The years 1860-1920 witnessed sweeping changes in book design, inspired by technological developments, marketing strategies, and shifting ideas about art. The changes were further fueled by an expanding middle class and significant growth in literacy, providing a ready consumer market for books. Publishers capitalized on these advancements in technology to manufacture elaborately embellished books covers, which became known as “decorative bindings.” For the first time, ornamentation like brightly colored cloth, embossing, stamping, and gold leaf was affordable and reproduceable in large quantities. Such decoration was used to entice the book buying public, but it also elevated these books to the status of art objects. Today, their value lies not in their subject matter but rather in their decorative bindings.
F. Berkeley Smith (1869-1931), binding for The Real Latin Quarter, by F. Berkeley Smith (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901). M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives. Henry Justice Ford (1860-1941), binding for The Violet Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang (London: Longman’s, Green, and Co., 1901). M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives.
The M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, which chronicles the evolution of American publishing, illustration, and book design, was given to the Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives by Mary and Daphne Sawyer. The collection of over 3,400 volumes includes examples by leading artists in the field of book design and illustration, including Margaret Armstrong, Sarah Wyman Whitman, Henry Justice Ford, and the Decorative Designers firm. The holdings provide excellent examples of major artistic movements in the United States, particularly Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. The only other public collection of decorative bindings in the United States with a comparable size and scope is that of the Thomas Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Margaret Armstrong (1867-1944), binding for Pippa Passes, by Robert Browning (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1903). M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives. A Woman of the World, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Boston: L. C. Page, 1905). M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives.
A selection of exemplary volumes from the Sawyer Collection are on view outside the Library on the lower level of the Museum through October 13th. Members of the public interested in viewing additional books from the Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings can make an appointment to see them with DelArt’s Librarian and Archivist, Rachael DiEleuterio at rdieleuterio@delart.org.
Rachael DiEleuterio
Librarian and Archivist, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives