Repon of the Directorof Research and Publication

A HKiGHTF.NFD LEVEL of activity in the book publication pro-gram and in the sponsorship of scholarly programs characterizedthe Department of Research and Publication during the Society'slyHth year. On Friday, September 14, 1990, a small hut festiveparty took place at AAS to mark our publication o( A?fíeric¿in Sa-ard Music Iniprints, ¡ói^S-iSio: A Bibliography, by Allen PerdueBritton, Irving Lowens, and Richard Crawford. Although theevent took place in this current fiscal year, rather than in theSociety's year reported on here, our own labors on that title hadbeen completed. Readers of these reports over the past severalyears may be pardoned for tiring of hearing of this title's impend-ing publication. Still, the occasion was a joyful one for col-laborators on this complex project. The book, handsomely de-signed by Howard Gralla, composed by Meriden-Stinehour Press,and printed by Arcata Graphics/Halliday, is H14 pages long, weighsfour and a half pounds, and is available for $160 (that is, $35.56per pound) from the Society's book distributor, the UniversityPress of Virginia (and at the Society's sales desk in AntiquarianHall). Publication was greatly assisted through subventions by theNational Endowment for the Humanities, the American Musi-cological Society, the Sonneck Fund of the Music Division of theLibrary of Congress, and Allen Perdue and Veronica Britton. Weare grateful to all of these supporters. The book is an importantone, and well worth the long wait.

Gratifying progress was also made during the past year on threeother book projects under way for varying periods of time. At theturn of the Society's new year, Thejud^nent of Experts: Essays andDocuments about the Investigation of the Forging of the ''Oath of a

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Freeman" edited by James Gilreath of the Library of Congress,was about to enter the page-proof stage. In the case of Prints ofNew England, a book of essays edited by Georgia M. Barnhill,corrected galley proofs have been returned to the printer. A Check-list of American Newspaper Carriers' Addresses, //Jo-/-V_'ft, compiledby Gerald D. McDonald, Stuart T. Sherman, and Mary Russo,awaits only some reformatting of the text in the Macintosh com-puter at the John Hay Library of Brown Utiiversity, our partnersin the project, before it, too, is ready for the printer. Once again,in other words, assistant editor Sheila McAvey had her hands fullwith complex book projects.

After considerable study and discussion over the year, we de-cided, after all, not to divide the Proceedings of the American A?iti-quarian Society into two entities by separating the reports and otherofficial matter from the scholarly articles and bibliographies. Ulti-mately, the Committee on Publication felt that the risks involvedwith charting an independent course for a Proceedings set apartfrom its full institutional context outweighed the benefits in thesedifficult financial times. Still, the exercise of reexamining the Pro-ceedings and the role it plays in the Society and the larger world ofscholarship was decidedly worthwhile, even if the ultimate deci-sion largely endorsed the status quo. Several changes arose out ofthe process in any case. A subtitle, A Jowiial of American Historyand Culture Through i8j6, has been added to the title Proceedingsof the American Antiquarian Society in order to make clearer itspurview and the fact that its pages are open not just to membersof the Society. A Board of Advisors was appointed that will act asa sounding board for the journal's editorial staff. The board atpresent is made up of the following members of AAS : John Bidwell(reference/acquisitions librarian, William Andrews Clark Library,University of California at Los Angeles), Richard Crawford (pro-fessor of music. University of Michigan), Henry Louis Gates, Jr.(professor of English, Duke University), Robert A. Gross (profes-sor of American studies. College of William and Mary), Linda K.Kerber (professor of history. University of Iowa), John McCusker

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(professor of history, University of Maryland), Jules D. Prown(professor of the history of art, Yale University), and BarbaraSicherman (professor of history. Trinity College). Finally, theProceedings is accepting advertising for the first time (paid andexchange). This decision will, among other things, provide ourmembers who are engaged in such congenial enterprises as pub-lishing and bookselling an additional means of supporting theSociety, while at the same time making the readership of the jour-nal aware of their products and services. For information on ratesand specifications, please contact the undersigned.

The past year was also an unusually busy one for scholarlyprograms at the Society, including the Program in the Historyof the Book in American Culture. AAS was host, often in collab-oration with other institutions or organizations, to more thanthe accustomed number of conferences, symposia, and seminars.In early October, the Society put on a reception for persons attend-ing the annual meeting of the Northeast American Society forEighteenth-Century Studies, which was meeting in Worcester.Later that month, we sponsored a symposium on 'Scholarly Usesof the Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue and the NorthAmerican Imprints Program,' which was timed to coincide withtbe meeting at AAS of the International Committee for the Eigh-teenth-Century Short Titie Catalogue. Early in November, wesponsored with Clark University a symposium in Antiquarian Hallon 'The Republican Synthesis Revisited' in honor of George A.Billias, an AAS member and professor recendy retired after a longand distinguished career in the Clark bistor\' department. Thenext month, the Committee for a New England Bibliography wasour collaborator in convening a symposium on the historiographyof New England to mark the completion of the principal work ofthe Committee, an eight-volume set of bibliographies of the his-tory of tbe six New England states and of the region as a whole.That project, with which the Society has been connected from itsinstigation by Marcus McCorison, now moves into a maintenancephase with a goal of producing addenda volumes at approximately

American Antiquarian Society

Pictuj-ed are 7Hiirric!ilant.';. faculty, and AAS staff at the foimh Summer Se?f>inar in the

History ofthe Book in American Culture, held at the Society June (/- f¡/,

five-year intervals. The undersigned now replaces Mark McCori-son as tbe Society's representative on tbe Committee's governingboard. Finally, in June, the Society held its fourth summer Seminarin the History ofthe Book in American Culture. Under the jointleadership of David S. Reynolds, professor of English at the CityUniversity of New York, and Micbael Winship, associate professorof English at the University of Texas at Austin, twenty-two litera-ture professors, historians, librarians, and advanced graduate stu-dents from around tbe country convened to examine 'The Amer-ican Renaissance: Critical and Bibliographical Perspectives.' Onceagain, the seminar was a success, drawing on the full measure ofcheerfulness and expertise of the staff and introducing the Soci-ety's collections to a diverse and talented group of scholars fromas far away as California and as nearby as the zip code just west ofAntiquarian Hall. Our departmental secretary, Diane Scboen, de-serves special mention for the skillful way she keeps all of theseprojects, and many others, straigbt and on course.

A great deal of planning for future activities ofthe Program in

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the History of the Book in American Culture took place duringthe year just completed. A call for papers for a conference on theiconography ofthe book was issued. The conference is scheduledfor Friday and Saturday, June 14-15, 1991. Serving along withProgram chairman David D. Hall and tbe Society's director ofresearch and publication as members of the steering committeefor this project are Georgia B. Barnhill of AAS, William J. Gil-more-Lehne of Stockton State College, and Louise Stevenson ofFranklin and Marshall College. We are still working on a proposalfor funding a conference to deal with tbe question of tbe interac-tion between literate and nonliterate populations in North Amer-ica, and hope to have something definitive in tbe works by nextyear. Our tbougbts bave already begun to turn to plans for tbeI y92 summer seminar. The James Russell Wiggins Lecturer for1991 bas been selected: Prof. Nina Baym of tbe Englisb depart-ment at tbe University of Illinois. Finally, we bave developed a planfor attracting continued funding for some of tbe basic administra-tive costs ofthe Program as well as for a series of working confer-ences connected with tbe multivolume collaborative history underHall's general editorsbip.

Several new members have joined the advisory board for theProgram in the History ofthe Book in American Culture, or itsexecutive committee, for terms beginning September 1, 1990. Newto the advisory board are Richard Brodbead, professor of Englishat Yale; James Gilreatb, American history specialist in the Divisionof Rare Books and Special Collections at tbe Library of Congress;Ian Willison, former head of tbe Englisb Language Collections attbe British Library; Jack Larkin, senior historian at Old SturbridgeVillage; Jeffrey Kaimowitz, curator of Trinity College's Watkin-son Library; and Bernardo P. Gallegos, assistant professor of edu-cational foundations and interdivisional studies at California StateUniversity, Los Angeles. Michael Winship, mentioned above, hasaccepted an invitation to come on board the executive committee.

Tbe Society's three regional seminars bad busy schedules dur-ing the past year. Participants in the AAS Seminar in American

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Bibliography and Book Trade History heard papers by James N.Green (Library Company of Philadelphia) and Hugh Amory(Houghton Library). In the AAS Seminar in American LiteraryHistory, Philip Gura (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)and Lee Heller (Mercer University) presented recent work. TheSociety's oldest seminar, the Seminar in American Political andSocial History, scheduled four seminars, with papers by SarahDeutsch (Clark University), Kathryn Preyer (Wellesley College),Mark Valeri (Lewis and Clark College), and Alan Taylor (BostonUniversity). The latter seminar has now been transformed into theNew England Seminar in American History, with the history de-partments of the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and ClarkUniversity joining AAS in its sponsorship. Plans call for six sessionsannually, with four to be held at AAS and one each at UConn andClark. The basic format of the seminar will remain unchanged,with the emphasis continuing to be on the informal presentationof work in progress, although the addition of a couple of newsponsors may make it possible to go somewhat farther afield forspeakers than we have been able to previously.

The Society's program of informal 'brown-bag' lunchtime col-loquia continued during 1989-90 with a diverse program of speak-ers and topics in the accustomed, comfortable setting of the God-dard-Daniels House's Elmarion Room. Speakers at the nineteensessions were Francizcek Lyra (M. Curie-Skiodowska University,Poland), Nicolas Barker (British Library), Ross Beales and Re-becca Rourke (College of the Holy Cross), Vincent Kinane (Trin-ity College Library, Dublin), James Pepper and Douglas Reynolds(Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor), Mason I.Lowance (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Doris O'Keefe(AAS), David Zonderman (University of Wisconsin), Ian Willison(British Library, retired), James and Dianne Rugh (AAS), KlausLubbers (University of Mainz), Susan J. W. Gordon (AAS), Mary-kate McMaster (AAS), Lee Heller (Mercer University, twice),Robert Cormier (Grafton High School), Amy Thomas (DukeUniversity), Todd S. Gemes (Brown University), and William J.Gilmore-Lehne (Stockton State College).

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The AAS American Studies Seminar for undergraduates fromthe five four-year colleges and universities in Worcester ran forthe twelfth time last fall. Stephen A. Marini, professor of religionat Wellesley College, adjunct professor at Weston School of The-ology, and a former AAS fellow and research associate, led thematriculants in an examination of religion and the American Rev-olution, while Joanne Chaison, head of readers' services, her staff,and other AAS curators generously and enthusiastically guidedstudents to primary resources for the seminar papers that all wererequired to write.

In addition to all of these educational programs, AAS sponsoredseveral public lectures and musical offerings during the year formembers of the public in the greater Worcester area. RichardCrawford, of the University of Michigan, enlightened and enter-tained a large audience in September with ' "Make a Joyful Noise":Reverberations of Early New England Psalmody in Twentieth-Century America.' That lecture was funded in part by the Mas-sachusetts Foundation for Humanities. Also that month, bari-tone Gordon Myers, a musicologist from Trenton State College,brought life to *Music from Isaiah Thomas's Massachitsetn Mag-azine^ through a lecture-recital held two hundred years after pub-lication of the first issue. Robert A. Gross, of the College of Wil-liam and A/Iary, gave the annual James Russell Wiggins Lecture inthe History of the Book in American Culture in October on 'Print-ing, Politics, and the People.' During Black History Month, Feb-ruary, the Society sponsored a lecture by Maryemma Graham, ofNortheastern University and the W.E.B. DuBois Center for Afro-American Studies at Harvard, on 'The Origins of Afro-AmericanFiction.' Professor Graham also served as guest curator for anaccompanying exhibition of works of African ,\merican authorshipdrawn from the Society's rich collections. The whole project wasmade possible by a grant from the Massachusetts Foundation forHumanities. Members of the black community in Worcester wereenonnously helpful in publicizing and supporting this activity.Ricky Jay, a noted performer and historian of magic, gave a lecture-demonstration of his craft in connection with the Society's gala

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fund-raising magical weekend in March. AAS-NEH fellow Wil-liam W. Freehling, of the Johns Hopkins University, fed the grow-ing public appetite for the history of the antebellum and Civil Warperiods with a May lecture on 'The Southern Road toward Dis-union and Civil War, i776-i86[.' A month earlier, the versatileProfessor Freehling conducted a Saturday workshop for membersand friends of the Society on American antique furniture. The lastlecture of the Society's year was given by Michael Winsbip inAugust on the important nineteenth-century publishing firmTicknor and Fields.

The scholars awarded short- and long-term fellowships to studyat AAS during 1990-91, selected last March, were listed in theReport of tbe Council for April. It was another strong competitionin terms of the quantity and quality of the applications received;the numbers, in fact, fell just short of the previous year's record.Publicity has been going out this summer and fall toward generat-ing applicants for the next fellowship competition, which has aJanuary 15, 1991, deadline, two weeks earlier than before. Max-imum stipends have been increased for both the several short-termand National Endowment for the Humanities-supported long-term competitions for 1991-92.

Speaking of the National Endowment for the Humanities, read-ers of the Proceedings may recall that NEH last year required thatthe centers for advanced study funded under this program, includ-ing AAS, submit the list of names of candidates, including alter-nates, for fellowships for prior approval of a subcommittee of theNEH's council. Previously, the centers merely informed the En-dowment of their choices. The process worked smoothly enoughlast year; the choices of all the participating centers, includingours, were duly approved, but still the procedure is burdensomeat best and open to potential problems at worst. NEH ChairmanLynne Cheney herself has recommended tbat tbe process be aban-doned. The Endowment has dropped a plan to visit selectioncommittee meetings regularly and systematically.

Rental of the bedrooms in the Goddard-Daniels House to fel-

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lows and otber visiting scholars rebounded to normal levels froma particularly soft [988-S9. Occupancy during this past year wasat the rate of 76 percent, compared with only 62 percent the yearbefore. It was unusual for Eebruary to be tbe busiest month, withi(K> percent occupancy. The slowest month was November, at 43percent. Usage of tbe public rooms ofthe Goddard-Daniels Housefor both AAS-sponsored and outside events during 1989-90 wasat what have become normal levels. Some 3,553 persons attended161 events in the house, compared with 2,997 persons and 155events tbe previous year. Among the outside groups using spacein the Goddard-Daniels House during the year were the Worces-ter Area Cooperating Libraries, Norton Company, Patrons oftheArts of tbe Vatican Museums, tbe International Committee oftheEighteenth-Century Sbort Title Catalogue, tbe Worcester Con-sortium for Higher Education, tbe Committee for a New EnglandBibliography, tbe Massachusetts Board of Library Commission-ers, Worcester Youth Guidance Center, tbe Greater HammondHeights Neighborhood Association, Preservation Worcester,Bancroft School, Worcester Publishing Company, the JuniorLeague of Worcester, the Worcester Women's Network, the NewEngland Document Conservation Center, tbe Worcester FlistoryGroup, the Greater Worcester Community Foundation, andNEH Summer Institutes for Secondary School Teachers held atthe University of Colorado and the College ofthe Holy Cross.

This past year seemed unusually frenetic but productive, al-though many of tbe fruits of the year's work will not be apparentuntil this year, or tbe next. The coming year promises to be excep-tionally challenging, what with tbe coming long-range planningand the beginnings of tbe transition in the executive leadership ofthe Society.

My departmental staff—assistant editor McAvey and secretarySchoen—continued to do splendid work with scarcely a momentto catch their breath. Our particular departmental duties alsocould not be accomplished without the able and wiUing collégialassistance of many others, particularly the library staff who provide

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such remarkable service to our visiting fellows and program par-ticipants, events coordinator Anne-Catbrine Rapp, and buildings-and-grounds head Donald K. Strader and bis associates. I amhappy to record my gratitude to them here.

John B. Hencb