From Private Passion to Public Virtue:Thomas B. Lockwood and the Making ofa Cultural Philanthropist, 1895-1935

摘要

Near the end of a period often viewed as the golden age of American book collecting, in 1935 Thomas Lockwood donated his rare book library to the University of Buffalo along with funds to construct its first library building. This article examines the nexus of personal identity, book col-lecting, and civic engagement that transformed Lockwood's gentlemanly hobby into an act of public beneficence. Lockwood's donation of both an academic library and a rare book collection within the sociocultural matrix of a major American city suggests one way in which book collecting both facilitated modernization and sought to blunt some of modernity's perceived perils.