Master Bookbinder Max Adjarian moves to Renaissance

Photo of Max Adjarian, 23-yr old French bookbinder

for Cornell University, 1953

[ed. - Max Adjarian moved his bindery to Renaissance and trained members in his trade. His shop was at one time housed in what is now the Apollo Festival Hall. See also this touching remembrance by his daughter, M. M. Adjarian: "What Abides."]

From the Lodi News-Sentinel December 23, 1953:

Cornell Bookbinder Got Start In War

The banning of Boy Scout meetings in occupied France during World War II started a young Parisian on a hobby that led him to the Cornell University library as a bookbinder.

When the meetings were banned in France in 1942, Max Adjarian and two other scouts decided to teach themselves how to bind books. Two years later, Adjarian packed a ton of equipment and set out for America. He visited Ithaca residents, liked the city and the Cornell campus. He applied for work and was quickly accepted.

Victor Emanuel of New York, Cornell alumnus and trustee who donated Cornell's Wordsworth collection, helps to sponsor Adjarian's work of restoring rare volumes from that collection and others in the library.

Also see: https://web.archive.org/web/20150511235641/http://library.ucr.edu:80/view/collections/spcol/bookarts/bookbinding.html

September 1977 Notes

Sample page from the heavily-edited Renaissance Journal.

"Renaissance Vine" newsletter [summarized]

The "Renaissance Journal" has been inaugurated (Taking the place of the "Mount Carmel Journal". This usually consists of the notes from the regular Fellowship Bay Area meetings [heavily edited by Linda Kaplan Rockwood.]

The purchase of land (at Renaissance) by students is encouraged  

January 1, 1978: Fellowship plans to acquire 60 acres, across Rice’s Crossing Road, west of Blake Cottage 

Shakespeare Study [library] is being converted to the Oriental Dining Room 

Exercise: If one ends a relationship, one must remain celibate for one year

As of October 1st, the re-entry donation will be $2,500

Other Notes

"The Teacher" announces that if one is more than 6 weeks behind in payments, one is no longer in the school.

“Everyone is current in their payments…save four or five people.” – The Teacher

[ed. - Note the use of "payments," not donations. This was before the push to emphasize the Fellowship's status as a "church." Also, the statement is false. In the tiny Dallas Center alone, there were three or four behind in "payments."]

The Fellowship of Friends opens a center (centre, that is) in London.

The more one serves, the more one must pay. It is admittedly difficult to accept that the highest retribution we may receive from Influence C is additional friction. Nevertheless, suffering does produce imperishable being. - The Teacher, Renaissance Journal, September 26, 1977.