The David Eugene Smith Collection of works in Chinese on mathematics and other subjects: Link
The David Eugene Smith collection of works in Japanese on Japanese mathematics: Link
Japanese woodblock printed books and other unique Japanese materials at Columbia University: Link
This collection is located on site.
Collection is closed for digitization/conservation work. Some materials can be made available through special arrangement based on the condition of the items. Please email rbml@columbia.edu.
Certain items in the collection Requires staff member assistance to view in the reading room.
Series: Chinese, Books and Manuscripts
The series comprises of Chinese books collected by Smith and Plimpton. The wide range of subjects covered in the books include: Bibliography, Arithmetic and Mathematics, Abacus, Astronomy, Calendar, Classics, Religion, Education, Names, Language and Literature, and Games.
Some items have been individually cataloged. Please search for the following query as Call Numbers in CLIO (https://clio.columbia.edu/): "Smith Chinese" OR "Plimpton Chinese"
The information about the items prefixed with A-Y in this series came from The David Eugene Smith Collection of works in Chinese on mathematics and other subjects, by Miwa Kai, 1989.
Series: Manchu and Mongolian, Books
The series comprises of Manchu and Mongolian books collected by David Eugene Smith.
Series: Japanese, Books and Manuscripts
The series comprises of Japanese books collected by Smith and Plimpton. The wide range of subjects covered in the books include: Bibliography, Arithmetic and Mathematics, Japanese Mathematics, Abacus, Astronomy, Calendar, Surveying, Economics, Education, Religion, Art and Calligraphy, Language and Literature.
Some items have been individually cataloged. Please search for the following query as Call Numbers in CLIO (https://clio.columbia.edu/): "Smith Japanese" OR "Plimpton Japanese"
The information in this series came from The David Eugene Smith collection of works in Japanese on Japanese mathematics, by Miwa Kai, 1986.
This series contains a variety of memorabilia collected by David Eugene Smith and George A. Plimpton during their travel to East Asia. Materials include manuscripts, paintings, works on fabric, objects, woodblocks, rubbings, scrolls, and so on.
Formerly part of the Smith Orientalia collection.
Collection arranged in 4 series.
The David Eugene Smith Collection of works in Chinese on mathematics and other subjects: Link
The David Eugene Smith collection of works in Japanese on Japanese mathematics: Link
Japanese woodblock printed books and other unique Japanese materials at Columbia University: Link
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
This collection is located on site.
Collection is closed for digitization/conservation work. Some materials can be made available through special arrangement based on the condition of the items. Please email rbml@columbia.edu.
Certain items in the collection Requires staff member assistance to view in the reading room.
Reproductions may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Smith-Plimpton East Asian collection; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Smith Orientalia
Tibetan Manuscript collection
Smith Indic/South and Southeast Asian collection
Gift of David Eugene Smith and George Arthur Plimpton.
Edgren, Soren. "George Arthur Plimpton and His Chinese Connection." Columbia Library Column 40:1 (1990), 14-23.
Some items from the collection are also featured in Mathematical Association of American (MAA)'s Index to the Collection of Mathematical Treasures from the David Eugene Smith and George Arthur Plimpton collections. https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/index-to-mathematical-treasures
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Processed by Yingwen Huang, 2022. Materials in this collection were processed to the item level. Series: Memorabilia is currently awaiting conservation assessment.
David Eugene Smith (January 21, 1860 – July 29, 1944): Mathematician. Professor of mathematics at the State Normal School, Cortland, N.Y., 1884-1891; at Michigan State Normal College, 1891-1898; at New York State Normal School, Brockport, N.Y., 1898-1901; and at Teachers College, Columbia University, 1901-1944. He was the editor of the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, the American Mathematical Monthly, and Scripta Mathematica, a member of the International Commission on the Teaching of Mathematics, 1908-1944; and librarian of Teachers College, 1902-1920. He was the author of Rara Mathematica (1907), The History of Mathematics (1924), and many other works on the history of mathematics as well as over forty mathematical textbooks and numerous journal articles. He also collected manuscript materials relating to the history of mathematics.
David Eugene Smith was born in January 1860 at Cortland, New York. He received his early education in Cortland and then went on to Syracuse University. From 1881-1884 he practiced law at Cortland before taking up the teaching of mathematics at the State Normal School in Cortland, 1885-1891. For seven years, thereafter, he was professor of mathematics at the Michigan State Normal College, Ypsilanti. After that he served three years as principal of the New York State Normal School at Brockport. In 1901 he was appointed professor of mathematics at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he taught until his retirement in 1926.
Not long after coming to Columbia, he started his annual trips abroad to collect items for his library. Over the years, he crossed the Atlantic seventy-four times and visited almost every country in the world. Besides printed and manuscript books, he collected documents, autograph letters, portraits of mathematicians, medals, counters, and a variety of mathematical and astronomical instruments.
His first trip to Japan was in 1907 and his intentions are made clear in one of his dictated notes as recorded in a memorial publication by Lao G. Simons: "In Japan, I simply laid down the rule that I wanted to buy every mathematical manuscript or printed book that could be found." With the collaboration of Mikami Yoshio, a distinguished scholar of Japanese and Chinese mathematics, he wrote A History of Japanese Mathematics, which was published in 1914.
In 1931 he gave Columbia University his library, which in a 1940 inventory numbered some 20,300 items. After fifty-five years of dormant presence, the Japanese language materials have finally bean cataloged, thus making them accessible to scholars and students. The major portion of the Japanese materials is on Japanese mathematics with a number of titles in the related fields of the abacus, surveying, astronomy, and calendar-making. Works touching on a few other subjects make up the balance.
David Eugene Smith died at his home in New York on July 29, 1944 at the age of 84.
George Arthur Plimpton (July 13, 1855-July 1, 1936): publisher and collector, college trustee and philanthropist. Phillips Exeter Academy, 1873; Amherst College, 1876. After a year at Harvard Law School, he began as salesman in the educational publishing house of Ginn and Heath, becoming a member of the firm in 1882. In 1914, he became head of the firm, renamed Ginn and Company, was active in it until 1931, and remained a member until his death on July 1, 1936.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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