Margaret Stillwell papers (MS-1UF-S3)

Biographical/Historical Note

Margaret Bingham Stillwell was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on January 26, 1887. Her parents were Edward A. Stillwell (1840-1925) and Mary Stillwell (1854-1951). The family home was on Providence’s Benefit Street, a few blocks away from where, in 1905, Miss Stillwell enrolled at the Women’s College in Brown University. While at the Women’s College, later named Pembroke College, she also studied decorative illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design, also in Providence. In her senior year she was editor of Brun Mael, the Women’s College yearbook. She began working as an assistant to George Parker Winship, librarian of the John Carter Brown Library on the Brown University campus, while she was still a student. She continued to work there after graduating in 1909. In 1914, with Mr. Winship’s recommendation, she moved to New York City with her parents to work at the New York Public Library, cataloging its collection of Americana.

While working in New York, Miss Stillwell met General Rush C. Hawkins, a Civil War veteran and a collector of incunabula. His incunabula were housed at the Annmary Brown Memorial in Providence, which General Hawkins had built in 1907 in memory of his late wife. In addition to the incunabula the building also housed General Hawkins’ collection of paintings and manuscripts. In 1917 he asked Miss Stillwell to be the research librarian in charge of his collection. She accepted and moved back to Providence that year. Her tenure as Curator of the Annmary Brown Memorial lasted until she retired from Brown University in 1953.

During her time at the Memorial Miss Stillwell became an internationally respected authority on early printed books. Her major scholarly work, Incunabula in American Libraries: A Second Census of Fifteenth-Century Books Owned in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, was published in 1940. It was begun at the request of General Hawkins, who asked that she produce a work that would be an important contribution to the study of incunabula. She also, at his request, wrote an account of his life. This biography, published in 1923, was titled General Hawkins as He Revealed Himself to His Librarian, Margaret Bingham Stillwell.

In 1948 the Annmary Brown Memorial was deeded by its Trustees to Brown University. That year President Henry Merritt Wriston (1889-1978) appointed Miss Stillwell to a full professorship on the university faculty, the first woman to attain that rank. In 1951 she was appointed a President’s Fellow, again, the first woman to be so honored.

Work at the Annmary Brown Memorial had many challenges. There was no heat or electricity in most of the building for the first ten years Miss Stillwell worked there. The Trustees refused to buy essential reference works, making it necessary for Miss Stillwell to borrow copies of titles she needed for her research from other university libraries. She continued to receive her small salary, which was rarely increased, even after being appointed a full professor.

In 1954, Miss Stillwell and her partner Dorothy Carter Allan (1896-1974) purchased a home in Greenville, Rhode Island, which they named Elfendale. Soon after moving to Greenville, Miss Stillwell became aware of the town’s need for a new library building and of the difficulties the Greenville Library Association was having in raising the money it needed for the project. Miss Stillwell drew plans for a lower and main floor which were later used to produce blueprints for the new building. She was also instrumental in raising the money needed to complete the project. The new Greenville Public Library opened in November 1956.

In 1978 Miss Stillwell donated her home and its contents, which included many Chinese antiques, to Brown University. The proceeds of the sale of her home, as well as the proceeds from her book Essays on the Heritage of the Renaissance from Homer to Gutenberg, published in 1982, were used to establish the Stillwell-Allen fund to benefit the Annmary Brown Memorial.

Both before and after she retired, Miss Stillwell gave talks and wrote scholarly and historical works on a wide variety of subjects, including the heritage of the Renaissance, the history of Benefit Street, the history of printing, the problems of aging, the study of incunabula, and the women’s movement. Her autobiography Librarians are Human: Memories in and Out of the Rare Book World 1907-1970, was published in 1973. She also wrote two books of poetry: Rhythms and Rhymes: The Songs of a Bookworm, published in 1977, and Vignettes and Rhymes on the Times: Observations of a Bookworm, published in 1986.

Miss Stillwell was a member of many organizations, including the Bibliographical Society of America, the Hroswitha Club, which was an organization of American women book collectors; the National Society of Colonial Dames, Phi Beta Kappa, The Providence Art Club, and the Providence Preservation Society. She was a former vice president of the Providence Athanaeum and former president of the Rhode Island Short Story Club. In 1977 she was named the first honorary woman member of the Grolier Club in New York City. This club was an organization of bibliophiles that did not at that time admit women as members. She was also an Honorary Fellow of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City.

Miss Stillwell passed away on April 22, 1984 at her apartment in Royal Manor in Greenville. She is buried in her family’s plot in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence.