University of Virginia Library

IV
From the Burning of the Rotunda
to the End of the Library's First
Century

1895–1925

1. AFTERMATH OF THE FIRE

THE BURNING of the Rotunda was tragedy for
the whole University. Yet the fable of the phoenix
has seldom been more appropriately applied than
to the events which directly followed. As soon as
there was confidence that further spread of the fire could
be prevented, the Chairman, William Mynn Thornton,
summoned the Faculty to a meeting in the Chemical Laboratory.
This was at three o'clock. Wilson Cary Nicholas
Randolph, the Rector of the Board of Visitors and a great
grandson of Thomas Jefferson, and Armistead Churchill
Gordon, a member of the Board who was later to be its
Rector, were on the scene and attended the meeting.
Actions were promptly taken to delegate authority for the
procedures that were immediately necessary, and a new
room schedule was devised for the Monday morning classes.
There were no longer a Rotunda clock and a college bell.
But the classes met promptly, and there was admirable
concentration on the subject matter of the courses. Four
days later, on Thursday of that week, the Faculty had completed
for recommendation to the Board of Visitors a
reconstruction programme which for comprehensiveness,

foresight, and attention to practical detail is undoubtedly
the peer of any document ever prepared by the University
of Virginia Faculty. There had been courage and forcefulness
in the faculty actions at the close of the War of 1861–
1865. But it can be affirmed that what followed the Rotunda
fire was for the Faculty “their finest hour.”

When the Board of Visitors assembled, it approved
with little change the recommendations of the Faculty, and
a joint committee from these two bodies was appointed to
carry out the building programme. It was resolved that the
Annex should not be rebuilt, that the restored Rotunda and
the new buildings that were proposed should be of fire
resisting construction and should follow Jefferson's architectural
patterns, and that an outstanding architect should
be secured for this purpose. There has been general agreement
that Stanford White was an excellent choice.

It is true that in planning for the restoration of the
Rotunda, the lesson that had been learned concerning the
probable inadequacy of that building for the purposes of a
library was largely forgotten. There did come, indeed, from
the Richmond Alumni a reminder of the arguments that
had been advanced only a few months before in advocating
the project of a new building. But it was now felt that the
all embracing need was for restoration funds; and in the
plans for rebuilding the Rotunda there emerged possibilities
for a considerable extension of the space for library
purposes. In the circumstances, the restoration of the
Rotunda as the Library was probably the better immediate
solution. Those recent proposals for a new building had
shown little realization of the library requirements involved
in university research. The erection at that time of a new
building scaled merely to college library size might seriously
have complicated and delayed the later effort to secure a
more adequately conceived university library building and
equipment.

The Rotunda Library Room before the fire (upper)
and about 1920, after restoration (lower)

There was considerable debate over permitting any
change from the interior plan of the original Rotunda. But
the final decision was to eliminate the upper floor and to
place the floor of the circular library room on the level of
the entrance from the portico, with three galleries above,
the top gallery being open, guarded on the inside by merely
a low railing. Below the main floor, on the level of the
ground entrance, were two oval rooms, the passage way
between following the lines of the oval rooms, thus being
shaped somewhat like an hourglass. The wings extending
from the Rotunda base to the first pavilions on East and
West Lawn were restored; and this time parallel wings
were constructed from the northern base of the Rotunda.
The general library collection was to be returned to the
enlarged library room, and the law library collection to be
located in the two oval rooms beneath. The four wings
might temporarily be used for other purposes but could
later be made available for library use if the need should
arise. Faults that developed in some of the concrete work
done at that period made necessary certain repairs in 1939
and 1940, after the library collections had finally been
moved to a new building. But these later repairs did not
materially alter the interior plan, and the Rotunda of the
restoration after the fire is essentially the Rotunda of the
present day.

As for the collection of books, specific figures are given
in the accounts contemporary with the fire. It is stated that
on the morning of that October Sunday there were 56,733
volumes in the University Library and that on the evening
of that selfsame day there were 17,194. The increase from
the 8,000 of the original library to 56,733 in 1895 had
been comparatively slow. All of the eight university or
college libraries mentioned in connection with the founding
of the University of Virginia Library were well above
56,733 volumes in 1895, with the exception of the Library

at the College of William and Mary, which had been
destroyed by fire in 1859 and had suffered from the closing
of that college in 1861–1865 and in 1881–1888. For the
annual report of the United States Commissioner of Education
for the session ending with June 1895 Harvard had
supplied a figure of 452,512 volumes, Yale of 220,000,
Columbia of 200,000, Princeton of 171,000, and Pennsylvania
of 120,000. By that date eight other university
libraries had collections larger than that at the University
of Virginia, the leaders being Chicago with 300,000, Cornell
with 173,450, and Wisconsin with 135,000. But what had
been a gradual decline in comparative size during the
seventy years since the founding by Thomas Jefferson
became a plummeted fall in the few hours of the fire. By
that year's record of the Federal Commissioner of Education
it was a fall, in number of volumes among university and
college libraries, from sixteenth place to seventy-seventh
place.

Of course the number of volumes affords only a partial
standard for ranking libraries. Two collections having the
same totals may differ widely in availability for use, in
suitability for local needs, and in quality and distinction.
By those tests, the fall of the University of Virginia Library
was probably far below seventy-seventh place.

By the test of availability, Jefferson's generalization to
Librarian Kean in 1825—“A library in confusion loses
much of its utility”—would now have particular application.
This had become not a working but an unworkable
collection, and its emergence out of that condition was
distressingly slow. The books piled on the Lawn were, as
soon as arrangements could be made, moved to temporary
shelves on an upper floor of the Brooks Museum, a structure
of eccentric architectural design located on the slope
northeast of the Rotunda site. There in a crowded and
confused state the books had to remain for three years, until

November 1898. Even after they were returned to the
restored library room, the shelving of the books continued
to be of the helter-skelter variety. Moreover there were no
finding lists. The author card catalogue had indeed been
saved. But that was now merely an instrument of tantalization,
constantly offering reminders of volumes that had
been destroyed in the flames.

