USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913 > Part 36
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of electrostatic induction as a factor in producing cross-talk, and proved that there is in a tele- phone line a particular point in the circuit at which, if a telephone is inserted, no cross-talk will be heard. The paper gave directions for determining this silent or neutral point, and described original experiments showing how to distinguish between electrostatic and electro- magnetic induction in telephone lines.
On March 17, 1891, Mr. Carty made addi- tional contributions to the knowledge of this subject in a paper before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, entitled "Inductive Disturbances in Telephone Circuits." This paper might better have been called "The The- ory of Transpositions," because in it was first made known precisely why twisting or trans- posing telephone lines renders them free from inductive disturbances.
In 1889 he entered the service of the Metro- politan Telephone and Telegraph Company, now the New York Telephone Company, for the purpose of organizing all of the technical departments, building up its staff, and recon- structing the entire plant of the company- converting it from grounded circuits overhead and series switchboards to metallic circuits placed underground and to the then new bridg- ing switchboards. In carrying out this work he selected and trained a large staff of young men fresh from college, many of whom have since attained positions of prominence in the telephone field. In the development of the personnel of his department, Mr. Carty has taken a particular pride, looking to the welfare of those already engaged, and through his touch with prominent technical educators, adding each year to his staff, from the graduating classes of our principal technical schools.
Mr. Carty's work in connection with the de- velopment of the plant of the New York Tele- phone Company has been most successful and far-reaching in its consequences. Based upon his plans and under his direction, there has been constructed a telephone system which, according to the foremost authorities in the world, is with- out a parallel in its efficiency and scope. His work has been studied and approved by all of the technical administrations of Europe and even of Asia, and to a large extent what he has done for the telephone art in the United States
JOHN J. CARTY
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has contributed to the pre-eminent standing which the American telephone industry holds in all foreign countries.
In recognition of his achievements as an en- gineer and in view of the services which he rendered to the Japanese Government in con- nection with electrical engineering, he was deco- rated with the Order of the Rising Sun by the late Emperor of Japan, who, shortly before his death, again decorated Mr. Carty, conferring upon him the Order of the Sacred Treasure, for valuable services rendered to Japan and her people. In China, where a commission has recently investigated the telephone systems of the world, that of New York was selected as the model for Pekin, and as a consequence the first great order for a telephone system in China was given to American manufacturers.
While for many years Mr. Carty's work was more particularly directed to the extraordinary problems of telephony presented by the great centers of population, it remained for him to accomplish a revolution in telephony of the greatest social and economic value to rural com- munities in all parts of the world. Prior to this work upon the subject, the number of tele- phone stations which could be operated upon one line was limited and the service was im- perfect. As a result of his solution of a problem presented by the New York Central Railroad in the city of New York, he devised a mechanism known as the "bridging bell," whereby any number of stations, even as many as a hundred, might be placed upon a line without in any way impairing the transmission of speech. This made possible the farmers' line, which is found by the hundreds of thousands in farmers' houses in America, and is now being extended abroad. For this achievement there was conferred upon him by the Franklin Institute the Edward Longstreth Medal of Merit.
Mr. Carty is chief engineer of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, in which capacity he is responsible for the standardizing of methods of construction and operation of its vast plant, which extends into every community in the United States, and which, through its long-distance wires, extends into Canada and Mexico.
He has been active in matters pertaining to the improvement of engineering education in
its higher branches, and is a member of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Educa- tion. In connection with the technical or what might be called the "trade school" feature of educational work, he has taken a lively interest and is an active member of the Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, and is a member of the Millburn Board of Education in New Jersey.
Mr. Carty has been prominent in the affairs of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, of which he is vice-president and director. He is the past president of the New York Electrical Society; member of the Society of Arts, and honorary member of the American Electro- Therapeutic Association, the Telephone Society of Pennsylvania, the Telephone Society of New England, and the Telephone Society of New York.
He is a member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the American-Irish Historical Society; belongs to the Baltusrol and the Casino Clubs of Short Hills, and to the Engineers', Electric and Railroad Clubs of New York.
In 1891 he married Miss Marion Mount Russell, of the Irish family of Russells and the the English Mounts, which has been distin- guished in the annals of the stage, the only present representative of which now upon the stage is Miss Annie Russell. He lives at Short Hills, N.J., and has one son, John Russell Carty, a youth of twenty-one years.
FREDERICK SIMPSON DEITRICK
DEITRICK, FREDERICK SIMPSON, lawyer and member of Congress, was born at-New Brighton, Pa., on April 9, 1875, being the son of Frederick A. and Louisa (McKnight) . Deitrick. His father was in the railroad business. Frederick Simpson Deitrick attended Geneva College, from which he received the degree of B.S. He then began the study of law at the Harvard Law School, graduated with the class of 1897 and was given the degree of LL.B. Admitted to the Suffolk Bar in 1899, he has since engaged in general practice, becoming also a member of the United States District and Circuit Court Bar.
Mr. Deitrick represented Cambridge in the State Legislature for three terms, 1903, 1904 and 1905. He was the Democratic candidate for Congress in 1906. Although defeated, he
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polled an unusually large vote, when it is re- membered that normally the district is strongly Republican. In 1912, however, he was suc- cessful in his contest with Frederick Dallinger, the Republican candidate, and was elected to Congress.
Congressman Deitrick's home in Cambridge is on Massachusetts Avenue. His law offices are on State Street, Boston. He is a member of the Bar Association of Boston.
CHARLES R. GRECO
GRECO, CHARLES R., architect, was born in Cambridge on the 15th of October, 1873, being the son of Letterio and Catherine (Raggio) Greco. He attended the public schools of this
CHARLES R. GRECO
city, and then studied architecture at the Law- rence Scientific School. After this he entered the employ of Messrs. Wait and Cutter, with whom he remained from 1893 to 1899. In the latter year he became connected with Messrs. Peabody and Stearns. He stayed in their office until 1907, when he began to practice for himself.
Mr. Greco has made a special study of public
buildings. Among those he has planned might be mentioned the following, which architectural critics declare to have been successfully designed, showing both individuality and practicability : Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Cambridge; St. Patrick's Church, Brockton; Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Jamaica Plain; Thorndike School, Cambridge; Charles Bulfinch School, Boston; Cambridge Theatre; Elks' Temple, Cambridge; Nautical Garden, Revere; Wyeth Square Fire Station, Cambridge.
RESIDENCE OF CHARLES R. GRECO
The professional and social organizations of which he is a member include the Boston Society of Architects, Boston Rotary Club, Catholic Union, Knights of Columbus, Cambridge Board of Trade and Cambridge Lodge of Elks.
On the 16th of April, 1902, Mr. Greco was married to Miss Gertrude L. Hennessy. Their home is at 36 Fresh Pond Parkway in this city, and Mr. Greco's offices are in Boston, at 8 Beacon Street.
EDWIN BLAISDELL HALE
HALE, EDWIN BLAISDELL, lawyer, was born at Orford, N.H., on the 16th of June, 1839. His parents were Aaron and Mary Hale. He graduated from Dartmouth College with the degree of A.B. in 1865. He attended the Har- vard Law School, and in 1875 graduated from that institution, receiving his degree of LL.B. Mr. Hale was admitted to the bar on September 15, 1875. Since then, with the exception of a few years when he was superintendent of schools
Robert Nowon Joyan
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in Cambridge, Mr. Hale has been engaged in the practice of his profession. He is the senior member of the law firm of Hale and Dickerman, of Boston. Mr. Hale served in the lower branch of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1878-1879.
GEORGE HODGES
HODGES, GEORGE, dean of the Episcopal Theo- logical School, was born at Rome, N.Y., October 6, 1856. He is the son of George Frederick and Hannah (Bullard) Hodges. He graduated in 1877, and received the degree of A.M. in 1882 from Hamilton College. Western University gave him the degree of D.D. in 1892, and Hobart College that of D.C.L. in 1902. He was or- dained deacon in 1881, and priest in 1882. He was assistant rector of Calvary Church, Pitts- burg, from 1881 to 1889, and rector from 1889 to 1894. Dr. Hodges has been dean of the Theological School since 1894. He is president of the Associated Charities and the Cambridge South End House. Dr. Hodges has written many books and articles dealing with religion and ethics.
ROBERT NOXON TOPPAN
TOPPAN, ROBERT NOXON, writer on histor- ical, economic and monetary subjects, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., October 17, 1836, being the son of Charles and Laura Ann Toppan. His early education was received in his native city and in New York, whither the family had re- moved when he was twelve years old. He graduated from Harvard in 1858, and from the
Columbia Law School in 1861. He entered a New York law office, but never practised. The following years, until 1880, were spent in Europe with his family. He came back to America that year, and on October 6th married Miss Sarah Moody Cushing of Newburyport. They went abroad, and after their return settled in Cambridge in 1882. Of the marriage four children were born: Laura N., November 17, 1881; Fanny Cushing (now Mrs. Benjamin Hurd of New Jersey), August 26, 1883; Cushing, November 25, 1886; and Charles Frederick, May 28, 1889.
Mr. Toppan devoted his time to the study of history and economics, taking an especial inter- est in civil service reform and international coinage. Besides many pamphlets on monetary questions, his works include an extensive biog- raphy of Edward Randolph and a collection of biographies of natives of Newburyport. He was a member of the Numismatic and Anti- quarian Society of Philadelphia. Among the other organizations to which he belonged are the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and the Century Club of New York.
In order to further the study of Political Science, a subject which engaged much of his attention, he gave Harvard College one hundred and fifty dollars annually from 1880 to 1894, when he made a gift of three thousand dollars, the income from which is used for the Toppan Prize.
Mr. Toppan died May 10, 1901.
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JOSEPH GOODNOW
GOODNOW, JOSEPH, lumber merchant, son of Luther and Sally (Abbott) Goodnow, was born in Sudbury, Mass., June 16, 1814, and attended the district school there. He left his home in Sudbury in 1835, on reaching his majority, and engaged in the lumber business, becoming the senior member of the firm of Joseph Goodnow & Co., Boston. He was married in Boston, November 30, 1842, to Lucia M., daughter of Nathaniel and Hannah (Maynard) Rice, of Sudbury, Mass.
Mr. Goodnow was a member of the Central Square Baptist Church in Cambridge, and in 1871 was elected a deacon of the society, and was re-elected in 1881. He served as trustee of Tremont Temple of Boston for many years,
JOSEPH GOODNOW
and in his home church. At the close of Sunday School service on January 29, 1882, a stroke of apoplexy caused his death. The Central Square Baptist Church Society lost a servant who had worked faithfully for a generation. He is survived by Ella Josephine Boggs, born August 8, 1847; she was married January 12, 1875, to Edwin P. Boggs.
EDWIN P. BOGGS
BOGGS, EDWIN P., a prominent resident of this city, was born in Philadelphia. His father, Francis P. Boggs, a captain in the merchant marine, afterwards came to Cambridge to live. Edwin decided on a mercantile career. Engaged in the wholesale grocery trade, Mr. Boggs was
EDWIN P. BOGGS
also interested in lumber and shipping; four or five schooners belonged to him. He was connected with Richardson & Bacon until that firm was absorbed by the Bay State Fuel Com- pany, of which he then became a member. At the time of his death, Mr. Boggs was the owner of the concern of Joseph Goodnow & Company.
Well known as a yachtsman, Mr. Boggs had been commodore of the Massachusetts Yacht Club, and when it was consolidated with the Hull Yacht Club, he was elected to the same office in the latter organization. He was a member of the Oak Bluffs and the New Bedford Yachting Association; the Oakley Country Club and the Boston Athletic Association; and the old Union, the Colonial and the Cambridge Clubs, of this city.
Mr. Boggs died at Falmouth, August 12, 1910, being survived by his wife, son and daughter.
THE HARRY ELKINS WIDENER LIBRARY
Gore Hall was disgracefully inadequate for the needs of America's oldest and greatest uni- versity. This old building, since 1841 the college library, has been demolished, and the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library will supersede it.
