Wisconsin's Library Lions

By far the most famous library lions are those that grace the front entrance of the New York Public Library's building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The Oshkosh Public Library in Wisconsin also has a pair of library lions and, like those in New York, they have provided an important visual symbol of the public library. Also like the lions of the New York Public Library, the library lions in Oshkosh are named. They were named Harris and Sawyer in 1977 for two of the prominent early donors to the library.  Earlier this month the Oshkosh Public Library celebrated the 100th anniversary of the installation of the lions in front of the library in 1912. The celebration included a variety of activities including a "Lion's Pride" mini sculpture contest. The lions sit in front of the library that was built in 1900. A major expansion and renovation of the building took place in 1994. The Oshkosh Public Library has a commemorative history of the lions as well as an overall history of the library on its website. The website of the New York Public Library has a page on its lions. There is also a good printed history of the New York Public Library lions titled Top Cats: The Life and Times of The New York Public Library Lions by Susan G. Larkin (Pomegranate, 2006).

Library History Buff Google Images

Pinterest has become a popular Internet program to group and share images on a wide variety of topics in an interesting way. One of my favorite Pinterest boards is the American Libraries Bookmobiles board. A Google image search also offers a way to do this in a less sophisticated manner. Almost all of my blog posts include an image that is related to the post. I did a Google image search using the term "library history buff blog" and it resulted in most of the images that I have used on the blog.  It also retrieved some images from my Library History Buff website and from other  blogs and websites that have linked to the Library History Buff blog.The Google image search provides a visual index to the Library History Buff blog that offers an alternative method to access the blog's content. It also let's me know who is linking my blog and website. One of the images retrieved (see below) led me to an interesting post on Cosmopolitan Scum, a blog "about architecture, urbanism, and design from a humanistic perspective". The post uses images of Library of Congress souvenir china in the Norman D Stevens archive  at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal as the starting point for a larger essay on the role of libraries. It includes a link to my web page on the Stevens collection. 

Boston Athenaeum Staff 1897

My collection of postal librariana consists mostly of envelopes usually without the contents. It is much more interesting when I find the letter which was sent in an envelope, especially when it has tidbits of information about the staff of the library. I have a letter (first page shown above) which was mailed in June of 1897 by a staff member of the Boston Athenaeum to another staff member who was evidently on vacation. The letter was mailed by Minnie Hortense Webster to Miss DeMeritt and it mentions a number of other staff members.  The Athenaeum Centenary (Boston Athenaeum, 1907) contains a list of all staff members who worked at the library up to 1907 so I was able to identify most of the staff members mentioned by Miss Webster along with the dates of their employment.  Miss Webster worked at the Athenaeum from 1897 to 1901 so she had only been employed for a short time when she wrote the letter. Evidently other senior staff members were also on vacation and at one point in the letter Miss Webster writes, "Miss Rabardy and I are left to our own devices, and we are both so fearful of making some abominable blunders that we actually forget to carp(?)." Miss Rabardy was Etta Lebreton Rabardy who started working at the Athenaeum in 1895 and was still working there in 1907. Miss DeMeritt to whom the letter was sent was Jennie Mabel DeMerritt who worked at the Athenaeum from 1892 to 1901. Also mentioned in the letter are Walter Lewis Barrell (1896-1900), Mary Honoria Wall (1890-1906), and Linda Frobisher Wildman who was employed in 1883 and was still working there in 1907. Miss Webster reports that a nice letter was received from Mr. Lane (William Coolidge Lane served as Librarian of the Athenaeum from 1893 to 1897 and left to become Librarian of Harvard University in 1898). Miss Webster also makes note of the Stanwood - Bolton wedding. This was the wedding of Charles Knowles Bolton to Ethel Stanwood. Bolton became Librarian of the Boston Athenaeum in 1898 and served in that capacity for the next 35 years. A lot of historical connections in a single letter. Today letter writing is a lost art, but then we can often keep update on the activities of our colleagues through Facebook.

