The Huntington library originated with its owner, Henry Edwards Huntington, who devoted his attention to book and art, and garden collecting. The Huntington began as a private home library that was later transformed into a research library.
Henry E. Huntington was born in
Oneonta, New York, in 1850. He was the son of a white, middle-class family; his
father owned a hardware store and a dry goods business. In Oneonta,
Huntington's father bought a house and a farm, and the Huntington house was
always supplied with books. Huntington's family were avid readers; they enjoyed
music in the house and they attended church. At age 17, Huntington finished
high school, and went to work as a clerk in a local hardware store for two
years. After this job, at age twenty, Huntington went to work for his wealthy uncle,
Collis P. Huntington, who was one of the owners of the Central Pacific and
Southern Pacific railroads (Zeidburg p. 7). Collis arranged for Huntington to
own half interest in the mill through a loan, and sold the other half to his
chief lobbyist, General Richard Franchot. The general then gave the business to
his son, who had just graduated from Union College. So, two inexperienced men
worked in a partnership together that was financed by their relatives. They
faced many troubles, with shipment and buyers payments. In 1873, Huntington married Mary
Alice Prentice, and the couple settled into a small home in St. Albans. Together,
they had three children, one son, Howard, and three daughters, Clara Leonora,
Elizabeth, and Marian Prentice.
In 1874, Franchot and Huntington
decided to break up their partnership because they lacked experience. To settle
the two partners, Huntington gave away his first library collection to
Franchot. His first collection cost 1700 and included more than 100 volumes
with recent writer’s works such as: Ruskin, Whittier, Lowell, Dickens, and
Scott. The collection also included a rare item: nine volumes of Isaac
Disraeli's literary and historical anecdotes. These books were bought to be
read and kept in a home library. After Collins death, in 1900, Huntington
inherited one-third of Collis's Southern Pacific stock and a part of the estate
in about 12 to 15 million. From this, Huntington was seen as a very wealthy man.
When Huntington first visited
Southern California, he stayed at the ranch of James de Barth Shorb and his
wife. The Shorb ranch was named San Marino, by the family. Huntington was
fascinated with the Shorb ranch and the beauty of the San Gabriel Valley, and
was certain that there would be an opportunity to make a business in Southern
California: “Huntington had great faith in the potential of Southern California
to become a major commercial and cultural center, and began immediately to put
his plans into effect to develop the area” (Page, p. 2). Huntington was
involved with extending the city’s electric street railway lines into two
companies: The Los Angeles Railway, operating within the city, and the Pacific
Electric Railway’s “Big Red Cars” that provided transportation in urban and
rural areas throughout Los Angeles (Page, p. 2). Due to the creation of the
electric railway, the city began to grow larger. There were many counties that stretched
from Newport Beach to San Fernando. In addition to the railway business, Huntington
developed the land and provided utilities for the new population of Southern California.
Huntington’s main function was to organize private companies who would provide
electricity, gas and water: “At
one time, he [Huntington] controlled a total of 23 companies in Southern
California, including a number of gas and electric companies such as the
Pacific Light and
Power Co. and AlhambraWater Co.” (Page, p. 2).
After Shorb died, in 1903 Huntington
purchased the Shorb ranch property. In 1903, Huntington purchased the Shorb
Ranch, which was located in San Marino, California, and about five hundred
acres. He often walked around the grounds thinking about what improvements he
wanted to make. He decided to tear down the Shorb house and replace it with a
large two-story structure with a spacious attic and full basement (Thorpe, p.
20). Huntington hired an architect named Myron Hunt who would consider his
sketches of what he wanted his house to look like. The architect looked at the
sketches which appeared to look like a library with a few rooms inside it.
Henry Huntington enjoyed the building process and the project was completed in
1910.
After he retired in 1910, he turned
over his management of his Pacific Electric Railway, and took more interest
into developing his library collection. New developments between 1911 and 1914
he included a Japanese garden and plants. In 1911, Huntington acquired the E.
Dwight Church Library, that contained a collection of very rare and unique
books such as Franklin's Autobiography, 22 incunabula, 12 Shakespeare folios,
37 Shakespeare quartos, and 1,500 choice early Americana items (Thropre, p.23).
Huntington bought many libraries to expand his own collection. Today, the
Huntington is known as the greatest research library in the world. It all began
with Huntington collecting books and artwork in his New York mansion while his
library building and home was being completed in San Marino. The building was
completed in 1921 and books were sent from New York to San Marino, their permanent
location.
Huntington's ideas for collecting
books changed from general collection of popular material of the period, to
collecting rare material of importance. He began to do business with the best
dealers in New York and Philadelphia. He bought several libraries of books as
well as many rare individuals items. Huntington loved to read books, which is
his motivation for collecting books. In addition to collecting books,
Huntington purchased major art pieces for the walls of his library room. The
first was five Beauvais tapestries, that were previously owned by Louis XV,
French furniture, silk carpets, and more paintings. He purchased what he personally
liked, his own interests. The fact that Edward was collecting books inside his
house, suggests that this was the first type of library established: a private,
home library. While he was building the library, he collected items and had
them sitting in his home, as Thorpe explains:
"Instead of being stacked on
chairs and tables and the floor--with the need to move books to provide space
for a quest to sit down--his library now came to occupy a whole floor of the
house. He had books all around him, and he spent his time reading and sorting,
and with the help of his secretary, cataloging his collection. In 1915 it was
evident that he needed help, so he hired a librarian: George Watson Cole and a
half dozen young librarians as catalogers” (p. 25).
By
1911, Edward was viewed as a big time art collector and often made headlines in
the newspapers about his collection. Huntington was first an avid reader of
books, then he became a collector of art, collecting rare materials of
international importance. Therefore, Huntington’s interest changed and he began
to narrow his focus to collecting rare and unique materials from the eighteenth
and nineteenth century. In order to
increase his collection, he bought several libraries of books and rare
individual items. Edward's first purchase of art was of five Beauvais
tapestries, that were previously owned by Louis XV, for 577, 000 (Thorpe, p.
22). He purchased this artwork, simply because he liked them. In 1922,
Huntington’s library purchases consisted of the E Dwight Church Library. This
library had owned the manuscript of Franklin's Autobiography, and other items.
The next few libraries he bought out are: Robert Hoe library ( a private
collection, which owned the Guttenberg Bible, on vellum ), and the Bridgewater
House Library, which had 12,000 manuscripts, including Ellesmere manuscript of
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
From a wealthy inheritance and land construction business, Huntington was able
to afford to privately build a library near his mansion in San Marino, so he
could have close access to rare and interesting materials. Later, Huntington
decided to share his library with scholars who asked to view the library’s
materials for research purposes. Before his death, Huntington and his second wife,
Arabella, signed a deed of trust to transfer their San Marino property and collections
to a nonprofit trust and establish a research institution to serve scholars.
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