Harvard gets this gift through the generosity of the mother of Harry Elkins Widener. She lost her husband and her son in the wreck of the Titanic. The husband, George D. Widener, was the son of P. A. B. Widener, whose gener- osity has been shown in many ways in and about
course of a few years was to become one of the finest collections of rare books in the world.
Harry Elkins Widener, with his father, George D. Widener, was a passenger on the Titanic, of fateful memory. The young bibliophile had been pursuing his favorite quest in Europe- the search for books of sufficient value to have a place in his library. Among the rarities he had acquired was a first edition of Bacon's Essays. He prized the little volume so highly that he refused to entrust it to the mails, and carried it in his pocket on that trip across the
FRONT ELEVATION
Philadelphia, the home city of the Widener family. Mrs. Widener is the daughter of the late William Elkins.
| Harry Elkins Widener was born in Phila- delphia in 1885, prepared for college at the High School at Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and was graduated from Harvard with the class of 1907. He was well-known at college and became a member of the Institute of 1770, the Delta Kappa Epsilon, the Phi Delta Psi, the Hasty Pudding Club and other student organizations. The Harvard librarians knew that this under- graduate was interested in books, but they did not realize that this youth just starting the twenties was already beginning what in the
Atlantic which ended in the disaster of April, 1912. The copy of the famous Essays went down with this lover of books to his grave in the sea.
There is a certain poetic fitness in the asso- ciation of books and collector even in death; for Harry Elkins Widener lived with his books as few men have ever done. His library was his bedroom, and his waking gaze fell upon his cherished companions.
After his death it became known that he had bequeathed his collection to Harvard College.
What are the books which made his collection famous? To list them all would be impossible. In 1910 he issued privately a handsome catalogue
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of which one hundred and two copies were printed. Harvard has the copy numbered twenty-five. Since that list was made the col- lector had acquired many very valuable works, one of which is said to have cost him $25,000.
A turning of the pages of the catalogue shows, however, that his library contained rare first editions, "association books" (volumes valuable because of the authors who have owned them, the inscriptions they contain, or the history of
came from Watts-Dunton, the literary executor of Swinburne.
There are large collections of drawings by Cruikshank, a volume of unpublished sketches by Aubrey Beardsley, and, not to mention any others, a book which the collector used to show with laughter to his friends. This was a presen- tation copy of the Ingoldsby Legends from the author to his friend, E. R. Moran. It happened that one of the pages had been left blank, and
SIDE ELEVATION, MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE
their vicissitudes), extra-illustrated books, and a certain number of manuscripts. He owned the four folios of Shakespeare, first editions of the "Fairie Queene," of Ben Johnson's works, of "Robinson Crusoe," of "Gulliver's Travels," of "The Vicar of Wakefield," of the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," and others almost as famous. There were first editions and presenta- tion copies of Dickens, Thackeray, Browning, Tennyson and Stevenson, and many manuscripts from the period to which these writers belonged. The assembly of books by and about "R. L. S." was probably unique. Here is all that Steven- son ever wrote toward his autobiography, the original manuscript in a quarto blank book.
There are autograph manuscripts of Swin- burne, including the pamphlet of 1872, in reply to Robert Buchanan's "The Fleshly School of Poetry," on one page of which appears the famous passage attacking Tennyson-a passage which was at once suppressed. Only three copies of the original leaf are known; this one
here in the author's autograph appear these lines of clever verse:
"By a blunder for which I have only to thank Myself, here's a page has been somehow left blank,
Aha! My friend Moran, I have you. You'll look
In vain for a fault in ONE page of my book." THOS. INGOLDSBY.
These books make many times over the most valuable bequest the Harvard Library has re- ceived since 1638, when it was established by the modest bequest of three hundred and seventy books from John Harvard, for whom the uni- versity was named.
The Widener bequest called attention once more to the insufficiencies of Gore Hall. Mrs. Widener immediately proposed to erect a suitable building or wing in which to shelter her son's books. Then she was shown the opportunity which had come to her for rendering a vast service to scholarship and education, and she
Harry Eskins Ardiners
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notified President Lowell that she would like to provide Harvard with the long-awaited library, a building to contain all the books of the college and to afford room for growth.
