Communication from M. Vattemare.
[Hartford]: n.p., 1849. 4 pp. 8vo. Self wrappers. First edition. Very good, creased, browned edges. Item #38802
In this Senate Document, Hartford, Connecticut, June 19th, 1849, Alexandre Vattemare thanks the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, of the State of Connecticut, for the adoption of the Central Agency for International Literary Exchanges and details specific work yet to be accomplished.
After Nicolas Marie Alexandre Vattemare (1796-1864) grew rich from a successful stint as a ventriloquist, he spent 25 years promoting free libraries, developing a system of cultural exchanges of artifacts among libraries and museums in the process [échanges internationaux pour l' Amérique]. Though ignored in France, he found the USA and Canada to be more receptive; it was his suggestion of combining all the libraries in Boston that eventually led to the establishment of the Boston Public Library.
"Vattemare’s Enlightenment dream of establishing publicly sanctioned and subsidized institutions for the universal dissemination of culture would consume his energies for the next twenty-five years of his life. It would not be fully realized, however, until after his death, with the establishment of free public libraries in every major city in the U.S. and Europe, with legislation passed by individual countries authorizing cultural exchange between nations, and, ultimately, with a global institution like UNESCO, founded nearly 100 years after his death....the United States and Canada were eager to participate in such a project, and all of the thirteen former colonies that Vattemare visited in the next two years, from Maine to Florida, pledged money, books, maps, and objects representing the habitat, civil affairs, inventions and culture of their regions. (Suzanne Nash: 'Alexandre Vattemare: A 19th-Century Story', [2004], Society of Dix-Neuviémistes).
One location on OCLC: Trinity College.
[With] an extract from the appendix to Massachusetts House Document. No. 151 (1849).Moreau, G. House. No. 151. International Exchanges. From the Members of the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts April 30, 1849 [to] M. Alexandre Vattemare. [Massachusetts] [45-52] pp. 4to. Very good, unopened (uncut), stitch holes, faint scattered foxing. Includes: G. Moreau, "Report of the Proceedings of the Central Agency in Paris, during the year 1848, rendered to Mr. Alexander Vattemare, January 23rd, 1849." After a note of thanks from the Massachusetts Senate and House, the remaining seven pages are taken up with a report by Vattemare's son-in-law, G. Moreau, on his herculean efforts in Paris to implement this program and gain support from sometimes changing government ministers during the political turmoil and violence of the Revolution of 1848 which ended with Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's election as President of the Second Republic.
Price: $200.00