University of Virginia Library

2. RECONSTRUCTION

It was a new social situation in which the University of
Virginia had to operate in the period immediately following
the war. There had taken place a fundamental change in
the economy of the region served by the University. The
comfortable life of the plantation system had been destroyed
by the new labor conditions, the learned professions
now faced an environment inadequate to insure their support,
the discovery and development of hitherto untried

natural resources was an urgent need, and it seemed
indispensable that ways be found for the South to gain some
share in the expanding industrialism. Education for cultural
and political leadership continued to be a goal. But
the immediate concern was education that would enable
graduates to make a living. There was a dawning realization
that this meant a change of emphasis that would place
technical subjects and applied science more nearly on a par
with cultural courses.

For meeting this situation, the University had several
assets: a devoted and a courageous Faculty, an established
organization, and a favorable reputation throughout the
States that had composed the Confederacy. On the other
hand, its treasury was exhausted and its source of income
from the State was in a condition akin to liquidation, its
buildings were in disrepair, many of the student-producing
secondary schools had been closed, and most of the Southern
families were sorely impoverished.

The resolute Faculty lost no time. For the first year or
two its members took over the financial initiative that had
hitherto been exerted by the Board of Visitors. The Professors
borrowed money on their individual credit in order to
have the buildings and equipment put in shape for the
session of 1865–1866. Leniency was shown to veterans of
the armed forces in the immediate payment of tuition fees.
These prompt actions gained encouraging results in enrollment.
During the 1864–1865 session there had been only
fifty-five students. For 1865–1866 there was an enrollment
of 258, and for 1866–1867 the number rose to 490. No small
part of the reward for the Faculty was the earnest and
responsive attitudes of those postwar students.

As soon as opportunity permitted, new “Schools” were
added to the curriculum. In 1867 there were established a
School of Applied Mathematics, the first step towards a
Department of Engineering, and a School of Chemical

Technology and Agricultural Science. In 1869 the cooperation
of a newly founded Miller Fund made possible the
opening of a separate School of Agriculture. Ten years
later, in 1879, there began a School of Geology; and in 1881
a School of Astronomy was organized in connection with a
donation from Leander J. McCormick which led the way
to the building and equipment of an astronomical observatory.
But cultural subjects were still in the majority, and
in 1882 the School of History and General Literature was
divided into separate Schools of History and English Literature.

This expansion of subjects naturally required support
from the library collections, and for a time the Library was
but poorly equipped to meet the demands. The collection
established by Jefferson had contained some material in all
the known fields of learning. But that was in 1825. The
additions up to 1861 had been mainly in fields in which
instruction was then being given. Pleas to the Board of
Visitors for library appropriations to restore the complete
lack during 1861–1865 brought $2,000 for 1866–1867. But
this tapered down to $200 for 1872–1873, when the influence
of the depression of 1873 was beginning to be felt.
The first years of the postwar period of the University
Library were like the first years after the founding, since
both were seriously handicapped by lack of funds.

Another similarity lies in the fact that in both cases
William Wertenbaker was the Librarian. The office of
Proctor had been “suspended” by the Board of Visitors,
meeting in an apprehensive mood on 6 July 1865. At that
same meeting salaries of $150 for a Librarian and $50 for
a Secretary of the Faculty were named, and the Faculty
was authorized to make the appointments. The 1857
separation of the two offices seems tacitly to have been
withdrawn. The energy displayed by the Faculty during
these critical days is revealed in this library matter. For,

The Rotunda in the 1870's

The Rotunda Annex

having evidently learned that the Visitors proposed to take
this action, the Faculty went ahead and named Wertenbaker
for both offices two days before the enabling act by
the Board of Visitors!

