The Newberry Library is an independent research library, specializing in the humanities. It is located in Chicago, Illinois, and has been free and open to the public since 1887. The Newberry fosters a deeper understanding of our world by inspiring research and learning in the humanities and encouraging conversations about ideas that matter. Its mission is rooted in a growing and accessible collection of rare and historical materials.[2]
The Newberry’s collections contain primary and secondary sources spanning more than six centuries of history related primarily to the history, culture, and people of Western Europe and the Americas.[3] Core collection strengths include:
The collection consists of about 1.6 million books; 600,000 maps; 1,300 distinct archival collections containing approximately 5 million manuscript pages; 500,000 different postcards; approximately 250,000 pieces of sheet music; and much more.[15]
Notable items held at the Newberry include:
Chicago's only copy of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, commonly referred to as the First Folio
The Popol Vuh, which is the earliest surviving copy of the Mayan creation story
Ledger art created by Northern Cheyenne warrior-artists in the 1870s, as well as modern interpretations of the ledger art tradition by contemporary Native artists
A 1692 fur trade contract that has one of the first references to “Chicago” in writing
As a non-circulating library, all collection items are made available free of charge on site to anyone who is 14 years of age or older. Reference staff are available in the Newberry's two reading rooms and in the Welcome Center just off the lobby. Reference librarians work with all readers and offer orientation, in-depth bibliographical instruction, and specialized assistance as needed.[16]
Many items from the Newberry’s collections are digitized and can be accessed online.[17]
Offerings for the Public
Newberry Library Writers on Writing with Rebecca Makkai and Lauren Groff on October 4, 2023.
The Newberry offers free public programs,[18] which are often livestreamed and shared on the library’s YouTube page.[19] These programs explore a variety of topics related to the library’s collection strengths. Recent speakers include: Rebecca Makkai, Chicago-based author of The Great Believers; Tiya Miles, Professor of History at Harvard University and author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake; Jill Wine-Banks, MSNBC Legal Analyst; maritime archaeologist Mensun Bound; Elizabeth Ellis (Peoria Nation of Oklahoma), Associate Professor of History at Princeton University; Mike Amezcua, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Georgetown University and author of Making Mexican Chicago; and poet, essayist, and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib.
The Newberry mounts four free exhibitions a year in two gallery spaces.[20] These exhibitions consist primarily of items from the library’s collections.
Adult education classes are offered throughout the year at the Newberry. Classes are either held at the library or virtually via Zoom. Led by experts in a variety of fields, these classes can help participants jumpstart or elevate their next learning endeavor.[29]
The Newberry Bookshop, located in the lobby of the library, curates a selection of books reflecting the Newberry's collection strengths and upcoming public programming. It also sells goods such as cards, posters, puzzles, and literary action figures.[30]
Resources for Scholars, Students, and Teachers
Newberry Fellows examines item from the library's collection
Beginning in 1944 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Newberry began hosting researchers from different disciplines and backgrounds for both short- and long-term fellowships.[31] These fellows form a close community during their time at the Newberry and continue to build their relationships with one another and with the library long after they leave. Researchers with long-term fellowships spend four to nine months at the Newberry.[32] Researchers with short-term fellowships spend one to two months at the library.[33] Newberry fellows often produce works that stems from their research at the library.
Examples of recent books by former Newberry fellows include:[34]
Only the Clothes on Her Back by Laura Edwards (Long-Term Fellow 2019-20)
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial by Deborah Cohen (Long-Term Fellow 2019-20)
Botanical Entanglements: Women, Natural Science, and the Arts in Eighteenth-Century England by Anna Katie Sagal (Long-Term Fellow 2017-18)
The library offers a series of content-based professional development seminars for teachers. Led by scholars and educators from the Chicagoland area and beyond, these humanities-focused seminars create space for teachers to connect with peers, explore the Newberry’s collection as scholars, and learn to use primary sources in the classroom.[35]
The Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar (NLUS) offers select students from DePaul University, Loyola University Chicago, Roosevelt University, and the University of Illinois Chicago the chance to participate in an intensive research seminar inspired by the Newberry’s collection. During their semester at the library, students attend seminar meetings and learn to conduct research. Students work closely with Newberry staff to form research questions before venturing into the archives on their own. The seminar culminates in a major research paper and presentation.[36]
Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography[39]
Early History
Library from Washington Square on a c.1910 postcard
The Newberry was established in 1887 as the result of a bequest by Walter Loomis Newberry, an early Chicago resident and business leader involved in banking, shipping, real estate, and other commercial ventures. Newberry died at sea in 1868, while on a trip to France. He included in his will a provision of funds for the creation of a "free public library" should his daughters die without heirs. They did, and so, following the death of Newberry's widow, Julia Butler Newberry, in 1885, it was up to Newberry estate trustees William H. Bradley and Eliphalet W. Blatchford to bring the library to fruition.
Without much direction (Newberry did not leave behind many details regarding his vision for the library) and without its founder's personal collection as a foundation (Newberry's own collection of books perished in the Great Fire of 1871), the first officers and staff members were instrumental in forming the character of the Newberry.
The Newberry's first librarian, William Frederick Poole, was a major figure in the library world when he came to the Newberry. Poole saw the Newberry as a blank canvas on which he could project his ideas, which included and perhaps found their most impassioned articulation in the design and construction of libraries. In 1887–88 it was located at 90 La Salle Street, in 1889–90 at 338 Ontario Street, and in 1890-93 at the northwest corner of State and Oak Streets. The present building, designed by Poole[40] and architect Henry Ives Cobb (1859–1931), opened in 1893. It is located at 60 West Walton Street, across from Washington Square. It is a structure in the Spanish Romanesque architectural style, built of Connecticut granite.[41]
Poole and Cobb feuded bitterly over their different visions for the library building. Poole favored a number of reading rooms with open shelving of materials that could be easily accessed by patrons; Cobb preferred the majestic grandiosity in vogue in Europe and the centralization of collection items. Poole's influence with the library's trustees coerced Cobb to temper the grand staircase he had envisioned and to accommodate open shelving. Over time, however, the open shelving would put too much strain on the Newberry's staff and the security of its collections, and the library would convert to a centralized storage system.
Poole served as Newberry librarian until his death in 1894. Under his leadership, the library built broad reference collections that would be useful to many different Chicagoans, especially professionals and tradespeople. The Newberry's medical department, created in 1890, is an example of this emphasis. Poole also steered the Newberry toward the acquisition of rare materials for use by professional scholars. Two en bloc acquisitions made during his tenure, the private collections of Henry Probasco and Count Pio Resse, yielded notable rarities in music and early printed specimens (incunables), as well as Shakespeare folios and editions of Homer, Dante, and Horace.
To focus its own collecting and to avoid the duplication of resources in Chicago at large, the Newberry entered into a cooperative agreement in 1896 with the Chicago Public Library and the John Crerar Library, by which each institution would specialize in certain fields of knowledge and areas of service.[41] As a consequence, the Newberry came to specialize in the humanities, and the natural sciences became the province of the Crerar. The Newberry immediately transferred its holdings in this area, including its copy of Audubon's Birds of America. The Newberry's medical department was transferred to the Crerar in 1906.[42]
President and Librarian
Since its founding in 1887, the Newberry Library has had ten President and Librarians and one Interim President and Librarian.[43]
In 1987, the Newberry established the Newberry Library Award in honor of its 100th anniversary. The Newberry Library Award is an honor bestowed to individuals, and in the case of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, organizations, who have made "outstanding contributions to the humanities, particularly in fields of endeavor related to the Newberry’s collection."[45] The award itself is a scale-sized model of the full-sized Virginio Ferrari sculpture created in 1987 called Umanitá that greets visitors as they enter the Newberry Library.[46][47][48]
The Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award at the Newberry Library
The Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award at the Newberry Library is presented annually to a book that transforms public understanding of Chicago, its history, or its people. The prize, established in 2021 by The Pattis Family Foundation in partnership with the Newberry Library, brings attention to publications that advance greater insight into the city among a general readership while resonating with the Newberry’s collections related to the history and people of Chicago. The award-winning author(s) will receive a prize of $25,000.[49]
The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period (1500–1750) in Britain and Europe. The library was established by Henry Clay Folger in association with his wife, Emily Jordan Folger. It opened in 1932, two years after his death.
The Vatican Apostolic Library, more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, although it is much older—it is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. It has 75,000 codices from throughout history, as well as 1.1 million printed books, which include some 8,500 incunabula.
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world.
The Chicago Public Library (CPL) is the public library system that serves the City of Chicago in the U.S. state of Illinois. It consists of 81 locations, including a central library, three regional libraries, and branches distributed throughout the city's 77 Community Areas. CPL was founded in 1872, in the wake of the Great Chicago Fire.
The National Library of Scotland is one of the country's National Collections. It is one of the largest libraries in the United Kingdom. As well as a public programme of exhibitions, events, workshops, and tours, the National Library of Scotland has reading rooms where visitors can access the collections. It is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is a member of Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL).
William Frederick Poole was an American bibliographer and librarian.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard between West 135th and 136th Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it has, almost from its inception, been an integral part of the Harlem community. It is named for Afro-Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the practice of binding books in human skin. As of April 2022, The Anthropodermic Book Project has examined 31 out of 50 books in public institutions supposed to have anthropodermic bindings, of which 18 have been confirmed as human and 13 have been demonstrated to be non-human leather instead.
