I have always been fascinated with book inscriptions. As someone whose budget often dictates that my books need to come from second hand stores or libraries, inscriptions are proof of those who have read before me, and left their mark as one of ownership or defiance. We can’t help ourselves from feeling affected by these personal marks.
When I started my internship at Casa Loma, I was thrilled to be able to help catalog the museum’s extensive book collection. I was on the lookout for any interesting inscriptions I may come across. Like many historic-house museums, (though to call Casa Loma a house is a stretch) the museum and its collections have passed hands many times, under different management. Casa Loma’s collection presents a fascinating problem. Nearly all of the collection is not original to the home. Professor Sutton referred to it as a sort of “fake collection”, which is true! Casa Loma is filled with objects trying to represent the style of a man who did not really own these things. However, it is also a collection in its own right- these are real artifacts, or are replicas that are still part of the museum’s collection. It is layered and complex.
Not only is the collection largely unoriginal in the context of the museum, it is unknown where some of the objects came from in the first place. To explain this fully, let me set up some historic context. Henry Pellatt, the glamorous owner of Casa Loma, was forced to move out of the castle in 1923 after spending less than a decade in the opulent castle he had built for himself and his wife, Mary. Property taxes were raised on the castle and combined with a number of other financial troubles, he had to leave. He returned in 1924 to auction off the contents of his abandoned home. The contents of the castle were picked apart and separated. Luckily, there is a list of what was auctioned off, though no clear records of what became of the lost luxurious items. After a brief stint as a hotel in the 1920’s, when it was a hot spot for Americans to forget about the Prohibition, the castle was owned by the city of Toronto and sat empty until 1937, when the Kiwanis Club began operating the castle as a tourist attraction. In 2013, Liberty Entertainment entered into a lease agreement with the city of Toronto to operate the castle as a heritage attraction. The many changing of hands over the past one hundred years has left the state of the museum’s collection in disarray. The current curator, my supervisor for this internship, has dedicated much time and energy towards making sense of the existing object catalogs and old condition reports. Having seen a 13-page object record for a replica candlestick purchased at Winners in 1998, I can say from my own experience that it is no easy task trying to make sense of the castle’s vast collection. In many cases, it is uncertain where some objects came from. Some objects claim to be “Pelatt originals”- objects auctioned off in 1924 which have been donated back to the castle, yet their object record contains that the only proof of this claim is the donator’s aunt once said a table or lamp was from Casa Loma.
In Casa Loma’s case, the origins of the collection’s 10,000+ books are largely unknown. Some came from Henry Pellatt, the original owner of Casa Loma, some may have been added when the castle was a hotel, or when it was under the care of the Kiwanis club, or the City of Toronto, the list goes on. The library which houses the book collection is massive, and many books were donated with the intention of simply filling the shelves, no mind to their relevance to the castle. During cataloguing, I found a copy of Sophie’s Choice from 1990 a shelf up from an early edition of The Jungle Book. Some books had accession numbers, other were loaned to the museum from current employees just to bulk up the library. In many cases, the only glimpse into the origins of these books are the inscriptions hidden in between some of their pages.
The question guiding my research has been this: how can my love of inscriptions be applied to the collections in which they are found? Can they be an effective tool in helping to place difficult collections such as Casa Loma’s in context and can they strengthen relationships between object and observer?
I’ve found that the answer is yes, but. Let me explain why.
Background Research
Cara Krmpotich and Alexander Somerville’s paper Affective presence: The Metonymical Catalogue is what inspired me to start thinking about how to seek out affect in museum collections. Their work focuses on using affective language in museum object records: words like love, strength, affection, and honour. Often, museum professionals are taught that we must be unbiased and impartial in our work. Museum records specifically are meant only to serve as reference points for the objects so they can be identifiable. Krmpotich and Somerville urge us to consider the value of allowing us to be more subjective. Place yourselves in the shoes of the person who initially interacted with the object- how did they feel? What did it mean to them? To me, this was a groundbreaking paper. It is true that we can never truly be unbiased. But to be told explicitly that we are doing our museums and their audiences a disservice to try to keep our emotions out of our work seemed like permission to start doing what I had wanted to do all along.
This of course, is a thin line. Placing too many of our assumptions on to museum objects can lead to incorrect and inappropriate interpretations. But at the very basic level, we should push ourselves farther than creator, origin, and use, categories commonly seen on museum catalog records. While Krmpotich and Somerville’s was an excellent starting place to get me to think about how I could apply the concept of affect in my own work at the castle, I still see a gap in research into how inscriptions themselves are indeed the presence of affect, and what this means for the collections they are found in.
Indulging the Inscriptions
I wanted to see what would happen when I applied the simple rule of ask more questions when it came to the inscriptions I was finding in Casa Loma’s library. I was writing down the book’s title, the year it was published, and its condition. But the full story- pardon the pun- wasn’t being told. This is the book that kicked off this project: with its plum cover and cute title, it stood out to me. . When I opened the cover to figure out its publication date, I found an inscription which read
"Mr. and Mrs. J. W Johnson.
With the Compliments of the Author
Annie Kilburn-Kilmer."
Standard practice may dictate that making note of the inscription is as far as I need to go. But curiosity has gotten the best of me. Who was this author? Who is she giving this book to?
I conducted all of my initial research over Wikipedia. My goal wasn't to be able to write an essay on the author's contributions to society, but rather get a quick sketch of who she was and why this book might be in the collection. My initial research on the author of this book and inscription, Annie Kilburn-Kilmer, was frustratingly slim and continues to be so. When I typed "Annie Kilburn-Kilmer" into the search bar, the first thing that comes up is a video posted by the Joyce Kilmer museum in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It turns out her son is an influential writer himself, remembered as a poet killed in action during WWI. She is remembered through him, as his mother, rather than as a writer in her own right. My own feminist objections to this aside, I have learned something valuable. There is a museum out there that most likely has more information about her. And I have a Joyce Kilmer book in Casa Loma's collection, sitting in front of me waiting to be catalogued. Had I not looked up Annie, I most likely wouldn't have picked up on the fact that these two authors share a last name. With hundreds of books I need to get catalogued, these finer details stick out to me less than they should.
So now, I have two books in the collection I can assume may have come from the same donor.
When I catalog Joyce Kilmer's Book, I am on the lookout for an inscription. I am not disappointed. The inside cover reads "Merry Xmas from Annie Kilburn-Kilmer". I let my mind wander a little. I picture Annie as a proud mother, giving away copies of her son's books for Christmas to friends and family. Joyce's Wikipedia says he died in 1911. Is she giving these books out before then, unaware of what was to become of the son she was so proud of? Or is it years after, and she's doing this to ensure his memory lives on?
I'm curious about who these Johnsons are that Annie is giving away books to. In another of her books, this one titled More Whimsies which I have to say I LOVE, there is another inscription. This time with a golden ticket: a date!
So I know who Annie is, I know who Joyce is, but I'm still not sure what that's got to do with Casa Loma and how these books ended up here. So now I wonder- who are Mrs. and Mr. J.W. Johnson? I remember in a previous book case I came across a commemorative book made upon the passing of Robert Wood Johnson, the founder of the Johnson & Johnson Company. A connection to one of the wealthiest families in America seems a bit far-fetched for these random books in a random museum in Toronto, but I follow the thread. Robert Wood Johnson's Wikipedia page reveals to me that he had a brother named James Wood Johnson. J.W Johnson. He passed away in 1932, this book haven been to him within a year of his death if this is really his. This seems like an incredible connection to me, too good to be true. I'm fully down the rabbit hold by this point. I scroll further along on Wikipedia and discover a subheading on Johnson's page called Kilmer. Surely not... our Kilmers? Oh ho ho beloved readers, it surely is our Kilmers. Dr. Frederick Barnett Kilmer, husband of Annie Kilburn-Kilmer and father of Joyce Kilmer was a good friend of the Johnsons, and worked for them. He invented baby powder for the Johnsons. You know, the baby powder that is one of their most recognizable products? The baby powder that probably pops into your head when you hear the phrase "baby powder"???? All the unfortunate connection to cancer and lawsuits aside, this is a pretty remarkable connection. And it all started with a simple three line inscription.
