The Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of books and manuscripts from the personal library of Daniel G. Siegel ’57, a member of the Library Advisory Council, a board member on the Friends of the Library, and a long and dedicated supporter of special collections at Brown. Mr. Siegel has twice received the Library’s highest honor, the William Williams Award–once as an individual for his generous gifts to special collections and once as a 2012 member of the Library Advisory Council for its support of the renovation of the John Hay Library.

Comprising over 3,000 books and 100 manuscripts, the items included in this recent gift focus mainly on American literature, American history, and the history of science, but also encompass a broad range of other subjects. The gift is particularly strong in association copies, which document the various ways in which intellectuals and activists interacted with ideas and with one another. 

Outstanding Highlights of the Gift

Highlights of the gift include:

• A first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass inscribed by Whitman and Oscar Wilde
• Lydia Maria Child’s Letters from New York inscribed to Margaret Fuller
• King George III’s copy of Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia
• Ralph Waldo Emerson’s copy of the report on the Dred Scott case
• Typescript of Philip Roth’s early short story “The Conversion of the Jews”
• A letter from Albert Einstein discussing the Rosenbergs’ trial and Stalinist purges
• A draft of the constitution of the Confederate States of America with annotations and corrections by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens
• First editions of 19th century Russian novels
• A complete set of pamphlets by visionary rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
• Liberia Herald, vol. 1, no. 1, Monrovia, Liberia, March 6, 1830

Areas of Distinction

The gift expands on the existing holdings in Special Collections in nearly every direction, adding works of significant interest to alcohol and addiction studies, the development of the American West, the history of technology and its uses, natural history and materia medica, the Civil War era, women’s rights, religion, and social reforms of all kinds.

Access to the Materials

The collection is currently in-process. Available titles can be browsed here.

A Lifetime of Collecting and Giving

The materials in this gift reflect Mr. Siegel’s expansive vision of collecting and are an invaluable addition to the John Hay Library’s resources for research and teaching. The items in this gift join those from previous gifts from Mr. Siegel, which include the only surviving manuscript of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and foundational works in the history of science.

Daniel G. Siegel ’57 Fellowship

To honor Mr. Siegel’s breathtaking generosity and the impact of his giving on special collections at Brown, the Library has established the Daniel G. Siegel ’57 Fellowship, a specialized component of the John Hay Library Undergraduate Fellowship Program.

The fellowship review committee will select one John Hay Library Undergraduate Fellow to be the Siegel Fellow, whose research focuses specifically on the collections of American literature and/or history at the Hay. Like the other fellows in the cohort, the Siegel Fellow will spend ten weeks in the summer building research skills using primary sources to develop an original project. Projects can take the form of a traditional research paper or may be creative or digital in format. Projects do not have to be completed by the end of the summer; the fellowship can serve as a start for a senior thesis, be a further exploration of work begun during a course, or allow a student a non-evaluative framework within which to explore a new topic. Fellows will work primarily in the Hay’s Gildor Family Special Collections Reading Room and will participate in a wide range of relevant workshops, with topics such as the history of the book and letterpress printing. All fellows will present their projects at a showcase in the fall.