Library Receives Presidential Autograph

By Frank Boles  

For the past several months the Clarke has exhibited a loaned collection of original presidential signatures, linked to a display of the library’s presidential campaign biographies.  The exhibit will come to a close this month and during its run, I have tried to obtain the signature of President Obama, to add to the collection of campaign biographies.

The problem with this is that virtually all contemporary presidential signatures are “robos,” that is letters and other documents signed by a machine.  President John Kennedy installed the first robo machine in the White House, and every president since him has continued using ever more sophisticated examples of the devices. The machines allow presidents to honor the hundreds of requests the White House receives daily for presidential signatures, sort of.

Collectors, however, have turned to finding “authenticated” autographs, that is a presidential signature that someone can attest was really made by the president himself.  For example, the autograph on loan in our exhibit is a title page from the President’s book, The Audacity of Hope, signed during a book tour.

Over the past several months, I’ve been looking for that magic “authenticated” signature for the Clarke. I’ve tried writing elected officials, back channeling through friends and friends of friends, and pretty much everything else, without luck.  Over the holidays, however, the Clarke received a Christmas present from a CMU alumni who was among the people who knew the library was looking for a presidential autograph, and who recently happened to be in a room with the President of the United States. With a lot of help from our new library BFF, President Obama’s authenticated signature, on White House stationary, arrived in the mail, housed in a simple business envelope.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to both our benefactor who took the time to help us (an undoubtedly risked annoying a man who must be really tired of someone always asking him to “just please sign something for me, maybe on that White House notecard over there”) and the many friends who put me in touch with their friends. Eventually those contacts paid off!

Happy Holidays

On December 21 at 5:00 pm the Clarke Library will close for the holidays.  We will re-open our doors on January 2 at 8:00 a.m. The Library’s staff and Board of Governors wish each of you a happy holiday season and a prosperous and peaceful new year.

Huzzah!

by Frank Boles

During his years as director of the Clarke Library (1961-1982) John Cumming developed a superb collection of pre-1850 Michigan imprints. When we receive sales catalogs today, I am often tempted to not even check any Michigan book printed before 1850 – they are almost always already in the collection. But check we do, and once in a great while we find something that eluded John and his contemporaries.

So it was a few weeks ago when a dealer catalog arrived offering the Acts Passed at the Extra and Second Session of the Sixth Legislative Council of the Territory of Michigan, published in Detroit by S. M’Night in 1835. The session was a particularly momentous one. On January 26, 1835 the Territorial Legislature passed “An Act to enable the people of Michigan to form a Constitution and State Government.” Laws leading up to statehood appeared at several points in the session.


However, questions more mundane than statehood also occupied the minds of the Territory’s political leaders. For example, on March 30, 1835 the Legislature passed “An Act to regulate the Weight of Hay.” As of “the first day of April next” …. “a ton of hay shall be two thousand pounds avoirdupois weight, any law or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.” Sometimes political leadership takes a back seat to making sure everybody understands just how much hay is really in a ton of the stuff.

Back in John Cumming’s day finding a pre-1850 Michigan imprint was greeted with a “huzzah.” We don’t say that old-fashioned word very often these days, but to celebrate both our recent acquisition, and all of John’s hard work, please join me in a hearty “HUZZAH!"