In a dual career as author and librarian, Lawrence C. Wroth interpreted American history through bibliography. His publications ranged from the definitive Colonial Printer (1931) to newspaper articles, and he drew the material for much of his writing from his study and development of a major collection, the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island.

Lawrence Counselman Wroth was born in Baltimore on 14 January 1884, one of three sons of the Reverend Peregrine Wroth, an Episcopal minister, and Mary Augusta Counselman Wroth. The Wroths were descended from a family of early settlers in Kent County on the eastern shore of Maryland, and Lawrence's great-grandfather, another Peregrine Wroth, tried his hand at poetry and wrote his memoirs. An interest in history and literature thus seems to have run in the family.

As a child Wroth loved to read and was especially attracted to the romance of history. After attending public...