The Tabard Inn Library Revolving Bookcases

One of the really nice things about writing a blog about library history and its artifacts is the contacts I get from people who share an interest in the things I write about. I was recently contacted by Chuck from Florida who shared an image of his restored Tabard Inn Library revolving bookcase (shown here). These bookcases are wonderful pieces of furniture as well as an integral part of the story of Seymour Eaton's two libraries - the Booklovers Library and the Tabard Inn Library.  Both were commercial lending libraries, and I have written previously about them on this blog and on my Library History Buff website. In an initial advertisement for the Tabard Inn Library, Eaton indicated that 10,000 of these bookcases would be manufactured at a rate of 25 and then 50 a day. The bookcases were placed in drug stores, hotels, and even public libraries. After paying an initial life membership fee of $3.00, members could exchange books on any revolving bookcase for an additional 5 cents. The bookcases have now become treasured antiques and have been sold for as much as nine thousand dollars. The Menasha Public Library in Menasha, WI is fortunate enough to have one of these bookcases, and I recently came across an online article about another restored Tabard Inn Library bookcase at the Oceanside Civic Center Library in California. I would love to have one of these bookcases but they are a little above my price range. However, I do have a fairly extensive collection of memorabilia related to both the Booklovers Library and the Tabard Inn Library including some of the books that were in their collections. Thanks Chuck for sharing the image of your Tabard Inn Library bookcase and for giving me an excuse for writing about these bookcases again.

Honolulu Library and Reading Room Association

My exhibit of postal librariana titled "America's Public Libraries and Their Forerunners 1731 to 1956" includes a section on membership libraries. It begins with artifacts related to Benjamin Franklin's Library Company of Philadelphia which was established in 1731. The Peterborough Town Library in New Hampshire, the first public library in the U.S. was established in 1833 and the Boston Public Library, the first large municipal public library, was established in 1854. Even as free public libraries began to replace fee based membership and subscription libraries there were still membership libraries that were being established. One of these was the Honolulu Library and Reading Room Association (HLRRA) which was established in 1879 when Hawaii was still a country ruled by a king. Hawaii also had its own postal system, and in my collection of postal librariana I have two postal cards that were issued by Hawaii that were mailed by the HLRRA. One is an 1892 printed notice of the annual membership meeting sent by H. A. Parmelee, the Secretary of the HLRRA and a founding member, and the other is an 1898 hand written second overdue book notice from the librarian.  The library component of the HLRRA became a free public library in 1903 when the Territorial Government appropriated $10,000 annually for its support (Hawaii became a Territory of the U.S. in 1900). The Association component of the HLRRA continued as a fundraising and support organization and eventually became the Friends of the Library of Hawaii. Hawaii received a $100,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie in 1909 for a library building which opened as the Hawaii State Library in 1913. I found two online resources on the history of the HLRRA. One is the website of the Friends of the Library of Hawaii and the other is a library school class paper by Avis Poai at the University of Hawaii Manoa. Incidentally, if you are in the Milwaukee area this weekend you can see my postal librariana exhibit on display at the Milwaukee Stamp Show.

New York's First County Bookmobile

Images of children using bookmobiles are among the most endearing portrayals of public library service. An especially appealing image (shown above) is included in a publication titled The Library of the Open Road by Ralph A. Felton and Marjorie Beal published by the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University in November, 1929. It shows children using the Monroe County (NY) Traveling Library. The publication is Cornell Extension Bulletin number 188 and it makes the case for establishing county libraries in New York. The image of the Monroe County Traveling Library also appears in an article titled "The County Library" in the January, 1926 issue of The American City Magazine. I also found a 1923 newspaper article about the Monroe County Traveling Library which includes the same image. The newspaper article which appeared in The Monroe County Mail stipulates that the Monroe County service is the first of its kind in New York. The headline reads: "Only County in the State Which Provides Free Books for Residents of the Smaller Villages and Farm Districts and Delivers Them From a Real Library on Wheels Right at Their Homes - As Many as 200 Books Loaned Daily". The article makes very positive comments about Miss Ruth Drake, the librarian of the Traveling Library, who was interviewed for the article. She is probably the woman in the doorway of the Traveling Library image. I also have a postcard (see below) showing a later bookmobile used by the Monroe County Library in New York. 
   

