The Lindisfarne Gospels is but one of the treasures collected by Sir Robert Cotton.

The Cotton or Cottonian library was collected privately by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton M.P. (1571–1631), an antiquarian and bibliophile, and was the basis of the British Library. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, many priceless and ancient manuscripts that had belonged to the monastic libraries began to disseminate among various owners, many of whom were unaware of the libraries' cultural value. Sir Robert's genius was in finding, purchasing and preserving these ancient documents. The leading scholars of the era, including Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, and James Ussher, came to use Sir Robert's library. Richard James acted as his librarian.^[1]

At the time, official state records and important papers were poorly kept, and often retained privately, neglected or destroyed by public officers. Sir Robert collected and bound over a hundred volumes of official papers. By 1622, Sir Robert's house and library stood immediately north of the Houses of Parliament^[2] and was a valuable resource and meeting-place not only for antiquarians and scholars but also for politicians and jurists of various persuasions, including Sir Edward Coke, John Pym, John Selden, Sir John Eliot, Thomas Wentworth.

Such important evidence was highly valuable at a time when the politics of the Realm were historically disputed between the King and Parliament. Sir Robert knew his library was of vital public interest and, although he made it freely available to consult, it made him an object of hostility on the part of the government. On 3rd November 1629 he was arrested for disseminating a pamphlet held to be seditious (it had actually been written fifteen years earlier by Sir Robert Dudley) and the library was closed on this pretext. Cotton was released on 15th November and the prosecution abandoned the following May, but the library remained shut up until after Sir Robert’s death; it was restored to his son and heir, Sir Thomas Cotton, in 1633.^[3]

Sir Robert's library included his collection of books, manuscripts, coins and medallions. After his death the collection was maintained and added to by his son, Sir Thomas Cotton (d. 1662), and grandson, Sir John Cotton (d. 1702). A fire on 23 October 1731 in Ashburnham House damaged several manuscripts and destroyed many others, but the majority of the works survived. Consequently, this collection is the single greatest resource of literature in Old English and Middle English, and contains many very important illuminated manuscripts. Several well-known works, such as Beowulf, the poem Pearl, and the Lindisfarne Gospels, survive today only because of Sir Robert's library.

Statutory history and gift of the library[link]

Sir Robert's grandson, Sir John Cotton, gave the library to the nation of Great Britain. Its early history is set out in the introductory recitals to the Act of Parliament 12 & 13 Gul. III c.7 of 1700/1, to establish statutory trusts of the Cottonian Library:^[4]

"Sir Robert Cotton late of Connington in the County of Huntingdon Baronett did at his own great Charge and Expense and by the Assistance of the most learned Antiquaries of his Time collect and purchase the most useful Manuscripts Written Books Papers Parchments [Records] and other Memorialls in most Languages of great Use and Service for the Knowledge and Preservation of our Constitution both in Church and State

which Manuscripts and other Writings were procured as well from Parts beyond the Seas as from severall Private Collectors of such Antiquities within this Realm [and] are generally esteemed the best Collection of its Kind now any where extant

And whereas the said Library has been preserved with the utmost Care and Diligence by the late Sir Thomas Cotton Son of the said Sir Robert and by Sir John Cotton of Westminster now living Grandson of the said Sir Robert and has been very much augmented and enlarged by them and lodged in a very proper Place in the said Sir Johns ancient Mansion House at Westminster which is very convenient for that Purpose

And whereas the said Sir John Cotton in pursuance of the Desire and Intentions of his said Father and Grandfather is content and willing that the said Mansion House and Library should continue in his Family and Name and not be sold or otherwise disposed or imbezled and that the said Library should be kept and preserved by the Name of the Cottonian Library for Publick Use & Advantage...."

Statutory trustees were appointed for the library, who removed it from the ruinous Cotton House, whose site is now covered by the Houses of Parliament. It went first to Essex House, The Strand which was regarded as a fire risk, and so was removed to Ashburnham House, a little West of the Palace of Westminster. From 1707 the library also housed the Old Royal Library (now "Royal" manuscripts at the British Library). In 1753 the Cotton library was transferred to the new British Museum under the Act of Parliament which established it. At the same time the Sloane Collection and Harley Collection were acquired and added, so that these three form the three "foundation collections" of the British Museum. The books were transferred to the British Library when this was formed in the 1970s. The Royal manuscripts were donated by George II in 1757.^[5]

The Ashburnham House fire[link]

The Cotton Genesis was badly damaged in the Ashburnam House fire.

On 23 October 1731, there was a fire in Ashburnham House, and many manuscripts were lost, while others were badly singed or water-damaged - up to a quarter of the collection was either destroyed or damaged. The librarian, Dr. Bentley, escaped the fire while clutching the priceless Codex Alexandrinus under one arm, a scene witnessed and later described in a letter to Charlotte, Lady Sundon, by Robert Freind, headmaster of Westminster School. Mr. Speaker Onslow, as one of the statutory trustees of the library, directed and personally supervised a remarkable programme of restoration within the resources of his time. The published report of this work is of major importance in bibliography.^[6] Fortunately, copies had been made of some, but by no means all, of those works that were lost, and many of those damaged could be restored in the nineteenth century. Among the most important works to be damaged was the Byzantine Cotton Genesis, despite which its illustrations remain an important record of Late Antique iconography.

Classification[link]

Sir Robert Cotton had organised his library according to the case, shelf and position of a book. Each bookcase in his library was surmounted by a bust of various Caesars, and his scheme worked by Caesar-Shelf letter-Volume number from end. Thus, the two most famous of the manuscripts from the Cotton library are "Cotton Vitellius A.xv" and "Cotton Nero A.x." In Cotton's own day, that meant "Under the bust of Vitellius, top shelf (A), and count fifteen over," for the Liber Monstrorum of the Beowulf manuscript, or "Go to the bust of Nero, top shelf, tenth book" for the manuscript containing all the works of the Pearl Poet. In the British Library, these priceless books are still catalogued by these call numbers.

Selected manuscripts[link]

For a full list of manuscripts see List of manuscripts in the Cotton library.

Notable manuscripts:

• Augustus
  • ii.106 Magna Carta: Exemplification of 1215
• Caligula
  • A.ii "A Pistil of Susan" (frag.) (probably by Huchoun)
  • A.xv Easter Table Chronicle
• Claudius
  • B.vi Cotton Genesis (fragmentary)
  • D.ii Leges Henrici Primi, an illuminated manuscript of a 12th century legal treatise, copied around 1310^[7]
  • D.iv fos 48-54 De Iniusta Vexacione Willelmi Episcopi Primi (missing introduction and parts of the conclusion)^[8]
• Cleopatra
  • A.ii Life of St Modwenna
• Domitian
  • A.viii: Bilingual Canterbury Epitome (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle F)
  • A.ix fragment of the Bilingual Canterbury Epitome (ASC H), futhorc row
• Faustina
  • A.x Additional Glosses to the Glossary in Ælfric's Grammar
• Galba
  • A.xviii Athelstan Psalter
• Julius
  • A.x Old English Martyrology
  • E.vii Ælfric's Lives of Saints
• Nero
  • A.x Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
  • D.iv Lindisfarne Gospels
• Otho
  • A.xii The Battle of Maldon (destroyed in 1731)
  • B.x Mary of Egypt (fragmentary)
  • B.x.165 Anglo-Saxon rune poem (destroyed in 1731)
  • B.xi.2 fragment of the Parker Chronicle (the Winchester Chronicle)
  • C.i Ælfric's De creatore et creatura
  • C.v Otho-Corpus Gospels (fragmentary)
• Tiberius
  • A.vi Abingdon Chronicle I (ASC B)
  • A.xiii Hemming's Cartulary
  • B.i Abingdon Chronicle II (ASC C)
  • B.iv Worcester Chronicle (ASC D)
  • B.v Labour of the Months
  • C.ii Bede, Ecclesiastical History
• Titus
  • D.xxvi Ælfwine's Prayerbook
• Vespasian
  • A.i Vespasian Psalter
  • D.xiv Ælfric's De duodecim abusivis
• Vitellius
  • A.xv Nowell Codex (Beowulf, Judith)

See also[link]

• Harleian Collection

References[link]

Literature[link]

• Colin G. C. Tite, The Manuscript Library of Sir Robert Cotton, Panizzi Lectures 1993, London (1994).
• Christopher J. Wright (ed.), Sir Robert Cotton as Collector, London (1997).

External links[link]

• A History of the Cotton Library and catalogue search page, British Library
• Cotton, Wanley, & Kemble
• The Beowulf manuscript was damaged in a fire in Ashburnham House on October 23, 1731.

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John Cotton Dana

John Cotton Dana (b. August 19, 1856 in Woodstock, Vermont — d. July 21, 1929 in New Jersey) was an American librarian and museum director whose main objective was to make the library relevant to the daily lives of the citizens and to promote the benefits of reading. He was a public librarian for forty years and achieved a great deal in his field.

Biography[link]

In 1878 Dana graduated from Dartmouth College where he studied law. In 1880 he went to Denver, Colorado where he passed the Colorado bar and began to practice. In 1889 became director of the Denver Public Library until 1898. While there, he pioneered the patron's right to open stacks, allowing them to browse for themselves instead of having a librarian monitoring their every request. He wanted to update libraries into the 20th century by making them vibrant community centers instead of collections of relics that only appealed to a small segment of the community. He also organized the first-ever children's library room. He was personally opposed to the concept of storytime, preferring for his children's library to focus on the continuing education of school teachers.

Dana moved to New York where he was admitted to the New York Bar in 1883. In 1885, Dana moved to Minnesota, to take up a position as the editor of the Ashby Avalanche and practice law. Soon after arriving in Minnesota, however, Dana returned again to Colorado to do more surveying and construction work. Because of the reputation he cultivated as a learned man and his connections in the Denver Public Schools, the superintendent of Denver Public Schools, Aaron Gove, nominated Dana as the director of the Denver Public Library upon its inception in 1890. In 1895, Dana left the Colorado Library when the city began discussing the lowering of his salary. Apparently, public controversy had arisen over a city tax levied for the school district and, by extension, the library. Dana also drew criticism for circulating "gold bug" literature at the library. Colorado was economically dependent on mining silver and the gold standard was a political issue. Dana felt that library patrons should have information on both sides of an issue.

Back east again, he served as a librarian at the Springfield, Massachusetts public library from 1898 - 1902. He continued many of his Denver policies there. One of the changes Dana implemented at the Springfield library was to the physical building itself. He had workers tear down many of the railings and generally open the floor plan. Although these terms were not invented until nearly a century later, Dana concerned himself heavily with the ergonomics and usability of his collections and facilities. He left Springfield after refusing to become involved in a power struggle with the library's patrons.

In 1902 Dana became employed at the Newark Public Library in Newark, New Jersey until his death in 1929. He established foreign language collections for immigrants and also developed a special collection for the business community. This "Business Branch" was the first of its kind in the nation.

He also founded the Newark Museum in 1909, directing it until his death. The Museum was exceptional because it included contemporary American commercial products as folk art as well as factory-made products. John C. Dana personally believed that purchasing European oil painting was a waste of money and thus supported American art movements. He did not like modern art, but he believed in the principle of a universal museum and thus ordered purchases of art associated with the Ashcan School. Cotton also began the Newark Museum's notable Tibetan collection.

After his death, his successor at the Newark Public Library referred to him as “The First Citizen of Newark”. Six years after his death, the city of Newark appointed October 6, 1935 as John Cotton Dana Day. Rutgers-Newark's main library is named for John Cotton Dana.

Dana was quoted as saying, “A great department store, easily reached, open at all hours, is more like a good museum of art than any of the museums we have yet established” (Hadley, 68).

Dana served as president of the American Library Association, which today gives out the John Cotton Dana Public Relations Award to libraries with exceptional public relations.^[1] The NJ Associations of Museums has an annual award in his name, presented to an individual "for outstanding contributions to the New Jersey museum profession." John Cotton Dana was also the first president and founder of the Special Libraries Association. Dana is a member of the Library Hall of Fame. Also, New Jersey Law School renamed their college Dana College when it transitioned from a two year to a four year school (Watkins 2006, 2).

John Cotton Dana married, but his wife (Adine Rowena Wagener), whom he married in 1888 was not healthy, and they had no children.

One of his biographers said of him, “He would have found a library school curriculum intolerable, and doubtless a library school would have found him intolerable”.^[2]

Selected publications[link]

• A Library Primer, 1896.
• The New Museum, by John Cotton Dana. ElmTree Press, Woodstock, Vermont, 1917.
• The Gloom of the Museum, by John Cotton Dana, ElmTree Press, Woodstock, Vermont, 1917.
• Installation of a Speaker, by John Cotton Dana, ElmTree Press, Woodstock, Vermont, 1918.
• A Plan for a New Museum by John Cotton Dana, ElmTree Press, Woodstock, Vermont, 1920.
• American Art: How it can be made to Flourish by John Cotton Dana, ElmTree Press, Woodstock, Vermont, 1929.
• "The Museum as an Art Patron" by John Cotton Dana. Creative Art, March 1929.
• "Art is all in Your Eye" by John Cotton Dana. The Museum, January 1927.
• "In a Changing World Should Museums Change?" by John Cotton Dana. The Museum, September 1926.
• Dana, John Cotton, and Henry W. Kent, eds. Literature of Libraries in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Chicago: A. C. McClure, 1906-07; reissued Metuchen: The Scarecrow Reprint Corporation, 1967.^[3]

References[link]

Sources[link]

• John Cotton Dana: The Centennial Convocation, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1957.
• Cahill, Edgar Hoger, "The Life and Work of John Cotton Dana". Americana Illustrated, January 1930, volume XXIV, Number 1, pages 69-84, The American Historical Society.
• Hadley, C. (1943). John Cotton Dana: A Sketch. Chicago: American Library Association.
• Hanson, C. A. (Ed.) (1991). Librarian at Large: Selected Writings of John Cotton Dana. Washington DC: Special Libraries Association.
• Chalmers Hadley. John Cotton Dana — A Sketch (1943).
• Mattson, Kevin. 2000. The librarian as secular minister to democracy: the life and ideas of John Cotton Dana. Libraries & Culture. Volume 35, Number 4.
• The Museum, Volume II, Number 10: October 1929, tribute to John Cotton Dana. (Various authors.)
• Grove, Richard. Pioneers in American Museums: John Cotton Dana. Museum News, Volume 56, Number 5, May–June 1978, pages 32–39 & 86–88.
• Watkins, Ann. John Cotton Dana — Newark's First Citizen. [1] (accessed March 12, 2008).

External links[link]

• Works by John Cotton Dana at Project Gutenberg

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (July 2011)

Dorothy Cotton (born 1930) was a leader of the 1960s African-American Civil Rights Movement^[1] and a member of the inner-circle of one of its main organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As the SCLC's Educational Director, she was arguably the highest ranked female member of the organization.

Cotton helped organize the students during the 1963 Birmingham Movement and its Children's Crusade, and conducted citizenship classes throughout the South during the era. She also accompanied Martin Luther King, Jr., the co-founder and first president of the SCLC, on his trip to Oslo, Norway to receive the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.

Cotton currently resides in Ithaca, New York.

References[link]

See also[link]

• List of civil rights leaders

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