June Evening Program

Alice Parsons Millard (1873–1938) was largely self-educated. She was from a modest background, but she became an urbane, internationally known antiquarian bookseller when almost no women worked at the high end of the trade. This talk will focus on her beginnings in Chicago where she met and married George M. Millard, a notable bookseller and one of the founders of the Caxton Club. She was involved in the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Chicago Woman’s Club, and knew Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed two homes for her: one in Highland Park for her and George, and, much later, one for her in Pasadena. Although she later ran her business in Pasadena, California, her intellectual roots were in Chicago.

Michèle V. Cloonan is Professor and Dean Emerita in the School of Library and Information Science at Simmons University, USA, where she continues to advise doctoral students and conduct research. Prior to that she was associate professor and chair in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA. Before she became a professor, she was a librarian at the Newberry Library, Brown University, and Smith College. She has been a leader in LIS education and is a former president of the Association for Library & Information Science Education.

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September Program

During the 1920s a remarkable group of women binders, many with modernist aspirations, emerged in Paris. One or two are well known; others remain obscure. This talk will focus upon several of the most talented and productive among them, relying on images to document their achievements.

Neil Harris taught at the University of Chicago from 1969 to 2008, retiring as Preston and Sterling Morton Professor Emeritus in History and Art History. In addition to more than 100 published essays and articles his books include The Artist in American Society; Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum; Cultural Excursions; The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age; and Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, The National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. His research interests focus on the history of museums and collecting, the built landscape, international expositions, and the decorative arts. Harris has served as a member and chair of the Smithsonian Council, a trustee of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, the Newberry Library, the Terra Foundation on the Arts, the National Museum of American History, and co-chaired the Visiting Committee to the J. Paul Getty Museum. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and recipient of the Joseph Henry Medal from the Smithsonian Institution.