History of Special Collections @ Colby

  • INTRO
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  • CHRONOLOGY & CONTEXT
    • What Happened (early on)
      • The First Library & Edward Hall
      • The “Rare Book” Section (early 1930s)
    • Our Chronology (1935-1975)
    • Some Context
  • THE PEOPLE
    • Curators
      • Carl Jefferson Weber (Curator 1940-1958)
      • Richard Cary (Curator 1958-1975)
    • Librarians
      • N Orwin Rush (Librarian 1936-1945)
      • Gilmore Warner (Librarian 1945-1947)
      • James Humphry III (Librarian 1947-1957)
      • John R McKenna (Librarian 1957-1964)
      • Kenneth P Blake, Jr (Librarian 1964-1973)
      • Eileen M Curran (Acting Librarian, 1973-1976)
    • Other Colby People
      • Ernest C Marriner ’13
      • Frederick A Pottle ’17
      • Carroll A Wilson ’40 LLD
      • Franklin Winslow Johnson (President 1929-1942)
      • Julius Seelye Bixler (President 1942-1960)
      • Robert Edward Lee Strider II (President 1960-1979)
    • The Colby Library Associates
    • Highlighted Donors
  • HIGHLIGHTED COLLECTIONS
    • Rare Book Collections
      • Early Books
      • Thomas Hardy
      • Book Arts
      • The Rubáiyát
    • Personal Libraries
      • Library of Edwin Arlington Robinson
      • Library of Thomas Sergeant Perry
      • Library of Harold Trowbridge Pulsifer
      • Library of James Augustine Healy
      • Library of Ben Ames Williams
    • Manuscript Collections
    • “A Recent Accession”: The Colby Library Quarterly

Susan Nichols Pulsifer (Donor)

Susan Farley Nichols Pulsifer (1892-1987) was born in Oyster Bay, Long Island. She married poet-editor Harold Trowbridge Pulsifer in October 1924. After the decline of Harold’s journal, the Outlook, in the late 1920s, the Pulsifers moved to Maine, buying a saltwater farm near Harpswell and spending their time there and in Brunswick.

RELS and Susan Pulsifer 1964
President Strider and Susan Nichols Pulsifer in the Pulsifer Poetry Room in Miller Library ca.1964.

Susan worked in French hospitals during World War One and led a campaign to bring British children to America during World War Two. She wrote and published fiction, poetry and essays under her maiden and married names. Titles include: Water Colors, South of France (1921); Fighting French Ballads (1943); L’Esprit de la France (1944); Scenes From the Life of Jesus in Woodcut (1947); Children Are Poets (1963); Witch’s Breed (1967); and, Southern Sketch Book (1975). A number of her poems on Free France were translated by Marguerite Clement in Pour Toi, France (1949).

After Harold’s death in 1948, Susan lived in New York City. She died and was buried in Downington, Pennsylvania in August 1987.

SUSAN NICHOLS PULSIFER AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

Susan Pulsifer gave her husband’s poetry library to Colby in 1948. The Pulsifer Poetry Room in Miller Library was completed in 1963 and dedicated in 1964. She retained a correspondence with President Strider through the 1960s and 1970s, donating additional published and unpublished materials for the Pulsifer Collection, also several associated collections.

Works consulted:

Colby Library Quarterly. Waterville, ME: Colby College Library. Print and web.

“Susan N Pulisfer.” New York Times obituary. 4 September 1987. Web. 31 March 2015.

Susan N Pulsifer donor file. Colby College Special Collections.

ASSOCIATED COLLECTIONS

Harold Trowbridge Pulsifer – primary collection

Thomas Sergeant Perry

Laura E Richards

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Explore Common Threads – and Student Scholarship – in our Manuscript Collections