top of page

About the Author

and Blog

Anna-Maria Manuel, a life-long Oak Parker, is a veteran record collector, specializing in popular music on cylinders and discs, from the 1890s to 1940—the older, the better. An interest in many things historical sprang from her love of old records, including a fascination with pre-1930 architecture and local history.

 

While in college, Anna borrowed books about village history from the Oak Park Public Library, discovering the historical photos collected or taken by Philander Barclay. For her, Barclay’s images authentically portrayed Oak Park during the “horse-and-buggy days,” as Barclay termed the late-19th and very early-20th centuries. They captured her imagination. Not only did Anna want to continue learning about early Oak Park, she also sought to answer the question: Who was Philander Barclay?

 

Years later, Anna read a lengthy article about Barclay in a local paper. From it, she learned that Barclay had documented Oak Park history in photos and sound recordings. The Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest held Barclay’s personal collection of oral history, cut by him on wax-cylinder records. However, the Historical Society did not own a phonograph capable of playing cylinders. Wanting to hear the voices and memories captured on Barclay’s unique recordings and owning an Edison cylinder phonograph, Anna contacted the Historical Society soon after reading the article. She transferred Barclay’s recordings in March 1993, making them more accessible. An exciting part: Anna and Carol Kelm, then-Executive Director of the Historical Society, were probably the first people to hear the voices of Oak Parkers past in 50+ years, since Barclay’s death in 1940.

 

Thanks to today’s widespread digitization of newspapers and other historical sources, Anna was delighted to realize that Barclay’s approach to preserving history had earned him national attention. News about his recordings appeared in publications beyond Oak Park, such as The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Popular Mechanics, The American Magazine, Talking Machine World (a trade publication serving the phonograph industry), and small, local newspapers, like the Mitchell Daily Republican (South Dakota), Saint Joseph Observer (Missouri), and Rawlins Carbon County Journal (Wyoming).

 

Those old newspapers yielded contemporary stories about Barclay, advertisements for his bicycle business, editorial letters written by Barclay, along with insights into his parents, siblings, friends, and colleagues. From time to time, local papers published Barclay’s historical photos and articles, elaborating on the images in detail.

 

Connecting the dots among a wealth of information gathered from old newspapers, databases, and the Barclay Collection at the Historical Society has allowed Anna to gradually compile a more detailed and accurate portrait of Barclay.

 

Anna created this blog as a way to begin sharing her Barclay research findings and relate some of the fascinating stories that have emerged. Barclay spent a lifetime documenting generations of Oak Park history in articles, photographs, and sound recordings. Now, it’s time to better document—and honor—Philander Barclay, Oak Park’s first Village Historian.

April 16, 2023

bottom of page