PACIFIC GROVE, CALIFORNIA: ORIGINALLY A RELIGIOUS SEASIDE RETREAT, TODAY THE MONARCH BUTTERFLY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD©

Along the coastline of northcentral California in the Monterey Bay area lie three small communities, each less than 10 miles apart, yet each vastly different in their history and general  recognition:  Monterey (the original Spanish capital of both Alta (Northern) and Baja (Southern) California, later also known for author John Steinbeck's Cannery Row), Carmel (the famed upscale artists' community also known for the picturesque Pebble Beach golf course), and Pacific Grove (settled by Methodists and known for its Monarch butterflies).

I first visited the Monterey Bay area in the early 1970s, and immediately fell in love with its compelling natural beauty.  I have been totally captivated by the area, now for decades, returning frequently and as often as I can.  For the purpose of this Travelblog article, I am going to focus on Pacific Grove and its special attributes.

Compared to the towns of Monterey and Carmel -- both originating during Spanish control dating back to the 1700s, the town of Pacific Grove is a newcomer, and has no connection with early Spanish settlement.

EARLY SETTLEMENT

Pacific Grove originated as a Christian, specifically Methodist, seaside resort in 1874, after a Methodist minister named J.W. Ross and his wife visited the area.  They thought the pine, oak and cypress trees, together with the many varieties of wild plants and flowers, made it the perfect location for a Methodist retreat and resort for camping.  

On June 1, 1875, the Pacific Grove Retreat Association was formed in San Francisco to administer what was then-called the Christian Seaside Resort in Pacific Grove.  The original intent of the founders that there would be an Annual Retreat for a few weeks each Summer, set up in tents, rather than as a town with houses.

The initial Retreat area was located from the Monterey Bay up to what was, and is still called, Lighthouse Avenue, from First Street to Pacific Avenue.  Individual lots sold for $50. and were each 30-feet by 60-feet in order to accommodate one wood-framed tent.  The first Retreat had around 15 tents housing approximately 50 people.

Over the next few summers, the geographic parameters of the "tent city" expanded.  Although the tents were dismantled and stored in the town's Chautauqua Hall at the end of each summer, the wooden frames remained standing.  

The first permanent house, a 2-bedroom cottage, was built in 1880.  Over the next three decades, covering the period 1880-1910, hundreds of new Victorian-Era homes were built --  primarily in the Queen Anne style, the most popular Victorian style at that time -- and also in the Arts and Crafts, aka Craftsman style, of architecture.   

Green Gables

The 1880s were particularly prolific regarding the building of Victorian-Era homes in Pacific Grove.  A few of these large Victorian homes have been repurposed as Inns for incoming travelers, such as Seven Gables Inn, originally Page Cottage, which was constructed in 1886.  

Seven Gables Inn

Eventually, by 1889, when Pacific Grove was incorporated as a city, there were 1,300 residents living in an area of one square mile within the city limits.   

Other prominent Victorian homes in Pacific Grove include the mansion known as Trimmer Hill, built in 1893, and the mansion built in 1895 for Senator and Judge Benjamin Langford on the corner of Lighthouse Drive and the Pacific Grove Gate of the famous 17-mile Drive.   His former home is now known as the Gatehouse Bed and Breakfast Inn.  

By 1910, tents had gradually been replaced by streets lined with rows of small "board and batten" cottages, many of which had been constructed over the remaining existing tents using the canvas from the tents as insulation, as well as by larger homes of varying, albeit primarily Victorian, architectural styles.

Today, Pacific Grove is said to have more than 1,000 Victorian homes still extant, making it the highest concentration of Victorian homes per capita in America.

THE MONARCHS

Pacific Grove has for decades been fondly referred to as "the Monarch Butterfly Capital of the World".  Every Fall, around October, thousands of monarchs migrate to their habitat and the Monarch Grove Sanctuary because its delicately-balanced microclimate.  

The surrounding area is filled with trees on which the monarchs cluster in huge bunches, where they are warmed by the morning sun and can drift among the branches of the Monterey pines and eucalyptus trees form a canopy which creates a natural buffer from the high winds.  Because the temperature stays moderate all winter, the abundant flora of the nearby area provides nectar sources, and the morning fog provides moisture, it is the perfect natural environment for monarchs to continue their life cycles each year.

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(Primary and photo sources: Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce; "The Way We Were:  Pacific Grove The Early Years" by Adam W. Weiland; Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History)  

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JULIA MORGAN: TRAILBLAZING EARLY 20th CENTURY FEMALE ARCHITECT AND CIVIL ENGINEER, BEST KNOWN FOR DESIGNING HEARST CASTLE©

In 2014, more than 50 years after Julia Morgan's death, her considerable architectural achievements and legacy were finally confirmed when she became the first woman to be awarded the prestigious American Institute of Architects' Gold Medal, that organization's highest honour.

This was not the only "first" accomplished by Julia Morgan, but yet another of the many "firsts" of her professional career.  For  over 45 years she triumphed over barrier after barrier to women.  She was the only woman to graduate with a civil engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1894.  She was the first woman admitted to the prestigious architecture program at École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.  She was the first licensed female architect in California, working for John Galen Howard before she launched her own architectural firm in 1904.

BACKGROUND AND EDUCATION:

Morgan was born in San Francisco on January 20, 1872.  
 Her father, Charles Bill Morgan, who saw the California as the place to make his fortune after the American Civil War, had sailed from the East Coast around the tip of South America at Cape Horn to California in 1865.  Her mother, Eliza Woodland Parmelee, came from Brooklyn, New York.  Morgan and her four siblings grew up in a large Victorian house in Oakland, California, built and paid for by her mother's inherited family fortune derived from pre-Civil War cotton futures.  

It was her mother's financial resources, coupled with her parents' progressive outlook towards her education, that enabled Morgan to pursue studies which were not typical for a late 19th Century woman -- architecture and engineering.

Initially, upon entering the University of California at Berkeley in 1890, Morgan enrolled in the civil engineering department.  During her time at Berkeley, Morgan developed a keen interest in architecture, which is thought to have been fostered by her mother’s cousin, Pierre Le Brun, who designed the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower in New York City.  She joined a sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, the first of many women's organizations she supported, and which were major sources of clients and residential commissions, throughout her career.

In 1894, Morgan graduated from Berkeley with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering because at the time, Berkeley did not have an architectural school.  She immediately joined the design studio of Bernard Maybeck as a draftsperson.  Maybeck, best known for his design of the Berkeley First Church of Christ, Scientist which was a defining building of what came to be known as the "first Bay Area style of architecture", influenced Morgan through his incorporation of nature, craftsmanship, and locally-sourced materials such as the plentiful redwood found in northern California.

It was Maybeck who encouraged Morgan, as well as many of his male students, to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, because it was regarded at the time by many Americans as being the preeminent architecture school in the world.

THE PARIS YEARS:

Julia Morgan in front of
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris
circa 1901

Arriving in Paris in 1896, Morgan was initially refused admission because the École had never before admitted a woman.  After a two-year wait, during which time the École changed its admission criteria, she finally gained entrance into its  prestigious architectural program.

While in Paris, Morgan also found a mentor in her professor, Bernard Chaussemiche, for whom she worked as a drafter.

Students at the École were judged through anonymous competitions, and during her studies Morgan excelled, receiving three medals and twenty-six mentions, as well as the second-place medal for the prestigious Godeboeuf Competition.

Regrettably, however, being a woman, Morgan did not have the mentorship of male upperclassman.  Consequently, she relied upon the support of the mothers of some of the American male students at the École who helped her in obtaining the financial resources for her projects.

Morgan remained in Europe for a total of 6 years from 1896 to 1902, during which time a new century began, and there was a considerable change in art and architecture -- one which tested both the traditional method of teaching and the adherence to the historical styles of the École itself.

She was there for the Paris Expo of 1900, the opening of the Paris Metro, and the prolific construction of many iron-and-glass buildings throughout the city.

Julia Morgan watercolor
Tour Cesar, Provins, France
circa 1898 

While at the École, Morgan learned the long-accepted traditional modes of architectural representation.  

