William Andrews Clark memorial library

The library and its collections were built by William Andrews Clark, Jr., and named after his father, who had built a mining fortune in MT. The son, a prominent Los Angeles book collector and philanthropist, had a house at the corner of Adams and Cimarron Streets, and from 1924 to 1926 he constructed the present library on the same lot. Shortly afterwards he announced his intent to donate the collection, the buildings, and the square-block property to UCLA. When he died in 1934 the deed passed to the University. His collecting tended to concentrate on two areas which still define the strengths of the Clark Library: English literature and history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and Oscar Wilde. Under the stewardship of UCLA the collection has grown, and a reference collection of modern books, periodicals, and microfilm support the holdings of rare materials.

Biography

The majority of the posters are from California International Antiquarian Book Fairs, which are sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA) and have run since 1961. One poster is from the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) fair, sponsored by ILAB. Other posters are from the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, sponsored by the ABAA, which has taken place since 1976. The Santa Monica Book Fair was sponsored by American Book Fairs, Incorporated.

Biographical Note

Oscar Wilde was born Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde in Dublin, Ireland, October 16, 1854. He attended Trinity College and Magdalen College, Oxford, winning the Newdigate prize in 1878 for the poem Ravenna. He subsequently established himself in London society as a champion of the new Aesthetic movement, advocating "art for art's sake," and publishing reviews and his Poems (1881). After being satirized (and made famous) as Bunthorne, the fleshly aesthetic poet in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, he made a year-long lecture tour of the United States, speaking on literature and the decorative arts. After his return to London, he married Constance Lloyd in 1884; they had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan Holland. In 1891 he met and began a love affair with the handsome but temperamental poet, Lord Alfred Douglas.

The 1890s saw both Wilde's greatest literary triumphs and his tragic downfall. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, appeared in 1891. The most famous of his witty social comedies-- Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)--were written and produced for the London stage. But in 1895, after becoming entangled in an unsuccessful libel suit against Douglas's father, Wilde was prosecuted for homosexuality. Convicted, he was sentenced to two years' hard labor.

While in prison, Wilde wrote De Profundis, a letter to Douglas, and after his release, he published the long poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898). But despite these final works, his career was essentially over. Bankrupt and in exile, his health ruined in prison, he died in Paris in 1900.

Biographical Note

Oscar Wilde was born Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde in Dublin, Ireland, October 16, 1854. He attended Trinity College and Magdalen College, Oxford, winning the Newdigate prize in 1878 for the poem Ravenna. He subsequently established himself in London society as a champion of the new Aesthetic movement, advocating "art for art's sake," and publishing reviews and his Poems (1881). After being satirized (and made famous) as Bunthorne, the fleshly aesthetic poet in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, he made a year-long lecture tour of the United States, speaking on literature and the decorative arts. After his return to London, he married Constance Lloyd in 1884; they had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan Holland. In 1891 he met and began a love affair with the handsome but temperamental poet, Lord Alfred Douglas.

The 1890s saw both Wilde's greatest literary triumphs and his tragic downfall. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray , appeared in 1891. The most famous of his witty social comedies-- Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)--were written and produced for the London stage. But in 1895, after becoming entangled in an unsuccessful libel suit against Douglas's father, Wilde was prosecuted for homosexuality. Convicted, he was sentenced to two years' hard labor.

While in prison, Wilde wrote De Profundis, a letter to Douglas, and after his release, he published the long poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898). But despite these final works, his career was essentially over. Bankrupt and in exile, his health ruined in prison, he died in Paris in 1900.

Biographical and Historical Note

William Andrews Clark, Jr. was born in Deer Lodge, Montana in 1877, the youngest son of copper baron William Andrews Clark, Sr. and his wife Katherine. Clark, Jr. (or WAC Jr.) was educated in France and in the New York area and graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelors Degree in Law in 1899. He returned to Butte, Montana, where he worked for several years as a partner in the law firm Clark & Roote and also served on the boards of several of his father's mining and industrial concerns. In 1902, he married Mabel Duffield Foster, who died of complications following the birth of their son, William Andrews Clark, III ("Tertius"), in 1903. In 1907, he married Alice McManus, a native Nevadan, and they moved their permanent home to Los Angeles in the early 1910s. Their house at Adams Boulevard and Cimarron Street occupied the grounds that the Clark Library still stands on today. In the mid-1910s, WAC Jr. began collecting antiquarian and fine press books as a serious hobby (he had dabbled in book buying previous to this). In 1919, he hired bibliographer Robert E. Cowan to consult on book-buying purchases and to help with the compilaton of a printed library catalog. The first volume of this was printed in 1920 by San Francisco printer John Henry Nash.

After a small kitchen fire in his home around 1924, Clark decided that a dedicated (and fireproof) library building was a necessity and he hired architect Robert David Farquhar to design the present library building. Upon completion in 1926, Clark promised the library and grounds to UCLA. After his death in 1934, the Clark Library became a part of UCLA.

An accomplished amateur violinist, WAC Jr. also founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1919.

Biographical Note

Oscar Wilde was born Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde in Dublin, Ireland, October 16, 1854. He attended Trinity College and Magdalen College, Oxford, winning the Newdigate prize in 1878 for the poem Ravenna. He subsequently established himself in London society as a champion of the new Aesthetic movement, advocating "art for art's sake," and publishing reviews and his Poems (1881). After being satirized (and made famous) as Bunthorne, the fleshly aesthetic poet in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, he made a year-long lecture tour of the United States, speaking on literature and the decorative arts. After his return to London, he married Constance Lloyd in 1884; they had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan Holland. In 1891 he met and began a love affair with the handsome but temperamental poet, Lord Alfred Douglas.

The 1890s saw both Wilde's greatest literary triumphs and his tragic downfall. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray , appeared in 1891. The most famous of his witty social comedies-- Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)--were written and produced for the London stage. But in 1895, after becoming entangled in an unsuccessful libel suit against Douglas's father, Wilde was prosecuted for homosexuality. Convicted, he was sentenced to two years' hard labor.

While in prison, Wilde wrote De Profundis, a letter to Douglas, and after his release, he published the long poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898). But despite these final works, his career was essentially over. Bankrupt and in exile, his health ruined in prison, he died in Paris in 1900.

Historical Note

The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library is one of UCLA's major libraries for rare books and manuscripts, with particular strengths in English literature and history (1641-1800), Oscar Wilde, and fine printing. It is located thirteen miles east of campus (about a half-hour drive), in the West Adams District of Los Angeles north of USC. It is administered by UCLA's Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies.

The library and its collections were founded by William Andrews Clark, Jr., and named after his father, who had built a mining fortune in Montana. The son, a prominent Los Angeles book collector and philanthropist, had a house at the corner of Adams Blvd. and Cimarron Street, and from 1924 to 1926 he constructed the present library on the same lot. Shortly afterwards he announced his intention to donate the collection, the buildings, and the property to UCLA. When he died in 1934 the deed passed to the University.

The Center, a member of the UCLA Humanities Consortium, provides a forum for the discussion of central issues in the field of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies. It organizes academic programs, bringing together scholars from the area, the nation, and the world, with the goal of encouraging research in the period from 1600 to 1800. It seeks to enlarge the Clark Library's holdings in this period in order to enhance research opportunities. The Center's publications program is dedicated to making the results of its conferences known to the larger scholarly public. It provides resident fellowships and scholarships to support research in early modern studies and other areas central to the Clark's collections. In addition it offers a variety of public programs, including chamber music concerts.

Chronology

Historical Note

Indentures

Indentures are legal contracts written in multiple copies (usually in duplicate) on one sheet. The resulting parts of the sheet are separated along a toothed or curved line. The parties to the contract each keep one part of the indenture. The authenticity of the documents is established by realigning the separated parts.

