Almost every American History text book has given coverage to the fact that Andrew Carnegie-in his later life-built major libraries, but what I didn't know was the extent of that library building campaign. While reading a book about a library cat in Iowa I came across this information. The "libraries were of the classical style with three stained-glass windows in the entrance hall, two with flowers and one with the word 'library'...a large central desk, surrounded by drawers of cards. The side rooms were small and cloistered, with bookshelves to the ceiling". Most public buildings of this era were segregated by sex, not so the Carnegie libraries. This sourse also notes that these libraries were some of the first to allow a patron to take a book off the shelf rather than request it from the librarian. These buildings were thought of as plain only because they were compared to the large ones built in NYC and Chicago. These libraries had high ceilings with large windows and a "half-underground bottom floor" for children; this at a time when most thought children should at home.
I googled the topic and found that Carnegie provided $ 10,000 grant to towns for the building, and 2509 were built between 1883 and 1929. There were 1689 in the US, 660 in Britain and Ireland, 125 in Canada and even one in Fiji. On the site I found there were lists of libraries by state; in NJ there was one built in Englewood.
(Source: Dewey: The Small Town Cat Who Touched the World. By Vicki Myron with Bret Witter. 2008. Page 117
No comments:
Post a Comment