Guide to the Annmary Brown Memorial Library records, 1860-2016

(bulk 1905-1995)

John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Box A
Brown University
Providence, RI, 02912
Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148
Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Published in 2019

Collection Overview

Title:	Annmary Brown Memorial Library records
Date range:	1860-2016, (bulk 1905-1995)
Creator:	Annmary Brown Memorial
Extent:	12 linear feet
Abstract:	The Annmary Brown Memorial, at 21 Brown Street in Providence, RI, was built in 1907 by Rush C. Hawkins (1831-1920) as a memorial to his deceased wife Annmary Brown Hawkins (1837-1903). The Memorial was designed as a tomb for the couple (both are interred there), and as a private library to house the Hawkins' collection of incunabula, paintings, manuscripts, books authored by or written about individuals with the surname of Hawkins, travel books, bibliographies, biographies, standard histories, books on printing wood engravings, and volumes on the early history of printing. This collection contains the records about the construction and maintenance of the building, documentation about the books and paintings collected by Hawkins, and records about the operation of the Memorial. It also includes a volume of minutes for the New York Dispensary for the Diseases of the Throat and Chest for which Rush Hawkins was a Trustee. Researchers can also find documentation about the Civil War swords presented to Rush Hawkins which were stolen from the Memorial and later recovered.
Language of materials:	English
Repository:	John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Collection number:	OF-1X-14

Scope & content

The Annmary Brown Memorial Records include information about the founding of the Memorial and its use as a museum, library and academic resource for Brown University. The records include biographical information about Rush Hawkins and the Brown family, blueprints of the building itself, correspondence, financial records, inventories and descriptions of the building’s contents, and information about events that were held there. The material is dated from 1860 to 2016. Most is dated from 1903 to 1992.

The Annmary Brown Memorial Records have been organized into the following seven series:

Series 1. History and Biography. This series contains material describing the history of the Annmary Brown Memorial as well as biographical material about the Brown family, Rush C. Hawkins, Annmary Brown Hawkins, and Margaret B. Stillwell. It also includes drafts of minutes for the record book on the deaths of Walter F. Angell, Arthur L. Brown, Stephen O. Edwards, and Robert H.I. Goddard, who all served as Trustees of the Memorial.

The biographical material about Rush C. Hawkins includes two essays by Margaret B. Stillwell: “General Hawkins as He Revealed Himself to His Librarian” (1923) and “General Hawkins, 1831-1920” (1924). Another essay by Miss Stillwell, which is untitled, is a description of the founding and contents of the Memorial. It was written in 1920.

The photographs in this series are of Rush C. Hawkins alone and with Robert T. Lincoln. The photograph with Lincoln was taken in Manchester, Vermont in 1919. Other photographs are of the interior of the Annmary Brown Memorial

This series also includes two glass plate negatives. One is of an oil portrait of Rush Hawkins. The other is of Margaret Stillwell sitting at her desk at the Memorial in 1923.

The publicity about the Memorial is dated from 1907 to 1968. It is primarily from various magazines and newspapers.

This series is dated from 1907 to 2016.

Series 2. Founding and Administration. This series includes a variety of material regarding the creation of the Annmary Brown Memorial, its management, and its role as a museum and a library of incunabula.

Material regarding the founding of the Memorial includes a copy of the charter that created the charitable corporation charged with maintaining the Memorial building and its collections, copies of by-laws regarding the election and duties of the Board of Trustees, copies of legal documents regarding the transfer of the Memorial to Brown University in 1948, and documents regarding the creation of Rush Hawkins’ endowment for the Memorial.

Most of the material in this series concerns the Memorial’s administration. It includes annual reports from the curator, copies of the Trustees’ agreements with Miss Stillwell regarding her hiring, duties and salary; correspondence, minutes of meetings and treasurer’s reports from the Board of Trustees; minutes of the meetings of the Annmary Brown Memorial Management Committee from 1948 to 1976, correspondence and memoranda from the Annmary Brown Memorial Advisory Committee, Margaret Stillwell’s “Curator’s Book”, records of visitors, and Rush Hawkins’ instructions regarding the care of the collections at the Memorial.

A record was also kept of “distinguished guests” who visited the Memorial from 1907 to 1968. That list is in a large volume that begins with “Minutes New York Dispensary for the Diseases of the Throat and Chest”. The minutes begin in 1870. Rush Hawkins was one of the Dispensary’s trustees.

This series also includes records of the printing and sale of Christmas cards produced by the Memorial from images in its collection, as well as the printing plates and transparencies used to print them.

