Archives & Special CollectionsJack Hagstrom part 1

Transcript of an Interview with Jack Hagstrom--Part 1

[0:00] John Lancaster: Today is Wednesday, October 12, in the year 2005. I’m going to be having a conversation with Jack Hagstrom today and tomorrow for several hours. Part conversation, part oral history interview, basically to get Jack's recollections of the past 50-odd years on the record, for those who haven't had the chance to know him and to know the many events that he's been privy to, from his unique perspective, in many, many different positions.

[0:39] Jack is a member of the Amherst Class of 1955. He's a collector of books, a collector of bibliographical books, a bibliographer, a major donor to the Amherst College Library, one of the founding members of the Friends of the Amherst College Library who are making this recording possible. We're sitting in the Robert Frost Library at this point, named for Robert Frost who taught at Amherst on and off for about 60 years.

[1:13] Jack's first major gift to the library was an extraordinary collection of the works of Robert Frost and many ancillary items relating to Robert Frost. He was a friend of Frost, he met him as an undergraduate. So I'd like to begin talking, Jack, about Robert Frost, if you could tell us a bit about how you met him. And I know that your relationship with him informed your future collecting, and many of your other connections with Amherst and other people.

[1:48] Jack W. C. Hagstrom: True. I mean, just, just by way, when I was at Amherst, I met two of the most remarkable people through Amherst, Robert Frost and Jeffery Amherst. And those two individuals really influenced my life from the very beginning.

[2:05] First with regard to Robert Frost, a most remarkable thing happened when I was a freshman. I saw a poster, and those-- and I knew that Frost had an association with Amherst from the very beginning, because it was just part of the, part of the, the selling points of Amherst College. Anyway, I saw this poster saying that Robert Frost would be reading I think, October 23rd, or something like that. This is now fall of 1951. I was a freshman. And I decided that I-- I knew nothing about Frost other than “Stopping by Woods” and a couple of other poems. I knew nothing about him personally. Wasn't particularly interested, but certainly it was, at that time, I was omnivorous in my search for anything that was new for me.

[2:53] And Amherst provided that opportunity. So I decided I'd go to that reading and about, and I'm vague about this, about three or four, or maybe a week, three or four days or maybe a week before, I had a call from Margaret Boyd, Miss Margaret Boyd, later to become a good friend, Peggy Boyd, who was Charlie Cole’s, president Charles Cole's secretary, inviting me to a reception at the President's House after the Frost reading. 

[3:25] Well, this was amazing because, first of all, I had no idea who Margaret Boyd was, till I checked. Second, I didn't know the president at all. And third, I had no idea where this invitation came from. And I didn't ask, I simply accepted. 

[3:43] So I did in fact, put on a coat and tie for that reading, but we always wore coat and ties in 1951, and went to the reading and then ambled over to the President's House where President Cole, and Mrs. Cole, Robert Frost, a couple of faculty members, and I think one of them was George Whicher and, George and Harriet Whicher, who were close friends of Frost, and another faculty member and his wife, and I think another student or two and myself. Well, the evening was very casual, and very relaxed and Frost was in good form, um, relaxed, and, and talking and amongst friends, and about, I suppose about 10:30, President Cole said to me, said, “would you be willing to walk back to the Lord Jeffery Inn with Mr. Frost?”

[4:41] Well, I took a deep gulp, because I, I knew this was something special. And I did. And we walked from the President's House to the Lord JefferyInn and he said, “are you tired?” or he said, “do you need to get back?” or something like that, and I said “no, not at all.”

[5:01] And we walked, I think, till 2 or 2:30 in the morning. And, and finally, he always used to stay in the last room as you come in the Jeff from the side street, you go down the hall and he used to stay in the last room on the right, facing the garden, and there was a door there so he could get out on his own and not have to go through the lobby. Anyway, so I saw him down to his room. And as I was taking leave of him, he said, “well, will you stop by in the morning?” Wow. “Of course I'd stopped by the morning.” 

[5:38] And, I got home. I was staying, I lived in Stearns. I got back to Stearns and woke up in the morning, and I don't know whether I had a class or not. But the first thing I did was make a beeline up to the Jeffery Amherst Bookshop.

[5:55] And Paul French ran the Jeffery Amherst Bookshop at that time, and Paul French became a good friend but I liked him from the minute I met him, um, buying books as a freshman. And, and I was effusive with telling him what had happened the night before. And Paul French knew Frost because I think Robert was influential in helping Maggie and Paul French adopt their daughter, or something like that. So Paul very much encouraged me and I said, “look, I've got to get a copy of the Collected Poems because I want him to autograph it for me, this may be my only opportunity.” So I went back, it was about 10:30, I stopped by the Jeffery Inn and he, Frost was in a white shirt and a pair of pants sitting in his room reading something and I knocked on the door, and, and we had some coffee. 

[6:54] And he, and then we talked. And I think that it was something like “when do I see you next?” kind of thing. I think the, I think the important thing for me to say here is that I was not a writer, I've never been a writer, I would like to describe myself as a reader, a collector, and then a bibliographer based on what I collect. Anyway, so that I don't think, and I never had any, any, an, any aspirations to either write or compose or draw or be creative in any way. And I think that one of the things that made it easy talking with Frost, was that there, we did not, I did not talk to him as an aspiring writer.

[7:45] And, and, and I talked to him as I would talk respectfully to any elder at that particular time, and, and he seemed to respond on exactly the same terms--friendly, personal. And, and that was, that formed the basis of what became a quite extraordinary avuncular relationship that was totally non-literary. Totally unremarkable in terms of anything. I mean, I don't have any philosophic letters. Frost had a lot to do my thinking in terms of just rubbing off and so forth, and that sort of thing. And it continued until the day died. I mean, and it's still I mean, Frost is still the backdrop for a lot of my thinking. 

[8:30] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[8:31] Hagstrom: As you know, John, we have that group that meets every, every autumn, so-called “Robert Frost Scholars”-- we’re friends who just get together to talk about Frost, and so that Frost is still an active presence in my life. 

[8:46] Lancaster: Absolutely. 

[8:47] Hagstrom: And that's how it all started and continued. 

[8:49] Lancaster: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know that in the collection that you've given us there, there are several books that have your, your name and the date, and it's during the time you were an undergraduate, so you--

[9:00] Hagstrom: Right, right. 

[9:01] Lancaster: --you were, you were beginning to collect Frost even then, perhaps not realizing where it was going to lead in bibliographical terms, but, uh--

[9:08] Hagstrom: Absolutely, I mean, I, I think the thing is that I've always been an appreciator of nice things. And I, I really got hooked on Frost. I mean, I started reading him intensively. And I figured, well, why not start to collect? And I, this was not a, it was a very casual decision.

[9:29] And I think that, and Frost signed a lot of things for me, he gave me things, he brought things. And the nicest thing that he ever did was two, two great things that construct my memory is, once he came to Amherst, I went, no I didn't go to the, he came from Cambridge to Amherst, and he had in a little folder, a picture, one of the Sipprell photographs mounted on a cardboard, and underneath he had written “to Jack from his friend Robert.” And that was his instigation. And it meant a huge amount to me. It's one of the very few things I have not given to Amherst amongst the Frost things. The other thing is one time we were in Cambridge, and we had come, we had driven from somewhere. I think it was Keene, New Hampshire, to Cambridge. And I was spending the night at, on Brewster Street, and he, we were sitting and talking, having, I think, some whiskey, and, and he said, “here you should have this.” It's the copy of the Hound of Heaven that he kept saying, that he would refer to in, in saying that he either walked from Lawrence to Boston or whatever it is, it's a book that, and it was, I think, one of the very few books from that library in Cambridge that didn't end up at NYU for whatever reason.

[10:58] Lancaster: Yes. Well, as you know, the, that library was physically housed here at the time of his death--

[11:04] Hagstrom: Oh, I do remember. 

[11:05] Lancaster: --but his daughter, uh--

[11:07] Hagstrom: Lesley.

[11:08] Lancaster: --Lesley decided to give it to NYU, where her husband was teaching at the time. [crosstalk]

[11:11] Hagstrom: It was a sad bit of spitefulness at that particular time, but--

[11:15] Lancaster: Well, but you're on very good terms with Lesley's daughter-- 

[11:18] Hagstrom: Oh, yes. 

[11:19] Lancaster: --also named Lesley, who--

[11:20] Hagstrom: And I was on good terms with Lesley, too. Lesley, I knew Lesley. Not only because, well, it was a very complex relationship between between Frost and, and particularly, Lesley, in his later years, and there would be times in New York when he would always stay at the Westbury in New York and when I was there in medical school on, well medical, the whole time I lived in New York, I lived in an apartment on 69th Street between New York and First which is down the, down 69th Street. Westbury was on 69th and Madison. Anyway, and whenever Frost was in New York, I would see him and, and we would, we would do this: we would go to these read--, I would pick him up and take him to a reading. Or he would, Al Edwards, who was his editor--publisher--would do that. And then, but inevitably, at the end of the evening, [coughs], sorry. [coughing continues]

[12:20] Sorry. I would, I would take Robert back. Because we were going to the same place, and I, we’d get off at the Westbury and then he’d say, “are you ready to go to bed?” So we'd walk up and down 69th Street--

[12:32] Lancaster: [laughs]

[12:32] Hagstrom: --back and forth the same way we did here in Amherst, and, and usually it was Robert, it was, no, it was usually, I usually said, “lookit, Robert, I have to go to bed.” And I was in medical school at that time and then, and then after medical school, but Lesley would be after him for some reason. I mean, some maybe legitimate reason, maybe illegitimate reason. I never was quite privy as to what the devil was going on. But he would, at times, not want to be alone with Lesley, and she'd always like to come and have breakfast with him at the Westbury. 

[13:07] So he would, he would say, “Jack, would you come and have breakfast and join us?” Well, Lesley did not like that--

[13:12] Lancaster: Yeah.

[13:14] Hagstrom: --as you can imagine. 

[13:15] Lancaster: Yes. 

[13:15] Hagstrom: I mean, she did not want me there when she wanted to talk to her father. And Robert, of course, had me there for exactly that reason. So it was really quite amusing. And, but Lesley, I saw Lesley several times, she had an apart--she and Joe Ballantine, I think was his name, had an apartment on 13th Street, somewhere down there, and I more than once went around there for either a drink or a party. And I admired Lesley enormously. She had an extraordinary career. And she was an extraordinary engaging woman and a very strong woman. And I felt, as I say, I had enormous respect for her, I also was very much drawn to her as a strong personality. She, she, politically she had and she expressed her views. 

[14:05] Lancaster: Yes indeed. 

[14:06] Hagstrom: The funny thing is, it just comes to mind, in many ways, there was a similarity between Lesley Frost and Janet Morgan. Both very strong women, both very attractive women, both very opinionated. And both really in their own way, quite lovely and, not, I wouldn't say soft, but feeling. And, and so that it's a real joy to have this friendship with, with her daughter Lesley, because I had such a nice time with her mother. 

[14:38] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, we'll talk more about the Morgans later. 

[14:40] Hagstrom: Oh, yeah. 

[14:41] Lancaster: But, uh, you, one sort of sidelight on the relationship between Robert and Lesley, you may know that our friend Pat Alger, who is part of this gathering--

[14:50] Hagstrom: Right.

[14:50] Lancaster: --has as a centerpiece of his great Frost collection, a copy of the very first edition, first binding of Boy’s Will, Frost’s first book, inscribed to Lesley. 

[15:02] Hagstrom: Really?

[15:02] Lancaster: And it says “to Lesley from R. F.” 

[15:04] Hagstrom: Really?

[15:05] Lancaster: Not from “father” or “daddy” or, although I can't imagine Frost being “daddy” to anybody, can you? [crosstalk]

[15:11] Hagstrom: No, I, uh, no.

[15:12] Lancaster: Father, though, perhaps.

[15:14] Hagstrom: I don't think Frost, Frost had a soft side, but it was not an easy soft side. He, he had warmth, and he certainly had concern, but it was not, it was, there was not any of the, that. Well, the other thing about Frost was, was, he was very confiding in me in terms of what was going on in his own mind. And, and so we had really conversations that pushed me to respond to what he was--I won’t say agonizing--really thinking about and, and then I, I could see these things come up in some of the preambles to, to his talks. Because they, not, not anything to do with me, but just what was going through his mind. 

[16:10] And that was one of the things that, that, that prompted me to start collecting the recordings of the talks that Frost gave. It was not so much the Frost reading his own poems, but the asides. And I think Lisa Seale is doing a book or something like that, on, on--

[16:28] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[16:29] Hagstrom: --sort of based on that stuff. [crosstalk]

[16:30] Lancaster: Yeah. Yes, indeed.

[16:30] Hagstrom: John Ritten [?] was-- [crosstalk]

[16:31] Lancaster: Yeah, I was going to bring up that, that part of the collection. And we'll, we'll talk more about that a little later. 

[16:38] Hagstrom: Okay.

[16:38] Lancaster: But collecting obviously became a focus of you, and, and I wonder, I know that during your time at Amherst, you got to know Newton McKeon who was a graduate in the Class of 1926, and Charles Green at the Jones library, and perhaps you could talk a little bit about their influence on your collecting.

[16:58] Hagstrom: Newton, Newton was seminal. I mean, he's the he, I became friendly. No, that's not the way to put it. I was a student of Newton McKeon’s my freshman year, he taught English 1-2, and I was in his section and, and, and, and in the middle of this, in October of my freshman year, this Frost thing happens. 

[17:20] So, and I knew that, then Mr. McKeon knew Mr. Frost and vice versa. And I was hesitant, or at least querulous about how to handle this Frost thing because it was certainly not something of my experience. And I, and I very quickly realized or learned that Frost was, was a national figure. I mean, it was not something casual at all. And so I, I asked Newton, Mr. McKeon, and he said, “well, go gently, then take your prompts from, from the poet.” And I did just that, but--

[18:00] And, and then when I started to seriously think about collecting, Newton was, was the person who guided me. [coughs] But really, the person who had the most influence on my collecting all together was Charles R. Green. Charles Green was the very formal librarian of the, of the Jones Library. He was an elegant gentleman. 

[18:25] Lancaster: That's the town library--

[18:26] Hagstrom: Town-- [crosstalk]

[18:26] Lancaster: --in the town of Amherst.

[18:27] Hagstrom: Exactly. And, and he was Frost’s first collector. An admirer of Frost from way back--‘30s--and had this remarkable ability to put together a Frost collection that is, that is absolutely unique at this little town library, Jones Library, with very few funds. Incredible tenacity, extraordinary foresight because Charles Green collected tickets of admission to Frost readings and books with dust jackets and, and he passed that, that instinct to collect omnivorously onto me. And it has stood me in good stead ever since 1952 when this all happened. 

[19:18] It, uh, I, there was there was a kind of strange--I don't think the word is “stand-off”--almost indifference between Amherst and the Jones Library and the Jones Library and Amherst College. And I don't think there was any, any rancor or any real feelings there was just no communication. And when I, and Frost at one point said to me, he said, “you should meet Charles Green.” And, and I, so I asked Newton McKeon about Charles Green. He said, “well, he's the librarian at the Jones Library. You can go see him if you'd like.” But, well, it was no particular enthusiasm about him. 

[19:56] But well, I certainly did take myself around to see Charles Green, and Charles Green was very suspicious of me as well he should be. “Who is this Amherst undergraduate upstart coming around to see me?” Well, I think the word really is that I “charmed” Charles Green. And I also, I also paid a lot of attention to what he was telling me, because what he was telling me made such extraordinary good sense as to why one should collect in depth and not just high spots, but to flesh out the whole of the poet. 

[20:31] And I've, all of my collecting since then has been with that kind of focus. And, I mean, I get more fun out of the rare program or the rare whatever, than I get out of a high spot. I mean, I, I never did have a copy of either the A or B issues I guess they are, of A Boy’s Will, the English Boy’s Will, I just felt that I didn't need them. 

[20:58] Lancaster: Yeah.

[20:59] Hagstrom: Amherst had plenty, and so forth and so on. [crosstalk]

[21:01] Lancaster: Yeah, yeah. Well your collecting not only in terms of Frost, but in other areas has been complimentary to Amherst. 

[21:08] Hagstrom: Absolutely. 

[21:09] Lancaster: You have, you have involved us all the way along. 

[21:12] Hagstrom: Well, I mean, why duplicate? 

[21:14] Lancaster: Exactly. Why duplicate effort or, or things?

[21:19] Hagstrom: Exactly, exactly. 

[21:20] Lancaster: Yeah.

[21:20] Hagstrom: Yep. I really have to say that my, my, I came from, from, from a world of privilege. My, my mother and father certainly were not collectors of anything. They had nice things in our home. It was my grandmother who, when I, I remember one time needing, wanting to buy a particular issue or state, a state--issue--of A Boy's Will, and, and I was going to cost me $175 and I didn't have $175 and I mentioned this to my grandmother, and my grandmother sent me a check for $175 and she said “just not a word to your father, please.” [laughter]

[22:01] It was that red line, red lines on the cover and I got it from John Kohn. [crosstalk]

[22:05] Lancaster: Oh, yes.

[22:06] Hagstrom: And it had, it had a letter in there I think from Moschzisker, something like that, to Lesley Frost--

[22:11] Lancaster: Oh, yes. 

[22:11] Hagstrom: --I think.

[22:12] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[22:12] Hagstrom: And there again is the Lesley Frost connection. And Lesley Frost had, had, had had a bookshop--

[12:20] Lancaster: Yes.

[22:21] Hagstrom:  --at Rockford College, I think or--

[22:23] Lancaster: Oh, in, in Illinois?

[22:24] Hagstrom: In Illinois. And as, yeah, I was born, I was born in Rockford. [crosstalk]

[22:27] Lancaster: ‘Cause she had one in Pittsfield. 

[22:27] Hagstrom: Yeah. And so I had some early connections with, with the science department, the zoology department at Rockford College. And I think members of my family had been, had been generous to Rockford College at some point. And, and so that I, I’ll tell you a funny story. I had, I had a, I had an old Oldsmobile, 1926 Oldsmobile and I saw Mary Ashby Cheek, who is who is a friend of Mary Maury McKeon, walking along the street of Rockford, Illinois, and I stopped and I asked her if she'd like a ride. And sure enough, she did accept a ride. She was a very elegant Mount Holyoke graduate from Sweetbriar, Virginia, or something like that. And when I told Mary Maury McKeon that I'd done that to Mary Ashby Cheek, I thought Mary Maury McKeon would fall over! [laughter] The audacity to do that. [laughter]

[22:23] Lancaster: Yes. [laughter]

[23:24] Hagstrom: Anyway, small world but, but, but again, Lesley and the Rockford College association. So that when that book came up, there, it had a particular attraction because of that letter, of course. And, well, there we are. 

[23:37] Lancaster: Well, there was, there was another famous poet that you had an encounter with while you were a student at Amherst, which again, ended up in a collection coming to Amherst, and that was Dylan Thomas. Can you tell us a little bit about that? It was much briefer, and didn't, didn't go on to the same maturity that Frost did.

[23:55] Hagstrom: You know, it's interesting. I don't remember. I think, I think there, I think in all truth, there's a certain alcoholic haze--

[24:06] Lancaster: [laughs]

[24:14] Hagstrom: --that surrounds a lot of the Dylan Thomas associations in my life. 

[24:14] And I, and I didn't collect Dylan Thomas with the same kind of-- I admired him as a poet very much as a kind of balladeer type poet. He had been printed by, by some important Giovanni [?]. And I admired some of the books and I, and I enjoyed collecting Thomas. I think I enjoyed Thomas the character more and, and the camaraderie and, and I, I mean, I, I really am not very clear about a lot of that. 

[24:49] Lancaster: Well, some 25 years ago, you did tell me that you had driven him over the notch to--

[24:55] Hagstrom: Dylan Thomas? Yeah, well I, yeah. [crosstalk]

[24:57] Lancaster:  --someplace. Yes, that that was how, how you connected and, and that got you started. [crosstalk]

[25:00] Hagstrom: I don’t remember this.

[25:01] Lancaster: But in any case, it led you to put together a very fine collection, which is now at Amherst.

[25:05] Hagstrom: It turned out to be a pretty good collection, didn't it? 

[25:07] Lancaster: Yes. Yes indeed. Because you were using the same basic principles--

[25:10] Hagstrom: Yeah. 

[25:10] Lancaster: --you know, every little thing. 

[25:12] Hagstrom: It's, it's, oh, and oh, and there was this, he, Dylan Thomas had a bibliographer. 

[25:18] Lancaster: Yes. 

[25:19] Hagstrom: Whose name I can’t--J., Rolph. Yes. J. Alexander Rolph. And again, I think when he was doing that bibliography, I think I had considerable correspondence with him about that, because we were talking about details--

[25:31] Lancaster: Yes.

[25:31] Hagstrom: --that Rolph didn't know about, or maybe whatever. But, yeah.

[25:35] Lancaster: Yeah, and a few of the things in your collection, actually, I think you acquired after Rolph's bibliography and they aren't recorded there. 

[25:46] Hagstrom: Oh, really? 

[25:40] Lancaster: So, that’s how we've been able to add something to the scholarly record.

[25:49] Well, your your interest in collecting Frost led you to an interest in his, the time he spent in England where his first books were published, and, and that led on to yet another collecting interest. 

[26:02] Hagstrom: Well, the, the Georgian poets? 

[26:04] Lancaster: The Georgian poets and Edward Thomas. 

[26:06] Hagstrom: Absolutely. I mean, the, clearly Edward Thomas was extraordinarily important in Frost’s--

[26:14] Lancaster: Yes.

[26:14] Hagstrom: --history, and John Evangelist Walsh did that wonderful book later and, and, on this whole relationship. It's a unique thing, that book because I, this was published about 10, 15, 20 years ago now, when he did that, I wonder where he'd been all this, why I’d never heard of him. Well, he just got interested in Frost and the Georgian poets and he really did a wonderful story about that history. Well, I started reading Edward Thomas and didn't find him very prepossessing, but then I started reading about the period and I think it was Marsh, Edward Marsh or something like that--

[26:52] Lancaster: Yes.

[26:53] Hagstrom: --who, who took the Georgian poets seriously and I started reading de la Mare and Lascelles Abercrombie and Walker Gibson.

[27:03] Lancaster: John Drinkwater.

[27:05] Hagstrom: Exactly. 

[27:05] Lancaster: W. H. Davies was another one.

[27:07] Hagstrom: And started collecting them. And you could pick up copies of their books for pennies--

[27:12] Lancaster: Yes.

[27:13] Hagstrom: --at that particular time. And then I, and I met, I met Gibson. I spent an after--, I think I spent two afternoons with Gibson on separate occasions. And de la Mare, Walter de la Mare was very much around in London, and I saw him on more than one occasion. He was somehow connected with Faber and Faber. Or maybe his son was at Faber and Faber. But anyway, I, and Walter De la Mare was somebody, again, whom I met and very much enjoyed. Gibson was getting a bit vague when, when, when I met him, but it was just a joy to meet somebody that you're in--. 

[27:49] And, and it was really quite interesting. When I, when I told Frost that I'd met Gibson, it didn't, it didn't, didn't make much difference to Frost at all. He just was, that was a--

[28:02] Lancaster: That was in the past.

[28:03] Hagstrom: In the past. Very much so, very much so.

[28:04] Lancaster: Well in Harold Monroe, in the poetry bookshop--

[28:06] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[28:06] Lancaster: --you were, I don't know if there was any vestiges of that left in London by the time you got there. [crosstalk]

[28:11] Hagstrom: If there was I didn't I didn't know about it. 

[28:12] Lancaster: Yeah.

[28:13] Hagstrom: Yeah. 

[28:13] Lancaster: Okay. 

[28:14] Hagstrom: But I got very interested in the Georgians, and I still am very interested. And so, and there's also some very good poetry there. 

[28:21] Lancaster: Yes, indeed. Not much in the current style, but--

[28:24] Hagstrom: No, no, that’s, you know--

[28:25] Lancaster: Poetry comes and goes, as you know. [laughter, crosstalk]

[28:29] Hagstrom: That’s exactly--

[28:30] Lancaster: Well, your interest in Frost also led you into a whole network of other collectors and especially booksellers. [microphone feedback]

[28:38] Hagstrom: Ah, well--

[28:39] Lancaster: And, you know, Margie Cohn and John Kohn, totally spelled differently and no relationship--

[28:44] Hagstrom: Opened the door. I mean, the thing that, I think the really important thing was that Newton took me seriously after a certain point and, and, and made it possible by introducing me to, to first John Kohn, I think, and as a bookseller in West 36th Street, just off Fifth Avenue with Mike Papantonio, Seven Gables Bookshop.

[29:12] Lancaster: Seven Gables, yeah.

[29:13] Hagstrom: And then, and then it was perfectly obvious that I had to meet Margie Cohn. And she, she was, I've written about Margie and my relationship with Margie, she was an entirely different cup of tea. Margie was, was very Jewish, and I say this in the most respectful way, she was aggressive. She was, I never met Captain Cohn at all. She knew what she was talking about. She was enthusiastic, and she was wonderful. She was wonderful to me and, and there's so much to say about Margie. 

[29:48] And John was just the opposite. He was, was, he was much more reserved. He and Mike ran this elegant bookshop on West 36th Street, and John and Frankie, his wife, became good friends of mine and I used to go out to White Plains for dinner and have nice evenings with them. Um--

[30:09] Lancaster: He was a Williams graduate. 

[30:10] Hagstrom: I know he was. And a very loyal Williams graduate and very proud to be a Williams graduate. But, but the fact of matter we still were friends. 

[30:18] Lancaster: [laughs]

[30:19] Hagstrom: And the, but John at that time was, John's Frost, John collected Robert Frost himself, but his amassing of Frost was for Waller Barrett and Waller Barrett had had a kind of semi office in, in Seven Gables Bookshop. And that's where I met Waller Barrett I mean, Waller Barrett was, at that time a very, very rich man putting a lot of money into, into building his collections and, and John and Mike were instrumental in helping Waller, and Waller was totally appreciative of all this. 

[30:58] Lancaster: Sure. 

[30:58] Hagstrom: So that what Frost I got offered was stuff that Waller didn't want. And that was, that was exactly the way it ought to be. 

[31:07] Lancaster: His, his collection, of course, is now one of the four great institutional collections at the University of Virginia. 

[31:13] Hagstrom: Absolutely. 

[31:13] Lancaster: And, but, you know, he may have gotten first crack, but you ended up with an awful lot of good things as well. 

[31:20] Hagstrom: Well, that's right. Absolutely. And the wonderful thing about, there was a wonderful thing about all this, because through, through either Margie or John Kohn, or other collectors, I met other collectors. And I, and you have to remember I was a kid. I was, I was 17, 18, 19 years old at this time, and collecting and fairly seriously. And when I would see things that, that were giveaways, I would always pick them up and send copies of these to people and, and consequently, people gave me things. Unbelievably generous. In terms of sharing. There was a kind of coterie of Frost collectors that liked each other, knew each other, not well, and were happy to share. And I think I was important and sort of the linchpin of that group. [crosstalk]

[32:12] Lancaster: That's, that’s the best kind of collecting, where you’re--

[32:13] Hagstrom: Oh, it was wonderful.

[32:14] Lancaster: --not, not always undercutting each other, but, uh--

[32:17] Hagstrom: And it wasn’t that at all.

[32:18] Lancaster: And you've, you've passed that on. I mean, we do a lot of that institutionally, 

[32:22] Hagstrom: I think it's really important. 

[32:23] Lancaster: And we'll talk more about that when we talk about the Friends of the Library and some of the things they've done in publishing and disseminating in the context of--

[32:31] Hagstrom: I think, but the only person that comes into this, well there are two people. Well, Fred Adams was, who was a Frost collector, and, and also and then became the first director of the Pierpont Morgan Library after Belle da Costa Greene, and Fred, Fred was just so nice to me from the very beginning. 

[32:52] Fred was a friend of Newton's, but I got to know Fred, somehow Fred kind of adopted me and, as a, he never had any sons. And he was very good to me, and always made me very welcome at the Morgan Library, which at that particular time was an extraordinarily august institution. And you almost crossed yourself before you walked in there. 

[33:13] And I could go in and see Fred and if he was, I mean, life was, life at that particular time in New York was, was A) certainly more formal in many ways, but also more casual in other ways that people didn't have their schedules jammed full. Fred would be in his office, and if I dropped by, and, and he wasn't doing anything, sure, we can have a chat. And then, that was easy. Same thing with Al Edwards. It's interesting. These were very important people. And at the top of their field, but they weren't they were not, they were not so programmed.

[33:48] Lancaster: It was less bureaucratic, most certainly. 

[33:50] Hagstrom: Exactly. They were not programmed, they were not protected in the same way. I mean, I don't think that you'd get in to see Fred if you didn't have a reason to, but it was easy. And the other person that was so extraordinarily important in my life at that point--and always--was Joe Blumenthal. 

[34:03] Lancaster: Yeah, I was gonna get to him. 

[34:05] Hagstrom: Spiral Press.

[34:05] Lancaster: Spiral Press.

[35:06] Hagstrom: From the beginning.

[34:07] Lancaster: Frost's printer for many, many years.

[34:10] Hagstrom: And friend.

[34:10] Lancaster: And friend, yeah.

[34:11] Hagstrom: Confidant. 

[34:12] Lancaster: Yeah.

[34:12] Hagstrom: Oh my--

[34:13] Lancaster: Whose correspondence with Frost is now at Amherst, thanks in large part to you, I believe.

[34:18] Hagstrom: Well, I think so. And Newton.

[34:20] Lancaster: And Newton, yeah.

[34:21] Hagstrom: And, but Joe was, Joe was wonderful, again. But Joe is, Joe is, again, cut out an entirely different cloth. Rather, I think, I think of the ‘30s rather communist oriented, maybe ‘20s, ‘30s, communist oriented, certainly liberal, a great friend of Alger Hiss.

[34:41] They were, his wife Anne was a Quaker, and they lived opposite General Theological Seminary on West 21st or 22nd Street, or something like that. And that's where, there would always, after a Frost reading, a group of people would always repair to Joe's for drinks. And, and I can remember the, the, the common thing would be let's take a typical evening of Frost reading up at the YMHA on 92nd Street. There was, first of all, there was a policeman there that he liked and knew, and Frost read there practically every year. 

[35:22] Afterward he would gladly sign books. Frost did, Frost was generous in signing, and in fact, it, it tickled his ego that people wanted it. 

[35:32] Lancaster: Yeah, exactly.

[35:33] Hagstrom: He, it was great. And so I would wait around for him until he was finished and then we would take a taxi down to Joe's and, and we would arrive and Joe and Anne would then spend a little time in the kitchen because she would have for him a not-very-much boiled egg for him. And they would, it was sort of a time for him to let down, maybe 15 minutes, maybe as much as a half an hour. In the meantime, people were gathering or had gathered in the living room.

[36:07] And it was, it could be a very variable group. I mean, Marianne Moore was there two or three times. And I can't now remember the people--Al Edwards, many times. Larry Thompson, many times--

[36:22] Lancaster: His bibliographer, or biographer-- [crosstalk]

[36:24] Hagstrom: Yeah. Biographer. 

[36:24] Lancaster: --I'm sorry, the first, the first major biography. 

[36:26] Hagstrom: Well, the preeminent biographer, I mean even though he got a lot of, the problem about Larry is he had an attitude. 

[36:32] Lancaster: Yeah.

[36:33] Hagstrom: I mean, the details are so extraordinarily well-researched for the, for the three volumes, but the his, his, his attitude, his, his thesis--

[36:44] Lancaster: His negative slant, basically. [crosstalk]

[36:46] Hagstrom: That's right, that’s right. Nihilism, really.

[36:48] Lancaster: Yeah.

[36:49] Hagstrom: But, but nobody can fault Larry on the facts. 

[36:52] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[36:53] Hagstrom: I mean, he just researched them extraordinarily.

[36:56] But anyway, this group would gather and it, you’d meet all kinds of different people. And I again had the privilege of seeing lots of people that I would never have otherwise met. And they were, Frost and Marianne Moore were not particularly good friends. But, I think there was a mutual respect there that, that Joe certainly felt was, was effective enough to have Marianne Moore and Robert in the same room.

[37:23] I refer to Frost many times as Robert, because he once said, “I--you must call me Robert. I can't stand,” I can't remember the words now they've gone out of my head, “I can't stand it...”? Something, something. He didn't want the formality of it all. 

[37:38] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, we need to remember in talking about all this, this is, this is all through the, the late 1950s and very early 1960s. I mean, you're, you're not even 30 years old--

[37:49] Hagstrom: Oh, absolutely. 

[37:50] Lancaster: --at this point. And, uh, it was an extraordinary opportunity, and--

[37:55] Hagstrom: Oh, unbelievable. 

[37:55] Lancaster: You know-- [crosstalk]

[37:56] Hagstrom: Unbelievable, unbelievable. I, you know, I, I've been thinking, in the last 10, 20 years, I guess I've thought a lot about Amherst. Oh, I think I can't, when I came to Amherst--and that’s a whole ‘nother story--I think I came so loaded for bear in terms of being, I was brimming over with enthusiasm and knowledge and I needed direction and and I got it here.

[38:19] Lancaster: Wonderful. 

[38:20] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[38:20] Lancaster: Yeah. How did you come to Amherst actually?

[38:23] Hagstrom: Huh. That's a wonderful story. It's an absolutely wonderful story. I, back to Rockford College--

[38:30] Lancaster: Yeah, I mean, you're out in the middle of Illinois, and--

[38:32] Hagstrom: Well, what happened was that I, when I was young, I think it's fair to say I was bright, and I was very, very inquisitive, extremely inquisitive about everything, but about zoology and biology in particular to the point that, that my family created a space for me. I had my own little laboratory in the family house. 

[38:57] When I was there, I could use that and, and the place that I went to for guidance was the biology department at Rockford College. And there was a woman there named Stewart. And I can't remember, I can see her in my mind's eye, but I don't remember her first name at the moment. She was extraordinary. Elizabeth Sawyer was there. And then, and she was succeeded by a person named Stewart, who very much encouraged me. And, and so I wanted to go to a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which was meeting in Chicago, and she said, “why don't you go?” So, I think I was 13.

[39:42] Lancaster: [laughs]

[39:43] Hagstrom: And I said to my father, “I'd like to do this.” Well, he said, “how much will it cost?” And so I found out and he gave me the money and I went.

[40:00] And I, it was either that time or the next year when I went to the AAAS meeting in New York and again, I went on my own. And I asked, I went to a scientific session. And there was a man named Dodson in Notre Dame who had presented a paper. And I asked a question, because I was unclear about what, something he said. Well, I, he answered my question. And after the session, this gentleman came up to me said, he said, “who the hell are you?”

[40:40] And it was Louis Victor Heilbrunn from the University of Pennsylvania, Professor of Zoology at the University of Pennsylvania. And so I explained exactly, he said, how’d you like to come and work in my laboratory at Woods Hole next summer? That's out of the blue. 

[40:55] Lancaster: [laughs] Yeah. 

[40:56] Hagstrom: And so I, I did. I took the opportunity, and I needed, I know I needed to make some money because my family would encourage me, but they were not going to just give it to me. And so I got the job as the mail boy at the Marine Biological Laboratory.

[41:17] Lancaster: [laughs] And that's what he meant by working in his lab. 

[41:19] Hagstrom: Well, that's a bit to earn some pennies. And I lived in an attic, I had a bed in an attic, one of the MBL buildings and, and I would work in Heilbrunn’s laboratory in the afternoons. And the combination of being the mail boy and which allowed me to go to everybody's laboratory, and they got to know me, and I got to know them, and at that summer, there were six Nobel laureates, ensconced at the Marine Biological Laboratory. This was also a time when there were an extraordinary number of still aging refugee scientists from Germany--

[42:00] Lancaster: Of course.

[42:00] Hagstrom: --and Austria and so forth. So the MBL Club, which was a kind of gathering place in the evenings, was full of people, highly cultured. So I heard German lieder sung by these grand German expatriates with great glee and joy and very serious. And so I got an education at every level. 

[42:24] Lancaster: Yeah.

[42:26] Hagstrom: It was just the most remarkable thing. And then, I think I did that for for two or three summers, but I met, and then I would also go to the beach of course.

[42:36] Lancaster: [laughs]

[42:37] Hagstrom: And I met at a cocktail party and I, mind you I wasn't used to drinking, but I met this young guy named Jon Oster. Well, Jon Oster was about my age and so we gravitated to each other, and I can remember he gave me a Tom Collins.

[42:54] Lancaster: Uh-huh.

[42:55] Hagstrom: And, and he said, we’d introduced, and he was then going to enter Amherst College that autumn. And he said, “why don't you come over and meet my uncle?” Well my, his uncle turned out to be Larry, Lawrence Packard, Professor of History. [crosstalk]

[43:13] Lancaster: Professor of History here, yeah.

[43:14] Hagstrom: Exactly. And, and so I, Jon and I became friends, not close friends, but we became friends. And, and one day-- I went over to the Packards’ and had sandwiches, I'm sure, or something like that. And they were very nice to me and I had no idea what a towering figure Larry Packard was at Amherst College, but he and Leonore were very nice to me and, and so I figured that if Jon Oster was going to go to Amherst, and Mr. Packard was on the faculty, I also had met Harold Plough at, at the MBL. 

[43:54] Lancaster: At Woods Hole.

[43:54] Hagstrom: At Woods Hole. And Harold Plough was, again, an elegant man, and with impeccable manners did extraordinarily fine research and was somebody who impressed me so much. He and Mrs. Plough were just the epitome of, of good manners and hospitality and that sort of thing. Heilbrunn was a rough and ready kind of person. Harold Plough was just the opposite. And, and so, and Harold Plough was also on the faculty of Amherst College. So, Packard and Plough and Oster made this pipsqueak really look at Amherst like I would never have done. And I was very serious about looking at Harvard, and Yale, and Stanford.

[44:48] And I don't, maybe, and the University of Chicago, but Amherst and then, and then I came here and had an interview with, with Dean Wilson and was accepted. And my father was not very happy about this whole thing. But so he, unbeknownst to me, came on his own and had a good look at Amherst and didn't talk to anybody, but just wanted to see that it was, quote unquote, acceptable, which is a bunch of whatever. 

[45:14] Lancaster: [laughs]

[45:15] Hagstrom: And, and, and then I--

[45:18] Lancaster: So it passed muster.

[45:19] Hagstrom: Yeah. 

[45:20] Lancaster: He decided it was okay. [crosstalk]

[45:22] Hagstrom: And, and, he was very, I mean, they paid for my education and so forth and so on. And, and that's how it all happened. It was Jon Oster. It was just so serendipitous as that. 

[45:23] Lancaster: Yeah.

[45:33] Hagstrom: Well, it was, it was wonderful. Yeah. And of course, as I said, then the world opened up for me at Amherst.

[45:39] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, a whole lot of things happened at Amherst. I mean, you know, we can talk a little bit more about Newton McKeon and where he led you, uh--

[45:49] Hagstrom: First, first of all, first of all, first of all Newton was kind to me. He was, he was, he was a, he was a gentleman. He was a, a good teacher. And, and I don't know how I became a babysitter for them, Newton and Mary Maury, but I would do that. In fact, I can remember, one time one of the kids and I can't remember which one of the kids it was, was screaming and I was having a nightcap and I just gave that, that kid a little taste of scotch. So, that--

[46:24] Lancaster: [laughs]

[46:25] Hagstrom: It did, it did the job. Anway--

[46:27] Lancaster: I’m sure.

[46:28] Hagstrom: And Newton took me under his wing and showed me examples of fine printing. And through, through Newton's connection with Harry Duncan, Newton had had, Newton had had an appreciation of fine, very much and, and he had commissioned book plates and so forth--

[46:46] Lancaster: Yes, indeed.

[46:48] Hagstrom: --for the, for the Library. And so I met Harry Duncan and Paul Williams, and then started collecting the Cummington Press. And Harry Duncan was a lifelong friend. I mean--

[46:57] Lancaster: Yes, indeed.

[46:57] Hagstrom: --we stayed friends till he died. 

[46:59] Lancaster: You brought him here--

[47:01] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[47:01] Lancaster: --to speak at one point. 

[47:02] Hagstrom: Yeah. Harry was a dear friend. And we remained friends. We remained friends until he died. 

[47:11] Lancaster: Did you go out to, to Cummington--

[47:13] Hagstrom: I did.

[47:13] Lancaster: --while you were a student here?

[47:14] Hagstrom:  Yes. They were not in Cummington, they had left Cummington. [crosstalk]

[47:16] Lancaster: They had moved to Rowe?

[47:17] Hagstrom: They were in Rowe.

[47:18] Lancaster: At that point.

[47:19] Hagstrom: Dixon Long and I drove out there one day, and I think I went back once or twice. But and then, and then, then Harry, no, Paul, Paul Williams designed my bookplate--

[47:34] Lancaster: Uh-huh. Okay.

[47:34] Hagstrom: --and did a, a woodcarving of it. And I still have, again, this is one of the few things I haven't given you, a hand colored thing that Paul did of my bookplate which he did in black and white, yeah.

[47:46] Lancaster: But they printed two or three different versions, didn’t they, or?

[47:50] Hagstrom: They printed one version and then I had, I've had other people do, maybe they did another one, I just don't remember. 

[47:56] Lancaster: ‘Cause some of them are two-color. 

[47:58] Hagstrom: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[47:59] Lancaster: Some of them are in blue and red. [crosstalk]

[48:00] Hagstrom: Yeah, well I, I've had it reprinted I think maybe 10 times.

[48:05] Lancaster: Uh huh. 

[48:06] Hagstrom: And, but the first one was was a, was a not-very-heavy impression of black on a kind of cream, uh, laid cream paper. 

[48:16] Lancaster: Yeah.

[48:16] Hagstrom: Yeah. Anyway. 

[48:18] Lancaster: You know, that, that in itself is a fascinating history because I'm sure you, at each point, you had enough printed up for what you thought would last you for a while and then, then you'd buy too many books and run out. [laughs, crosstalk]

[48:29] Hagstrom: Exactly. Exactly. Well, Joe, Joe Blumenthal did, did, did a, did a printing for me.

[48:36] Ted Danforth did one or two and the first one that was done with that kind of reddish orange was, was done by Ted Danforth, who said it's, he called it “printer’s red,” that color. And I don't know why he did, but--

[48:50] And then I've had a local job printer out in Waterville do it for me since and they do a fine job. And there again because I have been interested in relatively nice printing, they, we have a rapport because they’re just job printers, but they really enjoy--

[49:08] Lancaster: But they like people, any printer likes somebody who appreciates his work and knows what goes into it.

[49:13] Hagstrom: Absolutely. And talking about different typefaces and things like that. 

[49:16] Lancaster: Yes, exactly. 

[49:16] Hagstrom: So that's, that's the story. And I had a lot of fun. And I got to know Mary Richmond, who is very much an important person at Williams, and her collection of Cummington Press is at Williams. And then, and then Harry and I had an arrangement that his papers would come to Amherst.

[49:36] That was, that's what he wanted. On the other hand, Nancy, his wife, did not necessarily like that idea. And, and there was nothing in writing. And I think she needed the money and she was not well and so forth. And so when they, so I think they're all down at at Emory, where they join Mel Edelstein’s collection, um--

[49:57] Lancaster: Of Cummington Press. [crosstalk]

[49:58] Hagstrom: Of Cummington Press.

[49:58] Lancaster: Which is another one of the great [unintelligible] collections.

[50:01] Hagstrom: Yeah, exactly. And Frost.

[50:03] Lancaster: Yeah.

[50:03] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[50:03] Lancaster: Yeah. Well I know that, that you and Mel, you know, had a bit of a rivalry. You know, he was, he was, he came here to use the collection, your collection at one point, uh--

[50:13] Hagstrom: The disappointment about that, there's a big disappointment with regard to Mel, is that he was going to do a bibliography of the Cummington Press. [crosstalk]

[50:22] Lancaster: Yes.

[50:22] Hagstrom: And he was going to, and, and we had one or two or three conversations about this. And I thought it was very important to do this while Harry was alive, because there was so much nuance in the way the Cummington Press things were done. But to get, so to get Harry on tape--

[50:40] Lancaster: Yes. 

[50:40] Hagstrom: Or at least make notes. 

[50:42] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[50:42] Hagstrom: And, and Mel never did it. And, you know, he went to the Getty and then just, I think, got consumed, and--

[50:49] Lancaster: Got too busy, or--

[50:50] Hagstrom: Yeah. 

[50:51] Lancaster: As we know, I mean, one of McKeon’s projects was a Frost bibliography--

[50:56] Hagstrom: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[50:56] Lancaster: --and, uh, we have all the notes and papers, but he just, he could never quite say “I'm not going to find out this answer.” 

[51:06] Hagstrom: Yeah, well that's the thing you have to go on. [crosstalk]

[51:07] Lancaster: You have to stop at some point. 

[51:10] Hagstrom: The thing is, I think it's sad about the Cummington Press thing is that Harry was so much for the plucking, if you will.

[51:17] Lancaster: Yes, indeed.

[51:18] Hagstrom: He was, he, if you were interested, he was interested in talking about it. 

[51:23] Lancaster: Yeah. Exactly.

[51:23] Hagstrom: And Harry, I mean, if you look at the people that the Cummington Press published over the years, unbelievable. Unbelievable. [crosstalk]

[51:31] Lancaster: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Williams and Allen Tate--

[51:34] Hagstrom: Oh yeah, every, all of ‘em. All of ‘em. All of ‘em.

[51:36] Lancaster: And then, and then later on after he moved out west, printed Richard Wilbur, among others. [crosstalk] 

[51:41] Hagstrom: And Thom Gunn.

[51:42] Lancaster: And Thom Gunn.

[51:43] Hagstrom: And Dick Davis. Oh yeah, absolutely. 

[51:44] Lancaster: Well, he went, did he go first to Nebraska or Iowa? I can never keep straight.

[51:51] Hagstrom: Uh, Iowa, I think. [crosstalk]

[51:52] Lancaster: He went to Iowa and then ended up at Nebraska, yeah. [crosstalk]

[51:54] Hagstrom: And then ended up in--

[51:56] Lancaster: And you continue to collect his, his work--

[51:59] Hagstrom: Abattoir. Abattoir. [crosstalk]

[51:59] Lancaster: --the Abattoir Editions. [crosstalk]

[52:00] Hagstrom: Yeah, ‘cause he changed the imprint. 

[52:01] Lancaster: Yeah.

[52:01] Hagstrom: Exactly.

[52:01] Lancaster: Well, I think, didn't he change the, the way he worked? I mean, it was no longer so much his own work, it was more a collaborative with students. 

[52:10] Hagstrom: It'd be, at Nebraska, I mean, I think they, I think the arrangement was--I'm not sure I remember the details--was that he became a faculty member and really set up a course, course study--

[52:23] Lancaster: Yes. Exactly.

[52:23] Hagstrom: --where as, that had never been that before. Harry, Harry really lived a good deal of his life hand to mouth. 

[52:30] Lancaster: Oh, yeah.

[52:30] Hagstrom: Till he got, till he got to Nebraska, I think. I don’t know. And that's, I think that's, I don't know, he, I think that's when he met Nancy.

[52:39] And, and then they had a couple of children and so forth. And Harry had a good, Harry, Harry came, Harry was a loner and, and, and I think, after Paul died, lonely and, and certainly without money, and then when he met Nancy his life changed and, and, and that was great. 

[53:06] Lancaster: Good. 

[53:06] Hagstrom: Yeah. 

[53:07] Lancaster: Well and he, he had students who, who went on to become fine printers, well-known fine printers-- [crosstalk]

[53:15] Hagstrom: Absolutely.

[53:15] Lancaster: --themselves.

[53:15] Hagstrom: Kim Merker. [crosstalk] 

[53:15] Lancaster: Kim Merker, especially, you, you've also collected and we're again the beneficiary of, of that.

[53:21] Hagstrom: Windhover Press, and, and the other one--

[53:23] Lancaster: And the Stone Wall Press. Yeah.

[53:24] Hagstrom: Stone Wall, exactly. And now his student, Mike Pike--

[53:29] Lancaster: Uh-huh.

[53:29] Hagstrom: --is, I think, one of the finest printers going. 

[53:31] Lancaster: Ah, so, so Mike was a student of Kim’s. 

[53:33] Hagstrom: Yes. And you see, there's a real lineage there, Harry, to Kim to Mike. [crosstalk]

[53:38] Lancaster: Yeah, yeah, exactly. 

[53:39] Hagstrom: I mean, it's really great. And, and then you can look at, you can look at Mike. I just had a copy of a book from Timothy Steele, brand new book and done by Mike Pike. And if I had seen that, I would have said that that was either Kim Mercker or, or Harry Duncan, just the same style. 

[53:57] Lancaster: Yeah.

[53:58] Hagstrom: Clean. 

[53:59] Lancaster: Yeah.

[54:00] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[54:00] Lancaster: Well, I know, I know you collect the Aralia Press--

[54:03] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[54:03] Lancaster: --and no doubt, we’ll someday have to deal with that collection as well. [laughter, crosstalk]

[54:08] Hagstrom: I have everything that they have, I mean, I think. 

[54:10] Lancaster: He's done your Christmas card on a couple of occasions--

[54:12] Hagstrom: Yeah. Indeed, indeed.

[54:13] Lancaster: and things for the Wilburs, and that sort of thing. 

[54:15] Hagstrom: Yep.

[54:17] Lancaster: Well, we've been talking about fine printing. There's, there's one other press that, that you've collected and been involved with. And that's Ted Danforth’s Seacliff Press. 

[54:28] Hagstrom: Yeah, um--

[54:28] Lancaster: Which didn't have nearly as long a life, but, uh--

[54:31] Hagstrom: Well--

[54:32] Lancaster: --maybe you can say just a couple of words about that.

[54:33] Hagstrom: Ted, Ted Danforth and I became social friends in New York. He sought me out through the, through somebody, and called me on the telephone, and this was back some time, and we became personal friends and close personal friends. And I introduced Ted to Harry, Harry, um, sorry, Joe Blumenthal. 

[55:00] Lancaster: Joe Blumenthal.

[55:00] Hagstrom: And, and then, and then Ted and I once went out to see Harry Duncan, um, for some occasion and, and I knew Ted and and his boyfriend Jimmy Frederickson more socially and then, then was an appreciator of their work at the S--

[55:22] Lancaster: Sea Cliff, yeah. [crosstalk]

[55:23] Hagstrom: Sea Cliff. And, and I. but it was much more social and, and, and then Ted became a member of the Grolier Club, I was instrumental in that, and, and was very much involved with printing and so forth.

[55:40] And I really don't know the sequence here. But then Ted fell ill, he came he, I think, he had lymphoma. And his life changed remarkably in so many ways. And one of the great sad things for me is that Ted Danforth and I are no longer friends, for no, a reason that is unknown. I mean, we never had a falling out. He's, he just literally dropped me as an acquaintance or as a friend, as a friend. 

[56:10] And it's a sad thing. Because he, the, the press, Ted, at one point, worked with a guy whose name I can't, man whom I can't remember who owned a commercial publishing company called Bembo Typographic--

[56:28] Lancaster: Oh, yeah.

[56:28] Hagstrom: --and then I think Ted either bought or inherited--Ted’s, Ted’s father went to Amherst by the way--

[56:35] Lancaster: Ah, I didn’t know that.

[56:37] Hagstrom: --and then Ted went to Hamilton. Anyway, and then Ted I think either bought or inherited Bembo Typographic and, and tried to run a commercial press for a while, but then lost, lost interest. And then, and then they would do these occasional, really lovely things with, with Sea Cliff, and, and with limited distribution but nothing, nothing of the output of the Cummington or anything like that. [crosstalk]

[57:01] Lancaster: Right, yeah, okay.

[57:01] Hagstrom: And then, and he also became a good friend of James Merrill, Ted did.

[57:11] Lancaster: Yeah, I knew he printed--

[57:12] Hagstrom: Very much so. And printed several things and, and it's interesting I, as I said, we are no longer friends but for reasons unknown to me.

[57:22] Lancaster: Yeah. I mean, you're not enemies, you, you--

[57:24] Hagstrom: No, no. It’s just--

[57:25] Lancaster: --you simply just have drifted apart. [crosstalk]

[57:27] Hagstrom:  --he has chosen--

[57:28] No, it's not. He has chosen not to, not to be a friend of mine anymore. But again, that's, it makes me sad because I still think the world of Ted Danforth, and wish that I saw him. He has recently bought a house in Stonington, and [unintelligible]. [crosstalk]

[57:48] Lancaster: Where, where Merrill--

[57:49] Hagstrom: Exactly. Exactly.

[57:51] Lancaster: --lived for so long. [crosstalk]

[57:51] Hagstrom: And [unintelligible] lives there too.

[57:52] It’s a, but, but, Ted was a real perfectionist. I think the word is a bit of a “dilettante” about all this. But Ted has, has an enormous mind and is very good at so many things. And this is just one more thing he was good at. 

[58:11] Lancaster: Wonderful. 

[58:12] Hagstrom: Yeah. 

[58:12] Lancaster: You mentioned that he had become a friend of Merrill's and printed Merrill--

[58:17] Hagstrom: Very much so.

[58:17] Lancaster: --but you, you knew Merrill from a ways back, and, and-- [crosstalk]

[58:22] Hagstrom: Well I met Merrill--

[58:23] Lancaster:  --and your, one of your major collections is Merrill [crosstalk]

[58:25] Hagstrom: I mean, when I met, I met Jimmy Merrill, James Merrill and Richard Wilbur when I was an undergraduate, they were here and I'm sure I met them through Newton McKeon. It was not when either one of them were here, was here as a faculty member. Jimmy was here as a faculty from, I think ‘56-’57 or ‘55-’56. And, and I had graduated.

[58:49] Lancaster: Yes. 

[58:50] Hagstrom: And, but I came and visited Jimmy and David when they were here, they lived in Walker Gibson's house. 

[59:01] Lancaster: Yes. 

[59:01] Hagstrom: On Market Hill Road. Um, and--

[59:03] Lancaster: It was ‘55-’56.

[59:05] Hagstrom: Yeah. 

[59:05] Lancaster: Yeah.

[59:06] Hagstrom: And, but I met both of them and started collecting both of them as an undergraduate. I liked their poetry. I'd really, I used, I really had gotten hooked on poetry, and by reading Frost, and so that I would leave, I would be studying in Converse Library, and then I would leave, as you walked out, there always used to be a bookshelf of new books received. 

[59:33] Lancaster: Uh huh. 

[59:34] Hagstrom: And I would, 2, 3, 4 times a week, check to see what poetry books have been received. And I would, if there were new poetry books, I would take them out, read them that evening, and bring them back the next day. So I was omnivorous again in reading poetry. 

[59:49] Lancaster: Goodness.

[59:50] Hagstrom: And, and, and so I really had gotten hooked on poetry and I still read a lot of poetry. And I've got a, I mean, a whole wall in my, in my, in my study, there's just, just a mess of different poets.

[1:00:01] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:00:02] Hagstrom: And, and so, but I, but because of the Amherst Association I'm sure. And because I'd met them, and because I liked them both, I started collecting Merrill and Wilbur as an undergraduate. And again, Newton was helpful to me, in terms of directing me and, and so forth. 

[1:00:22] Lancaster: Well, that's, that's one theme that I see runs through your collecting. I mean, you, you get to know the people whose work you collect. 

[1:00:28] Hagstrom: Yes.

[1:00:29] Lancaster: You haven't gone back and collected William Blake or John Keats or anybody like that.

[1:00:33] Hagstrom: Not at all.

[1:00:33] Lancaster: It’s modern poetry. [crosstalk]

[1:00:34] Hagstrom: And, certainly, and all, all modern. Yeah.

[1:00:36] Lancaster: Modern poetry and modern printers, that sort of thing. 

[1:00:38] Hagstrom: Yeah, yeah, so, exactly. 

[1:00:39] Lancaster: Yeah. So--

[1:00:39] Hagstrom: But that's the fun of it. 

[1:00:40] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:00:41] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[1:00:41] Lancaster: And you mentioned earlier, Dixon Long, your classmate, who was a poet as an undergraduate and a writer, and published a novel just recently in fact. 

[1:00:49] Hagstrom: Well, yeah. I mean--

[1:00:50] Lancaster: But you worked with him on Analekta, I believe, it was a publication that you-- [crosstalk]

[1:00:55] Hagstrom: Yeah, it was a, I think there were 5 or 6 of us that we got, we, how it--I can't remember. I was the business manager. A guy named Matt Mitchell, I think, who’s Class of ‘53, I think, was the editor and Dixon was one. And I don't know--I think, I think Matt Mitchell, to be honest with you, I think Matt Mitchell and I came up with the idea, and then we got some funding from the student funds and and we did a pretty good job of--there's a history of these, these, these collected prose and poetry by Amherst writers and we did Analekta and, and took some trouble to get it printed nicely. 

[1:01:32] Dixon and I were classmates, are, well, Dixon’s still my, one of my closest friends and we talk once or twice a week usually. And we did all kinds of things together here at Amherst. I mean, we had a lot of fun and did things like prom. I mean all kinds of crazy things. And, and had a lot of fun and and, and used to, used to also enjoy several martinis on occasion. So, and we still do.

[1:02:02] Lancaster: Well, your, your publication Analekta has become a collector's item, of course.

[1:02:06] Hagstrom: Has it?

[1:02:06] Lancaster: Because of, because of its contents, you know, because of Wilbur and Merrill are in there. [crosstalk]

[1:02:06] Hagstrom: Oh, because of Wilbur and Merrill, probably. 

[1:02:10] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[1:02:10] Hagstrom: Interesting.

[1:02:11] Lancaster: Especially those 10 copies that you did with special bindings. [crosstalk]

[1:02:15] Hagstrom: [laughs] Oh, really?

[1:02:15] Lancaster: Unfortunately, as you may know, that, that paper--

[1:02:20] Hagstrom: Crumbles.

[1:02:21] Lancaster: --is terrible and it's falling apart. So-- [laughs, crosstalk]

[1:02:24] Hagstrom: Really, I’m sure.

[1:02:25] Lancaster: So it's impossible to find a good, intact copy of the, one of the 10.

[1:02:30] Hagstrom: That's the one with the light yellow?

[1:02:32] Lancaster: Yeah. The yellowish green cover, which is faded and turns brown and all the rest of it. [crosstalk]

[1:02:38] Hagstrom: I’m sure, I’m sure.

[1:02:39] No, Dixon, Dixon, I, we were talking on the phone about six months ago.

[1:02:46] And, and it was after our reunion, and, which was another story, and somebody had said to him, in fact, another classmate, Jerry Conover said to Dixon about his book. He enjoyed his book, well I said, “Dixon, what, what are you talking about this book.” And he said, “I can't believe what you're saying.”

[1:03:11] And I said, “I know that I have never seen a copy of a recent book by you, or I'm taking leave of my senses.” So he said, “well, I’ll not only send you one, I'll send you two.” So he sent me two copies. And, and I've just finished reading it. And it's a very, very good read. And the interesting thing, I wrote him a note saying, because he draws on so much of his own experience first, first, in Japan, and, and then in America, and then and certainly a lot of Amherst, novel references, and then in France, and I really admired it. My note said, in essence, “you've really shaped your life or spent your life getting ready to write, to write.” Because he was certainly, he was a political scientist, but the writing is good. And-- 

[1:04:05] Lancaster: Excellent. 

[1:04:06] Hagstrom: Yeah, it's great. 

[1:04:07] Lancaster: Well, I don't want to spend a lot of time on on your non-bibliographical, non-Amherst life, but I think we should get on the record that after Amherst you went off to medical school--

[1:04:20] Hagstrom: Cornell--

[1:04:21] Lancaster: --and became a doctor.

[1:04:22] Hagstrom: Cornell University Medical College. Six of us went down from Amherst to, we had a wonderful time. We drove, I drove down. I had a car and six of us went down. And we met with the admissions guy named Dr. Lawrence Hanlon. And by the time we got back to Amherst, we had all been accepted to Cornell Medical School.

[1:04:46] Lancaster: [laughs] It was a different era.

[1:04:47] Hagstrom: It was extraordinary. It was absolutely extraordinary. And so we, we were not necessarily great friends, we were classmates and friends. And so we immediately, each person called the other to find out, and we all decided we're going to go. 

[1:05:01] Lancaster: Uh huh. 

[1:05:01] Hagstrom: So we accepted en masse, as we had been accepted en masse. 

[1:05:05] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:05:05] Hagstrom: And, and we remained good friends in medical school and, and being in New York for me was just open sesame. I mean, I just, I'd been traveling to New York regularly before that. But being in New York was, it was books, it was culture, it was theater, it was everything. And it was also a lot of people that just, you know, were not, it was a different world. 

[1:05:32] Lancaster: Yeah, of course [crosstalk]

[1:05:32] Hagstrom: Just a different world.

[1:05:33] Lancaster: What I find extraordinary is that you found time for all of that while you were a medical student. 

[1:05:38] Hagstrom: Well I was extremely disciplined.

[1:05:39] Lancaster: You’d have to be. [crosstalk]

[1:05:39] Hagstrom: What I made a point of every evening at 10 o'clock: quitting. I mean, I was so focused that I got the--medical school is not that diffi--wasn't that difficult, because you really had to commit enormous amounts of material to memory, understand it and have a feeling for it, but it was not, it didn't take a rocket scientist to go to medical school at all. 

[1:06:10] Now, I think, I don't know whether medical school is more demanding now I think it probably is. But things change. And so it's impossible to compare. [crosstalk]

[1:06:10] Lancaster: Sure. You can’t compare.

[1:06:10] Hagstrom: But, but it, it was, I just was very disciplined. And I wanted, I knew that I wanted to do a lot of other things. So that I focused and was done at 10 o'clock and then went out and partied and met up with friends of mine, or, or would stay in, say, and then spend a weekend and do whatever. I mean, I just had a ball. [crosstalk]

[1:06:33] Lancaster: Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's wonderful. 

[1:06:34] Hagstrom: Yeah. Well--

[1:06:35] Lancaster: Then you went on, not too long after to become a professor at Columbia. 

[1:06:41] Hagstrom: Well, what happened was that I, I stayed on at Cornell. And I was fortunate. I was very fortunate in that I, I got doing research early on, and it was successful. I start, started publishing, and I got advanced. And I enjoyed teaching and I was recognized for, for that sort of thing. I was energized, I was energized in every way and and then, and then I took, then, then I got an extraordinary offer from Case Western Reserve University to go out there and become Associate Professor with tenure.

[1:07:23] And that's just 1968 and I took it and it was the wrong move for me for, for reason--person--for personal reasons entirely. Not, the job was wonderful and, and so that but then, then--

[1:07:40] Lancaster: You missed New York, I suspect. [crosstalk]

[1:07:42] Hagstrom: I missed New York, I missed people in New York and, and it was very focused in terms of missing a certain people. And decided to, and I became literally clinically depressed and went to see a psychiatrist in, in Cleveland, whom I knew a little bit, and I just put it all out. He said, “there's only one answer.” He said, “don't let pride get in your way.” 

[1:08:10] And the chairman of the department out there was a wonderful man--is, he’s still alive--named Jack Carter and he had turned heaven and earth to get me to go out there. And, and I was really feeling as though I had failed him. And, but this psychiatrist said, you know, “just tell him.” and he, Jack Carter was really disappointed and unhappy. But he was the consummate gentleman, and said “if you've got to do it, you simply have to do it. And, and let me help you in any way.” 

[1:08:39] So he picked up the telephone, and right then and there and called Donald West King who was then chairman of the Department of Pathology at Columbia, and he said, he said, “you know Jack Hagstrom. He needs a job and I want you to hire him.” And that's literally how it all came about. And so that when I came back to New York, I kept my apartment.

[1:09:00] Houston Merritt was the dean, again whom I had known and, and written book reviews for, for the, for the American Journal of Neurology. I mean, I had been a book reviewer before. And so it was, again, I was so extraordinarily fortunate to be able to walk into a situation that had, was almost tailor-made for me. 

[1:09:19] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[1:09:21] Hagstrom: But that's, that's pure, pure good fortune. And, and stayed on. Yeah. [crosstalk]

[1:09:27] Lancaster: Yeah. And ended your career as Director of Pathology at Harlem Hospital.

[1:09:32] Hagstrom: Yeah. And, and attending physician at Columbia Presbyterian and full professor. And--

[1:09:38] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:09:39] Hagstrom: Oh yeah.

[1:09:40] Lancaster: Well, I mean, this has very little to do with Amherst or bibliography, but I thought that ought to be on the record so that people didn't think you were, you were doing nothing else. [crosstalk]

[1:09:49] Hagstrom: Ah, but after--

[1:09:50] The thing, the really important thing is that Amherst gave me, gave me, Amherst provided the background for all of it. It is all Amherst related, maybe not directly but, but certainly the confidence that I, I gained at Amherst has seen me in good stead until today. I mean, really.

[1:10:09] Lancaster: Well, and I've been able to observe over the years that you have, have given back in a sense. When you come to campus you generally interact with, with students-- [crosstalk]

[1:10:20] Hagstrom: Oh, I enjoy it enormously.

[1:10:20] Lancaster: You’ve gotten to know a number of them in particular, I mean, one in particular because he, he was here overlapped by one year with me, and that's Richard Linenthal--

[1:10:28] Hagstrom: Ah, yeah, well--

[1:10:29] Lancaster: --who is now a major presence in the rare book world. 

[1:10:33] Hagstrom: With whom I'm having lunch in, in London a week from tomorrow. 

[1:10:36] Lancaster: Uh huh. 

[1:10:36] Hagstrom: Yeah, yeah.

[1:10:37] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, tell a little bit about how you got to know Richard and how, how he ended up where he is.

[1:10:42] Hagstrom: It’s a wonderful story. It's an absolutely wonderful story, because Richard grew up outside of Boston, the son of a doctor and, and, and a bush, book, and went to Roxbury Latin School and came to Amherst. I don’t know why, how he came to Amherst and, but he gravitated toward the library and gravitated toward Special Collections. And Richard Phillips was the head of special, I think the first head of special collections. 

[1:11:10] Lancaster: Yes.

[1:11:10] Hagstrom: --and was, was very student-oriented and outgoing and gracious and, and took Richard Linenthal under his wing a bit, because Richard had an interest in Bibles and Bible leaves, and, and I think he'd already started to collect them. 

[1:11:27] Lancaster: Oh, absolutely. 

[1:11:28] Hagstrom: Before he came to Amherst.

[1:11:29] Lancaster: Yeah, he'd been a protege of, of Arthur Vershbow. 

[1:11:32] Hagstrom: That's it. And I don't know how he met Arthur Vershbow.

[1:11:35] Lancaster: They were neighbors. 

[1:11:35] Hagstrom:Oh, is that, simple as that? [crosstalk]

[1:11:35] Lancaster: Neighbors in Newton. Yeah, simple as that.

[1:11:37] Hagstrom: Okay, there you are. And anyway, Arthur, and anyway, I met Richard through, Richard Linenthal through Richard Phillips. And we got to know each other and I, I think I, I sort of assumed Richard Linenthal thought would be going on to graduate school. But then we were talking one day and he didn't, definitely did not want to go on to graduate school.

[1:11:58] Lancaster: Right.

[1:11:59] Hagstrom: And at this particular time, London, I knew London as well as New York because of Jeffery Amherst and so that I knew, I knew something about Christie's and I knew something about Sotheby’s in London, and a bit of the cast of characters and, and I, I don't know how it got around to this, but I said, “well, I would maybe,” well I think he said, “I'd love to spend a year in England.” And I said, “I, well let me see what I can do.”

[1:12:26] So what happened is I went around to see, I think his name was Captain Spooner, who was head of books department at Christie's. Well, he clearly didn't have anything. 

[1:12:38] Lancaster: Right.

[1:12:38] Hagstrom: And then I went around to see Lord John Carr, who was head of the book department at Sotheby's. And that, there was a possibility, but he didn't know. And I don't remember how I got on to this but Nicholas Poole-Wilson and John Dring. John, was it? 

[1:12:57] Lancaster: Ted Dring.

[1:12:58] Hagstrom: Ted Dring.

[1:12:58] Lancaster: Ted Dring.

[1:12:59] Hagstrom: Ted Dring. 

[1:13:00] And I knew them, and I knew somebody else there whose name goes out of my head at the moment. And I think I mentioned to, oh I know, and I mentioned to Nicholas Poole-Wilson and what I've been doing, trying to get something from Richard. Well, he said, “we might be able to take him on.”

[1:13:16] Lancaster: This was at Quaritch, Bernard Quaritch Limited. [crosstalk]

[1:13:16] Hagstrom: This was at Quar--, Bernard Quartich, exactly.

[1:13:19] And, and, and Richard was willing to do a job at Christie's or at Sotheby's for nothing. I mean, just for the experience. And I don't know, I think I, Nicholas said this. And I think what happened was that he also said, “I think we could probably pay him a little something.” And so I think what happened was that I just put the two of them together. 

[1:13:43] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:13:43] Hagstrom: And Richard went over there, and I saw him along the way, several times. And then now it’s almost 25 years later, isn’t it?

[1:13:53] Lancaster: Exactly. A little more than. [crosstalk]

[1:13:55] Hagstrom: He’s become a director--

[1:13:57] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:13:57] Hagstrom: --and he’s very much living in London. And, and--

[1:13:59] Lancaster: Well, he-- 

[1:14:00] Hagstrom: Still a close friend.

[1:14:02] Lancaster: They had had an American intern the year before and it, it hadn't worked out exactly as they had liked. So they were a little hesitant. I think that may have been what, I, at the time, Arthur Freeman, who was a friend of mine--

[1:14:14] Hagstrom: Right.

[1:14:14] Lancaster: --had just left Cambridge to go to London and he'd been the Cambridge branch of Quaritch. 

[1:14:20] Hagstrom: Okay.

[1:14:20] Lancaster: And so I, you know, having gotten to know Richard--

[1:14:24] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[1:14:24] Lancaster: Linenthal as well, I, you know, put in a good word for him with, with Arthur and heard the story about why they were a little hesitant. You know, Nicholas might not have told you that. 

[1:14:33] Hagstrom: No, he didn't. 

[1:14:35] Lancaster: But the interview that they had, I mean, Nicholas afterwards said they had, they had a copy of I think it was a 16th century Swiss Bible that they had just bought at auction and they trotted it out, said “you know something about Bibles. Tell me a little about this.” And Richard not only could say, well, of course it's thus and such a Bible, but he was able to tell them how much they had paid for it. 

[1:14:58] Hagstrom: [laughs]

[1:14:58] Lancaster: What the provenance was in the past. 

[1:15:01] Hagstrom: [laughs] I didn't know this story.

[1:15:01] Lancaster: How many, how many other steps back and you know--

[1:15:04] Hagstrom: No, I had, I've never had this story. 

[1:15:05] Lancaster: Yeah. Oh, Nicholas told that with great glee. And so they, they thought that perhaps Richard might work out better than their previous intern. [laughs]

[1:15:14] Hagstrom: That’s interesting. I'd, no, I’d never heard that story. 

[1:15:16] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[1:15:17] Hagstrom: And, and--

[1:15:18] Lancaster: Well get Richard to tell you some time, he's willing to talk now. 

[1:15:20] Hagstrom: Well I will over lunch next week. The thing is that I see Richard every time I'm in London, and we’ve become close friends. 

[1:15:28] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:15:29] Hagstrom: And, I mean, they, Richard has done some very nice things. When Luke Itano, Class of ‘99 was leaving London after spending a year at, at University, at King's College, I asked Richard if he could figure out some way to get Luke's books back.

[1:15:47] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:15:48] Hagstrom: Because Luke didn't have two pennies to rub together. He said, “it'll be just easier for me to send them all back.”

[1:15:54] Lancaster: Exactly. 

[1:15:54] Hagstrom: And doing wonderful favors like this is the kind of thing that Richard is-- [crosstalk]

[1:15:58] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, and he's done, uh, very nice things for the Library as well-- 

[1:16:02] Hagstrom: Absolutely.

[1:16:02] Lancaster: --in terms of not only shipping but acting for Amherst in the few occasions when we're able to bid on something. [crosstalk]

[1:16:08] Hagstrom: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Oh, he's great. He's great.

[1:16:10] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:16:10] Hagstrom: He's, he's the one person I know, no, there's, he’s the one person that I know that is really a product in the book, in the book world from Special Collections. 

[1:16:21] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:16:21] Hagstrom: Yeah. 

[1:16:21] Lancaster: Yeah, yeah. 

[1:16:22] Hagstrom: Anyway. 

[1:16:23] Lancaster: Well, you know--

[1:16:24] Hagstrom: It’s a very happy story, and it's fun to see him. [crosstalk]

[1:16:27] Lancaster: It is. And you have, you know, he was the earliest one I know about but, but you have gotten to know other students as well--

[1:16:36] Hagstrom: Oh, very much so.

[1:16:36] Lancaster: --and, uh, you know, help them out--

[1:16:39] Hagstrom: Very happily, I’ll do whatever.

[1:16:40] Lancaster: --in this way. Yeah, that's good.

[1:16:44] Well, to go back, to get back to books and your collecting--

[1:16:48] Hagstrom: Right.

[1:16:48] Lancaster: --we started talking about James Merrill, and I'd like to know a little more about how you came to, to build your collection. I mean, you, you started collecting while you were a student, but, you know, there had to be something that kept you going beyond that, I mean--

[1:17:07] Hagstrom: In each case, it was the productivity of the poet. And and, and, and that, that was, that was, was certainly Frost. I mean, it was, it was certainly Merrill, Wilbur--I checked out on Dylan Thomas, I really can't remember. 

[1:17:28] Lancaster: [laughs] Well, you gave up early. He died, he died shortly thereafter anyways. [laughs]

[1:17:32] Hagstrom: Thom Gunn, certainly. And now Timothy Steele and now in August Kleinzahler and so forth. And less so August, but Timothy and I, and I, and I did that foray into collecting Dana Gioia, whom I thought was a very promising poet when he started writing. I think he's less promising as a poet now, he's certainly a very effective, uh--

[1:18:00] Lancaster: Politician. [laughs]

[1:18:01] Hagstrom: Well, politician, and as much as I dislike the present administration politically, I think Dana Gioia has done an extraordinary job with the National Endowment for the Arts, given the constraints that he's been under by the administration and the Congress.

[1:18:19] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, he seems perfectly placed, I mean--

[1:18:21] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[1:18:21] Lancaster: Just enough of a Republican to be acceptable, and, you know, and--

[1:18:26] Hagstrom: He likes Mrs. Bush a great deal. And apparently, they know each other quite well. So anyway.

[1:18:31] And well, that's it. But it's been entirely on the strength of the writing. There, there have been some, some writers along the way that I've not followed through on.

[1:18:44] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:18:44] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[1:18:44] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, that, I think that is the case with anyone, I mean--

[1:18:48] Hagstrom: Sure.

[1:18:48] Lancaster: --John Updike, for instance, although you amassed an extraordinary collection that we have now-- [crosstalk]

[1:18:52] Hagstrom: Well, but John Updike just overwhelmed me. 

[1:18:54] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:18:54] Hagstrom: I ran out of space and money.

[1:18:56] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:18:56] Hagstrom: I mean, there was just, it was--

[1:19:00] What, what happened with Updike, I'll tell you exactly what happened with Updike was that when I finished the Gunn bibliography, I wanted to, I wanted to have another project to work on in, in long-term. And I contacted Updike. And I didn't mean to do it tomorrow or the next day. But I, but I did stress that if, if I was going to do it, I would absolutely, totally need his cooperation. And he said “Nix. Don't want to do it.”

[1:19:33] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, then that's it. 

[1:19:36] Hagstrom: Yeah. 

[1:19:36] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:19:37] Hagstrom: And I think, I think the combination of that, plus the abs--he was so prolific in every way. 

[1:19:44] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[1:19:45] Hagstrom: And also in so many different languages, and it was just all over the place all the time. That I, I was, and I was also running out of space.

[1:19:53] Lancaster: [laughs] Yeah.

[1:19:54] Hagstrom: And so I just, I just--

[1:19:55] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, he, he also, in the same vein, you know, he, he's very focused on his agenda. And--

[1:20:02] Hagstrom: Yeah, exactly.

[1:20:03] Lancaster: I mean, for instance, he was perfectly willing to accept an honorary degree from Amherst. He was not willing to be a Robert Frost Library Fellow. 

[1:20:10] Hagstrom: Yeah, I guess I-- [crosstalk]

[1:20:11] Lancaster: --which would have taken a week.

[1:20:12] Hagstrom: Yeah. Interesting.

[1:20:13] Lancaster: You know, that, that just, he just said, no.

[1:20:16] Hagstrom: Well, he, he--

[1:20:16] Lancaster: Didn’t have time or interest. He’s spending all his time writing. [laughs]

[1:20:20] Hagstrom: Exactly. And been very successful.

[1:20:22] Lancaster: And been extremely successful.

[1:20:23] Hagstrom: Oh, exactly. 

[1:20:24] Lancaster: On the other hand, uh, Dick Wilbur is someone whom you started collecting and have become a very good friend of over the years. [crosstalk]

[1:20:31] Hagstrom: Oh, yes, Dick’s a close friend, and Dick and Charlie both. And, and, and Dick, thank goodness, goes on writing. And I, I--

[1:20:40] Lancaster: He does.

[1:20:40] Hagstrom: --talked to him on the telephone just about, well, I told you, about 10, 12 days ago, and he, very, he's 8- now 84 and we're talking about what he's actively and happily, Charlie is feeling well, and they're able to go out and it's been a hard time for them. 

[1:20:57] Lancaster: It has.

[1:20:58] Hagstrom: But we've been, we've been good friends for a long time. But, but again, and I, but I'll tell you interesting enough, there was a time when Raymond Danowski and, and Bernard Stone at the Turret Bookshop in London, were doing a series of broadsides. And I got copy from Allen Ginsberg, John Updike, Timothy Steele, Richard Wilbur, James Merrill, Thom Gunn for individual broadsides and so that people were not unwilling to be of assistance--

[1:21:33] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:21:33] Hagstrom: --in that sort of project. So--

[1:21:35] Lancaster: That's great. 

[1:21:35] Hagstrom: Yeah, exactly.

[1:21:36] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, I remember, I mean, as you know, Dick’s papers are on deposit here.

[1:21:42] Hagstrom: Right.

[1:21:43] Lancaster: In the interest of full disclosure, we should probably say that you and I are collaborating on a bibliography--

[1:21:47] Hagstrom: Absolutely.  

[1:21:48] Lancaster: --which, which we had thought might be finished 10 or 15 years ago, but partly because of the way my life was, was working but also because Dick keeps on writing. And--

[1:21:59] Hagstrom: Absolutely.

[1:22:00] Lancaster: You know, when, in his 80th year, he published 7 books. 

[1:22:05] Hagstrom: Is that, it was 7?

[1:22:06] Lancaster: It was 7, 3 of which were brand new.

[1:22:08] Hagstrom: Interesting.

[1:22:09] Lancaster: You know, one of poetry and two translations, and then, then others reprints with, with new material and that sort of thing. I mean, you can't, you can't fix somebody in a bibliography that is that prolific. [laughs, crosstalk]

[1:22:21] Hagstrom: No, that's right. That’s right. And this is, this is, it’s an interesting thing with regard to that. Right now, I mean, Joshua Odell was, was visiting Tom and me last weekend. And you know that George Bixby and I did a bibliography of Thom Gunn that was published in 1979. [crosstalk]

[1:22:39] Lancaster: Yes, indeed.

[1:22:40] Hagstrom: Then Joshua and I did an update of that, that we published in five issues of the Bulletin of Bibliography--

[1:22:46] Lancaster: Right.

[1:22:46] Hagstrom: Just to bring it up to date, 1991 to ‘93. 

[1:22:48] Lancaster: ‘93, yep.

[1:22:49] Hagstrom: And then, and then I had a commitment from Bernard McTigue, who was the editor of the Bulletin of Bibliography, to do a second update, but then two things happened. Bernard, Bernie McTigue died--

[1:23:01] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:23:01] Hagstrom: --very suddenly. And the Bulletin of Bibliography went out of existence. So Joshua and I have decided that we're going to do an update, combining, [coughs] excuse me, combining the two. And, and so it'll be a second volume. And, and probably funded ourselves because I think we've done all the work and it would be nice to have the, I think Gunn is a very important 20th century poet. 

[1:23:26] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[1:23:26] Hagstrom: And--

[1:23:27] Lancaster: Who also died quite recently. 

[1:23:29] Hagstrom: Well, yes, a year ago. 

[1:23:30] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[1:23:30] Hagstrom; And, and I, I would hate, I just don't want to see all that work down the drain. [crosstalk]

[1:23:37] Lancaster: Well it shouldn't. Absolutely. [crosstalk]

[1:23:39] Hagstrom: No, I don’t think so. And, and--

[1:23:40] Lancaster: And if you can, if you can publish it in, in paper, that's a, that's good, but, uh--

[1:23:46] Hagstrom: Well, I think--

[1:23:46] Lancaster: --the other possibility is, is web publication. 

[1:23:52] Hagstrom: Yeah, well, that, but, but I think we might even try and do a hardcover. 

[1:23:53] Lancaster: Yeah, yeah.

[1:23:53] Hagstrom: It all depends on the cost. 

[1:23:54] Lancaster: Sure. 

[1:23:55] Hagstrom: And, and I think that we, I think it's a question of production and Joshua knows all about this because he, he did have his own imprint at one time, so--

[1:24:03] Lancaster: At Random House, wasn't it?

[1:24:04] Hagstrom: Well, he was, he was at Knopf--

[1:24:06] Lancaster: Oh, Knopf’s, yeah.

[1:24:06] Hagstrom: And then he had Joshua Odell editions that, that he published, Ray Bradbury and so forth and so on. Joshua, Joshua I first met when he was working in the publicity department at Knopf about 20-odd years ago. Now he lives out in Santa Barbara, and, but, he, he had his own imprint. And, and so we'll see where we go. But anyway.

[1:24:28] Lancaster: Well, you've mentioned the Thom Gunn bibliography which is the first formal bibliography that, that you--

[1:24:33] Hagstrom: Yeah, yeah.

[1:24:34] Lancaster: --produced. Thom Gunn has nothing to do with Amherst except that he was a Robert Frost Library Fellow thanks to you, but, but that was long after you got to know him. How did you come to get to know Thom and collect his work?

[1:24:47] Hagstrom: It’s amazing. In about 19-, sometime in the ‘70s, Margie Cohn, and we must talk about Margie Cohn at some point. Margie Cohn had some issues of London Magazine, about 5 or 6 issues of the London Magazine, Magazine. And she said that each issue contains a poem or two by Thom Gunn--I think it's the ‘70s, I don't know when this was. Anyway. It may have been-- 

[1:25:14] Lancaster: We can check your bibliography. [laughs]

[1:25:16] Hagstrom: No, no. I mean, when I, when she gave these to me--

[1:25:18] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:25:19] Hagstrom: It must, might have been much earlier. And she said, “why don't you take these and read them and see what you think of Gunn. He's new to me, but I found him very interesting.” Well, now, this is Margie. So I did and I was fascinated by Gunn, absolutely fascinated, and I immediately wanted to know more, and got more and thereby hangs the tale. And I immediately started collecting Gunn. 

[1:25:41] And also, one of the, early on, I realized that one of the people that was important for Thom Gunn early on, was a man named John Lehman. Well, John Lehman was somebody whom I had met at the Garrick Club in London, knew very much about him because of the Hogarth Press and Virginia Woolf and all that. And so, the Thom Gunn that I was learning about was also a part of the life, lives of people about whom I knew something in London. 

[1:26:20] Lancaster: Uh-huh.

[1:26:20] Hagstrom: So that there was an opportunity for me to collect and do research on an English poet and writer tied up with trips to London. And, and I remember at that particular time, chiding them, of course, they never had anything modern for me at all.

[1:26:38] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:26:38] Hagstrom: And it was, it was, it was, it was, Julian Nangle--

[1:26:43] Lancaster: Um-hmm. Yeah. Great modern bookseller. 

[1:26:45] Hagstrom: Absolutely. And, and, and and Rota, of course, and others. And John Byrne at Rota and so forth, who helped me and I, and I collected Gunn--nobody was collecting Gunn in depth, and I really went at it full tilt. [crosstalk]

[1:26:59] Lancaster: Right. Yeah. You had a, had an open field.

[1:27:01] Hagstrom: Absolutely. But I wasn't the only person. George Bixby had, knew all about Gunn and had--

[1:27:06] Lancaster: Uh-huh. And that's why you ended up collaborating with him.

[1:27:09] Hagstrom: And publish-, and he’d published a couple, he published under Albondocani Press.

[1:27:13] Lancaster: Albondocani, yes.

[1:27:14] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[1:27:15] Lancaster: When did you get to know Gunn personally?

[1:27:18] Hagstrom: Um, I'd have to check correspondence. I don't know. But I mean, I mean, I know I--

[1:27:23] Lancaster: Did you go to a reading, meet him there, or corresponded with him? [crosstalk]

[1:27:27] Hagstrom: I wrote to him, I wrote to him, I wrote to him. 

[1:27:28] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:27:28] Hagstrom: He lived on Filbert Street. 76--, 716 Filbert Street or something like that.

[1:27:33] Lancaster: San Francisco.

[1:27:34] Hagstrom: Huh? 

[1:27:35] Lancaster: In San Francisco. Yeah. [crosstalk]

[1:27:36] Hagstrom: In San Francisco. Yeah, exactly.

[1:27:37] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:27:37] Hagstrom: And it didn't take me, and he responded.

[1:27:40] Lancaster: Uh huh. 

[1:27:40] Hagstrom: And at that particular time, and then I really wanted to start to think of doing a bibliography. I know what it was. I had a sabbatical coming up.

[1:27:50] Lancaster: Uh huh.

[1:27:51] Hagstrom: And this was I think, in 1977. I thought I might use my Gunn, play with being a bibliographer by using my Gunn collection, and wrote to Thom and asked him if that would be okay with him. But there was a guy named, there was a gentleman named Allan Covici is his name, who apparently had made some noises about doing, I wrote to Allan Covici twice and never got an answer. So I figured it was open sesame, and that's how that came about.

[1:28:21] Lancaster: Yeah, you could just go ahead and do it. [crosstalk]

[1:28:22] Hagstrom: And Gunn again, was incredibly helpful in terms of anything that came out and so forth. And so--

[1:28:28] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, that's, for a modern living poet that, that is, as you said, necessary. 

[1:28:33] Hagstrom: Well there’s an interesting sidelight to this. When, when this all was in the process, the great poetry editor at Faber and Faber in London was Charles Monteith.

[1:28:43] Lancaster: Right.

[1:28:44] Hagstrom: And I knew Charles Monteith, because I had been up at All Souls College on many occasions at Oxford, with John Sparrow who was one of the dons up there. And Charles was, Charles was a fellow at All Souls.

[1:29:01] Well, Thom Gunn, who was published by Faber, asked Charles about this. And Charles said, “well, I'm going to help him. You should too, because this the benefit of both of us.”

[1:29:14] Lancaster: Uh huh. Yes.

[1:29:14] Hagstrom: And so that Charles Monteith and Thom Gunn were unstintingly helpful. And Charles became quite a good friend. And through him met, through Charles in London met a lot of the English writers. So one thing led to another.

[1:29:31] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[1:29:31] Hagstrom: Yeah, it’s been amazing. 

[1:29:33] Lancaster: Well, London has been a theme that pops up over and over here, you've obviously spent a lot of time there. And you mentioned earlier--

[1:29:42] Hagstrom: Because of Jeffery.

[1:29:43] Lancaster: Jeffery Amherst. So if you're willing, I'd like to talk a little bit about Jeffery.

[1:29:47] Hagstrom: Oh, sure. 

[1:29:48] Lancaster: You, you met him--

[1:29:49] Hagstrom: Well, in the early ‘50s-- 

[1:29:51] Lancaster: --early on.

[1:29:51] Hagstrom: --and, and what happened was that I, I have to be a little circumspect about this. A prominent, prominent Amherst graduate asked me what I was doing in the summer. And--

[1:30:10] Lancaster: This is while you were a student?

[1:30:11] Hagstrom: Yeah. And I said, “I'm going to go to Europe.” And he said, “where are you going to go?” And I said, “I'm gonna go to England and Greece.” He said, “when you go to England, why don't you look up the present Lord Amherst,” and I said, “you've got to be kidding.” 

[1:30:25] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:30:26] Hagstrom: And he said, “no, I'm sure that there is one. And, and he, because he was very important during the Second World War and in intelligence in Cairo. And I, but I've just never met him.” And so I wrote a letter. I figured, well, what the hell, why not? 

[1:30:47] Lancaster: Well, you were young and enthusiastic. [laughs]

[1:30:49] Hagstrom: Well, exactly.

[1:30:49] Lancaster: Omnivorous! [laughs] 

[1:30:50] Hagstrom: And I, and I, and I, so I went, and remarkably, but I shouldn't have been surprised, remarkably Amherst College had a copy of Burke's Peerage, which listed the fact that there was a present Jeffery Amherst, and gave an address.

[1:31:08] Uh, The Bungalow, Windsor Great Park, Berkshire. And so then I went at how do you write to an earl?

[1:31:20] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:31:20] Hagstrom: So, so I went and got a copy of Debrett's Usage and figured it out. And I, “the Right Honorable the Earl, comma MC,” for Military Cross, and, and, “Dear Sir,” and about, I suppose six weeks later I got a letter back. But it was totally typewritten, except for after “My Dear,” written in blue ink, “Jack.”

[1:31:46] Lancaster: Uh huh.

[1:31:47] Hagstrom: And signed “Yours Sincerely,” and then written in, “Jeffery Amherst.” So I went to London. We're staying at the Great Russell St. YMCA, and Mr. Berry, who was the scion of the Berry Piano family, ran the Great Russell St. YMCA. And he ran it with an élan that was really quite extraordinary.

[1:32:07] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:32:07] Hagstrom: Because it has, it was, it was not in any way a pedestrian place, Mr. Barry lent style to the Great Russell St. YMCA.

[1:32:16] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:32:16] Hagstrom: And he had a telephone! The only telephone. And so I said Mr., to Mr. Berry, and I knew Mr. Berry through, through--I knew of Mr. Berry through mutual friends.

[1:32:28] And I said, asked Mr. Berry if I could possibly use his telephone. And he said, “just out of curiosity, what's the telephone number? I said, “Belgravia four-two-double two.” I didn't say that. I said “Belgravia four-two-two-two.”

[1:32:43] Lancaster: Yes.

[1:32:45] Hagstrom: His--

[1:32:45] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:32:45] Hagstrom: --eyes opened up, “Belgravia?!” I said yes. And I didn't really want to tell him who I was calling. 

[1:32:55] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:32:55] Hagstrom: So and I was being a bit coy, ‘cause I just didn't know.

[1:32:58] Lancaster: Well, sure.

[1:32:59] Hagstrom: And so I got on the telephone and, and, and I introduced myself and Jeffery said “what are you doing tomorrow afternoon?” Or I think something like this: “I don't have my diary in front of me. It's in the office.” He was then Managing Director of BEA, British European Airways--

[1:33:24] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:33:24] Hagstrom: Before it consolidated with BOAC, the foreign BA. Anyway--

[1:33:27] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:33:27] Hagstrom: And he said, “could you telephone me in my office in the morning? And, but let's plan to meet at the Travellers Club for luncheon.” 

[1:33:37] Well, so I did, I had that in my agenda. And we met at the Travellers Club. And it's a wonderful story because we went down to the bar, and this is an underground, in a basement. And this was, this was early on after the War, rationing was still on. 

[1:33:56] Lancaster: Yeah, yeah, this is the early ‘50s. Yeah.

[1:33:57] Hagstrom: London was still traumatized. 

[1:33:59] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:33:59] Hagstrom: And I asked for a bourbon and water. Well, I mean--

[1:34:02] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:34:03] Hagstrom: Talk about being an American. And of course, they didn't have any bourbon, but I, I had a martini.

[1:34:11] And, and that was all fine. And then we had luncheon and we sat till 5 o'clock in the afternoon talking. And I don't remember what we talked about, but it was fun. And then, and then he said, “what are you doing the rest of the time you’re in London?” To make a long story short, I think I spent every night with Jeffery , and every weekend and, and the following night, he said “come over and we'll, we'll have a drink at my house and then go out for some supper.” But when I, he said: I may be a little bit late but Maggie the housekeeper will let you in,” and when I arrived, there was a bottle of bourbon sitting on a silver, silver salver. 

[1:34:54] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:34:54] Hagstrom: And so I waited for, for then-Lord Amherst to come home. And, and, and Jeffery was in fact Lord Amherst for a long time. We had, we had a wonderful relationship but it was a very, uh, it was a fun, but he was, he was Lord Amherst until he decided that he didn't want to be Lord Amherst anymore.

[1:35:15] And take, he took my temperature. And, and, but then he said “when you're coming back through London,” ‘cause I was sailing, you know those days before flying, and he said “where, where, where are you, are you gonna be in London?” And I said yes, he said “why don't you stay with me?” And that, that was the last time, I mean, that was the first time and that I stayed with him and I stayed with him until after he died in ‘93 at age 96.

[1:35:46] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:35:47] Hagstrom: And, and so London really became a second home. Really became a second home. I mean, I got to know it well, and Jeffery's friends became my friends, and I learned how to behave and live in, like a, like an English gentleman and, and--

[1:36:05] Lancaster: And the clubs.

[1:36:06] Hagstrom: Oh! And through Jeffery of course. And, and became a member of first the Travellers Club and then the Garrick and a member, I'm the only American member of Pratt’s Club.

[1:36:15] Lancaster: My goodness.

[1:36:15] Hagstrom: And enjoy them still. They've changed--

[1:36:16] Lancaster: Oh, I’m sure.

[1:36:18] Hagstrom: I mean, London has changed so remarkably and, and there is absolutely nobody left of Jeffery's generation which was--

[1:36:26] Lancaster: Well--

[1:36:26] Hagstrom: --a unique lot that influenced me enormously and I had such close friends and I miss them so much because they were very important. But, life goes on.

[1:36:37] Lancaster: Yeah. Well Jeffery succeeded to the earldom rather unexpectedly at a fairly early age.

[1:36:43] Hagstrom: Entirely, yeah. More importantly, his father succeeded to it, because, and his father no more was--apparently his father whom I never knew was very shy and very retiring and, and his brother died and so Jeffery's father became the fifth, the fourth Earl. 

[1:37:03] Lancaster: The fourth Earl. 

[1:37:04] Hagstrom: And was very reticent about it at all. And then, and then out of pleading illness, he didn't come over here for the centennial of the college in 1921 he sent Jeffery over instead. [crosstalk]

[1:37:17] Lancaster: Sent Jeffery, yes. 

[1:37:18] Hagstrom: And Jeffery was, was a young, enthusiastic post-World War One coldstreamer with lots of style, lots of enthusiasm, very good looking, very interested in the theater and a great friend of Noel Coward’s.

[1:37:33] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:37:35] Hagstrom: And, and Jeffery then had his own career in America in the ‘30s and went, and then went back-- In the ‘20s, no, in the ‘20s, I’m sorry, in the ‘20s. [crosstalk]

[1:37:47] Lancaster: ‘20’s, yeah, yeah.

[1:37:47] Hagstrom: And then went back, and became interested in flying and, and became a pilot himself. And became, Imperial Airways was a, and that’s the whole history, and then BEA and so forth. 

[1:37:58] Lancaster: Yeah, and he's written this all up in his memoir-- 

[1:38:01] Hagstrom: Exactly, exactly, yeah. [crosstalk]

[1:38:01] Lancaster: --sort of wandering abroad, which--

[1:38:03] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[1:38:03] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:38:04] Hagstrom: And, and, but Jeffery, I mean, he was my closest friend--

[1:38:07] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:38:07] Hagstrom: --without any question, uh--

[1:38:10] Lancaster: That's also resulted in, in good fortune for, for Amherst College. Uh--

[1:38:14] Hagstrom: Oh, absolutely.

[1:38:14] Lancaster: I mean, I, as I recall, you brought Jeffery up here on a number of occasions in the ‘70s and ‘80s. [crosstalk]

[1:38:23] Hagstrom: Well, here's, here’s what happened. I think it was 1975 when the town was, ‘75 or ‘76, celebrating its 215th anniversary. [crosstalk]

[1:38:32] Lancaster: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:38:33] Hagstrom: I was the only connection with Jeffery Amherst at that particular time. Nobody, the College had no connection with him, the town had no connection with him. And Charlie Cole, then-pres--I think Charlie Cole was then still president.

[1:38:48] Lancaster: Not in the ‘70s, if it--

[1:38:51] Hagstrom: Would have been Calvin or something? Anway--

[1:38:53] Lancaster: Uh, ‘70s would, um, it was Cal Plimpton until Bill Ward. 

[1:38:59] Hagstrom: Well, I don't remember, anyway. But anyway, what happened was that the, well I don't know what it was but anyway, because John Cole, Jeffery's, Charlie's cousin drove us up. We, it was Richardson Pratt, John Cole, Jeffery Amherst and I drove up from New York for this occasion. And Frank Prentice Hall wanted to get Jeffery to ride into Amherst on a white horse.

[1:39:26] Lancaster: [laughs] No way.

[1:39:26] Hagstrom: Well, that was not Jeffery's idea. And, anyway, and Jeffery was, they put him up at the Lord Jeffery Inn, and he got ill and, and, oh, the English professor whose name will go out of my, um, Elmo. Elmo Giordanetti was--

[1:39:45] Lancaster: Elmo Giordanetti, yeah. Italian, yeah. [crosstalk]

[1:39:45] Hagstrom: Elmo Giordanetti was sort of assigned to look after Jeffery when he was in, as the College representative in, in, in, while Jeffery was resident in Amherst staying at the Inn. Well he got sick, and, I mean, he came out with a bad cold and Janet Morgan I, I’d mentioned this to her. And she said, “well, why don't we have him, he can come down and stay at the house, it'd be much more pleasant.” And that's how they met. 

[1:40:08] And, and then, and then, on subsequent occasions when Jeffery would come over to spend Christmas with, with Tom and me, we would come up and the Morgans made, and the Turgeons put on quite a, quite a party for Jeffery and we had, I think we did this about 4 or 5 years, we came up between Christmas and New Year's, or maybe just before Christmas, I can't remember which, and it was a lovely time and so forth. Anyway--

[1:40:39] Lancaster: And you’d, you'd had lunch with the President on a, several occasions, I remember that. [crosstalk]

[1:40:43] Hagstrom: Oh, yes. Very much so, yeah. Very much so, yeah.

[1:40:44] Lancaster: Yeah. You know, which was kind of a thrill for the president of Amherst College, I think.

[1:40:48] Hagstrom: Well, yeah, and, and certainly for me as well, you know, but it was, it was interesting, because, and then I took it upon myself to talk to Jeffery about some of the portraits and some of the pictures that he had inherited. Well, clearly this, I was going to get in over my head very fast.

[1:41:11] This is before this as a matter of fact, before this occasion and then so I told Charlie Morgan who was like a surrogate father to me what was going on. And Charlie Morgan stepped in and, and worked out a deal with Jeffery to, for the portrait and, and the Snyders and other pictures.

[1:41:29] Lancaster: Yeah, yeah.

[1:41:29] Hagstrom: And they came to the college through, I think, a purchase gift arrangement. And that's the Reynolds portrait of Amherst. 

[1:41:38] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:41:38] Hagstrom: And then that was, that was a business thing, then the personal thing with regard to the staying at the Morgans and that continued. And then the College became sort of a focus of interest for Jeffery and so that when I talked to him about where his papers should end up going, and what, whereabout some of the other family pictures, which are not nearly so valuable money, monetarily wise, but historically, they're 17th century--

[1:42:10] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:42:11] Hagstrom: --pictures. So that when he died, um, they were mine, but I really gave them to the College and, and they are now part of the, part of the Amherst collection. 

[1:42:23] Lancaster: Yeah. Well-- [crosstalk]

[1:42:24] Hagstrom: I mean, all of Jeffery's stuff of any, any magnitude came to, to Amherst. [crosstalk]

[1:42:28] Lancaster: Yeah. Well, the Library of course has a number of things from, from the first Lord Jeffery Amherst. [crosstalk]

[1:42:28] Hagstrom: Yeah, absolutely.

[1:42:37] Lancaster: Various order books and things of that sort. And then, then all the way down the line--

[1:42:41] Hagstrom: It’s nice. 

[1:42:42] Lancaster: --thanks to you. Including, including the coronation robes since, since the line died out and there was no, no subsequent earl to, to inherit those. [crosstalk]

[1:42:52] Hagstrom: [laughs] Yeah, that’s right. Again, what it was, I mean, there's so many stories that one could tell about Jeffery . I remember once Tom asking him about, I'm talking about my friend Tom Plumbing, asking Jeffery if he, if he always went to the opening of the house of, the House of Lords opening of parliament every year and he said, “oh my lord, no.” He said it's, it's, it's just, it's lots of mothballs and halitosis. [both laugh]

[1:43:22] And, and Amherst has not only the parliamentary robes, the ones that--

[1:43:27] Lancaster: Yes.

