Archives and Rare Books at Macalester

Archives

The purpose of the Macalester College Archives is to preserve for research the historically valuable materials which document the origins, development, activities and achievements of the College since its inception in 1875. Materials in the Archives include:

• Early college budget statistics

• Important departmental data

• Early registrar records

• Minutes of faculty meetings

• Photographs

• Significant college publications

• Minutes of trustee and other critical meetings guiding overall college policy

• Books and papers by faculty, staff and alumni if they are critical to the history of the college

• Honors papers

In 1947, in the previous Weyerhaeuser Library, the Neill Room was constructed to house the books and papers written and collected by the Reverend Doctor Edward D. Neill, the first president of Macalester College.  In the early 1960s, the Tartan Room was used in the Weyerhaeuser Library to house the college archives.  In 1986, the Neill Collection was sorted and most of it was incorporated into the Tartan Room archives.  Since 1988, the archives remain part of the DeWitt Wallace Library.

A main feature of the archives is the Neill Collection.  The Reverend Doctor Edward D. Neill was a pioneer clergyman and educator in Minnesota serving as the first Superintendent of Schools for the Territory and as Chancellor for the University of Minnesota.  Dr. Neill served as secretary under President Abraham Lincoln and was the founding pastor of two St. Paul Presbyterian churches, House of Hope and First Presbyterian.  The collection includes Dr. Neill?s personal books and papers, and his collection of books featuring Native American culture, the early history of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and the west.

Rare Books

The Rare Books collection consists of published material that is valuable and unique. These are items are thus considered too valuable to be in the general circulating collection. Selected material may also be placed in the Rare Books room so as to form a meaningful collection in combination with rare material.

The Rare Books Room of the DeWitt Wallace Library was first organized in 1961-62 and consists of first editions, along with some rare and unique published and unpublished materials.  The main focus of the collection is American authors who have achieved prominence in the first half of the 20th century, with a special emphasis on Midwestern authors.  Authors include:  Sinclair Lewis,  Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hamlin Garland, O.E. Rolvaag, William Faulkner, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and Charles A. Lindbergh.  Other authors in the collection include:  Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Feike Feikema (Frederick Manfred), Kay Boyle, John Steinbeck,  Carl Sandburg, William Styron, and Thomas Wolfe.

A major feature of the Rare Books Room is the significant collection of Sinclair Lewis, most of which was purchased in 1965.  Generous gifts of  books and letters, as well as works about Sinclair Lewis, have enriched the collection over the years.   

Another feature of the collection is a focus on mid-20^th century prose and poetry. The Charles Foster Collection celebrates a long friendship with Robert Frost. Donated by the Foster family, one of whom is David A. Foster, class of 1967, there are first edition works of Robert Frost as well as Christmas cards with handwritten greetings from Robert Frost to Charles Foster and his wife, Doris.

A more recent addition to the Rare Books Room is the works of Vladimir Nabokov.  This collection belonged to the late David F. Wheeler, class of 1980.  David majored in English literature and Russian studies as a student at Macalester College.  In his honor, and because the family credits the college for nurturing David's interest in Russian literature, the family donated his collection of Nabokov works to the library in 1998.

The most significant rare book collections are by the following authors:

Other authors in the collection include: