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Marcus McCorison was named president emeritus of the American
Antiquarian
Society at his retirement, after thirty-two years of distinguished
service.
Appointed the Society's librarian in 1960, he was named director
in 1967,
a title that was changed to president in 1989 and that he retained
until
his retirement in 1992. 'During his long tenure, he acquired some
115,000
items, ranging from a single letter or broadside to a run of
hundreds
of issues of a single newspaper title.' His contribution is not
judged
only by numbers; these new acquisitions enhanced the Society's
holdings
of nineteenth-century materials, while adding to the colonial and
Revolutionary
era resources for which it was already famous. A noted
bibliographer,
McCorison greatly enhanced access to the Society's collections
through
the creation of a machine-readable cataloguing system and
encouraging
the production of bibliographies that would include AAS holdings.
He laid
the foundations for a scholarly community through the
establishment of
the fellowship program to draw visiting scholars to Worcester and
inaugurated
academic programs that put fellows in touch with scholars in the
region.(1)
He also enlarged the institution's endowment with well-organized
fundraising
campaigns and personal appeals to potential donors.
After serving with the United States Naval Reserve during World
War II,
McCorison graduated from Ripon College in 1950 and earned masters
degrees
from the University of Vermont (1951) and Columbia University
(1954).
His academic study was interrupted by U.S. Army service as a first
lieutenant
in Korea in 1951-52. His first professional position was as
librarian
of the Kellogg Hubbard Library in Montpelier, Vermont. In 1955 he
became
the chief of rare books at Dartmouth College. After accepting the
position
at the Society in 1960, McCorison moved to Worcester and gradually
became
involved with most of the historical associations in the region.
He was
a trustee of The Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts until
1989
and was a trustee of both Old Sturbridge Village and Historic
Deerfield.
He is a member of the Club of Odd Volumes, the Colonial Society of
Massachusetts,
and the Massachusetts Historical Society. His professional
contributions
include service as president of the Bibliographical Society of
America,
on the Board of Governors of the Research Libraries Group, and as
a founder
of the Independent Research Libraries Association.
McCorison is also an author. In 1963, after thirteen years of
research,
he published his Vermont Imprints, 1778-1820 which lists every
known item
published in Vermont before 1821. His essay entitled "The
Annals
of American Bibliography, or Book History Plain and Fancy"
was published
by the University of Texas in 1991, the same year his
"Humanists
and Byte-size Bibliography, or How to Digest Expanding Sources of
Information"
appeared in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.
McCorison
produced dozens of articles on the history of American printing
and printers,
several of which were published in the Proceedings of the American
Antiquarian
Society, including "Isaiah Thomas, The American Antiquarian
Society
and the Future" (1981), and "Early American Bookbindings
from
the Collection of Michael Papantonio" (1983).
In 1995 the Society's Council voted to commission a portrait of
the president
emeritus and McCorison was requested to select a painter to
capture his
likeness. With his wife Janet, he went to several galleries on
Boston's
Newbury Street and looked at the work of contemporary painters. In
addition,
they searched through dozens of artists' portfolios on file at the
Copley
Society before selecting the South American painter Numael Pulido.
McCorison
admired the attention to detail, softened realism, and high gloss
finish
typical of nineteenth-century painting styles in Pulido's work.
Pulido was born in Colombia and came to the United States in 1958.
He
studied painting at the Art Students' League in New York and
exhibited
his work at the National Academy of Design. In the 1970s, he moved
to
Hancock, New Hampshire, 'temporarily withdrawing from the gallery
world
to experiment in depth with the techniques of oil painting.'(2)
Pulido
spent the 1980s in Europe, living in London and working as a still
life
and portrait painter. He returned to the United States in 1989.
Sittings for McCorison's portrait began in August 1995. The
artist had
originally planned to paint McCorison out-of-doors, standing in
front
of the Society's building. He remembered, 'Georgia Barnhill [the
Society's
Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts] and the McCorisons
approved
of the idea, but Georgia said at one point, rather wistfully,
"I
guess I will always see him surrounded by his books." I went
ahead
with my plan, but her remark was working on my mind. I was already
quite
advanced with sketches and photographs for the painting when one
morning
I woke up with the clear conviction that Georgia was right. So
strong
was this impression that I didn't hesitate to reconsider the whole
composition.'(3)
The finished work, depicting McCorison seated at a desk covered
with papers,
was unveiled for the members of the Society at the 1996 annual
meeting.
At the presentation, Society President Ellen S. Dunlap spoke of
the inspiration
drawn from the image. 'The painting is rich in true-life detail.
From
the canvas, Marcus looks back at us from his work, from which we
are clearly
interrupting him. We recognize the desk, the chair, the books,
even the
look on his face. It is as if he is about to speak to us, and we
know
him well enough to be certain what he is about to say: "Be
true to
the great mission and purpose of this library." "Raise
more
money." "Buy more books!"'(4) The painting hangs in
the
Council Room in Antiquarian Hall.
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1) John B. Hench, 'Serendipity and Synergy: Collection
Development, Access,
and Research Opportunities at the American Antiquarian Society in
the McCorison
Era,' Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 102
(October
1992):
292.
2) Numael Pulido, autobiographical sketch, April 1997,
American Antiquarian
Society Archives.
3) Numael Pulido to Lauren Hewes, April 6, 1997, American
Antiquarian Society
Archives.
4) Ellen S. Dunlap, 'Report of the Council,' Proceedings
of
the American
Antiquarian Society 106 (October 1996): 208-9.
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