From King Ferdinand to the Warren Commission, Eclectic Collection Arrives at Fordham Libraries

Fordham Newsroom

Excerpt from Alexander Hamilton’s speech to the assembly of New York, published in 1787Stanley Yavneh Klos, a collector of rare documents and manuscripts, has donated an eclectic collection to Fordham Libraries to honor his father, Louis Alexander Klos, Ph.D., GSE ’66.
The Louis Alexander Klos Papers hold a wide range of documents that will bolster several areas in the Archives and Special Collections, said Patrice Kane, head of the archives.
Aaron Burr’s likely signature on a legal document from 1784
“The gift reflects the diversity of our archives because we have everything from early papyrus up to contemporary books on the origins of hip hop, and this will add our eclectic collection,”  said Kane. “Mr. Kloss saw what we have and thought of things from his own collection that match, like a document likely signed by Aaron Burr’s that will fit in nicely with other material we have on the Founding Fathers.”
The senior Klos joined the Xaverian Brothers in 1933 and went on to become an expert in business education, founding the National Catholic Business Association in 1945. He taught at several New York City colleges before enrolling at Fordham to earn his doctorate in school administration. In 1952 he met Eileen Hundertmark. The two married and had eight children. After Eileen died in 1974, he married Elizabeth Rutowski, and the two had a child.
The collection includes Louis Klos’ own papers as well as content relating to Jesuits, Catholic businesses, the nation’s Founding Fathers, Freemasons, the meteorological musings of Ben Franklin, Hessian flies, and breeding mules—to name but a few.
Document signed by King Ferdinand VII of Spain in 1815 reads “Yo el Rey,” or “I The King.”
The collection’s diversity is additionally reflected through its assortment of autographs, which include the infamous Father Flanagan of Boys Town, actress Helen Hayes, playwright Charles Gordon MacArthur, and explorer-adventurer Roy ...

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