In late October, we received an out-of-town researcher. The friendly woman looked straight at me, shook my hand enthusiastically, and said “Hello, I am from the Brockway Museum!” The name rang a bell right away, because everyone at Richter Library calls the name at least once a day.
Mr. George A. Brockway was one of the first major supporters of the university library. He was an industrialist from Cortland, NY, wintered in Miami Beach, and in October 1943 he gave $100,000 in war bonds for a new library funding. For him the Brockway Lecture Hall in the Otto G. Richter Library was named.
The researcher seemed very pleased to know Mr. Brockway’s contributions for the Library and other University causes have been documented in University’s historical collections and we could produce copies of them while she waited. Later, we have also sent a complementary high-resolution image of Mr. Brockway presenting a check to the UM’s first president Dr. Ashe from the Historical Photograph Collection (below) for the museum.
Please go to the link below to research and browse the University of Miami Historical Photograph Collection.
http://merrick.library.miami.edu/digitalprojects/photographs.php
University of Miami Archives -- Let's Archive It 