Description:

Garfield James

The first Presidential memorial library, completed at the Lawnfield estate in Ohio by the widow of James Garfield four years after his assassination, houses almost 3,000 books that were used and treasured by the 20th president. Books were a rare commodity to young James, who lost his father before the age of two, and was raised by his mother who struggled to maintain a humble existence. Both James Garfield and his wife Lucretia were voracious readers and amassed a large collection of books. Some twenty years ago, several dozen of his books were de-accessioned, and one of these scarce books is described below:

The Agricultural Progress of The Nation in Cheapening the Food of America and Europe, examined by Samuel B. Ruggles; Henry Bessey, Publisher, New York 1880. Tall folio, 31 pps. With a 19 page appendix and a tipped-in, hand colored, fold-out map of the United States on back free end paper. Stamped, “ J.A. Garfield / Oct 6 1880” on the front free end paper. Light scuffs and soiling to exterior. Interior toned with foxing and minor worming to endpapers, else near fine condition.

In October, 1880, James Garfield was a Congressman from Ohio and the Republican candidate for President. He would win the presidential election one month later. This book of facts and figures would have held great interest to Garfield. In a speech he delivered to the House of Representatives in 1869 regarding census information, Garfield declared, “The developments of statistics are causing history to be rewritten. Till recently, the historian studied nations in the aggregate, and gave us only the story of princes, dynasties, sieges, and battles…Now statistical inquiry leads him into the hovels, homes, workshops, mines, fields…and all other places where human nature displays its weakness and its strength. In these explorations he discovers the seeds of national growth and decay, and thus becomes the prophet of his generation…” Garfield no doubt would have noted the reference to the impending presidential election on page 21, “It would be idle to expect any wholesome and efficient legislation on the subject of our agricultural necessities during the feverish excitement of the present season, when the nation is passing through the periodical and constitutionally recurring quadrennial distemper attending the genesis of a President, so utterly demoralizing and distracting the swarms of partisan politicians of every grade and stripe hovering around, and some of them actually finding their way into,…the forty-eight legislative halls between the two oceans. When the present heated term shall have passed away…the farmers of our country…might do wisely to…examin[e] the immense agricultural statistics…They might also…much facilitate the proper distribution of the great bodies of agricultural immigrants, now landing weekly by tens of thousands in our seaports, forming, historically, a part of what a far-seeing political writer of our age so grandly depicts as ‘the great procession of nations, incessantly crossing the Atlantic, with the solemnity, dignity and certainty of a providential event.’”

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