Daniel Willard Fiske (November 11, 1831 – September 17, 1904) was an American
librarian
A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...
and scholar, born on November 11, 1831, at
Ellisburg, New York
Ellisburg is an incorporated town in Jefferson County, New York. The population was 3,474 at the time of the 2010 census. The town is in the southwestern corner of the county and is south of Watertown. Ellisburg is named after early European-Ame ...
.
Biography
Fiske studied at
Cazenovia Seminary and started his collegiate studies at
Hamilton College
Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...
in 1847. He joined the
Psi Upsilon
Psi Upsilon (), commonly known as Psi U, is a North American fraternity,''Psi Upsilon Tablet'' founded at Union College on November 24, 1833. The fraternity reports 50 chapters at colleges and universities throughout North America, some of which ...
but was suspended for a student prank at the end of his sophomore year. He was educated at
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
and at
Uppsala University
Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in opera ...
. Upon his return to the United States, he acted as a
General Secretary
Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...
to the
American Geographical Society
The American Geographical Society (AGS) is an organization of professional geographers, founded in 1851 in New York City. Most fellows of the society are Americans, but among them have always been a significant number of fellows from around the ...
and edited the ''Syracuse Daily Journal''.
Upon the opening of
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...
, Fiske was named
university librarian and professor in 1868. He made a reputation as an authority on the Northern European languages, and
Icelandic language
Icelandic (; is, íslenska, link=no ) is a North Germanic language spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Due to being a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely re ...
and culture in particular.
With loans from
Andrew Dickson White
Andrew Dickson White (November 7, 1832 – November 4, 1918) was an American historian and educator who cofounded Cornell University and served as its first president for nearly two decades. He was known for expanding the scope of college curricu ...
, Fiske at age 48 took a leave of absence and sailed to Europe. In the summer of 1879, he visited Iceland for three months, traveling on the island with two other Americans and endearing himself to the residents by organizing donations of books from America. He traveled to Rome in April 1880 to join
Jennie McGraw
Jennie McGraw, also Jennie McGraw Fiske, (September 14, 1840 – September 30, 1881) was the daughter of John McGraw, millionaire philanthropist to Cornell University and Rhoda Charlotte Southworth. In 1868, she gave the university a set of ch ...
, then age 40. In July 1880,
he married Jennie, at the American
Legation
A legation was a diplomatic representative office of lower rank than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an ambassador, a legation was headed by a Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, minister. Ambassadors diplomatic rank, out ...
in Berlin. McGraw was the daughter of timber
magnate
The magnate term, from the late Latin ''magnas'', a great man, itself from Latin ''magnus'', "great", means a man from the higher nobility, a man who belongs to the high office-holders, or a man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or ot ...
John McGraw
John Joseph McGraw (April 7, 1873 – February 25, 1934) was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) player and manager who was for almost thirty years manager of the New York Giants. He was also the third baseman of the pennant-winning 1890 ...
, and upon John McGraw's death in 1877 inherited $2.2 million ($ today). Their marriage was short, and by September 1881 she had died from
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
. Controversy over her
will
Will may refer to:
Common meanings
* Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death
* Will (philosophy), or willpower
* Will (sociology)
* Will, volition (psychology)
* Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will
...
's bequest to Cornell left Fiske involved in
the Great Will Case
The history of Cornell University begins when its two founders, Andrew Dickson White of Syracuse and Ezra Cornell of Ithaca, met in the New York State Senate in January 1864. Together, they established Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, i ...
. Following its resolution in May 1890, he spent much of his remaining years in Italy, and collected manuscripts.
His interests included
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
; he helped organize the first
American Chess Congress The American Chess Congress was a series of chess tournaments held in the United States, a predecessor to the current U.S. Chess Championship. It had nine editions, the first played in October 1857 and the last in August 1923.
First American Che ...
in 1857 and wrote the tournament book in 1859, and edited ''
The Chess Monthly
''The Chess Monthly'' was a short-lived monthly chess magazine produced from January 1857 and May 1861 in the United States. Edited by professional diplomat and linguistics professor Daniel Willard Fiske, it was co-edited for a time by Paul Morph ...
'' from 1857 to 1861 with
Paul Morphy
Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 – July 10, 1884) was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his era and is often considered the unofficial World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he was ca ...
. His scholarly volume
''Chess In Iceland and in Icelandic Literature''(Florence, 1905), was used as source material by
H. J. R. Murray
Harold James Ruthven Murray (24 June 1868 – 16 May 1955) was a British educationalist, inspector of schools, and prominent chess historian. His book, ''A History of Chess'', is widely regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive his ...
for ''
A History of Chess
The book ''A History of Chess'' was written by H. J. R. Murray (1868–1955) and published in 1913.
Details
Murray's aim is threefold: to present as complete a record as is possible of the varieties of chess that exist or have existed in differen ...
''. Another manuscript, ''Chess Tales and Chess Miscellanies'' (New York, 1912), also published posthumously, is an anthology covering chess life of the period including articles about Morphy, problems by
Sam Loyd
Samuel Loyd (January 30, 1841 – April 10, 1911), was an American chess player, chess composer, puzzle author, and recreational mathematics, recreational mathematician. Loyd was born in Philadelphia but raised in New York City.
As a chess com ...
, and the history of chess including some fables.
Fiske donated thousands of volumes to Cornell including a 1536 edition of the Divine Comedy that he purchased in April 1892 and directed to be sent directly to Cornell. The Fiske Dante Collection grew out of this acquisition and as of 2005 numbered approximately 10,000 volumes.
On September 17, 1904 Fiske died at
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
, Germany. He is buried next to his wife Jennie McGraw Fiske in the elaborate
crypt
A crypt (from Latin ''crypta'' "vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics.
Originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a chur ...
of
Sage Chapel
Sage Chapel is the non-denominational chapel on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York State which serves as the burial ground for many contributors to Cornell's history, including the founders of the university: Ezra Cornell and An ...
at Cornell University. Upon his death, Fiske left a bequest of 32,000 volumes, the Fiske Icelandic Collection, to Cornell
Fiske Collection
- Cornell University Library: Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections; accessed May 27, 2008 along with funds that Fiske had received from Jennie's estate.
References
External links
*
*
*
Willard Fiske: Journeys of a Bibliophile (PDF)
Fiske Icelandic Collection at Cornell University Library
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fiske, Willard
1831 births
1904 deaths
American chess players
American chess writers
American male non-fiction writers
American non-fiction writers
Cazenovia College alumni
Hamilton College (New York) alumni
Uppsala University alumni
Cornell University faculty
Linguists from the United States
Chess patrons
Chess historians
People from Ellisburg, New York
Burials at Sage Chapel
19th-century philanthropists
19th-century chess players
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters