They Builded Better

Felix Adler

I'm still trying to find my rhythm after my trip to New York.  I'm not sure I'm there, but I am at least back in the mode to share the joys of old books and bibliographic work.  

One of the rewards of that trip to New York is that I now have folks who have joined me in the work.  Dan Hanson and Amy Schwarz, both members of the New York Society for Ethical Culture and both retired librarians, have begun the arduous task of developing an inventory of the Adler Study.  Dan is photographing the title pages (and reverse) of all the books in that collection.  Amy is straightening, organizing, and checking for Ethical Culture content.  The plan is to upload the photos to an online workspace so that I can convert the information to bibliographic entries.  

The value of this work is that it will help us identify publications that should be included in the Bibliography of Ethical Culture at the same time it can be used to create an inventory of the collection.  

This is a massive task.  There are 10 largish bookcases in the Adler Study with 6 shelves each.  On the first day of work, Dan photographed the contents of 5 shelves in the first case.  (The sixth has books that are fragile and need special care.)  That was 235 pictures (we don't have a count of the books yet).  So far I have created 23 entries for the inventory, cross-checking every title with online repositories to see what has already been digitized.  That takes time, because, remember, I'm having fun.  The top shelf on that first case has Carl Sandburg's multi-volume life of Lincoln.  I had to look at it and see what was there (a chapter on Lincoln's humor and his religion--I'll read that when I get a chance).  Ida Tarbell also made the shelf with her Lincoln biography.  Why so much about Lincoln, you ask?  One answer might be found in the Bibliography with the two platforms given by Algernon D. Black on Lincoln.  As we dig further into the archives at NYSEC, we may find more.  Then it will be interesting to see what our Ethical Culture leaders made of Lincoln and how they used his life to discuss ethics.  

In the meantime, one other find on (or around) this first shelf, Julius Henry Cohen's book, They Builded Better Than They Knew caught my attention with its archaic past tense.  Cohen's rather chatty book focuses on people and groups that he admired.  The chapter on Felix Adler was an entertaining look at Adler's sense of humor and praise of his contributions to legal ethics and labor relations.  The book was published in 1946, 13 years after Adler's death.  It is a valuable reminder at 90 or so years after Adler's death that he was human, not the cardboard figure that he might sometimes become in our thinking.  Cohen's small chapter helps to give us a more three-dimensional view of the founder of Ethical Culture.  There is also the reminder that Adler did not live a cloistered life of study and contemplation but rather involved himself rather deeply--and to good effect--in matters of the day.