Freshman year, I spent a lot of time doing homework in one of the Asian collection rooms on the ground floor of Kroch Library. At the time, I saw it as a quiet place to study. I had no idea I was writing Spanish essays and working on calculus problem sets above an original copy of the Gettysburg Address, 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablets, and the socks Ezra Cornell wore on his wedding day. Kroch’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections houses these historical gems, as well as millions of other documents and artifacts.
In June, I went to Kroch hoping to discover more about Llenroc, the mansion Ezra Cornell built, for a “Cornelliana” piece for CAM. To get to the archives, you walk through Olin to the Kroch Library area in the back and go down to the basement level. Once you’ve stored your belongings in a locker, you fill out request forms and are escorted to a small, glassed-in room with rows of desks. A librarian keeps an eye on researchers as they peruse books and boxes of documents (some of which have to be handled with gloves), snap photographs (no flash), and take notes on laptops or paper (no pens allowed).
I’m far from the first person to sift through Ezra’s original letters, receipts, and bills. But I still felt a thrill at being so close to history as I skimmed through page after page of gorgeous cursive and saw Ezra and A. D. White’s original signatures. I felt like one of the heroes of “History Detectives,” minus the camera crew and dramatic background music. As I jotted down notes (in pencil!), I imagined Ezra sitting at his desk, dipping his quill into ink. Did he ever imagine his letters would be stored so carefully beneath his campus, read and analyzed by generations to come?
Walking across Ho Plaza afterward, I thought about the founders in a new light. Those two imposing statues on the Arts Quad were real people with families, financial woes, and incredible plans for the future. They sat at their desks putting their thoughts to paper. They walked around Cornell’s campus—albeit a much less developed one—just as thousands of students, professors, and others do every day. They weren’t mythical, exalted figures; they were people like us.
— Maya Rajamani ’12