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Another #EARobinson first edition arrived: Sonnets 1889-1927. Not particularly valuable, except for a fan like me.
But I love how an old book can hold a history. THREAD 1/20
But I love how an old book can hold a history. THREAD 1/20
This book was published in 1928. Twenty years later, this particular copy was donated to the Ladies’ Social Library of Blue Hill, Maine, about 90 miles east of Robinson’s hometown of Gardiner. 2/20
The Ladies Social Library was founded in the 1860s as a weekly gathering “to exchange books and eat ice cream.” By the turn of the 20th century, it occupied two rooms of the town hall and was open to the public 2 days a week. 3/20 https://www.bhpl.net/library-history/
In the 1930s, under the intrepid direction of one Adelaide Pearson, the library raised funds to expand the library and pay for a professional librarian. It became a valuable institution in Blue Hill, and by 1940 a new building was completed. 4/20
In 1944, Dorris Parker was hired as the first full-time librarian, a role she held until 1981. Eventually, I gather, it became the Blue Hill Public Library, continuing to expand and serve the community of Blue Hill. 5/20
But in 1948, it was apparently still the Ladies’ Social Library, according to the sticker in my book indicting to donation by Mrs. Lynne Thompson. This was no minor character in the cultural history of Blue Hill. 6/20
Lynne Thompson was a transplanted Midwesterner living in New York. Her son was noted architect Ben Thompson, one of the founders of The Architects Collaborative, and later a founder of Design Research. In 1940 working on a project in Blue Hill, and mother Lynne came to visit.7/20
Lynne and her “partner,” Dorothy Heywood, heiress to the Chester Shoe Company fortune, bought a house in Blue Hill, seeking a quiet retreat from New York, and quickly became important figures in the town. 8/20
Heywood bought into Rowantree Pottery, which had been started during the Depression by Adelaide Pearson, the visionary director of the Ladies’ Social Library. And Heywood & Thompson together began to publicly share their impressive collection of modern art. 9/20
Lynne Thompson and Dorothy Heywood had managed to collect what for Blue Hill in the 1940s was an edgy if not controversial collection of works by Klee, Rothko, and Picasso, “a rising Spanish artist who is becoming well known.” 10/20
Eventually, the led to the launching of the Blue Hill Pavilion, a gallery that featured the Blue Hill Cafe, which at one time born from the practice of serving pie at the early exhibitions, became a culinary institution in its own right. 11/20 https://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/picasso-pie-down-east-the-mid-century-in-maine/
Eventually, Lynne Thompson would publish a cookbook and memoir of the gallery and cafe called “Picasso & Pie.” 12/20
But 20 years before “Picasso & Pie,” Mrs. Thompson donated my copy of E. A. Robinson’s Sonnets to the Ladies’ Social Library. It languished there, only being checked out twice — once in 1955, once in 1959 — before eventually being discarded. 13/20
By 1963, the book had come into the hands of someone who’s signature I cannot confidently decipher. It may be A. G. Baldwin. I found a Reverend A. Graham Baldwin who was involved with Phillips Andover Academy in the 1930s. 14/20
Phillips Andover appears to have had a connection to Blue Hill through annual student archeology digs there. Maybe Rev. Baldwin picked up the book from a library sale of discards on a visit to Blue Hill? Maybe he settled there? My research abilities tire out there. 15/20
But there is another interesting thread. Partially blocked by the library card pocket inside the back cover is a label from a Mabel Ulrich Book Shop, locations in various Minnesota cities. 16/20
Mabel Ulrich was a medical doctor and health educator of some import in the 1920s. She was a birth control advocate, but also pro-eugenics, and she was in favor of the legal confinement of woman with sexually transmitted diseases. 17/20
In any case, Mabel Ulrich opened a bookstore in Minneapolis in 1921, and had five shops by 1927. The Robinson Sonnets volume came out in 1928. It may have been new on the Ulrich shop shelves. I have no idea how it made it’s way from the Minnesota shop to Lynne Thompson. 18/20
I purchased the book through ABE from Andre Strong Bookseller, which is located in Blue Hill, Maine. So I’m pretty sure the book hasn’t traveled far from there since Lynne Thompson donated it to the Ladies’ Social Library in 1948. 19/20
It resides in Berkeley, CA now, with a lover of #EARobinson’s poetry, and a lover of those old fashioned artifacts known as books. It will stay with me here for a while. 20/20
