Cordelia Taylor Baker (d. 1940) attended the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, and she is known to have studied under Louis Kinder in London, Jules Domont in Paris, and Louis Jacobs in Brussels. According to letters written by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson in April and June, 1900, Baker evidently studied at the Doves Bindery beginning in October of that year; shortly after returning to the United States in 1902 she was hired as an instructor at the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts.

The circumstances of Baker’s employment are described in the minutes of the school's Board of Control. At a meeting on June 4th, 1902, Professor H.C. Ives, director of the school, reported the resignation of two painting instructors. Ives recommended that the two classes taught by these instructors be taken over by a single instructor, thus realizing a considerable savings in salary costs. "He further recommended that the amount thus saved be used in establishing a class in bookbinding. Miss Baker, a former student of the School, had recently returned from England where she had been, for the last two years, studying with Cobden Sanderson at the Dove [sic] Bindery. The Director had corresponded with Miss Baker and she was willing to undertake the care of such a class" (p. 186).

Baker taught beginning and advanced courses in bookbinding at the School of Fine Arts from 1902-1920. A feature article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on February 5, 1909, attests to the success of Baker's courses and the growing popularity of bookbinding generally among "St. Louis society girls." In an interesting aside, the article notes as well that "Miss Baker is now making a series of salamanders for W. K. Bixby, who is fond of collecting manuscripts."

Washington University’s Department of Special Collections holds a number of collections relating to Cordelia Baker and her activities in St. Louis. In 1940 (the year of her death), a collection of books from her library came to the university’s School of Fine Arts. Among the volumes listed are “Three handbound notebooks on Book Binding,” which contain bookbinding-related articles and numerous illustrations of fine bindings pasted onto blank leaves. Evidently forming part of the circulating collections initially, the volumes were described as a three-volume set with C.T. Baker as compiler.

A second collection of books came to the School of Fine Arts in 1949 when Baker’s niece, Anne Baker, made the following bequest to Washington University's School of Fine Arts: "I give and bequeath ... as a memorial to my late aunt, Cordelia Taylor Baker, the collection of hand-bound books, largely the work of her and her pupils, which was left to me by my said late aunt," along with the sum of two thousand dollars "to house this collection suitably." At the recommendation of William Matheson, Chief of the Rare Book Department, this collection was transferred in 1969 to what is now the Department of Special Collections.

The department also houses, on deposit, several volumes by one of Cordelia Baker's students, Helen Day Buckham (“whose mark Miss Baker says is of exceptional merit,” according to the Post-Dispatch article cited above). It is interesting to note the similarities in style and execution of bindings by the three generations of bookbinders represented in the department’s holdings.

Finally, ten letters from Doves Press proprietor T.J. Cobden-Sanderson to Baker form part of the recently acquired Triple Crown Collection. The letters span the years 1900-1917 and touch on a variety of subjects. There are reports on various members of the Doves printing establishment and on Annie Cobden-Sanderson’s activities relating to the Conciliation (Suffrage) Bill, and there are references to Baker’s St. Louis employment and (later) to the effect the war is having on press activities. Perhaps the most moving is the final letter of the series, dated 8 September 1917, in which Cobden-Sanderson describes “what has become of the Press & ourselves” after the consignment of the Doves type – along with its punches and matrices –to the River Thames.

--With thanks to Carole Prietto of the Washington University Archives for her assistance.

Erin Davis
Curator of Rare Books
Washington University Libraries