Past Imperfect: Essays on History, Libraries, and the Humanities

Contents:
Introduction: Bill Towner

I. Historian.
1. "A Fondness for Freedom" : Servant Protest in Puritan Society
2. The Sewall-Saffin Dialogue on Slavery
3. The Indentures of Boston's Poor Apprentices, 1734-1805
4. The Confessions and Dying Warnings in Colonial New England
5. Ars Poetica Et Sculptura : Pocahontas on the Boston Common
6. Pocahontas on the Boston Common, Revisited
7. The Mapping of the American Revolutionary War in the Nineteenth Century
8. American Studies Today ; The Middle of a Revolution (1969)

II. Librarian.
9. Past Imperfect: The Uses of a Research Library
10. A History of the Newberry Library
11. A Plan for the Newberry Library (1971)
12. Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud : The Recent Shaping of the Newberry Library's Collections
13. "Wrecking" Havoc : Conservation at the Newberry
14. The Art of the Antiquarian Book Dealer
15. Genealogy at the Newberry : The Service That Came in out of the Cold
16. An End to Innocence
17. An Exciting and Incredibly Rewarding Twenty Years

III. Colleague.
18. Ray Allen Billington
19. Clifford Kenyon Shipton
20. Lester Jesse Cappon
21. Hermon Dunlap Smith
22. D'Arcy McNickle
23. Everett Dwight Graff

IV. Spokesman for the humanities.
24. Some of My Best Friends Used to Be University Press Directors
25. Independent Research Libraries: "Truly National Libraries"
26. On "Pure Scholarship" And "Public Programs"
27. "What Are Our National Priorities, Anyhow?" : In Defense of the National Endowment for the Humanities
28. Turning Problems into Opportunities : An Agenda for the Humanities
Published Writings of Lawrence W. Towner.