“The University Library houses a wealth of information on our founder,” said Cornell President David Skorton.  “I am delighted that Ezra Cornell’s 200th birthday is giving us an opportunity to celebrate his singular contributions to American higher education while also highlighting the strength of the Library’s Rare and Manuscript Collections.”

“Ezra Cornell was an extraordinary man, entirely self-educated and self-made,” said Elaine Engst, the director of the library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections and one of the exhibition’s curators.  “With Andrew Dickson White, his remarkable ideals constituted a radical educational experiment for the 1860s, and led, in the small rural community of Ithaca, NY, to the realization of the first ‘truly American university.’”

“There is a special place in our heart for Ezra Cornell,” said Interim University Librarian Anne R. Kenney.  “He was a great book lover and his very first philanthropic act was to fund the establishment of a public library in Ithaca.  He also made sure that Willard Fiske, the first university librarian, had the resources to build the foundations for what has become one of the very best libraries in the world.”

“What impresses me about Ezra Cornell is that having been poor, and then in debt, when he came into money -- and he came into a lot of money for the day -- his immediate goal was to use it to do the most good and to do something for his hometown,” said Carol Kammen, a senior lecturer in the university’s history department and co-curator of the exhibition.  “In an age that would come to be dominated by ‘Robber Barons,’ Ezra Cornell set a stunning example of stewardship and humanity.”