Kenneth W. Rendell
Encyclopedia
Kenneth W. Rendell is an American
dealer and expert in historical letters, manuscript
s, and document
s. He is president of Kenneth W. Rendell, Inc., in South Natick, Massachusetts, and the Kenneth W. Rendell Gallery in New York City
. Rendell is also founder of the Museum of World War II
in Natick, Massachusetts
.
Rendell's first wife was Diana J. Rendell, also a dealer of rare books and manuscripts. They had two sons, Jeffery and Jason. After a divorce, Rendell married Shirley McNerney, a former Boston news reporter, in 1976. They have a daughter, Julia.
medieval coin
s for his friend's collection of presidential letters, and immediately felt an intimacy with history that was absent in coin collecting
. In the 1950s Rendell was already a specialist dealer in American colonial coins, but within a few months following his conviction for passing forged coins his new interest propelled him toward a pursuit of history. Swept away by his new passion, he bought the bulk of an autograph
dealer's estate at a New Hampshire
auction
, and instantly became a dealer to pay for his purchases. He has said, "I have loved every day since then as the temporary possessor of the written record of mankind's greatest heroes and villains as well as the countless individuals who wittingly or unwittingly became a part of the dramas of history."
In 1959 Rendell published his first catalog, offering for sale autograph material of American presidents. From 1960 to 1965 subsequent catalogs offered historical letters and documents in many areas of American history, beginning with the Revolution
and gradually moving forward in time as his knowledge about autographs, and of historical facts and personalities deepened. From 1966 to 1970 his inventory expanded to include American literature
, then English history and literature
, followed by Continental history
and literature
. During the 1970s Rendell opened offices in London
and Paris
, and for most of the decade he traveled extensively in Europe
, searching for material. He also issued specialized catalogs ranging from The Ancient World
and Renaissance
Europe to The American Frontier.
Business continued to grow in the 1980s, but with institutional budgets shrinking, Rendell began to focus on private collectors and their collection development, and opened a gallery in New York in 1987 to better serve the walk-in customer. (Sales in the autograph business have traditionally been through mail-order catalogs.) The gallery was first located across from Carnegie Hall
on 57th Street
. It then moved east, across town to the Place des Antiquaires at 57th Street and Lexington Avenue, and in 1993, the gallery moved to its present location on Madison Avenue at 77th Street. In 1992 he also opened a gallery in Beverly Hills, which closed 10 years later. Rendell further sought to introduce more people to historical letters and documents through leading antique and art shows
. Since 1990 he has exhibited at the New York Winter Antiques Show, followed by shows in San Francisco, Palm Beach
, Chicago
, Dallas, Basel
, and Maastricht
. Among the libraries he has built is Bill and Melinda Gates personal library.
To date, Rendell has issued more than 300 catalogs. Among the rarities he has owned are a document of Michelangelo
, a letter of Lucrezia Borgia
, and a blood-stained letter of the Marquis de Sade
.
houses a reference library that is also unrivaled, as well the most sophisticated conservation and questioned documents laboratory in the field.
A routine part of the Rendell business involves authenticating genuine material and detecting forgeries. Questioned material of recent years has included handwritten creations of Benjamin Franklin
, Abraham Lincoln
, Dorothy Parker
, Ronald Reagan
, and Elvis Presley
, to name a few. And whenever significant autograph material that is suspect surfaces, Rendell is among the experts called upon to render his opinion. Three such forgeries are the Hitler Diaries
, Mormon
letters, and the Jack the Ripper Diary.
In 1983 Rendell was hired as a consultant by Newsweek
and helped unmask the Hitler diaries, calling them "bad forgeries but a great hoax
." He wrote the cover story, revealing them as forgeries. The hoax itself began two years earlier, when a reporter for the German magazine Der Stern got wind of the recovery of more than 50 diaries from a downed Nazi plane. They were purportedly in Hitler's hand. Rendell used forensic methods to analyze the handwriting, quickly concluding that the diaries were not particularly good fakes. At his trail, forger Konrad Kujau
, a German dealer in military memorabilia openly admitted guilt and gladly signed Hitler "autographs" for those present.