Initially, she developed her drafting skills under the mentorship of her professor, Bernard Chaussemiche.

During these years, she also traveled extensively throughout Europe, filling her sketchbooks with drawings and watercolours  of the buildings and landscapes that she saw.  

She built upon that foundation by discovering on her own how to draw freehand and to capture her impressions of a building.

In February 1902, weeks after her 30th birthday, Julia Morgan  qualified for the Certificat d’Études, becoming the first woman to receive the École's degree in architecture.

EARLY CAREER:

In 1902, Morgan returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in California and commenced working for architect John Galen Howard.

The timing could not have been more fortuitous.  

Morgan was the quintessential professional woman in a then predominately man's world.  She avoided the flamboyant, artistic dress of her mentor Maybeck and her contemporary in the Midwest, Frank Lloyd Wright, instead creating her own practical version of the male architect’s uniform, with a skirt rather than trousers, and suit pockets to carry what a woman's purse, which would have encumbered her hands, would.have normally carried.

The year 1902 was also during the height of the Women's Suffrage Movement.  Morgan benefitted from the increasing presence of women in public life, from philanthropy to education to politics.  Women had developed valuable and important networks while campaigning for abolition, temperance and women’s rights that had made them aware of, and eager to, employ other women with diverse skills, including architects.

Consequently, many of Morgan’s early residential commissions came from fellow members of her college sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta.  It was during this time that Morgan also embarked upon a decades-long relationship with the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), and went on to design at least 30  buildings for the YWCA in at least 17 locations, primarily in California, but also in Hawaii, Washington, and Utah.

Vintage Photo of Fairmont Hotel
atop Nob Hill,  immediately
following 1906 Earthquake

On April 18, 1906, disaster struck. The Great San Francisco Earthquake,  and its subsequent fires, destroyed more than 80 percent of the city’s building stock, including Morgan’s first office  at 456 Montgomery Street. 

Morgan benefitted from the city’s urgent need for architects, and especially for architects familiar with earthquake-resistant reinforced concrete construction.  In particular, Herbert and Hartland Law, owners of the brand new, luxurious Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Francisco fronting on Union Square atop Nob Hill, which literally had been only days from its Grand Opening, commissioned her services to repair and restore primarily internal damage, including broken windows caused by the excessive heat from the Earthquake's resultant fires throughout the city.  Morgan delivered to the Laws a rebuilt Fairmont in 1907, within in one year,  while competing with the entire city for construction workers and materials.

Vintage photo, Fairmont Hotel, 1907
following renovation by Julia Morgan.

THE HEARST CONNECTION AND MORGAN'S LONGEST-RUNNING COMMISSION:

Philanthropist and advocate for women Phoebe Apperson Hearst began a lifelong interest in Morgan’s career when the two women crossed paths in Paris.  Upon Morgan’s return to California, Hearst hired the young architect to remodel Hacienda del Pozo de Verona, her estate in Pleasanton, California.

Vintage Postcard
Herald Examinar Building
upon completion in 1915.

Phoebe Hearst also introduced Morgan to the man who became Morgan's most significant client: Phoebe’s son, newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst.  Morgan’s first commission for Hearst was in 1913, the block-long Spanish (Mission) Revival Herald Examiner Building in Los Angeles.

In 1919, following his mother’s death, Hearst inherited the full Hearst estate, which had extensive land holdings in California, and decided to build on the hilltop of the Hearst Family ranch at San Simeon.  That same year, he commissioned Julia Morgan to design what ultimately became known as Hearst Castle, which included a main building called Casa Grande, and also several large detached cottages for guests.

This commission lasted almost 30 years, until 1947, and required her to travel from the San Francisco Bay Area by train almost every weekend by train to and from San Simeon on a hilltop overlooking California's Central Coastline.  Money was literally no object for Hearst, who traveled abroad extensively over the years of construction, shipping back furnishings, tapestries and artwork for his "dream house".  He even had Morgan create entire rooms appropriately-sized in order to use elaborate carved and illustrated ceilings which he had acquired from Italian villas and shipped back to California.

Because of the notoriety of Hearst and his use of San Simeon as a frequent weekend party destination for the rich and famous, especially Hollywood movie celebrities, this particular commission has become is the most widely-known -- and the most frequently toured since the 1970s -- of all of Julia Morgan's architectural works.

Hearst Castle aerial view, 1931
Photograph by Harold Wesley Truesdale
with notations by Julia Morgan

ARCHITECTURAL LEGACY:

Although her continuous, decades-long commission to create the Hearst Castle compound can tend to overshadow Morgan's entire architectural body of work, other buildings which she designed, both residential and commercial -- many of which are still extant today -- amount to over 700 structures, primarily located within California.  Many have received State Historical Landmark designations.

Therefore, in view of her remarkable career, it is only fitting that a few of her other architectural works also be highlighted herein below.

St. John's Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, California
designed in the Arts and Crafts architectural style
by Julia Morgan between 1907-1910
in the East Bay area following the
1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires.
Has State Historical Landmark designation, and
currently is used as the Julia Morgan Theatre.

Phoebe Apperson Hearst Social Hall, 1913
Ansilomar Conference Grounds YWCA, Pacific Grove, California
The first of several buildings at the Monterey Bay Area site
designed by Morgan from 1913-1928 in the Arts and Crafts architectural style.
 (Originally intended as a Summer Camp for young women.) 
Received State Historical Landmark designation in 1987.

 

Hollywood Studio Club Building, circa 1926
designed by Julia Morgan in the Mediterranean
style of architecture popular in Southern California,
as a dormitory for women aspiring for careers in the
film industry.  Remained in operation until 1975.
Listed on the National Register of Historical Places
in 1980.  Currently used as a crisis housing facility for women.

Berkeley Women's City Club, 1930.
Completely funded by Berkeley women,
the Club opened with over 4,000 members
who dined on fine china designed by
Morgan and produced in Germany.
Guest speakers included Amelia Earhart.

Morgan retired in the early 1950s due to declining health.  Her final years were spent reclusively.  She passed away at age 85 in 1957 and is buried in Oakland, California.  

A myth persisted for decades that Morgan had destroyed all of the records of her 50+year career;  however, in fact, she had meticulously preserved literally thousands of her architectural plans, project files and drawings, her sketchbooks, photographs and correspondence, and miscellaneous other personal and professional papers, all of which were given in 1980 by her heirs to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo to be housed in the Library thereat.  Coupled with the donations of several other significant gifts of Morgan's plans and sketches of residential and business commissions, and the research files on Morgan compiled by the late architectural historian and Morgan biographer Sara Holmes Boutelle, the Library now contains the largest and most comprehensive Julia Morgan archives in the United States.

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Primary and photo sources: Beverly Willis Architectural Foundation "Pioneering Woman of American Architecture Julia Morgan";  University of California Berkeley Engineering "Julia Morgan, Iconic Architect";  hearstcastle.org;  Special Collections and Archives, California Polytechnic State University;  Julia Morgan Papers, Special Collections, California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo;  Julia Morgan Collection, Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley;  Berkeley City Club;  California State Parks; CSUN Library Collection.) 

©2021 Snobby Tours^®, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

THE PANTHÉON in PARIS, FRANCE: NATIONAL MONUMENT AND HISTORIC RESTING PLACE FOR HONOURED FRENCH LUMINARIES©

 

The Panthéon is considered to be one of the great monuments in Paris.  The name itself is the Classical Greek word for "temple".  Located in the 5th arrondissement in Paris' Latin Quarter, on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon looks out over all of Paris. 

