Collection ID: Coll. No. 444

Collection context

Summary

Creator:
Roger Place Butterfield
Abstract:
This collection consists of illustrations of American topics, mainly prints from various sources. It contains individually printed pieces and prints taken from books and magazines. Other illustrations include newspaper and magazine clippings, transparencies of works of art and other printed materials, advertisements, and photographs.
Extent:
2.5 cubic feet
Language:
Macedonian

Background

Scope and Content:

This collection consists of illustrations of American topics, mainly prints from various sources. It contains individually printed pieces and prints taken from books and magazines. Other illustrations include newspaper and magazine clippings, transparencies of works of art and other printed materials, advertisements, and photographs.

Biographical / Historical:

Roger Place Butterfield (1907-1981) was a national affairs editor for Life magazine and author of The American Past: History of the United States from Concord to Hiroshima, 1775-1925. As a free-lance writer, he contributed to The Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, and Saturday Review magazine. He was a noted collector of Americana. In 1961 he sold his collection to the New York State Historical Association. Dr. Louis C. Jones, then NYSHA director said, "Butterfield wanted his library, so patiently, so lovingly assembled, to remain in this upstate county where his fathers had cleared the land and to which he hopes to return. That this library with its strong specialties will attract to us an increasing number of scholars over the years to come is inevitable." According to NYSHA Librarian Dorothy Barck, "Roger Butterfield has long been collecting, with wisdom and discrimination, books and pamphlets, broadsides, catalogs, and newspapers, to create a research collection of more than 200,000 items for developing, as he puts it, 'the story of the American people in pictures and print.'" The books, manuscripts, pamphlets and many other items were cataloged and integrated into the NYSHA Research Library's collection. The prints which were a part of his collection have remained together and now constitute the Roger P. Butterfield Print Collection. After moving to the White House, Hartwick, N.Y. in 1970, he ran an antiquarian book business from his home.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Access

LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
5798 State Highway 80
Cooperstown, NY 13326, United States
CONTACT:
607-547-1400