scholars and to utilize the materials in their custody as a means of advertising the Library among research workers.
Three or four exhibitions a year of Library materials were offered to the public, and the building remained open for visitors on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Pamphlets explaining the exhibitions, printed for important displays, also served to publicize the unusual holdings of the Library in the subject fields concerned. Student reporters, newspaper feature writers, and the University radio station all found "stories" of interest to the general public. Scholars from other universities soon exceeded those from the University of Michigan in making use of the source material. Historical monographs, bibliographical essays, biographies, magazine articles, edited letters, and historical novels emanating from work done at the Library testified to its riches. Invited audiences heard distinguished scholars speak at the Library or met eminent University visitors at teas.
In 1931 Adams was appointed state chairman of the George Washington Bicentennial Commission, giving the Library a role in the national celebration in 1932. Several pamphlets were issued by the Library, and Adams spoke frequently on the man who had been his boyhood hero. In 1937 the University observed its centennial in Ann Arbor. An aroused interest in the history of the University had prompted formation of the Michigan Historical Collections in 1935, under Professor Lewis G. Vander Velde of the Department of History. Adams offered quarters in the Library in 1936 and immediately began buying rare Michigan items to strengthen the new collections, which outgrew the space and moved to the Rackham Building in 1938.
In 1937 Adams was named Rosenbach Fellow in Bibliography, to deliver three lectures at the University of Pennsylvania early in 1938. He spoke on Henry Harrisse, bibliographer; George Brinley, book collector; and Thomas Jefferson, librarian. The lectures were published in 1939 under the title of Three Americanists.
Having contributed several articles to the Dictionary of American Biography from source materials in the Library, Adams was asked to serve on the Advisory Council for the Dictionary of American History, the first volume of which appeared in 1940. Early in the same year he was called by President Roosevelt to serve as a member of a committee to advise him concerning the future disposal of his papers, his naval collection, and the memorabilia that every president accumulates. Out of the discussion emerged the plan for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Library at Hyde Park, which is administered as a branch of the National Archives.
In 1939 Albert H. Greenly, of Hoboken, New Jersey, presented to the Library his collection of books on Abraham Lincoln, amounting to nearly 1,000 titles. These books, contemporary and modern rarities, including many early campaign biographies, were kept as a separate unit. Subsequently, both Mr. Greenly and the Library enlarged the collection. In 1942 William A. Vawter II and his son, William A. Vawter III, of Benton Harbor, Michigan, gave the Library a collection of books and manuscripts on Theodore Roosevelt, including the President's own writings and books about him and his many interests. The collection numbered 582 pieces and a small group of Roosevelt letters. The Vawters have continued to enlarge the collection.
In 1944 John W. Watling and Mrs. Herbert C. Ely, of Detroit, established a fund in memory of Mr. Ely for the purchase
