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THE LIBRARY OF MARYLAND HISTORY
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(Manuscripts, Rare Books, Photographs, etc.)
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by Richard J. Cox From little concern during the colonial period to the establishment of archival agencies in the twentieth century, the preservation of America's records has steadily improved. The increasing care of Maryland's documents is a microcosm of the national development, and in this the Maryland Historical Society played an essential role. Considering the care given to records in colonial Maryland, it is amazing what survived. Although major laws were enacted in 1692, 1716, and 1742 to ensure their safety, the public records were threatened by political squabbles, inferior storage conditions, incompetent government officials, and natural disasters. The apogee of record keeping was the construction of a fireproof repository in 1730. Benedict Leonard Calvert, Governor from 1727 to 1731 and an educated man interested in writing a "description and history" of the colony, was responsible for this. Nevertheless, a later Governor thought it "impossible to Compile a History from the Records that are in the Province." From then until well into the nineteenth century Maryland's papers were disregarded. During the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 threats to Annapolis caused the removal of the documents to safer locations. In both wars very little was lost, but no efforts were made to better organize or preserve them. Finally, in 1834, the State Librarian, David Ridgely, was appointed by the Maryland Legislature to examine the public buildings where records were stored and to suggest improvements for their care. In 1835 Ridgely issued three detailed reports; in essence he hoped the documents would be "judiciously selected and compiled" to reveal the past. As long as the papers were throughout the State, its past could not be effectively reconstructed. John Leeds Bozman, who published the first history of the State, wrote that the collecting of sources "was a much more arduous one than he expected. It was impossible to compile and digest from voluminous books of records, scattered in different offices, where the author would be liable to constant interruptions, any historical work worthy of perusal." With Ridgely in charge of the State Library for the first fifteen years of its existence, this problem was partially corrected. Although he did not succeed in creating a central repository, Ridgely emphasized the care of manuscript materials as well as published works. He deprecated the prevalent practice of collecting autographs by cutting signatures out of documents. He also published the first extensive collection of Maryland sources. The Maryland Historical Society succeeded the efforts of David Ridgely. At its first recorded meeting on January 27, 1844 one of the Society's purposes was "collecting the scattered materials of the early history of the state of Maryland. Its aim was both public and personal papers and was the first expression of interest in collecting all Maryland documents. Within the first year provision was made for purchasing manuscripts," and, by the end of 1844, the Society owned a number of significant papers. Included already among the Society's possessions was an autograph Letter by William Penn and the rich collection of colonial and revolutionary manuscripts of Robert Gilmor. The Society's manuscript holdings increased rapidly even in its early years. By January 1845 there was enough to merit a cataloguing system. The following year the services of a full-time librarian was needed. The turnover to the Society by the State of their colonial papers contributed to the rapid accumulation of manuscripts. Approved during the December 1846 session of the Maryland Legislature, the transfer had been completed by the end of 1847. The State had not given all of its historical documents to the Society. In the January 1858 legislative session, the Maryland government requested John Henry Alexander, on diplomatic duty in Europe, to survey documents at Rome and in England; the purpose was to procure copies for the State Library. At the end of 1859 Alexander reported recommending that the papers in the State Library, the Council Chamber, and the Court of Appeals be calendared so that duplicate copies not be made. He had Reverend Ethan Allen, "whose private Historical researches had made him more familiar than any other person with the Documents in question," do this. Reverend Allen also submitted a report in December 1859 bemoaning the poor condition of the papers. "Much . . . has already been lost beyond recovery," stated Allen, "and more will be lost unless the government is more faithful to its trust in the preservation of its records, then it has been in times past." In 1861 a calendar was completed and an index published. Even with the completion of this calendar, many persons were still unconvinced of the safety of the records. The greatest concern was that the papers were all over Maryland. In 1866, Brantz Mayer, one of the Society's founders, wrote to the Governor that all the papers should be assembled "in suitable cases" in the Executive Chamber at Annapolis. Their scattering encouraged loaning and theft: "in one case ... not less than twenty-five original letters from Samuel Chase, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, are