About Exhibit
Lenore Sandel spent the majority of her life in education, being one of the first women to receive a doctoral degree from Hofstra University in 1970. Born in 1922, Sandel later attended Hunter College and went on to marry Leonard Sandel in 1943. Sandel went on to have an extensive career in education, teaching at a variety of institutions and a wide age range of students. When moving on to Hofstra, Sandel taught there for 30 years focusing on language and literacy. Due to her outstanding work in education and her service to the university, Sandel was made professor emerita in 1994. Later in 2000, she generously gave her collection of children’s literature to the Hofstra University Special Collections. The collection includes a large variety of books spanning a large amount of time, one of the oldest books in the collection published in 1870. Sandel passed away on September 14th, 2011 leaving behind a legacy in the field of education and charitable work. Lenore Sandel’s dedication to the field of education and her generosity to provide such a diverse collection of children’s literature to the Hofstra Special Collections Library has allowed for an in-depth study that allows this archive to exist.
Hofstra Special Collections contains three different areas of study such as: The Rare Books and Manuscripts collections, consisting of books brought together by a collector or items brought together because of a particular theme, The University Archives focusing on the history of the University, and The Long Island Studies Institute containing information about the history of Long Island. The collection as a whole contains a variety of subjects ranging from politics, literary publications, even themes that surround a particular idea or time period. Special Collections contains the Lenore Sandel Children’s Literature Collection. Within this collection, there is a wide variety of children’s books and studies on children’s literature. This archive is looking to focus on children’s poetry and its significance to children’s literature. This archive focuses on a variety of Mother Goose poems due to its lengthy history and lasting popularity among children, as well as examining other children’s poetry looking at themes, subject matter, poetic form and structure as well as any differences in poems across time.