So Wertenbaker, back at his original salary as Librarian,
once more picked up the reins. He was able to report by
June 1866 that never before had he witnessed such earnest
and intelligent use of the Library by the students. By that
date a more general spirit of hope pervaded the University,
and the Board of Visitors advanced Wertenbaker's salary
to $800. They now not only permitted him to hold additional
positions but even added to the list the secretaryship
of their own Board. However, when in 1871 he found it
advisable to resign the post of Secretary of the Board of
Visitors, his salary was dropped back to $700. Few if any
books had been added to the library collection during the
war, so that it now contained, as it had in 1861, something
over 30,000 volumes; and there was available the two
volume author list prepared by Holcombe. In view of his
congeries of duties, Wertenbaker was unable to undertake
the compilation of the proposed subject index. But whatever
difficulties in locating books his retirement at some
future time might cause, it was now fortunate that he could
so well qualify as a human catalogue.

Though the appropriations for book purchase were
scanty, the inflow of gifts was now resumed; and there were
some new types of donors. In 1868 a visitor from New York,
Abiel Abbot Low, who had made an inspection of the
Library, handed Wertenbaker a cheque for five hundred
dollars. Three years later he sent another cheque, of like
amount. In 1873 the British Government contributed 258
volumes of the publications of the Record Office in London;
and in 1874 the students in a university class in Moral
Philosophy raised among themselves the sum of one
hundred dollars to be used in purchasing reference works

in that subject. But it was a series of benefactions beginning
in 1876, from William Wilson Corcoran, the Washington
banker who established in the capitol city the Corcoran Art
Gallery, that came like refreshing showers to those financially
arid years at the University of Virginia.

The scope of the Corcoran donations may be indicated
by the fact that his name has been given to the three University
“Schools” of Geology, History, and Philosophy and
Psychology. The gift to the Library of $5,000, $1,000 to be
available for each of the five sessions from 1876 through
1881, was the smallest of the Corcoran donations, but it had
an extraordinary effect on the library activities of the Faculty
and the Faculty Library Committee. Lists of books
needed for the new and old courses were carefully prepared
and submitted to the whole Faculty and were passed upon
with discrimination. In the last of the five sessions some leeway
was permitted, and an attempt was made to fill in
standard sets in English literature. It will be recalled that
in Jefferson's original list the material from English authors
seemed somewhat scanty in comparison with that from the
Greek and Latin classical authors. In selecting the English
writers whose works were now to be acquired in full, this
Faculty—and it was a notably distinguished group—focused
its judgment on individuals. For example, Fielding, Richardson,
and Smollett were considered at a meeting in March
1881, and the Professors had their personal votes recorded
in the minutes of the meeting. All three novelists passed this
admissions test, but Fielding got in by only one vote!

Wertenbaker had amply proved himself to be a durable
Librarian. But the years had been creeping up on him; and
the accession of new books, purchased on the Corcoran
fund, had added to his routine responsibilities. Hence it
seemed advisable to Visitors and Faculty that he should
have an assistant, and Frederick W. Page, who had been
a student in the 1940's, was appointed to the new position

in 1876. This proved a happy choice; and three years later,
when the aged Librarian was stricken with illness, Page
was able to carry on. In 1881 Page was elected Librarian;
and as an appropriate recognition of his long services,
Wertenbaker was continued as Librarian Emeritus, with
full salary, until his death in 1882.

At this stage in the history of the University of Virginia
there was injected an unpleasant, but fortunately isolated,
chapter of political control. Out of a bitter struggle over
methods of handling the state debts, there arose a so-called
Readjuster Party which for a short time gained supremacy
in Virginia. An entirely new Board of Visitors was appointed
in May 1882, and administrative officers who opposed the
Readjusters, among whom was Librarian Page, were
removed at the end of that session. Page did receive rather
fulsome praise for his conduct of his office—but the vote of
the Visitors was unanimous for a new incumbent of the
post, William Aylett Winston. Winston, who had been a
student during the session of 1850–1851 and later a clerk in
the Virginia Legislature, was likewise appointed Secretary
of the Faculty and Secretary of the Board of Visitors, and his
salary was raised to $1,000—an unpalatable method of giving
prestige to the librarianship by incorporating it in the
spoils system.

