Attorney General Seeks Receiver For Philadelphia Civil War Library
By Deborah Fitts
April 2002
PHILADELPHIA, Pa.

Citing "the inability or unwillingness" of the 10-member board of the Civil War Library & Museum to take care of their valuable collection, Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher filed papers March 1 calling for removal of the board and its replacement by a court-appointed receiver.

The attorney general's action was only the latest effort by outside forces to control the Library's extensive collection and stop its cash-strapped board from sending relics southward.

The Library has pinned its hopes on a collaboration with a new museum proposed for the former Tredegar Iron Works complex in Richmond.

In his petition to Judge Anne Lazarus of the Philadelphia Orphans’ Court — which has jurisdiction over nonprofits — Fisher charged that the board members had "breached their fiduciary duty" to preserve and exhibit the collection. They should be removed, Fisher said, and a receiver named to take over the collection and inventory, preserve and manage it.
At a court hearing March 11, Lazarus ordered the Library board, within 10 days, to produce drafts of confidential agreements between the Library and the Richmond museum. She also ordered the Library to produce, within 30 days, an inventory of its collection and an accounting of its finances.

Sean Connolly, Fisher's spokesman, expressed satisfaction. "We've been seeking this information for a long time," he said, "and the board has not provided it. Now it has to do so."

Lazarus also agreed to an indefinite postponement of a trial that had been scheduled for late April to determine who actually owns the Library collection, and whether it should be allowed to leave the city. Fisher has asked Lazarus to prohibit the Library from loaning or transferring items outside of Philadelphia.

A spokesman for Fisher pointed to the Library's failure to respond to a March 2001 court order by Lazarus as a reason for the new petition to seize the collection.

The order temporarily enjoined the Library board from removing any items from the city or from selling "or otherwise disposing of their assets."

Fisher's request for a receiver to take control of the valuable collection was only part of the unfolding story.
Some of the most prominent Civil War-related institutions in Pennsylvania have joined forces to create a plan of their own for the Library.

State Sen. Vincent Fumo on Feb. 1 hailed a proposal to move the Library's documents to the South Broad Street home of the Union League, and create a new museum elsewhere for the relics. The plan represented a solution that will "end the grave threat" to the extensive collection, he said, and at the same time "save a historical treasure that belongs to Philadelphia and in Philadelphia."

Under this scenario, the Library's holdings would be overseen by a new "board of stewards" that would be comprised of representatives of the League's nonprofit arm, the Abraham Lincoln Foundation, along with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the new National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, MOLLUS (the Philadelphia-based Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S.), the City of Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, as well as the Library itself.

Fumo spearheaded an effort last year to block plans by the Library's board to ship part of the collection to Richmond for long-term loan to the proposed Tredegar National Civil War Center.

Judge Lazarus's temporary injunction in March 2001 ordering the collection to stay continues in place. But not content to wait for the outcome of the court case, last November Fumo and MOLLUS asked the Union League to draft a proposal similar to one the League made to the Library in 1999.

Plans at that time called for installing the collection, along with the League's own Civil War items, in a new museum that the League would construct in a building adjacent to their 140 S. Broad St. headquarters. But the proposal died in February 2000, when the Library demanded guarantees that the League would achieve its fundraising goals in a certain period of time.

When negotiations failed, the League canceled plans to buy the adjoining building and determined to go ahead on its own in more modest fash-ion. Ten months ago the Lincoln Foundation began planning a $3 million campaign to create a new research facility for the League's own Civil War collection on the third floor of the Broad Street building.

Jim Straw, immediate past president of the League and president of the Lincoln Foundation board, said he told Fumo that the adjacent building was no longer available and therefore the League could not accommodate the entire Library collection, "but we'll do our best" to find a solution.

The Lincoln Foundation proceeded to recruit the other organizations, Straw said. Each would commit to supplying funds and brainpower: "We wanted to make this a community solution."

Straw stressed that the League will go ahead with plans for its new "Center for Civil War Studies" with or without the Library's items. The new center will be "wonderful without" the collection, and "extraordinary with it," he said.

Straw suggested, however, that the Library collection is at risk under the present board. "There's a group in charge that basically has not demonstrated they can care for the collection and make it accessible to the public," he said. "It is not acceptable."

Library chairman Michael Schwartz declined to comment on the stewardship proposal, other than to say than he would be seeking "certain clarifications." But sources said he appeared unyielding in his intention to team up with Tredegar.
Straw said the stewardship proposal was presented to Judge Lazarus but she declined to read it, instead urging the parties to continue talking.

George Hicks, CEO of the Harrisburg museum, helped craft the proposal. Like the League, he had an earlier plan that failed. A year ago he approached the Library, offering to take items to the Harrisburg facility, fund their conservation and "bring [the Library] increased visibility."

Hicks said it was now high time for the financially strapped Library board to take the helping hand being offered them. "It's a museum that's 50 years out of date," he said. Open two days a week, "It's providing a minimal level of public service" at its aging Pine Street building, "the artifacts are not being preserved properly, and they have no educational programs."

Under the coalition proposal, the board of stewards would have a "team of qualified professionals" inventory the Library holdings and assess their condition. Then the artifacts would be placed in climate-controlled storage and the books and documents would be moved to the Union League. The board of stewards would then "transfer its stewardship responsibility" for the books and documents to the Lincoln Foundation, which would make them available for public access at their new Civil War center, projected to open "by the spring of 2004."

"At the same time," the proposal reads, the stewards would plan a capital campaign for a new "Philadelphia Civil War Exhibition Center" for the artifacts. The new site would also display Civil War items from other institutions throughout the state and even the country.

In order to make the collection at least partially accessible to the public during this period, "stable items" would be placed on loan to "qualified in-stitutions," including the Harrisburg museum. The stewards would then assess the remaining assets of the Library and dispose of them, with the proceeds, "if any," going to create an endowment for the collection.
Hicks said the organizations involved in the proposal "possess the expertise, credibility and commitment" to carry the plan through.

The proposal sidesteps the question as to who actually owns the Library collection. Donated largely by Union officers from Philadelphia and their descendants, the items grew so numerous and significant that MOLLUS founded the Library in 1888 to house and display them.

They transferred control to a new nonprofit board in 1986. Since then the Library's $500,000 endowment has virtually evaporated and there are concerns that the collection is not secure.

Gary Tuma, a spokesman for Sen. Fumo, cautioned that the steward-ship proposal was just "one potential outcome" of the struggle over the Civil War Museum & Library. The first and most important step, he said, was settlement of the legal issues as to whether MOLLUS or the Library owns the collection, and whether it must remain in Philadelphia.

The Union League's collection includes 4000 Civil War books; memorabilia of Lincoln, U.S. Grant and Philadelphian George Meade; a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Lincoln; the Tanner Manuscript, a handwritten account by Cpl. James Tanner of eyewitness testimony at the time of Lincoln's assassination; and Civil War diaries and letters.

Among the most important holdings are records of the Union League, which was founded in 1868 and launched a movement that eventually totaled 700 Union Leagues across the country.

Straw said the Lincoln Foundation's new center will include computer access to a variety of Civil War databases. The Foundation is embarking, with others, on a "Civil War History Initiative" to catalog all Civil War-era archival holdings in the Delaware Valley.

Philadelphia Inquirer writer Stephan Salisbury reported on March 4 that 18 area cultural organizations have begun planning for the Civil War's 150th anniversary.

City museums hold a treasure-trove of wartime artifacts. Philadelphia was a manufacturing, transportation, recruitment and communications center during the war. If efforts are successful the city will be able to market itself to Civil War as well as Revolutionary War heritage tourism.