By the test of suitability for local needs, the surviving
collection had also fallen low in the scale. Much of the
growth of the Library during its seventy years had been in
books dealing with the subjects of the various “Schools”
into which the curriculum was divided. Fortunately some
of the most frequently used books had been on the main
floor of the library room, and a considerable number of
those had been saved. But those did not include material
for all of the “Schools.” The medical collection, for example,
had been located in the gallery, and it was reported
to have been totally destroyed. Moreover what had been
salvaged in general afforded but meagre support for the resumption
of university courses on the scale maintained
before the fire. The Faculty now had bitter confirmation of
their assertions through the years that an adequate library
collection was essential for instruction by university standards.

By the test of quality and distinction the loss was indeed
tragic. The collection created by the Founder had a unique
character that was quite lacking in the beginnings of the
present University of Virginia Library. The original collection
had not been composed of rare books, but of books
selected as being the best in their fields. By 1895 some of
them had also become rare books. The impressive feature
of that selection had been that it was an authoritative
attempt to cover all departments of learning. In that respect
the 8,000 volumes of the 1828 Catalogue were far superior
to the 17,194 salvaged from the fire.

It is by a comparison between the 1825 and the 1895
situations that Thomas Jefferson's achievement can be more
adequately realized. It will be recalled that Jefferson personally
prepared the master list for the original collection,
that he found the money to purchase the books on that list,
that he insured accessibility by his subject classification, and
that he pleaded for gifts to supplement his compact nucleus
collection. These four methods do not tell the whole story.
But they will suffice for the purpose of this comparison.

In only the last of the four, the solicitation for gifts, was
the success in 1895 and the years following greater than at
the founding of the Library. At this point the University
in 1895 had an outstanding advantage. In Jefferson's day
there were friends of the University, but there were no
alumni. The 1828 Catalogue lists a creditable number of
donations. But the response to the solicitation for gifts
after the burning of the Rotunda was extraordinary, and
it continued for many years. Indeed that success is, as we
shall see, the main theme of the Library's story from 1895
to 1925.

Not so with the other three methods. In the matter of
the classification there was to be a complete—and justifiable
—break with the Jefferson-Bacon system of 1825. But for
the first decade there was for the new collection very little
of any system. There was no master list to give comprehensiveness
to the new collection; and the immediate story of
funds appropriated for the purchase of books is an uncomfortably
near approach to the famous chapter on the snakes
in Ireland.

Here, unfortunately, was the crux of the 1895 situation.
With an able Faculty, such as this one was, it is probable
that much could have been done toward the compilation of
a master list. But with the heavy additional burden of
reconstruction tasks upon them, there was need of the
encouragement of visible funds before the attempt be

undertaken. Jefferson had devised a way to extract $50,000
for books and equipment, and before his death more than
half of that amount had been drawn on for the purchase
of books from his 1825 list. On 31 October 1895, four days
after the fire, the Faculty, in a letter of appeal for the new
library collection, named that same amount, $50,000, as
needed for immediate purchase of books, with another
$50,000 as endowment. But the generous response that
ensued followed the law of the superior attraction of specific
objects. A large majority of the donations consisted of
books. There were also in the next five years four that
involved money; but these, the subscriptions for the Hertz
and Holmes books and the Byrd and D'Arcy Paul endowment
funds, were restricted as to use. Apparently no general
funds were received.

What of general appropriations? When the Faculty Editors
compiled the University Catalogue for 1896–1897, those
Editors displayed courageous optimism in a footnote which
read: “It is expected that liberal money appropriation will
be made by the Visitors toward the speedy restoration of
the Library.” Two years later this was even more hopefully
revised to read: “It is confidently expected ... that in the
near future ...” Yet that footnote ran regularly through
seven annual issues; and its disappearance after the catalogue
for 1902–1903 may have been merely in realization
that the impending election of a President of the University
would shift the target for such requests.

Of course there were possible arguments against much
buying of books. Gifts of books were beginning to arrive
in seeming abundance. Why not, therefore, wait to see if
among them were not some of the needed volumes? Hence,
except for small grants to the Law Library, during this
decade the book appropriations were mainly limited to the
annual income of $456 from the Madison and Gordon
endowments; and when later the Byrd and D'Arcy Paul

endowments increased the total to $948, the use of the two
new funds was, as has been stated, restricted to certain types
of expenditure.

It is also easy to understand that after the fire in 1895 all
available finances were being absorbed into the building
programme. That programme included other buildings
than the Rotunda. But the Rotunda was the most expensive,
and it was for library use. Moreover there were already
more than seventeen thousand books. It might therefore
appear reasonable that any expenditure for books be
omitted—or at least postponed. Here again the parallel with
1825 makes Jefferson's performance the more remarkable.
Then also there was an all pervasive programme for building
construction. It included both the Rotunda and other
needed buildings; and Jefferson's own third collection and
other gifts could be counted on for the Library. Nevertheless,
in the midst of those very circumstances, Jefferson had
insisted that general funds for purchase of a comprehensive
collection were a first essential—and he got them. In 1825
Jefferson achieved by purchase a nucleus library superior
to that of any other previous American college or university
at its beginning. In 1895 the Faculty was, as it were, a voice
crying in a wilderness of building materials.

Much more pleasant is the story of the use by the Faculty
of the Jefferson precedent for the solicitation of gifts.
The letter of appeal to Alumni and Friends of the University
was ready on the same day that the Faculty's reconstruction
programme was forwarded to the Board of Visitors;
and the resident Chaplain for the session of 1895–1896, the
Rev. John William Jones, undertook the task of sending
it out widely. The response was heart-warming. Books
poured in, not only from individuals and groups of individuals
but also from other institutions and from publishers.
The inflow continued in such abundance that the University
Catalogue for the session of 1904–1905 could announce

that the library collection then contained “more than sixty
thousand volumes.” Hence in this second beginning, the
Library had in ten years increased to a total in excess of the
figure, 56,733 volumes, it had previously reached in seventy
years. It is not clear what proportion of the sixty thousand
had been made available for use; and coming from a
multitude of donors, it was unavoidable that in some fields
there should be a large degree of duplication and in others
a paucity of material. This library phoenix that arose from
the ashes was a scion of large wingspread, but its body
lacked the compact symmetry of its predecessor.

In the rapid increase there were a number of noteworthy
collections. Mention of a few of these will illustrate
the types of the acquisitions during the first decade after
the fire. By the prompt and generous action of the Alumni
Association of New York City, the classical library of the
German scholar, Martin Julius Hertz, which had just come
on the market (Professor Hertz died 22 September 1895),
was purchased and presented to the University of Virginia.
There were approximately 12,000 books and 3,000 pamphlets
and programmes in that collection. A prime mover in
this effective response to the needs of the Library was
Thomas Randolph Price, a Professor at Columbia University,
who had from 1876 to 1882 been Professor of Greek at
the University of Virginia, succeeding Professor Gildersleeve
in that post. Professor Price's own private library,
largely classical and comprising about 4,000 volumes, was
after his death in 1903 presented by his widow and his
daughter. The private collection of another Professor,
George Frederick Holmes (he had been a member of the
Faculty from 1857 until his death in 1897) was also secured
for the University Library, in this case largely through subscriptions
from his former students. The cheque completing
the amount necessary for this purchase came from William
Andrews Clark, this being the first of a notable series of his

contributions. Still another Professor, James Albert Harrison,
who between 1895 and 1911 gave a striking example of
versatility by occupying successively chairs of English, Romance
Languages, and Teutonic Languages, inaugurated
by personal gifts a collection of Southern authors, with special
emphasis on Edgar Allan Poe. Among the many valuable
donations by Alumni were the extensive private library,
approximately 5,000 volumes, of Frederick William Markey
Holliday, who had been Governor of Virginia from 1878
to 1882, and a series of gifts of choice works on bibliography,
botany, theology, and other subjects from the Rev.
Haslett McKim. From one who was neither a Professor nor
an Alumnus, but who proved himself to be a true friend
of the University of Virginia, came a collection of between
two and three thousand volumes on Southern history and
development. This donor was Barnard Shipp, a native of
Mississippi and for many years a resident of Louisville,
Kentucky. Both the Law Library and the Medical Library
were enriched by gifts during this decade: the Law Library
by the law books of General Bradley Tyler Johnson, presented
by his son, who was a law graduate of the University
of Virginia, and by a collection donated by Judge Lambert
Tree, an Alumnus of the Department of Law; and the
Medical Library by medical works which had belonged to
James Bolton, presented by his son who was an Alumnus,
and by a collection which had been the private library of a
Medical Alumnus, James L. Leitch, this being donated by
his widow. During this decade there was continued the
annual solicitation for gifts and exchanges of astronomical
publications which had been started by Ormond Stone,
Professor of Astronomy, in 1886. The accumulated results
of this annual programme were to result in making the
Astronomy Library, located at the Leander McCormick
Observatory, outstanding in the South. There were also
two additions to the endowment funds, both received in
1899. The first was in memory of D'Arcy Paul, who had
been a law student during the sessions 1877–1879. This
fund, given by his widow, amounted to $1,000, and the
income was to be used for the purchase of periodicals in
Modern Languages. The second was the estate of Alfred
Henry Byrd, a college student during the sessions 1885–
1888. This amounted to $10,180, and the income was to be
used for the purchase of Virginiana.

This latter fund was instrumental in opening the way
for emphasis on research. So far the University Library had
been administered with an eye single to its service as a
college library. It is true that in the possession of the Lee
Papers, which had survived the fire, there had inhered in
the library collection since its beginning in 1825 the possibilities
of research; and that the recognized failure to
develop those possibilities adequately had at times weighed
on the consciences of the Faculty and Visitors. But when
the annual income from the Byrd Fund became available
about 1900, a new kind of responsibility emerged—the
responsibility of continuing selection and acquisition of
historical, literary, and social material not immediately
connected with the undergraduate curriculum. The conception
of a research library did not, like the Goddess of
Wisdom, spring full-grown from a Jovian headache. The
headache was to prove rather to be in the nature of a
chronic migraine. But from its beginning the Byrd Fund
offered the possibility of an extension of the library services.

The books had begun to arrive in quantity while the
Library was still located in congested quarters in the Brooks
Museum, and both faculty and students grew impatient
over delays in completing and equipping the new library
room in the restored Rotunda. In the three sessions from
1895 to 1898, library service was limited to the lending of
such books as could be located; use of the Library for reading
and study was practically eliminated; and there was natural

curiosity over the contents of the unopened boxes of
gifts. When the move back to the Rotunda did take place in
November 1898, it was performed by willing students,
under the direction of the Chairman of the Faculty Library
Committee and the Librarian, with an excitement akin to
that of the rescue efforts during the fire—only this was a
glad excitement.

In the new library room both the seating and the shelving
arrangements were insufficient for a number of years;
and the handling of the gift acquisitions was like clearing
pavements during a snowstorm. But as soon as the books
were again in the Rotunda, the use of the Library mounted.
The daily hours of opening, excluding Sundays, were
expanded from six to ten, and the recorded circulation for
the session of 1901–1902 had already reached a higher total
than in 1894–1895, the year before the fire. Meantime an
increased interest in the University of Virginia, which, in
part at least, was a salutary effect of the disaster of 1895,
had been accompanied by larger enrollments, until the
total for 1899–1900, namely 664 students, for the first time
exceeded the previous high point, 645, attained back in
1856–1857.

With this increase in student readers and in hours of
opening, Librarian Page had little opportunity to give
time to cataloguing. He devoted himself with patient zeal
and unfailing courtesy to guidance in reading and to searching
the shelves for needed books. He was wont to allow
trusted students to do their own searching—a time-consuming
but often a profitable experience for them. This freedom
was far different from the strict control of all student
readers during the first years of the Library's history.
Perhaps Frederick Page's greatest contribution was his
demonstration that the spirit of the service could be maintained
even in the absence of the library techniques.

But with the appointment of the next Librarian there

began to be consideration of techniques. At least there was
a nearer approach to emphasis on professional qualifications
than had been in evidence since the selection of Thomas
Holcombe in the years just prior to 1861. In the choice of
John Shelton Patton to succeed Frederick Page in 1903,
what was in demand was, it is true, not professional status
in the present-day understanding of that term. There was
apparently some consideration of the qualification that had
prevailed in the selection of Holcombe, namely, devotion
to literary studies; and Patton, who had been a newspaper
reporter and editor, and had “proceeded author” by the
compilation of a handbook of the University of Virginia in
1900, had supplied proof of such devotion. But the confused
condition that had prevailed since the Rotunda fire showed
the need of someone with organizational and executive
experience. Patton could not offer this as far as library
service was concerned. However in civic affairs he had risen
to be Mayor of Charlottesville, and in educational affairs to
be Superintendent of Schools; and it appeared reasonable
to believe that there could be a ready transfer of executive
ability to the library field. What was possibly a determining
factor in the appointment was Patton's own desire for the
position. By 1902 there seemed little doubt that there was
to be a radical change in the organization of the University
of Virginia, and that there was to be a President. In the
circumstances there appeared to be unusual promise for a
position like that of the University's Librarian.

