting at the Morgan Library, curator (and fellow Hrowsithian) Belle da Costa
Greene informed the group that they had the full freedom to enter the vaults
and examine the treasures at will. While many institutions were revisited, the
same viewing experience was never repeated. However, it was noted in the Club’s
minutes that its members must have seen at least three copies of Dame Juliana Berner’s
Book of Hunting, Hawking and Heraldry published in 1496 over the course
of the Club’s first twenty years.
In
1948, the Hroswitha Club decided to form a library consisting of books
pertaining to Hroswitha, books by members and books of general interest. Upon
the death of Mrs. Fife in 1949, the library was named in her honor and called
the Sarah Gildersleeve Fife Memorial Library. A shelf was dedicated to the
Hroswitha Club’s use at the Grolier Club to serve as the library’s first
location. As the library increased, the collection had to be moved to various
locations since the Hroswitha Club had no formal address.
In
1957, The New Yorker magazine profiled the organization in an article
that appeared in their August 10th issue. It referred to Hroswitha
as “the only Dark Ages celebrity with a local fan club”. The article drew
international attention as well as a phone call from the “$64,000 question” for
further details. The Club’s president politely declined the inquiry from the
television show.
At
the Club’s fiftieth meeting (January 12, 1956), the suggestion of compiling a
bibliography on Hroswitha was discussed and then agreed to. Nine years later,
in 1965 the club issued its major publication, Hroswitha of Gandersheim: Her
Life, Times and Works to honor the 10th century German abbess.
In 1990, the Hroswitha Club officially ‘simplified’ its activities by holding
fewer meetings each year, replacing the organization’s minutes with a synopsis
and eliminating dues. The club’s 200th meeting was held in 1994.
Since
these records are not entirely complete, there is no documentation about the
dissolution of the Hroswitha Club. At one point, the Grolier Club invited
members of the Hroswitha Club to join their membership and many accepted the
invitation. This has allowed for the continuation of the ‘Hroswitha Club
mission’ of providing a gathering place where bibliophiles can exchange ideas
Box 1 Hroswitha Club Minutes
f.1 Notebooks 1944-1986 (6
volumes).
f.2 Loose 1944-1995 [some
gaps and duplicates].
Box
2 Hroswitha Club
Minutes
f.1 Loose 1944-1995 [some
gaps and duplicates].
f.2 Meeting Announcement/Invitation 1948-1999.
[Each invitation includes a description of the
meeting’s address as well as the collection to be viewed.]
f.3 “HROSWITHA
CLUB DOCUMENTS” (in own slipcase containing correspondence related to
resolutions and account practices) 1944-1973.
f.4 “About
Hroswitha Club”.
f.5 Jane
Parker Wightman’s briefcase (containing Hroswitha Club minutes, members’
addresses and some correspondence) 1978-1994.
Box
3 Hroswitha Club
Membership Lists
f.1 Hroswitha
Club Membership Directory and Date of Election booklets (1944-1984) including:
“Hroswitha Club 50th Anniversary 1944-1994 [list includes collecting
interests of members].
Hroswitha
Club Book Lists
f.2 Card
catalog files (in own metal case) containing “Hroswitha Library” Books and
Manuscripts’ 1979.
f.3 Hroswitha Club List of Books 1949-1956.
f.4 Member books’ card catalog (n.d.).
f.5 Hroswitha books’ card catalog (n.d.).
Box 4 Hroswitha Club Publishing
Projects
Material relating to Anne Lyon Haight, ed. Hroswitha
of Gandersheim, Her Life and Times . . . including:
f.1 Research notes,
photos, manuscripts, codices relating to Hroswitha (nun).
f.2 Tentative
model for proposed “Check List” on books by and about Hroswitha (nun).
f.3 “Hroswitha
of Gandersheim,” manuscript of her works (in own folder).
f.4 Hroswitha
family tree and related historical contents.
f.5 Haight,
Anne Lyon ed., Hroswitha of Gandersheim: Her Life, Times and a Comprehensive
Bibliography (manuscript in own notebook).
f.6 Letter
to Mrs. Sherman P. Haight from Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt regarding Hroswitha
manuscript including: Jericho, B.I., Moscow, “Sources of the style of Hroswitha
in Zeitschaft fuer deutsches Alterton” (4 pp typed), “Suggested Table of
Contents”; “Proposed Title Page”; “Commentary Notes” 1958.
f.7 Bibliographical
sheet of works related to Hroswitha.
f.8 Correspondence (1966-1984).
Material
relating to Book Bindings manuscript (58 pp) including:
f.9 Charts
of bookbinders -- Over-sized laminated charts illustrating monarch regimes and
book collecting from 15th century through 20th century
for “Germany and Italy”, “France” and “England”; also Notes (12 typed pages)
and “EDITH DIEHL / DETERIORATION OF BINDINGS AND THE CARE OF BOOKS” (1 typed
page).
Material relating to “Abbie Pope” including:
f.10 “Abbie Pope” reprint from The Book
Collector, Spring, 1984 (11 copies).
f.11 “Abby (sic) Material -- HROSWITHA
CLUB” (in labeled gray box).
f.12 Letters
from Bernard A. Quaritch in America in 1890 (xerox copies in own
notebook).
f.13 “Abby (sic) Hanscomb Pope” (Mrs.
Norton Quincy Pope, d. 1894) containing letters, notes, copies, vital records,
photos, gravestone rubbings all relating to Abbie H. Pope.
f.14 “Abby
(sic) Hanscomb Pope – 1977” includes notes, research, copies of letters.
Box 5 Hroswitha Club Publishing
Projects
“Women Printers” – galley, correspondence (1974-75),
sales sheets (1970-1974); ‘Notes on Women Printers in Colonial America and the
United States’ compiled by Marjorie Dana Barlow (New York: Hroswitha Club,
1976) proof.
Box 6 Hroswitha Club Travel
Correspondence and pamphlets regarding tours (in
U.S.):
f.1 Connecticut: Greenwich (“Cricket Hill”).
f.2 Massachusetts: Schlesinger
Library/Radcliffe.
f.3 New Hampshire: Dartmouth College Library.
f.4 New Jersey: “Four Oaks Farm” exhibit, 17 January
1963 (manuscript).
f.5 New Jersey: Firestone Library/Princeton
University.
f.6 Rhode Island: Newport.
f.7 Washington D.C.: Library of Congress.
Correspondence
and pamphlets regarding tours (in Europe):
f.8 England: Stratford.
f.9 Germany: Gandersheim.
f.10 American
Beginnings: A Selection from the Library of Thomas W. Streetar -- shown in
honor of a visit of the Hroswitha Club on May 3, 1957.
A Brief Account of the Origins & Purpose of The
Chapin Library at Williams College, Published in honor of the Hroswitha Club,
May 10, 1956. Rowe, MA: Cummington Press, 1956.
Notes from Mary Hyde to Jane Wightman (c1980)
including The Hyde Collection, Somerville, N.J.: Privately printed Four
Oaks Farm, 1971 and “Remarks by Mary Hyde, Viscountess Eccles,” Princeton
University Library Chronicle, vol. LIII, 1991-1992: 335-344 (xerox copy).
Princeton, N.J. 1968.
Visual
Material
f.11 16mm film – 1958 members Hroswitha Club.
35mm role (negative).
Film rolls (negatives) 1961.
BOX 7 Hroswitha Club Speeches by
Members
f.1 Bullock, Marie speech (January 19, 1961).
f.2 Holden,
Miriam Y. “Address to the Hroswitha Club”, February 11, 1960 (8pp).
f.3 Wightman,
J.P. “Talk: Favorites & Oddities”, November 30, 1972 (in
Hroswitha notebook).
f.4 Wightman,
Julia Parker. “Talk on Miniature Books” Given for the Hroswitha Club, January
17, 1967 (in own notebook).
f.5 Wightman,
Julia Parker. “Talk on Miniature Books” (in green notebook) - “Talk on
Miniature Books” (Livres Miniscule) given for the Hroswitha Club, January 17,
1967 (125 pp typed).
f.6 Gordon, Phyllis Goodhart. “Of What Use Are
Old Books?”
Miscellaneous
f.7 Various ephemera related to Hroswitha
Club.
Box 8 Miscellaneous
f.1 Various ephemera and items not related to
Hroswitha Club.
Box 9 Correspondence
(1950 – 1989)
f.1 Correspondence
1950-59.
f.1 Correspondence
1960-69.
f.4 Correspondence 1980-89.
Series IV:
Miscellaneous publications
Bartlett, Henrietta C. and Alfred W. Pollard. A
Census of Shakespeare’s Plays in Quatro, 1594-1709. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1916.
Inscribed on card “Presented by The Elizabethan Club of Yale University”. (In
own bookcase with Sarah Gildersleeve Fife Memorial Library - Hroswitha Club
bookplate).
