Alfred Claghorn Potter

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2003126518

Alfred Claghorn Potter was born at New Bedford on

April 4, 1867, a son of the Reverend William James Potter, a

Unitarian minister, and Elizabeth Claghorn (Babcock)

Potter. He was prepared for college at Friends' Academy in

New Bedford, and was graduated at Harvard in 1889.

On January 1 of that year he had already begun, as a parttime

assistant, his almost half century of service in the

Harvard College Library. In 1904 he became assistant

librarian, and in 1928, librarian. During the greater part

of this period he kept in his hands the purchase of books for

the institution which he saw grow from a good college

library to one of the greatest scholars' libraries in the world.

During his career the library grew ten-fold. Of course the

greater part of this increase was automatic, but the determination

of the quality of it was largely his work, for he

selected perhaps a million of th,e accessions. Not satisfied

with the catalogues of secondhand dealers, he made ten

expeditions to the bookstores of Europe. With good reason

the Friends of the Harvard College Library recognized his

services by a special bookplate.

Mr. Potter was a member of the Bibliographical Society

of America, the Cambridge Historical Society, the Colonial

Society of Massachusetts, the Club of Odd Volumes,

the International Tabakwischenshaftliche Gesellschaft, the

Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Massachusetts Library Club. He was elected to membership in the American

Antiquarian Society in April, 1918, and usually gave it

the support of his presence at meetings, although he could

never be induced to read a paper. Our bookplate collection

attracted his attention and in consequence was enriched by

the addition of all new Harvard plates. As a scholar he was

unfortunately shy, and for that reason preserved his knowledge

for posterity only in a series of careful articles, most of

which appeared in the various publications of Harvard

University and of the Colonial Society, but by their quality

demanded and obtained reprints. The best known of these

are a "Bibliography of Beaumont and Fletcher," "Librarians

of Harvard College, 1667-1877,'' "Descriptive and

Historical Notes on the Library of Harvard University,'' the

"Harvard College Library, 1723-1736," "Catalogues of

John Harvard's Library," and "Some Early Books on

Tobacco."

On September 1, 1936, Mr. Potter retired from the

Harvard library and betook himself once more to London,

where for two months he renewed his old acquaintances in

the book shops. On his return to this country he went to

California, where he spent his winters in Pasadena and his

summers at San Clemente. Unable to keep away from books,

he became a volunteer associate at the Henry E. Huntington

Library, where he made a subject index for certain portions

of the rare book collection, a task calling for learning like

·his own. His letters to us back in New England were as

kind and as quick to praise a good work done as he always

was in his years with us. He died on November 1, 1940,

leaving a widow, Edith Van Der Zee, and a daughter,

Elizabeth (Mrs. Stedman B. Hoar).

C. K. S. Obituary in the American Antiquarian Society newsletter

www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44807035.pdf accessed 10/23/2017