Peckham's perception, expressed at his retirement, that the Clements was the finest place for an early American historian was not much of an exaggeration. Between the mid-1930s and the 1970s, it was an exhilarating environment for anyone with an interest in early American history. The Library had opened its doors in 1923, and the prosperous Twenties had seen the excitement of setting the new library in motion and a constant stream of acquisitions of all sorts -- Revolutionary War pamphlets (far outnumbering those of older institutions), atlases and maps, and the beginnings of significant manuscript accessions.
As a Michigan Daily reporter, Peckham had enjoyed a brief contact with the place when Mr. Clements remained active and funds appeared to be limitless. But the Depression had shattered this, as well as many other dreams. William Clements suffered severe financial setbacks. He died in 1934. Not only was he unable to endow the Library, but he reluctantly asked, in his will, that the University purchase the manuscript collections bought for the Library but remaining in his possession at his Bay City home.
When Peckham became the manuscript curator, the hard facts -- the loss of the Library's only benefactor and possibly of its most valuable collections -- were sobering. Fortunately, Randolph G. Adams, the Library's director, was a man of eternal optimism, and he was not about to allow the Library, born with such dreams of greatness, to become "just another" rare book collection of marginal importance. In the late 1920s, Adams had developed a close relationship with Detroit philanthropist Tracy W. McGregor, helping him become a major collector of Americana. He prevailed upon McGregor to accept a position on the Library's Committee of Management the year before Clements' death. McGregor more than returned the favor a few years later by writing a check for $100,000, which literally saved the manuscripts in the Clements estate from inevitable sale and dispersal.
On April 3, 1937, the papers of British Generals Thomas Gage and Sir Henry Clinton, of Cabinet Ministers Lord George Germain and Lord Sydney, of the Hessian troops hired by the British during the Revolution, and of the American General Nathanael Greene, were delivered to the Clements Library. Mr. Clements and his librarians in Bay City had examined these manuscripts and had selectively shared material with a few scholars, but the majority had remained untouched and their significance unappreciated.
Peckham had the rare pleasure of being the very first person to unfold, organize, and read the most notable collection of Revolutionary War documents ever acquired by an American library. Life Magazine did an exclusive story. The Library simmered with excitement throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s. Adams was the ideal boss -- full of energy and good humor, unsurpassed in bibliographical knowledge and academic standards, yet completely generous and supportive of his staff. He gave every encouragement to his young and ambitious curators -- Lloyd Brown in Maps, Howard Peckham in Manuscripts -- and they both quickly established themselves as leaders in their respective fields.
Scholars from around the world were graciously granted access to the Library's new resources. Their pilgrimages to Ann Arbor not only established the institution's eminent place in the world of early American scholarship but also Peckham's reputation as one of the most knowledgeable people in the field. As a result, much of the history of Colonial and Revolutionary America was revised.
Howard made research in the Manuscript Division a memorable experience. He established contacts and friendships with all the bright young scholars of the era. The Clements solicited Carl Van Doren to write his Secret History of the American Revolution (1940), the previously unknown, accurate story of Benedict Arnold's treason. It won a Pulitzer Prize and was a best-seller. Howard Peckham's assistance and meticulous editing of the Arnold-AndrŽ correspondence contributed to the book's success.
The National Archives in Washington opened its doors in 1935 and the Society of American Archivists was founded in 1937. Peckham was one of a handful of the country's first professional archivists. Until the 1930s, rare book collections and historical society libraries had catered to a small clientele of members and well-heeled antiquarians -- not the public at large and not even university students. Card catalogues of holdings were seen as unnecessary. Curators and patrons were supposed to be sufficiently well-versed to know what they wanted and what a collection was likely to contain, and if they didn't, they had no business being employed or admitted as researchers. Mr. Clements shared this viewpoint, and Randolph Adams only gradually came to accept a card catalogue as a virtue.
Howard Peckham developed a very effective system of item-level manuscript cataloguing which he described in articles and illustrated talks. It was widely copied by other institutions. He was one of the first people to teach a formal course in archival management in conjunction with Michigan's Library School.
The modern archivist owes a debt of gratitude to Howard and his contemporaries for establishing professional standards, but in certain ways his attitudes about historical librarianship were quite conservative -- more attuned to Randolph Adams, Milo Quaife, Clarence Brigham, Lawrence Wroth, and their generation than the "professionally-trained" librarians and archivists of the present day. These men were great practical librarians and collectors, but above all they were historians and bibliographers who not only knew how to catalogue and describe collections but understood the significance of the material.
