B.F. Jones Memorial Library: Forged in Steel
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B.F. Jones Memorial Library: Forged in Steel
Terri Bogolea Gallagher
CONTENTS
1 List of Illustrations 3
Abstract 4
Introduction 5
Library History Literature 6
A Library is Born in Aliquippa’s Steel Town 7
Snapshot 12
The Jones Family Founder and Steel in Aliquippa 16
B.F. Jones Memorial Library – Researched then Built 19
The Architecture 24
The Carnegie Connect 32
The Unveiling 35
Library Today 38
Conclusion 39
Appendices 41
Bibliography 52
2 ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure
1. Postcard of B.F. Jones Memorial Library 8
2. Aliquippa, Pa., Franklin Avenue 14
3. Postcard of Jones and Laughlin Aliquippa Works 15
4. Construction begins at B.F. Jones Memorial Library 21
5 . Robert Aitken’s Bronze Sculpture: B.F. Jones 26
6. Interior, Circulation Desk Circa 1930 27
7. Interior Adult Reading Room 28
8. Benjamin Franklin Jones Portrait 29
9. Elisabeth Horne Portrait 30
10. Story Room 31
11. Original Floor Plan 35
Tables:
Appendix I: Library Expenditures 41
Appendix II: Statistics for 100 Libraries 42
3 ABSTRACT
This library science historical study examines the establishment of the B.F. Jones
Memorial Library, a Pennsylvania public library in the 1929 steel mill town of Aliquippa. The study is in part the story of the birth and gift of a single mill-town library, but it is part of the larger story of the philanthropy of the times and of small-town, early twentieth-century experience. The author considers the creation of this library in context of its philanthropic founding as a non-Carnegie library, the library’s architecture as a National Historic Place and its detailed planning and cost of approximately $465,000 for the time period. The setting is the close of the 1920s era, in a factory-built town, occupied largely by immigrants and first generation Americans, perched on the precipice of Black Friday’s Crash and the Great
Depression. Also considered are the library’s relationship to the steel industry and a study of the key figures involved. The author hopes this Ohio River steel-town’s library story will stoke the furnace of further historical analysis of other village library stories and, especially, of the treasures within their walls.
When I was little, we couldn’t see the stars in the night-time sky because the furnaces of the mill turned the darkness into a red glow.
4 We went to school across from the mill. The smokestacks towered above us and the smoke billowed out in great puffy clouds of red, orange and yellow, but mostly the color of rust. Everything _ houses, hedges, old cars _ was a rusty, red color. Everything but the little bits of graphite and they glinted like silver in the dust. At recess, when the wind whirled these sharp, shiny metal pieces around, we girls would crouch so that our skirts touched the ground and kept our bare legs from being stung. Anna Egan Smucker, No Star Nights
Three little girls stood outside the library. They were about ten years old and had been peeking in the windows. They were filled with questions about the new building. They wanted to know when the library would open. One declared she was going to come to the library every day once it opened. William Moreland to Elisabeth Horne, letter
INTRODUCTION
In February 1929, B.F. Jones Memorial Library, Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, opened to the public in its sculpted stone, bronze, ornamental wrought iron and curlicue plaster splendor.1 This western Pennsylvania public library, which rose on main street in the factory-built steel mill town, is an example of twentieth-century philanthropy, a sample of non-Carnegie library experience in Carnegie home country and a model of library planning, classical architecture and fine art detail of the day. The library was gifted to Aliquippa by Elisabeth McMasters Jones
Horne, daughter of Benjamin Franklin Jones, co-founder of Jones and Laughlin Steel Company, one of the world’s top steel producers for nearly a century.2 Horne spared no dimes in building the library in Aliquippa, spending approximately $465,000 to memorialize her father in a time when the Great Depression’s bread lines lurked only spare months away and the town’s
1The researcher would like to offer heartfelt thanks to the staff of the B.F. Jones Memorial Library, especially Library Director Mary Elizabeth Colombo and District Consultant Rebecca Long for help and free access to the library’s archives and Donald Inman for his expertise on Jones and Laughlin Steel and access to the Beaver County Industrial Museum materials. Anna Egan Smucker, No Star Nights (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989). 1. William Moreland to Elisabeth Horne, letter, December 17, 1929. Nearly three years of almost weekly correspondences between Moreland and Horne concerning the library’s construction are in the B. F. Jones Memorial Library archives. “Our New Library Open to Use Today,” Aliquippa Gazette (Aliquippa, PA), February 5, 1929. 2 David H. Wollman and Donald R. Inman, Portraits in Steel (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press) 1999, 1.
5 steelworkers—many immigrants— labored “the long turns” in hard-scrabble conditions for a new life.3
LIBRARY HISTORY LITERATURE
In many ways, Aliquippa’s library story echoes the creation of many small town libraries of the early twentieth century in the time preceding and following the Depression years. Library literature unveils that “ladies of the club” were often the impetus behind the creation of the early twentieth-century library. In her historical account of the creation of the Winterville Public
Library of North Carolina, Heather Anderson credits the survival of the public libraries to wealthy benefactors and the modern public system to women’s clubs.4
During this time, libraries were funded by philanthropists often for combating social vices of the era and founders became convinced that the public library was an excellent place for
“the promotion of good manners and morals,” according to Goedeken.5 Donors—whether club ladies or corporate kingpins—also had the ability to influence the library’s mission and content.
