The Board of Governors of the John Carter Brown Library announced last week the appointment of Edward L. Widmer as the new Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, effective on July 1, 2006.
Since 2001 Dr. Widmer has served as the inaugural director of the C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and Associate Professor of History at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. In that capacity, he helped to create visiting fellowships, international exchanges, conferences, lec-tures, and other activities that made the Starr Center an important locus for the study of American history and the dissemination of research and scholarship.
Prior to his appointment at Washington College, Dr. Widmer served in the Clin-ton White House as Senior Advisor to the President for Special Projects, as Spe-cial Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and as Director for Speechwriting at the National Security Council. From 1993 to 1997 Dr. Widmer held an appointment as Lecturer on History and Literature at Harvard Univer-sity. He holds an A.B. in the History and Literature of France and America, an A.M. in History, and a Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Harvard.
Professor Widmer has published widely on topics in American history and politics. His first book, Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City (1999), was the recipient of the 2001 Washington Irving Literary Medal. He is the co-author (with Alan Brinkley) of Campaigns: A Century of Presidential Races (2001) and the author of Martin Van Buren (2005). He is a contributing editor to The American Scholar and a frequent contributor to The New York Times and other publications.
Dr. Widmer will succeed the sixth director of the Library, Norman Fiering, who has served as Director and Librarian since 1983 with great distinction. Under his leadership, the Library has significantly improved and expanded the celebrated collection, increased access of researchers to its primary historical resources, mounted widely heralded public exhibitions, and published scores of resources on the collection.
The John Carter Brown Library is an independently funded and administered institution for advanced research in history and the humanities, founded in 1846 and located at Brown University since 1901. The Library holds one of the world’s leading collections of books, maps, and manuscripts relating to the colonial period of the Americas, North and South, from 1492 to ca. 1825. The Library offers fellowships, sponsors lectures and conferences, regularly mounts exhibitions for the public, and publishes catalogues, bibliographies, facsimiles, and other works that interpret the Library’s holdings.