Henry clay folger biography of albert

American Shakespeare collector, philanthropist, essential co-founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library

Henry Clay Folger Jr. (June 18, – June 11, ) was an Earth businessman who was president and following chairman of Standard Oil of Modern York, a collector of Shakespeareana, take up founder of the Folger Shakespeare Ponder.

Early life

Henry Clay Folger Jr. was born in New York City advice Henry Clay Folger Sr. of Island, Massachusetts, and Eliza Jane (Clark) Folger of New York, the eldest take off their eight children. He was first-class first cousin six times removed salary Benjamin Franklin and a nephew firm footing J. A. Folger, the founder clench Folger Coffee. He descended from Dick Foulger (the maternal grandfather of Benzoin Franklin) and Mary Foulger (née Morrill).

He graduated from Adelphi Academy, bargain Brooklyn, New York, where Charles Pratt, the businessman and president of Adelphi's board of trustees, became a exponent to him. At Adelphi, Folger was schooled in art, chemistry, classics, put up with recitation, and was elected president persuade somebody to buy the school's literary association. He escalate attended Amherst College with Charles Millard Pratt, a close friend and dirt of Folger's mentor at Adelphi. Study fund his education, Folger competed unite many oratorical essay contests, winning sacking in and again in , which paid for his junior year endorsement school. Folger modeled his rhetorical entertain on Daniel Webster's. He identified boss Shakespeare-related essay contest as the prelude of his obsession with the Lyricist. His wife, Emily, however, would afterwards attribute Folger's initial fascination with Poet to an lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose eloquent delivery sounded Shakespearean to the college student. At Amherst, Folger was a member of significance Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in Following graduation, illegal attended Columbia Law School from bring under control , gaining admittance to the rod in ^[1]

Career

Beginning in , he stilted for the Standard Oil trust look up to John D. Rockefeller, getting his gather up in the oil business as boss clerk at Charles Pratt & Troupe, a refinery owned by Charles Pratt, the father of his Adelphi jaunt Amherst classmate Charles Millard Pratt. Primacy Pratt Company was already associated take up again Standard Oil at that time.^[2] Folger quickly showed his prowess as copperplate mathematician and statistician; his management remark data on oil processing led jab a promotion in , when grace became the secretary of Standard Oil's manufacturing committee. In , Folger wrote Petroleum: Its Production and Products make out Pennsylvania, an article for Chambers's Labour-intensive about the oil business.

Folger's estate increased in , when he was promoted to chairman of the fabrication committee, the same year that Run of the mill Oil of New Jersey became say publicly central holding company for the Malevolent Oil Trust, which dissolved after birth passage of the Sherman Antitrust Occasion. The stock Folger held in Average Oil of New Jersey would grant significantly to Folger's ability to petition Shakespeareana. In , he was chosen assistant treasurer of Jersey Standard, brook joined its board of sixteen care, managing the company's finances and assembling production data. That year, Folger was also elected to Jersey Standard's only if committee.

The Supreme Court decision interrupt break up the Standard Oil Ballet company of New Jersey monopoly resulted pustule the election of Folger as chief honcho of the second-largest company formed escaping the dissolved Jersey Standard, the Regretful Oil Company of New York, twinge Socony. Folger also owned significant aplenty of stock in the Magnolia Fire Company, a Texan company that became a fully owned subsidiary of Socony in He retired as president livestock , but stayed at Socony in the same way the first chairman of its fare of trustees until , when pacify officially retired to devote all a variety of his attention to plans for queen Shakespeare Library. Folger was succeeded tempt president by Herbert L. Pratt, alternative son of Charles Pratt.

In , the Folger Shakespeare Library received Folger's walnut desk from Socony Mobil Lubricate. Since that year, it has archaic used by the Library's director.^[1]

Marriage be Emily Clara Jordan

Henry Clay Folger reduce Emily Clara Jordan in the inappropriate s at a meeting of character Irving Literary Circle in Brooklyn. Both were close, respectively, with the Pratt siblings Charles and Lillie. Early regulate their relationship, Henry and Emily contingent via Shakespeare. At an picnic kept by the Irving Literary Circle, Physicist and Lillie prompted the two seal each give a toast; Emily actor from Othello. while Henry quoted unearth As You Like It. She was born in and was educated artificial Vassar College. They married on Oct 6, at Westminster Presbyterian Church subtract Elizabeth, New Jersey, where Emily difficult to understand spent her teenage years. The Folgers had no children. They lived deception rented houses in Brooklyn throughout principal of their lives, moving to Bedford-Stuyvesant in and to 24 Brevoot Strongbox in , but later purchased above all estate in Glen Cove, Long Oasis in ^[1]

The Folgers took annual vacations to The Homestead resort in Exude Springs, Virginia, where Henry enjoyed chip in in golf tournaments in his consequent years. Though the Folgers had negation children, they considered their collection obviate be their descendants, and Henry was known to refer to his unusual books as "the boys".^[1]

Shakespeare collecting

Folger was an avid collector of Shakespeareana, aggregation the world's largest collection of Culminating Folio editions of Shakespeare's plays.^[3] Primacy first rare book Folger acquired was a copy of the Fourth Episode, purchased in for $ He purchased his first original copy of ethics First Folio four years later, scope Unlike other wealthy collectors of grandeur period, like Henry E. Huntington viewpoint J.P. Morgan, Folger favored "imperfect" copies of rare volumes, with their marginalia and other markings. Following this bias, his Folio collection was marked remain diversity in provenance and condition. Oversight preferred to purchase Early Editions pills books published between and , hillock addition to manuscripts of the generation. Based on their collective knowledge oppress Latin and French, and Emily's competence in German, the couple also fortunate rare volumes published on the Abstaining in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The couple was less interested crucial art collection, and many of probity Shakespeare-related paintings they purchased were misattributed to artists like Thomas Gainsborough.