The new building will have a capacity for 2,500,000 volumes, almost five times the number which could be stored in Gore Hall. Thus the stack space will be about the same as that in the new Fifth Avenue building of the New York Public Library. The building will cover a little more ground space than the Public Library in Copley Square, Boston, and the reading room will contain about one hundred more square feet than the Bates Hall Reading Room in the Boston building.
At the very heart of the great fire-proof struct- ure of brick and limestone which is to be erected immediately in the Harvard College yard will be the large room in which will be installed the Widener collection, the library of rare volumes which had given Harry Elkins Widener his honorable place among the great bibliophiles of the world. Access to the collection will be through the Widener Memorial Hall, a room forty by thirty-two feet, and lighted on each side by a court. Then on each side of the Wid- ener collection will be rooms in which are to be placed the large accumulation of precious manu- scripts and priceless volumes which already belong to Harvard, and which for years were sheltered in Gore Hall in what was called the Treasure Room.
Briefly, these are the dimensions and the ar- rangements of the new structure. It will face the interior of the college yard and the main entrance will be directly south of Appleton Chapel, the college church. The ground cov- ered measures two hundred and six by two hun- dred and seventy-five feet, the longest dimension being north and south. Outside of this dimen- sion of two hundred and seventy-five feet come the imposing flight of steps, descending from the first floor to the yard, and the Corinthian colonnade.
The principal facade is to be most impressive. Twelve Corinthian columns, each forty feet high, rest on a portico of one hundred and twenty-eight feet, which extends along the front of the building, reached by the steps from the ground twelve feet below. On each side of the portico are one large and several small windows,
and back of it are the main entrance doors to the library. The long facades also are most handsome, with porticoes carrying four columns surmounted by well-proportioned pediments at each end. The rear or Massachusetts Avenue front will also be attractive and dignified and will have an entrance.
The lowest or basement floor of the building rises from the ground to the level of the portico. There are on this floor large special reading rooms for the departments of history, govern- ment and economics, accommodating about one hundred and fifty students. Also, here are work-rooms for the staff, a rest room and a lunch room for the women employes of the library, together with apartments designed for duplicate books, the archives of the university, the quinquennial catalogues, and a large news- paper room.
Now comes the first or main floor, on the level of the portico and main entrance. Here the memorial feature has its most imposing illus- tration. The visitor will pass through the doors into a vestibule, which opens into a great en- trance hall, and this in turn leads to the Widener Memorial Hall. There is an intima- tion in one of the blueprint drawings that a bust of Harry Elkins Widener will have a place here.
Beyond is the room for the Widener collec- tion, flanked by the rooms for the reception of the contents of the present Gore Hall treasure room. Further back comes a great open court, fifty-two feet by one hundred and twelve feet, which will provide light for the interior of the building. At the right and left of the main entrance are the offices of the chiefs of the library staff, and in the northeast corner a group of rooms for cataloguing and other work of the library.
At the head of the stairs, on the second floor, will be the card catalogue room, and back of it the delivery room where books will be given out, this much after the manner of the Boston and New York Public Libraries. Then on the north side, facing the college yard, extending from east to west one hundred and thirty-six feet, and going up through three stories of the building, is the main reading room, with seats for three hundred and seventy-five students. At each end of this large room will be a special reading
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room, and there are other smaller reading rooms scattered about the building.
The next or mezzanine floor contains a large art and archaeology room and a map room. On the top floor are the bindery, a photographing room, special quarters for the Classical library, the English library, the library of the Romance department, and other collections, and, running around three sides of the building, a series of twenty or more rooms of various sizes for semi- naries where instructors can meet their classes and have their reference books near at hand. These rooms come above the book stacks, which stop at the level of this floor.
These "stacks," the cases in which the books of all great libraries are kept, extend, roughly speaking, around the east, south and west sides of the building. They will be lighted by win- dows on the outside and on the three open courts in the interior of the building. Expected to hold about two millions and a half of books, they would make, laid down on one level, about fifty-nine miles of shelves. The stacks are about thirty feet in width. They run from the base- ment to the third floor, but for convenience of access are themselves divided into seven floors.
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