Collecting Delaware Books
Charles Gilpin Dorman
Pioneer Delaware Book Collector
(This story was not published in CDB. It is only on this Web site.)
Charles Gilpin Dorman died January 29, 2000, at the age of 79. Dorman was a life-long Delaware book collector and vigorous supporter of Collecting Delaware Books.
He graduated from Wilmington High School and had a bachelors degree in history from the University of Delaware. He was drafted in World War II, and told of being marched off to the train station amid cheering crowds that included the ladies of the Greenwood book shop, the cradle of Delaware book collecting. After the war in 1946, he became a major customer, good friend, and frequent lunch companion of Gertrude Kruse, the Greenwood proprietor. Dorman managed the J. Kenneth Danby Galleries, an antiques shop on Washington St. in Wilmington.
In the 1950s, he joined the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. as a historian. From 1960 until retirement in 1983, Dorman was a curator at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He researched, acquired, and installed furnishings for several rooms. (See Philadelphia Inquirer for February 5, 2000, page B4 for more information.)
During this period, he lived in Philadelphia but was always a Delawarean at heart. Said to be a raconteur, his trade mark was a whistled rendition of "Greensleeves" to announce his arrival.
Charles Dorman was always generous to the Historical Society of Delaware, according to Tom Beckman. He contributed his maritime library dealing with the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. He also gave prints and drawings from Wilmington's shipbuilding years.
In 1994, Dorman's subscription to Collecting Delaware Books lapsed. In February 1995, he renewed and explained he had suffered two strokes. His apartment was rebuilt to accommodate his lack of mobility. Several times thereafter, he said he was working on an article for Collecting Delaware Books about the early Delaware book collectors he had known. Alas, it was never completed.
Charles is survived by a cousin, R. Drake Dorman of Philadelphia, and other cousins, nieces, and nephews. Services were held at Friends of Old Drawyers Presbyterian Church in Odessa. A later memorial service was announced (see below).