Hroswitha. Sapientia and Dulcitius. Presented
by Sister Mary Marguerite Butler, R.S.M., (Play Program), University of
Michigan, Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, January 15, 1955.
Kemp, Alice. “A Tenth Century Dramatist, Roswitha the
Nun,” The Nineteenth Century and after XIX-XX, A monthly review, vol.
LXVI (July-December, 1909).
Kemp-Welch, Alice. Of Six Mediaeval Women. London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1913.
(To which is added a note on Mediaeval Gardens. 26 illustrations, one of which
is by A. Durer, 1501). (With Sarah Gildersleeve Fife Memorial Library -
Hroswitha Club bookplate).
Kemp-Welch, Alice. Of Six Mediaeval Women. London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1913.
(To which is added a note on Mediaeval Gardens. 26 illustrations, one of which
is by A. Durer, 1501).
Kopke, Ernst Rudolf Anastasius. “Hrotsuit von
Gandersheim” Ottonische Studien zur deutschen Geschichte im zehten
Jahrhundert, II, Berlin, 1869.
Kronenberg, Dr. Kurt. Roswitha von Gandersheim,
Leben und Werk. Bad Gandersheim:
Verlag C.F. Hertel, 1962.
Lone, Emma Miriam. “A Short Sketch of the Life and
Works of Hroswitha, the nun-poetess,” American Book Collector, vol. 4,
no. 6 (December 1933): 207-333. (“Bound by Julia Wightman” on inside).
Lone, Emma Miriam. “A Short Sketch of the Life and
Works of Hroswitha, the nun-poetess,” American Book Collector, vol. 4,
no. 6 (December 1933): 207-333.
Nagel, Bert. Hrotsvit von Gandersheim. Stuttgart, 1965.
The Princeton University Library Chronicle, vol. XXX, no. 2 (Winter 1969).
Runciman, Steven. Byzantine Civilization. New York: World Publishing Company, 1963.
Speculum, a Journal of Mediaeval Studies, 1927,1945 (Cambridge, MA: Privately bound). (Julia Parker
Wightman bookplate).
Spitz, William Lewis. Conrad Celtes, the German
Arch-Humanist. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1957. (Julia Parker Wightman bookplate).
Spitz, William Lewis. Conrad Celtes, the German
Arch-Humanist. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1957.
Sprague, Rosemary. “Hroswitha: Tenth century Margaret
Webster,” The Theatre Annual, vol. 13 (1955): 16-31.
Sticca, Sandro. Hrotswitha’s ‘Dulcitius’ and
Christian symbolism. Offprint from Mediaeval Studies.
Waddell, Helen. The Wandering Scholars. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1927.
(With Sarah Gildersleeve Fife Memorial Library - Hroswitha Club bookplate).
Young, Karl. The Drama of the Medieval Church. Oxford, 1933. (Julia Parker Wightman
bookplate).
Young, Karl. The Drama of the Medieval Church. Oxford, 1933. (Julia Parker Wightman
bookplate).
Zeydel, Edwin Herman. “The Authenticity of
Hrotsvitha’s Works,” Modern Language Notes, vol. 61, no. 1 (January
1946): 50-55. (With Sarah Gildersleeve Fife Memorial Library - Hroswitha Club
bookplate). Two copies.
Zeydel, Edwin Herman. “The Authenticity of
Hrotsvitha’s Works,” Modern Language Notes, vol. 61, no. 1 (January
1946): 50-55.
Zeydel, Edwin Herman. “A Chronological Hrotsvitha
bibliography through 1700 with annotations” Journal of English and German
Philology, vol. 26, no. 3 (July 1947): 290-294.
Zeydel, Edwin Herman. “A Chronological Hrotsvitha
bibliography through 1700 with annotations” Journal of English and German
Philology, vol. 26, no. 3 (July 1947): 290-294. (Julia Parker Wightman
bookplate).
Zeydel, Edwin Herman. “Ego clamor validus,” Modern
Language Notes, vol. 61, no. 4 (April 1946): 281-283.
Zeydel, Edwin Herman. “Knowledge of Hrotsvitha’s works
prior to 1500,” Modern Language Notes, vol. 59, no. 6 (June 1944):
281-283.
Zeydel, Edwin Herman. “A Note on Hrotsvitha’s aversion
to synalepha,” Philological Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 4 (October 1944):
379-381.
Zeydel, Edwin Herman. “O