Howard never viewed archival systems and techniques as more than a method of getting at substance. He valued books and manuscripts for their content, not their form. Library degrees and archival courses served a purpose in his mind, but only in the same way that trade school courses created better plumbers and electricians. To be a true curator or librarian, he believed that one needed to know history and the English language. To be an historian, one needed to learn how to weigh historical evidence and how to write. To be a great historian, one needed to take on larger topics, worthy of critical study, and be able to communicate effectively to an intelligent, popular audience far wider than fellow academics.
Peckham's own books and articles were always intentionally aimed at general readers, although they were based upon solid archival research. Pontiac and the Indian Uprising (1947), widely acclaimed and acknowledged as his finest book, reads like a novel but was the product of meticulous scholarship. He wrote popular histories of book collecting, Indiana, the University of Michigan, and general surveys of the Colonial and Revolutionary Wars. They were written so that any intelligent reader could enjoy them and learn something. He wrote biographies of Pontiac, William Henry Harrison, and Nathanael Greene for young audiences. He produced two historical phonograph records, several television lecture series, and often wrote articles for general magazines in addition to scholarly pieces for academic journals.
To some degree this approach was out of step with the academic world. The historical "profession" of the 1950s and 1960s became increasingly suspicious of narrative history and of anyone who appealed to or excited readers beyond their fellow academics. It was the sort of self-serving logic for which Howard had no use. Time, appreciative readers, and significant book royalties have thoroughly vindicated him. Even the professional historical associations are now making efforts to reach a general audience. Howard would be too much of a gentleman to say "I told you so," but he would find it amusing!
Howard Peckham was formally appointed director of the Clements and assumed the position in the summer of 1953. He had left the University of Michigan in 1945, when he was chosen to be director of the Indiana Historical Bureau and Secretary of the Indiana Historical Society. His eight years in Indiana had been highly rewarding from a professional and personal point of view, and he maintained a deep affection for the state of Indiana throughout his life. It was a matter of mutual admiration. The Pontiac book, begun while in Ann Arbor, had been published in 1947 and brought him wide acclaim throughout the historical profession. He gained invaluable administrative experience as director of the Indiana Historical Bureau and played an important role in establishing professional standards for historical society work. He was a founding member of the Society of State and Local History, president of that organization in 1954, and a founder and early editor of American Heritage. The people involved in historical work in Indiana thought the world of Howard and what he had accomplished. J.K. and Eli Lilly offered to match any financial offer Howard might receive from Michigan. A former governor of the state wrote that were he in office, he would issue an executive order prohibiting Peckham's departure! But Michigan was Peckham's alma mater and the directorship of the Clements had the prestige and appeal for him which no other position could equal.
In many ways, Howard was fortunate to have been absent from Ann Arbor between 1945 and 1952, because the Clements Library had not prospered in this period. Randolph Adams had suffered a stroke and was increasingly plagued by poor health. He successfully fought off an attempt to transform the Clements into the rare book collection of the University Library but incurred a degree of administrative ill-will in the process. There were virtually no funds for acquisitions, and there was considerable staff turnover. Adams died unexpectedly in December 195l, and his temporary successor, although a knowledgeable bookman, lacked administrative skill, academic historical credentials, and the confidence of higher University administrators.
The situation rapidly changed for the better. The University had recently installed a dynamic new president, Harlan Hatcher, and a new librarian, Fred Wagman, both of whom were ex officio members of the Library's Committee of Management. Hatcher was a noted historian of Ohio and the Great Lakes, and Wagman not only had been an outstanding administrator at the Library of Congress but cared deeply about history and rare books. Wilbur K. Pierpont had recently taken charge of University finances and would retain the post throughout Howard's directorship. Pierpont was a staunch supporter of the University's museums and libraries and made a point of protecting these relatively powerless units in the budgetary process. After fifteen long years of indebtedness to finish paying for the Clements' manuscript collections secured in 1937, acquisition funds were finally available for new purchases. Howard inherited a staff of relatively new but highly competent curators (Georgia Haugh, William Ewing, and Christopher Brun), and in contrast to the previous decade they stayed on, providing the sort of continuity and collection knowledge desirable in both catalogue work and effective public service.
When the Clements celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1973, Howard wrote a brief history of the Library. Incidentally, he identified those changes and contributions of his directorship which he considered most notable. He established a clearly defined collections policy that emphasized pre-Civil War material and the fields of social and intellectual history. From being a rather weak presence in the historical market, the Clements of Peckham's years became a major force at book auctions. The respect and goodwill of book dealers makes all the difference in determining whether the great rare book or manuscript collection is offered to your institution or not. Peckham reestablished the rapport which Adams had used so effectively. Unique treasures again began coming the Library's way with regularity. While continuing to strengthen the Library's Colonial and Revolutionary War holdings, collections on music, early American literature and drama, architecture, and religion were built aggressively. Indian captivity narratives were a particular passion of the new director, and he also systematically began accumulating printed accounts of overland journeys to the west.