missing, though a receipt for them was given with a promise for their return within a specified period!" Mayer even promised to return the papers the Society held if the State guaranteed their preservation. When Mayer assumed the Society's presidency, which he held for a quarter-of-a-century, he endeavored to make the Society the official record repository. In 1874, 1878, and finally with success in 1881, the Society petitioned the Legislature for the remainder of their records." The act passed also provided for the publication of the State papers. Publishing as a means of preservation had interested the Maryland Historical Society from its inception. In 1846 the journal Charles Carroll of Carrollton maintained on his 1776 mission to Canada was published . A few years later the Society endeavoured to obtain funds from the State to publish the "most important" of the papers transferred to it in 1846-1847. Receiving no support from the State, the Society after the Civil War attempted to publish "a valuable volume Compiled from Our Stock of Colonial and interesting manuscripts." A lack of funds aborted this. In 1878 Brantz Mayer resurrected the issue informing the Maryland government that it "ought to adopt the same system [publishing] as other States in perpetuating, and also in promulgating her Provincial history." Four years later, with the approval and financial support of the government, publication of the Archives of Maryland commenced. Ninety years and seventy-two volumes later this series continues. One scholar wrote that it is "unequaled ... both in comprehensiveness and scholarship [and] reflects great credit upon the society and its editors, past and present." Despite the Society's emphasis on government records, it did not neglect collecting private manuscripts. For the first two decades, the Society quietly relied on donations from members. Eventually, however, it became aggressive. In 1867 it resolved to recover as many documents and other historical artifacts as possible which were still privately owned. The following year Reverend Allen was sent to the Eastern Shore to search for additional historical materials. These efforts were not as successful as those concerning the government documents. During the Centennial few items could be obtained for exhibitions. Occasionally, however, there were notable achievements such as the discovery and purchase of the Calvert Papers in England in 1888. As its collections increased the Society did not solely rely on publishing for their preservation. Initially, particularly valuable items were stored in a bank vault. When the Society moved out of the old Post Office Building into new quarters in the Athenaeum Building, the manuscripts were noted as having been "judiciously arranged ... and placed in the fireproof repositories, prepared for them and other objects of rare worth." In 1864 a book was started "in which to preserve abstracts of loose manuscripts ... with a view to facilitate reference to the original papers." As in publishing the aim of this was to eliminate as much as possible the usage of the originals. The advent of the twentieth century brought a number of profound changes for the Manuscripts Division of the Maryland Historical Society. The concern about public records in the nineteenth century had not included the many county documents still housed in the courthouses. The Maryland Legislature in 1904, encouraged by other states and the American Historical Association, established a Public Records Commission to survey these records. In 1905 Mrs. Hester Dorsey Richardson, President of the Maryland Commission, reported the findings of the survey. Examining twenty-two of twenty-three counties Mrs. Richardson recommended that a "central State depository" be established. "The investigations of the commission have demonstrated that we are, despite some few breaks, the proud possessors of records probably unequaled in age, completeness, and historical interest by those of any of the original thirteen States. But the condition of hundreds of these rare old volumes", the report continues, "which alone are the open sesame to the past history of the founders of Maryland, demands prompt action on the part of the general assembly, for delay in the work of rescue and preservation will prove fatal in many instances." Although the Society endorsed the findings of the Commission, it was many years before a central repository would be established. In the meantime the creation of a historical journal, the Maryland Historical Magazine, in 1906, aided the preservation of the State's records. From the earliest issues manuscripts owned by the State and Society and even by private individuals were edited and published. One of the most important contributions of the journal and the only follow-up to the work of the Public Records Commission was the publication of Louis Dow Scisco's survey of county records. Finally, however, because of the Maryland Tercentenary Commission, the Hall of Records was opened in 1935. One century later the hopes and aspirations of David Ridgely and the Society had been fulfilled. Regardless of its successes in preserving the State's records, the Maryland Historical Society faced, by the early twentieth century, major problems of inadequate funds, lack of staff, and limited storage facilities. The problem of space was alleviated in 1916 when Mrs. Mary Washington Keyser donated the Enoch