So it was that in November 1902 Patton accepted
appointment to the comparatively humble post of Assistant
Librarian. It seems to have been understood, however, that
there would be a change in the office of Librarian at the
close of that session, 1902–1903. Actually there was a gap
between the retirement of Librarian Page in June 1903
and the appointment of Patton as his successor in November
of that year. But Patton had been named Acting Librarian

for the interim; and when he did succeed to the
position, it was at a salary, $1,150, that was greater than any
one of the previous eight Librarians had received. As a
gauge of the correctness of Patton's anticipations about the
development of the position under the administration of
the new President, it may be noted that the salary had
reached $2,000 by 1914 and $3,000 by 1921, and that it
was $3,600 during Patton's last session, 1926–1927.

2. PRESIDENT ALDERMAN

It can readily be seen that the years immediately following
the Rotunda fire were strikingly different from the
years which immediately preceded. That the first President
of the University dates from 1904 is a manifestation of the
change. The intensified administrative activities following
1895 made it increasingly evident that an organization with
dual authority was placing heavy strain on both the Board
of Visitors and the Faculty, and that some of the powers
entrusted to each body could be performed more effectively
if transferred to a single officer who would be in residence
and who would not be engaged in instruction. This did
not mean that either the Visitors or the Faculty had failed.
The current Board of Visitors was a distinguished and a
loyal body, and the Faculty had just given an unsurpassed
demonstration of vigor and wise leadership. That each body
was now willing to surrender some of its powers was not
proof of insolvency, but rather of a notable spirit of courageous
enterprise.

It was therefore under favorable auspices that Edwin
Anderson Alderman became the first President of the
University of Virginia. He had been a pioneer in educational
expansion, first in North Carolina and then in the
wider South. He had been President of the state-supported
University of North Carolina, and President of Tulane

University, an institution largely supported by private
endowments. The types of experience thus gained all
reached fruition in the extremely active first years of his
administration in Virginia. During those years the annual
appropriation from the State was doubled. As the result of
an intensive and exhausting campaign, an endowment fund
of over a million dollars augmented the financial resources
of the University. A “School” of Education was added to
the university organization, followed by extension lectures;
the University took over summer courses which since 1898
had been independently maintained as a School of Methods;
and it was made evident that the University was prepared
to cooperate fully in the educational programme of the
State.

These advances were along the lines of President Alderman's
earlier experiences. But the new spirit permeated all
parts of the University; and there were many besides the
President to whom credit should be given for the achievements
of this period. Armistead Churchill Gordon, Rector
from 1906 to 1918, handled with tact and wisdom the
delicate matter of the adjustments of the Board of Visitors
to the new form of administration. The Faculty, under the
leadership of Dean James Morris Page, who had been the
last Chairman of the Faculty, undertook the difficult task
of standardizing the college and graduate school requirements,
with such success that the University of Virginia
became the first southeastern institution to be elected a
member of the Association of American Universities. Graduate
courses were separated from college courses, and a
Department of Graduate Studies was organized in 1904
with Richard Heath Dabney as its first Dean. Visible signs
of growth appeared in the form of an half dozen new
buildings: Minor Hall for the Department of Law, Peabody
Hall for the Department of Education, additions to the
University Hospital, Madison Hall as a home for the Young

Men's Christian Association, and the President's house on
Carr's Hill and the Commons, both erected from architectural
designs prepared by Stanford White. There were
improvements in the grounds and in the commercial buildings
at “The Corner” and the Senff Gateway was erected
at the main entrance to the University.

As for the changes in the organization of the University,
the adjustments which followed the appointment of
President Alderman form, in scope, in methods, and in
effect, a highly instructive chapter in administration. For
illustration we limit ourselves to what is pertinent to this
historical sketch; namely, to the changes as they affected the
University Library.

Those changes were in the direction of simplification.
After 1906 no Library Committee of the Board of Visitors
was appointed; and after that same date the Library Committee
of the Faculty tended more and more to report
directly to the President, who was ex officio a member of
that committee, and not to the Faculty. The membership
of the Faculty Library Committee was gradually increased
until it came to be a body in size and also in function much
like the Faculty of the earlier years. The Librarian acted
as Secretary for the Faculty Library Committee, but he was
not a voting member. In the preparation of the annual
library budget and in the selection of a Librarian the
Faculty Committee acted as an advisory body. The decisions
rested with the President, though they were still subject to
review and formal approval by the Rector and Visitors.

The new President quickly revealed an interest in the
Library. In his early years as a Professor at the University
of North Carolina he had been charged with the responsibility
for the Library at that institution. He had then
expressed his conviction that there should be an evolution
of the College Library “from a mere array of books to a vital
force in the educational life of the institution.” This was

an expression in general terms. In a talk to students at the
University of Virginia on “books and reading” at one of
the College Hours which he instituted, he made it clear
that his primary concern was in the general cultural effect
of a Library rather than in the support of college courses or,
as yet at least, in research. In this respect his attitude would
seem to have been not unlike Thomas Jefferson's—though
President Alderman did not share the Founder's interest in
library techniques.

At any rate, the Library benefited from the general
university prosperity, just as it had in the 1850's—though
at neither time was the Library a chief object of concern.
There were moderate increases in the annual appropriations
for the purchase of books, and the acquisition of books
for general reading was encouraged. A first experiment,
during 1907–1909, to add evening hours of opening did not
attract sufficient readers to make its continuance appear
practical. But a later attempt, in 1914, was more successful.
In accord with the University's increased emphasis on
statewide services to education, Librarian Patton joined
with the Extension Division in introducing the circulation
of package libraries among schools; and, in contrast to
earlier attitudes, there was a definite tendency to liberalize
loans from the Library. As we have seen, salary advances
were indicative of increased appreciation of the importance
of the position of Librarian. Moreover, after Patton's
appointment, there was no reversion to a one person
Library Staff. The position of Assistant Librarian was continued
after 1903, the first regular appointee following
Patton's brief tenure of that office being Anna Seeley
Tuttle. Gradually other staff members were added, mainly
in order to take care of the extended hours of opening and
of the ever pressing problem of cataloguing. There was also
a new field of activity opened by the introduction into the
Summer Quarter in 1911 of a course in Library Methods,

given by Librarian Patton. In 1915 another course, taught
by the then Assistant Librarian, Mary Louise Dinwiddie,
was added, and such summer courses continued to be
offered for many years.

In the courses on Library Methods there was consideration
of the classification and cataloguing of books. We have
observed in the previous history of the University of Virginia
Library that the forward steps in the realization of
librarianship as professional in character had for the most
part been linked with emphasis on classification or cataloguing.
That realization faintly emerged when in 1825 and
1828 Librarians Kean and Wertenbaker were in turn called
upon to catalogue, i.e., to list, the books according to the
Bacon-Jefferson classification. It came into the open in 1857
when Librarian Holcombe was enjoined to compile author
and subject lists by a cataloguing method devised by Professor
Gildersleeve and modified by the Board of Visitors.
Holcombe completed an author list. Since no subject list
was then or later achieved, it is not clear how far it would
have followed the Bacon-Jefferson division of subjects. But
by the shelving arrangements maintained during the terms
of William Wertenbaker as Librarian, and followed by his
pupil, Frederick Page, the Bacon-Jefferson system prevailed,
at least in modified form, until the Rotunda fire. Shortly
before the fire, two actions of significance were taken. One
was the adoption of the card form in cataloguing. The other
was the temporary employment of an “educated librarian”
to begin a card catalogue, thus reversing the previous
insistence that the work be done by the Librarian. In the
confusion after the fire, the Bacon-Jefferson classification,
like the old soldier in the General's ballad, seems not to
have died, but just faded away. The same system's contemporary
demise at the Library of Congress had been caused
not by destruction of the books but quite otherwise—by the
difficulty of applying its meagre and inelastic coverage of

the expanded fields of learning to a library collection grown
to a million volumes. Out of expert study of those million
volumes there came into being a new Library of Congress
classification. This, however, was being quietly developed
at that Library, with apparently little thought at first that
it would be adopted for other collections. Meantime
another system, the Dewey Decimal Classification, had
become popularly known, particularly among public libraries,
and it was this system that then came into use at the
University of Virginia.

Thus began, under Librarian Patton and in connection
with the second university collection, the most ambitious
attempt at cataloguing that had yet been made. The magnitude
of the task was still inadequately realized, and the
first applications of the Dewey Decimal Classification were
necessarily of the trial and error variety. Yet commendable
progress was made by Miss Tuttle, by Katherine Crenshaw
Ricks, who succeeded her for the session of 1911–1912, and
by Mary Louise Dinwiddie, who was appointed an Assistant
in 1911 and Assistant Librarian in 1912, and who continued
in the latter office until her retirement in 1950, thereby
achieving the Library's record to date for an unbroken term
of service. A first attempt in this new cataloguing effort was
to shelve the books in the order of their classification and
to compile a shelf list—an arrangement, that is, of single
card entries in the order of the books as shelved. This was
a slow process; and to expedite matters it was decided to
rearrange this shelf list as an author catalogue. The reward
came in an increased use of the books, the annual records of
circulation reaching totals never before attained.

Further specialization in the library routines developed
from the increase in circulation and from the extension of
the hours of opening. Lilie Estelle Dinwiddie, who had
followed her sister by becoming an Assistant in 1912, from
1914 was placed in charge of circulation. By 1919, when

she resigned to marry Professor Richard Lee Morton of the
College of William and Mary, she had attractively demonstrated
the value of emphasis on the quality of the circulation
services. Later in this period, the Assistant Librarian,
Mary Louise Dinwiddie, gave attention to starting more
systematic procedures in the ordering of books and in the
recording of periodicals.

An event notable for libraries had occurred in 1901
when the Library of Congress, under the inspiring leadership
of Herbert Putnam, announced its willingness to
distribute printed library cards. In 1909 the Faculty
Library Committee approved the purchase and use of
these at the University of Virginia. Previous to this, the
Faculty as a whole had given an example of the cooperation
that was later to be emphasized as a dominant policy of this
Library, when it considered at length, in 1904, the making
of an application for a depository set of the Library of
Congress cards. The decision was that the influence of the
University should be directed towards the location of a
Virginia depository set at the State Library at Richmond.

It has been noted that a few weeks before the Rotunda
fire, Librarian Page had prepared for the Alumni Bulletin
a brief history of the University Library. This was one of
several contributions by him of articles on the University.
The role of the Librarian as author was emphasized by his
successor. Throughout his administration Librarian Patton
maintained a steady output of articles and books. In recognition
he was appointed one of the Editors of the Alumni
Bulletin. Beginning in 1913 he compiled a Bulletin of the
University of Virginia Library. Until funds for printing
failed in 1923, fourteen numbers of this Bulletin had been
issued. There were also separate library publications,
including a pamphlet on the Byrd collection and a small
library handbook, both of which appeared in 1914.

The title of this little handbook, The Library: An

Invitation, is significant of the emphasis, during those active
years, on President Alderman's conception of a library's
services. Unfortunately, however, that rapid progress was
not to be maintained. Two years prior to the appearance
of the handbook, the health of the new President had been
endangered by the strain of those first strenuous years, and
late in 1912 he was forced to go to Saranac Lake, New
York, for long months of treatment. It was the spring of
1914 before he was able to leave Saranac, and then it was
for a leisurely trip with Mrs. Alderman to Switzerland. But
that trip was fated not to be leisurely. Instead it ended in
a hurried and adventurous departure from Europe in the
midst of the confused beginning of the first world war.

3. GIFTS AND THE STATUS QUO

The coming of war vitally changed the situation at the
University. The change was not as drastic as it had been
during the War of 1861–1865, for Virginia was not in the
region of the conflict. But attention was increasingly
diverted from purely academic matters; and when in 1917
the United States entered actively on the side of the Allies,
there were extensive enlistments by students and professors
in the armed forces of the United States, and the
reduced university community itself moved in the direction
of becoming a military training post. As in the previous
war, and as was again to happen in the second world war,
the contributions in patriotic service comprised noble
chapters in the University's history.

