The physical processing of a collection with as much important material as found in the Clarke regarding Ernest Hemingway, involved many steps. Along the way, careful notetaking was necessary to be sure important details could be recalled later when it became time to describe the collection intellectually. The first goal is always to retain the existing order of the material or, if necessary, impose a new, easy to understand, logical order. Once an order was established, the Hemingway collection received detailed physical examination.
The physical examination accomplished several purposes. It removed any material that was not of research value. Things that are not of long-term importance were removed, such as duplicate items, blank pages, or papers that were illegible. Physical examination also removed things that threatened the long-term preservation of the material. These included pins, rubber bands, and sticky notes, any of which could deteriorate the material. In addition, as a matter of routine, acidic or faded materials that had important information but lacked “associational value,” for example a useful newspaper clipping, were photocopied. The copy was kept in place of the original material. Items with associational value could also be copied if they were acidic or faded, but in those cases the original item was also maintained, for example, an original letter written by Ernest Hemingway to which time has not been kind.
Once the material was preserved, it was placed into non-acidic folders that were systematically organized into similar, non-acidic boxes. Large, oversized items that did not fit into standard-size boxes received special identification labels and were stored in locations designed to hold large material.
When the physical work was over, there still remained the intellectual challenge of describing the material so researchers could learn what is found within the boxes and folders.
Intellectual description is the main way a researcher learns what is in a collection. A finding aid is the basic tool created for this purpose, and in some ways is similar to, although much more complete than, the table of contents of a book. A finding aid includes a box and folder list, a biography or organizational history, and scope and contents notes. The parts of a finding aid describe the collection’s general nature, its highlights, dates, and the formats of the material. Information is also included about languages, copyright, fragile or damaged material that has been kept, and any copies that replaced originals. Additional information about other, related collections is also included.
The written finding aid must also be uploaded to the web and made searchable so Google and various online librarytools can retrieve the information. Using the finding aid as a guide, the last step in description is to create an original catalog record that can be found both in the CMU Libraries’ system and in databases nationwide. The catalog record is a highly technical endeavor requiring yet more research and following often complicated and occasionally arcane library cataloging and naming conventions.
Processing the pieces that collectively make up the Hemingway collection was challenging. Because the collection trickled into the library from many people over more than a decade, there are multiple Hemingway-related primary source collections. Even when the pieces fit together into one collection, processing was complicated.
By way of example, the Ernest Hemingway collection includes material found in many different formats, including material housed in seven standard-sized boxes, oversized material stored in eight large folders, as well as four reels of film and 53 framed items. It slowly grew through 19 separate additions. Each addition required reorganizing
material within folders, reordering folders within boxes, adding folders and/or boxes, changing labels, updating the finding aid and catalog record, and revising the digital finding aid and catalog records found online.
The largest single set of documents found among those about Ernest Hemingway is the Hemingway Family Papers. Today housed in 49 boxes, it was substantially unorganized when it arrived at the library. What exactly would be found within the documents was uncertain. Much of the collection consisted of handwritten, multi-page letters, each folded, usually in quarters, inside small envelopes. Many letters were enclosed inside of other letters, and in some instances there were four “layers” of letters in a single
envelope. It required careful work to retain these intricate relationships while unfolding all of the letters and storing them in acid-free folders to give them the best possible preservation environment. Because much of the correspondence was with classmates, friends, or distant relatives of the Hemingways—people who were not quickly identifiable—it was also necessary to research these people to understand their relationships with the various Hemingway family members they had written to or received letters from and provide context for researchers.
All this hard work unlocked the contents of the Hemingway papers for researchers, while also ensuring the long-term preservation of these irreplaceable resources.
THE COLLECTION TODAY
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Today the Hemingway collection consists of a wide variety of material.
It concentrates most heavily on Hemingway’s personal and literary connections to Michigan, but also has a wide selection of first, international, and rare editions of his works, dozens of biographies and books about the locations in which he lived and about which he wrote, along with various movie and other forms of ephemera. The most significant items are those directly associated with Ernest and his immediate family. These Hemingway items, coupled with the Clarke’s vast holdings of materials about northern Michigan in the years the Hemingways called it their summer home, make the Clarke Historical Library a one-of-a-kind Hemingway collection.
