The Newberry Library, Chicago's home for the humanities since 1887, inspires visitors with its treasured collections and offers unparalleled intellectual stimulation. One of the largest independent research libraries in the United States, the Newberry houses an extraordinary collection of more than 1.5 million books, five million manuscript pages, and 500,000 historic maps. The Newberry, which is free and open to the public, offers a vast array of lectures, seminars, concerts and other public programming in addition to exhibits relating to its collections. The Newberry is a home for the curious, the established scholar, the weekend enthusiast, the occasional dabbler, and the life-long learner.
History
The Newberry Library came into being as much by accident as by design. The Library's founder, wealthy land speculator and civic leader Walter L. Newberry, left a provision in his will that upon the unlikely event that both of his daughters died childless, half of his estate would go towards the founding of a free and public library in Chicago. It took a series of family tragedies to give Chicago the great research and reference library that bears Newberry's name. First came his own death at sea, next the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 that destroyed the Newberry house and his library, then the deaths of his two young, unmarried daughters, and finally, in 1885, the death of his widow. In 1887, Newberry's bequest established the Library. The Library was designed by architect Henry Ives Cobb and opened in 1893.
Although Walter Newberry was an avid reader and collector of books, none of his own books survived the fire to find a home in the Newberry stacks. The Newberry Library Trustees began the collections by purchasing book and manuscript collections from around the United States, as well as Europe. The lack of an original, guiding collection proved advantageous as it broadened the possibilities for future collecting. It is because of this that the present Newberry collections are so diverse.
Collections
Today, the Newberry Library continues in its original vision as a privately funded library free and open to the public. The collections--ranging from a first-edition King James Bible, to letters written by Napoleon III and Thomas Jefferson, to historical North American maps, to a 1671 edition of Milton's Paradise Regained--embrace the history and literature of the civilizations of Western Europe and the Americas from the Middle Ages through World War I. As the collections continue to grow, Newberry curators strive to acquire books that are rare, unique in some way, not found elsewhere in the Midwest, and that will excite the imagination and inspire the creative processes of the reader.
But acquisition is only part of the story. The fragility of many of the Newberry's holdings demand the care and expertise of a conservation team, who treat damaged books and documents and educate readers in ways to prevent future wear and tear. Once conservators have repaired and preserved a book or manuscript, it is housed in the Newberry's ten-story, climate-controlled storage facility located adjacent to the main building.
Readers, Scholars, and Visitors
More than 100,000 people come to the Library each year for research, annual events, seminars, concerts, lectures, public programs, and exhibits related to the collections. A large number of readers at the Newberry are working on family histories or personal research projects. The Newberry houses one of the best genealogy collections in the nation, with more than 17,000 genealogies and family histories on the lineage of African American, American Indian, and European descendents.
Each year, post-doctoral scholars, doctoral candidates, undergraduate students, and teachers come to the Newberry Library to carry out fellowships, experience the rigors of in-depth humanities research in the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) and Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar programs, or rediscover the joy of learning during the Teachers As Scholars program for Chicago-area high school teachers. Recent research at the Newberry has contributed to important scholarly and lay works on the history of juvenile justice in America, the often ignored role of ordinary citizens in the Revolutionary War, the suburbs in American fiction, Indian women activists, Chicago social reform, and early and modern maps as promotional tools.
Other visitors come to the Newberry Library for public programs inspired by the collections:
The Newberry Library's collections inspire all of the Library's various programs, which include fellowships, summer seminars, teacher workshops, academic conferences, exhibits, lectures, seminars, and concerts. Their diverse content draws thousands of people to the collections and offers a living context for the humanities. Together they create a community of learners that, in turn, generates greater interest in the humanities and an increased energy for learning and scholarship.
The Newberry Library is a home for intellectual curiosity, vigorous study, and active debate. For anyone who has taken pleasure in a good book, a provocative idea, a glimpse of the past, or a better understanding of the present, the Newberry welcomes you.