The reduction in student enrollment of course curtailed
the income of the University; and as usual the Library
proved to be a nerve center peculiarly sensitive to such
curtailment. Appropriations were cut, the evening hours
were discontinued, and there was a considerable decrease in
the purchase of books and periodicals. Moreover, circumstances

prolonged this library situation well beyond the
war years by concentrating attention on other than library
developments. The war had stimulated interest in scientific
progress, especially in the fields of Chemistry and Medicine,
and emphasis was naturally given to those subjects. Events
connected with the centennial celebration of the establishment
of the University and with a second endowment
campaign absorbed general interest. The celebration was
held, not in 1919, one hundred years after the granting of
the charter, but in connection with the final exercises of
the session of 1920–1921. Shortly afterwards there emerged
a severely agitating legislative controversy over the possible
removal of the Medical Department to Richmond. This
was settled in a manner satisfactory to the University, but
only after drawing all the forces of the University into an
exhausting maelstrom of effort. During the war and postwar
years the library services were steadily maintained, and
accessions by gift continued to be received. But it was not
until toward the close of the first hundred years, in 1925,
that the Library's needs were pushed into the foreground.

The accessions by gift had, as we have seen, been extraordinarily
numerous following the Rotunda disaster. The
inflow continued without abatement after the coming of
President Alderman. He was rarely gifted in understanding
what objects would appeal to individual donors; and he
was himself convinced that the Library was a worthy object.
As those donations were a distinguishing feature of this
whole period, we shall now supplement the illustrative list
of the 1895–1904 donations by a similar list for the years
1904 to 1925. Since the dates of the gifts are given, it will
be noted that the only break in the continuity was during
the years of acute concentration on the war.

The donations of books included one in 1906 by Grace
Dodge of New York City of approximately a thousand volumes
appropriate for the students' reading room in the

newly opened Madison Hall. In 1907 the gift of books on
Geology which had belonged to Jed Hotchkiss, the Virginia
geologist and topographer, led to the establishment of a
separate Geology Library in the Brooks Museum. This
donation came from his widow. Later the same year the
University received word of the bequest by Edward Wilson
James of Norfolk of his private library of some 12,000
volumes. The following year, 1908, the Law Library was
the recipient of a long run of the Reports of the English
Courts from Dean James Barr Ames of the Harvard Law
School. In 1910, the French Government, through Ambassador
Jusserand, presented a valuable set of works of the
art, history, and literature of France. By bequest of Judge
Lambert Tree of Chicago in 1911 the Law Library became
the possessor of his law books. To the Medical Library in
1912 came a donation of books and journals on Pediatrics
from William David Booker of Baltimore. In 1913 there
was an especially rich harvest. This included books from
the estate of Professor Harrison which met immediate needs
of curriculum courses and which supplemented the collection
on Southern authors which Professor Harrison had
been instrumental in starting. It also included the choice
library of Bennett Wood Green, who had been a resident
of the University at the time of his death, and whose
affection for his books gave them associative value to those
who had had the good fortune of knowing him. That year's
harvest likewise included the first consignment of the
private collection of Wilbur Phelps Morgan, a physician of
Baltimore and a bookman of catholic tastes. The Morgan
donations continued until his death in 1922, and reached a
total of well over 10,000 volumes. In 1915 came another
gift of both intrinsic and association values, in the books
of Andrew Stevenson, presented by his granddaughter.
Andrew Stevenson had been a member of the Board of
Visitors from 1845 to 1857 and its Rector from 1856 to
1857. Prior to those dates he had been a member and the
Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, a member and
the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Washington,
and Minister to England.

The tide of donations again reached the flood stage after
the first world war. In 1920 the working library of William
Harry Heck, Professor of Education from 1905 until his
death in 1919, was presented by his widow, Anna Tuttle
Heck, who had been Assistant Librarian from 1903 to 1911.
This led to the establishment in Peabody Hall of the Heck
Memorial Library in Education. Early in the following
year, 1921, the eminent international lawyer, John Bassett
Moore, announced his intention of presenting to the Law
Library his extensive collection of works on international
law. Portions continued to be received until after his death
in 1947, giving distinction to the University's holdings in
that subject. In 1922 there were received approximately
8,000 volumes from the private library of William Gordon
McCabe, educator and author of international reputation.
These volumes were presented by William Gordon McCabe,
Jr., as a memorial to his father and to his elder
brother. The father had been an officer in the Confederate
Army, the founder and head of the University School,
located at first at Petersburgh and later at Richmond, and
a member of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors
from 1887 to 1896. His wide acquaintance included such
English writers as Matthew Arnold, Browning, and Tennyson.
In that same year, 1922, the Law Library received
from Judge George Moffett Harrison of Staunton, Virginia,
approximately 600 volumes from his private library; and
the following year there was another notable donation to
the Law Library, this coming from Judge Legh Richmond
Watts of Portsmouth, Virginia, and consisting of some 1,400
volumes. In 1924 there came to the Chemistry Library over
1,000 books bequeathed by Charles Baskerville, a graduate

of the University of Virginia who had been Professor of
Chemistry at the College of the City of New York from
1904 until his death in 1924.

As yet there had been no systematic organization of a
rare book collection. Some rare items had been recognized
among the gifts and isolated for special protection. Several
rarities had been received as individual gifts. Such were
three items given in 1913 by Mrs. Martha Jefferson Trist
Burke of Alexandria, Virginia: a Bible which had been
presented by George Wythe to Thomas Jefferson, and the
two copies of the New Testament from which Jefferson
had clipped the portions used by him in preparing his
compilation known as The Life and Morals of Jesus of
Nazareth. Other Jefferson items were a copy of the first
American edition of the Notes on the State of Virginia,
given by Frank Pierce Brent of Christchurch, Virginia;
and a copy of Wythe's Virginia Reports, published in 1795,
a copy annotated both by George Wythe and by Thomas
Jefferson, which was presented by Jefferson Randolph Kean,
a grandson of John Vaughan Kean, the first Librarian, and,
on his mother's side, a great grandson of Jefferson.

