ABSTRACT
The presentation of the William Seymour Theatre Collection to Princeton University Library took place at a dinner held at the Graduate College of the University on Sunday evening, November 29, 1936. The speakers included E. L. D. Seymour, William Seymour's eldest son; President Harold Dodds of the University; the actor Charles Coburn; and Professor George C. D. Odell of Columbia University. On the tables, at the place of each guest, was a souvenir program to which was affixed a bookplate designed and lithographed by Kyra Markham at the request of the Seymour family. Each of the 800 plus books in the Seymour Collection held one of these plates depicting a proscenium stage lit by a pilot light and surrounded by a border containing the names of some of the theatres which Seymour had served: Union Square, Baldwin, Boston Museum, Palmer's, Tremont, Metropolitan Opera, Empire, Varieties, Booth's, and Old Globe. Indeed, the original Seymour library may still be identified by these bookplates. The citation on the second page of the booklet states that:
the William Seymour Theatre Collection commemorates the late William Seymour, who served the stage for seventy years and whose library forms the nucleus of the collection. The curator invites you to make use of its facilities, and to contribute to its value as a repository for material relating to the history of the theatre and to the lives of those who have loved it.