Apparently, however, the University of Virginia possessed
something of the Chinese power of assimilating a
conqueror. For the new Board and the new Librarian
settled down to conscientious performance of their duties;
and during the four years that they remained in office there
was continued growth with little outward sign of disturbance.
Gifts continued to be received by the Library; and in
that period there were several significant donations from
outside the State. In 1882 William M. Meigs of Philadelphia
contributed one hundred dollars with which to buy
books in American history; in 1883 there came a library

endowment bequest of $5,000 from Douglas H. Gordon of
Baltimore; in 1884 Arthur W. Austin of Dedham, Massachusetts,
an admirer of Thomas Jefferson, left a considerable
sum for general university uses and his private collection
of approximately 5,000 volumes for the Library; and in
1885 Judge William Archer Cocke of Sanford, Florida,
presented one of the original copies of the first constitution
of Virginia, adopted and printed in 1776. There were other
gifts during those years. But these are samples of a rare
book, of a general collection, of an endowment fund, and
of a sum available for immediate purchase.

As a result of the state elections of 1885 the Readjuster
Party went out of power, there came into being another
Board of Visitors, this, however, containing some members
with previous experience, and Winston was replaced as
Librarian—not by Frederick Page, who had meantime
become Deputy Clerk of Albemarle County, but by a
former student and war veteran, James Biscoe Baker. Baker
was also appointed Secretary of the Faculty, the salary
slipping back to $750. Two years later Page was selected
for a new office, Secretary to the Chairman of the Faculty.
In 1891 there was again a regrouping of offices, the
secretaryships of the Faculty and of its Chairman being
combined and given to Baker, who, crippled from the war,
was handicapped for the active duties of the Librarian; and
Page was asked to resume the librarianship. He then continued
in this office through the remainder of this postwar
period and on until 1903.

What had been with apprehension anticipated in Wertenbaker's
active years now came to pass; namely, the difficulty
without a catalogue, human or mechanical, of locating
books. The normal growth along with the Corcoran
purchases and the Austin gift brought in several thousand
new volumes, and the need became pressing for some sort of
a finding list. The Library Committee of the Board of

Visitors sensed this need in its annual tours of inspection.
But that Committee was inclined to insist that the cataloguing
be done by the Librarian without extra compensation.
The Library Committee of the Faculty, which was nearer
to the considerable daily use of the Library, was inclined to
press for a special undertaking supported by an additional
appropriation. By 1891 the Faculty Committee, no longer
insisting on its own capability, recommended that a member
of the Faculty visit other libraries in order to observe
acceptable methods of cataloguing. This recommendation
appears not to have been adopted. Nevertheless knowledge
of new methods was becoming current, and in 1893 there
emerged a suggestion in favor of a card catalogue. This
would of course involve the cataloguing of the whole collection
which had now reached a total of about 53,000
volumes—not a rapid growth from the 30,000 volumes of
1861, but resulting in a haystack large enough to conceal
a needle. During the session of 1894–1895 Miss Helen W.
Rice, an “educated librarian,” was imported from Massachusetts
to begin an author catalogue on cards, and under
the direction of the Faculty Library Committee the task
was well started. In June 1895 the Visitors had been persuaded
sufficiently to move them to appropriate $500 “to
continue the card catalogue”; and in August of that year
the minutes of the Board of Visitors offer a diverting
sidelight by the approval of the use of $15.65 to be drawn
from the regular library appropriation to enable Miss Rice's
successor, Mr. R. I. Park, to pay carfare to enable him to
study the systems in use in the Boston libraries. Thus this
period was concluding like the previous one with definite
progress in the cataloguing problem—and the new methods
were also an advance over the task previously set for
Thomas Holcombe.

Meantime the circulation services were expanding. The
student enrollment had not yet reached the total of 1856–

1857, and the hours of opening amounted to six a day on
weekdays, instead of the seven in the 1850's. But the location
on the main floor of a reference collection was started
in 1878, and in the following year there began experimentation
with the use of books reserved for collateral reading.
In 1880 plans were perfected for a summer course; and
Frederick Page had inaugurated in 1878 a form of correspondence
reference service.