This series is dated from 1870 to 1990.

Series 3. Building. This series consists of material related to the Memorial building itself and the changing use made of it over the years, especially after it was deeded to Brown University in 1948. It includes the contracts and correspondence from J.W. Bishop, the original contractor, and Norman M. Isham, the architect, as well as the history of ownership of the lot at 21 Brown Street from the Providence Deed Book. Information about the Memorial’s construction includes blueprints and a description of the type of marble and granite used in the building.

Most of the material concerns the day-to-day care and maintenance of the Memorial, including bills for repairs, work orders and information about the heating and security systems.

This series is dated from 1903 to 1991.

Series 4. Collections. This series contains information about items in the collections at the Annmary Brown Memorial, especially the paintings, swords and other Civil War memorabilia that belonged to Rush Hawkins. It has been organized into two subseries.

Subseries A. Inventories. The inventories in this subseries include lists of property originally belonging to Rush C. Hawkins and Annmary Brown and her family, such as Hawkins’ Civil War mementos and autograph letters, and Annmary Brown Hawkins’ personal letters and family papers. Inventories were made of various rooms in the Memorial, including the basement, the office, and the curator’s room. Notes were made of objects that were missing when the inventory was made. In addition, this subseries includes inventories of Margaret B. Stillwell’s personal property that was on loan to the Memorial, material related to the Italian Revolution, several manuscript collections related to the American Revolution, and copies of catalog cards for items in the collection.

This subseries is dated from 1937 to 1977.

Subseries B. Information About the Collection. This subseries includes a variety of material such as the source of items acquired by the Memorial, acknowledgements of gifts to the Memorial, photographs and appraisals of paintings and information about them, and essays about other items in the collection, especially the incunabula, swords and Civil War memorabilia belonging to Rush Hawkins. Other material includes several glass plate negatives of pages in volumes of incunabula, a folder of pamphlets and articles about book arts history, and an album of photographs of various works of art and furniture in the collection. The album was compiled by Margaret Stillwell in December 1953.

Most of the correspondence in this series is addressed to Rush Hawkins. The correspondence also includes a large number of postcards from various book dealers in Europe.

Much of the information about the swords concerns the efforts to recover two swords that were stolen in approximately 1977, when the Memorial was closed. One was a sword presented to General Hawkins in 1862 by the officers and men of the 9th New York Regiment, known as “Hawkins’ Zouaves”. Fifty prominent New Yorkers, including the Governor of New York and the Mayor of New York City, presented the other sword to General Hawkins in 1863. The first sword was recovered in 1992 after being put up for auction by the estate of John R. Donelan of Massachusetts. Recovery efforts began for the second sword in 1991, after a telephoned report to Brown University from a collector who had seen the sword at a show in Baltimore. In 1992, a request from Brown University to examine the sword was denied. In 2011, a Civil War historian familiar with the sword notified Brown University of its location after seeing it on display at Lee Hall Mansion in Newport News, Virginia. Legal proceedings began, and in 2013 the United District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that Brown University was the sword’s rightful owner.

This subseries is dated from 1860 to 1995.

Series 5. Correspondence. Half of the correspondence in this series was originally in the Margaret B. Stillwell papers (MS-1UF-S3). That correspondence is arranged by the name of the correspondent. Correspondence from the Annmary Brown Memorial records on a particular topic, such as the hiring of Catherine Denning as Curator, has been added to the correspondence arranged by name. Although this correspondence is dated from 1917 to 1992, most is dated during Margaret Stillwell’s tenure as Curator from 1917 to 1953. The letters are on a variety of topics, such as group visits to the Memorial, advertisements from book dealers, requests for information from researchers, and letters to and from Miss Stillwell regarding repairs and maintenance of the building.

The correspondence arranged by date follows that arranged by name and was originally included in the Annmary Brown Memorial records. This correspondence is dated from 1911 to 1993. Most is dated from 1954 to 1993. It is not arranged by date within each folder, and there is some overlap in the dates for folders from 1920 to 1927. The letters are on topics similar to those above.

This series is dated from 1911 to 1993.

Series. 6 Financial. This series contains financial records of the Annmary Brown Memorial. It includes bank statements, budget printouts, checkbooks, invoices and requisitions for supplies, copies of tax returns, and vouchers and receipts for expenditures for supplies, repairs, fuel and other items. In addition, it includes two folders of correspondence regarding the investments that supported the Memorial’s endowment.

This series is dated from 1903 to 1987.

