Justin Winsor

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Justin Winsor

Justin Winsor (born January 2, 1831 in Boston , Massachusetts , † October 22, 1897 in Cambridge , Massachusetts) was an American linguist , ethnologist , historian and long-time librarian of the Harvard University Library , who was both President of the American Library Association and the American Historical Association was.

Life

Graduated from and Superintendent of the Boston Public Library

After attending the Boston Latin School , he began studying at Harvard University , which he left before graduation. In 1850, at the age of 19, he published History of Duxbury, a story of his ancestors' hometown in Massachusetts. After leaving Harvard University, he began studying at the University of Paris and the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg . During this time he began writing a ten-volume biography about the English actor David Garrick and his contemporaries under the title Garrick and his Contemporaries .

In 1866 he was first trustee of the Boston Public Library , the largest public library in the United States, and in 1868 superintendent of this library. In this function he promoted the use of the library's large collection and was also the editor of an extensive catalog of books on history, biographies and travel as well as of the first lists of historical and fictional books. In 1876 he began to publish a number of fundamental works such as Bibliography of the Original Quartos and Folios of Shakespeare with Particular Reference to Copies in America , all but a hundred copies of which were destroyed by fire. In addition to this activity, he was President of the American Library Association from 1876 to 1885.

Harvard University Library Librarian

In 1877 he was appointed librarian at Harvard University Library and held this position until his death in 1897. In 1878 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

In 1879 he wrote The Reader's Handbook of the American Revolution (1879), a short edition of a bibliography on the American Revolution . In 1880 he began in collaboration with seventy authors with the publication of the four-volume Memorial History of Boston , the fourth volume appeared in 1882. This was followed by the publication of The Narrative and Critical History of America and in 1889 the eighth volume of this work was published. In it he combined a comprehensive and systematic study of historical problems with the help of simultaneous cartography. An early result of this was the publication of Bibliography of Ptolemy's Geography (1884) and Catalog of the Kohl Collection of Maps relating to America (1886) in the Bulletins of the Harvard Library.

American Historical Association directors during their annual meeting on December 30, 1889 in Washington, DC Seated (left to right) William Poole , Justin Winsor, Charles Kendall Adams (President), George Bancroft , John Jay, and Andrew Dickson White , standing Herbert B. Adams and CW Bowen .

Winsor also served as President of the American Historical Association for one year between 1886 and 1887. He gave his annual address as president on the subject of Manuscript Sources of American History: The Conspicuous Collections Extant .

He finally published the knowledge gained from this in the books Christopher Columbus (1891), Cartier to Frontenac (1894), The Mississippi Basin (1895) and The Westward Movement (1897), in these four volumes he shared expertise with the at the time of publication combined existing divergent, contemporary views.

Winsor, who was a member of the Massachusetts Archives Commission for several years , was also commissioned by the Venezuela Border Commission to prepare the Report on the Maps of the Orinoco-Essequibo Region .

The Justin Winsor Prize of the American Historical Association, awarded between 1896 and 1938, and the Justin Winsor Prize for Library History Essay of the American Library Association, awarded since 1979, are named after him.

Publications

  • Bibliography of the Original Quartos and Folios of Shakespeare with Particular Reference to Copies in America , 1876
  • The Reader's Handbook of the American Revolution , 1879
  • Memorial History of Boston , 1880–1882 (4 volumes)
  • The Narrative and Critical History of America , 1883–1889 (8 volumes)
  • Bibliography of Ptolemy's Geography , 1884
  • Catalog of the Kohl Collection of Maps relating to America , 1886
  • Christopher Columbus , 1891
  • Cartier to Frontenac , 1894
  • The Mississippi Basin , 1895
  • The Westward Movement , 1897

literature

  • Alfred C. Potter: Justin Winsor . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , Vol. 15 (1898), pp. 60-62 ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Manuscript Sources of American History: The Conspicuous Collections Extant . In: Papers of the American Historical Association , Volume III, No. 1 (1888), pp. 9-27
  2. ^ Homepage of the American Library Association
personal data
SURNAME Winsor, Justin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American historian, writer, and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1897
Place of death Cambridge , Massachusetts