St. Louis Mercantile Library Fall Newsletter, 2023

Fall, 2023

News of the Mercantile Library

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Clipping Library Comes to the Mercantile

Thirty-five years ago, the Mercantile capped off a decade of expansive collecting which had added vast rail and river historical holdings (later to become the Barriger and Pott Libraries) with the addition of the clipping and photo libraries of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. That collection revolutionized the Mercantile’s reference room, and what had previously been used as a private news source for investigative reporters became a community resource for local (and national) historical and cultural studies.

Not just merely a “logic trail”, the Globe Collection was a grand tapestry of St. Louis history—and still is, but now deeply augmented and expanded in usefulness to researchers with the addition of the well-preserved St. Louis Post-Dispatch clipping library, even larger than the vast Globe collection. Three features of the Post collection that will make the millions of clippings even more useful and accessible are an impressive catalogue of the collection, an online searchable archival database of the Post itself, and complete physical newspaper files of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, all now present and preserved at the Mercantile. Also held by the library are the largest existing archives of original Post-Dispatch Weatherbird art (the oldest continuous newspaper cartoon in America), a distinguished collection of original editorial cartoons for the Post by Pulitzer prize-winning artist, Daniel Fitzpatrick; extensive files of the Post’s Washington Bureau from the mid-20^th century; and selected photo, print and negative files for selected reporters’ contributions.

The Mercantile is grateful for its strong partnership with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It has allowed our institution to build and preserve this dramatic historical research collection, a treasure trove for present readers and students, and a legacy for posterity.

This fall the clipping morgue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch came to the Mercantile—millions of clippings in thousands of boxes forming 36 tons of palleted newsprint! The archive will eventually reside in a greatly expanded, climate-controlled newspaper and special collections room at the Mercantile.

Thanks for voting for the St. Louis Mercantile Library Art Museum!

Every year, St. Louis Magazine's annual A-List Awards recognize the region's finest—from art to dining, shopping to those shaping the region—as chosen by readers and editors. This year, more than 500,000 votes were cast to determine the readers' choice winners and finalists. Earlier this summer it was announced that the Mercantile Library Art Museum made it as a finalist in the Art Museum category, and we were absolutely over the moon. Thanks to all our friends and members who voted for us!

See the full list of 2023 A-List Winners here!

Recent Acquisitions for the Mercantile Library Art Museum

Bessie Potter Vonnoh (1872-1955), Julia Marlowe as Juliet, bronze, ca. 1898.

Collection of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Art Museum.

St. Louis native Bessie Potter began her illustrious sculpture career studying and working with Lorado Taft (1860-1936) at the Art Institute of Chicago and on the sculpture program for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where she also produced work independently for the Exposition’s Illinois State Building. In 1895, while traveling and studying in Europe, she met the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin whose influence impacted her work throughout her career. She married American Impressionist Robert Vonnoh in 1895 and continued building her career through the 1900s, with several public monument and fountain commissions but primarily through her extremely popular small-scale figural works in bronze.

This piece is an excellent example of the small bronzes that helped build Vonnoh’s reputation. It depicts the actress Julia Marlowe (1865-1950) in the role of Juliet. Marlowe had been determined to act and to specialize in Shakespeare from the start of her career. Although her early performances were not always well-received, she appeared in numerous stage productions through the 19th century building a reputation for her dedication to her craft. In 1904 she married E. H. Southern (1859-1933) and together they became the best-known Shakespearean actors in the United States. Vonnoh’s choice of a beautiful actress in a popular role from a widely-known and well-loved story ensured the sculpture’s appeal, and as with her other figural sculptures, at only 20 inches high, the piece’s accessible size contributed to its success.

Vonnoh’s Julia Marlowe as Juliet adds to our representation of women artists, both in its creator and its subject, while the subject also connects it to the literary themes conveyed in other sculptures, prints, and books in the Mercantile collections.

William Marple (1827 – 1910), Along the Russian River, California, 1880.

Collection of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Art Museum.

A second significant acquisition is an important landscape by William Marple. Marple left his New York home in 1849, lured to California by the promise of the Gold Rush. Soon he discovered that painting was more lucrative than prospecting. Like many artists of the time he began as a sign and house painter but soon built a reputation for his glowing landscapes.

In 1879 and 1880 Marple lived in St. Louis where he became active in several local arts organizations. The view here is along the Russian River in California, Marple had lived near the river in Placerville, California, and likely painted this in his St. Louis studio from sketches done earlier on his travels. This work reflects the artistic influences Marple would have experienced when he traveled to New York and Europe, and also those of his fellow artists in the city, including J.R. Meeker and William Tracy with whom he shared a studio. This California scene complements the Missouri landscape by Marple currently in the collection, and adds a wonderful view of a significant California river as a resource image for the Pott Waterways library as well.

We're very grateful to the generous donors whose support supplements the acquisitions budget and enables us to continue adding important works like these to the collection.

Prints from John Gould's Birds of Asia

The Library received a significant donation of ornithological prints, primarily from John Gould’s Birds of Asia with three examples from his Birds of Europe. Gould was a noted British ornithologist who produced numerous monographs on birds of the world, illustrated by important artists of the day. His work is referenced in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species published in 1859. These prints build on the Library’s Audubon and other ornithological collections, which will be featured in a future exhibition.

John Gould (1804-1881), Psarisomus dalhousiae, Birds of Asia, 1850, vol. 1, plate 64.

Collection of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Art Museum.

News of Other Acquisitions, Including a Great St. Louis Newspaper Rarity

This was a banner autumn for newspaper history at the Mercantile with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch clipping library coming to the Mercantile. In the 1840s one of the city’s earliest printers (and fur trappers), Charles Keemle, founded a legendary newspaper, The Reveille, in the frontier city with two brothers, Matthew and Joseph Field. This paper reported dramatic events of the Mexican War, art and culture, also great humor sketches, and was a joy for early as well as present-day readers to peruse. After the 1849 double blow of cholera and fire, it was known that The Reveille survived by merging with another early paper, the People’s Organ, becoming in 1850-51 The Daily Organ and Reveille. Until now only one or two known numbers of this paper survived, but no extensive file. The Mercantile has acquired recently nearly 130 sequential issues from January-May 1851 of a paper thought completely lost to readers. That era is now brought back in focus in a way only a local daily newspaper can do.

As many St. Louisans know, the first newspaper west of the Mississippi was a French/English work printed by St. Louis’ first printer of all, Joseph Charless. The Mercantile continues to collect Charless’ other contributions to the education of early frontier St. Louisans—his almanacs and law books and more from a career that started in Ireland, and moved to St. Louis via early stops along the way in Philadelphia, Kentucky, and Illinois. Recently the Library has acquired Charless’ arithmetic, printed in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1804, The American School Master’s Assistant Being a Compendium System of Vulgar and Decimal Arithmetic, Adapted for the Use of Schools in the United States. Charless did not reprint this book when he arrived in St. Louis a few years later, and it was left to the City Engineer, Rene Paul, to create a decade and a half later the first Arithmetic textbook offered in St. Louis. Recently a fine gift came to the Mercantile of the second St. Louis arithmetic, The Federal Instructor, or Youth’s Assistant, Containing the Most Concise and Accurate Rules for Performing Operations in Arithmetic (St. Louis. 1834). A tremendous rarity and a welcome addition to the Mercantile’s collection of early St. Louis printing.

Extra! Extra!

The Mercantile Library’s newspaper project is entering its final phases as volunteers Jim and Ann Blum are working with McKnight Curator Nick Fry on housing and cataloging the newspaper headlines acquired by the library. This large and varied collection of newspaper headlines from across the United States provides an opportunity to actually hold the first draft of history in one’s hand. After the collection is rehoused it will be inventoried and become part of the historic newspaper collection of the St. Louis Mercantile Library and researchers from all over the world will be able to view these items. This will also mark the completion of the initial processing of the newspaper acquisitions from New England. Those of you who were able to attend the Bixby Club event that toured the newspaper archive in the JC Penney Building Annex or have seen images of the space know how large and comprehensive this collection is. We look forward to sharing more of it with you all over time.

Special Collections Acquisition Highlight: "The Chrystalotype"

The New York Chrystal Palace exhibition and fair of the 1850s had Americans traveling to one of the earliest American national events. It was home to many new trends and innovations in science and the arts. Among these was a great exhibition of early photography, then in its infancy. The first American book with a sustained group of photographic illustrations came out of this gathering; Benjamin Silliman’s The World of Science, Art and Industry Illustrated from Examples in the New York Exhibition (1854) documented all of these trends. For a few fortunate individuals and institutions, the author provided a handful of now very rare copies of this work with actual photographic illustrations documenting art exhibited at the exposition, and one of these, in perfect condition, now joins the Mercantile Library’s superb collection of 19^th century photographically illustrated books on architecture, art, transportation, and portraits of the peoples of that early period. The copy acquired by the Mercantile has a unique, embossed cover coining a special title reflecting the new cyanotypes between the covers: “The Chystalotype”. We are grateful to Mrs. Joseph Gleason for her generosity in providing the needed funds for the Mercantile to be able to add this important title to a growing research collection in early photography present here.

Renovation Updates

Every day brings us closer to realizing the dream of a new gallery complex for the Mercantile Library Art Museum. This exciting project includes creating exhibition space on Level 3 for Mercantile artwork and rare books, transforming the stairway and elevator lobby into a grand entrance that invites visitors to the Mercantile, and creating a new sculpture hall in the Mercantile 2^nd floor lobby to highlight our historic and modern sculpture while also connecting to the atrium galleries. All of these changes lead to the major component of the project, the creation of an elegant, accessible new gallery for Missouri art with storage and preparation rooms, a central educational programming space custom-designed for hybrid and in-person events and meetings, and an interactive art education space for hands-on programs and self-guided learning.

The new Hosmer Sculpture Hall is named for artist Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908) whose Beatrice Cenci anchors the collection. Marble sculptures from the atrium have been moved into place, the Daniel Webster marble was moved from the Shopmaker Political gallery, and the Venus de Medici zinc was repositioned. The entire series of Missouri History in Bronze sculptures by R.H. Dick are now displayed together in the atrium. Eventually, the Hosmer Sculpture Hall will present many additional, smaller works of sculpture that have only been briefly presented in a special exhibition or that are recent acquisitions that have never been displayed. Among these are a figural bronze by Bessie Potter Vonnoh (1872-1955), abstract maquettes by Saunders Schultz (1927-2017), a bronze figural work and a maquette by Jaye Gregory (1951-2016) and many others.

We are sincerely grateful to the Bellwether Foundation, the Kemper Foundation, the Orthwein Foundation, the Kranzberg Foundation, the two anonymous major donors, and the many supporters whose generosity and faith in the Mercantile Library Art Museum is making the gallery project possible. Your support will bring us even closer to reaching our funding goals. Donations may be made online here; please type “Art Gallery Renovation” in the Gift Instructions Box, or by check with “Art Gallery Renovation” on the memo line mailed to Julie Dunn-Morton, St. Louis Mercantile Library at UMSL, One University Blvd., St. Louis MO 63121. Naming opportunities are still available! To learn more, please contact Julie Dunn-Morton at 314-516-6740 or [email protected].

Rock n 'Roll Research Request

We are continually assisting researchers with the most interesting projects here in the Mercantile reading room. One recent request that stood out for us was from an esteemed professor and cultural anthropologist researching the Queen of Rock n’ Roll herself. This research visit took place before Tina Turner’s passing on May 24, 2023, which was a loss felt deeply in St. Louis. Wanting to take a deep dive into Turner’s St. Louis area roots, the professor requested any pertinent newspaper files and photos featuring her early career. There were many St. Louis Globe-Democrat photos and clippings to choose from. Of particular interest were the St. Louis and East St. Louis nightclub clipping files. Head of Reference Charles Brown turned up the flyer pictured here, advertising The Original Ike & Tina Turner Revue at the Club Imperial, two shows performed on May 20, 1969. The Club Imperial was a North St. Louis nightclub whose heyday saw performances from Ike & Tina, Chuck Berry, Miles Davis, and Jimi Hendrix. Tina and Ike recorded their first live album, Ike & Tina Turner Revue Live, at the Club Imperial in 1964, and Turner performed there regularly throughout the 1950s and 60s. The Rolling Stones visited the Club in July 1966 during The Turners' performance and asked them to be an opening act on their 1966 British tour. Several years ago, the building at 6306 West Florissant Avenue was in danger of demolition; thankfully, recent reports say the city of St. Louis’ Land Reutilization Authority will be working to restore this historic site, along with Chuck Berry’s home on Whittier Street.

Student Spotlight: Guadalupe Quiroz

If you have browsed the collection of St. Louis Globe-Democrat newspapers and photographs on our digital library, chances are you have encountered Guadalupe Quiroz’s work. Guadalupe is a sophomore at UMSL entering her second year with the Mercantile, and over the past year, she has worked diligently to scan, edit, and describe newspaper issues and photographs so they can be available online.

When asked about her work at the Mercantile, Guadalupe discussed how it has enhanced her educational experience. She explained, “I learned how to work more analytically. I have encountered situations where I am required to think out of the box, such as when I have had to describe an image with no background [information] on it... These are the times I am required to pay close attention to detail and make inferences to the best of my ability.” Guadalupe also described Globe-Democrat photographs of the St. Joseph’s Convent (the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet) as some of “the most fascinating images I have come across” in the collection, particularly those images featuring relics of saints with “amazing backstories.”

Guadalupe is majoring in international relations with a planned minor in cybersecurity, and she hopes to work as a foreign service officer. We are so glad that she is bringing her passion and dedication to the Mercantile and helping to provide global access to our collections.