Trevor Bond, displays book from “Historical Portraits,” collection at Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections
In the rare books vault at Terrell Library there is an extremely rare 28-volume set of Civil War era books, titled “Historical Portraits” and purchased by WSU in the early 1940’s. Only seven copies of this rare collection were ever produced, and each volume cost around $200 a-piece. A very high price back then.
Included in these books, housed in the Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections, are thousands of rare photos from the Civil War.
(To view a Soundslide presentation with photos and comments from Trevor Bond, click here.)
The only other sets of this collection are held by the New York Historical Society, the New York State Library in Albany, the Lincoln Memorial University, Harvard, Indiana University, and the Chicago Historical Society.
With great foresight, WSU President Ernest O. Holland, 1916-1944, realized the hisoric importance of this collection and ordered the books before he had the funds to pay for them. To pay the bill, Holland created an organization that sent out a letter accompanied by a portrait of Abraham Lincoln that asked for donations from 204 banks in Washington state. The resulting gifts totaled more than $9,000.
To ensure that the library received the entire set, Holland personally purchased four of the volumes and donated them to the library.
Trevor Bond notes: “Frederick Hill Meserve, created the amazing set of books. He began collecting photographs from the Civil War to illustrate his father’s military memoir. At the time there was not much interest or value placed on 19th century photographs.
“In 1902, Meserve seized the opportunity to purchase more than 15,000 Mathew Brady glass negatives. Brady had died in 1896 having lost his great collection of negatives to settle debts. The Brady negatives had been acquired by E. & H. T. Anthony & Co. When Meserve visited the Anthony & Co. warehouse in Hoboken where the Brady negatives were stored, he found scores broken on the floor. Among the clutter of broken glass, he saw an unbroken negative and held it up the lightthe image was a portrait of President Lincoln dated February, 1864.
“In 1913, Meserve decided to share his collection by privately printing the Historical Portraits. Each 28-volume set contains over 8,000 actual photographs (prints made from cartes-de-visite negatives). To produce these volumes Meserve would spend his evenings after days spent as a New York City textile executive, pasting the prints onto preprinted sheets.”
This 28-volume set, titled “Historical Portraits,” cries out “open me” said Trevor James Bond, interim head of Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections.
People are welcome to view the Historical Portraits or any of the other collections 8:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. on weekdays in the Terrell Library Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections section.
View a few photos from these books now, via a Soundslide photo tour with comments Bond, by clicking on the following link.