Libraries were key in creating community identity and culture across social, cultural, and ethnic groups.6 The creation of a library was also often seen as a reflection of the town’s progress. 7
Literature by Elizabeth Hubbard also maintains that monied donors and community support were the foundations of public library development in the early twentieth century. 8 Libraries were born of private philanthropic initiative and towns across the nation prospered from the library spread.
3 Account officer to Elisabeth Horne, Library Statement, Itemized Disbursements, letter, August 6, 1929. Long turns are double shifts. 4 Heather Anderson, History of the Winterville Library. North Carolina Libraries Online. 65, (Spring-Summer 2007); 6-11. http://www.nclaonline.org/NCL/ncl/NCL_65_1-2_Spring- Summer2007.pdf] 5 Edward Goedeken, The Literature of American Library History, 2003-2005. Libraries & the Cultural Record, 43 (4). 447. doi: 10.1353/lac.0.0038 6 Suzanne Stauffer, In Their Own Image: the Public Library Collection as a Reflection of its donors. Libraries and the Cultural Record. 42 (2007) 387-388, Academic Search Complete. 7 Daniel Ring, “Men of Energy and Snap: The Origins and Early Years of the Billings Public Library,’ Libraries of Culture, 36 no. 3 (Summer 2001) 397. 8 Elizabeth Hubbard, “Library service to unions: A Historical overview.’ Library Trends, 51 no. 1 (2002). 5.
6 According to Hubbard’s study, wealthy men provided what tax revenues could not in the founding of libraries.9
When examining the literature about library growth for this era and the decades around it, it became evident that library expansion occurred across the United States. Goedeken cited that
Charles Seavey’s research showed that during the Great Depression, new libraries were founded in almost every state.10 His research allows that during hard times, resources were mined to create libraries where they never existed before.11 Libraries took on the role of social agency and political activist during this period and the ALA worked diligently against the anti-tax movement to enable libraries to keep doors open.12 Luyt poignantly describes the time: “It was a time when
Americans starved to death in their homes and unemployment figures skyrocketed to around one quarter of the population.”13 The proliferation of the American Public Library in what Seavey described as the “teeth of the Great Depression,” demonstrated the importance of the institution here in America.14
A LIBRARY IS BORN IN ALIQUIPPA’S STEEL TOWN
Aliquippa’s public library story was painted in the national pattern, especially for small, northern industrial towns, but was also brush stroked with individuality in architecture and planning that would make it remarkable both in its time and today. Both “ladies of the club” and a wealthy benefactress had a part in creating the B. F. Jones Memorial Library, a facility that
9 Hubbard, “Library Service’, 10. 10 Goedeken, “The Literature of American Library History,” 447. 11 Goedeken, “The Literature of American Library History,” 448. 12 Brendon Luyt, “The ALA, Public Libraries and the Great Depression. Library History. 23 (2007) 85.doi: 10.1179/174581607x205626. 13 Luyt, “The ALA, Public Libraries, 85. 14 Charles Seavey. “The American public library during the Great Depression,” 52 no. 8/9 (2003) 375. Proquest Research.
7 would be touted in national magazines and draw 9,000 people to the mill town streets for its opening in 1929.15
Figure 1: Postcard B.F. Jones Memorial Library. Used by permission, Mark Delvecchio Private Collection.
However, the opulent B.F. Jones Memorial Library was not the first effort at forming a library in the industrial river town, today called Aliquippa (and known as Woodlawn until 1928).
In 1921, through the work of the Woman’s Club of Woodlawn and a house-to house canvass collecting $2,791 and change in donations, the first town library was born.16 The Woodlawn
Woman’s Club’s stated mission was to be ‘both civic and literary.” The library was the club’s literary effort; a well-baby clinic and Christmas for the poor in the mill town were the primary civic missions of the 29 members.17
The public library opened in a room in the town’s municipal building, atop the fire department. It was so well-received with its donated, borrowed, and bought texts, including some in Polish, Italian, and Hungarian for the vale’s large immigrant population, the library expanded to two rooms within two months.18 The borough provided utilities, furniture, and janitorial services. The council was asked by the club for more support. They committed to an annual contribution in 1921 and the council still appropriates an amount of support to this day.19
15 “Over 9.000 Visit New Library During Dedication Event, Aliquippa Gazette, February 5, 1929. 16 Woman’s Club of Woodlawn, meeting minutes, 1920; Historical Images Project, B.F. Jones Public Library, http://www.bfjoneslibrary.org/libraryinfo.htm 17 Woodlawn Gazette, “Story of Woodlawn,’ Franklin Publishing (1924) 9; part of the B.F. Jones Memorial Library Pennsylvania Collection. 18 Woman’s Club of Woodlawn, monthly report, Feb. 8, 1921 19 “Council Asked to Levy Tax For Library,” Woodlawn Gazette, March 8, 1921; B.F. Jones Memorial Library Annual Reports, through 2009.