The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, is a library affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles. It holds books and manuscripts with particularly many regarding English literature and history from the 17th-19th century, Oscar Wilde and the fin de siècle, and fine press printing. It is located about 10 mi (16 km) southeast from UCLA, in the West Adams district of Los Angeles, and 2 mi (3.2 km) west of the University of Southern California. It is administered by UCLA's Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies, which offers several long- and short-term fellowships for graduate and postdoctoral scholars to use the Library's collections. However, any reader with an interest in the collection is able to study.
The Frick Art Research Library is the research arm of the Frick Collection. It is located at 10 East 71st Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City.
Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, Lamont Library, and Loeb House, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library system of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The collections of Houghton Library include the Harvard Theatre Collection and the Woodberry Poetry Room, as well as the personal papers and archives of major American and English writers.
Denise Low is an American poet, honored as the second Kansas poet laureate (2007–2009). A professor at Haskell Indian Nations University, Low taught literature, creative writing and American Indian studies courses at the university.
The University of Toronto Libraries system is the largest academic library in Canada and is ranked third among peer institutions in North America, behind only Harvard and Yale. The system consists of 40 libraries located on University of Toronto's three university campuses: St. George, Mississauga and Scarborough. This array of college libraries, special collections, and specialized libraries and information centres supports the teaching and research requirements of 215 graduate programs, over 60 professional programs, and more than 700 undergraduate degree programs. In addition to more than 12 million print volumes in 341 languages, the library system currently provides access to 184,228 journal titles, millions of electronic resources in various forms and more than 33,000 linear metres of archival material. As of 2014, more than 150,000 new print volumes were acquired each year.
The Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) is a North American organization that fosters the study of books and manuscripts. It was constituted from the earlier Bibliographical Society of Chicago as the national membership began to exceed local membership. The organization publishes the scholarly journal, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, as well as books on topics of bibliographic interest.
The Caxton Club is a private social club and bibliophilic society founded in Chicago in 1895 to promote the book arts and the history of the book. To further its goals, the club holds monthly dinner meetings and luncheons, sponsors bibliophile events and exhibitions, and publishes books, exhibition catalogs, and a monthly journal, The Caxtonian. The Caxton Club is a member club of the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies.
The D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies is a research center within the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois.
Dena Julia Polacheck Epstein was an American music librarian, author, and musicologist.
Richard Harold Wendorf is an American and British art historian, literary critic, and museum and library director. He served as the director of the American Museum & Gardens near Bath, England from January 2010 until his retirement in December 2021.
The William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections is the principal repository for rare books, archives, maps and historical material at McMaster University. Developed to support teaching, research and scholarship, its holdings reflect fonds and collections pertaining to Canadian literature, politics, popular culture and business history, in addition to war and peace in the 20th century with an emphasis on the Holocaust and Resistance. It also holds a collection of eighteenth century books and journals, and is home to the Bertrand Russell Archives. Part of the McMaster University Library system, the Division of Archives and Research Collections is located in Mills Memorial Library.
Stanley McCrory Pargellis was an American historian and librarian. His work as a historian focused mainly on the military history of the American colonial era. From 1942 to 1962, he was director of the Newberry Library in Chicago.
Campbell, D'Ann, and Richard Jensen. "Community and Family History at the Newberry Library: Some Solutions to a National Need." History Teacher (1977): 47-54. in JSTOR
Coale, Robert Peerling. "Evaluation of a research library collection: Latin-American colonial history at the Newberry." The Library Quarterly (1965): 173-184.
Davis, Donald G. Dictionary of American Library Biography. "Towner, Lawrence William, 1921-1992."
Gehl, Paul F. 2024. “Mid-Century Opportunism in the Book Market: Newberry Librarians in Europe.” Library & Information History 40 (1): 27–45.
Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Culture & the City: Cultural Philanthropy in Chicago from the 1880s to 1917 (University Press of Kentucky, 1976)
Jensen, Richard. "The Accomplishments of the Newberry Library Family and Community History Programs: An Interview with Richard Jensen" The Public Historian (Autumn, 1983) 5#4 pp: 49-61 in JSTOR
Primary sources
Butler, Ruth Lapham. A check list of manuscripts in the Edward E. Ayer collection (Newberry library, 1937)
Mohr, Carolyn Curtis. Guide to the Illinois Central archives in the Newberry Library, 1851-1906 (Newberry Library, 1951)
"Back to Adam," a Survey of Genealogy in the Western World as Illustrated N the Collections of the Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois: An Exhibition Catalogue (Newberry Library, 1992)
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