Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library Abigail A
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Connecticut College Digital Commons @ Connecticut College Architectural Studies Faculty Publications Art History and Architectural Studies 12-1991 "The tmoU st Amount of Effectiv [sic] Accommodation": Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library Abigail A. Van Slyck Connecticut College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/archfacpub Part of the Architectural History and Criticism Commons, and the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Van Slyck, Abigail A. "The tmosU t Amount of Effectiv [sic] Accommodation": Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1991), pp. 359-383. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Art History and Architectural Studies at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Architectural Studies Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. "The tmoU st Amount of Effectiv [sic] Accommodation": Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library Keywords patrons, public libraries, United States, Andrew Carnegie Comments Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1991), pp. 359-383 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/990662 © University of California Press This article is available at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College: http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/archfacpub/2 "The Utmost Amount of Effectiv [sic] Accommodation": Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library Author(s): Abigail A. van Slyck Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1991), pp. 359- 383 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/990662 . Accessed: 20/12/2012 11:47 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press and Society of Architectural Historians are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:47:52 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "The Utmost Amount of Effectiv [sic] Accommodation": Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library ABIGAIL A. VAN SLYCK University of Arizona The last yearsof the nineteenthcentury saw the widespreadacceptance experiences.The soulof one architect,although guilty of aesthetic sins,has achieved a certainmeasure of of the ideathat libraryfacilities should be madeavailable to the Amer- immortality.1 ican publicfree of charge.In the same years, the design of thefree Americanlibrary was at the centerof a prolongedand heateddebate: IN HERREFLECTIONS on the public landscapeof Xenia, on one hand, the newly organizedlibrary profession called for designs Ohio, in the early decadesof the twentieth century, Helen that supportedefficiency in libraryadministration; on the other, the Hooven Santmyerunwittingly hints at the difficultiesthat face men of wealth who often underwrotelibrary construction continued to the architecturalhistorian attempting to interpretCarnegie li- favor buildingsthat reinforcedthe paternalistic metaphor that sustained braries.Simply massed, symmetrically arranged, and classically theirphilanthropic activities. Between 1886 and 1917, AndrewCar- detailed(often with a temple front gracingthe center of the negieundertook a programof librarygiving that reformedboth library entrancefaqade), the hundredsof Carnegielibraries that dot the philanthropyand librarydesign, encouraginga closercorrespondence country are stylisticallyconventional buildings with a strong betweenthe two. Using the corporationas his model,Carnegie intro- family resemblance(Fig. 1). Designedby hundredsof different ducedmany of the philanthropicpractices of the modernfoundation. architects(rather than Santmyer'ssingle mythicalpractitioner), At the same time, he rejectedthe rigidsocial and spatial hierarchyof these buildingsare neither conceived as uniqueworks of artnor the nineteenth-centurylibrary. In over 1,600 buildingsthat resulted touched by the avant-gardearchitectural sensibility that was directlyfrom this programand in hundredsof othersinfluenced by its responsiblefor creatinga building like Unity Temple in the forms, Carnegiehelped create an Americanpublic librarytype that sameyears. Untouched by artisticgenius, Carnegie libraries do embracedthe planning principles espoused by librarianswhile extending not fall within the purviewof the art historicaltradition that a warmerwelcome to the readingpublic. treatsarchitecture as one of the fine arts. At the same time, Carnegielibraries also stand somewhat Courthouse,high school,and Carnegie library: in anymiddle western outsidethe realmof vernaculararchitecture studies. countrytown these are buildingsimpossible not to recognize;par- Designed ticularly,all Carnegielibraries are so alikethat one's memories hardly by professionalarchitects, they dependheavily on the classical seem associatedwith an individualset of yellow-brickwalls, white traditionsof Western architectureand are made of mass-pro- and stone trim, granitesteps. One might have sat on any one of a duced materials,often shippedover long distances.As a result, hundredparapets to strapon a pairof rollerskates: whatever town some of the most on the American one drives whatever at the of an unknown widely recognizedbuildings through,past library, sight have unstudied.Architectural historians are of- anonymouschild bent over a skatebuckle, one remembersrough landscape gone ten familiarwith stone througha summerdress, the sun on one's back, the pull of Carnegielibraries and sometimesharbor a skateson shoe soles, andaccepts as identicalone's own andall other nostalgicfondness for them as well; but we have let them (and a host of comparablebuilding types) fall throughthe gap that This articleis drawnfrom my Ph.D. dissertation,"Free to All: Carnegie exists between the studyof high-style design and that of ver- Librariesand the Transformationof AmericanCulture, 1886-1917," naculararchitecture.2 Universityof California,1989. My wholeheartedthanks go to my dissertationadvisor, Dell Upton, whose close readingand helpfulsug- 1. H. H. Santmyer,Ohio Town,New York, 1985, 187. gestionshave been invaluablein shapingthe directionof this work. 2. Recentattempts to fill the gapbetween high-style and vernacular Thanksas well to RichardChafee, Angela Giral, Mardges Bacon, and architecturestudies include P. C. Larson,ed., TheSpirit ofH. H. Rich- otherswho commentedon this materialwhen it was presentedat the ardsonon theMidland Prairies: Regional Transformations of an Architectural Temple Hoyne Buell Center'sTalks on AmericanArchitecture III in Style,Minneapolis, Minn., and Ames, Iowa, 1988; R. Longstreth,The 1987;to Ann Gilkersonfor her commentson a draftof this article;and Buildingsof Main Street:A Guideto AmericanCommercial Architecture, to ElizabethLonergan for her adviceon preparingillustrations for pub- Washington,D.C., 1987; idem, "CompositionalTypes in American lication.I would also like to acknowledgethe financialsupport of the CommercialArchitecture," in C. Wells, ed., Perspectivesin Vernacular Universityof Californiafor the researchand writing of the dissertation, Architecture,II, Columbia, Mo., 1986, 12-23; W. L. Lebovich,America's andthat of the Universityof Arizona'sCollege of Architecturefor the CityHalls, Washington, D.C., 1984;and A. Gulliford,America's Country preparationof illustrations. Schools,Washington, D.C., 1984. JSAH L:359-383. DECEMBER1991 359 This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:47:52 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 360 JSAH, L:4, DECEMBER1991 ing the war.While theirmiddle-class contemporaries continued to supportmoral reform movements (like the YMCA)as a means of encouragingsocial cohesion, very wealthy men who had pulled themselvesup the social scale tendedto be less enthu- siastic about social constraintsimposed from above.4 Instead, theseself-made millionaires were attractedto librariesand other culturalinstitutions as meansof promotingindividual devel- opment from within. GeorgePeabody (a London-basedfinan- cier), Walter L. Newberry(a Chicagoreal estateand railroad promoter),and CharlesBower Winn (who inheritedthe small fortunethat his fatherhad accumulatedin the leathertrade in Massachusetts)were among the wealthy men who financed librarybuilding in the secondhalf of the nineteenthcentury.5 Despite geographicaland temporaldifferences, each of these nineteenth-centurylibrary builders cast himself in the role of Fig.1. CarnegieLibrary, Xenia, Ohio, 1907. Exterior (courtesy of the the patriarchof an extendedfamily, while the recipientsof his