A "friends of the library" organization, the Clements Library Associates, had been formally created in 1947. It became an increasingly important force, significantly augmenting acquisitions funds and providing a devoted constituency to attend semi-annual programs and exhibitions. Renville Wheat, James Schoff, and Robert Briggs, as chairmen of the organization during the Peckham years, provided outstanding leadership and helped make the Clements a far more exciting place to work for the director and the staff. Guides were published for all areas of the collections, and the number of scholars visiting the Library increased dramatically in the l950s and 1960s.
Howard was an exceptionally gracious host to library visitors. He met with every one of them personally, often buying them lunch. He listened and took their research projects seriously. No matter how busy, he would search out additional materials in the collections and share his own vast knowledge. For many aspiring young graduate students, it was the first time they had ever been treated as true scholars. Visits to the Clements were experiences never to be forgotten. He showed curators the same kindness and respect, encouraging their professional development by giving them time and support for publications. He treated them as scholarly equals. He had a wonderful, low-key sense of humor, and as it had been when he was a young employee under Adams, it was great fun working at the Clements in the Peckham years.
The 1950s through the early 1970s was an expansive period in American higher education, with many heads of University departments and librarians of peer institutions priding themselves on growth and empire building based on institutional politicking and federal grants. Howard, product of the Depression, was temperamentally incapable of the "wheeling and dealing" approach to management. He never spent money the library did not have and he even took pride in returning some of the annual appropriation at the end of the year. Rather than expanding the activities of the Clements over his twenty-four years as director, he literally reduced the number of staff members and eliminated certain collecting areas and activities, such as school tour groups, which had formerly been encouraged. In hindsight it might be viewed as a serious administrative error, because it left no fat to trim when the state began the relentless cutback in support of higher education in the late 1970s. But it worked during the years he ran the place and did earn him the admiration of higher administrators, who themselves were of his generation and also had haunting memories of the lean days of the 1930s. When, on rare occasions, Howard did ask for special financial assistance to buy a collection, the request was never denied.
The philosophy of keeping the Library focused exclusively on its primary mission meant that neither the director nor the staff were encumbered with time-consuming digressions. They could get things done. As conservative and old-fashioned as the Peckham approach may have appeared at the time, it preserved the essence of this Library and was true to the vision of its founder.
Maintaining a focus on the collections remains, today, a jealously guarded priority. The director of this particular library continues to collect, and occasionally write books rather than spend all his time as a fund raiser or tour guide. The curators spend their time working with the collections rather than telling others what to do. The entire staff retains the intimate contact with the books and manuscripts which makes it possible for them to provide enthusiastic, knowledgeable assistance to researchers. The Clements remains an exciting place to work for both visitors and employees. Several of its once great peer institutions, encumbered with vast payroll expenses, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and misplaced public expectations, have lost sight of the purpose for which they were created.
Because of the nature of the Clements Library, with a clearly defined mission and a small staff requiring highly specialized skills, the Clements becomes very much the personal library of the director while he is in office. As long as the director has the full confidence of the boards and the University administration, and Howard did so completely throughout his tenure, he enjoys a great deal of freedom. Howard wielded this power with great effectiveness, but always in the best interests of the University. He fervently believed in the importance of historical memory in preserving the greatness of the United States, and he felt that libraries such as the Clements preserved the records of our past better than any other type of institution.
The Clements, to Howard Peckham, was something larger and more important than any single individual. The triumphs of his years as director -- and there were many -- were very much the result of his own abilities, but he never took credit personally or made anything of them. He thought of his successes as merely continuing the work of Clements and Adams. He took great pleasure in the fact that his successor had the opportunity to work, as he had, as Curator of Manuscripts for a number of years before becoming the director. It made possible the sort of continuity of effort and memory which has served the Clements so well throughout its history.
By the middle of the 1970s, both Howard and Dorothy felt that a warmer climate and more relaxed routine would be better for their health. Howard was given an honorary doctorate (Litt.D.) by Olivet College in 1976 and at his retirement, he received the warmest possible tributes. The Peckhams moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina. Howard continued to write occasional historical articles, taught and took a few courses at the local community college, played the bassoon in the community orchestra, and tried his hand at writing a novel. In the years before leaving, Howard mentioned to his successor a premonition that he would only live to 72 or 73. Fortunately, he was wrong. Retirement proved to be all that he had hoped, and it was not until he reached his late 70s that serious health problems began to develop. Diabetes and Parkinson's disease then deprived him, gradually, of all the things he had taken pleasure in, and his death was a blessing when it finally came. Howard is survived by his wife Dorothy, his son Stephen and wife, daughter Angela and husband, and three grandchildren. His legacy at the Clements Library, apparent on every bookshelf and in every Library activity, is timeless.
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