Warren Center Intends Move to Church Street

Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History will move to temporary quarters in an office building at 53 Church Street, Oscar M. Handlin, Director of the Center, announced yesterday.

Handlin expects the center to move by the end of the summer and to remain there for the next four or five years until a more suitable building is either vacated or built.

The full facilities planned for the Warren Center will not be moved to Church Street, Handlin added. There will be reading and research rooms as well as office space, he said, but the library will not be started there, because the building is not fire proof.

Handlin does hope, however, to arrive at a plan to "take some of the pressure off Widener," where the stacks are far too crowded. There will probably be a system permitting specific books to be sent over from Widener, even if they are not kept there permanently, he said.

The teaching and research program of the center will be started by the beginning of the next academic year, Handlin said. He added that appointments for some of the fellowships made possible by the $7 million grant for the Warren Center will be announced within the next few weeks.

He does not expect, however, that the two endowed chairs which have not already been filled -- one for the History of American Education and the other for the History of Religion in America -- will be filled by next year. "These will almost certainly go to people from out side the University," he predicted.

Handlin himself has already been named to the Warren Chair in American History and Mark DeWolfe Howe '28, professor of Law, will hold the Chair in American Legal history.

One of the projects which the Center will sponsor next year is a revision of the Harvard Guide to American History, Handlin said. The guide is at present complete only through 1950. He also expects the Center to publish a periodical.