For the Lee Papers and other manuscripts a special case
had been procured in 1913, and a number of pieces, chiefly
Jefferson letters, were added to the manuscript collection
during the years 1895 to 1925. Among the donors of manuscripts
were Mrs. Francis Eppes Shine of Los Angeles, California,
Mrs. Mary Madison McGuire of Washington, D.C.,
and William Andrews Clark, Jr., also of Los Angeles and
of Butte, Montana. Several years after the Rotunda fire
there was discovered a cache of papers which had apparently
been rescued on that October Sunday, tucked away for
safety, and then forgotten. There was a lighter side to this
treasure trove. Among the papers unearthed was a library
fine list for the second session in which was entered a charge
of sixty cents against Edgar Allan Poe for the late return

of a book, followed by a notation that fifty-eight cents had
been paid. This was of course grist for the news mill. Not
long after, a communication was received from the girl
students of the American Literature class of Virginia
Intermont College at Bristol in far southwest Virginia,
enclosing a two cent stamp to clear the poet's record!

An acquisition of source material on Poe, along with a
gratifying illustration of the cooperative spirit, came in
1921 through the efforts of Dr. James Southall Wilson, who
had in 1919 been appointed Edgar Allan Poe Professor of
English. The biographer John H. Ingram, an English
champion of Poe, had for over forty years been collecting
personal letters, pictures, rare editions, and miscellaneous
items concerning the poet's life. After Ingram's death in
1916, his sister Laura had offered to sell the bulk of the
collection (disposition had already been made of some of
the choice pieces) to the University of Virginia. Librarian
Patton had proposed that the material be shipped from
England to Charlottesville for examination, the transportation
charges to be paid by the University. However, the
dangers from German submarines during World War I
had made such transfer seem unwise, and further consideration
of the matter had lapsed. When the shipping lanes
again became safe, Miss Ingram passed on the offer of
purchase to the University of Texas. The response, written
by Professor Killis Campbell, had been that the University
of Texas would be interested, but it would be first wish
to have assurance that the University of Virginia had refused.
It was at this moment that Professor Wilson learned
of the situation. He persuaded President Alderman and the
Faculty Library Committee to draw from certain accumulated
funds, and the negotiations were successfully completed.
A real beginning of an important research collection
on Poe was thus achieved.

An unusual feature of the gifts during those years was

the donation by several authors of remainder stocks from
their works, with the privilege of profit to the Library by
sales. The works included the Word-Book of Virginia Folk-Speech
by Bennett Wood Green, the five volumes of the
quaint Lower Norfolk County Antiquary, edited and in
large part written by Edward Wilson James, and A Reprint
of Annual Reports and Other Papers on the Geology of
the Virginias by William Barton Rogers.

There was also a notable increase in library endowment
funds during the years of the Alderman administration to
1925, amounting to a principal of approximately $200,000.
About five-eights of this came in 1913 from the estate of
Bennett Wood Green. The other endowment funds were
established chronologically as follows: in 1909 the William
Whitehead Fuller Fund for the Law Library; in 1911 the
William Barton Rogers Fund for the Physics Library and
the Lambert Tree Fund for the General Library; in 1919
the Ferrell Dabney Minor, Jr., Memorial Fund for the Law
Library and the Isabel Mercein Tunstall Fund for books
of poetry for the General Library; in 1920 the James
Douglas Bruce Fund for English Literature, this being
chiefly used for the Graduate Library; in 1922 the Walter
H. Jones Fund for journals for the Engineering Library
and the Coolidge Fund, established for the Law Library in
memory of Thomas Jefferson by the Coolidge Family of
Boston; and in 1923 the Hamilton M. Barksdale Funds for
the Chemistry and Engineering Libraries. In addition
several thousand dollars were donated for immediate expenditure.
These gifts included one from Robert Baylor
Tunstall, Sr., in 1907 to establish the Isabel Mercein
Tunstall Collection of Poetry, for which, as stated above, an
endowment fund was later presented, one from Arthur
Curtiss James in 1912 for books on the Negro, one from
Paul Goodloe McIntire in 1919 for books and equipment
for the School of Fine Arts, one from Alfred William

Erickson in 1922 for the Education Library, and two in
1923, the first contributed by an anonymous donor for the
General Library, and the second raised by the members of
Minor Inn of Phi Delta Phi for the purchase of law books
in memory of Raleigh Colston Minor.

This was a truly remarkable outpouring of gifts; and
the Library's growth in size of collection maintained the
pace set in the first years after the Rotunda fire. It will be
recalled that on the afternoon of the disastrous day there
had remained 17,194 volumes as a nucleus for a new library
collection. It was a small nucleus for an institution seventy
years in being. But by June 1925, thirty years later, the
reported figure was 131,422, an increase of over sevenfold.
That was the reported figure. There doubtless were by that
time more books in the possession of the University. But
both lack of Staff and lack of shelf space were preventing
full use of the library resources. Given books as well as
purchased books require technical handling to render them
accessible. As early as 1914 Librarian Patton was making
an urgent plea for a larger Library Staff in order that the
accumulated work behind the scenes might be accomplished.
Between then and 1925 the situation at the
Rotunda steadily increased in complexity and confusion.
A natural result may readily be seen in the very listing of
the gifts. For a large proportion of the gifts were for separate
libraries. It was at least in part because of administrative
difficulties that the University Library became the
University Libraries.

The dispersion had started before 1895, when already
the inadequacy of the Rotunda was becoming recognized.
At that date there were four Libraries. There were also a
Mathematics Reading Room and reading rooms for students
and for professors. By 1925 the number of special
collections had grown to thirteen. The nine new ones were
the Classical Library in Cabell Hall, the Education Library

in Peabody Hall, the Engineering Library in the Mechanical
Laboratory, the Geology Library in the Brooks Museum,
the Graduate Library in the pavilion on West Lawn used
as an office for the Department of Graduate Studies, the
Mathematics Library in Cabell Hall, the Medical Library
in one of the oval rooms on the first floor of the Rotunda
which had been vacated by the Law Library when the
latter was moved to Minor Hall, the Physics Library in
the Rouss Physical Laboratory, and the Y.M.C.A. Library
in Madison Hall. All of these locations except that for the
Medical Library were outside of the Rotunda; and all
these libraries, including the Medical, were, to some degree
at least, independent organizations.

