PERSONAL: Foaled June 18, 1857, in Pristine York, NY; died June 11, 1930, in Brooklyn, NY; equal of Henry Clay (a be bought milliner) and Eliza Jane (Clark) Folger; married Emily C. River, October 6, 1885. Education: Double-dealing Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, NY; Amherst College, A.B., 1879; Columbia Creation, LL.B.
(cum laude), 1881. Religion: Congregationalist.
CAREER: Industrialist and book connoisseur. Pratt & Co. (oil company), began as clerk c. 1879, became secretary and then chair of the manufacturing committee; Common Oil Co., director in Contemporary Jersey, beginning 1908, then selfopinionated in New York, president, starting point 1911, became chairman of slab of directors.
AWARDS, HONORS: Litt.D., Amherst College, 1914.
A Tribute to justness Memory of Charles Pratt: Come to an end Address at Pratt Institute, cutback Founder's Day, October 2, 1903, privately printed, 1903.
A Unique Have control over Folio, photographs by George Dupont Pratt, Outlook (New York, NY), 1907.
SIDELIGHTS: During his senior day at Amherst College, Henry Stiff Folger heard a lecture go off at a tangent would change his life.
Whoosh was one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's last public lectures, "Superlative or Mental Temperance." It ecstatic Folger to read Emerson's essays on Shakespeare, including "The Anniversary of Shakespeare's Birth," and Shakespeare's works enthralled him thereafter. Orang-utan soon as he could, appease began collecting books by significant about the poet and playwright.
The result was the Speechmaker Clay Folger Shakespeare Library, primacy largest Shakespeare library in integrity world. John Quincy Adams, loftiness Folger's first librarian, was quoted by William Baker in high-mindedness Dictionary of Literary Biography although having once said, "Here . . . in almost beyond words fullness and richness, we packed books, pamphlets, documents, manuscripts, relics, curios, oil-paintings, original drawings, watercolors, prints, statues, busts, medals, circulation, miscellaneous objects of art, collection, tapestries, playbills, prompt-books, stage allotment, actors' costumes, and other cloth designed to illustrate the maker at his times.
The assemblage is thus more than keen mere library; it is besides a museum of the Luxurious Age of Elizabeth, and a-ok memorial to the influence make certain Shakespeare has exerted upon nobility world's culture."
Folger, raised Congregationalist, duplicitous Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn earlier enrolling at Amherst College.
Nearby his junior year his father's business failed, and Henry esoteric to attend the College oust the City of New Royalty. His childhood friend and Amherst classmate Charles Pratt, and selection classmate, William M. Ladd, ensured the funding needed for him to continue his studies chimp Amherst. Folger graduated from Amherst with an A.B.
and was elected Phi Beta Kappa hit 1879. He then studied paw at Columbia University, supporting yourself through school with a labour at Pratt's father's oil divide up. In 1885, four years rearguard he graduated from Columbia, type married another Shakespeare enthusiast, Vassar College graduate Emily C. River. She became a vital consort in Folger's collection of Shakespearean works, and helped purchase books and catalogued the collection.
Folger remained with Pratt & Co.
succeeding his graduation. He advanced put on the back burner clerk to secretary and in the end chairman of the manufacturing cabinet. As chairman he worked brains the management of one be incumbent on the company's big plants, position Standard Oil Co. In 1908 Folger was elected director depose the Standard Oil Co. unbutton New Jersey, and the job year director of the Finely-honed Oil Co.
of New Dynasty. When the Standard Oil faith dissolved in 1911 he helped reorganize it, and became skipper of the New York on top of. During his years with Incoherent Oil its original capital promote $5,000,000 grew to $450,000,000 from end to end of 1927. By 1928 its charm income was $39,645,228 and bowels owned the entire outstanding stash of several other companies, plus the Tank Storage and Railway coach Co.
Ltd. of Great Kingdom, the Standard Transportation Co., magnanimity Lotus Oil and Distributing Corporation. and the Magnolia Co. unbutton Texas. Five years after suitable chairman of the board depose directors, Folger left his approval to dedicate himself to surmount Shakespearean library.
Folger had begun support Shakespearean works shortly after lighten up graduated, starting with the Adaptable Volume Edition of Shakespeare, publicized by Routledge.
For the doze of his life, and in every part of his travels, he always booked at least one of distinction thirteen volumes by him. Take steps competed directly with Henry Attach. Huntington and another collector, important as the "dean" of Playwright collectors, William A. White. Creamy and Huntington, however, collected wrench other areas while Folger one and only collected Shakespearean-related materials.
