University of Virginia Library

GENERAL INDEX

1931-1945

THE completion of fifteen annual reports (the eleventh
through the fifteenth with a cumulated index forming volume
two) affords opportunity for us to pay a highly
deserved tribute to the services rendered by Dr. Lester J. Cappon
in the collection and preservation of historical materials.

Those services have extended throughout the period covered
by these fifteen reports; namely, from 1930 to 1945. They have
included the initiation and a share of the execution of the archival
activities at the University of Virginia, and they have been
of significance also for the development of similar activities
throughout the United States.

In 1930 it was generally admitted that the University of
Virginia had fallen far behind in the collection of manuscripts.
Doctor Cappon's appointment to the new post of Archivist was
made in 1930 (with the effective cooperation of Dr. Wilson Gee,
Director of the University's Institute for Research in the Social
Sciences) for the purpose of stimulating such collection. It was
the intention, however, to make this more than a project for
collection of manuscripts. Priority was to be given to a survey
of the historical materials existing in Virginia which should
serve as a guide to research; accessibility was to be emphasized as
well as preservation; and the principle of cooperation with other
state agencies was to be adopted as a definite policy of the programme.
Doctor Cappon broadened the range of the undertaking
by interpreting `historical materials' as including every written
form of record bearing on human relationships, and he formulated
far-reaching plans for the accomplishment of the project.

It so happened that in this planning Doctor Cappon was a
step in advance of a nationwide movement. The years between
the first and the second world wars saw the emergence of a new
viewpoint in historical research, in which economic and social
planning became central. Involved in this movement were such
organizations as the American Council of Learned Societies, the

Social Science Research Council, the Public Archives Commission
of the American Historical Association, the Public Documents
Committee of the American Library Association, and state and
national archives commissions. Developing directly out of the
movement were such organizations as the Society of American
Archivists and the American Association for State and Local
History (in both of which Doctor Cappon has held official position).
And coincident with the movement were rapid developments
in microphotography. The movement was powerful enough
to be able to adapt itself to such violent disturbances of social
conditions as those which were injected by a worldwide economic
depression and by a second world war.

Doctor Cappon's plans for a survey of the manuscript resources
in Virginia involved the slow and laborious investigation
of each of the one hundred counties in turn. This was only well
under way when the Historical Records Survey, an offspring of
the depression, undertook a similar county by county examination
for the whole country, and rendered further effort in this
University of Virginia undertaking unnecessary. But the administrators
of the Historical Records Survey turned to Doctor Cappon,
as a pioneer in such a project, for counsel and for the initial
direction of their efforts in Virginia. Again, when the ominous
signs of an approaching second world war turned the attention
of the new archival movement to the collection of war materials,
Doctor Cappon was called upon to review the efforts for such
collection which had been made during the first world war and
to prepare a manual for systematic procedures during the progress
of the coming conflict. He was also appointed the first
Director for the Virginia World War II History Commission. In
1930 the University of Virginia had been far behind in its work
with manuscripts. A decade later it was supplying both example
and leadership.

As has been stated, the actual collecting had been subordinated
to broader plans for service to historical scholarship. Notwithstanding
this, the growth of the manuscript collection at the
University of Virginia during those fifteen years was phenomenal.
Many people and agencies contributed to that growth.
Doctor Cappon's own survey and collecting activities throughout
the State, wide publicity concerning the receptive attitude of

the University of Virginia, the opening of the Alderman Library
with its special equipment for the preservation and accessibility
of manuscripts, the availability of three funds for the purchase
of Virginiana, both books and manuscripts (the Byrd Fund established
by the family of Alfred Henry Byrd, the Coles Fund bequeathed
by Walter DeR. Coles in memory of his aunt Elizabeth
Cocke Coles, and the grants for the Tracy W. McGregor Library
by the Trustees of McGregor Fund), the assistance rendered by
the American history professors in the selection of material for
purchase, the generous interest of a large number of alumni and
friends of the University, and the skilled services for this collection
(this should be emphasized) of of an exceptionally able
staff, all contributed to the expansion of the manuscript collection
from 2,177 pieces in 1929 to 1,591,984 pieces on 30 June 1945, and
to such handling of the material that its use by research scholars
has continued and has increased even through those fifteen
tumultuous years. However widely distributed, the credit should
be large for each contributing individual and agency; and a plentiful
share which reaches to the very beginning should be designated
for Doctor Cappon.

In 1945, however, he is departing from the University of
Virginia for another new post, that of Research Editor for the
Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg.
Regret this as we may, there is at least the assurance that
our plan and practice of cooperation with other state agencies
have been still further established. Furthermore we have been
able to prevent the severance from becoming complete. For he is
to continue his connection with the University and its Alderman
Library under the title of Honorary Consultant in Archives.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Doctor Cappon has to an unusual degree left printed record
of the activities of the decade and a half covered by these fifteen
reports. It was his thorough and painstaking compilation of the
Bibliography of Virginia History Since 1865 (which had been
prepared under the supervision of Prof. Dumas Malone and which
was issued in 1930 as a monograph of the University of Virginia
Institute for Research in the Social Sciences) that had called

attention to his eminent fitness for the post of Archivist. During
his tenure of that position he supervised the preparation of fourteen
of the fifteen annual reports. (The ninth was prepared by
Dr. W. Edwin Hemphill, Acting Archivist during 1938-1939 while
Doctor Cappon was on leave of absence.) In these can be found
statements of the original planning, details of survey and collecting
activities, year by year records of the expansion of archival
undertakings throughout the nation, a manual for collectors
(fourteenth and fifteenth reports), and a description of the handling
of manuscripts in the Alderman Library (thirteenth report).

As volume one of the Guide to Virginia Historical Materials
there was published in 1936 Doctor Cappon's volume on Virginia
Newspapers, 1821-1935: a Bibliography with Historical Introduction
and Notes, this being issued by the Appleton-Century
company as a monograph of the University of Virginia Institute
for Research in the Social Sciences. Other contributions towards
that survey and guide took the form of the `Parish Records of the
Diocese of Virginia, 1653-1900' (compiled by Doctor Cappon and
published as an appendix to the fourth annual report), of the
`Parish Records of the Dioceses of Southern and of Southwestern
Virginia, 1648-1900' (compiled by Dr. W. Edwin Hemphill for
the fifth annual report), a `Bibliography of the Unprinted Official
Records of the University of Virginia' (compiled by Doctor Hemphill
for the sixth annual report), a `Bibliography of Original Baptist
Church Records in the Virginia Baptist Historical Society,
University of Richmond' (compiled by Doctor Cappon for the
seventh annual report), a `Checklist of Bound Business Records in
the Manuscript Collections of the University of Virginia Library'
(compiled by Mr. Francis L. Berkeley, Jr., for the eighth
annual report), and a `Checklist of Newspapers to 1821 in the
Alderman Library, University of Virginia' (compiled by Dr.
Glenn Curtis Smith for the ninth annual report). As marking the
transition of the county project to the Historical Records Survey,
the first volume issued in Virginia under the national supervision,
the inventory of the archives of Chesterfield County, was issued
by the University of Virginia as publisher in August 1938, and
contained, on pages 5-33, an essay by Doctor Cappon on `The
Evolution of County Government in Virginia.'

In addition there have been at least a dozen articles by Doctor
Cappon on phases of the collection of historical records which
have appeared in various periodical or other publications. A list
of these follows. Doctor Cappon was himself the Editor of The
War Records Collector from its first issue in March 1944 through
the third number of volume two, which bears the date of May
1945.

Survey and Collection of Manuscripts in Virginia. In University
of Virginia Alumni News, vol. 19, no. 7, March-April 1931,
pp. 151-154. Reprinted in First Annual Report of the Archivist
. . . pp. 10-16.

The Making and Preserving of Virginia History. In University
of Virginia News Letter, vol. 8, no. 14, 15 April 1932.

The Yankee Press in Virginia, 1861-1865. In William and Mary
College Quarterly Historical Magazine, second series, vol.
15, no. 1, January 1935, pp. 81-88.

University of Virginia Activity in the Collection and Preservation
of Historical Materials. In University of Virginia Alumni
News, vol. 26, no. 10, special issue, 1938, pp. 234-238.

Two Decades of Historical Activity in Virginia. In Journal of
Southern History, vol. 6, no. 2, May 1940, pp. 189-200.

A Plan for the Collection and Preservation of World War II
Records. New York, Social Science Research Council, October
1942. 24 pp.

The Collection and Preservation of War Records in Indiana. In
Indiana Historical Bulletin, vol. 20, no. 4, April 1943, pp. 163168.

The Collection of World War I Materials in the States. In
American Historical Review, vol. 48, no. 4, July 1943. pp.
733-745.

War Records Projects in the United States, 1941-1943. In Bulletin
of the American Association for State and Local History,
vol. 1, no. 8, March 1944, pp. 189-226.

Some Problems of Contemporary War History. In the War Records
Collector, vol. 1, no. 10, December 1944, pp. [37]-40.
Reprinted in Southwestern Historical Quarterly, vol. 48,
no. 4, April 1945, pp. 578-583.

The War History of Virginia. In University of Virginia News
Letter, vol. 21, no. 12, 15 March 1945.

The Evolution of Materials for Research in Early American History
in the University of Virginia Library. In William and
Mary Quarterly, third series, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1946, pp.
370-382. (In collaboration with Dr. Patricia Holbert Menk.)