Editing Widener Library (section)

==Background, conception and gift==

[[File:AmCyc Harvard University - Gore Hall.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.5|Widener Library's predecessor, [[Gore Hall]] ]]
[[File:HarryElkinsWidener LastWillAndTestament cropped.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.0
|link=File:HarryElkinsWidener_LastWillAndTestament.jpg|Harry Widener's will directed that his books go to Harvard when it was capable of caring for them properly.]]
[[File:Widener w1.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.0
|[[Eleanor Widener]], son [[George D. Widener Jr.|George]] (left), and archi{{shy}}tect [[Horace Trumbauer|Horace Trum{{shy}}bauer]] in [[Harvard Yard]], {{nobr|c. 1912}}
]]

===Predecessor===

{{main|Gore Hall}}

By the opening of the twentieth century alarms had been issuing for many years about Harvard's "disgrace{{shy}}fully inadequate"{{hsp}}{{r|histcambridge|p=276}}
library, Gore Hall, completed in 1841 (when Harvard owned some 44,000 books){{r|bentinck1980|p=5}}
and declared full in 1863.{{r|bentinck1980|p=5}}
Harvard Librarian [[Justin Winsor]] concluded his 1892 Annual Report by pleading, "{{shy|I have in earlier reports exhaust|ed the language of warning and anxiety, in rep|re|sent|ing the totally inad|e|quate accom|mo|da|tions for books and readers which Gore Hall affords. Each twelve months brings us nearer to a chaotic condition}}";{{r|lib1892|p=15}}
his successor [[Archibald Cary Coolidge]] asserted that the [[Boston Public Library]] was a better place to write an {{shy|under|grad|u|ate}} [[thesis]].{{r|coolidge|p=29}}
Despite substantial additions in 1876 and 1907,{{r|leighton}}
in 1910 a committee of architects termed Gore Hall
{{blockquote|unsafe [and] unsuitable for its object{{nbsp}}... No amount of tinkering can make it really good{{nbsp}}... Hopelessly over{{shy}}crowded{{nbsp}}... leaks when there is a heavy rain{{nbsp}}... intolerably hot in summer{{nbsp}}... Books are put in double rows and are not infrequently left lying on top of one another, or actually on the floor{{nbsp}}...{{r|bentinck1976|pp=51–52}}
}}<!--<end quote-->
With university librarian [[William Coolidge Lane]] reporting that the building's light switches were delivering electric shocks to his staff,{{r|shocks}}
and dormitory basements pressed into service as overflow storage{{r|graduates_window}}
for Harvard's 543,000 books,{{r|observed|p=50}}
the committee drew up a proposal for replacement of Gore in stages. [[Andrew Carnegie]] was approached for financing without success.{{NoteTag
|{{r|canoe|p=88}}
"When I cease to be President of Harvard College," Lowell wrote around this time, "I shall join one of the [[mendicant orders]], so as to have less begging to do{{nbsp}}..."{{hsp}}{{ran|B|p=23}}
In May 1911 the ''[[Boston American]]'' (published by disgraced Harvard dropout [[William Randolph Hearst]]){{hsp}}{{r|hearst}} carried a mock adver{{shy}}tise{{shy}}ment: "Wanted{{mdashb}}a millionaire. Will some kind millionaire please give Harvard Univer{{shy}}sity a library building? Tainted money not barred. [[John D. Rockefeller|Mr. Rockefeller]], take notice. [[Andrew Carnegie|Mr. Carnegie]], please write."{{hsp}}{{r|canoe|p=87}}
}}

===Death of Harry Widener===

{{main|Harry Elkins Widener}}

[[File:HarryElkinsWidener YearbookPhoto cropped.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.5 |link=File:HarryElkinsWidener_YearbookPhoto.jpg |[[Harry Widener]] died in the sinking of the ''[[Titanic]]''.]]
[[File:HarvardUniversity GoreHall RemovingBooks c1912.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.0|Two electric trucks removed [[Gore Hall]]'s books for storage during Widener's construction.{{r|gazette2012A}}]]

On April 15, 1912, [[Harry Elkins Widener]]{{mdashb}}scion of two of the wealthiest families in America,{{r|dies_paris}} a 1907 graduate of [[Harvard College]], and an accomplished [[book collecting|bibliophile]] despite his youth{{r|newton}}{{mdashb}}died
in the [[sinking of the Titanic|sinking of the ''Titanic'']].
His father [[George Dunton Widener]] also perished, but his mother [[Eleanor Elkins Widener]] survived.{{r|dies_paris}}

Harry Widener's will instructed that his mother, when "in her judgment [[Harvard University]] shall make arrange{{shy}}ments for properly caring for my collec{{shy}}tion of books{{nbsp}}... shall give them to said University to be known as the Harry Elkins Widener Collection",{{NoteTag|
{{r|HEW_will}} Stipulations on conditions of storage began to appear in bequests to Harvard's libraries during the nineteenth century.{{r|burke}} For example, the 1883–84 annual report of [[Harvard Divinity School]]'s dean noted that [[Ezra Abbot]]{{'}}s widow, in donating four thousand volumes from his personal library, asked for assurance that a better and safer replacement for the existing Divinity School library building be constructed promptly; the dean also wrote that such a replacement would encourage future donors.{{r|divinity}}
}}<!--<<end efn-->
and he had told a friend, not long before he died, "I want to be remembered in connection with a great library, [but] I do not see how it is going to be brought about."{{hsp}}{{r|newton}}

To enable the fulfillment of her son's wishes Eleanor Widener briefly consid{{shy}}ered funding an addition to Gore Hall, but soon determined to build instead a completely new and far larger library building{{mdashb}}"a perpetual memorial"{{hsp}}{{r|canoe|p=90}}
to Harry Widener, housing not only his personal book collection but Harvard's general library as well,{{r|gift}}
with room for growth.{{r|Harvard's_new}}
As Biel has written, "The [Harvard architects] committee's [[Beaux-Arts architecture|Beaux Arts]] design [for Gore Hall's projected replacement], with its massiveness and symmetry, offered monumen{{shy}}tal{{shy}}ity with nothing more particular to monumen{{shy}}tal{{shy}}ize than the aspira{{shy}}tions of the modern university"{{mdashb}}until the ''Titanic'' sank and "through delicate negotia{{shy}}tion, [Harvard] convinced Eleanor Widener that the most eloquent tribute to Harry would be an entire library rather than a rare book wing."{{hsp}}{{r|canoe|p=88-89}}

===Terms and cost of gift===

To her gift Eleanor Widener attached a number of stipulations,{{ran|B|p=43}}<!--elaborate-->
including that the project's architects be the firm of [[Horace Trumbauer|Horace Trumbauer{{nbsp}}& Associates]],{{r|valve_abele}}
which had built several mansions for both the Elkins and the [[Widener family|Widener]] families.{{ran|B|p=27}}
"Mrs. Widener does not give the University the money to build a new library, but has offered to build a library satisfactory in external appearance to ''herself,''" Harvard President [[Abbott Lawrence Lowell]] wrote privately.
"The exterior was her own choice, and she has decided architec{{shy}}tur{{shy}}al opinions."{{hsp}}{{r|shandtucci|p=167}}
Harvard historian [[William Bentinck-Smith]] has written that

[[File:GoreHallHarvard UnderDemolition early1913 cropped.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.5|link=File:GoreHallHarvard_UnderDemolition_early1913.jpg
|Gore Hall was reduced to a "pile of stones and rubbish" to make way for Widener.{{r|bentinck1980|p=13}}]]

{{blockquote|To [Harvard officials] Mrs. Widener was a lovely and generous lady whose wealth, power, and remoteness made her a somewhat terrifying figure who must not be roused to annoyance or outrage. Once [construction] began, all financial transactions were the donor's private business, and no one at Harvard ever knew the exact cost. Mrs. Widener was counting on $2{{nbsp}}million, [but] it is probable the cost exceeded $3.5{{nbsp}}million [equivalent to ${{Inflation|US-GDP|3.5|1914|r=-1}} million in {{Inflation-year|US-GDP}}].{{NoteTag
|{{r|bentinck1980|p=14}}{{Inflation-fn|US-GDP}}
Eleanor Widener expressed vexation at newspapers' misreporting of the circumstances of her gift, writing to Lowell, "I want emphasized{{nbsp}}... that the library is a memorial to my dear son, to be known as the 'Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library,' given by me{{nbsp}}& not his [paternal grandfather [[P. A. B. Widener|{{nobr|P. A. B.}} Widener]]] as has been so often stated."{{hsp}}{{r|mrsw}} Years later her second husband [[Alexander Hamilton Rice Jr.|A.{{nbsp}}H. Rice Jr.]] insisted that Lowell do his best "to see that in all official reports, etc. the Library is referred to as the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library{{mdashb}}Widener! Not one cent of Widener money, one second of Widener thought, nor one ounce of Widener energy were expended on either the conception or construction of the Library.{{hsp}}{{r|bentinck1980|p=15}}
<!--END NOTE>>--> }}<!--END QUOTE>>-->}}

Though Harvard awarded Trumbauer an honorary degree on the day of the new library's dedication,{{NoteTag
|{{r|meister|p=147}}
Eleanor Widener was not similarly honored, because women were ineligible for Harvard honorary degrees at the time.{{r|observed|p=72}}
The ''[[Harvard Graduates Magazine]]'' reassured its readers that the admission of ladies, for the first time, to certain Commencement proceedings "will not, however, create any precedent. It was due to the dedication of the Library, which demanded that once, at least, custom should be broken in favor of Mrs. Widener and her friends{{nbsp}}..."{{hsp}}{{r|sanders}}
}}
it was Trumbauer associate [[Julian F. Abele]] who had overall responsi{{shy}}bility for the building's design,{{r|valve_abele}}
which largely followed the 1910 architects' committee's outline (though with the committee's central circula{{shy}}tion room shifted from the center to the northeast corner, yielding pride of place to the Memorial Rooms).{{NoteTag
|{{r|canoe|p=89}}
''The Library Journal'' commented: "The building has administrative disadvantages necessitate by its character as a memorial, with a central [[wikt:fane#English-temple|fane]] housing the private library collected by young Widener{{nbsp}}... This occupies what would otherwise be the central court and cuts off access from the stack except at the two ends, but is scarcely to be criticized in view of the splendor of the gift and the parental affection thus enshrined and perpetuated by Mrs. Widener."{{hsp}}{{r|tlj_may1915}}
<!--END NOTE>>-->}}

After Gore Hall was demolished to make way, ground was broken on February{{nbsp}}12, 1913, and the corner{{shy}}stone laid June{{nbsp}}16.
By later that year some 50,000 bricks were being laid each day.{{r|gazette2012A}}