University of Virginia Library

2. THE PROSPEROUS 1850's

There were several causes, in addition to the accumulation
from the income of the Madison endowment, for the
increased prosperity of the University of Virginia Library
during the decade prior to the War of 1861–1865. The gain
was mainly through advance in the enrollment figures,
giving an added income from tuition fees. Economic conditions
in Virginia and the other Southern States had
improved; growing political tension between the South and
the North tended to reduce the flow of students to northern

colleges, to the benefit of the University of Virginia; railway
service had penetrated to Charlottesville, opening
student travel to the University to more convenient means
than by stage coach; and the prestige of the University of
Virginia had been enhanced by the contribution being
made to secondary education by its graduates as headmasters
and teachers in schools throughout this region—thereby
influencing many of the graduates of those schools to continue
their studies at the University. The enrollment for
the session of 1856–1857, a total of 645 students, was not
again equalled until the last session of the nineteenth century,
1899–1900.

This prosperous decade begat increased library activity
on the part both of the Faculty and of the Board of Visitors.
The addition to the curriculum of a “School” of History
and General Literature (there was no School of English
Literature established until 1882) stimulated the student
use of the Library, and the hours of opening were gradually
extended until they reached seven hours a day on
weekdays. The Faculty was spurred to new efforts in requesting
increases in the general book funds, and these
requests now met with a moderate degree of success. The
library collection had grown by about 10,000 volumes in
the quarter century beginning with the first session in 1825.
During the next ten years the increase was approximately
12,000. Additions were required to the shelving in the
Rotunda, and at that early date the question first began to
emerge as to whether the building would be adequate for
library use.

Another hint of things to come appeared in emphasis
on libraries of individual “schools” or of special collections,
and in the suggestion that these might be located outside
of the Rotunda. As early as 1837 it was permitted by the
Board of Visitors that some of the medical books be moved
to the Anatomical Theatre. Two years later, however, the

Visitors changed their minds and directed that those books
be returned. In 1848 the School of Law obtained from the
Visitors a special appropriation of $500 for law books—but
there was no suggestion that the Law Library have a separate
location. Just at the close of the period, in 1861, the
recently organized Young Men's Christian Association did
succeed in having some books appropriate for its purposes
transferred to a reading room established at number fourteen
West Lawn.

It is also of historical interest that there was early concern
over the possibility of a fire in the Rotunda. A fire
actually started in a cornice of the building on an early
morning hour in March 1861. On that occasion, prompt
action on the part of some students kept the damage at a
minimum. The university community was the better able
to realize its good fortune because only two years before
that date the Library at the College of William and Mary
had been destroyed by fire. Incidentally, there is added
evidence of the expansion of the University's library
resources at this time, in that the Faculty had promptly
responded to the misfortune of the sister institution by
making a donation of books from its duplicates. This early
sign of a spirit of cooperation is also illustrated by the
distribution to the other college libraries in Virginia of
copies of Thomas Jefferson's Essay Towards Facilitating
Instruction in the Anglo-Saxon, which had been published
in 1851 by order of the Board of Visitors.

Likewise did the Library Committee of the Board of
Visitors take on new life during this decade. For years its
function had been little more than an annual inspection of
the Library. Now it began to interest itself in means of
bringing up to date the well-rounded collection selected by
Jefferson, in emphasis on the position of Librarian, in making
the library resources more readily available. Zeal for the
Library animated both Visitors and Faculty—a yeasty condition,

favorable for growth but also liable to germinate
differences of opinion.

One such difference of opinion arose when the Visitors
in June 1856 voted that a new officer be employed, “a
competent Bibliographer,” who should prepare a want list
of important works that had been published in all fields of
learning since Jefferson had compiled his notable list for
the Boston bookseller. What had apparently been in the
mind of the Visitors was a Thomas Jefferson II. When
the Founder of the Library had made his list, the original
Faculty was just being selected. But in 1856 there was an
experienced Faculty in the saddle. Its members not
unreasonably regarded themselves as being authorities in
the learning and in the needs of their respective “Schools.”
The idea of calling on an outsider, however well qualified,
to have authority in this selection aroused immediate antagonism.
Four days after the Visitors' approval of the employment
of the competent Bibliographer was announced,
the Faculty assembled and protested. Its members also
individually began busily to prepare lists of desiderata—
with such effect that at the annual meeting of the Board a
year later the proposal for the Bibliographer was quietly
dropped. The Faculty had demonstrated its own proficiency.
But for the Visitors also there was possibly some secret satisfaction,
in having by indirections attained their actual goal.

That question at issue involved the capability of the
Faculty. The possible capability of the Librarian for such
an undertaking seems to have occurred to no one. Nevertheless
the position of Librarian was being regarded with
increased respect. William Wertenbaker had been a student
when he was appointed by Jefferson, but he had long since
terminated his student status. He had married and was
raising a family. His annual salary had been advanced
from $150 in 1826 to $600 in 1857. During its slow progress
toward a competency, Wertenbaker had supplemented his

income by taking on other duties. The most important of
those posts was that of Secretary of the Faculty. But he had
from time to time been also an assistant to the Proctor, the
university postmaster, the keeper of a student “hotel,” and
the manager for a Richmond firm of a local bookstore, the
Boston firm of Cummings and Hilliard having long since
given up its agency. But in view of the accelerating growth
in library resources, it was voted by the Visitors in June
1857 that the position of Librarian be separated from other
posts and that in future selections of a Librarian preference
should be given “to graduates [not students] of the University
who were desiring to devote themselves to literary
studies.” At that period there seems to have been no conception
of the need of special training for librarianship. To
the present day protagonists in the discussions over an
appropriate library school curriculum, this suggestion—
“graduates ... willing to devote themselves to literary
studies”—might afford comic relief. But as a serious product
of 1857, it has at least historical interest.

As for William Wertenbaker, this resulted in another
interruption to his long career as University Librarian. We
are not told just why he now retired. He continued to be
Secretary of the Faculty, and perhaps he felt the need of a
position to which could still be added other stipend producing
jobs; and perhaps he could hear no clear call to devotion
to literary studies. There is another aspect of the
matter that may be pertinent. Both Visitors and Faculty
realized that a new catalogue of the books was desirable.
Wertenbaker had been the compiler of the 1828 publication,
many of the books acquired since that date had passed
through his hands, he had an excellent memory, and he was
therefore well qualified to be a human catalogue. But possibly
the Visitors and Faculty sensed the need of a service
guide having less impermanence than a human catalogue;
and as for Wertenbaker, it may be that the labor expended

on that printed catalogue of 1828 had exhausted all inclination
for a similar undertaking. These are conjectures. The
facts are that a former student of the University, Thomas
Berkeley Holcombe, who had demonstrated aspirations
toward authorship and who had the prestige of being a
brother of James Philemon Holcombe, then a Law Professor
of the University of Virginia, was appointed to the position
by the Board of Visitors in June 1857, to take office on
September first of that year.

This action marked a definite change in the University's
attitude toward the position. Except for the reappointment
of Wertenbaker in 1835, this was the first time that
the person chosen as Librarian had not been currently a
member of the student body. It is to be noted that after the
unsatisfactory experience with Brockenbrough, that practice
was not continued. It was also the first time that the
qualifications were not merely those of a custodian. As it
turned out, however, Holcombe's case was unique in this
respect until after the burning of the Rotunda. For in the
succeeding appointments until that of John Shelton Patton
in 1903, there was apparently no reference to devotion to
literary studies.

It was not specified what form the literary studies
should take, unless it was the thought of the Visitors that
the preparation of “a full and accurate catalogue” met that
description. For Holcombe's orders were to perform all the
functions hitherto delegated to the Librarian, all those and
the catalogue too. It should be remembered that this was
a one man Library Staff. Moreover the comparative affluence
of those few years meant a modest increase in the
appropriations for book purchases, and consequently there
was a corresponding increase in the amount of the routine
duties connected with buying books. Furthermore all ordering
of books was now to be done by him, to him was granted
the privilege of suggesting titles for purchase, and he was

even to be consulted by the Faculty in connection with
cataloguing problems. So we find that by 1859 Holcombe
was venturing to propose directly to the Faculty, and not
through its Library Committee, the “propriety” of acquiring
certain books and of adding certain bookcases.

With regard to the cataloguing project, the preliminary
moves resembled those in the matter of the competent
Bibliographer. Both had been projected by the Board of
Visitors in June 1856, at which time it was ordered that a
catalogue be compiled “on the plan recommended by the
Smithsonian Institution.” Evidently an alert Visitor had
learned of the innovations introduced by Charles C. Jewett
at the recently organized library of that institution in Washington.
But here again there appears to have been faculty
objection against the seeking of outside guidance. At any
rate, in June 1857 the Board of Visitors amended its action
to read that the catalogue should be compiled “on a plan
to be fixed by the Faculty and reported to the Board of
Visitors.” With its proficiency again recognized, the Faculty
proceeded with the “fixing.” In October of that year it appointed
a special committee to examine into the matter.
The committee delegated the problem to one of its members;
and by December that member, Professor Gildersleeve,
had come up with a solution which found favor
with both special committee and Faculty.

The Gildersleeve plan had the merit of simplicity and
of being adapted to student and faculty needs. It called for
entry by longhand in suitable blankbooks of an author and
title list in one alphabet of all the library holdings, with
bibliographic details added only for rare books; and for a
separate subject index of brief entries divided under general
subject classes. This time, however, the Board of Visitors
did have the last word. It waited until September 1858, and
then amended the “fixing” so that “in all cases the date and
place of publication, the edition, and the size of the volume

shall be indicated.” It thus—rather sensibly it would seem
—avoided the problem of decision as to what is a rare book.

This, then, was Librarian Holcombe's additional task.
To it he applied himself diligently, whenever opportunity
offered. The catalogue was handwritten, in folio volumes,
every alternate leaf being left vacant for future accessions.
He succeeded in completing the author list, in two volumes.
In expressive recognition of this achievement and of his
display of initiative, the Visitors in 1860 increased the Librarian's
salary to $1,000.

The good times had developed slowly. With the
outbreak of the war in 1861 they ended suddenly. In May of
that year the library appropriation was suspended, in July
the Librarian's salary was dropped to $600, and in December
Holcombe was granted leave of absence for the remainder
of the session. This ended Holcombe's librarianship.

The war, indeed, put an end to many of the undertakings
fostered during those ten years of prosperity. Thus was
terminated the first period of Jefferson's University Library
after its founding. The period had covered a span of thirty-five
years. There had been the beginnings of a collection of
manuscripts and archives, and a single example of a library
endowment fund. The book collection had grown from
8,000 to 30,000 volumes. There had been a dawning realization
that to the post of Librarian could wisely be granted
some measure of initiative and direct responsibility. The
Library had proved of service to faculty and students; but
its services had been extended very little beyond Mr. Jefferson's
“academical village.” Problems of extension of
library equipment and of adequate cataloguing had emerged
—to continue for many years as unfinished business. By
1861 both the University of Virginia and its Library had
attained to positions of considerable distinction in Southern
education. Both were by the War of 1861–1865 reduced
to a desperate struggle for survival.