A word should be inserted about the collections which,
being outside of the Rotunda on 27 October 1895, had not
suffered from the fire. For one of them, the Chemistry
Library, that good fortune did not continue. For it was
totally destroyed in 1917 by the burning of the Chemical
Laboratory. A vigorous start was at once made on another
collection; and this was located in 1918 in the new Cobb
Chemical Laboratory. In this case, the availability of the
Barksdale Chemistry Fund after 1923 helped to make a
plan for systematic coverage of the subject possible, the
carrying out of the plan being entrusted to Professor John
Howe Yoe. The manna of special funds did not fall on the
Astronomy or Biology Libraries. But the annual effort to
solicit gifts and exchanges was patiently maintained by the
Faculty of the School of Astronomy; and an effort by Miss
Dinwiddie to catalogue the Biology collection was of assistance
towards the use of that Library.

Two of the three reading rooms were among the sufferers
at the time of the Rotunda fire. The mathematics
reading room had been in the Annex and the students'
reading room in the wing connecting the Rotunda with
West Lawn. Both of these made fresh starts as separate

library collections, and have been included in the list of
nine separate libraries, the Madison Hall Library continuing
the students' reading room. The faculty reading room
seems to have died a natural death. But the present-day
display of periodicals in the Colonnade Club may be a
reincarnation.

As for the Law Library, its record had been one of
notable good fortune. It is true that it was to the fated
Annex that its books were removed from the gallery of the
main library just prior to the fire. But that room in the
Annex was easily accessible, and from it the books, including
a number from Jefferson's original list, were salvaged
in the early minutes of the conflagration. Moreover in the
receipt of gifts of books and funds, it had been specially
favored. Its needs had also been given some recognition in
most of the annual budgets. Faculty awareness of its value
for legal training had led to careful planning for library
space and equipment in the new law building, Minor Hall.
To that building the Law Library was moved in 1911.
Beginning in 1896 student Law Librarians had annually
been appointed. In 1911 the position was made full time,
with Ella Watson Johnson as the first appointee. She was
followed in 1912 by Catherine Rebecca Lipop, who continued
as Law Librarian until her retirement in 1945, the
only change being one of name, since in 1925 she became
Mrs. Charles Alfred Graves—thus following Mrs. Anna
Tuttle Heck in acquiring faculty status not as a Librarian
but by marriage! By 1925 the Law Library contained more
than 20,000 volumes, and was by far the largest of the
separate collections.

The new home of the Law Library in Minor Hall was
to prove reasonably adequate for the next two decades. The
restored Rotunda, however, created growing pains for the
General Library almost from the start. Early in President
Alderman's administration something had been done

towards improving the attractiveness and the comfort of
the library room. But Librarian Patton was soon adding
lack of shelf space to lack of Staff in his enumeration of his
administrative difficulties. The early expressions were cautious
and somewhat vague. But by 1917 it was stated in his
annual report that “The truth is, the Rotunda is already
inadequate for the whole library, and another building,
planned and made to provide stackrooms, reading rooms,
office and other facilities necessary to modern library
development and administration is already a pressing need
—a need which touches more students than any other.”
This wording still did not suggest more than a college
library; and the plea, however justified, gained merely a
sympathetic hearing. But with the appointment of John
Calvin Metcalf as Chairman of the Faculty Library Committee
in 1918 and as Dean of the Department of Graduate
Studies in 1923, the cause of the Library was reinforced by
its relation to the University's responsibility for the means
of research. The new concept involved much more than a
building. But the building was the first essential.

Two events which occurred at this stage were revealing.
In the plans for the programme of the Centennial Celebration
there was included a banquet in the Rotunda for the
guests and participants. It will be recalled that in 1824,
before the Rotunda had been completed and before the
University had actually opened, there had been held in
that building a community banquet to Lafayette. It will be
recalled also that there had later been objection to the use
of the library room for other than library purposes—in
particular for dancing. There were therefore precedents
both for the action by John Lloyd Newcomb, Dean of the
Department of Engineering and the able General Chairman
of the Centennial Committee, in designating the Rotunda
as the place of this banquet; and for the action by Dean
Metcalf, Chairman of the Faculty Library Committee, in

warning of the damage that might result from such use of
the crowded library room. Here were two emergencies
meeting head on. The result was a compromise. It was
decided that the banquet should be held in the Rotunda,
and that the Centennial Committee should help out the
library situation by donating the cost of three bookcases.
This was admitted to be merely a temporary solution. Later
these two officers were to be leaders in the ultimate effort
to secure a new library building.

The three bookcases barely alleviated the Library's
shelving problem, and the second event was a further effort
to add to the book capacity of the Rotunda. The northeast
wing had been secured in 1914 for the housing of government
documents, and efforts were started towards having
history classes transferred from the northwest wing in order
to free it for use as a periodical stack and reading room.
Plans prepared by the Assistant Librarian, Miss Dinwiddie,
for a rearrangement of the equipment in the circular library
room were approved in 1921, and shelving was purchased
for the second gallery. In order to finance these latter
changes, the Faculty Library Committee was compelled to
take the drastic action of drawing from funds allocated for
the purchase of books. The added endowments had
increased the annual income. Nevertheless this equipment
expenditure had to be carried for several years as an overdraft,
with sharp limitation of book purchases and periodical
subscriptions. By January 1924 the Faculty Library
Committee, in discussing what had come to be a perennial
plea for small appropriations for equipment, decided to
call a halt to this piecemeal procedure and to throw its
whole weight behind the new building project. Its statement,
prepared by Chairman Metcalf for presentation to
President Alderman and, through him, to the Board of
Visitors, was the most definite and powerful that had yet
been made. It still had to be met with the response that no

funds were available. But the cogency and force of the
argument were not without effect. Three months later, in
his 1924 Founder's Day address, President Alderman, in a
summary beginning, “And now may I dream a few dreams,”
outlined his considered hopes for future development of the
University. Eight objects were specified, of which the first
was an endowment for research, and the third “a great new
library, costing a million dollars.”

The first hundred years of the University Library thus
ended. The burning of the Rotunda had sharply interrupted
continuity of the century's progress. That disaster
had well-nigh destroyed the library collection which had
been so nobly started by Thomas Jefferson. The thirty years
which followed brought the encouragement of the rapid
growth of a new collection, obtained mainly from generous
gifts. They brought also the discouragement of crowded,
scattered, and unworkable conditions. There seemed to be
a stalement. But there were also the beginnings of a new and
more adequate conception of a University Library.