The Marian S. Carson Collection, believed to be the most extensive existing private assemblage of early Americana, has become part of the Library's collection of unique materials relating to the nation's history.
The collection includes more than 10,000 manuscripts, photographs, watercolors, books, broadsides, letters and other documents, dating from before the Revolution to the end of the 19th century.
A dinner honoring Mrs. Marian S. Carson, 92, of Philadelphia, and giving guests a peek at the Americana treasures was hosted by the Madison Council, Oct. 8, in the Great Hall. The Library named Mrs. Carson honorary curator of the Carson Collection of Americana.
The acquisition, by purchase and gift, of a collection valued between $6 million and $10 million, was announced by the Library Oct. 8. The Library will pay a total of $2 million over four years. However, Mrs. Carson donated outright the four most precious pieces in the collection:
- an extremely rare broadside printing (only two copies known) of the Declaration of Independence, believed to have been printed by Samuel Loudon in New York, circa July 10-20, 1776;
- a memorial portrait drawing of George Washington done in black and white chalk on paper by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin (1770-1852). The portrait, circa 1800, was done within a year of Washington's death in 1799.
- a manuscript plan of Savannah, Ga., done in pen and ink, ca. 1796,
- Robert Cornelius's 1839 quarter-plate daguerreotype self- portrait. This daguerreotype is believed to be the earliest extant U.S. portrait photograph. Jacques Louis-Mande Daguerre announced his invention of a process for making "fixed," or permanent, images through the action of light on a photosensitive surface to the French Academy of Sciences in August 1839. In October, Philadelphian Robert Cornelius, working outdoors to take advantage of the light, made this self-portrait using a box fitted with the lens from an opera glass.
Funds for the purchase of a major portion of the Marian S. Carson Collection have been provided by the Madison Council and by Madison Council members David Koch of New York, James and Margaret Elkins of Texas, Charles and Norma Dana of Connecticut, and Madison Council Chairman John W. Kluge.
Regarding her decision to place the collection at the Library, Mrs. Carson said: "I have known [the Library's] magnificent rare book and Americana collections for many years. It is the American institution most capable of caring for this vast and complex body of historical documents in its entirety, and of making them available to scholars." The Marian S. Carson Collection was assembled primarily by Mrs. Carson, building upon a base of historical materials collected by her late husband, Joseph Carson, her late husband's father, Hampton L. Carson, as well as her grandfather, Pennsylvania historian Julius Sachse.
Dr. Billington said, "The Carson Collection is remarkable for its breadth and richness. It is the product of the sustained collecting activities of Mrs. Carson and other members of her family, efforts in the best tradition of American antiquarianism. We are immensely gratified by Mrs. Carson's decision to place the collection at the Library. Moreover, the nation's scholars are indebted to her for her long and responsible stewardship of this remarkable archives. This is a collection informed by Mrs. Carson's scholarship and passion for the historical record."
The collection includes an extensive library of several hundred American books printed before 1800, including numerous early children's books. In its depth, variety and richness, the collection provides extensive new documentation on the founding of the nation, the shaping of the new national government and judicial system, and the development of nearly every realm of American endeavor, from education, religion and technology to industry, science and medicine.
Transfer of the collection began in July with Mrs. Carson's donation to the Library of several highly important manuscripts, broadsides and photographs. Under the terms of the agreement between Mrs. Carson and the Library, the remainder of the collection will be conveyed to the Library over the next four years through a scheduled series of gifts and purchases.
During the last six years, Bernard F. Reilly, head curator of the Prints and Photographs Division, surveyed and assessed the collection and led the Library's efforts to acquire the collection. "This is an extremely important collection, the major portion of which is composed of manuscripts, broadsides and rare books. It was so large, in fact, that other competing institutions were unaware of the extent of the collection," Mr. Reilly said.
An agreement between Mrs. Carson and the Library was signed in July. The first installment of the collection was shipped in August. Mr. Reilly said the division plans to make some of the pictorial treasures in the collection available for scholars to use in advance of the May 1, 1997, opening of the "Treasures of the Library of Congress" exhibition (see story on page 376). Plans also call for the Carson Collection to be available on the Library's World Wide Web homepage (//www.loc.gov/).
But, Mr. Reilly said, "We don't yet have a timetable for the processing and preservation of the entire collection," which, he said, will continue to be shipped to the Library during the next four years.
"The Carson Collection is one of the finest collections of Americana that was in private hands," said Gerard W. Gawalt, manuscript historian with a specialty in American legal history.
"This is a collector's collection, in the sense that it looks at the development of the United States from the perspective of Philadelphians," Mr. Gawalt said. "There is lots of material that relates to the Continental Congress, the development of government in Pennsylvania, the Quakers, religious freedom and antislavery movements."
Mr. Gawalt said one document of particular interest is a July 1789 speech by William Paterson, a senator from New Jersey and later a Supreme Court justice, on the importance of the separation of powers and the role of the U.S. Supreme Court in offsetting the powers of the executive and legislative branches of federal government. Paterson gave his speech during a Senate debate on the first judiciary bill to establish the Supreme Court.
Mr. Gawalt said the first installment of the Carson Collection in the Manuscript Division will be open to researchers after the first of the year.
The collection's historical treasures include rare documents:
- unpublished papers of Revolutionary War figures and the Continental Congress;
- letters of several U.S. presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and James Monroe, and of several signers of the Declaration of Independence; and
- a manuscript account of the departure of the first Pony Express rider from St. Joseph, Mo.
Paintings and Drawings
The Carson Collection contains more than 500 drawings, watercolors and silhouettes from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Among them are:
- a watercolor self-portrait of the painter Gilbert Stuart;
- silhouettes made in Philadelphia's old Peale Museum, which from the 1790s through the early 1800s doubled as a portrait studio;
- James McIlvaine's watercolors of the Peninsular Campaign during the Civil War; and
- an 1856 watercolor drawing by primitive artist Robert K. Griffin of the meeting of the Senate of the young African republic of Liberia. The drawing relates closely to 11 daguerreotype portraits of members of the Liberian Senate and other officers of the nation already in the Library's collection. Liberia was settled by American freedmen and former slaves in the mid-1800s.
Prints and Photographs
The Carson photographs strengthen the Library's already outstanding holdings notably adding more than 150 daguerreotypes, photographs on glass and early paper negatives and calotypes dating from the early years of photography in the United States, 1839 to 1854.
In addition to eight daguerreotypes by Cornelius, the collection also includes major works by his contemporaries William G. Mason, Marcus Root, Paul Beck Goddard and Rembrandt Peale; daguerreotypes and paper negatives by Frederick and William Langenheim; and a self-portrait daguerreotype by the pioneer Boston photographer Josiah Johnson Hawes. Several of these works, including Cornelius's self-portrait, were shown at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and were acquired from the organizer of that display by Mrs. Carson's grandfather, Julius Sachse.
Rare Books and Pamphlets
Many of the rare books and pamphlets in the collection pertain to the early Congresses of the United States, augmenting the Library's unmatched collection of political pamphlets and imprints. The Carson Collection adds the first-known presidential campaign biography, written by John Beckley: Address to the People of the United States with an Epitome and Vindication of the Public Life and Character of Thomas Jefferson, published in Philadelphia in 1800. Beckley, the first Librarian of Congress (1802-1807), wrote the book to counter numerous attacks against Jefferson's character, which appeared in newspapers and pamphlets during the bitter election campaign of 1800.
"Fortunately, the duty of writing campaign biographies no longer falls to the Librarian of Congress," Dr. Billington told guests at the Oct. 8 dinner.