I also recall cataloguing a book about the involvement of New Brunswick Pensyvannia in the war, which is the home of J. W Johnson and the Kilmers. I have a definite link between five different books now, all thanks to an inscription and Wikipedia. I’m pretty sure these few books have at some point been in the possession of the Johnsons, and have now somehow come to be in Casa Loma’s collection. I still don’t know how they ended up in Casa Loma’s collection, but what were before a bunch of unrelated books sitting in the castle’s shelves are now intrinsically linked, and have revealed a history that was completely unknown to me.
This is a wonderful example of what can happen when we see inscriptions in collections and follow the thread. Though research is still being done as to how these books got in the museum, the origin of these books was completely unknown. Books that were most likely owned by one of the richest families in America were sitting on Casa Loma’s shelves, completely unknown to us. And this is revealed to us through inscriptions. Though it only helps partially explain 5 books out of 10,000, it's a start.
So what about the inscriptions that don’t really lead me anywhere? Though the inscription below did not help me learn more about how the book ended up in Casa Loma’s collections, reading it transformed the book in my hands. It was no longer only a museum artifact. It was someone’s Christmas present. In 1911, a mother picked out this book and waited impatiently for her child to unwrap it on christmas day. Of course, these are my own assumptions. But they help me better understand the life cycle of this object: it does not exist in a fixed space in time as an artifact. It had a past life that is better revealed when we allow ourselves to picture the woman who wrote the inscription so neatly on the inner cover. Doing this makes us better historians, better caretakers, and when we apply this to our museum labels and to our tours, we help our audiences to better understand these objects, too.
Conclusions
So, my initial question going in to my research was can book inscriptions be an effective tool in helping to place collections in context and can they strengthen relationships between object and observer?
My conclusion is yes, but we have to seek out these inscriptions. We have to let them speak to us, and make note of when they do. It is not enough to simply note: inscription on front cover. Museum visitors are much more likely to care about a book if you tell them it was a book of poetry given as a christmas present in 1911 than if you tell them it is a 1911 copy of a book of poetry. Inscriptions help us to connect a book to its past life, and it is these connections that allow museum audiences to connect to the books. This being said, it is no secret that museums, specifically house-museums, often face low funding and therefore less time to dedicate to projects such as these. I did my initial research on Annie Kilmer-Kilburn using Wikipedia to show that I am not vying for the creation of book inscription research departments in museums (though if that ever becomes a reality, I’ll submit my resume!) but to show even on the most basic of levels, taking a closer look at these inscriptions is beneficial. When we do seek out the stories behind these inscriptions, we may help solve problems like unknown provenance in our collections. But even when inscriptions do not help uncover mysteries and tie books to the Johnson and Johnson family, it is time well-invested in researching as much as we can.
When facing a massive and often-times confusing collection such as Casa Loma’s, there are often more problems than solutions. How to catalog the entire collection? How to identify what is relevant and what is not? How to trace their origins? Book inscriptions are not the answer to all of these (likely unsolvable) conundrums. However, they are a tiny place to begin. Sitting with one object, and dedicating even five minutes into trying to understand where it came from and what it has to do with the collection it is now a part of can yield incredible results. It won’t make receipts of sale appear, or create a catalog record for itself, but these objects may begin to make a bit more sense. Or perhaps they will raise more questions, which can actually be a good thing. Asking visitors to help solve the mystery behind a book with no provenance could be an effective engagement tool. And who knows? You may even get some answers.
Bibliography
City of Toronto. “Casa Loma Corporation.” City of Toronto, January 20, 2022. https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/accountability-operations-customer-service/city-administration/city-managers-office/agencies-corporations/corporations/casa-loma/.
Krmpotich, Cara, and Alexander Somerville. “Affective Presence: The Metonymical Catalogue.” Museum Anthropology39, no. 2 (2016): 178–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/muan.12123.
Oreskovich, Charlie. Sir Henry: A Dreamer of Dreams. WriteNow Communications, 1982.
Kommentare