0.5 Chapter three: professionalization and postwar expansion, 192  (Page 2/13)

If the Quarterly was Wall's effort to take the Society to the people, Wall's edu­cational programs emphasized bringing people to the Society. He and his assis­tant, Dorothy Barck, who was appointed librarian in 1942, shared a desire to encourage historical interests in young people. In 1945, Barck established two un­dergraduate internships in library training that were filled by students from nearby colleges and universities. Such programs, along with general encouragement offered to young readers, bore fruit early in the postwar period, when there was a noticeable increase in the number of undergraduates, high school students, and even grammar school students using the library. Barck wrote in the 1945 annual report that this trend was "heartily to be encouraged, and we welcome young peo­ple who are genuinely interested in research."

Wall's efforts to open up the Society did not go unnoticed. Dixon Ryan Fox, president of the New York State Historical Association and an outspoken critic of the Society under Robert Kelby, said that "the atmosphere of exclusiveness and self-content" at the Society had been dispelled not only by Wall's "intelligent sympathy" with all serious scholars but also by his "concern for popular education" and the fact that the Society "gladly welcomed school children and casual visitors."

Wall's leadership of the library moved the Society beyond the mistakes of the late 1800s and helped position the institution to play a more significant public service role. Still, that progress might not have been possible were it not for two other developments that helped make Wall's tenure a period of prosperity and pro­fessionalism: first, in April 1935, Mary Gardiner Thompson, daughter of David Thompson (the former president of the New York Life Insurance Company), died, leaving over $4.5 million to the Society between 1935 and 1942;

The Thompson bequest could not have come at a better time. In the begin­ning of 1935, "the wingless building was jammed . .. almost beyond endurance," and resources remained tight. With a limited endowment and only seven profes­sional staff members, "there seemed little hope for the enlargement of [the Soci­ety's] activities or for the raising of the hopelessly large sum needed to complete the building."