Pratt mansion to the Society. In 1913 the Society had been looking for a "modern fire-proof building" and six years later moved into a refurbished, expanded Pratt house. The more serious problem was money for operational expenses. The Library Committee reported in 1924 that it had been "greatly handicapped by having no funds whatever assigned for the purchase of books and manuscripts." Inadequate funds affected not just collecting materials but their care. In 1927 it was stated that "while the Society is now upon an efficient, though but too modest, operating basis, its mines of historical wealth remain very partially worked, for lack of adequate funds for repairing, calendaring, editing and publishing masses of documents of the greatest historical importance." Six years earlier, Louis Dielman, describing the overall condition of the Library, remarked that "a number of ... collections are practically unknown except as collections, and it is necessary to withhold them from use on account of the risk of damage from promiscuous handling.... This item alone represents years of labor in calendaring, cataloguing and mending, at the hands of specially qualified persons." This problem, as Mr. Dielman had so superbly expressed it, was to remain for a number of years. The excellent Maryland Historical Records Survey sponsored by the Works Projects Administration during the depression only altered it slightly by contributing one calendar of a major collection. By the late 1950s the Keyser building was too small and apartments in the Monument Street buildings were utilized for storage. Through a large bequest of John L. Thomas in 1961, the present structure, the Thomas and Hugg Memorial Building was built and occupied in 1967. Besides the creation of separate facilities for the storage and use of manuscripts, the closing of the Library for the summer of 1966 also provided an opportunity for a "maximum effort" to reorganize the collections. Under the guidance of P. William Filby, then Librarian, it was decided to use the standardized Library of Congress form for reporting collections. The previous "system" had been to store the collections alphabetically, but this quickly disintegrated when several large collections, such as eighty boxes of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad papers, were received. Each collection was assigned a number and stored in numerical sequence. The construction of the new building brought many additional changes to the Society's care of its manuscripts. Most importantly the collections were now housed in one section of the Society. Previously, they had been stored wherever convenient; a file card might inform a reader that the collection was "on top of steel cabinet on second level." For the first time a separate Manuscripts Division was formed with a Curator and staff specializing in its operation. This has aided researchers immensely. In 1968 a guide was published listing over 1700 collections, with a superb index. This was the realization of a long held hope by the Society. Fred Shelley, twenty years before, had stated that this was the "most important single publication needed by the Society." And, with the encouragement of Richard Duncan, editor, a separate feature on manuscripts has evolved in the Maryland Historical Magazine since 1968, including accessions lists of new collections and descriptions of important manuscripts. All of the early goals of the Society have been attained. There are, of course, still difficulties with shortage of staff and storage space. In many ways the Manuscripts Division is entering a new period of development. There are plans being formed for new areas of subject collecting, finding aids, and new techniques of cataloguing, preservation, and storage. Microfilming, for example, has become a particularly important aspect of this Division's work in the past five years with the sponsorship of the National Historical Publications Commission in six major projects. There is also a hope to publish a second volume to the Manuscripts guide which will include recent accessions (now numbering considerably over 300), genealogical collections, and the Maryland Diocesan papers. This is now held up by lack of funds with several grant proposals having been turned down. The 1968 publication ran into the same difficulties and was funded completely through the sales of duplicate books from the Society's library. A discussion of these and other prospects for the Manuscripts Division will be covered in a future article. Regardless of the efforts of over a century-and-a-half, not every manuscript has, of course, been rescued. The vitally important manuscript of the proceedings of the Maryland Convention of 1774 is a case in point. The original had been transferred to the publisher of the Maryland Gazette. When it was reprinted in 1836 it was in the hands of the grandson of that editor. After this publication, the proceedings was to be transferred to the State Library, but there is no record of this ever occurring. The journal was deposited in the Society in the 1840s. However, it found its way into the hands of John Thomas Scharf who apparently sold it in the late 1880s. Since then the journal has been missing. Because of cases like this the Maryland Historical Society and Hall of Records cannot cease to give primary importance to the collection and preservation of the State's documents.
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