This correspondence reference service was a step
towards extending the usefulness of the University Library.
The Board of Visitors was still opposed to any general
policy of lending books outside of the university community
—though its attitude had become somewhat relaxed in the
case of nearby residents, particularly if they happened to be
former members of the Board of Visitors! The Faculty was
disposed to be more liberal in this matter of the use of the
Library; and in such differences of opinion between these
two bodies, there is a still further similarity of these years
with the prewar period.

For one act of conservatism on the part of the Board of
Visitors we may well be thankful. The possession of the
Lee Papers continued to be a responsibility that caused
uneasiness. Occasional requests were received from persons
who wished to examine them, some with the intention of
using the material for publication; and there was a troublesome
realization that more effort should be expended in
making them accessible. In 1881 a member of the Faculty
suggested that they be sold to the Government of the
United States for deposit in the Library of Congress, and
that the money received be used for books to be designated
as the Richard Henry Lee Memorial. This proposition was
discussed at length. Finally by a majority vote the Faculty
recommended this procedure to the Board of Visitors. But
on the advice of their Library Committee the Visitors
promptly expressed disapproval, stating that they believed

these manuscripts “to be especially appropriate & valuable
to the archives of the University.”

Another source for differences of opinion was in evidence
through the greater part of this period—there are a
score or more of references in the minutes of the Board of
Visitors and of the Faculty. As between these two bodies,
the conservatism in this case was, so to speak, on the other
toe. For this was the lithesome theme of dancing in the
Rotunda.

When social events were resumed in the decade after
the war, a ball held on the evening of the final exercises
of each session came to be a popular event in the graduation
programme. As the years went on, student organizations
arranged for “germans” on the mornings of commencement
week. The conflict in opinion was to whether these
dances should be held in the library room. The Visitors
were inclined to favor them, and the Faculty and Librarian
Wertenbaker to be opposed. By 1890 the point at issue had
reached an acute stage. When agreement was reached, it
was in the nature of a compromise: that the Final Ball
could continue to be held in the Rotunda, but that other
dances were to be excluded from that building.

The records of these discussions maintain the usual
austere tone of the official minutes. But one suspects a
stray gleam or two in the eyes of these learned Professors
and judicial Visitors. The otherwise consistently firm stand
taken by the Faculty was in a single instance broken when
in April 1892 it was a group of young ladies that petitioned
for the use of the Library for a “german.” The Faculty did
not refer this to the Visitors, but promptly yielded, saving
its face only by the conditions “that the time be limited to
one o'clock, a.m., and that the expenses incurred be paid
by the parties using the room.” Can it possibly have any
bearing that 1892 was a leap year? It may also be noted that
the deft manner in which both sides used the same argument

is indicative of the continued admiration for Jefferson's
central building. The Visitors had argued that, since
“the Annual Ball is one of the chief items of attraction for
the session, it is peculiarly proper that the handsomest hall
at our command should be used for the occasion.” But on
the question of morning dances, the Faculty voiced opposition
because “by allowing such an employment of its most
elegant and attractive apartment, the University sacrifices
to the wishes of a few young people the advantage of
exhibiting to enlightened and cultivated visitors the most
interesting portion of the Institution.”

This chief structure of Jefferson's architectural plan for
the University of Virginia attained to an age of three score
and ten years with comparatively minor ailments. The leak
in the dome which was reported during the war of 1861–
1865 had resulted from a prewar device of giving force to
the water supply by attaching the tanks to the top of the
Rotunda. Faulty construction of the tanks led to considerable
damage to some of the stored library material; and
after several years of tinkering, the tanks were removed.
The pressing need for additional space for instructional
purposes in the prosperous 1850's had also resulted in an
ungainly addition, the Annex, erected just north of the
Rotunda and connected with it by a portico. This was a
structure which in its architectural effect would surely have
grieved the Founder. In fact, a grandson of Jefferson's,
Thomas Jefferson Randolph, who was at that time a member
of the Board of Visitors and was later to be its Rector,
criticized the Annex not only for its appearance but also
for the additional fire hazard which the new building
created. But this time there was no blending of practical
usefulness and severe economy with beauty of design. The
warning against the danger of fire was not ignored, however;
and in 1886 the concern caused by a conflagration in
the pavilion nearest the Rotunda on the west side resulted

in the purchase of some fire equipment which was stored in
a small building back of West Range.

The space gained by the Annex had been for classrooms,
laboratories, and an assembly hall, not, except incidentally,
for library purposes. But there was also increased need for
library space. Two tendencies that were emerging in 1861
had gained marked emphasis by 1895.

It has been noted that by 1861 there had been tentative
moves to transfer small groups of library material to locations
outside of the Rotunda. This tendency increased
during the postwar period. The student reading room for
which a home had been found in 1861 was put on a more
permanent basis in 1875. In 1869 a mathematics reading
room was started in connection with a classroom in the
Annex. In 1880 there is mention of a Professors' reading
club. These were reading rooms. But it was the need of
space in which to shelve the attractive Austin books that
seems to have weakened such objections as there may have
been to any scattering of the general library collection; and
by 1886 the Board of Visitors had gone on record as willing
to permit transfer of specified volumes to laboratories and
Professors' classrooms. The Board was even disposed to
weigh the Congressional Record in the balance and to find
it—well, wanting storage space. Consequently by 1895 there
were four separate library collections: the Astronomy
Library, established in 1886 in the Leander McCormick
Observatory; the Biology and Agriculture Library, transferred
in 1890 to the Biological Laboratory; the Chemistry
Library, separately located in 1885 in the Chemistry Laboratory
west of West Range; and the Law Library, moved
in 1894 to a room near the Law Department classrooms
in the Annex.

As for the doubt whether the Rotunda itself, however
much admired, would ultimately be adequate for the purposes
of a general library, though this was but a suspicion

in 1861, by 1895 it had reached a distressing certainty.
Space had been gained by the transfer of the four subject
collections, by the addition of new shelving, and by rearrangements
in the library room. But the possibility of such
measures of relief appeared to be limited. By June 1894
the Faculty was ready to cut the Gordian knot by recommending
first that there be an entirely new general library
building and second that there be a fund for library maintenance.
The amount proposed for the building fund was
$50,000, to be raised by a campaign among the Alumni;
and it was suggested that when the new building should be
completed, the present library room be transformed into
a memorial hall for the Alumni. As for the maintenance
fund, it was proposed that $30,000 be taken from the portion
of the Fayerweather Fund which had recently been
allocated to the University of Virginia and used for the
erection of new dormitories, the rentals from which should
annually be applied to the purchase of books and periodicals
for the Library.

With the surprising proposal that a fund be raised for
a new general library building the Board of Visitors found
itself in agreement; and a statement advocating such a fund
and signed by the Rector of the Board and the Chairman of
the Faculty was presented to the Society of the Alumni
during the final exercises of 1894. That statement, however,
made no mention of the maintenance fund or of the
future use of the present library room; and it transferred
the memorial idea to the proposed new building, which was
to be called the Alumni Memorial Library, in honor of
those who had fallen in the War of 1861–1865. The Alumni
Bulletin of the University of Virginia had started publication
in May of this year, and its second number, for July,
broadcast the text of the statement. There was some
response, the first contribution coming from the distinguished
alumnus, Thomas Nelson Page. But as had happened

before and was to happen again, the library project
fell afoul of a general financial depression. A condition of
suspended animation ensued; and though the Board of
Visitors at its meeting in June 1895 offered the further
proposal that there be appointed a supervising committee
of nine, three from the Visitors, three from the Faculty,
and three from the Alumni, which should choose an active
agent to solicit subscriptions on a commission basis, the
lack of enthusiastic response made it increasingly evident
that the time was not ripe for such a campaign.