1928 Rural Libraries Bulletin





The extension of public library service to rural areas in the United States has been a goal of state governments for more than twelve decades (the Massachusetts Free Public Library Commission was established in 1890). The passage of the federal Library Services Act in 1956 was a major impetus to achieving this goal and in many states 100 percent of the state's residents have access to public library service.  I have several items in my collection that document the efforts to extend public library service to rural areas in the 1920s. One of those is a U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers Bulletin issued in April, 1928. The conclusion of the bulletin states: "The purpose of this bulletin will be accomplished if rural people, State legislatures, local officials, and library agencies, in view of demonstrated accomplishments, cooperate to make rural library service, as compared with other forms of public service, equal, efficient, and complete." The bulletin has been digitized and is available through the Hathi Trust. Of the many illustrations related to rural library service and its promotion in the bulletin, I was most taken with an image of a participant in a parade dressed as a book promoting county libraries in California and an image of a small building at a county fair papered in book jackets promoting county library service. Personal editorial: Even with decades of effort there are still millions of people in rural areas in the U.S. without access to free public library service.  I think this is a national travesty.  Why is it that the library profession can be so passionate about the censoring of a single book and yet tolerates a situation in which so many people have no free access to books and other materials in a public library.  

Mrs. Thompson's ALA Conference Badges

As a collector of library ephemera and memorabilia I'm always happy to find items that connect me to library workers of the past who engaged in the same kinds of activities that I took part in during my library career. I recently acquired three badges for American Library Association conferences that took place in Detroit, MI (1922); Hot Springs, AR (1923); and Saratoga Springs, NY (1924). All three of the badges belonged to Mrs. Joseph A. Thompson. It took a little Internet sleuthing, but I found out a few things about Mrs. Thompson other than the fact that she attended at least three ALA Conferences. Mrs. Thompson was the first Librarian of the Chickasha (OK) Public Library starting with the completion of Chickasha's Carnegie library building in 1905 when it was still part of the Indian Territory. She was a charter member of the Oklahoma Library Association which was founded in 1907, the same year that Oklahoma Territory and the Indian Territory became the state of Oklahoma. She served as Secretary of the Oklahoma Library Association for a period. Mrs. Thompson's ALA activities included serving on the 1921-1922 Membership Committee which presented a report at the 1922 Detroit conference. It is interesting sign of that period that all the references for Mrs. Thompson used her husband's name and I couldn't find any reference to her own given name [thanks to Barb for discovering Mrs. Thompson's given name was Sallie Lou]. The three metal badges are interesting. There is a slot for the name tag to be inserted. The hand written name tags for Mrs. Thompson were pretty small and you would definitely have to look hard to read them. The name tag for the Saratoga Springs Conference is missing. A brief history of the Chickasha Public Library is located HERE.

The Chelsea (MA) Public Library and the Fire of 1908

Fitz Library

Fitz library on right after fire

Carnegie building

The Chelsea Public Library in Massachusetts was founded in 1870. A new building donated by Eustace C. Fitz opened in 1885.  Disaster struck in 1908 when the Great Chelsea Fire destroyed the building. The Chelsea fire of 1908 destroyed 1,000 buildings in all and left more than 10,000 people homeless. The library's entire collection of 80,000 volumes was consumed by the fire. Andrew Carnegie gave $57,500 for a new library in 1908 which was added to $20,000 in insurance money. The Carnegie building was dedicated in 1910. I have three postcards that document these events. The first shows the Fitz library, the second shows the results of the fire, and the third shows the Carnegie building. The Chelsea Public Library still occupies the Carnegie building. More information can be found here.

People in Libraries on Postage Stamps

I'm a collector of libraries and librarians on postage stamps which is sometimes called bibliophilately. Of the hundreds of thousands of postage stamps that have been issued by the countries of the world, less than a thousand fall into this category. Of that group only 30 to 40 depict people inside of a library (this does not include images of celebrities in a library). I'm an advocate for a United States postage stamp or group of postage stamps honoring public libraries. Stamps showing people using public libraries would be a great way to do this. Below are some of the stamps in my collection showing people in libraries.

Bophuthatswana, Issued 1990

Greenland, Issued 1980

Iceland, Issued 1968

Kenya, Issued 1984

Norway, Issued 1985

Poland, Issued 1954

Barbados, Issued 1972