Herschel V. Jones

Herschel V. Jones (August 30, 1861 – May 24, 1928) was a publisher of the Minneapolis Journal (now the Star Tribune) for twenty years as well as a noted book collector. He is best known for his collection of Americana.

Jones' personal philosophy was that "credit, based on character and integrity" was more important than available cash. With it, he went from being a farm-boy who dropped out of school to become a publisher and editor, patron of literature and the arts, and collector of Americana.

Journalist and publisher

Jones' career in journalism started early. At fifteen, he began to work on the staff of the Jefferson Courier (in Jefferson, Schoharie County, N.Y.) where he was born and raised. At eighteen he bought the paper for $700. In 1908 he bought the Minneapolis Journal for $1,200,000 (with only $25,000 in assets of his own.) Before his death, Jones supervised the publication of a two-volume catalog of about 300 of the most valuable of these books, which was titled Adventures in Americana, 1492-1897: The Romance of Voyage and Discovery.

As an example of this last collection, for the period from 1492 to 1608, Jones had three of the printed Letters of Christopher Columbus (from the late 15th Century) and three of the printed Letters of Amerigo Vespucci printed in 1503 and 1504. Also in the collection was a copy of Cosmographiae Introductio printed in 1507, which is the booklet written to accompany the first map to suggest that the new continent be called America. He also had a copy of Globus Mundi, printed in 1509, which was the first book in which the name America was really adopted.

According to the New York Times, it was through his friendship with Theodore Roosevelt, whom he met while covering the 1900 presidential campaign, that Jones developed an interest in American literature. (The New York Times claims there were 5,852 prints valued at $700,000.

In 1920, Jones sold his collection of modern etchings and started to collect etchings by old masters, including Rembrandt's Lucretia, and El Greco's Portrait of a Nobleman, which he bought in 1926 for $75,000. In his estate, he left trust funds to the Minnesota Historical Society and the library of the University of Minnesota.

Herschel V. Jones Collection "Herschel V. Jones (1861–1928) anonymously donated more than 5,300 prints to the MIA in 1916, establishing one of the first public print departments in the country. These prints were from the Ladd Collection, which Jones purchased that same year. The Ladd Collection, formed during a thirty-year period by William M. Ladd of Portland, Oregon, contained woodcuts, engravings, etchings, and lithographs tracing the history of graphic arts. To supplement the Ladd Collection, Jones purchased rare and esoteric works that are virtually unattainable today, such as Dürer's Saint Jerome in His Study and an extremely rare hand-colored woodcut, c. 1465, by Firabet of Rapperswil. What came to be known as the Herschel V. Jones Collection is, to this day, the heart of the MIA's prints and drawings collection and still is the largest gift of artwork ever donated to the MIA."

Other resources AE Monthly August Edition at www.americanaexchange.com

Checklist of the Library of H.V. Jones (Originally published in 1928) H. V. Jones: A Newspaperman's Imprint on Minneapolis History by John J. Koblas

Michaux, Lisa Dickinson, et al. Herschel V. Jones : The Imprint of a Great Collector. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2006.