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Records of William Andrews Clark, Jr. and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Clarkive.Pre-1934
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Title: William Andrews Clark, Jr. and William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Records
Collection number: Clarkive.Pre-1934
Contributing Institution:
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA
2520 Cimarron Street
Los Angeles, CA, 90018
Physical Description:
23.05 linear feet(43 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1878-1983
Abstract: This collection consists of the pre-1934 institutional archive of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library and the records
of its founder, William Andrews Clark, Jr. Items include correspondence, invoices, photographs, secondary source materials
and other documents related to Clark, his library, and his family, friends and colleagues.
Language of Materials: Collection materials primarily in English, though there are a small number of documents written in French.
Collector:
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.
Collection is open for research.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Clark Librarian. Permission
for publication is given on behalf of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA as the owner of the physical items
and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
[identification of item] Records of William Andrews Clark, Jr. and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Clarkive Pre-1934,
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Biographical and Historical Note
William Andrews Clark, Jr. was born in Deer Lodge, Montana in 1877, the youngest son of copper baron William Andrews Clark,
Sr. and his wife Katherine. Clark, Jr. (or WAC Jr.) was educated in France and in the New York area and graduated from the
University of Virginia with a Bachelors Degree in Law in 1899. He returned to Butte, Montana, where he worked for several
years as a partner in the law firm Clark & Roote and also served on the boards of several of his father's mining and industrial
concerns. In 1902, he married Mabel Duffield Foster, who died of complications following the birth of their son, William Andrews
Clark, III ("Tertius"), in 1903. In 1907, he married Alice McManus, a native Nevadan, and they moved their permanent home
to Los Angeles in the early 1910s. Their house at Adams Boulevard and Cimarron Street occupied the grounds that the Clark
Library still stands on today. In the mid-1910s, WAC Jr. began collecting antiquarian and fine press books as a serious hobby
(he had dabbled in book buying previous to this). In 1919, he hired bibliographer Robert E. Cowan to consult on book-buying
purchases and to help with the compilaton of a printed library catalog. The first volume of this was printed in 1920 by San
Francisco printer John Henry Nash.
After a small kitchen fire in his home around 1924, Clark decided that a dedicated (and fireproof) library building was a
necessity and he hired architect Robert David Farquhar to design the present library building. Upon completion in 1926, Clark
promised the library and grounds to UCLA. After his death in 1934, the Clark Library became a part of UCLA.
An accomplished amateur violinist, WAC Jr. also founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1919.
This collection consists of the institutional archive of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library and the personal archive
of William Andrews Clark, Jr., and includes correspondence, invoices, photographs, ephemera, reports, press clippings, and
artifacts, dating from 1878 to 1983. The collection also gathers together the Clark Library's resources related to the Clark
family more generally. Large sections of the collection are what is termed an "artificial collection," a set of materials
accumulated over time by an archival institution, as opposed to a collection that is donated en masse to a library as a discrete
unit. As such, this collection will continue to grow over time, even though it is dedicated to the Pre-1934 history of the
Clark Library and its founder.
After many decades of use by Clark Library staff and many different organizational systems imposed by various staff members,
this collection was formally processed and this finding aid written by Rebecca Fenning Marschall in 2011-2012.
This finding aid is arranged into 6 series: Series 1. Correspondence, Invoices and Gift Books; Series 2. People Files; Series
3. Clark Library Building and Grounds; Series 4. Other Clark-related Buildings, Properties and Organizations; Series 5. News
and Media Clippings; and Series 6. Miscellany.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Clark, William Andrews, 1839-1925
Clark, William Andrews, 1877-1934
Cowan, Robert Ernest, 1862-1942
Sanders, Cora Edgerton
Acquisitions (Libraries)--United States--20th century
Book collectors--California--20th century
Collection development (Libraries)--United States--20th century
Invoices--United States--20th century
Letters--California--20th century
Library records--United States--20th century
Montana--History
Photographs--California--20th century
Photographs--United States--19th century