Michael Witmore, a scholar of Shakespeare and early modern literature as well as a pioneer in the digital analysis of Shakespeareâs texts, is Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Prior to that, he was a Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin where he directed the Working Group for Digital Inquiry, a group of humanists who use computers to assist in traditional humanities research.
His books include Shakespeare and Early Modern Religion, co-edited with David Loewenstein (2014); Landscapes of the Passing Strange: Reflections from Shakespeare (2010), a collaboration with noted writer and photographer Rosamond Purcell; Shakespearean Metaphysics (2008); Pretty Creatures: Children and Fiction in the English Renaissance (2007); Culture of Accidents: Unexpected Knowledges in Early Modern England (2001); and Childhood and Childrenâs Books in Early Modern Europe, 1550-1800 (2006), which he co-edited. He is currently writing a book on the digital analysis of Shakespeareâs texts with Jonathan Hope, and shares work in progress on his blog: www.winedarksea.org.
Witmore earned an A.B. in English at Vassar College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley.
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The Folger Shakespeare Library, founded by Henry Clay Folger and his wife, Emily, is a library focused on William Shakespeare and his era, aimed at scholarly research rather than ornamental purposes.
How did Henry Folger finance his collecting efforts?
Henry Folger financed his collecting efforts through his long career at Standard Oil, reinvesting stock dividends, acquiring profitable shares, and borrowing from influential colleagues such as John D. Rockefeller.
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The Folger Shakespeare Library was founded by Henry Clay Folger and his wife, Emily.
Henryâs father, Henry Clay Folger, Sr., was a ninth-generation descendant of the Nantucket settler Peter Folger, whose daughter, Abiah, was Benjamin Franklinâs mother. Henry attended Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn before entering Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1875. At Amherst Folger won prizes in English composition and oratory, sang in the glee club and in a fraternity quartet, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. It was there that he developed an interest in William Shakespeare, which deepened during his senior year after he heard a lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Correspondence from 1904 between Henry Clay Folger and actress Julia Marlowe regarding Shakespearean acting. At the time that they exchanged letters, Marlowe had just completed a run as Juliet in a New York production of Romeo and Juliet, and the Folger Shakespeare Library had not yet been established.
Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library; CC-BY-SA 4.0
Upon his graduation from Amherst in 1879, Folger took nighttime classes in law at Columbia University (LL.B., 1881) while working as a clerk for Charles Pratt & Company, part of the Standard Oil group of companies. In 1908 he became a director of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and in 1911 he became president of the Standard Oil Company of New York. Under his direction the firm prospered, and he was made chairman of the board in 1923. He retired in 1928.
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The exterior of the Folger Shakespeare Library is a classic Art Deco-style facade of white marble, with bas-relief scenes from Shakespeareâs plays adorning the frontage.
Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library; CC-BY-SA 4.0
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The Reading Room in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., is open to researchers.
Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library; CC-BY-SA 4.0
Folger and his wife, Emily Jordan Folger (1858â1936), lived primarily in Brooklyn. They planned for nine years to build a library of Shakespearean materials on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and in 1928 the U.S. Congress approved their project, thereby permitting the Folgers to purchase land that had been intended for the expansion of the Library of Congress. Although Henry died just as construction began in 1930, Emily oversaw the completion of the library and assisted with funding in the midst of the Great Depression, personally contributing millions to the completion of the project. She remained active with the library until her death in 1936.
Collecting Shakespeare: How the Folgers built their library
Henry and Emily Folger built a purpose-driven library focused on Shakespeare and his era, unlike the âgentlemanâs librariesâ popular during Americaâs Gilded Ageâcollections that largely served to signal wealth or general cultural refinement. Their collecting began in 1889 with Henry Folgerâs purchase of a rare 1685 Fourth Folio of Shakespeareâs plays. The vision for the library was scholarly rather than ornamental, and the Folgers collected works dating as far back as the introduction of the printing press in England in 1476.
Henry Folgerâs long career at Standard Oil financed his collecting efforts. He reinvested stock dividends, acquired profitable shares in subsidiaries such as Magnolia Petroleumâwhich was acquired by Standard Oil during his tenure as chairman of the boardâand borrowed from several trust companies and influential colleagues, including industrialist John D. Rockefeller.
Working through agents and major auction houses in the United States and Britain, the Folgers gained a reputation for methodical acquisitions. Their rival, railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington, prioritized first editions in pristine condition. The Folgers, by contrast, favored breadth over spotless copiesâoften valuing marginalia (readersâ handwritten notes) and provenance (a bookâs recorded ownership) over visual aesthetics.
Learn about the First Folio edition (1623) of William Shakespeareâs plays and its allure for collectors and scholars. In addition, take a look at the Hinman collator, a machine originally developed to help scholars detect minute differences between copies of the First Folio.
Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library; CC-BY-SA 4.0
By the time the library opened on April 23, 1932, the same day traditionally celebrated as Shakespeareâs birthday, the Folgers had acquired 82 of the approximately 235 surviving copies of Shakespeareâs First Folio (the first published edition of Shakespeareâs collected works). Their collection also included more than 160 quartos (early individual editions of Shakespeareâs plays), maps, association copies (books owned or marked by notable individuals), manuscripts, theatrical artifacts, and printed ephemera such as playbills. The scope and scale of the holdings set new benchmarks in literary collecting.
