Bostwick, Arthur Elmore (08 March 1860–13 February 1942), editor and librarian, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the son of David Elmore Bostwick, a physician, and Adelaide McKinley. Bostwick took advantage of the cultural assets in his hometown, reading periodicals from a neighbor’s private library, studying romance and classical languages, participating in music ensembles, and attending the Episcopal church where his mother was organist. His innate intellectual abilities were thus stimulated, laying the foundation for an active life of the mind. He attended Yale College, won the first Silliman Fellowship in physical science, graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and earned a B.A. in 1881 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1883. Aspiring to a college professorship, he declined an appointment as a Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University in favor of a temporary position at Yale but, when a permanent post was not forthcoming, he moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where he taught high school from 1884 to 1886. In 1885 Bostwick married Lucy Sawyer, with whom he had three children....
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Bostwick, Arthur Elmore (1860-1942), editor and librarian
John Mark Tucker
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Day, F. Holland (1864-1933), publisher, photographer, and bibliophile
Estelle Jussim
Day, F. Holland (23 July 1864–06 November 1933), publisher, photographer, and bibliophile, was born Fred Holland Day in Norwood, Massachusetts, the son of Lewis Day, an industrialist, and Anna Smith. The only child of wealthy parents, young Day was educated largely by private tutors. The family split their time between their Norwood house and an apartment in Boston, at that time considered the Athens of America. At fifteen Day accompanied his mother to Denver, where she recuperated from a lung disease. It was in Denver that he made his first sustained contact with a large colony of Chinese, and their art and material culture made a lasting impact on him. He began to draw with Chinese inks and brushes and purchased many Chinese artifacts; he remained fascinated by Oriental culture to his dying day. This fascination was abetted by the world-class Oriental collections at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts....
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Duyckinck, Evert Augustus (1816-1878), editor, author, and bibliophile
Robert L. Gale
Duyckinck, Evert Augustus (23 November 1816–13 August 1878), editor, author, and bibliophile, was born in New York City, the son of Evert Duyckinck, a wealthy publisher and book collector, and Harriet June. He graduated from Columbia College in 1835. He either wrote or cowrote the only issue of ...
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Folsom, Charles (1794-1872), librarian and editor
Kenneth E. Carpenter
Folsom, Charles (24 December 1794–08 November 1872), librarian and editor, was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, the son of James Folsom and Sarah Gilman (occupations unknown). After preparation at Phillips Exeter Academy, Folsom entered Harvard College as a sophomore in 1810. He taught school at Sudbury during winter vacations and graduated from Harvard in 1813. He then taught at the academy in Hallowell, Maine, and in the fall of 1814 returned to Cambridge to study divinity. After giving that up, he made arrangements to study medicine, but instead, on the recommendation of Harvard president John T. Kirkland, sailed in 1816 to the Mediterranean on the 74-gun ship of the line ...
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Morgan, Dale Lowell (1914-1971), historian, editor, and bibliographer
David J. Whittaker
Morgan, Dale Lowell (18 December 1914–30 March 1971), historian, editor, and bibliographer, was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of James Lowell Morgan, an office machine salesman, and Emily May Holmes, a schoolteacher. Morgan’s father died when he was six years old, and the burden of caring for the family of four children fell on his mother, who taught in the Salt Lake City public schools. Morgan was a gifted student, but his contracting spinal meningitis at age fourteen seriously changed his life; he was left totally deaf....
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Nash, John Henry (1871-1947), printer, bibliophile, and typographer
Stephen L. Levine
Nash, John Henry (12 March 1871–24 May 1947), printer, bibliophile, and typographer, was born in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada, the son of John Marvin Nash, a mechanical engineer, and Catherine Cain. Though withdrawn from public school at age sixteen to begin his practical education by learning his father’s trade, Nash insisted on becoming a printer. He began his career in 1888 with an apprenticeship at James Murray and Company, a Toronto printing firm. Despite his thorough training and seeming determination to become a printer, Nash left the business after a few years and embarked on the life of a bicycle racer. A major fad in the 1890s, bicycle racing offered the opportunity for wealth and fame, and both appealed to him. He traveled the racing circuit from around 1890 to 1892, when his passion for the sport waned and he decided to go back to printing. Nash returned to Toronto to work for Brough and Caswell and then for Milne-Burgham Company, where he remained until 1894. In the winter of 1894 he left Toronto to work for App-Stotts in Denver, Colorado; he stayed there a mere four months, after which he relocated to San Francisco....
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Smith, Lloyd Pearsall (1822-1886), librarian, publisher, and editor
Donald G. Davis and Jeannette Woodward
Smith, Lloyd Pearsall (06 February 1822–02 July 1886), librarian, publisher, and editor, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of John Jay Smith, a librarian, and Rachel Collins Pearsall. Following graduation from Haverford College at age fifteen, Smith became a bookkeeper and an accountant in the counting house of Waln & Leaming. In 1844 he married Hannah E. Jones, with whom he later adopted a daughter. While still at Waln & Leaming, Smith began publishing, among other works, ...
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Thwaites, Reuben Gold (1853-1913), historian, editor, and librarian
Robert L. Gale
Thwaites, Reuben Gold (15 May 1853–22 October 1913), historian, editor, and librarian, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the son of William George Thwaites and Sarah Bibbs, farmers. Thwaites’s family had emigrated from Yorkshire, England, three years before his birth. He attended school in Dorchester and in 1866 moved with his parents to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where he helped them farm, taught school, and read the equivalent of a program of college courses. He became a reporter on the ...
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Timothy, Lewis (?– December 1738), printer and librarian
Robert M. Weir
Timothy, Lewis (?– December 1738), printer and librarian, was born Lewis Timothée, probably in the Netherlands, of Huguenot parents (names unknown) who had fled France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. His wife Elizabeth Timothy (maiden name unknown) was almost certainly educated in Holland, and by the time of their arrival in Philadelphia from Rotterdam in 1731, the couple had been married long enough to have four children, aged nine and under. At the time of Timothy’s death he had six living children, and his wife was pregnant with another. Timothy settled in Philadelphia where, on 21 September 1731, he took the oath of allegiance to the British Crown. Fluent in several languages, he soon advertised that he would instruct students in French. Working as a journeyman printer for ...
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Wilson, Halsey William (1868-1954), bibliographer and publisher
Marie C. Ellis
Wilson, Halsey William (12 May 1868–01 March 1954), bibliographer and publisher, was born in Wilmington, Vermont, the son of John Thompson Wilson, a stonecutter, and Althea Dunnell. An only child, Wilson lost both his parents to tuberculosis before he was three, and he spent his early childhood with his mother’s parents, first in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, and later near Colrain. When Wilson was twelve, he went to live with an uncle on a farm near Waterloo, Iowa. After attending the preparatory academy associated with Beloit College, in Wisconsin, from 1883 to 1885, Wilson moved to Minneapolis, studying at the University of Minnesota intermittently from 1885 to 1892. Hardworking and energetic, he financed his educational pursuits in a variety of ways, including running a small printing operation from his room. In December 1889 he and his roommate formed a partnership to sell books to fellow students, a venture that proved to be so successful and time-consuming that Wilson discontinued his college studies to concentrate on managing and expanding the enterprise. He later purchased his partner’s share of the bookshop with money inherited from his grandfather....