As to be expected, the collection is rich in books and articles written by Hemingway himself. He wrote ten novels, twenty story collections, nine works of nonfiction, and dozens of stories published in magazines such as
Life, Esquire, Look, Ken, and
Cosmopolitan. The collection has first-edition examples of almost all of these and they range from small, privately printed Paris magazines with his earliest Michigan stories to posthumously published novels edited by others. The crown jewel of the first editions is undoubtedly
Three Stories and Ten Poems. Printed in a limited edition of 300 copies in Paris in 1923, it begins with his controversial “Up in Michigan” story. Set in fictional “Hortons” Bay, Michigan, the story so graphically described a sexual episode on a Lake Charlevoix dock that it is said Hemingway’s own parents refused to have the book in their home.
Three Stories and Ten Poems was a prelude to a career writing distinguished novels. As his fame increased, his first editions became international bestsellers as foreign publishers joined American printers in making his work available. In Cuba, where he is a national hero,
El Viejo el Mar (The Old Man and the Sea) has been published several times.
Hemingway’s most famous short story,
The Big Two Hearted River, is particularly well represented in the collection. In addition to a copy of
This Quarter, the Paris based magazine in which it was originally published in 1926, the library has extremely rare copies of fine art print editions. Published in very limited quantities, one version even includes an original watercolor fishing painting. Complementing the published versions of
The Big Two Hearted River found in the collection is an original postcard Ernest sent his father from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula when he was on the fishing trip that inspired the story.
Perhaps no other American writer has had so much written about him as Ernest Hemingway. The Clarke holds over 250 books and magazine articles chronicling his life, which range from full-length biographies to short feature articles in mainstream and pulp magazines. Especially interesting are the articles in 1950s emerging men's magazines where his larger-than-life macho portrayals sold magazines to people hungry to hear of his alleged exploits. He also inspired books written about the locales where he lived and those about which he wrote. On the Clarke's shelves, one can find volumes associated with his life experiences in Oak Park, Michigan, Paris, Spain, Africa, Cuba, and Idaho.
A particularly interesting subset of the Hemingway collection is the movie-related ephemera. His stories and books resulted in 17 film adaptations beginning with 1932's A Farewell to Arms starring Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes. Over the decades,leading stars such as Ingrid Bergman, Spencer Tracy, Ava Gardner, Richard Beymer, and Humphrey Bogart all portrayed Hemingway-created characters. To promote these films, themovie studios launched elaborate publicity campaigns that featured striking posters of various sizes and lobby cards to entice the public into theaters. Campaign manuals filled with clip art, text for advertisements, and marketing suggestions were sent to distributors and theaters urging them to focus as much on the fact that the film was associated with Hemingway as the A-list movie stars the film featured. Supplementing these manuals were publicity photos showing the stars in engaging scenes. The Clarke's collection of these items is colorful and comprehensive. It includes international posters and programs and even movie material not based on any literary work but instead Hemingway himself.
The printed material and movie-related items constitute a strong Hemingway collection, but the personal papers associated with Ernest Hemingway himself and his immediate family found in the Clarke are what make this collection a world-class resource for those looking to better understand Hemingway’s formative experiences here in Michigan.
Collectors have caused original manuscripts in Hemingway’s own hand to be among the most sought after, selling for thousands of dollars. It is estimated that in his life (a time before tweets, instant messages, and emails) Hemingway composed over six thousand typed and handwritten letters. The Clarke is home to six of them. All but one in the library relate to his Michigan experiences. The six-page, typed letter to his World War I superior, Jim Gamble (1919) gushes with descriptions of Michigan summers. Another letter informs his family of securing a Petoskey boarding house room where he hoped to write; an earlier letter updated his parents on the harvest at their northern Michigan farm. While these were not written to the famous people the established author would come to know, they nevertheless give intriguing insights into how his Michigan experiences influenced him.
The library is also the home of two examples of his unpublished, juvenile fiction. One is
The Sportsman’s Hash, a fishing story written and illustrated when he was 10 years old. The other is a longhand multi-page story set in Michigan lumber camps written when he was in high school. Both of these are examples of the hold Michigan had on the young man’s imagination.
In addition to these Ernest Hemingway items, the library also has an extensive group of personal papers and photo scrapbooks from his sister, Marcelline Hemingway Sanford. The albums, created by Grace Hall Hemingway, the mother of Ernest and his siblings, show that the Hemingway family’s Michigan summers were much like summer vacation today. Among other things, photos show the family fishing, entertaining guests, swimming in the lake, and boating. These albums document the Hemingways' first Michigan trip in 1898 through Marcelline and Ernest’s high school graduation in 1917. They are particularly interesting in that the images are annotated by Grace Hall Hemingway. This adds greater depth to the stories and personalities of those shown.
The Hemingway Family Papers includes far more than those photo albums. In addition to them, are early family correspondence and numerous items associated with the publication of Marcelline Hemingway Sanford’s memoir,
At the Hemingways, in which she told her version of her relationship with her brother. These papers, along with Marcelline’s photo scrapbooks, give fascinating insights into the Hemingway family and its most famous member, Ernest.
The Hemingway Family Papers in the Clarke are complimented by other material directly associated with the Hemingway family. The library houses photos and photo scrapbooks from his younger sister, Ursula, and a number of books given by and to Ernest’s siblings and parents. All of these provide interesting insights into family dynamics and Ernest’s relationship with his immediate family.

While not a member of the immediate family, “Uncle George” Hemingway was a summer and eventually year-round resident at Lake Charlevoix. His family’s guest books and his diaries tell of family guests and visits. Along with the Hemingway Family Papers, they allow us to learn about the family that raised and influenced Ernest.
With the hundreds, if not thousands, of items related to Ernest Hemingway in the Clarke’s Hemingway collection, scholarly researchers or those simply curious about his life, particularly his Michigan-related experiences and writing, have no better place to visit than the Clarke Historical Library.
EXHIBITS AND OTHER OUTREACH
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As with all of the resources held by the Clarke, the Hemingway collection does not fulfill its purpose until it is used. Creating an awareness of what is available in the collection is a continuous challenge. Library descriptive tools are critical, but also limited in their reach. Marketing the collection beyond the library is important to inform researchers and those who can help the collection grow of the treasures found here. In addition, marketing demonstrates to existing donors how their contributions are being used and helps plant a seed within those who might make future donations of material or support the Hemingway endowment.
A particularly effective method in promoting the library’s Hemingway collection has been through exhibitions. Exhibits are many things. The public often thinks of them as opportunities for education and entertainment. Through creative interpretation of the materials held by the library, exhibits inform audiences, pique interest, and encourage further exploration. Exhibitions also serve as the foundations upon which the library’s future can be strategically built. They can promote programming including speakers, publications, documentaries, events, and collaborations, all of which increase the audience of particularly interested individuals and build new relationships. To take advantage of these opportunities, the library has developed a variety of Hemingway-themed exhibit experiences, each have focused on a unique aspect of the collection.
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Hemingway in Michigan, Michigan in Hemingway, was the initial exhibit created by the library to introduce Hemingway enthusiasts and scholars to the Clarke Historical Library, its holdings, and the library's long-term ambitions. The 2003 show was well attended. Especially welcomed were the many members of the Michigan Hemingway Society. The Gamble letter, loans of rarely seen, family-owned material, and one of only three authenticated fly rods used by Ernest Hemingway were exhibited. Additionally, an exhibit catalog was published. The combination of experiences, collaborations, and print material demonstrated the ways in which the Clarke was becoming Hemingway's Michigan home.
Serendipity offered another important opportunity to publicize the library's Hemingway material. In 2007, the Michigan Humanities Council launched a new program, "The Great Michigan Read." Its purpose was to encourage people across the state to read and discuss a single book. The initial book chosen for the project was Hemingway's, The Nick Adams Stories. To promote the program, the Council offered grant funding to agencies and institutions that could develop methods to publicize both the book and Ernest Hemingway.
This was a moment of tremendous opportunity. Mike Federspiel and Frank Boles developed an array of programming to utilize the strengths of the staff and the material in the collection, to capitalize on the resources of partners such as the Michigan Hemingway Society and WCMU Broadcasting, andto draw upon the Clarke's new and established connections within the Hemingway family and greater community. The library forwarded six proposals to the MHC. These included:
• The creation of a traveling exhibit and a published catalog.
• The filming of a 30-minute television documentary, created in cooperation with WCMU-TV and
then distributed without charge to every public high school in Michigan.• A companion study guide.• Publication, in print format, of Hemingway's Michigan: A Driving Tour of Emmet and Charlevoix
Counties, researched and compiled by Ken Marek.• A website to house the driving tour information.• A capstone project to place a state historical marker at Walloon Lake, celebrating Hemingway's Michigan roots.
The $30,000 funding request associated with the package exceeded the Council's funding cap. It was assumed that, if the application was successful, the Council would choose among the six projects. Instead the Council waived their funding cap, funded all six proposals, and requested key parts of the package be delivered in 90 days. The Great Michigan Read kick-off event would be held at Petoskey's Crooked Tree Arts Center (CTAC), and the Council planned the event to include an enhanced version of the Clarke's now-funded Hemingway traveling exhibit, catalog, and documentary film.
When informed of the Council’s decision, the Clarke staff took a very deep breath. The staff had not expected to receive funding for the entire suite of proposals, nor to have three of the most extensive projects done in approximately 90 days. It was, nevertheless, an extraordinary opportunity.
WCMU producer Sarah Adams immersed herself in Hemingway’s story, and created the documentary, much of it filmed in the author’s boyhood haunts. The Clarke team aided by Mike Federspiel, honed the myriad details to create the exhibit,
Up North with the Hemingways and Nick Adams. The accompanying published catalog rolled off the presses of CMU’s Printing Services just hours before the premier in Petoskey on July 27.
The audience was delighted, as was the Michigan Humanities Council. The Clarke had successfully delivered key components of the grant on schedule. The multi-component presentation, featuring a video biography, exhibition, and exhibit catalog was a major accomplishment, possible only through much collaboration and a bit of frenzied dedication. The collaboration with the Michigan Humanities Council was particularly important in that it reinforced the point made by the 2003 exhibit and catalog regarding how central the Clarke was in the documentation of Hemingway in Michigan, as well as the ability of the library to use those exceptional resources to educate the public.
Since its unveiling, the
Up North with the Hemingways exhibit has traveled to 35 local libraries, historical societies, and other venues throughout Michigan, often accompanied by speakers, such as the director of the Clarke Historical Library and CMU’s own Hemingway scholar, Mike Federspiel.
In 2012, the library was offered another unique opportunity to use the Hemingway collection for outreach. The International Hemingway Society chose to hold their biennial conference in the Little Traverse Bay region, bringing an international audience of approximately 600 guests to explore and experience “Hemingway’s Michigan.” As part of the conference, the library staff mounted different exhibits in three venues around the Bay, and cooperated again with WCMU television to create another documentary,
Into the North, which focused on the tourist experience in the Little Traverse Bay area between 1890 and 1920, largely the years the Hemingway family came to summer.
The first and simplest task was to place the traveling exhibit created in 2007,
Up North with the Hemingways, back in Petoskey. This time the show was placed in the Carnegie Library Building administered by CTAC. This building was where, in 1919, the young Ernest had made a public presentation about his wartime experiences, and thus a “must see” for the conference attendees. That exhibit also showcased four “treasures” from the Clarke to dazzle the attendees. They included two stories in Hemingway’s hand, written when he was a youth, the Gamble letter, which had been a focus of the 2003 exhibit, and the postcard written by Ernest to his father while fishing in the Upper Peninsula, part of the trip immortalized in the short story,
The Big Two Hearted River.
Second, the exhibit that had been shown in spring 2012 in the Clarke’s galleries,
A Delightful Destination: Little Traverse Bay at the Turn of the Century, was reinstalled in the Harbor Springs Area Historical Society, across the bay from Petoskey. This exhibit featured some of the many photographs the library had copied from the Little Traverse Historical Society. Components of that exhibit remain in the area, currently on display in the Emmet County courthouse in Petoskey.