ORIGINAL BUILDING CONCEPTION

King Louis XV

The edifice was constructed between 1758 and 1790 from designs by  Jacques-Germain Soufflot at the behest of King Louis XV of France  (1710-1774) who had vowed in 1744 that if he recovered from an illness which he had at the time, that he would replace the ruined Medieval church of the Abbey of Saint Genevieve built during the reign    of King Clovis during the late 6th  Century and construct on the same site an edifice worthy of Saint Genevieve, who had become, and is, the Patron Saint of Paris, in order to house the reliquary châsse containing her relics.  When the 6th Century church was completed Geneviève had been buried within it.  According to history, as numerous miracles started to occur at her tomb, the church was renamed Sainte-Geneviève. Plundered by the Normans during the 9th Century, the Church of Sainte-Geneviève was later rebuilt and eventually completed in in the late 12th Century in 1177.  By the18th Century, the church had fallen into ruin.

King Louis did recover, and entrusted Abel-François Poisson, Marquis de Marigny, with the fulfillment of his vow.  In 1755, Marigny commissioned Jacques-Germain Soufflot to design the church, with construction beginning two years later in 1757, and the foundation laid in 1758.  The cornerstone was laid in 1764 by the King himself; however, he did not live to see the construction's completion, which itself was delayed for economic reasons during the years preceding the French Revolution in 1789.

The structure is an early example of Neoclassic architecture, with a façade modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to Bramante's "Tempietto". 

Architectural designer Jacques-Germain Soufflot had had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the Gothic cathedral with classical principles, but its role as a secular mausoleum required the great Gothic windows to be blocked.

Exterior, circa 1795, showing blocked windows

The overall design was that of a Greek cross with massive portico of Corinthian columns.   Its ambitious lines called for a vast building approximately 361-feet long by 276-feet wide, and 272-feet  high. No less vast was its crypt. 

Original construction designs by architect Soufflot

Soufflot's masterstroke is concealed from casual view: the Triple Dome, each shell fitted within the others, permits a view through the oculus of the coffered inner dome of the second dome which has the fresco by Antoine Gros, "The Apotheosis of Saint Genevieve". The outermost dome is built of stone bound together with iron clamps and covered with lead sheathing, rather than made with carpentry construction, as was the common French practice of the 18th Century period. The entire Triple Dome is additionally supported by covered buttresses.

Triple Dome design by architect Soufflot

Interior view under the Triple Dome

Antoine Gros fresco "The Apotheosis of Saint Genevieve"

The foundations were laid in 1758, but due to economic problems work proceeded slowly.  In 1780, Soufflot died and was replaced by his student, Jean-Baptiste Rondelet. The remodeled Abbey of St. Genevieve was finally completed in 1790, coinciding with the early stages of the French Revolution. 

Entrance to Crypts

Upon the death of the popular French orator and statesman Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau on April 2, 1791, the National Constituent Assembly, whose president had been Mirabeau, ordered that the building be changed from a church to a secular mausoleum for the interment of notable Frenchmen, retaining Quatremère de Quincy to oversee the project. Mirabeau was the first person interred there, on April 4, 1791. 

The ashes of Voltaire were placed in the Panthéon in a lavish ceremony on July 12, 1791, followed by the remains of several martyred revolutionaries, including Jean-Paul Marat and the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  In the rapid shifts of power during the Revolutionary Period, two of the first men honored in Panthéon, Mirabeau and Marat, were declared enemies of the Revolution, and their remains were removed.  Finally, the new government of the French Convention decreed in February, 1795 that no one should be placed in the Panthéon who had not been dead at least ten years.

Interestingly, the remains of Voltaire were rumored to have been stolen in 1814, but these rumors were proven to be false by exhumation in 1897.

Fresco by Antoine Gros

In 1851, Jean Bernard Léon Foucault, who was the leading experimental physicist of his day, demonstrated the rotation of the earth by constructing a 220-foot pendulum beneath the central dome of the Panthéon.  Foucault determined that the period of rotation of the plane of the pendulum's oscillation varied by latitude—and that at the poles it would take the pendulum exactly 24 hours to complete one rotation, while at the equator no rotation would be observed. The remarkable experiment -- easily understood by an observer without scientific knowledge -- eventually helped erase the last traces of lingering doubt which the Church had against the fact that the Earth rotates around the Sun instead of vice versa -- providing definitive proof that helped vindicate Galileo, Copernicus and Giordano Bruno.