[1:43:27] Hagstrom: --that appear, would wear at the time of Opening of Parliament, but the coronation robes which are really quite beautiful. 

[1:43:34] Lancaster: Yes. 

[1:43:34] Hagstrom: And it was when I was getting ready to give those to the College, it was a major education for me to go around to a place called Ede and Ravenscroft on Chancery Lane-- 

[1:43:45] Lancaster: Yes.

[1:43:46] Hagstrom: --to find out what these things were worth. And, and then I got to know a man there. And he took me to their workrooms to see how they made these things. Unbelievable what goes into them, and they still are doing it, they're going full tilt to it.

[1:44:00] Lancaster: Yeah, well, of course these go go back to the 19th century.

[1:44:04] Hagstrom: They do, they do.

[1:44:04] Lancaster: They were worn by several earls.

[1:44:07] Hagstrom: Indeed. And including, and Barnes Taft. [laughs]

[1:44:09] Lancaster: And Barnes Taft, and I believe, I don't know if you have photographs of the event when you brought them up here and, and had Will Brideagam and George Morgan put them on. [laughs]

[1:44:21] Hagstrom: Well, we did too, if you remember. 

[1:44:22] Lancaster: Yes. Well, yes. I wasn't gonna mention that. [both laugh]

[1:44:26] Hagstrom: Anyway.

[1:44:27] Lancaster: That was a lot of fun.

[1:44:28] Hagstrom: Well, they’re here. 

[1:44:28] Lancaster:Yeah. 

[1:44:30] Hagstrom: You know, not to, not to [see it], but what, what the other thing was, sell them and get a few pennies for them, or here because, you know--

[1:44:41] Lancaster: Well, they're, they're an historical artifact. 

[1:44:44] Hagstrom: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. 

[1:44:45] Lancaster: And, you know, frankly, they're probably the only, the only coronation robes in this country. Because, I mean, you have to wait for the line to die out or--

[1:44:55] Hagstrom: That’s right.

[1:44:55] Lancaster: --or somebody to decide they're going to renounce the title. [laughs]

[1:44:57] Hagstrom: That’s right.

[1:44:58] Lancaster: Before the robes become available. [crosstalk]

[1:44:59] Hagstrom: It’s interesting, I think I, think I, I met, I met, I met I think it's the Earl of Dartmouth at one point, and I wondered if he had any connection and he knew about Dartmouth but there's no connection at all, really.

[1:45:12] Lancaster: Yeah. Well I remember the one time when when I met Jeffery at your house and asked him about the pronunciation of his name ‘cause, said to him, “you know, we--” [crosstalk]

[1:45:22] Hagstrom: This is Water Mill?

[1:45:23] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:45:24] Hagstrom: Okay.

[1:45:24] Lancaster: “We insist on, on dropping the ‘H’, that's how you know if somebody is really from Amherst, Massachusetts.” He said, “well, yes, that, that, that is the proper way, but I've given up!”

[1:45:34] Hagstrom: [laughs]

[1:45:34] Lancaster: “Every, everyone, everyone sticks the ‘H’ in, so I just don't bother anymore.” [laughs]

[1:45:38] Hagstrom: What, what used to bug him more than anything else was when they would address him “the Earl of Amherst.” 

[1:45:44] Lancaster: Yes. 

[1:45:44] Hagstrom: Which he was not at all.

[1:45:45] Lancaster: He was not.

[1:45:46] Hagstrom: He was one of a very few that had, had his family name being, being his noble name. 

[1:45:51] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:45:51] Hagstrom: So--

[1:45:51] Lancaster: It was just the “Earl Amherst?”

[1:45:53] Hagstrom: Absolutely. 

[1:45:54] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:45:54] Hagstrom: “MC.” 

[1:45:54] Lancaster: Yeah. Yeah. Do you know why that's the case? I've often wondered, but never gone around and looked it up. [crosstalk]

[1:46:02] Hagstrom: I don't, I don't.

[1:46:02] Lancaster: I don't know if you could look it up. Why, why a few of them don't have “of.”

[1:46:07] Hagstrom: I don't know. I mean, probably the College for Heralds would, could tell you that.

[1:46:10] Lancaster: Would be able to, yes.

[1:46:11] Hagstrom: The thing is, what I've not been able to find is where the, the courtesy title--why Count Holmesdale? 

[1:46:19] Lancaster: Why Count Holmesdale.

[1:46:21] Hagstrom: Holmesdale must be a place--

[1:46:22] Lancaster: Yes, it is.

[1:46:23] Hagstrom: --in Kent. 

[1:46:23] Lancaster: It is.

[1:46:24] Hagstrom: Is it?

[1:46:24] Lancaster: Yeah. It is. That I know. [crosstalk]

[1:46:25] Hagstrom: Okay, well I don’t know where. 

[1:46:26] Lancaster: And it's, it's an interesting line because the original Jeffery Amherst, the one for whom the town was named, was never the, an earl.

[1:46:35] Hagstrom: No, no.

[1:46:35] Lancaster: It was his nephew who, who became the first earl.

[1:46:38] Hagstrom: Right, right, right. And then, and then the name Arracan comes into that as well. [crosstalk]

[1:46:44] Lancaster: Yes. Yeah. 

[1:46:44] Hagstrom: And the hap-, the thing I think of all that would make Jeffery the happiest was that now his, two of his great nephews are two of my closest friends. Christopher, who's all of 30 and, and Andrew, who's, who's, lives in Melbourne and all of 28. And Andrew’s coming to spend Thanksgiving with me this year. And Christopher was, was in London earlier in the year. And so it's just, it's just great.

[1:47:15] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:47:16] Hagstrom: And I, and of course what I represent to them is a piece of walking history. [laughs]

[1:47:19] Lancaster: Yeah, exactly. Well, you can tell them stories about a man they barely knew.

[1:47:23] Hagstrom: Exactly, exactly. I mean, we've had such fun! We have such fun in London together. So--

[1:47:28] Lancaster: Yeah, great. Huh.

[1:47:30] Hagstrom: That's fun. That's a really nice, really nice thing. 

[1:47:32] Lancaster: Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about, about your continuing connections with Amherst as you've returned over the years. With, with the Morgans, the Turgeons. Ben Ziegler, I think is somebody that you continued to see from time to time. 

[1:47:47] Hagstrom: Well, what happened, and this goes back to when I was an undergraduate--

[1:47:49] Lancaster: Um-hmm.

[1:47:51] Hagstrom: And I can almost date it specifically, I think I can give you very specifically how, how it happened, how this, my relationship with the Morgans and Turgeons started. And then other things fell into place. But it was on, it was on Good Friday of, of the spring of 1952. I had gone to the Good Friday service at Grace Church and afterward--3 o'clock--I was walking out and Mrs. Turgeon, whom I didn't know at that particular, came up to me, said, she said, “who are you?”

[1:48:30] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:48:30] Hagstrom: I was a little bit taken aback. And, and I told her I was an undergraduate and my name is Jack Hagstrom and she said, “what are you doing for Easter?” She said, I said “I have no plans for Easter.” She said “would you like to join the Morgans, the Charles Morgans and the Turgeons for Easter? We have a family get-together and and we'd love to have you come if you'd like to.”

[1:48:52] Well, I put two and two together and figured out that the Morgans were the parents of my classmate George Morgan, whom I had met and we were more than nodding acquaintances. And so I put myself together and went down to, went to Easter service at Grace Church and then a 12:30 lunch at, at the Morgans, who lived on, in the Snell house on the corner of Snell Street and, and South Pleasant Street. And, lovely day it was, and drinks out in the garden, and, and martinis, it was, out in the garden. And, and Charlie Morgan whom I had not met before, was in fine form and the Vincent Morgans were there, and Charlie's brother who was in the English department and his wife Kay.

[1:49:44] George was there, and his two sisters, Muffy and Prue, who was then young, and Charlotte, and King Turgeon, uh, Professor of French, whom, about whom I knew something because I had had him in a humanities course. Some sort, I don’t know. And, and it was fun. And, and I don't know how it went from there. I can't describe, but I, they became friends and I took some courses. I certainly took some courses from, from King Turgeon--

[1:50:25] Lancaster: King, yeah.

[1:50:25] Hagstrom: --and in the French department, lots of courses, and then courses from Charlie Morgan. And one-hour or 2-hour courses, and they were survey kinds of things. 

[1:50:35] Lancaster: Yeah. 

[1:50:36] Hagstrom: And, but most importantly, socially, I was invited to be part of this whole world and, and it was not a big deal when I was an undergraduate, but Amherst faculty were very friendly toward Amherst students and they would have, I would go to the Packards’ occasionally for dinner because I can do them from Woods Hole. Same thing with the Ploughs. And so I knew Amherst faculty and then Morgans and Turgeons got added on. 

[1:51:04] And somehow, for some reason, and I really can't reconstruct this, Charlotte Turgeon and Janet Morgan became surrogate mothers for me, they really became very important people in my life. And when I would come back to Amherst, and I used to come back almost every year for library things or, or--

[1:51:24] Lancaster: Yes.

[1:51:24] Hagstrom: --not, not foot-, not homecomings. 

[1:51:27] Lancaster: Right.

[1:51:28] Hagstrom: And I would stay with the Morgans or the Turgeons and, and have great times with both. Well, they'd all get together and have parties. 

[1:51:38] Lancaster: Yeah, yeah.

[1:51:38] Hagstrom: And I can remember sitting up with Charlie Morgan, endless evenings, having one more drink or another and always learning something in the process of. And and, and to this day, as you know, I'm staying with Charlotte who is now 93, and and getting a little bit fuzzy in terms of remembering things, but otherwise--we went out for dinner last night and we just had the best of--she's still a dear close friend. And it's changed my life. And, and, and that was, I mean, it covers, so coming back to Amherst has been coming back to the college that gave me this extraordinary opportunity to learn. To the library where I feel like, almost like a professional home, and then to these homes of either the Morgans or the Turgeons, which have been really like, like real homes. 

[1:52:30] Lancaster: Yes, indeed. 

[1:52:31] Hagstrom: So it's been this kind of, and I used to go with either King or Charlie to, to--the faculty, it was the senior, the emeritus faculty used to meet in Valentine for coffee every morning at 10:30.

[1:52:45] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:52:46] Hagstrom: And this went on for I think, 20, 25 years. 

[1:52:48] Lancaster: Yeah, well, it was still going when I came here in the late ‘70s. But only for the last, for a couple more years. [crosstalk]

[1:52:53] Hagstrom: Yeah. That's right, but it was really quite an institution and, and it was a free-for-all in terms of the, and it was a game. I mean it was a--

[1:52:59] Lancaster: Yes. 

[1:53:00] Hagstrom: And, and whoever showed up, it was usually about 10, 12 people, Curt Canfield and so forth. 

[1:53:07] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:53:07] Hagstrom: Curtis and, and, oh, can’t remember her name now, were also at that, that Easter luncheon--Kitty!

[1:53:16] Lancaster: Kitty Canfield, yeah, okay.

[1:53:19] Hagstrom: And, and again, they were they were great friends till Curt and Kitty left to go to New Haven.

[1:53:25] Lancaster: Right.

[1:53:25] Hagstrom: He became director of theater.

[1:53:26] Lancaster: The Yale drama school.

[1:53:29] Hagstrom: The drama school, yeah.

[1:53:31] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:53:32] Hagstrom: And then, and in the summertime I would visit the Morgans on the vineyard or, or the Turgeons in Maine. That was my first introduction to Maine, was visiting the Turgeons up in Maine. So they became family. And that's--

[1:53:47] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:53:47] Hagstrom: So I've had this extraordinary relationship with Amherst that has been both family-oriented in the warmest kind of way--Janet Morgan was, was a very, very close friend of mine and she, she and her, her thinking about a lot of things really influenced me a lot. She was a surrogate mother to me.

[1:54:09] Lancaster: Yeah.

[1:54:10] Hagstrom: And George and I remain close friends, again. 

[1:54:14] Lancaster: Yeah. Did you, did you keep up other than this occasional coffee with, with other faculty members, Harold Plough, for instance? 

[1:54:21] Hagstrom: Yeah.

[1:54:22] Lancaster: Not in the same way, obviously. But, uh-- [crosstalk]

[1:54:24] Hagstrom: No. They’re different, but they remain, they all remained friends till, till they died. Yeah, yeah. And there's nobody left of that era. 

[1:54:31] Lancaster: No, there isn’t. [crosstalk]

[1:54:32] Hagstrom: I mean, Ben DeMott is the last one. 

[1:54:34] Lancaster: And he died last week. 

[1:54:35] Hagstrom: Exactly. He came to Amherst, the same year that, that I did in 1951.

[1:54:41] Lancaster: Uh huh, uh huh, yeah.

[1:54:42] Hagstrom: And he's the last one of that era, who remember, who was, who was part of that world. There's nobody else.

[1:54:51] Lancaster: Yeah, yeah.

[1:54:53] Hagstrom: And I, Plough, Ben Ziegler was, Ben, Ben Ziegler, somehow, I think was a second or third cousin of mine.

[1:55:02] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:55:02] Hagstrom: And I don't know how, but he was.

[1:55:05] Lancaster: Well he was quite a character, I remember that.

[1:55:07] Hagstrom: I remember one time when I went, there were, a bunch of us had been, been at, at, Northampton Hotel had a restaurant in the basement. It's still there, maybe, but do you know what it is? 

[1:55:21] Lancaster: No. Well, it’s not in the basement anymore, but, uh-- [crosstalk]

[1:55:22] Hagstrom:  It was a, a bar. And there was a little, rather nice bar there. We were playing catch with brandy snifters full of brandy. 

[1:55:29] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:55:29] Hagstrom: And, and, and the police came, and they ,they put us in jail. And I called Ben Ziegler in the middle of the night and said, you know, “would you get us out of here?” 

[1:55:39] “No.”

[1:55:40] Lancaster: [laughs]

[1:55:40] Hagstrom: You'd have to sit--

[1:55:40] Lancaster: Exactly. Well, teach you a lesson. 

[1:55:44] Hagstrom: Not Rahars, I can’t remember.

[1:55:45] Lancaster: Well, Rahars, Rahars was a basement bar. [crosstalk]

[1:55:49] Hagstrom: Wiggins Tavern. Wiggins Tavern. Wiggins Tavern.  

[1:55:50] Lancaster: Yeah, Wiggins Tavern. It's still there, but it's not in the basement anymore.

[1:55:52] Hagstrom: Well, that's what it was. [both laugh]

[1:55:53] Lancaster: Well, okay--

[1:55:56] Hagstrom: But that's, that, that's been a very important component of my Amherst rela--, of my existence, yeah.