Alexandre Vattemare
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Nicolas Marie Alexandre Vattemare (1796 in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
– 1864), also known under the stage name Monsieur Alexandre, was a French ventriloquist and philanthropist who created the first international system for the exchange of items among libraries and museums.


Career as ventriloquist

Around age seven, Vattemare discovered a talent for
ventriloquism Ventriloquism or ventriloquy is an act of stagecraft in which a person (a ventriloquist) speaks in such a way that it seems like their voice is coming from a different location, usually through a puppet known as a "dummy". The act of ventrilo ...
and the ability to imitate sounds. He trained as a surgeon, but was refused a diploma after making cadavers seem to speak during surgical exercises. At age 18 he was placed in charge of some 300 to 400
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-afflicted Prussian prisoners of war, and in 1814, the soldiers asked that he accompany them to Berlin. Facing economic problems in Berlin, he decided to earn money as a ventriloquist, performing under the stage name Monsieur Alexandre. His career lasted from 1815 to 1835, during which he visited over 550 cities and performed before royalty including the Tsar of Russia and Queen Victoria. His performances did not use a dummy, but rather involved Vattemare presenting plays in which he portrayed all the characters, involving dozens of voices. Vattemare wrote his own comedic scripts, which he performed in French, German, and English. He gained acclaim and wealth through his ventriloquism, while becoming friends with famous writers and artists including
Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
,
Lamartine Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine (; 21 October 179028 February 1869) was a French author, poet, and statesman. Initially a moderate royalist, he became one of the leading critics of the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe, aligning more w ...
, Pushkin, and
Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...
.


Philanthropic activities and cultural exchange system

After becoming famous and wealthy as a ventriloquist, Vattemare retired and spent the next 25 years as a philanthropist promoting free public libraries and the universal dissemination of culture. During his travels, he had gathered a remarkable collection of coins, stamps, and autographs. He had also visited museums and libraries, and had observed a high degree of duplication in collections. He developed a new system of cultural exchanges of items between libraries and museums, which he promoted energetically for decades. He used his fame as a ventriloquist to promote his proposed cultural exchange system. After being rebuffed by the French legislature, he visited the United States in 1839 and 1847 to promote his system. His proposals were better-received in the United States and Canada than they had been in France. The city of Philadelphia gave him a signed copy of the Constitution, and he traveled to 13 states and Canada. By 1843, he had brought "1,800 volumes, 500 coins, 250 engravings, and numerous mineralogical and natural history specimens" to France. In his 1847 visit, Vattemare brought with him 50 cases of French archives and coins. In 1848, the
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agreed to pay him $5,940 per year to support his project. He inspired the founding of the
Boston Public Library The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse''), meaning all adult re ...
.First Founders of the Boston Public Library, Boston Public Library
/ref> He first proposed the unification of Boston's major social libraries and a committee to investigate this idea appointed by mayor, Josiah Quincy.McCook, Kathleen de la Peña (2011). ''Introduction to Public Librarianship'', p. 22. Neal-Schuman. In 1853, the system of exchange was expanded considerably with the participation of 130 libraries around the world, including the Boston Public Library. He created the American Library of Paris, which in 1860 contained 14,000 volumes from the early United States. Vattemare donated several cases of objects to the fledgling
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
, which set up a system of cultural exchange inspired by Vattemare's. Although Vattemare's exchange system ran out of money and collapsed after Vattemare's death, the international book exchanges organized by Vattemare had accomplished the exchange of thousands of volumes. Vattemare is credited with inspiring the expansion of the library system in the United States, and his exchange system is regarded as a forerunner of later cultural exchange systems, including
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. Books and other documents exchanged through Vattemare's system can still be found in libraries throughout the world, particularly Boston and Paris. Those collections include many rare and valuable publications of great interest to modern historians.


Bibliography

This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the French-language Wikipedia, accessed in the version of 10 July 2007. * Havens, Earle. (2007). The ventriloquist who changed the world. American Libraries, 38(7), 54-57. * Tilliette, Pierre-Alain, Havens, Earle, ''L'ambassadeur extravagant : Alexandre Vattemare, pionnier des échanges culturels internationaux'', Le Passage, Paris, 2007 * Revai, Elisabeth, ''Alexandre Vattemare, trait d'union entre deux mondes : Le Québec et les États-Unis à l'aube de leurs relations culturelles avec la France au XIXe siècle : d'après des documents en grande partie inédits, certains provenant des familles Vattemare et Faribault'', Bellarmin, Montréal, 1975 *''Catalogue du fonds des États-Unis d'Amérique . 2. Précédé d'une étude sur Alexandre Vattemare et la bibliothèque américaine de la Ville de Paris'' par Pierre-Alain Tilliette, Mairie de Paris, Paris, 2002


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vattemare, Alexandre Ventriloquists 1864 deaths 1796 births People associated with the Boston Public Library 19th-century French philanthropists French entertainers