Edward E. Ayer
Encyclopedia
Edward Everett Ayer was an American business magnate, best remembered for the endowments of his substantial collections of books and original manuscripts from Native American
and colonial-era
history and ethnology
, which were donated to the Newberry Library
and Field Museum of Natural History
in Chicago
. Ayer had over time built an immense fortune out of supplying timber to the 19th century’s fast-growing railroad industry
. However, it was a chance encounter in his youth with a book that inspired Ayer's lifelong investments of time and money that resulted one of the largest collections of historical and American literature accumulated by the early 20th century. That book was William H. Prescott
’s famous History of the Conquest of Mexico, which Ayer first read in a small library attached to a silver mine south of Tucson
Ayer had been guarding as part of his military service. By his own account, he was indelibly marked by what he read and it became the foundation for his insatiable interest in Indian Americana literature.
since arriving from England two hundred years earlier. Like the colonizers who first came to the New World
, Edward's father Elbridge Gerry Ayer was drawn to the adventure and economic possibilities on the frontier, and moved to Southport (modern-day Kenosha, Wisconsin
) where Edward was born in 1841. His older sister Mary was possibly “the first white child born” there. A military road established by Congress turned Southport into an increasingly significant trade route. Ayer’s father opened a general store, contracted a blacksmith, and even dabbled in grain brokering. He sold his enterprise to buy land five miles south where a train station was to be built. There he had the fortune to participate in the planning of the town of Harvard, Illinois
. His efforts led to limited railroad construction contracts. Young Edward was educated at the first school built in Harvard, where he recalls "books were very scarce...I virtually never saw any but the Bible and Josephus
' works."
In 1860 at the age of nineteen, Ayer headed west to Silver City, Nevada
where he found employment at a quartz mine. With money saved from this hard labour Ayer was able to move to San Francisco, where he stayed with family friends and got a job at a saw mill, gaining his first experiences in the industry which would later make his fortune.
As California entered the American Civil War Ayer enlisted in the First California Cavalry Volunteers in August 1861, spending several years in the American southwest on military service. During this time, Ayer was stationed guarding the Cerro Colorado silver mine near the Mexican border. The mine had been supplied with a small library by its owners (donated by Colonel Samuel Colt
, of Colt revolver
fame), and it was here that Ayer came across a volume of Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico. At roughly twenty years old, this was the first library Ayer had ever seen, and upon reading Conquest of Mexico he describes the experience as one that “seemed to open up an absolutely new world to me”.
Ayer returned to Harvard, Illinois at the conclusion of his service in 1864, where he received a third share in his father's general store. Within a month, Ayer was in Chicago on business where he happened past a bookseller and negotiated to purchase Prescott’s full five-volume set on the conquests of Mexico and Peru. He recalls that day in his memoir:
Ayer's nephew was the noted artist Elbridge Ayer Burbank
, most renowned for his many paintings of Native American personages.
(inclusive of Central America
). Ayer was a charter Trustee of Chicago's Newberry Library
when it incorporated in 1892. In 1897, he determined to donate his roughly 50,000 pieces to the library, but because of the enormity of the undertaking, this took until 1911 to complete. As of 1941, three major holograph
s have been discovered in the collection: Bernardino de Sahagún
’s Latin-Spanish-Nahua dictionary, Father Junípero Serra
’s 1769 diary, and Father Francisco Ximénez
' bicolumnar transcription-translation of the K'iche' Maya oral tradition (today known as Popol Vuh
.).
Ayer was also an early benefactor of the Field Museum of Natural History
(FMNH), instrumental in its foundation and serving as its first president. The FMNH arose from the collections assembled for the World's Columbian Exposition
in 1893, as the curator in charge of the collections F.W. Putnam sought to establish a permanent exhibition of the materials. As one of the museum's incorporators, Ayer set to work establishing an endowment fund, and approached the retail magnate Marshall Field
(after whom the museum was later named) for contributions. Field was initially reluctant, reportedly declaring "I don't know anything about a museum, and I don't care to know anything about a museum". However Ayer was eventually able to persuade Field to relent, supposedly through admonishing Field with "You can sell dry goods until hell freezes over, but in 25 years, you will be absolutely forgotten." Field contributed one million dollars towards the establishment, and a further eight million was bequeathed to the museum from Field's estate upon his death.
