LIBR 280 Library Study: Hoose Library of Philosophy at the University of Southern California

Library Study

Hoose Library of Philosophy at the University of Southern California

Melissa Townsend-Crow

San José State University

Prof. Elizabeth Wrenn-Estes

LIBR 280-12

May 7, 2013

Introduction

        Hoose Library of Philosophy is an integral part of the entire USC University Library system. In addition to being oldest library at the University of Southern California, it is also the most beautiful library on campus, in my opinion. The Hoose Philosophy Library is located on the second floor of the Seeley W. Mudd Hall of Philosophy.  The Mission Statement of Hoose clarifies the more defined role the library has taken:

The mission of the Hoose Library of Philosophy is to serve the educational and research needs of graduate and undergraduate students, as well as faculty, regarding all aspects of academic philosophy and its allied disciplines (from USC libraries website).

       

     The Hoose collection currently contains over 50,000 volumes housed in various library locations, including the special collections vaults in Doheny Memorial Library and the Grand Depository where materials which are not used as frequently but still circulating are stored.  The Hoose Library houses the Gomperz and Flewelling Philosophy Collections. These special collections include first edition copies of all but one of Immanuel Kant's works, as well as Hume's Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) with marginal notes by the  author and a signed, 1651 first edition  of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan.

History

Hoose Library is the oldest departmental library on campus. In fact, my research has led me to the conclusion that the department of philosophy actually evolved after the library was established. Despite being named for beloved USC professor and founder of a rudimentary philosophy department, James Harmon Hoose, the Hoose Library of Philosophy was founded by Dr. Ralph Tyler Flewelling.

 James Harmon Hoose

James Harmon Hoose left New York to retire in sunny Southern California. However, it seems Dr. Hoose was only happy when teaching and so, in 1896, at the age of 60, he became the fourteenth faculty member at USC as Professor of Pedagogy and Psychology. According to Knoles,

The vigorous personality of the new professor, his aggressiveness, and his complete devotion to his work immediately made a deep impression upon the school ; his great knowledge and wonderful enthusiasm for teaching soon drew to him the more thoughtful and earnest of the students. Though about sixty years of age, the professor was robust in body and alert in mind ; his manner, so different from that of the ordinary professor of the time, was confusing to many in his classes. He was master of the students, master of the subjects which he taught, and under all circumstances complete master of himself. He was never bound by conventions, nor was he limited by text-books or courses  (Knoles, pp. 75-76).

Hoose was the first head of the philosophy department, but he was a liberal arts school faculty member so he taught classes in pedagogy (now education), sociology, history, economics, and psychology as well as philosophy until he was forced to retire in 1912. Whole departments were developed from his classes and he was a founding member of USC's Graduate Council, which evolved into the Graduate School, from which he received a well-earned honorary degree in 1913.

Dr. Ralph Tyler Flewelling

Flewelling was born in  Michigan in 1871. He attended country schools, then went to the University of Michigan, Alma College, and the Garrett Biblical Institute. He became a Methodist minister assigned to a church near the Boston Public Library, a fortuitous location since Flewelling was an avid reader. He made the acquaintance of German philosopher Rudolf Eucken and the two remained lifelong friends. Eucken would later help Dr. Flewelling with his acquisitions for the Hoose Library.

It was in Boston, presumably, that Flewelling encountered the philosophical school of Personalism. He studied the work of Borden Parker Bowne, professor of philosophy and a leader in the school of Personalism.  Flewelling maintained a correspondence with Bowne's widow throughout his early years at USC. According to Nethery, Flewelling:

lost some of the more traditional tenets of his faith, including the virgin birth of Christ – though decidedly not that of the incarnation. There was never a more steadfast Christian than Ralph Tyler Flewelling; but it was the humanity of Jesus that was central to his mature philosophy and religion …

By 1916, at the age of forty-five, he was ready to begin an essentially new career in education; and a call from the young and struggling University of Southern California gave him the opportunity he sought (Nethery, 1976 p xi).

Department of Philosophy

It seems very strange now to read of USC as "young and struggling,"  but it is important to note because keeping that in mind allows one to realize just how remarkable the Hoose Library of Philosophy is and why it is so. When Flewelling began teaching at the University if Southern California in the Fall of 1917, the Philosophy Department did not yet exist. The total annual budget for books was $1500 (Nethery, p 14). There was a building that had been used as an Army mess hall that the Army donated to the University after the end of World War I and this building was used for the Philosophy, Psychology, Science, and Engineering classes, and faculty offices. Dr. Flewelling had an office which leaked when it rained, a small room for lectures and he had allowed his students access to his private library (Nethery, p 15).  Flewelling held a seminar on Personalism and the seminar was attended by a young medical student named Seeley G. Mudd. So impressed was Mudd that he brought his father, Colonel Seeley W. Mudd to a lecture. Colonel Mudd had become wealthy from copper mining in Cyprus. It was through Colonel Mudd's donations, gifts, and trusts that the USC School of Philosophy and its Hoose Library were built.

By 1921, the Philosophy department had been moved to a wing of the newly built Bovard Administration building.  It no longer leaked, they had a seminar room and an adjoining room "which may be used as a stack room for books" (Nethery p. 18), but still no departmental library.

 Bovard 1921 and 2013

While assigned to the Army Educational Corps, Flewelling received a letter from then USC president Bovard which said there were plans to build a Hall of Philosophy dedicated to former USC professor James Harmon Hoose. Instead, the administration building was constructed and donations earmarked for the Hoose building, which Bovard agreed might be used to buy books for the philosophy department, amounted to only about $200.00. After his death, Dr. Hoose's personal philosophy library was donated to the University's general library, but nothing to the Philosophy department he helped to found.

Nethery cites a letter written by Colonel Seeley W. Mudd to then University President, Dr. Rufus Von Kleinsmid in October 1922 in which Col. Seeley has made a gift of stocks which, when cashed, valued at over $10,000.00. In the letter he specifies that "all proceeds from the sale of this stock must be put in a special fund to be used solely for the purchase of books for the Library of the Department of Philosophy." In the letter, Col. Mudd also states that he is making an endowment of $40,000 to $60,000 to the Department of Philosophy, "the income of which is to be devoted largely to the purchase of books from time to time" (p. 21) Unlike Carnegie grants which were to be used only for the building of the library facilities because Carnegie believed that communities should build their collections based community identity and tastes, Mudd wanted his donations to create the library's collections. In other words, the collection started before the building.

Colonel Seeley W. Mudd

Almost immediately, Dr. Flewelling wrote his friend Rudolf Eucken to ask if he knew anyone who had philosophy books to sell? And thus began Flewelling's quest for acquisitions. On January 4, 1924, he writes to his friend, Florence Wheeler, librarian of the Leominster Public Library in Massachusetts, 

We have recently come into a large gift of money, probably the largest endowment for a philosophy library that there is anywhere. Just now I am spending over $12,000 for immediate purchases. This is not for the general library, but just for philosophy alone, and so I am able to build up a genuine research library. (Nethery, p. 22).

Setting the Standard

"A genuine research library" instead of a mere wing in the planned Edward L. Doheny, Jr. Memorial Library (another beautiful library at USC) meant that the Hoose Library of Philosophy set the precedent for every other department at the University of Southern California to seek its own departmental library. In 2013, there are 23 libraries, 17 of them are departmental libraries in addition to the two main libraries, Doheny and Leavey, the Grand Depository, the ONE National Gay and Lesbian archives, the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island, and the USC Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study (ROTC)  :

• Accounting/Crocker Business Library, Marshall School of Business
• The Helen Topping Architecture and Fine Arts (AFA) Library
• Cinematic Arts Library, which is located on the ground floor of the Doheny Memorial Library, which also houses:
• The Louis B. Mayer Film and Television Study Center
• The David L. Wolper Center for the Study of the Documentary
• The East Asian Library, which contains:
• The Chinese Collection
• The Japanese Collection
• The Korean Heritage Collection
• Andrus Gerontology Library
• Asa V. Call Law Library
• Music Library
• Norris Medical Library
• Science & Engineering Library
• The Social Work Information Center (most social work books and journals are located in Doheny)
• Von KleinSmid Center Library for International and Public Affairs (VKC Library)
• Jennifer Ann Wilson Dental Library & Learning Center
• Special Collections and University Archives
• The Shoah Foundation, located at Leavey Library, dedicated to researching the Holocaust and documenting survivor accounts of the Shoah or Holocaust
• Hoose Library of Philosophy

All these are in addition to the USC Archives and Digital Library. New departmental libraries evolve out of subject collections housed in other libraries, but Hoose was the first to develop a deliberate departmental library with the generous help of Colonel Seeley W. Mudd and all because his son, Dr. Seeley G. Mudd was impressed by Dr. Flewelling's seminar on the Personalism school of philosophy which essentially (as I understand  it, anyway) is the study and/or contemplation of  the Person  in relation to God,  and nature, and specifically animals;  that is, I believe, examining one's soul. Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, St. Augustine, Kant, and Descartes are among those who wrote about some form of this school of thought. These were also among the first books purchased for the Philosophy Library by Flewelling.

Dr. Seeley G. Mudd, MD

By 1930, the beautiful Seeley W. Mudd Hall of Philosophy was complete and the Hoose Library of Philosophy was installed on the second floor. 

Mudd Hall Courtyard

Eva L. Fitch, First Librarian

In 1924, Charlotte Brown was the University librarian, but in September, Hoose Library acquired its own departmental librarian. Eva Fitch earned her undergraduate degree in classical languages from the University of Iowa. She trained as a librarian at the University of Illinois, and taught high school Latin, and worked as a cataloguer in the libraries of Drake University, the University of Missouri, and the University of Iowa (Nethery p. 30). No information is available about what her salary might have been, but in an e-mail from the current Hoose Library Librarian, Ross Scimeca,

The first librarian was Eva L. Fitch. She received a BA in classical languages from the State University of Iowa. Her professional training was from the University of Illinois. With regard to salaries, USC never keeps a record of that but I would assume that the salary was about the same as what academic librarians in the state would have received in the late 1920s. There was not much turnover in the position of librarian at the Hoose Library.

Ms Fitch seems to have been well-liked and well- respected by faculty and students. When she passed away, Flewelling delivered a eulogy at her memorial service as did Professor Herbert L. Searles.  She remained the Hoose librarian until her death in 1937. Up until that time, Ms. Fitch catalogued the Philosophy collection herself with the help of junior faculty members and student assistants. After her death, that task was taken over by the Cataloguing Department of the University Library (Nethery, p. 71).

Article dated October 1937 about the memorial service held for Eva L. Fitch. Dr. Flewelling was the eulogist.

Other Founding Personalities

Wildon Carr, Benjamin Apworth Gould (B.A.G.)  Fuller and F.C.S. Schiller were philosophy professors who worked with Flewelling in getting acquisitions for the library.

Heinrich Gomperz was an eminent German philosopher of the time for whom the Gomperz collection is named. He was a rare book collector who fled from the Nazi takeover of his native Austria in 1938 and joined the faculty of USC. The Gomperz collection is composed of 3,500 volumes of first and early editions of European philosophy from about 1700 to 1850 that was purchased by Flewelling on behalf of the University.

The Flewelling collection is about 2,500 volumes, which include manuscripts, incunabula, and such works as Hobbe’s Leviathan (1651), and Locke’s Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (1690).

