University of Virginia Library

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.