Folger Shakespeare Library
The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period (1500–1750) in Britain and Europe. The library was established by Henry Clay Folger in association with his wife, Emily Jordan Folger. It opened in 1932, two years after his death.
Folger Shakespeare Library
Washington, D.C., United States
Private Research library
Special library[1]
Early modern Europe, Shakespeare
1932
Cret, Paul P.; Trowbridge, Alexander B. (Modern architecture)
The library offers advanced scholarly programs and national outreach to K–12 classroom teachers on Shakespeare education. Other performances and events at the Folger include the award-winning Folger Theatre, which produces Shakespeare-inspired theater; Folger Consort, the early-music ensemble-in-residence; the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series; the PEN/Faulkner Reading Series; and numerous other exhibits, seminars, talks and lectures, and family programs. It also has several publications, including the Folger Library editions of Shakespeare's plays, the journal Shakespeare Quarterly, the teacher resource books Shakespeare Set Free, and catalogs of exhibitions. The Folger is also a leader in methods of preserving rare materials.
The library is privately endowed and administered by the Trustees of Amherst College. The library building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History[edit]
Standard Oil of New York executive Henry Clay Folger, a graduate of Amherst College and Columbia University, was an avid collector of Shakespeareana, beginning in 1889 with the purchase of a 1685 Fourth Folio.[2] Toward the end of World War I, he and his wife Emily Jordan Folger began searching for a location for a Shakespeare library based on their collection. They chose a location adjacent to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The land was then occupied by townhouses, and Folger spent several years buying the separate lots. The site was designated for expansion by the Library of Congress, but in 1928, Congress passed a resolution allowing its use for Folger's project.[3][4][5]
The cornerstone of the library was laid in May 1930, but Folger died soon afterward. The bulk of Folger's fortune was left in trust, with Amherst College as administrator, for the library. Early members of the board included Amherst graduate and former president Calvin Coolidge, second chairman of the Board of Trustees. Because of the stock market crash of 1929, Folger's estate was smaller than he had planned, although still substantial. Emily Folger, who had worked with her husband on his collection, supplied the funds to complete the project. The library opened on April 23, 1932, the anniversary of what is believed to be Shakespeare's date of birth. Emily Folger remained involved in its administration until shortly before her death in 1936.[6][7] In 2005, the Folger Board of Governors undertook administration of the Folger under the auspices of the Amherst Board of Trustees, though the Amherst board continues to manage the Folger's budget.[8]
The Folger's first official reader was B. Roland Lewis, who later published The Shakespeare Documents: Facsimiles, Transliterations, Translations, and Commentary based on his research. The first fellowships were distributed in 1936.[9] Early Folger exhibitions featured enticing items in the collection, including Ralph Waldo Emerson's copy of Shakespeare's works, an Elizabethan lute, and Edwin Booth's Richard III costume.[10] Current practices for Folger exhibitions did not begin until 1964, when the first exhibition curated on site opened.[11] During the Second World War, 30,000 items from the Folger collection were transported under guard to Amherst College's Converse Library, where they were stored for the duration of the war in case of an enemy attack on Washington, D.C.[12]
Many of the Folger's current public events and programs began in the 1970s under the leadership of director O.B. Hardison. Under his direction, the Folger's theater was brought up to Washington, D.C. fire code, permitting performances by the Folger Theatre Group, the library's first professional company. The Folger Poetry Series also began in 1970. Hardison formed the Folger Institute, which coordinates academic programs and research at the Library. Folger Consort, the Library's early music ensemble, began performances in 1977.[13]
The first Director of the Library, from 1940 to 1946, was Joseph Quincy Adams Jr.[14]
Library[edit]
Collection[edit]
The Folger houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare-related material, from the 16th century to the present. The library is best known for its 82 copies of the 1623 First Folio (of which only 235 known copies survive)[26] and over 200 quartos of Shakespeare's individual plays. Not restricted to Shakespeare, the Folger owns the world's third largest collection of English books printed before 1641, as well as substantial holdings of continental and later English imprints.[27][28] The collection includes a wealth of items related to performance history: 250,000 playbills, 2,000 promptbooks, costumes, recordings and props. It also holds upwards of 90,000 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, sculptures and other works of art.[29]
The Folger's first catalog of its collection began in 1935, when Edwin Willoughby, a scholar of library science and the First Folio, began to catalog the book collection based on Alfred W. Pollard and Gilbert Richard Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue. Though Willoughby developed a unique classification system based on the Folger's needs, in the late 1940s the Folger adopted that of the Library of Congress.[30] In 1996, Folger staff and readers were given access to Hamnet, the collection's online catalog; the site became available to the public in 2000.[24] Hamnet was retired in June 2022.[31]
The Folger offers several online tools to assist in research and scholarship, including the following: