As my time at the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature wound down in August, I found myself finalizing my time with my research boxes of choice (the Margaret Sidney papers) and beginning to ask the staff to bring me other little treasures within the archive, some of which I requested just so I could hold them in my own hands. The Baldwin Library is a treasure trove of historic children’s literature materials, and if you are the next Bechtel fellow, here are just a few of the exciting little things you can get your hands on too:
An 1869 Copy of Little Women
As a Little Women obsessive, like many women, when I realized (far too late in my stay) that the Baldwin had an 1869 copy of Little Women, Part the First, I actually started tearing up. I asked for the staff to pull it from me before having to step out to take a work-related call, and by the time I was returning to the reading room, I felt like I was vibrating. And there it was, sitting on my little assigned desk, waiting for me to open it. Little Women was initially published in two parts, the first in 1868, so this is not a first edition, but it’s pretty close. To hold a copy so old, and yet so familiar, was a delight.
“Giles Gingerbread” tiny book, likely by John Newbery
The word “Newbery” means something very different in the library world of today than it did in the 18th century and yet John Newbery’s impact still can be felt in so much of children’s literature today. The Baldwin library has a bunch of VERY old little teensy books, and one of those is Giles Gingerbread, a book about 3 inches tall and 31 tiny pages long, published in 1813 by Sidney’s Press in London. Little books are always fascinating and adorable, but to hold something that likely was written by a father of children’s literature was eye-opening. I cannot imagine having to catalog these tiny little things, but if you wanted to learn the alphabet through gingerbread, this book was ready for you!
A Sampler Commemorating Ruth Baldwin’s Life & Legacy
There’s a lovely digitized book that came out a few years ago called B is for Baldwin that looks at different items of the Baldwin Library collection, and in those pages, I found a picture of a sampler by Dr. Gillian Avery, a powerhouse of children’s literature herself, commemorating the life of Ruth Baldwin, after whom the Baldwin Library is named and through whom its collection flourished. This sampler was completed in 1994 and is either embroidery or needlepoint (and I’m not the one to ask..) but features eight different illustrations from 19th century children’s literature that Baldwin collected, from books such as “The Paths of Learning Strewed with Flowers” in 1820 and “The Frog Who Would a Wooing Go” in 1858.
This was a special treat to get to see on my last day at the Baldwin. The sampler is not behind glass and not in the collection, but one of the librarians retrieved it for me from the curator’s office where it was delicately tucked into tissue paper awaiting future preservation efforts.
“Lady Green Satin and Her Maid Rosette” edited by the 1st ever Newbery Medal Chair
I love the history of award committees, and often go down rabbit holes seeing who was on what committee, what book was NOT a winner each year, et cetera. I was delighted to realize that the Baldwin library had several books edited by Clara Whitehill Hunt, the first ever chair of the Newbery Medal. Knowing what we know now about conflicts of interest, it’s fascinating to see how intertwined with publishing the early committees were, but it was a different time. I picked, mostly at random, one of Hunt’s edited books, a translation from the French originally published in 1923. It’s a cute enough story about a boy named Jean and his performing mice, but it was the tone and relevance of the introduction, written by Hunt, that stopped me in my tracks.
“It is the opinion of our most far-seeing leaders that one of the chief causes of war is the
ignorance of the great mass of people regarding those who speak a different language and live
under a different government from our own.”
This is the 1920s, post World War I, so we can definitely see her inspiration, but even today this stands out as a reminder to us of the power of diverse children’s literature to better prepare the leaders of tomorrow to be more knowledgeable and empathetic.
I’m adding Lady Green Satin to my TBR pile posthaste, and not just for the funny little mice illustrations throughout. Maybe next year you’ll be the ALSC Bechtel Fellow and get to explore this fascinating collection too. What treasures of children’s literature will you find?
Photos courtesy of Aryssa Damron, ALSC member
Aryssa Damron is the 2025 ALSC Bechtel Fellow, studying the papers of Margaret Sidney. She is a school librarian in Washington, D.C. and the co-chair of the Children and Libraries Editorial Advisory Committee. She previously served on the Caldecott and Alex Award committees and chaired the 2024 Carnegie Medals for Excellence.