Merrell, Ada Clark.

[Archive of Research, Personal Correspondence and College Ephemera].

Ripon, Wisconsin: 1879-1917. 10½” x 7½”. Scrapbook, marbled paper over boards, with 217 pp. filled mostly to completion with 140 newspaper clippings, 23 letters, 30 notes and 38 items of ephemera (most adhered or written directly on pages, 68 items laid in) + an additional 53 letters in plastic sleeves. Generally very good: scrapbook a bit worn and overstuffed, backstrip perished; one printed speech with a large tear affecting a few letters of title but no other text; sporadic offsetting, light chipping and soiling.

This is a vast and illuminating collection of research on a noted female educator, Clarissa Tucker Tracy, as well as personal and professional materials mostly concerning Wisconsin's Ripon College (RC). It was compiled by a woman with lifelong ties to the school, Ada Clark Merrell.

Ada Clark was born in Kentucky in 1856 and first came to Ripon, Wisconsin at the age of 10, visiting relatives who had moved there from New York. When she was 15 her father received a letter and college catalog from RC president Edward Huntington Merrell. Ada begged to be enrolled and studied under Merrell's guardianship until the age of 21, graduating with a degree in classics. Merrell's first wife died in 1876 and in 1880 he and Ada were married. They established their home as Merrell Manse, a longtime social hub for RC and local denizens; it later housed a college dean, then a fraternity before being razed in 1962. Edward served as RC president a total of 16 years and published a historical sketch of the school in 1893. He died in 1910, and Ada lived until 1934.

In 1908 Ada Clark Merrell published Life and Poems of Clarissa Tucker Tracy. Tracy was the first female professor at RC and has been deemed “the mother” of the school. An educator from the age of 14, at RC Tracy taught botany, English literature and mathematics. She ran food service and housekeeping, served as counselor and nurse. For 30 years she and students researched wild flora, and she published Catalogue of Plants Growing Without Cultivation in Ripon and the Near Vicinity in 1889. Tracy retired in 1893 at age 75, then ran a women's off-campus dormitory and continued tutoring until her death in 1905.

This archive contains a wealth of materials on Clarissa Tucker Tracy, as likely compiled for Merrell's book, the proceeds of which (per a present clipping) were “to be devoted to a Tracy Memorial Fund . . . More people, probably, remember Ripon for Mrs. Tracy's sake than for any other one thing, and with reason, for city and college have held no nobler life, and surely none more piquant, picturesque, and full of racy interest.” It contains poems and other writings by the educator, both published and not, a few with Merrell's comments, such as “In the autograph copy of this poem, the title is called by Mrs. Tracy – 'Beyond.'” There are transcriptions of letters written by and about Tracy, family genealogies, clippings on her life and work and laudatory letters from local notables.

The materials also shine light on RC history. There are several clipped obituaries for E.H. Merrell and others associated with the school, images of campus buildings, board meeting minutes and published statements by RC leaders. Some headlines include “Fifty Useful Years: Past Struggles and Present Success of Ripon College. Love of Knowledge Its Basis,” “Carnegie gives Ripon $20,000: Wisconsin College the First to Benefit Under the Iron King's New Policy” and “How the Alumni Money is Used.” There are clippings on former students serving in World War I, school clubs and events like the Women's Symposium, as well as materials Ada collected as chair of various committees.

There are also dozens of letters between Ada and Edward that show deep love and mutual respect, and discuss various goings-on at RC. She shares musings on literature, notes sent to professors and many ideas: “Letters are so unsatisfactory, Edward. I would rather sit beside you and tell you all my thoughts.” Other interesting materials include a copy of a paper Ada read before the landmark World's Congress of Representative Women at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 and a program deeming her “a Lecturer and Pianist who has succeeded in popularizing Beethoven, while maintaining the dignity and noble beauty of the composer's music.”

A fascinating collection rich with research fodder on a Wisconsin college, its respected second president and noted female educator, created and collected by a woman devoted to all three. Very good. Item #5044

Price: $1,500.00