The original sphere from the Foucault Pendulum was temporarily displayed at the Panthéon in the mid-1990s, during renovations at the Musée des Arts et Métiers. It was later returned to the Musée des Arts et Métiers, and a copy is now displayed at the Panthéon.

REPURPOSING THROUGH THE CENTURIES

Twice since 1790, during the 19th Century, the Panthéon has reverted to being a church, only to become again a meeting house dedicated to the great intellectuals of France.  It was during the Third French Republic, France's form of government commencing in 1870, that building's exclusive use was decreed in 1881 to be a mausoleum.

The inscription above the entrance reads AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE ("To great men, the grateful homeland"). By burying its notable people in the Panthéon, France honours them for their various achievements.  Consequently, interment within the Panthéon is severely restricted and is allowed only by a parliamentary act for "National Heroes".

Crypt of Marie Curie

The Panthéon also houses the remains of scientist Marie Curie, educator and inventor Louis Braille, philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, writers Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Émile Zola, and other French luminaries, including its original architect, Jacques-Germain Soufflot.

By the end of 2021, the remains of more than 80 people (all men except for 6 women) will have been interred in the Panthéon -- with many being transferred from their original burial sites and re-interred there, accompanied by great ceremony.  More than half of all the interments were made under Napoleon's rule during the First French Empire between 1804 and 1815.

Funeral of Victor Hugo at the Panthéon, 1885

Initially, only men were interred in the Panthéon.  In 1907,  Marcellin Berthelot was buried with his wife Madame Sophie Berthelot, the first woman to be so interred.  Scientist Marie Curie was interred in 1995, followed in 2015 by Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion -- two heroines of the French Resistance during World War II -- and lawyer/politician/Holocaust survivor Simone Veil in 2018.

France's President Emmanuel Macron recently announced a ceremony to be held on November 30, 2021 at the Panthéon to celebrate the re-interment of Josephine Baker (1906-1975), American-born entertainer and human rights/civil rights activist who became a French citizen in 1937, and who is considered to be a World War II hero in France -- a courageous member of the French Resistance.  Upon her death in 1975, she was buried in the Principality of Monaco.  Baker, the sixth woman to be interred in the Panthéon, will be the first Black woman to receive France's highest honour of burial at the Panthéon.

In January 2007, France's President Jacques Chirac unveiled a plaque in the Panthéon dedicated to more than 2,600 people recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Memorial in Israel for saving the lives of Jews who would otherwise have been deported to Nazi concentration camps. The tribute in the Panthéon underlines the fact that around 3/4ths of the country's Jewish population survived World War II, often thanks to ordinary French people who provided help at the risk of their own lives. 

This plaque says: Sous la chape de haine et de nuit tombée sur la France dans les années d'occupation, des lumières, par milliers, refusèrent de s'éteindre.  Nommés "Juste parmi les Nations" ou restés anonymes, des femmes et des hommes, de toutes origines et de toutes conditions, ont sauvé des juifs des persécutions antisémites et des camps d'extermination. 

Bravant les risques encourus, ils ont incarné l'honneur de la France, ses valeurs de justice, de tolérance et d'humanité.

Translated into English, the plaque reads as follows: Under the cloak of hatred and darkness that spread over France during the years of [Nazi] occupation, thousands of lights refused to be extinguished. Named as "Righteous among the Nations" or remaining anonymous, women and men, of all backgrounds and social classes, saved Jews from anti-Semitic persecution and the extermination camps. 

Braving the risks involved, they embodied the honour of France, and its values of justice, tolerance and humanity.

