Speck, William A. (William Alfred), 1864-1928

William A. Speck, the son of German immigrants, was born in New York City in 1864. A pharmacist by profession, he amassed the largest Goethe collection outside of Germany. In 1913, he and his collection came from Haverstraw, New York to Yale, where he served as curator of the Speck Collection until his death in 1928. For further biographical information on William A. Speck and a general history and description of the Speck Collection, see the finding aid for the William A. Speck Collection of Goetheana: Manuscripts ( YCGL MSS 6 ).

From the guide to the William A. Speck collection of Goetheana : original artwork, 1785-1916, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

From the guide to the William A. Speck collection of Goetheana : general ephemera, 1766-1999, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

William A. Speck, the son of German immigrants, was born in New York City in 1864. A pharmacist by profession, Speck amassed the largest Goethe collection outside of Germany. In 1913, he and his collection came from Haverstraw, New York to Yale, where he served as curator of the collection until his death in 1928.

From the description of William A. Speck collection of Goetheana : theater ephemera, circa 1725-1984 (bulk 1829-1940). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702197728

William Alfred Speck (1864-1928) was the founder of the William A. Speck Collection of Goetheana at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. He served as curator of the collection from 1913 until his death in 1928, and as lecturer in the Yale Graduate School beginning in 1916.

From the description of William A. Speck papers, 1848-1951. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702183011

William A. Speck, a pharmacist by profession, amassed the largest Goethe collection outside of Germany. In 1913 he and his collection came to Yale, where he served as curator of the collection until his death.

From the description of William A. Speck collection of Goetheana : music, 1830-1889. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 83782401

From the description of William A. Speck collection of Goetheana : manuscripts, 1542-1967 (bulk 1770-1900). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702138699

From the description of William A. Speck collection of Goetheana : music, 1785-1937. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702152689

William A. Speck, the son of German immigrants, was born in New York City in 1864. A pharmacist by profession, he amassed the largest Goethe collection outside of Germany. In 1913, he and his collection came from Haverstraw, New York to Yale, where he served as curator of the collection until his death in 1928. For further biographical information on William A. Speck and a general history and description of the Speck Collection, see the finding aid for the William A. Speck Collection of Goetheana: Manuscripts (YCGL MSS 6) .

From the guide to the William A. Speck collection of Goetheana : theater ephemera, circa 1725-1984, 1829-1940, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

The son of German immigrants, William A. Speck began life in New York City in 1864. His father, Otto Speck, owned an apothecary shop, first in the City, then in Haverstraw, New York, a small community on the Hudson. As a boy, Speck attended Hoboken Academy, a school run largely by Germans, and afterwards earned a degree in chemistry from the Pharmaceutical College of the City of New York. For the next thirty years, Speck conscientiously worked as a druggist in the family business, despite the fact that his real interest lay elsewhere.

Life as a Haverstraw pharmacist allowed Speck ample time to pursue his true passion: Goethe. The New York City antiquarian bookshops were only a day's trip away, and Speck was able to make two European journeys during these years. The destination was, of course, Weimar, where Speck went from door to door, up and down the streets, looking for Goethe relics, buying pictures from inn-keepers, and often gaining access to private collections.

After more than two decades of collecting, Speck saw that his books belonged in an academic setting. Personal ties suggested Columbia as the recipient of the collection; but it was Yale, having heard of the marvelous Goethe museum on the banks of the Hudson, that sent a delegation to visit Speck in 1912. In March, 1913, the Yale Corporation announced that the Goethe Collection, which then numbered about 6,000 items, had been deposited in New Haven, and that Speck had been appointed its curator.

Between the time of Speck's appointment and his death in 1928, the Collection, benefitting from University support, trebled in size. While World War I cut off the source of acquisitions for a time, the 1920s saw the purchase of two major private collections, as well as a steady stream of smaller purchases from dealers around the world. During the last years of his life, Speck was appointed lecturer in the Yale Graduate School, where he offered a course called "Goethe's Personality and Personal Appearance." Publishing relatively little, Speck devoted himself instead to assiduous collecting, firm in his belief that Goethe was "one of the corner-stones ... of our moral world."

The William A. Speck Collection of Goetheana, now the largest Goethe collection outside Germany, contains over 10,000 printed volumes and as many pamphlets, scores, programs, broadsides, prints, art works, and Goethe-related ephemera, as well as the extensive holdings of literary manuscripts, which are described in depth in this finding aid, and of manuscript music, listed and classified separately as YCGL MSS 9.

For a fuller description of the contents and collecting history of the Speck Collection, consult the Guide to the Beinecke collections (New Haven, 1974 and 1994).

Related manuscript sources in the Yale Collection of German Literature include the papers of Karl Gottfried Theodor Winkler (Theodor Hell), Dresden theater director and journalist, who corresponded with many literary figures of Goethe's time. The George Eliot Papers in the Beinecke Library's General Collection of Rare Books and Manuscripts contain much material by and relating to Goethe's biographer George Henry Lewes; some of this material was originally part of the Speck Collection.

From the guide to the William A. Speck collection of Goetheana : manuscripts, 1542-1967, 1770-1900, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

The Speck music manuscripts are an integral part of the more extensive William A. Speck Collection of Goetheana. For biographical information on William A. Speck and a general history and description of the Speck Collection, see the finding aid for the William A. Speck Collection of Goetheana: Manuscripts (YCGL MSS 6) .

The manuscript scores listed here are complemented in the Speck Collection by printed scores and librettos gathered on similar principles: music using texts by Goethe or inspired by his works. First editions of songs by Schubert and a copy of the "Leipziger Liederbuch," a collection of songs published by Breitkopf in 1770 and said to contain the first appearance in print of a poem by Goethe, are highpoints of this part of the Speck Collection.

From the guide to the William A. Speck collection of Goetheana : music, 1785-1937, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

William Alfred Speck, the founder of the William A. Speck Collection of Goetheana, was born in New York City to German immigrants, Otto Speck, a pharmacist, and Natalie Adolphine Haase. He was married twice, to Lillie Day Robinson in 1893 (she died three years later) and to Sara Rennie Speck, the widow of his brother Oscar. His professional training was at the Pharmaceutical College in New York City, and from 1883 until 1912 he worked in the family drug store in Haverstraw, New York. All the while, he was amassing a major Goethe library, and in 1913 he accepted Yale's invitation to come to the university and deposit his collection in the library. He acted as its curator from 1913 until his death in 1928 and as lecturer in the Yale Graduate School beginning in 1916.

A more detailed biography of Speck may be found in the National Cyclopedia of American Biography (vol. 29) and in Goethe's Works with the Exception of Faust: A Catalogue . Edited by Carl F.Schreiber (New Haven, 1940), p. 21-42. Schreiber's account of Speck's early years is based on a text written by Sara R. Speck and preserved among the Speck Collection manuscripts (YCGL MSS 6, folder 657).

Yale acquired the Speck Collection in 1913 through a set of fortuitous coincidences. Speck's niece, Charlotte Keeney, belonged to the Vassar College Class of 1912. Perhaps at her uncle's suggestion, she took several Goethe courses in college, at least one of them taught by Marian Parker Whitney, a daughter of Yale's distinguished Sanskrit scholar William Dwight Whitney. In February 1912, Charlotte Keeney arranged for Ms. Whitney and a group of Vassar students to visit Uncle Will's Goethe collection, already numbering some 6,000 items, at his home in Haverstraw, New York. Recognizing the importance of the collection and perhaps encouraged by her father (who had studied in Germany and taught German at Yale), Marian Whitney suggested to the Yale University Librarian John Christopher Schwab (Class of 1886 and grandson of the German writer Gustav Schwab) that he might visit the remarkable collection on the Hudson. The German literary scholar Julius Petersen, visiting professor at Yale during the year 1912/13, also saw the collection and arranged for part of it to be exhibited at the University. Hanns Oertel, another native German and dean of the Yale Graduate School, lent his support to the project, as did Alfred Lawrence Ripley, Yale Class of 1878, who had taught German at Yale before becoming a banker and Fellow of the Yale Corporation. Within a year, Yale had negotiated the acquisition of the Speck Collection, bringing William Speck to New Haven as its first curator. These events are documented in the correspondence files of Marian Whitney, John Christopher Schwab, Julius Peterson, Hanns Oertel, Anson Phelps Stokes, and the material filed under Yale University, Office of the Secretary, which includes the drafts of the original contract between Speck and Yale.

From the guide to the William A. Speck papers, 1848-1951, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)