Series 7. Exhibits and Lectures. The material in this series consists mostly of labels and other information used for exhibits at the Annmary Brown Memorial. It is arranged alphabetically by the title of the exhibit. Following this is information about the lecture series on the history of art sponsored by the Memorial, articles about the Memorial, including articles from the George Street Journal and the Brown University library Staff Bulletin; and general information regarding the exhibit cases.

Most of the material in this series is undated. The dated material is from 1912 to 1989. Most is dated from 1950 to 1965.

Access Points

Subject Names

• Hawkins, Annmary Brown
• Hawkins, R. C. (Rush Christopher), 1831-1920
• Stillwell, Margaret Bingham, 1887-1984

Subject Organizations

• Annmary Brown Memorial
• New York Dispensary for the Diseases of the Throat and Chest

Subject Topics

• Art--Collectors and collecting
• Collectors and collecting--United States
• Incunabula
• Memorials
• Printing--History
• Swords--United States--History--19th century
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Equipment and supplies

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in 7 series.

• Series 1. History and Biography
• Series 2. Founding and Administration
• Series 3. Building
• Series 4. Collections
  • Subseries A. Inventories
  • Subseries B. Information about the collection
• Series 5. Correspondence
  • Subseries A. Alphabetical
  • Subseries B. Chronological
• Series 6. Financial
• Series 7. Exhibits and Lectures
  • Subseries A. Exhibits
  • Subseries B. Lectures

Biographical/Historical Note

The Annmary Brown Memorial, at 21 Brown Street in Providence, RI, was built in 1907 by Rush C. Hawkins (1831-1920) as a memorial to his deceased wife Annmary Brown Hawkins (1837-1903). Annmary Brown was the daughter of Nicholas Brown (1792-1859; Brown University Class of 1811) and Caroline Mathilde Clements (1809-1871) and the granddaughter of Nicholas Brown (1769-1841; Brown University Class of 1786), whose name the University adopted in 1804. Her sister was Carrie Brown Bajnotti whose memorial is Carrie Tower. Norman Isham was the architect of the Annmary Brown Memorial, a one-story granite structure with a low hip roof and large bronze doors. The Memorial was designed as a tomb for the couple (both are interred there), and as a private library to house the Hawkins' collection of incunabula, paintings, manuscripts, books authored by or written about individuals with the surname of Hawkins, travel books, bibliographies, biographies, standard histories, books on printing wood engravings, and volumes on the early history of printing. Rush Hawkins pursued the goal of acquiring the first book of each of the presses which were printing by 1500. He collected 225 first and second books from 130 of the 238 fifteenth-century presses. Frank M. Cushman was the first caretaker of the Memorial from 1907-1916. Rush Hawkins then hired Margaret Bingham Stillwell (1887-1984) to be the Librarian/Curator, a position she held from 1917 until her retirement in 1953. Stillwell cataloged all the collections and managed all the activities at the Memorial. The Memorial was deeded to Brown University in 1948. Other curators of the Memorial included J. R. T. Ettlinger (circa 1967), John W. Charles (circa 1968), Sam Hough (circa 1970-1980), and Catherine Denning from 1980-1993. All the collections at the Memorial, with the exception of the paintings and swords, were removed to the John Hay Library in 1990.

Access & Use

Access to the collection:	There are no restrictions on access, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested.
Use of the materials:	Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. Researchers should note that compliance with copyright law is their responsibility. Researchers must determine the owners of the literary rights and obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Preferred citation:	Annmary Brown Memorial Library records, OF-1X-14, Brown University Library
Contact information:	John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts Box A Brown University Providence, RI, 02912 Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148 Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION
Acquisition:	The Annmary Brown Memorial and all its collections and records were deeded to Brown University in 1948.
Processing information:	The life of Margaret Stillwell is intertwined with the history of the Annmary Brown Memorial at Brown University because she worked as the curator there from 1917-1953. As a result, Stillwell's personal papers (MS-1UF-S3) and the records of the Annmary Brown Memorial (OF-1X-14) were also intertwined. The processing archivists have separated materials of a strictly personal nature from the records of the Annmary Brown Memorial as much as practical. Researchers should consult both collections for information about Stillwell and the Annmary Brown Memorial.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID
Author:	Finding aid prepared by Mary Harrison.
Encoding:	This finding aid was produced using the RIAMCO EAD spreadsheet, 2019
Descriptive rules:	Finding aid based on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Additional Information

Related material:

For more information about the Annmary Brown Memorial see also the Margaret Stillwell papers (MS-1UF-S3) and the Rush Hawkins collection (Ms.2006.05).

Inventory

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