George L. Van Bibber IV Photograph Collection, PP323

Transcription

1 IV Photograph Collection, PP323 Finding Aid to the IV Photograph Collection, PP323 H. Furlong Baldwin Library, Maryland Historical Society Download a PDF version of the finding aid. Collection summary Title IV Photograph Collection Creator Holden Call number PP323 Inclusive dates 1976, 1979, ca 1970s Extent 1 box Abstract The IV Photograph Collection consists of one box of 18 photographs related to IV taken by photographer Holden, a friend of Van Bibber s. Administrative summary Repository H. Furlong Baldwin Library Maryland Historical Society 201 W. Monument St. Baltimore, MD specialcollections@mdhs.org

2 Access restrictions Open to the public without restrictions. Use restrictions For information about how to purchase digital reproductions and for permission information, please visit the Rights and Reproductions page. Provenance Gift of Holden, June 2017 Accession number Acc# LIB Processing note Processed by Damon Talbot, June 2017 Related Collections IV Diary, , MS 2409 Highland Society of Harford County Papers, MS 3205 Biographical Note George Lindenburger Van Bibber IV was born on March 12, 1906, in Harford County, Maryland. He was the son of Armfield Franklin Van Bibber (d.1953) and Susanna Rebecca [Michael] Van Bibber (d.1955). He had one brother Edwin M. (d.1967) and two sisters Katherine and Ann (Mrs. William T. Whitney). Van Bibber was a life-long resident of Bel Air, living at 303 Main Street, his childhood home. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1929 with a degree in architecture and was employed as a draftsman in the Edgewood Arsenal from His real interests lay however in local history, travel, literature and the cinema. He made numerous trips abroad, culminating in a five-month round-the-world voyage in Van Bibber was active in the Harford County Historical Society, serving on its Bicentennial Commission and writing a monograph Notes on Bel Air - a character sketch of our county seat. He designed the seal for Harford County and the town seals for Bel Air, Aberdeen and Havre de Grace. Van Bibber was also a charter member of the Highland Society of Harford County and designed the shield that is part of the official seal of the organization. Over the years Van Bibber contributed numerous columns to local newspapers. He wrote Crazy Horse Spoke for the News Advertiser and the Havre de Grace Record and Henry Harf Hath Hearde published in the Bel Air Aegis. He illustrated his columns with drawings and caricatures.

3 Van Bibber never married. After the death of his mother in 1955, he began renting rooms in his house to boarders and having all his meals in the restaurants and cafes of Bel Air. This habit ensured that Van Bibber was a familiar personage in the town and his diaries are full of references to pedestrians or motorists hailing him during his perambulations. Throughout much of his life Van Bibber was plagued by insomnia and many of the later volumes of his diary record his efforts to occupy the hours of sleeplessness. Many of these hours were spent on the diary itself with its time-consuming transcriptions, amendments, indexing and the like. Indeed it occasionally seems as if the diary were the focus and raison d être of Van Bibber's life with many of the elaborations of style, annotations etc. growing out of a need to occupy his thoughts and time. The days were structured by the grooves of habits and patterns repeated over the years but Van Bibber's relatively unfettered and solitary existence was made even more inward-directed and solitary by the regimen of keeping his diary. Van Bibber also suffered from alcoholism. The gradual progression from the exuberant drinking of a college youth to social drinking as a young adult to dependence and abuse of alcohol in maturity is evident in the pages of the diary -- indeed, there must exist few autobiographical accounts of the disease as meticulous as this one. In 1968 Van Bibber was hospitalized for several weeks in a state of near physical collapse after one particularly severe period of abuse. As a result of this episode, with its attendant warnings of fatality, Van Bibber embarked on a period of abstinence which lasted ten years. He frequented the same familiar cafes and kept the same company without jeopardizing his own resolution. Van Bibber died on March 26, 1979, after an illness of several weeks. Scope and Content The IV Photograph Collection consists of one box of 18 photographs related to IV taken by photographer Holden, a friend of Van Bibber s. The collection includes a portrait of Van Bibber, exterior photographs of Van Bibber s home at 303 S. Main Street, Bel Air, and interior photographs of the home taken on March 29, 1979, a few days after his death. There is also a portrait of Harford Circuit Court Judge Edward D. Higinbothom. The collection also contains eight pieces of poetry by Van Bibber and a program for a 2006 exhibition of Van Bibber s artworks at the Liriodendron gallery in Bel Air, Maryland. Container List Description Date Photographer Format Image ID Poetry by George L. Van Bibber IV not dated n/a manuscript n/a

4 "An Evening Highlighting the Artwork and life of George L. Van Bibber," program for a 2006 exhibition of Van Bibber s artworks at the Liriodendron gallery in Bel Air, Maryland n/a Program n/a IV 1976 Judge Edward D. Higinbothom [Home of George L. Van Bibber IV, 303 S. Main Street, Bel Air, Maryland, exterior] ca 1970s ca 1970s The Book Bag [Home of Georg L. Van Bibber [The Book Bag] Den GLVB [Home of Georg L. Van Bibber Living Room GLVB Van Bibber Bedroom John Carver, Garland Green, Executors GLVB Home [Home of Georg L. Van Bibber [Books on shelf in home of George L. [George L. Van Bibber IV's hat on windowsill in his home] March 29, 1979 [Books and telephone in home of George L. Holden Print PP Holden Print PP Holden Prints PP Holden Mounted Print PP Holden Matted Print PP Holden Mounted Print PP Holden Mounted Print PP Holden Mounted Print PP Holden Mounted Print PP Holden Mounted Print PP Holden Mounted Print PP Holden Matted Print PP Holden Mounted Print PP323.16

5 [Door in home of [Open door to bedroom in home of Holden Matted Print PP Holden Matted Print PP323.18