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Frey (Charles S.) Memorial Bicycle Collection
H.Mss.1086
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Title: Charles S. Frey Memorial Bicycle Collection
Dates: 1871-1984
Collection number: H.Mss.1086
Creator:
Axe, Ruth Frey
Extent:
4.75 Linear Feet
(5 document boxes, 1 slim document box, 1 oversize flat box)
Repository:
Claremont Colleges. Library. Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library. Claremont, CA 91711
Abstract: The Charles S. Frey collection contains materials related to bicycling and bicycle enthusiasts
ranging from pamphlets and periodicals to illustrations and comic books. It was created by Ruth Frey Axe in honor of her nephew,
an airman who lost
his life during World War II. She began collecting in 1956, and acquired diverse and hard to find items, including some of
the earliest 19th century
pamphlets on bicycling.
Physical Location: Please consult repository.
Language of Material: Languages represented in the collection: English.
Collection open for research.
All requests for permission to reproduce or to publish must be submitted in writing to Special Collections.
[Identification of Item], Charles S. Frey Memorial Bicycle Collection (H. Mss. 1086). Special Collections, The Claremont Colleges
Library, Claremont, California.
Provenance / Source of Acquisition
Gift of Ruth Frey Axe, 1983.
No additions to the collection are anticipated.
Processed, arranged, and listed by Andrea Bell.
The Charles S. Frey Memorial Bicycle Collection was donated by Ruth Frey Axe of Los Angeles, CA. Mrs. Axe has long-standing
connections with
Pomona College, where she was Henry Raup Wagner’s assistant when he donated the Northwest Cartography Collection and other
gifts to the Carnegie
Library during the 1920s and 1930s. Their visits to Claremont were described by Mrs. Axe in her lively biography of Henry
Wagner published in AB
Bookman’s Weekly in 1980.
The reason behind the bicycle collection is a personal one. Ruth Axe had a sister-in-law, Annabelle (Norris) Frink Frey, who
graduated from Pomona
College in 1918. When Mrs. Frey's son Charles was killed in the Second World War, Ruth Axe, an avid book collector, decided
to dedicate a collection
to his memory and donate it eventually to Pomona College. In her own words, she “had decided at the start that [the collection]
would be formed in
the memory of my nephew…after Charles’s death (at age 21) [his mother] and I had established a small book fund at the College
in his memory. I thought
that the bicycle collection would add to that memorial.”
Both Ruth and her husband Harold were enthusiastic bicyclists for many years. Harold Axe started bicycling seriously during
World War II, when the
public was asked to curtail gasoline consumption. So cycling was the subject around which Ruth Axe accumulated her memorial
collection in honor of her
nephew. Over the years, she gathered a wide assortment of items, from children’s stories, newspaper clippings, correspondence,
pictures, and magazines
to several of the earliest books and periodicals on the subject. After Mrs. Axe donated her collection, it was put on display
in the Honnold/Mudd Library
from November 1983 – March 1984.
This collection contains materials relating to cycling that were acquired by Ruth Frey Axe in memory of her nephew, Charles
S. Frey. Dating as far back
as the late 19th century, this collection contains a diverse range of materials relating to bicycling and bicycle enthusiasts,
including bulletins,
announcements, correspondence, periodicals, journals, pamphlets, illustrations, comics, newspaper clippings, publications,
and scrapbooks. Noteable items
include the very rare Volumes 1 and 2 of the 1897 pamphlet "Wheeling."
This collection is arranged on a file level.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library’s online public access catalog.
Bicycling books
Bicyclists
Correspondence
Publications
Periodicals
Comic books, strips, etc.
Pamphlets
Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)
Scrapbooks