December Daytime Program

In 1901 a scrappy little bibliographic society called the Caxton Club published a limited edition of 256 volumes on handmade paper. The book was called Wau-Bun, The “Early Day” of the Northwest. The writer? Juliette Kinzie. We’ll visit with Mrs. Kinzie again, this time through an illustrated presentation by professor Ann Durkin Keating, professor at North Central College and author of The World of Juliette Kinzie:  Chicago Before The Fire, published by the University of Chicago Press.

All Daytime Programs will begin at 12:30 PM CT via Zoom. The events will consist of quality Zoom presentations with real-time Q&A features immediately following those presentations. All programs will require advance registration on the club’s website so that Zoom instructions can be sent before the program.

December Evening Celebration

Join us for an evening celebrating the Caxton Club’s 125th Anniversary. Enjoy a program called “Caxton Club Through the Years,” created from photographs and films with members and programs as the stars.

We will also take a virtual look at materials from our archives, and enhancements we are making to our website to post more of our heritage online. We will end the evening with a special toast to our “Making Our Mark” keepsake donors who so generously provided the funding to make its production possible. Special toast cocktail suggestions will be emailed to those who register. Consider drink possibilities using Caxton glassware. Self-service only this year.

January Daytime Program

How did steam presses and a quirk in postal laws help crown a king in the continental United States during 1850 … in an obscure place called Beaver Island … only a boat ride from Chicago? Your guide to this remarkable tale will be Miles Harvey, familiar to Caxtonians for his terrifying book The Island of Lost Maps, which still has librarians sleeping with the lights on. You’ll hear about pirates, voting irregularities, a traveling secretary who was not what a first glance might suggest, a brazen murder, and more. Plus, you’ll learn the precise time and place that the term Confidence Man was coined.

January (Tuesday) Evening Program

In this presentation, Rebecca Romney of Type Punch Matrix and Heather O’Donnell of Honey & Wax Booksellers reflect on their participation in outreach programs designed to address marginalization in the rare book world, including the Women’s Initiative of the ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America), the Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS-Minnesota), and their own Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize for young women collectors. These programs, in addition to recent initiatives created by Rare Book School, the Bibliographical Society of America, and RBMS, are part of a broader movement to attract and support booksellers, collectors, librarians, and archivists from communities historically underrepresented in the rare book world. In discussing what they have learned from recent projects — and their hopes for new ones, like the ABAA Diversity Initiative — Rebecca and Heather will consider the successes and challenges facing these efforts to build a more inclusive and representative rare book world for future generations.

Rebecca and Heather were featured in the documentary The Booksellers, which premiered at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center in 2019.

Rebecca Romney

Heather O'Donnell

February Daytime Program

Trivia question: “What American President’s autobiographical article in a magazine started a stampede to the newsstands?” Did you answer Calvin Coolidge? Did his name even come to mind? If not, then you’ll want to mark your calendar for a talk by Craig Ferhman, whose book illuminates the history of Presidential writing. (You may also want to go back to your August Caxtonian, in which Author In Chief was reviewed.) Fehrman is a very engaging speaker who will reveal some surprising stories that might upend what you thought you knew about this unique set of authors.

February Evening Program

Collier will discuss the collation of the Library holdings from the Smithsonian collections, some of the interesting items the Library received upon the call for materials as the Library opened, and the Library’s current initiatives.

March Daytime Program

October 1871. Drought. Barn. Fire. Chaos. Destruction. That’s the story that has been told and told again about this signal event that is remembered with one of those stars on Chicago’s flag. But noted historian Carl Smith is going to share a much more specific tale, one crafted especially for Caxtonians. He’ll answer the question, “What did the fire and its aftermath mean for books, authors, publishers, and libraries?” Smith, an emeritus professor from Northwestern University is well known to Caxtonians; he has two essays in the Club’s most recent publication, Chicago 101. Join us for this remarkable story about The Great Fire’s impact on all things printed!

March Evening Program

Kinohi is Associate Professor of English and African American studies at Princeton where his work focuses on twentieth century African American literature.