On April 8, 2020, three Harvard students were named winners of the Philip Hofer Prize for Collecting Books or Art. The Hofer Prize was established by Melvin R. Seiden, A.B. ‘52, L.L.B. ‘55, to encourage student interest in collecting. It is awarded annually to a student or students whose collections of books or works of art best reflect the traditions of breadth, coherence, and imagination exemplified by Philip Hofer, A.B. ‘21, L.H.D. ‘67. Hofer was the founder and first curator of the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts at Houghton Library and secretary of the Fogg Art Museum.
This year, Robin McDowell, a graduate student in the Department of African and African American Studies, was awarded first prize of $3,000. Catherine Grace Katz, Harvard Law School ‘22, was awarded second prize of $1,500. Brian Mott, Harvard College Class of 2020, was awarded third prize of $750.
Robin McDowell’s collection, “Radical Black New Orleans in Print: The Evolution of the Afro-American Liberation League, 1979–2020,” includes political posters, newspapers, booklets, pamphlets, and independently-published books that document and publicize the activism of the Afro-American Liberation League (AALL). A revolutionary mass organization that sought to create an independent Black state in the southern U.S., the AALL started their own secret, grass-roots printing press in order to produce the radical literature and propaganda that commercial printers wouldn’t. Formed in November 1979 and based in New Orleans, the AALL was active through the 1980s and 90s but its members were scattered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005; in 2010 and following, new related activist groups and study circles emerged and remain active into the present. McDowell collects and stewards both press- and digitally-printed artifacts from the AALL and successive organizations to preserve them and ensure they are available as community archival resources for years to come. She writes that the items in her collection “tell a little-known historical narrative of Black New Orleans, provide material evidence of artistic ingenuity under extenuating circumstances, and are an opportunity to salvage personal and community histories from the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina” and that the collection as a whole “provides a bridge between the more well-known Civil Rights Era of the 1960s to today.”
Catherine Grace Katz’s collection, “The View from the Precipice: Yalta, The Daughters, and Me,” was born when she began collecting primary source material for a book project on the daughters of Winston Churchill, Averell Harriman, and Franklin D. Roosevelt during the wartime conference with Josef Stalin in Yalta. As she delved into reminiscences of the era’s political leaders, she realized that many editions weren’t available in libraries, so she began to buy them from bookstores, library sales, and online dealers, a decision that eventually inspired her to begin collecting as many memoirs by Yalta participants and their families as possible. Katz’s collecting drew her more intimately into the lives of her subjects, as well as their descendants. In addition to bound volumes, her collection includes a lithograph by Sarah Churchill (pictured below) and even a steamer trunk owned by Averell Harriman, which was gifted to her by his grandson after she conducted interviews with the family. She writes, “I am fortunate to have been able to collect these pieces that are not only slices of a global history, but … also part of my own history.”
Research also started Brian Mott on his path to collecting. As he began reading for his senior thesis, he decided to read a four-part comedic novel called The Fate of the Good Soldier Svejk During the World War (popularly titled The Good Soldier Svejk) by Czech author Jaroslav Hasek. He bought a copy used on eBay, and was struck by the unexpected inclusion of little caricatures throughout the text. These drawings led Mott to their creator, artist Josef Lada, who became famous for his caricature depictions of the titular good soldier; this in turn kindled a fascination with the work of British and American caricature artists from the period. Mott writes that these artists did more than just poke fun: they “sketch[ed] the national consciousness and invent[ed] a certain form of hyper-populist media” with the power to reveal how nations perceived themselves. His collection, “Soldierly Caricature: Illustrations in the Great War” contains original drawings, as well as published illustrations, postcards and playing cards, and a wooden thimble depicting the jolly soldier Svejk.
Hofer Prize entries include an essay describing the scope, contents, and goal of the collection, as well as an annotated list or bibliography of collection items. Entries are judged on the purpose, consistency, and quality of the collection and the presentation of the essay and bibliography, not the collection’s size, cost, or rarity. This year’s winners were chosen from a strong pool of applicants by a committee that included Peter X. Accardo (chair), Lewis Day, and Emily Walhout, Houghton Library; Shalimar Fojas White, Fine Arts Library; David R. Godine, publisher, David R. Godine, Inc.; and Elizabeth Rudy and Miriam Stewart, Harvard Art Museums.