Ayer himself led in the expansion of the museum's library, in 1894 donating 400 of his own volumes on ornithology
and a further 600 he had bought from the collection of Charles Cory. Ayer continued to expand to the museum library holdings with further purchases of natural history
collections in ichthyology
and other topics, and donations from his own acquisitions. By 1926 in the year before his death the Ayer Collection at FMNH was one of the most extensive and foremost of its type in the world.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
and colonial-era
Spanish colonization of the Americas
Colonial expansion under the Spanish Empire was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions...
history and ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
, which were donated to the Newberry Library
Newberry Library
The Newberry Library is a privately endowed, independent research library for the humanities and social sciences in Chicago, Illinois. Although it is private, non-circulating library, the Newberry Library is free and open to the public...
and Field Museum of Natural History
Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It sits on Lake Shore Drive next to Lake Michigan, part of a scenic complex known as the Museum Campus Chicago...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Ayer had over time built an immense fortune out of supplying timber to the 19th century’s fast-growing railroad industry
Rail transport in the United States
Presently, most rail transport in the United States is based on freight train shipments. The U.S. rail industry has experienced repeated convulsions due to changing U.S. economic needs and the rise of automobile, bus, and air transport....
. However, it was a chance encounter in his youth with a book that inspired Ayer's lifelong investments of time and money that resulted one of the largest collections of historical and American literature accumulated by the early 20th century. That book was William H. Prescott
William H. Prescott
William Hickling Prescott was an American historian and Hispanist, who is widely recognized by historiographers to have been the first American scientific historian...
’s famous History of the Conquest of Mexico, which Ayer first read in a small library attached to a silver mine south of Tucson
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
Ayer had been guarding as part of his military service. By his own account, he was indelibly marked by what he read and it became the foundation for his insatiable interest in Indian Americana literature.
Early life
Until 1836, the Ayer family had remained in MassachusettsMassachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
since arriving from England two hundred years earlier. Like the colonizers who first came to the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
, Edward's father Elbridge Gerry Ayer was drawn to the adventure and economic possibilities on the frontier, and moved to Southport (modern-day Kenosha, Wisconsin
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Kenosha is a city and the county seat of Kenosha County in the State of Wisconsin in United States. With a population of 99,218 as of May 2011, Kenosha is the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Kenosha is also the fourth-largest city on the western shore of Lake Michigan, following Chicago,...
) where Edward was born in 1841. His older sister Mary was possibly “the first white child born” there. A military road established by Congress turned Southport into an increasingly significant trade route. Ayer’s father opened a general store, contracted a blacksmith, and even dabbled in grain brokering. He sold his enterprise to buy land five miles south where a train station was to be built. There he had the fortune to participate in the planning of the town of Harvard, Illinois
Harvard, Illinois
Harvard is a city located in McHenry County in the northeastern corner of the U.S. state of Illinois, approximately south of the Illinois/Wisconsin border. The population was 7,996 at the 2000 census...
. His efforts led to limited railroad construction contracts. Young Edward was educated at the first school built in Harvard, where he recalls "books were very scarce...I virtually never saw any but the Bible and Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
' works."
In 1860 at the age of nineteen, Ayer headed west to Silver City, Nevada
Silver City, Nevada
Silver City is a town in Lyon County, Nevada, USA, near the Lyon/Carson border. The population as of the 2000 census was 170....
where he found employment at a quartz mine. With money saved from this hard labour Ayer was able to move to San Francisco, where he stayed with family friends and got a job at a saw mill, gaining his first experiences in the industry which would later make his fortune.
As California entered the American Civil War Ayer enlisted in the First California Cavalry Volunteers in August 1861, spending several years in the American southwest on military service. During this time, Ayer was stationed guarding the Cerro Colorado silver mine near the Mexican border. The mine had been supplied with a small library by its owners (donated by Colonel Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt was an American inventor and industrialist. He was the founder of Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company , and is widely credited with popularizing the revolver. Colt's innovative contributions to the weapons industry have been described by arms historian James E...
, of Colt revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
fame), and it was here that Ayer came across a volume of Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico. At roughly twenty years old, this was the first library Ayer had ever seen, and upon reading Conquest of Mexico he describes the experience as one that “seemed to open up an absolutely new world to me”.
