Margaret Bingham Stillwell Explained

Margaret Bingham Stillwell
Birth Date:	26 January 1887
Birth Place:	Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Death Place:	East Greenwich, Rhode Island, United States
Occupation:	bibliographer
Notable Works:	Incunabula in American Libraries

Margaret Bingham Stillwell (1887 – 1984) was an American librarian and bibliographer who spent most of her professional career as curator of the Annmary Brown Memorial.

Education and career

Stillwell entered Pembroke College in Brown University in 1905, beginning work at the John Carter Brown Library as a student, and graduated in 1909.

In 1914 she moved to the New York Public Library as a cataloguer of early Americana. There she met Rush Hawkins who had been a Union officer in the American Civil War. Hawkins was an avid collector of incunabula. His wife, Annmary Brown, had died and he established a memorial museum and library to her memory in Providence, Rhode Island. Hawkins recruited Stillwell as curator of the Annmary Brown Memorial Library.^{[1] [2] [3]}

In 1917 Stillwell returned to Providence as curator of the Annmary Brown Memorial Library, where she worked until her retirement in 1953.^[4] The library, initially a private collection, was transferred to Brown University in 1948, at which time Stillwell became professor of bibliography. Although she was the first woman appointed to a full professorship at Brown, she never received a full professor's salary.^[5]

The John Russell Bartlett Society of Rhode Island's prize for undergraduate book collecting is named after her.

She moved to Greenville, Rhode Island in 1954. She died April 22, 1984.

Publications

Stillwell specialized in the bibliography of incunabula (books printed in the fifteenth century) and her survey Incunabula in American Libraries: A Second Census of Fifteenth-Century Books Owned in the United States, Mexico, and Canada (New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1940) became known eponymously as Stillwell.^[6]

She collaborated with Frederick R. Goff on Hebraica: Incunabula in Hebrew Type Only.^[7]

She also wrote The Heritage of the Modern Printer^[8] and The Beginning of the World of Books, 1450 to 1470 ^[9]

Professional activities

Stillwell was a member of the Hroswitha Club of American women book collectors, and in 1977 she became the first female honorary member of the Grolier Club. ^{[10] [11]}

She was instrumental in establishing a new public library building in Greenville, Rhode Island in 1955.^[12]

Margaret B. Stillwell Legacy Society

The Margaret B. Stillwell Legacy Society was established within the Bibliographical Society of America. The Legacy Society ensures the future of bibliographical scholars.^[13]

Margaret B. Stillwell's papers are held at Brown University Library. ^[14]

Further reading

• Margaret B. Stillwell, Librarians are Human: Memories in and out of the Rare-Book World, 1907-1970 (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1973)
• Martha Mitchell, 'Stillwell, Margaret B.', Encyclopedia Brunoniana (1993)
• Emiko Hastings, 'Margaret Bingham Stillwell, Curator and Scholar', Adventures in Book Collecting, 7 July 2014
• Frederick R. Goff, 'Margaret Bingham Stillwell: A Personal Reminiscence', Gazette of the Grolier Club, new series, numbers 26/27 (June/December 1977), pages 30-37
• 'Margaret Bingham Stillwell, An Author and Bibliographer', New York Times, 25 April 1984
• Kurt Zimmermann, 'Miss Stillwell and F. Richmond: The Recording of Incunabula in America', American Book Collecting, 20 December 2019

Notes and References

1. Stillwell, Margaret B. The Annmary Brown Memorial: A Descriptive Essay (Providence: The Annmary Brown Memorial, 1925).
2. Stillwell, Margaret B. General Hawkins as He Revealed Himself to His Librarian, Margaret Bingham Stillwell (Providence: 1923).
3. Stillwell, Margaret B. The Annmary Brown Memorial: A Booklover’s Shrine (Providence: Privately Printed, 1940).
4. http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/Databases/Encyclopedia/search.php?serial=S0430 Mitchell
5. https://librarianofbabel.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/margaret-bingham-stillwell-curator-and-scholar/ Hawkins
6. https://librarianofbabel.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/margaret-bingham-stillwell-curator-and-scholar/ Hawkins
7. Goff, Frederick Richmond, Margaret Bingham Stillwell, and Bibliographical Society of America. 1964. Hebraica: Incunabula in Hebrew Type Only. New York: Bibliographical Society of America.
8. Stillwell, Margaret Bingham. 1916. The Heritage of the Modern Printer. New York: New York Public Library.
9. Stillwell, Margaret Bingham. 1972. The Beginning of the World of Books, 1450 to 1470; a Chronological Survey of the Texts Chosen for Printing during the First Twenty Years of the Printing Art, with a Synopsis of the Gutenberg Documents. New York: Bibliographical Society of America.
10. Goff, Frederick R. “Margaret Bingham Stillwell: A Personal Reminiscence.” Gazette of the Grolier Club, n.s. 26/27 (1977): pp. 30-37.
11. Needham, Paul. “Margaret Bingham Stillwell.” In Grolier 2000: A Further Grolier Club Biographical Retrospective in Celebration of the Millennium (New York, 2000): pp. 363-365.
12. Greenville Public Library. History-1948-1956
13. News, Events, Publications, and Awards. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 2021 115:4, 549-565
14. https://www.riamco.org/render?eadid=US-RPB-ms-1uf-s3&view=biography Margaret Stillwell papers (MS-1UF-S3)