The Exchequer

The Exchequer was responsible for receiving, recording and dispersing the public revenue. It was divided into two parts: the Upper Exchequer, or Exchequer of Account, and the Lower Exchequer, or Exchequer of Receipt.

Four Tellers of the Receipt recorded payments into the Exchequer. In this process, three records of payments were created: one in the Teller's book, one in the Teller's Rolls, and a third in the form of a Teller's Bill or Exchequer Receipt. Payments to be made by the Exchequer, such as repayments of loans, were authorized by Orders on the Exchequer created in the office of the Auditor of the Receipt.

The offices of the Exchequer were abolished in 1834 by Act of Parliament. Their functions were transferred to the Comptroller General of the Receipt and Issue of the Exchequer.

Biographical Note

Oscar Wilde was born Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde in Dublin, Ireland, October 16, 1854. He attended Trinity College and Magdalen College, Oxford, winning the Newdigate prize in 1878 for the poem Ravenna. He subsequently established himself in London society as a champion of the new Aesthetic movement, advocating "art for art's sake," and publishing reviews and his Poems (1881). After being satirized (and made famous) as Bunthorne, the fleshly aesthetic poet in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, he made a year-long lecture tour of the United States, speaking on literature and the decorative arts. After his return to London, he married Constance Lloyd in 1884; they had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan Holland. In 1891 he met and began a love affair with the handsome but temperamental poet, Lord Alfred Douglas.

The 1890s saw both Wilde's greatest literary triumphs and his tragic downfall. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, appeared in 1891. The most famous of his witty social comedies-- Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)--were written and produced for the London stage. But in 1895, after becoming entangled in an unsuccessful libel suit against Douglas's father, Wilde was prosecuted for homosexuality. Convicted, he was sentenced to two years' hard labor.

While in prison, Wilde wrote De Profundis, a letter to Douglas, and after his release, he published the long poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898). But despite these final works, his career was essentially over. Bankrupt and in exile, his health ruined in prison, he died in Paris in 1900.

Historical Note

Charles Nickolas Kessler (1874-1957) was the president of his family's business, the Kessler Brewing Company. He actively opposed the prohibition movement but to his dismay, Montana supported statewide prohibition that became effective in January, 1919. On June 28, 1919, the Kessler Brewery was closed and all of the company's alcohol was destroyed. The brewery would not be re-opened until 1933 after the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. Throughout his life, Kessler was extremely interested in acquiring information on various aspects of the history of Montana.

The Society of the Framers of the Constitution of the State of Montana was founded on August 17, 1889. It was comprised of 75 members who were elected by the people of the Territory of Montana as well as honorary members that included participants from the 1884 Constitutional Convention. According to Article II of the organization's constitution, "the object and purpose of this organization shall be purely for social, moral and mental enjoyment and improvement; cultivating and encouraging American patriotism and love for our country, free from all political bias and spirit (Second Reunion of the Society of the Framers of the Constitution of the State of Montana 1891).

Robert S. Hale (d. 1922) was a pioneer and prominent man of Helena, Montana. Upon his death he left an Estate worth a said $100,000. He was survived by neither widow, children, nor parents, as stated in the newspaper, "The Helena Independent" on August 18th, 1923. Following his death, there was a lengthy litigation and settlement of his Estate. His niece Lutie Gibson White was accused by Annie H. Thompson, widow of James Thompson, the son of one of Hale's sisters, for undue influence in gaining control of his properties prior to his death.

Fort Keogh is located on the western edge of Miles City, Montana. From about 1823-1890, west of Mississippi, various conflicts were taking place between Native Americans, American settlers and the United States Army. These conflicts have become known as the Indian Wars. The Indian Wars were the result of European colonizers and their desire for westward expansion. The settling of the West resulted in the uprooting of a number of indigenous populations.