College and Research Libraries


B y F R E D E R I C K G . K I L G O U R 

Justin Winsor 
Frederick G. Kilgour is general assistant, 

Harvard University Library. 

JUSTIN W I N S O R w a s b o r n in B o s t o n , 
on January 2, 1 8 3 1 . H e attended 

a boarding school at Sandwich prior to 

entering Boston L a t i n , where he prepared 

for H a r v a r d . D u r i n g his preparatory 

school days he became interested in the 

history of the t o w n of D u x b u r y , Massa-

chusetts, w i t h which the W i n s o r family 

had long been associated. T h e notes that 

he collected on this subject became so 

extensive that he was able to publish his 

first book, A History of the Town of 

Duxbury ( 1 8 4 9 ) , during his freshman 

year at H a r v a r d . 

H a r v a r d proved to be somewhat of a 

disappointment to y o u n g W i n s o r . H e 

apparently studied hard and read widely, 

but the collegiate life did not appeal to 

him. In fact, he never completed college, 

leaving H a r v a r d in October, 1852, early 

in his senior year in order to travel abroad. 

F i f t e e n years later H a r v a r d granted him 

his A . B . degree as of the Class of 1853. 

W h i l e abroad he continued to study and 

spent most of his t w o years there at 

Heidelberg and Paris. 

H a v i n g returned to Boston in 1854, 

he married M i s s Caroline T . Barker on 

December 18, 1855. W i n s o r soon began 

to produce a steady stream of criticism, 

poetry, comment, and fiction. T o d a y this 

literary aspect of W i n s o r ' s life is little 

known. O n e relic of this period is a 

ten-volume manuscript study of the drama 

and life of G a r r i c k that is now in the 

T h e a t r e Collection of the H a r v a r d C o l -

lege L i b r a r y . I t is curious, however, that 

he did not publish any book w r i t t e n in 

this period until 1880, and that on the 

American Revolution. T h e products of 

his short-lived literary career have dropped 

into darkness. 

In 1866 W i n s o r was appointed a trustee 

of the Boston Public L i b r a r y , and at last 

his intellectual curiosity was once more 

thoroughly aroused, as he himself clearly 

demonstrated in the " R e p o r t of the E x a m -

ining Committee M a d e to the T r u s t e e s of 

the Boston Public L i b r a r y " for the year 

1867. W i n s o r w a s chiefly responsible for 

this report, and although it does not con-

tain any new ideas in librarianship, it does 

show that W i n s o r investigated the condi-

tion of other libraries through their re-

ports and catalogs, in order to judge more 

accurately the quality and quantity of 

the service in his own library. H i s sug-

gestions for improvement w e r e practices 

that had already been tried in other in-

stitutions, but he w a s able to determine 

w h e r e improvement w a s necessary and 

his powers of observation w e r e undoubt-

edly good. 

In Charge of Library 

In January, 1868, C . C . J e w e t t , super-

intendent of the Boston Public L i b r a r y , 

died and Justin W i n s o r took temporary 

charge. H e demonstrated a real execu-

64 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



tive ability, and apparently enjoyed the 
work for he soon accepted an appointment 
as superintendent and held that position 
until 1877. During this period the Justin 
Winsor that is now remembered found his 
place in life. Winsor at 36 was a little-
known critic and poet; ten years later he 
was the leader of the library profession in 
America. Undoubtedly his ability as a 
litterateur was slight. A s an historian and 
administrator, however, he was able to 
make lasting contributions to society. 

Increased Use of the Library 

His greatest service to librarianship was 
his insistence on the use of books as op-
posed to their collection and storage. He 
had rather a head start in this direction 
for, as he had pointed out in his report of 
1867, in other institutions "much more 
stringent regulations are in vogue." A 
specific accomplishment was that he facili-
tated increased use of the Boston Public 
Library by reducing the number of closed 
days from eighty-six in 1867 to five in 
1877. T h e circulation of books jumped 
from 209,000 per annum to nearly 
1,200,000 during this period. 

T o obtain liberality in the use of books 
he removed many barriers. He interested 
the public in good literature and made it 
more readily obtainable by establishing 
branches for the distribution of books. 
T h e effectiveness of these actions was in-
creased by his administrative ability. He 
was a realist and his direct, sincere ap-
proach and understanding enabled him to 
comprehend the problems of library ma-
chinery and to produce new models. He 
also understood people, and by delegating 
responsibility and using various technical 
devices and administrative schemes, he 
made an excellent job of directing the 
Boston Public Library. 

President of A.L.A. 

In 1876 Winsor played an extremely 
important part in the foundation of the 
American Library Association and the Li-
brary Journal. H e was the A . L . A . ' s first 
president, holding that post from 1876 to 
1885. He was once again elected presi-
dent in 1897 for the specific purpose of 
representing the A . L . A . at the interna-
tional meeting of librarians in England. 
T h e only men in the American library 
profession w h o approached Winsor in 
stature were W . F . Poole and C . A . 
Cutter. 

Winsor's tenancy of his Boston position 
was marred by his conflict with city poli-
tics. It was therefore with pleasure that 
he accepted President Eliot's invitation 
to become the librarian of Harvard Uni-
versity in 1877. He was now free from 
the annoyances of his former position and 
also found himself in a society much more 
to his liking. For the last twenty years 
of his life he worked hard at Harvard, 
and not only maintained a position as one 
of the leaders of the library profession but 
also became an outstanding historian and 
the leading student of American cartog-
raphy in the United States. 

T h e first book that he published during 
these years was the still useful Reader s 
Handbook of the American Revolution 
( 1 8 8 0 ) . T h i s was followed by a four-
volume Memorial History of Boston 
(1880-81) and later by his famous eight-
volume Narrative and Critical History of 
America (1884-89). In the next decade 
he published Christopher Columbus 
( 1 8 9 1 ) , Cartier to Frontenac ( 1 8 9 4 ) , 
The Mississippi Basin ( 1 8 9 5 ) , and just 
before his death The Westward Move-
ment ( 1 8 9 7 ) . 

Winsor's profession either as librarian 
or as historian would have been more than 

DECEMBER., 1941 65 



most men would have been able to main-
tain, but he made time for pursuing his 
historical studies by his remarkable or-
ganization of the Harvard College Li-
brary and an efficient use of old Gore 
Hall. Winsor's aim to make books useful 
produced a new kind of college library, 
for he watched closely the development of 
Harvard and cooperated with the Har-
vard faculty to the utmost of his ability. 
It is not possible to overestimate the im-
portance of the role Winsor played in the 
development of the then new elective 
system of education that employed the 
library as a laboratory. Had there been 
a conservative man in Winsor's place, the 
elective system would probably not have 
been the success that it was. 

Reserved Books on Open Shelves 

He expressed his attitude toward library 
service in his second annual report at 
Harvard when he wrote that "there 
should be no bar to the use of books but 
the rights of others. . . T h e practice 
of reserving books on open shelves for the 
use of students in connection with their 
courses began at Harvard in 1875. W h e n 
Winsor became librarian in 1877 he found 
that only two or three instructors were 
using the reserved-book system, and he 
immediately began to increase its applica-
tion. Twenty-one instructors were re-
serving books in 1878 and thirty-four in 
1879. In 1879/80, 3330 volumes were 
reserved. T h i s same year Winsor also 
adopted the practice of issuing cards to 
students that entitled them to use the 
book stack, a privilege which before that 
time had been reserved for the officers of 

the university. T h e number of students 
using the stack rose from sixty in 1879/80 
to two hundred in 1881/82. In his first 
report (1878) Winsor expressed the desire 
to illuminate the Gore Hall reading room 
by electricity so that the library could be 
kept open in the evening, but he did not 
realize this ambition until January, 1896. 
Beginning with October 3, 1880 he opened 
the building Sunday afternoons. In 1875, 
57 per cent of the students made use of the 
library. By increasing the library's facilities 
Winsor was able to raise this percentage 
to 77 in 1880 and to 90 in 1885/86. 

Advocate of the New Education 

Winsor undoubtedly remembered his 
own unhappy experience at Harvard, and 
probably for that reason was a strong 
advocate of the new education. One of 
his students still tells how he refused 
to give an examination in his course on 
cartography until the college office forced 
him to do so. Having then lined up the 
rather small class in a corridor outside 
his classroom in Sever Hall, he put a 
simple question to each man, and when 
each one had answered he was dismissed 
for the day. T h e y all passed. 

In October, 1897, Winsor was taken ill 
and died after a short sickness. During 
the last thirty years of his life he had made 
many friends, and many tributes to his 
life appeared in publications in both 
America and Europe. He had lacked a 
power for literary expression, but he had 
possessed a warm frankness that came 
from a sincere, realistic nature. He was 
mourned as a great historian, a great li-
brarian, and a great friend. 

66 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES