Byrne Hall

Byrne Hall
The Academy building was turned over to DePaul University, and renamed Byrne Hall. Bygone DePaul | Special Collections & Archives

Introduction

About the DePaul Emeritus Society

DePaul University values its ongoing connections with its faculty and staff retirees, as it values their past contributions to the university’s mission. The DePaul University Emeritus Society was founded in 2008 with the merger of the Staff Emeritus Society and the Emeritus Professors Association. The Society is sponsored by the University’s Office of Mission and Values.

The purpose of the DePaul Emeritus Society is to provide a means for ongoing connection, communication, and socialization between the university and its emeritus faculty and staff, and between individual retirees whose professional lives were for so many years dedicated to university service.

Photos, events, and information of interest to members of the DePaul Emeritus Society will be posted to this blog. Please take a look, add your comment, offer to be an "author" or just enjoy.

Friday, December 21, 2012

DeGraff on Dickens

DePaul blessed with a Dickens archive 

strong on ‘Christmas Carol’


Kathryn DeGraff poses with her favorite edition of A Christmas Carol, a 1940 edition, at DePaul University's Richardson Library in Chicago, Ill., on Wednesday, December 19, 2012. | Andrew A. Nelles~Sun-Times Media

There are no twinkling lights, North Pole elves or candy canes, but tucked into a quiet third-floor office in DePaul University’s Richardson Library is a rare collection of books that speaks to the essence of the modern Christmas experience.

DePaul’s library, 2350 N. Kenmore, is home to more than 1,000 volumes and items relating to Charles Dickens, with an emphasis on “A Christmas Carol.”

“When Dickens wrote ‘A Christmas Carol,’ Christmas was not the holiday we know today,” said Kathryn DeGraff, who has curated the Dickens collection since 1980. “ ‘A Christmas Carol’ was the right story at the right time, and Dickens was clearly the right author for it.” 

Dickens penned the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, his spunky son Tiny Tim and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come in 1843 as a quick way to make a buck. When it was published, Christmas celebrations were making a comeback from a series of Puritanical rules meant to quash what was formerly a bawdy medieval celebration. Dickens’ iconic story and character became synonymous with the modern-day Christmas celebration. 

“This is really about the power of family but it’s also a very important story about the power of giving,” DeGraff said. “By the end [Scrooge] is distributing charity.” 

DeGraff sees the roots of not only the family Christmas celebration in the book.


Kathryn DeGraff shows an 1844 first edition of A Christmas Carol that is part of the Dickens collection at DePaul University's Richardson Library in Chicago, Ill., on Wednesday, December 19, 2012. | Andrew A. Nelles~Sun-Times Media 

Click the photo gallery to view more items from the Dickens' collection photographed by the Sun Times.

Chicago Sun Times, December 21, 2012,  BY KARA SPAK Staff Reporter/kspak@suntimes.com December 20, 2012 5:34PM.  Online @ http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/books/17134625-421/dickensat-depaul.html
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