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(Primary and Photo Sources: maierstorm.org; Treasures from Heaven Blog, projects.mcah.columbia.edu; the guardian.com;  Leburre, Alexia, The Pantheon: Temple of the Nation, Paris: Éditions du Patrimoine (2000); Inocybe at fr. wikipedia; amusing planet.com; francetvinfo.fr)

©2021 Snobby Tours^®, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

THE ARMSTRONG BROWNING LIBRARY: A LASTING TRIBUTE TO POETS ROBERT AND ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING and BAYLOR UNIVERSITY'S "JEWEL IN THE CROWN"©

 
The Armstrong Browning Library, located on a tree-lined street with landscaped lawns in an "older" part of the Baylor University campus in Waco, Texas, is not only a much-loved building on campus and one of the most beautiful library settings, but also it is considered to be a "local treasure"  by the general community, and has become a much-visited site for out-of-town travelers for over 70-years, since 1950.  I first visited the Library as a child and was thoroughly enchanted.  I have re-visited numerous times over the years, not only to view recent acquisitions of Browning memorabilia on display, but also to attend late afternoon or  evening concerts and recitals performed by faculty and students in Baylor's Music Department, and also by members of the Waco Symphony Orchestra.  It has always been my favourite place on the Baylor campus.

The Library is well-known for the Browning Collection which it houses -- the world's largest collection of memorabilia, including original manuscripts and personal items, which belonged to British poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. There are over 60 intricate stained glass windows throughout the building depicting themes from the poetry of the Brownings.

In addition to the Browning Collection, the Library is research center focusing on the 19th Century, with significant holdings regarding literature and culture in Britain and in America from 1800 to 1900, including over 600 literary manuscripts, over 11,000 original letters and over 1,500 musical scores, plus books, periodicals, "objects d’art", fine art, and also rare Wedgwood bone china.

THE ARMSTRONGS:  A 40-year Dream Which Became a Reality

Dr. Andrew Joseph (A.J.) Armstrong (1873-1954) and his wife, Mary Maxwell Armstrong (1882-1971) shared an impressive dream and turned it into a reality by amassing the world's largest collection of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning letters, manuscripts, likenesses, and mementos at Baylor University.

Dr. Armstrong became interested in the poet Robert Browning and in 1905 began to collect books and articles about Browning.  Mary Maxwell Armstrong’s intelligence, insight, and perseverance made her an influential figure in twentieth-century Waco.  Her determination combined with her love for great literature aided in the establishment of a world-renowned library on the campus of Baylor University.

Together the Armstrongs accomplished this goal by organizing and conducting educational tours to Europe and around the world and by hosting celebrities at Baylor and in their own home, always placing the profits from these projects into a "special account."   The account, as well as the Browning Collection, grew through their diligent and passionate efforts.  Eventually, enough funds were gathered from, or pledged by, generous donors for the construction of a building solely dedicated to housing the Browning Collection.

BACKSTORY:  The Beginning of a Lifelong Commitment to Preserve the Legacy of the Brownings

A.J. Armstrong’s love for the Brownings began in September of 1904 at Illinois Wesleyan University where he was hired to teach a course on Robert Browning’s works.  Until that time, Armstrong had never before studied the poet, but not one to give any task less than his best, according to one source, he studied Browning’s writings every day from 1 p.m. to 2 a.m., breaking only for an hour to eat dinner.  He later wrote that he “was ripe for the reception of [Browning’s] philosophy, to appreciate his beauty.”   By 1905, Armstrong had begun his own small “Browning library.”

In 1908,  Dr. Armstrong was recruited by the then-President of Baylor University, to fill a one-year interim position as Chair of Baylor’s English department.  At the end of his first year at Baylor in 1909, Armstrong took a three-month trip around Europe and married Mary Maxwell.  It was on that fortuitous trip, while he was in Italy, that he met and became friends with Robert Barrett “Pen” Browning, the 60-year-old only son of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, an artist and sculptor, who showed him various aspects of his parents’ home and belongings. 

When Pen Browning died in 1912 without leaving a Will, the Browning estate was dispersed during a 6-day sale, in order to satisfy relatives and creditors.  Dr. Browning asked the London agent to keep him informed about who had purchased manuscripts and other items from the Browning Estate.  Ultimately,  Armstrong obtained a list of to whom the items were sold and began to acquire them via donation or purchase, hoping to preserve their works and legacy.

During that same year, 1918, Armstrong saw an opportunity after he had assumed the full-time position as Chair of Baylor’s English Department:  He donated his personal collection of Browning texts and commentaries to the University.  For the remainder of his life, he traveled the globe in search of all the Browning art, artifacts, letters and manuscripts that he could find and obtain for the collection.