Finally, the Clarke staff cooperated and coordinated with the staff of the LTHS to redesign and update the Society’s Hemingway exhibit.
Hemingway’s Michigan Story explored the author’s Michigan experiences and the writing inspired by them. Made possible through funds from the CMU Hemingway Endowment and the Michigan Hemingway Society, the interpretive exhibit was, and continues to be, a key experience in this Petoskey museum, located in the heart of Hemingway’s Michigan haunts.
All of these activities, coupled with the premiere of Into the North at the conference, allowed the Clarke to make an extraordinary impression on a very important audience. The library showed that it could both use the resources already in hand and help develop new possibilities. It also heartened old friends and allies by demonstrating the library’s continuing importance in documenting the subject.
THE ERNEST HEMINGWAY COLLECTION AT THE CLARKE
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The library’s newest Hemingway exhibit continues the library’s longstanding efforts to promote the Hemingway collection, while offering an opportunity to reflect on how “the magic”—from envisioning a collection to building exhibits—comes into existence. An exhibit can be many things: educational, entertaining, interactive, or immersive. But what a good exhibit is not is a book on the wall. Nor is it a comprehensive history. Exhibits capture and communicate the essence of a story, pique the interest of visitors, and inspire further learning.
The library staff creates two new exhibits each year for the Clarke. Each is a custom exhibit designed using unique criteria established only for that exhibit. The concept is developed, content is researched, techniques are established, components are designed, graphics are acquired, text is written, AV treatments are developed, and final design specifications are created. Then, the exhibit is fabricated and finally, it is installed. Each task is done once and each time it is a brand-new experience with new content and new components. This was the process followed for the current exhibit.
The foundation of the exhibit design process is based upon the answers to several key questions, which require careful thinking about the purpose of the exhibit. The answers to four questions became the foundation for everything that followed:
1. Why create this new Hemingway exhibit?
The collection itself and the matrix of collaborators and supporters has evolved greatly since the last exhibit in 2012. The Clarke staff determined it should share recent developments in the collection with supporters and the public to continue to build awareness of the current breadth of the holdings, and expand the endowment and collection.
2. Who is the audience?
Everybody is not an acceptable answer.
Before beginning, one must determine for whom the exhibit is being designed. An experience created to inspire a 16-year-old may not satisfy a college student or a Hemingway scholar, and vice versa. While the Clarke’s primary purpose is to serve CMU and the success of the student body, the staff determined that, in addition to this goal, the library’s donors and Hemingway enthusiasts should be the primary focus for this exhibition. The hope was to honor donors, attract enthusiasts and scholars, and give insights to CMU students about Hemingway and the Hemingway collection, as well as how professionals in the field of special collections and exhibitions do their jobs.
3. What is the exhibit’s specific objective?
With two prior exhibits discussing the same general subject, it was necessary to determine how this exhibit would be different from past exhibitions. A custom-designed exhibit, by definition, seeks to create a “unique and extraordinary” experience. The content should be based on a storyline only the Clarke can tell and which it has not told in the past, to assure visitors a unique experience. If a visitor has seen it before, or can find it elsewhere, why would they bother to come and see it here?
For past exhibits, the collection had been researched to piece together the stories of the author’s childhood experiences, his summers at Walloon Lake, and returning to Michigan after World War I. This exhibit focused on the primary artifacts themselves and the story behind how they found a home in the Clarke. That “backstory” makes this experience unique. For years, people key to the collection’s development have occasionally shared tales. Stories of waiting to hear if an auction bid for a prized letter was high enough to win, and when it wasn’t, how that obstacle was overcome. Stories of how a postcard considered a gem of the collection was found decades after it had fallen between the studs of a wall in a Horton Bay cottage.
These backstories, the details of how each item came to the Clarke’s collection, are gems in their own right. They illustrate the passion, talent, perseverance, and sometimes luck that contributed to making the Hemingway collection as rich as it is. These stories became key features in the exhibition.