Rendell was caught up in the case of Mark Hofmann
, who began by forging Mormonabilia and ended up by killing two people in Salt Lake City in an attempt to cover up his forgeries. Rendell examined one of the forgeries, the Salamander letter
; he found that the ink, paper and postmark were all consistent with the period, and he did not believe the letter was forged. After Hofmann confessed to forging the letter, Rendell maintained that he had found no evidence of forgery, but had never pronounced the letter authentic. Hofmann is now serving a life sentence in the Utah State Prison
.
A publicity brochure for The Diary of Jack the Ripper declared 7 October 1993 "the day the world's greatest murder mystery will be solved," and on hand were over 200,000 copies for advanced sales to fans of true-crime stories. This time, Kenneth Rendell was engaged by Time Warner
to analyze the diary, which took more than 100 years to emerge even though the diary's author wrote, "I place this now in a place where it shall be found." In 1992, the Englishman Mike Barrett announced he had acquired the diary from a deceased friend and had deduced the identity of its author. In his analysis, Rendell was struck by the handwriting style, which seemed more 20th century than Victorian
. Written in a genuine Victorian scrapbook
, but with 20 pages at the front end torn out, it also gave the impression that the removed pages were used by the scrapbook's original owner. Rendell ruled the diary a fake, but the book was nevertheless released by the British publisher, with the diary's dubious authenticity noted on the dust jacket.
Rendell has commented on the forged 'Black Diaries' of Sir. Roger Casement
, the Irish rebel. In a survey of the Hitler Diaries, Mark Hofmann and other forgery cases, Kenneth W Rendell has stated that 'it can be an error to conclude from an examination of only a few factors that the writing is genuine or forged'. (26) It has reasonably been pointed out as well that a forensic document examiner with no official English or Irish connections would be in a better position to provide an objective analysis of Casement's diaries, and indeed the task is one which would appear to require the services of a team of specialists.
, a part of the business that became very important in the late 1970s. In the two decades that followed, he evaluated virtually all the major collections donated to libraries and museums in the United States, including the literary archive of Random House
, the Northern Pacific Railroad archive (some ten million pieces), the archives of RKO and Paramount Pictures
, the Franklin D. Roosevelt
family papers, and the papers of Samuel L. Clemens, Johannes Brahms
, Igor Stravinsky
, George Gershwin
, Jerome Kern
, and Admiral Byrd, among numerous others. Rendell's appraisal clients included the Library of Congress
, the National Archives
, Federal Bureau of Investigation
and the Internal Revenue Service
, as well as the National Archives of Canada. In the 1990s he evaluated Richard Nixon
's White House
papers comprising forty-four million pieces and forty-five hundred hours of tapes. This appraisal was done for the former president, and the final agreed-upon evaluation settling his lawsuit over the seizure of his White House papers was within ten percent of his appraisal.
In the 1970s Rendell was involved in two appraisals that set the legal standards for determining the fair market value of historical letters and documents. In the first, the Otto Kerner
case, he represented the Internal Revenue Service; and in the second, he represented the taxpayer, the Northern Pacific Railroad. In both cases his evaluation was upheld with no compromise. These are the only cases to date in which the Tax Court
has not compromised between two conflicting values.
, the Society of American Archivists
, the American Library Association
, the American Association of Museums
, and the Association of College and Research Libraries
. He also wrote articles for their journals. (Later, he became president of the Manuscript Society and the International League of Autograph and Manuscript Dealers and was unanimously nominated president of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America
). He continues to speak on occasion for groups such as the Grolier Club
and Rare Book School
.
as "a fully staffed private collection containing the most comprehensive display of original World War II
artifacts on exhibit anywhere in the world." Formed over a period of more than 40 years, the collection documents in detail the events of the war, from the signing of the Versailles Treaty, which ended World War I
, to the Nuremberg
and Tokyo war crimes trials
, which brought the Second World War to its close.
On display are over 6,000 artifacts as well 83 mannequins outfitted in complete uniforms and military equipment. The collection includes highly important wartime letters, documents and manuscripts of all the major political and military leaders, as well as the papers of officers and soldiers of all ranks, concentration camp
inmates, and civilians. Adolf Hitler
, Franklin D. Roosevelt
, Sir Winston Churchill
, Dwight D. Eisenhower
, George S. Patton
, Bernard Montgomery, Joseph Stalin
, Erwin Rommel
, Benito Mussolini
, Joseph Mengele, Adolf Eichmann
, Raoul Wallenberg
, and Anne Frank
's family are all represented in original letters. Among the items of particular importance are Hitler's draft of the Munich Agreement
with his notations as well as Neville Chamberlain
's; the first message alerting the armed forces of the attack on Pearl Harbor
; General Patton's letter to the Sultan of Morocco announcing the American landings and threats of destruction; Montgomery's address to the troops before El Alamein
; Patton's annotated map for the invasion of Sicily; the complete plans for the D-Day
invasion in Normandy
; and Douglas MacArthur
's draft of the Japanese surrender terms.
Artifacts include Hitler's SA (Sturm Abteilung or Storm Trooper) shirt; his first sketch for the Nazi flag; his reading glasses; Patton's battle helmet; Montgomery's beret; and copies of Mein Kampf
(My Struggle / My Battle) belonging to Hitler, President Roosevelt, and General Patton. There are also five different Enigma code machines, including the ten-rotor T-52
, of which only five are extant; hundreds of spy weapons, clandestine radios and sabotage equipment, together with thousands of other artifacts that reflect everyday life on the home fronts and the battle fronts. The smallest artifacts on exhibit are the spy weapons and cameras; the largest are an American Sherman tank from the North African campaign
, a German Kubelwagen, a German Goliath tank
from Normandy and one of the very few surviving original landing craft (LCVP
) from the Pacific.
, mounted an exhibition of letters, diaries, artifacts and art from his collection, acquired over decades. The Grolier Club in New York City then displayed an abridged version of "The Western Pursuit of the American Dream," documenting "this national adventure through the actual words and artifacts of explorers, travelers, warriors, gold seekers, merchants, outlaws-dreamers all-who shaped the American frontier." The overview, which began with the Spanish in Mexico
and ended with filmmakers in Hollywood, gave "a sense of the struggle to tame the gorgeous wilderness that stretched beyond the tidy civilizations of the East." Among the highlights were letters of Davy Crockett
and Wild Bill Hickok
, Frank James
's playing cards, and an extraordinarily rare first-edition map of Lewis and Clark's journey.
Rendell is also co-editor of two books:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
dealer and expert in historical letters, manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s, and document
Document
The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings :* document, written document, papers...
s. He is president of Kenneth W. Rendell, Inc., in South Natick, Massachusetts, and the Kenneth W. Rendell Gallery in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Rendell is also founder of the Museum of World War II
Museum of World War II
The Museum of World War II is a private museum devoted to World War II located in Natick, Massachusetts, a few miles west of Boston. Visits to the museum are arranged several days each week by appointment....
in Natick, Massachusetts
Natick, Massachusetts
Natick is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. Natick is located near the center of the MetroWest region of Massachusetts, with a population of 33,006 at the 2010 census. Only west from Boston, Natick is considered part of the Greater Boston area...
.
Rendell's first wife was Diana J. Rendell, also a dealer of rare books and manuscripts. They had two sons, Jeffery and Jason. After a divorce, Rendell married Shirley McNerney, a former Boston news reporter, in 1976. They have a daughter, Julia.
Early to current business
Kenneth Rendell's proclivity for the trade surfaced while a boy of twelve, when he traded his collection of EnglishEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
medieval coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
s for his friend's collection of presidential letters, and immediately felt an intimacy with history that was absent in coin collecting
Coin collecting
Coin collecting is the collecting or trading of coins or other forms of minted legal tender.Coins of interest to collectors often include those that circulated for only a brief time, coins with mint errors and especially beautiful or historically significant pieces. Coin collecting can be...
. In the 1950s Rendell was already a specialist dealer in American colonial coins, but within a few months following his conviction for passing forged coins his new interest propelled him toward a pursuit of history. Swept away by his new passion, he bought the bulk of an autograph
Autograph
An autograph is a document transcribed entirely in the handwriting of its author, as opposed to a typeset document or one written by an amanuensis or a copyist; the meaning overlaps with that of the word holograph.Autograph also refers to a person's artistic signature...
dealer's estate at a New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
, and instantly became a dealer to pay for his purchases. He has said, "I have loved every day since then as the temporary possessor of the written record of mankind's greatest heroes and villains as well as the countless individuals who wittingly or unwittingly became a part of the dramas of history."