CONSTRUCTION: The Growth of the Collection Creates the Need for New Space 

In 1918, after Dr. Armstrong had donated his small collection of Browning books to Baylor University, he dedicated himself to raising money to fund an ongoing search to expand that collection which was known as the "Browning Collection".
 
Initially, the Browning Collection was housed in the open shelves of Baylor’s main library, Carroll Library, until a fire occurred in 1922.  Fortunately, the entire Browning Collection was saved, and during renovation of the Carroll Library, a special Browning Room was created and dedicated in 1924.

As early as 1925, the Browning Collection was the largest in the world, and in 1943, clearly in need of its own building, Baylor President Pat Neff initiated a $100,000 “challenge grant” to Dr. Armstrong toward construction of a separate library building to house the collection.
 
On May 7, 1948, in spite of a stifling post-war economy, ground-breaking began at the corner of 8th and Speight on the Baylor campus for the building completed two years later in 1950 seen in the vintage photo below.  Dr. Armstrong initially worked with the two architects who designed the Library until his health began to fail, at which time his wife Mary took over.  The two architects each had separate design responsibilities and worked independently:  Hedrick C. Wyatt of Fort Worth, Texas, designed the 3-story physical building in the Italian Renaissance architectural style.  Otto R. Eggers of the New York City architectural firm Eggers & Higgens -- who in 1939 had taken over the construction phase of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. after the death of its original architect John Russell Pope -- created the interior spaces.  The overall cost of constructing the Library in 1948 was $1.75-million -- the equivalent of approximately $20-million in 2021.

The various interiors of the Armstrong Browning Library are, in a word, gorgeous. The ceilings are extremely high, with some being very ornate and including chandeliers.  The woodwork is intricate, and the polished bookcases and curio cabinets house rare books and Browning memorabilia.  To enter the building, visitors first pass through the elegantly carved double front doors, seen in the photograph here below.

In the Entry Foyer, there are sculpture busts of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to the left and right, facing each other, as seen in the photograph below.

To the left of, and off, the Entry Foyer, through a set of doors, is the Library's Reading Room with stained glass windows providing diffused natural light from the outside.  In addition to serving its obvious purpose, this room has also been used for Baylor's School of Music faculty and student recitals because of its excellent acoustics, ambiance and ample size -- especially during the tenure of Daniel Sternberg, Dean Emeritus of Baylor's School of Music whose career at Baylor spanned nearly 40-years from 1942-1980, and who, coincidentally, passed away 21-years ago this month.

The two corridors on each side of the Entry Foyer lead to a spectacular multi-purpose room regularly used for intimate late afternoon and evening chamber music concerts, choral performances, and musical recitals.  This room, referred to as the Foyer of Meditation, is also a favourite location for taking bridal photos.  One side of the room faces West, which  --  as the sun is setting  --  causes a rainbow of colours from several large stained glass windows to softly blanket the room.  Evening concerts held in this room are literally "magical".

Of particular interest to visitors is the Elizabeth Barrett Browning Salon, located upstairs.  It is a re-creation of her room, and features her personal memorabilia in a soft light green setting.  Although the public can only view the room through its doorway, I personally have always felt that it conveys a certain peaceful tranquility.

To this day, a surprising amount of Browning collectibles still surface as they come  out of the hands of private collectors.  The Library was renovated in 1995 in order to house an even larger collection which by then also included that of Baylor's Engtlish Department which had re-located to the building.  Another renovation occurred in 2012.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  A customized Guided Tour of the Armstrong Browning Library is included among our Living History Tours of Waco© by Snobby Tours®, Inc.  For more information, please visit our Website at: http://snobbytours.com/wacotours.html

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(Primary and Photo Sources : Living History Tours of Waco© by Snobby Tours®, Inc.;  baylor.edu;  The Handbook of Waco and McLennan County;  The Texas Collection at Baylor University;  Lewis, Scott, Boundless Life: A Biography of Andrew Joseph Armstrong, 2014; The Texas Historial Commission)

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