Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden

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Visit our Tour Destination: Illinois page to see the entire tour of the state’s
Save America’s Treasures sites.

Acknowledgement of the Save America's Treasures grant  to conserve
the American Botanical Heritage Collection.
Photo courtesy of Chicago Botanic Garden.

Chicago Botanic Garden, Lenhardt Library

1000 Lake Cook Road

Glencoe, IL

Website:  Chicago Botanic Garden

and

The Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden

The Treasure:  The Lenhardt Library preserves approximately 3,000 rare books and journals from the 15th to the 19th centuries.

Accessibility:  The Chicago Botanic Garden is open every day of the year from 8 a.m. to sunset. The Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden is open Monday through Friday from 10 to 4 (Tuesdays to 6:30) and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4. Special library exhibitions frequently highlight works from the Rare Book Collection. The Stories from the Rare Book Room page on the website offers in-depth information on a number of treasures from the collection.

After treatment:
A Rafinesque volume
in a clam shell box.

Background:  In 2007, the Chicago Botanic Garden received a Save America’s Treasures grant to conserve rare and at-risk volumes acquired by the Lenhardt Library from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 2002. In total, 211 volumes were conserved, including 42 manuscripts, 99 rare books, and 62 journals.

Following are two examples of the type of material that was conserved as part of the Lenhardt Library’s American Botanical Heritage Collection project:

Specimens of plant material collected during 2 years of travel in Europe, Africa and the Near East, 1850-1852, 1855, a manuscript assembled by Maria Kittredge Whitney Degen:

While on a grand tour of Europe and the Middle East, beginning October 1850, Mrs. Maria Kittredge Whitney Degen spent three years collecting plant material and mounting the samples in her journal. Mrs. Degen and her husband traveled through France, Italy, Switzerland, Finland, Russia, and Prague, collecting specimens all along the way. Then they proceeded to Egypt and the Holy Land, where Mrs. Degen collected plants mentioned in the Bible. Their grand tour concluded with collecting excursions in Greece, Malta, Spain, Germany, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Plant specimens from all these locales were grouped together under period engravings depicting the local sights.

Before treatment:  Specimens of plant material, 1850-1852, 1855,
a manuscript assembled by Maria Kittredge Whitney Degen.
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Before treatment:  Specimens of plant material, 1850-1852, 1855,
showing detached boards.
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Conservators of the Degen manuscript de-acidified the text paper, reattached the specimens, strengthened the sewing structure, re-attached the original covers and clasps, pasted the original spine back down, and replaced its original wrappers.

Books by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz:

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (1783-1840), commonly known as Rafinesque, was a prolific 19th century botanist who published an astounding 6,700 binomial names of plants during his lifetime. While the volume of his work is large, it has frustrated professional botanists for nearly two centuries as his classifications tend to be rather unorthodox. An entirely self-educated scientist, Rafinesque stubbornly did things his own way, alienating many of his contemporaries. But his work has survived and continues to provide important descriptions of the varied flora of 19th century North America. The Lenhardt Library received several rare books by Rafinesque from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 2002.

Before treatment:  Rafinesque's Alsographia Americana (1838).
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Before treatment:  Rafinesque's Autikon botanikon (1815-1840).
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

After treatment and rehousing:  Rafinesque's Autikon botanikon on the
left and Rafinesque's Autikon botanikon on the right.
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Conservators treated Rafinesque’s Autikon botanikon (1815-1840) with botanical illustrations of 2,500 North American plants, his Alsographia Americana (1838) with descriptions of American trees and shrubs, and his New flora and botany of North America (1836). The texts of these books were washed and de-acidified, the bindings were re-sewn, the wrappers were mended with Japanese paper, and they were rehoused in clamshell boxes.

Other Recommended Sites:  Now that you’ve seen the library, spend some time in the Chicago Botanic Garden that it serves. One of the treasures of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, the Chicago Botanic Garden is a 385-acre living plant museum featuring 25 distinct display gardens and four natural areas.

Leaves of Rafinesque volumes in a bath during the washing process.
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

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© 2013 Lee Price