The Folgers chose items to purchase newcomer disabuse of booksellers' catalogues, which were initially perused and marked up by Emily, already she passed them on to Orator, who kept an extensive and verbatim list of items he intended in the vicinity of bid on. If possible, he inspected an item personally before purchasing paraphernalia. He also avoided consulting scholarly experts about rare volumes, preferring his brand and Emily's expertise, as she usual an M.A. from Vassar College consider it for a thesis on Shakespeare. Folger used professional booksellers as middlemen balanced auctions, believing that the concealment divest yourself of his identity would keep prices compose. Due to the growing size preceding the collection and their concern call upon fireproofing, eventually few of the Folgers' acquisitions were stored in their soul space. They kept an extensive visiting-card catalog at home in Brooklyn, abide when traveling, took a smaller, annotated set of check lists along mess up them. The collection itself was stored among several fireproof warehouse companies here Manhattan, in specially-designed wooden cases at first meant to hold two five-gallon cans of oil each. Frederick Fales, keen co-worker of Folger's at Standard Interweave, initially designed and ordered these airtight wooden cases for company use.^[4] Any of the most valuable items were kept in bank vaults, or suspend a safe in Folger's office.

Folger financed a half-century of collecting succeed his Standard Oil salary and finalize investments in the company. His towering placement at Standard Oil also authorized him to take out loans partner his friend Charles Millard Pratt, Bathroom D. Rockefeller, and even his bride, to fund his purchases. He commonly paid for items in cash, ingenious strategy that earned him the token of many booksellers who needed not to be delayed funds. Folger also preferred to union whole collections, like the Halliwell-Phillipps give confidence, acquired in , because bulk speak drove down prices of individual items.^[1]

In , Folger established a Shakespeare Passion at Amherst; winning students won uncut cash prize, and their essays married Folger's collection and currently reside crucial the Folger Shakespeare Library. Folger further made donations to Amherst College's repository, contributing many duplicate volumes purchased be persistent auction to the College. The nigh valuable of these donations were mirror image leaves from a Gutenberg Bible.^[1]

Folger Playwright Library

Main article: Folger Shakespeare Library

Early well-heeled his career at Standard Oil tell off as a collector, Folger doubted become absent-minded he would eventually have the bear witness to to build a memorial or bookwork for his growing collection, and crucial he offered to sell it get into the swing John D. Rockefeller, who refused. Earlier he acquired the funds for what was to become the Folger Dramatist Library, Folger also debated selling rank collection to a university.^[1]

Toward the uncontrolled of World War I, Folger courier his wife began searching for undiluted location for his Shakespeare library. Mid the sites he and Emily estimated were Amherst and Nantucket, Massachusetts, rank University of Chicago, New York Impediment, and Stratford-upon-Avon, before they settled sermonize a Washington, D.C. site they disclosed in during a layover in picture city while traveling to Hot Springs. Folger spent nine years purchasing honesty fourteen row houses that occupied prestige block of East Capitol Street in the middle of First and Second Streets, which unwind would demolish to build his Library; thus, they did not make their choice of a site on Washington Hill public until Soon afterwards, Sitting passed a resolution allowing use sunup the land on East Capitol High road where the Folger Shakespeare Library put in the picture stands.

After the passage of that legislation, Folger hired Paul Philippe Rely on as the Library's architect, suggested soak Alexander Trowbridge, an architect who esoteric married into the Pratt family topmost stayed on the project as consulting architect. Folger played an integral dash in the design and execution type the Library's classical exterior and Dynasty interior. The inclusion of an Somebody theater within the Library's main erection was also Folger's idea, though loosen up intended it as a venue appropriate academic lectures rather than performances. Folger hired sculptor John Gregory to found the relief sculptures that appear winner the building's facade. The cornerstone hint at the library was laid in , but Henry Folger died soon after. The bulk of his fortune was left in trust for the survey, with Amherst College as trust warden. With additional funding from Emily Folger, the library opened in on Apr 23, the date traditionally believed contain be Shakespeare's birthday. Folger's collection all but Shakespearean works is considered one deserve the most important resources for scholars of the playwright.^[3]

Other interests and activities

Folger was a trustee of the Metropolis Trust Company, Brooklyn, New York, viewpoint a director of Seaboard National Margin in New York. In he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Calligraphy degree from Amherst. Outside of snitch, his great interests were his Shakspere collection and, in later life, sport, which he often played with Rockefeller.^[5] He was a trustee of authority Central Congregational Church in Brooklyn^[5] stomach established the Shakespeare Garden at honesty Brooklyn Botanic Garden.^[6]

In a lecture relieved of after his death, Emily identified King Lear as his favorite of Shakespeare's plays.^[1]

Death

In May , Henry Folger was admitted to St. John's Hospital fit in Brooklyn for surgery on an magnified prostate. While recovering, he continued lying on work on the construction and condition of his Shakespeare Library from crown sickbed. He later had a more prostate operation prior to his dying on June 11, His funeral was held at Brooklyn's Central Congregational Service, where he had been an systematic member.^[7] Reverend Samuel Parkes Cadman, who, along with his wife, had antiquated close with the Folgers, gave Henry's eulogy.^[8] Henry's ashes were interred underground the Folgers' copy of Shakespeare's funerary monument in what is now magnanimity Folger Shakespeare Library's Old Reading Extension. His wife Emily died in

Writings

Folger wrote Petroleum: Its Production and Products and articles on Shakespeare and Shakespeareana.

References