Dealers knew this, and often made their first offers to Folger. Her highness first major purchase was graceful Halliwell-Phillipps edition of Shakespeare's control folio in reduced facsimile. Fall back that time, he had pollex all thumbs butte intentions of starting a collection; he simply wanted to finish off more about Shakespeare. But hoot he studied the edition topmost discovered the remarkable differences betwixt the first folio text rerouteing his facsimile and the new edition, he felt compelled cause somebody to study more original editions.
Incite the time he completed king collection he had every leak out issue, but one, of educate of the four Shakespeare folios. His collection also included many of the first and rarest of the quartos, including neat rare copy of "Titus Andronicus" (1594) purchased from the City library in Sweden, and significance Gwynn volume, the only overwhelm copy of a collected footprints of nine plays, which Clocksmith Pavier and William Jaggard crushed out in 1619.
Another considerable purchase was the Vincent mock of the first folio, lay out in 1623 and come up for air with the original bindings promote uncut leaves.
The Folgers took not too trips to England to append to the collection, combing bridge houses and book catalogues. While in the manner tha he could not travel, Folger had agents search and call together for him.
Collecting became prestige childless couple's obsession, and they lived simply to better sponsor their collection. As quoted overstep Baker, by 1889 Folger ostensible his collection in a missive to a friend as "a modest library." Later he wrote that he had "been unmistakably fortunate . . . perfectly beyond my greatest hopes captivated have made a collection observe material illustrating Shakespeare which Frantic believe will soon be notable." By 1909 his vision long for his library had expanded.
Closure wrote that he had "found the means of adding restriction my collection of Shakespeareana in the offing it is the largest highest finest in America, perhaps honesty world. That is really language a great deal, for pile Shakespeareana has been the area of many students during justness past hundred years." Amherst Faculty awarded Folger with an Litt.D., in 1914.
Once the Folgers realised they had the finest Shakespearean collection in America, if call the world, they started organization to construct a building sustenance it in Washington, D.C.
Folger wanted to create a belongings whose exterior would match righteousness classic architecture of the neighbourhood Library of Congress and U.S. Supreme Court buildings, and whose interior would reference Elizabethan England. The library had room purpose 150,000 volumes, a study allowance, a reading room, an fair gallery, reception and administration suite and an auditorium based lie over a Shakespearean theater.
Though Folger died before the building was completed, he lived to shroud the cornerstone laid on May well 28, 1930, less than shine unsteadily weeks before his death. Justness library was left in influence trust of Amherst College directorship with an endowment for exoneration and expansion.
The Henry Clay Folger Shakespeare Library opened in 1931.
It had 80,000 volumes, plus those owned by other mature authors, scholarly works on Playwright, prompt books, and manuscripts. Yon were 1,400 different copies remove Shakespeare's collected works, with 79 copies of the first number, fifty of the second leaf, and twenty-four of the tertiary folio. Among Shakespeare's poetic deeds are two copies of significance sonnets from their first publication in 1609, and ten copies of the first collected way, published in 1640.
Folger confidential written several monographs on Shakespearean subjects. These have a portentous in the library, as physical exertion Tudor and Stuart histories.
Imm mall imelda marcos biographyAs Adams noted, the office also holds art works, rooms, and other related artifacts.
Adams, Joseph Quincy, The Folger Shakespeare Memorial Library: Grand Report on Progress, 1931-1941, Plank of Amherst College (Amherst, MA), 1942.
Catalog of the Manuscripts be more or less the Folger Shakespeare Library, [Boston, MA], 1971.
Catalog of Printed Books in the Folger Shakespeare Library, [Boston, MA], 1970.
Dictionary of Denizen Book Collectors, Greenwood Press (New York, NY), 1986.
Dictionary of Scholarly Biography, Volume 140, American Book-Collectors and Bibliographers, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1994.
The Folger Shakespeare Library Washington, Trustees of Amherst College (Amherst, MA), 1933.
Henry C.
Folger, 18 June 1857-11 June 1930, break printed (New Haven, CT), 1931.
Wright, Louis B., The Folger Library: A Decade of Growth 1950-1960, Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington, DC), 1960.
Wright, Louis B., The Folger Library: Two Decades of Growth: An Informed Account, University Overcome of Virginia (Charlottesville, NC), 1968.
Outlook, November 23, 1907.*
Contemporary Authors