by Meghan Kelly, Class of 2017<\/p>\n
Richard Cary was born on November 18, 1909 in New York City, which he later described as \u201cwhere I was born and grew up and will never forget but like most of the tourists wouldn\u2019t live there now!\u201d (1, 2). While growing up, he showed talent as a boxer (3). Before becoming an academic, he worked with inner city patients as a social worker (4). During World War II, Cary served in the Military Police on prisoner of war detail (5). In 1948, he received his Bachelor of Arts from New York University (6), graduating Phi Beta Kappa (1). He received a Master of Arts from NYU in 1949 and went on to earn a Ph.D. in American literature from Cornell University (7, 8). During his tenure at Colby, Cary resided in Waterville with his wife, Frances Perkins (1, 5). He enjoyed life in Maine, though he was often dissatisfied with the weather: \u201cSummer, which didn\u2019t come this summer, is still lurking around these parts. But then, anything above absolute zero is summer in Maine\u201d (9).<\/p>\n
Cary joined the Colby faculty in September 1952, and taught in the English department for twenty-three years (6, 7). He was a devoted and exacting teacher. Colleague Professor Eileen Curran described his popularity: \u201cSome advisees whom I signed into Dick\u2019s classes with some fear and trembling\u2014not my most disciplined advisees, and Dick honors discipline\u2014returned with their lowest grades and highest praise of any instructor\u201d (4). When he began teaching, English students chose to major in either English or American literature. Cary, as an authority on the study of American literature, \u201clooked out for the interests of his majors (woe betide the comprehensive examination committee that brought in an exam unfairly weighted towards the English lit major) and at the same time insisted that American and English must be parts of one department, with no student neglecting either side\u201d (4).<\/p>\n
In 1958, after his predecessor Professor Carl Weber retired, Cary began editing the Colby Library Quarterly and the Colby College Press and serving as curator of rare books and manuscripts, all of which he did for seventeen years (4). As curator, Cary worked to develop Special Collections in depth, breadth, and reputation. He traveled throughout Maine and the eastern United States, making contacts with potential donors and examining valuable items in their libraries (10). Cary also corresponded with donors to express gratitude and encourage further donations, as in this letter to Waldo Pierce: \u201c\u2026I appreciate that the monetary estimate is secondary to you, as it is with us. These documents and association materials are worth infinitely more to us in the sense of (a) friendship, and (b) preservation of significant literary materials\u201d (11). These kinds of letters assured donors that the Colby Library would value and care for their gifts. Exacting attention to detail represented a hallmark of his work in Special Collections, which Professor Curran noted teasingly in her speech: \u201cDick\u2019s meticulousness can be counted on. He was chagrined to discover this year that (through no fault of his) Special Collections has overspent its allocation by seventeen cents\u201d (4). During his time as curator, the holdings of letters and manuscripts in Special Collections quadrupled. Cary focused on materials by and about Maine writers. His philosophy towards Special Collections focused on highlighting it relevance for scholarship at Colby (4).<\/p>\n
Colleagues also praised Cary\u2019s editorship of the Quarterly. Professor Curran commented that during his years as editor, the journal grew in size and circulation, and focused on the materials in Special Collections (4). Reading the Quarterly, one notes this shift in content; within a year or two of Cary\u2019s beginnings as editor, the journal devoted far less space to the reporting of acquisitions that had once been central to its content. Instead, Cary printed many more articles of literary criticism, particularly relating to authors who were prominent in Special Collections. Beginning in June 1959, Cary wrote at least one article for each issue, with Colby\u2019s president Robert Strider describing him as \u201cthe mainstay in just about every issue for seventeen years\u201d (4, 10).<\/p>\n
Cary was well-known in academic circles of his time, especially for scholarship on Maine authors such as Edwin Arlington Robinson and Sarah Orne Jewett (6, 8). He wrote or edited thirteen books and more than one hundred articles (6). Nine of his books were about Robinson or Jewett; the other four included editions of Hardy\u2019s work and one book each on Bayard Taylor and Mary Murfree. His published articles covered \u201cevery major literary figure represented in the Special Collections at Colby,\u201d including Robinson, Jewett, Ben Ames Williams, and Violet Paget (10). Professor Curran noted that Professor Cary\u2019s focus on Robinson and Jewett came from a conscious choice to base his studies on the holdings in Special Collections: \u201c\u2026so long as he was curator, editor, and manager of things entitled \u2018Colby\u2019 he conscientiously made the interests of the collections his interests\u2026When we advertised this past year for a Special Collections librarian, it was clear that many applicants wanted nothing better than to come, somehow hide or avoid our present collections, and introduce their hobby horses. We could have had an emphasis on everything from comic books to medieval Italian philosophy. Dick\u2019s way was so different that most of the time we didn\u2019t realize how different it was\u201d (4).<\/p>\n
Cary retired from Colby in June 1975 (10). Although his academic career focused on Robinson and Jewett, his greatest interest was in the poetry of Walt Whitman (4). Cary once wrote the following about the poet: \u201cSince I was kneehigh to a leaf of grass I have been under the spell of his resonance and comprehensive vision. As a critic, I consider him the finest poet America has yet produced\u201d (12). Cary planned to return to his research on Whitman during retirement, though he continued studying Jewett (6). Apparently he enjoyed this work, for Reverend Mark Benbow said in Cary\u2019s funeral service that \u201cWhen I last saw Dick he was quietly excited by his continuing work on Jewett which he thought would lead to an entirely new approach\u201d (3). He passed away in Waterville on June 27, 1990, at the age of 80 (8). His colleagues at Colby remembered him \u201cfor his perceptive editorship of the CLQ, for his management of the Press, and for his teaching and scholarship\u201d (10).<\/p>\n
Works Cited<\/p>\n
by Meghan Kelly, Class of 2017 Richard Cary was born on November 18, 1909 in New York City, which he later described as \u201cwhere I was born and grew up and will never forget but like most of the tourists wouldn\u2019t live there now!\u201d (1, 2). While growing up, he showed talent as a boxer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[226215],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-history-of\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-history-of\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-history-of\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-history-of\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-history-of\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-history-of\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1881,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-history-of\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880\/revisions\/1881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-history-of\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-history-of\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-history-of\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}