Guide to the Robert B. Sweet Collection

Processed by D. Tambo
Department of Special Collections
Davidson Library
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone: (805) 893-3062
Fax: (805) 893-5749
Email: special@library.ucsb.edu
URL: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/speccoll/speccoll.html
© 2002
Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Guide to the Robert B. Sweet Collection, ca. 1807-1959

Collection number: Mss 156

Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara

Contact Information:

  • Department of Special Collections
  • Davidson Library
  • University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Santa Barbara, CA 93106
  • Phone: (805) 893-3062
  • Fax: (805) 893-5749
  • Email: special@library.ucsb.edu
  • URL: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/speccoll/speccoll.html
    Processed by:
    D. Tambo
    Date Completed:
    12 February 2002
    Encoded by:
    David C. Gartrell
© 2002 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Descriptive Summary

Title: Robert B. Sweet Collection,
Date (inclusive): ca. 1807-1959
Collection Number: Mss 156
Collector: Sweet, Robert Ballantine
Extent: 4.5 linear feet (2 record center containers, 1 document box, and 2 oversize boxes)
Repository: University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Department of Special Collections
Santa Barbara, California 93106-9010
Physical Location: Del Sur (Boxes 1-3) and Del Sur Oversize (Boxes 4-5).
Language: English.

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

None.

Publication Rights

Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.

Preferred Citation

Robert B. Sweet Collection. Mss 156. Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Helen Sweet Keener and Clyde Keener, 1976.

Biography

Robert Ballantine Sweet (1876-1956) was born in Iowa, but spent most of his life in California. He was a physician (eye and ear specialist), longtime resident of Long Beach, and an avid book collector and bibliophile, with a wide diversity of interests.
The donors of the collection were Helen E. Sweet Keener, daughter of Robert Sweet, and Clyde Keener, her husband. Helen Sweet Keener (1906-1984) was Dean of Women and Associate Professor of Biology at UCSB. Clyde Keener (1903-1995) was Professor of Industrial Arts at UCSB.

Scope and Content of Collection

The Sweet manuscript collection is a very small part of a much larger personal library, all of which was donated to UCSB. Included in the manuscript section is correspondence, a diary, photos (Robert B. Sweet and others), scrapbooks, volumes of engravings, and a set of stereo slides.
The book collection reflects Sweet's far-ranging interests and includes anthropology, the arts, biography, the Civil War, history, humor, literature, medicine, philosophy, psychology, racism, religion, sexuality, sociology, travel, and women. The vast majority are 20th century U.S. imprints, but there are important earlier 16th-19th century works (especially early medical, religious, and historical texts), and first, signed, and other significant editions of authors such as William Blake, Theodore Dreiser, Robert Frost, Lafcadio Hearn, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elbert Hubbard, Aldous Huxley, Robinson Jeffers, D. H. Lawrence, Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, Henry Miller, Robert Service, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, H. G. Wells, Walt Whitman, and John Greenleaf Whittier. The books have been cataloged separately and can be searched on Pegasus, the UCSB Libraries online catalog.
At the time of the donation in 1976, this collection of more than 8,000 books was the second largest gift the UCSB Library had ever received, exceeded only by the William Wyles gift (the first 'special collection' at Santa Barbara).

 

Series 1.  General

Box 1: 1

Benjamin List of Books for Private Library Builders, 1935

Box 1: 2

Book -- text cut out for storage of small items, 1807

Box 1: 3

Diary (apparently of a photographer in the Washington, D.C. area), 1845

Box 1: 4

Keener, Clyde -- A Study of the General Education Contributions of Industrial Arts (UCLA dissertation), 1959

 

Series 2.  Laid-in Materials

Scope and Content Note

Series consists of items removed from cataloged volumes in Sweet Collection.
Box 1: 5

Birth Control -- correspondence and pamphlets, mainly British, ca. 1920s-1930s

Box 1: 6

Lloyd, J. W. -- correspondence (also W. L. Lloyd), ca. 1929-1940

 

Series 3.  Photographs

Box 1: 7

Photograph Album -- Sweet family, ca. late 19th century

Box 1: 8

Lloyd, J. W. - inscribed by friend J. Johnston, ca. latter 19th century

Box 1: 9

Sweet, Robert B. -- 2 b/w, later in life

Box 1: 10

Picture Postcard -- Pikes Peak

 

Series 4.  Scrapbooks

Box 1: 11

Cards (color, mostly Christmas and advertising), ca. late 19th century

Box 1: 12 - 13

Clippings, typescript and handwritten passages, 2 volumes (mainly poetry and literary excerpts), ca. late 19th-early 20th century

Box 2: 1

Jennie Roberts (mainly clippings, glued into volume of Congressional Record), ca. late 19th century

Box 2: 2

Recipes, household hints, ca. mid 19th century

Box 3: 1 - 6

Stereographic Library -- Tour of the World (Keystone View Co., 12 vols. in 6 boxes)

 

Series 5.  Oversize

Box 4: 1

Studio portrait (b/w) of Robert Sweet, n.d.

Box 4: 2

Steel Engravings -- bound volume (R. Hinshelwood, W. Wellstood, and others), ca. mid 19th century

Box 4: 3

Italian Posters - bound volume (Off. G. Ricordi & C. Milano), ca. late 19th century

Box 5: 1

Landacre, Paul -- Black Stallion (prospectus for Woodcut Society publication), 1940

Box 5: 2

Scrapbook - mainly 19th century engravings