4. Storyline research and “The Gems”
After establishing the exhibit objective, one must identify primary materials, sources, text references, and generally “fill in the blanks” regarding the exhibit’s content. This step was less difficult for this exhibit than it sometimes can be. Mike Federspiel, who has helped guide collecting efforts since the beginning of the initiative, served as curator. Mr. Federspiel’s knowledge about Hemingway and of the library’s collection served the work well. If there was a question, Mike could answer it.
The most basic challenge was to sort through the library’s hundreds, perhaps thousands, of items to find the gems, and the stories associated with them. Prioritization was needed. Mike was asked to identify the gems and his first list included eight categories with forty subcategories. The library staff put their faith in his knowledge and asked for a very much shorter list. Mike executed a tour-de-force by reducing the original list to seven items. His pain was evident, but understanding that “less is more,” he identified only a few items. Having been identified, the exhibit needed to establish a way that visitors, if they remember only one thing, would remember the gems of the collection and something about how they came to be here.
How to inspire memory is challenging. The gems are composed of items such as letters, envelopes, a magazine cover, and a first-edition publication. All these formats reduce themselves to humble, and in many ways, visually uninteresting text. They are items that might be overlooked if placed among many other objects in one of the Clarke’s large exhibit cases.
To resolve the problem of how to distinguish the gems, each of them was given a place of honor. Individual exhibition cases were designed for each. To further the aesthetic focus onto the gems, each case was set against a translucent, nine-foot tall banner hanging down from the ceiling. The banners featured the artifact’s title, text interpreting its significance, and the story of how it became part of the collection. These gem-and-banner assemblages were clustered together in the center of the exhibit gallery, parting to create a path to what came to be viewed as the single most important item: the Gamble letter. The plan produced a setting in which each of these very special, one-of-a-kind objects is honored, leading to the one that is both arguably the most important single item in the collection and certainly a keystone in the story of how the Clarke’s Hemingway collection came to be.
Many additional items were featured around the perimeter of the gallery. Four enormous wall-mounted images, including one of Hemingway, served as a visual backdrop to the gems. Distinctly different from the elegant, monochromatic simplicity of the “gem gallery” found in the Clarke Historical Library's Molson Gallery space, was the ambiance in the library's Meijer Gallery space. Here the boldly saturated colors of giant Hemingway movie posters flanked a five-foot video monitor, where a Hemingway biographical documentary played. The experience in this space expounded on the breadth of collection, in a visually explosive manner.
EXHIBIT TEXT - EVERY WORD MUST EARN ITS KEEP
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Exhibit text is unique. Just as a successful exhibit must deliver only the essence of a story, so must the text. Experience proves extensive text discourages visitors from reading beyond the headlines. But the task of writing a text block in 125 words is always challenging, for an author invariably has 1000 words of stories to tell. Because the team who built this exhibit had prior experience working together, they understood the value of brevity and, if at times a bit begrudgingly, delivered concise, effectual interpretive text.
VISION OF EXPERIENCE AND THE JOY OF INSTALLATION
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At this point in the process, hundreds of hours had been devoted to the creation of broad concepts and design details that remained only a vision. The final hurdle was to assemble all those details into a specification package that was used by a fabricator to build the exhibit. Releasing that design package to production was an important moment to the people who had created the story of
The Hemingway Collection at the Clarke. Once the contracts were let, there were no second chances for edits or changes.
There is always a bit of apprehension and excitement when the contracted material is delivered, the boxes are opened, and the graphics revealed. This is the fun but anxious moment when vision becomes reality. It has all been seen in the mind’s eye and on paper, but the full-size, beautifully implemented imagery and interpretation makes even the people who designed it take pause and, as the items first come into view, hold their breath just for a moment.
The actual installation of this or any exhibit draws attention like it is a construction site, which it, indeed, is. Like construction sites, most museums close their galleries during installation. However, since there is no way to enter the Clarke Historical Library for research without walking through the exhibit galleries, exhibit installation often becomes a participatory process and learning experience. Students, faculty, and the public suddenly appear, asking questions while the Clarke team begins placing artifacts and text. It can be a bit distracting, but the exhibit has begun to do its job and the staff fields questions from visitors whose interest has been piqued.
And every exhibit has “the moment.” The moment is when the joy and excitement of seeing all the pieces come together is tempered by the discovery of a typographical error, a missing panel, or some unanticipated problem. The more exhibits that are created, the less likely “that” problem will come up again. But like sunrises, inevitably, a new problem emerges. Resolving it with little time and working with only the material in hand involves quick thinking, going a bit outside the box, and improvisation—skills the smiles on an opening night may conceal, but later make for great stories.
TWENTY YEARS IN THE MAKING
The primary purpose of the Clarke Historical Library is to inspire and support scholarship. The Hemingway collection is a case study in how a library successfully imagines, develops, and markets one part of its many holdings. Starting with essentially nothing, the library developed an internationally recognized and known resource regarding Ernest Hemingway. The story told in the current exhibit celebrates what was accomplished and tells how it came about, revealing the talent, dedication, and passion that inspired the collection’s creation and continued evolution and use.
While library staff look forward to that use, as well as to continued growth and outreach through exhibits and other tools, those who work in the library acknowledge and thank those who, over two decades, have helped make the Hemingway collection possible. The Michigan Hemingway Society and many of its members have become long-term partners and good friends through the project. Many generous friends have made decisions that greatly benefited the library, while others have donated items to the library. Still others have made financial contributions to enable the library to make important purchases and grow the endowment. The importance of this financial support, sometimes on short notice with requests for not-small amounts of money and other times asking the same individuals to help build the principal of the endowment to continue the work, cannot be overstated. All of this happened through large amounts of goodwill and the help of good friends who the Clarke staff hopes will continue to work with the library in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Although key colleagues in the creation of this endeavor informed me that my name would be listed as the author, an honor I accepted for the convenience of library catalogers everywhere, the exhibit and this catalog are very much a collaborative work rather than the creation of a single individual. I would like to Janet Danek, the University Libraries Exhibit Coordinator, Michael Federspiel, a recently retired fixed-term faculty member of the CMU History Department, and Marian Matyn, Clarke Historical Library Archivist and associate professor, each of who wrote parts of this catalog. Many of the best words you have read in this publication are theirs.
My thanks also go to Bryan Whitledge and Kimberly Chiodo for proofreading this document. The mistakes that remain are mine and not theirs.
Finally, it would not have been possible to publish this work without the hard work of Kari Chrenka, Coordinator of Marketing and Branding within the University Libraries. Her official title gives little clue to her substantial abilities to design and produce printed publications, for which we are all grateful.
- Dr. Frank Boles, Director of the Clarke Historical Library
The "Hemingway Collection at the Clarke" exhibit, and the accompanying catalog were made possible, in part, by generous donors and funds from the Clarke Historical Library’s Michigan Hemingway Endowment and the Cindi J. and Kathryn R. Graham Endowment.
To learn more about the Endowment, visit
clarke.cmich.edu/HemingwayEndowment
MISSION OF THE CLARKE HISTORICAL LIBRARY
The Clarke Historical Library collects, preserves, and promotes nationally recognized collections, that include:
• The history of Michigan and the Old Northwest Territory
• The history of Central Michigan University.
• Selected topics, including exemplary children’s literature, campaign biographies of United
States presidential candidates, the history of angling, and historic Michigan newspapers.
As part of CMU’s goal of advancing excellence, the library serves the needs of the CMU community and, in particular, student success, fosters scholarly activity through its collections, exhibits, and publications, and strengthens community partnerships through an active outreach program.
CLARKE HISTORICAL LIBRARY BOARD OF GOVERNORS
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Dr. Sandra Planisek, chair
Dr. Frank Boles, Director of the Clarke Historical Library
Norman Clarke III, family representative
Dr. Robert O. Davies, CMU President
Michael R. Federspiel
Carla Hills
Kathy Irwin, Dean of University Libraries
Dr. Robert Kohrman
Dr. Gregory Smith, chair of the Department of History
John H. Logie, chairman emeritus
Sandra Bell Croll, emeritus member