JOSEPHINE LOUISE NEWCOMB BOOK COLLECTION
One very special part of
Newcomb's collection of
historical records is the personal
library of Josephine Louise
Newcomb, who founded Newcomb
College in 1886 with an initial
gift of $100,000 and who gave
$3.6 million to support the
growing College.
The personal book collection of Josephine Louise Newcomb, which was
left to the College, is not a very large one nor a very valuable one as
far
as book collections go. There is not one particularly rare or valuable
book in the entire collection. Newcomb's book collection is valuable and
rare in a different way. Its value lies in the insight it can give us
into the hopes of the woman who owned it, and also into life in the late
1800s, for it is a typical personal library of that time. Most
importantly, the collection reveals much about attitudes toward women of
that time, and also these women's attitudes about themselves. Mrs.
Newcomb's library is one of great interest to those who care about
Newcomb College. In her collection you learn of Newcomb's growth:
"We see the early interest of a young unmarried woman in the drama and
the Romantic novel; the wife's interest in travel books, and the
practical business of housewifery, the mother's sad fascination for
the poetry of death and loss during the time when she mourned
intensely the death of her daughter;and the older woman's emerging
interest in the issues of women's rights, particularly in the right to
vote and the right to an equal education. As we read the book's Mrs.
Newcomb read, we feel closer to her, and we begin to understand more
fully who she was and what she believed."
Excerpts of this page from:
Witting, S."Reflections of Sorrow and Hope."Newcomb
News.5(1),p.2-11.(1981).
A virtual tour sample of Josephine
Louise Newcomb Collection.
Newcomb Archives and Nadine Vorhoff Library
Newcomb College Center for Research on Women
F.S.T.
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