Ayer returned to Harvard, Illinois at the conclusion of his service in 1864, where he received a third share in his father's general store. Within a month, Ayer was in Chicago on business where he happened past a bookseller and negotiated to purchase Prescott’s full five-volume set on the conquests of Mexico and Peru. He recalls that day in his memoir:
I feel that that day, taking those books home, was, perhaps, the happiest day of my life up to that time; and going home I only touched the earth in high places. And I want to reiterate that the finding of Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico in that mine in Arizona in ’62, has been responsible and is to be credited as the principal force that has given me a vast amount of enjoyment in this world, and is absolutely responsible for the “Ayer Collection” in the Newberry Library, Chicago.
Ayer's nephew was the noted artist Elbridge Ayer Burbank
Elbridge Ayer Burbank
Elbridge Ayer Burbank was an American artist who sketched and painted more than 1200 portraits of Native Americans from 125 tribes. He studied art in Chicago and in his 30s traveled to Munich, Germany for additional studies with notable German artists...
, most renowned for his many paintings of Native American personages.
Book and manuscript collections
Edward Ayer went on to amass an enormous collection of books and manuscripts on American history as it pertained to the North American IndianIndigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
(inclusive of Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
). Ayer was a charter Trustee of Chicago's Newberry Library
Newberry Library
The Newberry Library is a privately endowed, independent research library for the humanities and social sciences in Chicago, Illinois. Although it is private, non-circulating library, the Newberry Library is free and open to the public...
when it incorporated in 1892. In 1897, he determined to donate his roughly 50,000 pieces to the library, but because of the enormity of the undertaking, this took until 1911 to complete. As of 1941, three major holograph
Holograph
A holograph is a document written entirely in the handwriting of the person whose signature it bears. Some countries or local jurisdictions within certain countries give legal standing to specific types of holographic documents, generally waiving requirements that they be witnessed...
s have been discovered in the collection: Bernardino de Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain . Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he journeyed to New Spain in 1529, and spent more than 50 years conducting interviews regarding Aztec...
’s Latin-Spanish-Nahua dictionary, Father Junípero Serra
Junípero Serra
Blessed Junípero Serra, O.F.M., , known as Fra Juníper Serra in Catalan, his mother tongue was a Majorcan Franciscan friar who founded the mission chain in Alta California of the Las Californias Province in New Spain—present day California, United States. Fr...
’s 1769 diary, and Father Francisco Ximénez
Francisco Ximénez
Francisco Ximénez was a Dominican priest who is known for his conservation of an indigenous Maya narrative known today as Popol Vuh. There is, as Woodruff has noted, little biographical data about Ximénez...
' bicolumnar transcription-translation of the K'iche' Maya oral tradition (today known as Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic Quiché kingdom in Guatemala's western highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community," "Book of Counsel," or more literally as "Book of the People."...
.).
Ayer was also an early benefactor of the Field Museum of Natural History
Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It sits on Lake Shore Drive next to Lake Michigan, part of a scenic complex known as the Museum Campus Chicago...
(FMNH), instrumental in its foundation and serving as its first president. The FMNH arose from the collections assembled for the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
in 1893, as the curator in charge of the collections F.W. Putnam sought to establish a permanent exhibition of the materials. As one of the museum's incorporators, Ayer set to work establishing an endowment fund, and approached the retail magnate Marshall Field
Marshall Field
Marshall Field was founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores.-Life and career:...
(after whom the museum was later named) for contributions. Field was initially reluctant, reportedly declaring "I don't know anything about a museum, and I don't care to know anything about a museum". However Ayer was eventually able to persuade Field to relent, supposedly through admonishing Field with "You can sell dry goods until hell freezes over, but in 25 years, you will be absolutely forgotten." Field contributed one million dollars towards the establishment, and a further eight million was bequeathed to the museum from Field's estate upon his death.
Ayer himself led in the expansion of the museum's library, in 1894 donating 400 of his own volumes on ornithology
Ornithology
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...
and a further 600 he had bought from the collection of Charles Cory. Ayer continued to expand to the museum library holdings with further purchases of natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
collections in ichthyology
Ichthyology
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...
and other topics, and donations from his own acquisitions. By 1926 in the year before his death the Ayer Collection at FMNH was one of the most extensive and foremost of its type in the world.
External links
- Edward E. Ayer Collection, at the Newberry Library