John Willard & Alice Sheets Marriott Gift
John Willard & Alice Sheets Marriott, 1927
In 1968, John Willard Marriott, Sr. donated one million dollars for library acquisitions – the largest single contribution ever received by the University of Utah at that time. For his gift, the library's current five-story building was named in his honor. Everett Cooley, the director of Special Collections, and David Laird, the Acquisitions Librarian, shared similar interests in the collection of Western Americana materials and other items related to Native American histories.
Using the Marriott funds, Cooley was able to purchase over fifty percent of the titles listed in The Plains and the Rockies. This Wagner-Camp bibliography, as it is often called, contains books published about the West during the years between 1805-1860. Combined with the library of Judge Tillman D. Johnson, these acquisitions placed the Marriott Library among the top dozen university libraries with significant Wagner-Camp holdings.
The Marriott Gift, University of Utah Libraries, Z733 U87 1972
The Plains and the Rockies, Henry R. Wagner, Z1251 W5 W2
The Latter Days Saints' Emigrants' Guide, William Clayton, F593 C612
A second major collection that was acquired as a result of the Marriott gift was approximately one thousand titles related to the history of science – a collection that had been assembled by anatomist Herbert McLean Evans. Of these titles, some 350 could be considered “classics” in the field. The History of Science collection included first and early editions from the likes Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Andreas Vesalius, and Andreas Cellarius, to name but a few.
Harmonia Macrocosmica, Andreas Cellarius, QB41 C39
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Isaac Newton, QA803 A2 1687
De Humani Corporis, Andreas Vesalius, QM25 V4 155
On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, QH365 O2