Heinrich Gomperz

Hoose Library of Philosophy at Mudd Hall Demographics

From its inception, Hoose Library has been an academic library and, as such, it would have been intended for students. University students at the time were primarily white, middle to upper middle class and generally male, although USC has always been coed and has had women students in each graduating class since the first commencement 1884 where a women was valedictorian.

Since its dedication in 1930, the Hoose Library of Philosophy collection as acquired by Dr. Flewelling has remained largely unchanged. Except for the addition of three computers and a printer (which I never saw), there is no technology in the space, unlike Leavey which has over 200 computer workspaces.

Collection

·         50,000+ volumes on philosophy as well as the philosophical foundations of other disciplines

·         Remarkable pieces of the collection include:

o   First edition copies of all but one of Immanuel Kant's works

o   David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), with marginal notes by the author

o   Rare medieval manuscripts, including Summa Naturalium by Alberyus Magnus (circa 1494 C.E.) and Lives of the Philosophers and Poets by Walter Burley (circa 1477 C. E.)

Spaces

Main Reading Room (circulating monograph collection):

115 feet long by 22 feet wide by 38 feet high

portraits of Flewelling, Hoose, Gomperz, among others:

Mosaics:

Stained glass windows:

Fireplace:

Reading "nooks" between the stacks:

Ralph Tyler Flewelling Reading Room (reference materials, journals and monographic series):

Technology:

Computers, Copying, and Printing\

Two Public Access Kiosks

One CD-ROM Resource PC

One Public Printer

Faculty

Ross Scimeca, Head, Philosophy Library. In an e-mail, Dr. Scimeca stated: 

Before becoming librarian here, I served as a graduate student assistant for Wallace Nethery, who was then the librarian for the Hoose Library when I came to USC for my doctorate in philosophy. [After receiving my Ph.D. in philosophy---I went to our library science school for my MLS, but still worked at the Hoose Library as a library assistant---the first ever-- before becoming the librarian.]

Nethery's book implies that junior philosophy faculty served as library assistants to Philosophy librarian Fitch.

Conclusion
One interesting thing I noted is that the creation of this library arose from a need and a desire to provide research materials, information if we will, to students of a specific, small, department that wasn't even a department until the library started coming together.  It wasn't built by librarians but by a very determined and charismatic Methodist minister turned philosopher turned university professor turned book hunter. Dr., Flewelling's quest to acquire books for the library could – and does – fill a couple of books of his own, including his autobiography. His correspondence, housed in the Hoose library, naturally, provide the story of not only the library, but the University department which grew because of the library and its director. Because it is an academic library, I think that only makes sense. Of course, the department has had a librarian to run it since it was established.

The reason I chose the Hoose Library of Philosophy for this study is the way the library makes me feel when I'm there. Not only is the most beautiful library I have ever seen, it feels like I always think a library should feel. It is quiet, except for the occasional crisp sound of a page turning. It smells like books and wood polish. There is very little technology, mainly books. When I walk into that library I am at once in awe and comfortable. I don't care much for reading about philosophy, but even when I bring my own books, the atmosphere of Hoose library is not only comforting, it just feels like a library should.

References

Masters, N. (2010).  "Inside the USC Libraries:  Hoose Philosophy Library."  USC Libraries' website.  Retrieved from http://dotsx.usc.edu/newsblog/index.php/main/comments/inside_the_usc_libraries_hoose_philosophy_library/

Netherly, W. (1976).  Dr. Flewelling &the Hoose library.  Los Angeles, CA:  University of Southern California Press

Quinlan, C.  (2011).  The essential libraries:  The USC Libraries’ Strategic Plan 2011–2013.  Retrieved from http://www.usc.edu/libraries/essential/ on 04/29/13.

University of Southern California (USC) (2013).  Hoose Library of Philosophy.  Retrieved from http://www.usc.edu/libraries/locations/philosophy/

USC Faculty Portal (2005) "Looking back at USC's Faculty."  Retrieved from http://www.usc.edu/academe/faculty/especially_for/faculty/looking_back_at_the_faculty.html