In 1959 Rendell published his first catalog, offering for sale autograph material of American presidents. From 1960 to 1965 subsequent catalogs offered historical letters and documents in many areas of American history, beginning with the Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
and gradually moving forward in time as his knowledge about autographs, and of historical facts and personalities deepened. From 1966 to 1970 his inventory expanded to include American literature
American literature
American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...
, then English history and literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
, followed by Continental history
History of Europe
History of Europe describes the history of humans inhabiting the European continent since it was first populated in prehistoric times to present, with the first human settlement between 45,000 and 25,000 BC.-Overview:...
and literature
European literature
European literature refers to the literature of Europe.European literature includes literature in many languages; among the most important of the modern written works are those in English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Polish, German, Italian, Modern Greek, Czech and Russian and works by the...
. During the 1970s Rendell opened offices in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and for most of the decade he traveled extensively in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, searching for material. He also issued specialized catalogs ranging from The Ancient World
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
and Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
Europe to The American Frontier.
Business continued to grow in the 1980s, but with institutional budgets shrinking, Rendell began to focus on private collectors and their collection development, and opened a gallery in New York in 1987 to better serve the walk-in customer. (Sales in the autograph business have traditionally been through mail-order catalogs.) The gallery was first located across from Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
on 57th Street
57th Street (Manhattan)
57th Street is one of New York City's major east-west thoroughfares, which runs east-west in the Midtown section of the borough of Manhattan, from the New York City Department of Sanitation's dock on the Hudson River at the West Side Highway to a small park overlooking the East River built on a...
. It then moved east, across town to the Place des Antiquaires at 57th Street and Lexington Avenue, and in 1993, the gallery moved to its present location on Madison Avenue at 77th Street. In 1992 he also opened a gallery in Beverly Hills, which closed 10 years later. Rendell further sought to introduce more people to historical letters and documents through leading antique and art shows
Art exhibition
Art exhibitions are traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" or...
. Since 1990 he has exhibited at the New York Winter Antiques Show, followed by shows in San Francisco, Palm Beach
Palm Beach, Florida
The Town of Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The Intracoastal Waterway separates it from the neighboring cities of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth...
, 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...
, Dallas, Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
, and Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...
. Among the libraries he has built is Bill and Melinda Gates personal library.
To date, Rendell has issued more than 300 catalogs. Among the rarities he has owned are a document of Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
, a letter of Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia [luˈkrɛtsia ˈbɔrʤa] was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Valencian who later became Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei. Her brothers included Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia...
, and a blood-stained letter of the Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
.
Forgery detection
Robert S. Gordon, the National Archivist of Canada, has stated in a review of Kenneth Rendell's book on the detection on forgeries that "Rendell is eminently qualified to deal with this subject. He has researched the field, written many articles, and presented numerous papers and lectures at meetings of professional groups. He developed sophisticated methodology and scientific techniques, and put them to practical use. Being a historian, manuscript dealer, and expert authenticator, he is continuously and actively detecting forgeries and unmasking their creators. Rendell's reputation is unrivalled on this continent." His office 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...
houses a reference library that is also unrivaled, as well the most sophisticated conservation and questioned documents laboratory in the field.
A routine part of the Rendell business involves authenticating genuine material and detecting forgeries. Questioned material of recent years has included handwritten creations of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
, Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
, Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
, Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, and Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, to name a few. And whenever significant autograph material that is suspect surfaces, Rendell is among the experts called upon to render his opinion. Three such forgeries are the Hitler Diaries
Hitler Diaries
In April 1983, the West German news magazine Stern published excerpts from what purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler, known as the Hitler Diaries , which were subsequently revealed to be forgeries...
, Mormon
Mormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...
letters, and the Jack the Ripper Diary.
In 1983 Rendell was hired as a consultant by Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
and helped unmask the Hitler diaries, calling them "bad forgeries but a great hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
." He wrote the cover story, revealing them as forgeries. The hoax itself began two years earlier, when a reporter for the German magazine Der Stern got wind of the recovery of more than 50 diaries from a downed Nazi plane. They were purportedly in Hitler's hand. Rendell used forensic methods to analyze the handwriting, quickly concluding that the diaries were not particularly good fakes. At his trail, forger Konrad Kujau
Konrad Kujau
Konrad Paul Kujau was an illustrator and forger who became famous in 1983 as the creator of the so-called Hitler Diaries, for which he received DM 2.5 million from a person who in turn sold it for DM 9.3 million to the magazine Stern.-Early life:"Konny" Kujau was one of five children of Richard...
, a German dealer in military memorabilia openly admitted guilt and gladly signed Hitler "autographs" for those present.
Rendell was caught up in the case of Mark Hofmann
Mark Hofmann
Mark William Hofmann is an American counterfeiter, forger and convicted murderer. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished forgers in history, Hofmann is especially noted for his creation of documents related to the history of the Latter Day Saint movement...
, who began by forging Mormonabilia and ended up by killing two people in Salt Lake City in an attempt to cover up his forgeries. Rendell examined one of the forgeries, the Salamander letter
Salamander Letter
The Salamander Letter was a document created by Mark Hofmann in the early 1980s.The letter was one of hundreds of documents concerning the history of Latter Day Saint movement that surfaced in the early 1980s...
; he found that the ink, paper and postmark were all consistent with the period, and he did not believe the letter was forged. After Hofmann confessed to forging the letter, Rendell maintained that he had found no evidence of forgery, but had never pronounced the letter authentic. Hofmann is now serving a life sentence in the Utah State Prison
Utah State Prison
Utah State Prison, or USP, is one of two prisons managed by the Utah Department of Corrections' Division of Institutional Operations. It is located in Draper, Utah, United States, about 20 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.-History:...
.
A publicity brochure for The Diary of Jack the Ripper declared 7 October 1993 "the day the world's greatest murder mystery will be solved," and on hand were over 200,000 copies for advanced sales to fans of true-crime stories. This time, Kenneth Rendell was engaged by Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
to analyze the diary, which took more than 100 years to emerge even though the diary's author wrote, "I place this now in a place where it shall be found." In 1992, the Englishman Mike Barrett announced he had acquired the diary from a deceased friend and had deduced the identity of its author. In his analysis, Rendell was struck by the handwriting style, which seemed more 20th century than Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
. Written in a genuine Victorian scrapbook
Scrapbooking
Scrapbooking is a method for preserving personal and family history in the form of a scrapbook. Typical memorabilia include photographs, printed media, and artwork. Scrapbook albums are often decorated and frequently contain extensive journaling...
, but with 20 pages at the front end torn out, it also gave the impression that the removed pages were used by the scrapbook's original owner. Rendell ruled the diary a fake, but the book was nevertheless released by the British publisher, with the diary's dubious authenticity noted on the dust jacket.
Rendell has commented on the forged 'Black Diaries' of Sir. Roger Casement
Roger Casement
Roger David Casement —Sir Roger Casement CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his British honours—was an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary, and nationalist....
, the Irish rebel. In a survey of the Hitler Diaries, Mark Hofmann and other forgery cases, Kenneth W Rendell has stated that 'it can be an error to conclude from an examination of only a few factors that the writing is genuine or forged'. (26) It has reasonably been pointed out as well that a forensic document examiner with no official English or Irish connections would be in a better position to provide an objective analysis of Casement's diaries, and indeed the task is one which would appear to require the services of a team of specialists.
Appraisals
In the 1960s Rendell began to appraise archival collectionsArchive
An archive is a collection of historical records, or the physical place they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the function of an organization...
, a part of the business that became very important in the late 1970s. In the two decades that followed, he evaluated virtually all the major collections donated to libraries and museums in the United States, including the literary archive of Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
, the Northern Pacific Railroad archive (some ten million pieces), the archives of RKO and Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, the Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
family papers, and the papers of Samuel L. Clemens, Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
, Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
, and Admiral Byrd, among numerous others. Rendell's appraisal clients included the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, the National Archives
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives...
, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
and the Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
, as well as the National Archives of Canada. In the 1990s he evaluated Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
's White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
papers comprising forty-four million pieces and forty-five hundred hours of tapes. This appraisal was done for the former president, and the final agreed-upon evaluation settling his lawsuit over the seizure of his White House papers was within ten percent of his appraisal.
In the 1970s Rendell was involved in two appraisals that set the legal standards for determining the fair market value of historical letters and documents. In the first, the Otto Kerner
Otto Kerner, Jr.
Otto Kerner, Jr. was the 33rd Governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968. He is best known for chairing the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and for accepting bribes....
case, he represented the Internal Revenue Service; and in the second, he represented the taxpayer, the Northern Pacific Railroad. In both cases his evaluation was upheld with no compromise. These are the only cases to date in which the Tax Court
United States Tax Court
The United States Tax Court is a federal trial court of record established by Congress under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, section 8 of which provides that the Congress has the power to "constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court"...
has not compromised between two conflicting values.
Lectures and talks
During the second half of the 1960s the Rendell business developed and expanded ties with scholarly groups. Rendell spoke regularly at the annual meetings of the Manuscript SocietyManuscript Society
Manuscript Society is a senior secret society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Toward the end of each junior year, 16 undergraduates are "tapped" to be inducted into the society, which meets twice weekly for dinner and discussion...
, the Society of American Archivists
Society of American Archivists
The Society of American Archivists is the oldest and largest archivist association in North America, serving the educational and informational needs of more than 5,000 individual and institutional members...
, the American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
, the American Association of Museums
American Association of Museums
The American Association of Museums is a non-profit association that has brought museums together since its founding in 1906, helping develop standards and best practices, gathering and sharing knowledge, and advocating on issues of concern to the museum community...
, and the Association of College and Research Libraries
Association of College and Research Libraries
The Association of College and Research Libraries , a division of the American Library Association , is a professional association of academic librarians and other interested individuals...
. He also wrote articles for their journals. (Later, he became president of the Manuscript Society and the International League of Autograph and Manuscript Dealers and was unanimously nominated president of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America
Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America
The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America is an organization of rare and antiquarian book dealers.-History:Founded in 1949, the ABAA is the benchmark for professionalism and ethics in the rare book trade in the US...
). He continues to speak on occasion for groups such as the Grolier Club
Grolier Club
The Grolier Club is a private club and society of bibliophiles in New York City. Founded in January 1884, it is the oldest existing bibliophilic club in North America. The club is named after Jean Grolier de Servières, Viscount d'Aguisy, Treasurer General of France, whose library was famous; his...
and Rare Book School
Rare Book School
Rare Book School is an independent non-profit organization based at the University of Virginia supporting the study of the history of books, manuscripts, and related objects. Each year, RBS offers about 30 five-day courses on these subjects...
.
Museum of World War II
What began as an avocation developed into what has been described by London's Imperial War MuseumImperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. The museum was founded during the First World War in 1917 and intended as a record of the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire...
as "a fully staffed private collection containing the most comprehensive display of original World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
artifacts on exhibit anywhere in the world." Formed over a period of more than 40 years, the collection documents in detail the events of the war, from the signing of the Versailles Treaty, which ended World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, to the Nuremberg
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
and Tokyo war crimes trials
International Military Tribunal for the Far East
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East , also known as the Tokyo Trials, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, or simply the Tribunal, was convened on April 29, 1946, to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of crimes: "Class A" crimes were reserved for those who...
, which brought the Second World War to its close.
On display are over 6,000 artifacts as well 83 mannequins outfitted in complete uniforms and military equipment. The collection includes highly important wartime letters, documents and manuscripts of all the major political and military leaders, as well as the papers of officers and soldiers of all ranks, concentration camp
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
inmates, and civilians. Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, Sir Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
, George S. Patton
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer best known for his leadership while commanding corps and armies as a general during World War II. He was also well known for his eccentricity and controversial outspokenness.Patton was commissioned in the U.S. Army after his graduation from...
, Bernard Montgomery, Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, Erwin Rommel
Erwin Rommel
Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel , popularly known as the Desert Fox , was a German Field Marshal of World War II. He won the respect of both his own troops and the enemies he fought....
, Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
, Joseph Mengele, Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
, Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for his successful efforts to rescue thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary from the Holocaust, during the later stages of World War II...
, and Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
's family are all represented in original letters. Among the items of particular importance are Hitler's draft of the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
with his notations as well as Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
's; the first message alerting the armed forces of the attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
; General Patton's letter to the Sultan of Morocco announcing the American landings and threats of destruction; Montgomery's address to the troops before El Alamein
El Alamein
El Alamein is a town in the northern Matrouh Governorate of Egypt. Located on the Mediterranean Sea, it lies west of Alexandria and northwest of Cairo. As of 2007, it has a local population of 7,397 inhabitants.- Climate :...
; Patton's annotated map for the invasion of Sicily; the complete plans for the D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
invasion in Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
; and Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
's draft of the Japanese surrender terms.
Artifacts include Hitler's SA (Sturm Abteilung or Storm Trooper) shirt; his first sketch for the Nazi flag; his reading glasses; Patton's battle helmet; Montgomery's beret; and copies of Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
(My Struggle / My Battle) belonging to Hitler, President Roosevelt, and General Patton. There are also five different Enigma code machines, including the ten-rotor T-52
Siemens and Halske T52
The Siemens and Halske T52, also known as the Geheimfernschreiber , or Schlüsselfernschreibmaschine , was a World War II German teleprinter cipher machine...
, of which only five are extant; hundreds of spy weapons, clandestine radios and sabotage equipment, together with thousands of other artifacts that reflect everyday life on the home fronts and the battle fronts. The smallest artifacts on exhibit are the spy weapons and cameras; the largest are an American Sherman tank from the North African campaign
North African campaign
During the Second World War, the North African Campaign took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia .The campaign was fought between the Allies and Axis powers, many of whom had...
, a German Kubelwagen, a German Goliath tank
Goliath tracked mine
The Goliath tracked mine - complete German name: Leichter Ladungsträger Goliath - was a remote controlled German-engineered demolition vehicle, also known as the beetle tank to Allies....
from Normandy and one of the very few surviving original landing craft (LCVP
LCVP
The Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel or Higgins boat was a landing craft used extensively in amphibious landings in World War II. The craft was designed by Andrew Higgins of Louisiana, United States, based on boats made for operating in swamps and marshes...
) from the Pacific.
Collection of Western Americana
Another of Rendell's interests is the American West, and in 2004–5 the Museum of Our National Heritage in Lexington, MassachusettsLexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,399 at the 2010 census. This town is famous for being the site of the first shot of the American Revolution, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775.- History :...
, mounted an exhibition of letters, diaries, artifacts and art from his collection, acquired over decades. The Grolier Club in New York City then displayed an abridged version of "The Western Pursuit of the American Dream," documenting "this national adventure through the actual words and artifacts of explorers, travelers, warriors, gold seekers, merchants, outlaws-dreamers all-who shaped the American frontier." The overview, which began with the Spanish in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and ended with filmmakers in Hollywood, gave "a sense of the struggle to tame the gorgeous wilderness that stretched beyond the tidy civilizations of the East." Among the highlights were letters of Davy Crockett
Davy Crockett
David "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S...
and Wild Bill Hickok
Wild Bill Hickok
James Butler Hickok , better known as Wild Bill Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West. His skills as a gunfighter and scout, along with his reputation as a lawman, provided the basis for his fame, although some of his exploits are fictionalized.Hickok came to the West as a stagecoach...
, Frank James
Frank James
Alexander Franklin "Frank" James was a famous American outlaw. He was the older brother of outlaw Jesse James.-Childhood:...
's playing cards, and an extraordinarily rare first-edition map of Lewis and Clark's journey.
Publications
- With Weapons and Wits: Propaganda and Psychological Warfare in World War II. Privately published, 1992.
- Forging History: The Detection of Fake Letters and Documents. University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.
- History Comes to Life: Collecting Historical Letters and Documents. University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.
- The Western Pursuit of the American Dream: Selections from the Collection of Kenneth W. Rendell. University of Oklahoma Press, 2004.
- The World War II Collectors Vault. Whitman Publishing, 2009.
Rendell is also co-editor of two books:
- Manuscript Society. Autographs and Manuscripts: A Collector's Manual. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.
- Manuscript Society. Manuscripts: The First Twenty Years. Greenwood Press, 1984.