8 By 1926, the library had outgrown the stacks and charge desk in the borough space too.
The ladies of the club began sleuthing out a new home.20 The Woman’s Club members were considering a project remodeling a house on Franklin Avenue in town, owned by the Woodlawn
Land Company, a Jones and Laughlin subsidiary. Mill Officer William Moreland heard about the quest. Moreland had an idea. He asked Tom Girdler, mill superintendent, for a week to look for a benefactor to build a new library for Aliquippa.21
Moreland was the long-time private secretary of the by-then deceased B.F. Jones, co- founder of Jones and Laughlin and nationally-known industrialist. From his secretarial duties,
Moreland had risen to vice-president in the business that shipped its steel on the rails along and on the rushing current of the Ohio to all corners of the earth.22 Besides his mill duties, Moreland had become a liaison between the Jones family—or merely “the family” as many called the
Joneses—and the company and others.23 Moreland promptly wrote to Elisabeth Horne, one of the founder’s daughters, about the town library’s dilemma.24 Horne replied that she would be interested in exploring the need and planned a trip to Aliquippa.25
A part-time resident of Sewickley Heights in nearby Allegheny County, Horne made a visit to her family’s and Aliquippa’s steel kingdom, a town hemmed by the river and the sentinel-like Pennsylvania hills.26 At this juncture in 1926, Horne’s brother, B.F. Jones Jr. was manning the company helm (he would pass away in 1928 before the library opened).27
20William Moreland, Typed Account, Library History for Himmelwright’s Retirement, June 22, 1950. 21 Moreland, Account of Meeting Woodland Land Company, 1926 22 Wollman and Inman, Portraits, 85. 23 Wollman and Inman, Portraits, 93. 24 William Moreland to Elisabeth Horne, letter, April 10, 1926. Nearly three years of correspondences concerning the library are located in the B.F. Jones Memorial Library archives. 25 Horne to Moreland, letter, April 14, 1926; Moreland noted that Horne also replied in telegram that day, “I think favorably of your proposition; will write.’’ 26 Moreland, Typed Account Library History, June 22, 1950 27 “Benjamin Franklin Jones, Jr. Steel Leader Expires,’ Pittsburgh Post Gazette, January 2, 1928.,
9 On the visit, Librarian Susan Himmelwright explained to Horne that the current library could no longer accommodate the needs of the community, which was home to 27,000 people, mostly mill families and a large immigrant population.28 Escorted on her walk-about by a cadre of Moreland, B.F. Jones III, F.E. Fieger, Granville Lewis and Architect Brandon Smith, Horne was captivated by the idea of a memorial for her father and a gift to the town that his vision built.
That day, Horne informed Himmelwright of her intentions.29 The wheels of a many-car locomotive began churning. With her deep Jones and Laughlin Company ties, Horne had access to experts in finance, business, planning, and law. Research was gathered about building a public library. It was to be a building of cost and culture, perhaps beyond the imagination of many of those sharing rooming houses in the Aliquippa mill’s residential plans and those who came to the library to find texts in their native tongue and translations to their new one.
Horne’s father’s right hand man, Moreland, would become Horne’s own point man for the library project. On Nov. 5, 1926, representatives of Elisabeth Horne were present at an informal meeting of the Borough Council.30 The announcement was that the Mrs. Horne wished to gift the town with a library. The building was to be located on the town’s main street, Franklin
Avenue, and cost projections were $200,000. (This amount would more than double by the time the library checked its first book out to a patron).31 The proposal stated the library would be deeded to the borough without condition except as to maintenance. Representatives to the agog council were told the library would hold 25,000 to 40,000 volumes when completed, separate rooms for adults and children, and that plans were to make the library “one of the most beautiful and complete buildings of its size in the country.”32
28 1930 United States Census 29 Moreland, Typed Account Library History, June 22, 1950 30 Woodlawn meeting minutes, November 5, 1926. 31 Horne, Disbursements, Aug. 6, 1930 32 Horne to Woodlawn Borough Council, letter, November 5, 1926
10 In a letter to the burgess and members of Woodlawn council dated Nov. 9, 1926, written from Pittsburgh, PA, Horne followed with a formal offer stating she was interested in “the general progress and advancement” of the Borough of Woodlawn and that the current library was inadequate for the usage, “garnering more usage than libraries of its size throughout the state.”33
Horne offered that it would be a personal privilege to purchase a plot of ground on
Franklin Avenue and, erect a library building (she supplied a detailed plan and Architect
Brandon Smith’s watercolor of the proposed building with the offer letter) subject to minor alterations needed upon construction.34 Upon completion, the deed would then be conferred to the Borough of Woodlawn as a free gift. The conditions were the property would be known as the B.F. Jones Memorial Library of Woodlawn in perpetuity. The library was to be a free, public and non-sectarian library.35
The letter also delineated the library’s administration for operation. It is evident that the mill administration would be involved, as it was in almost all aspects of the town living at this time period. A memo with the first suggested board would be issued from company headquarters.36 According to Horne’s provisions, the library and property were to be administered by a nine member board, one to be appointed by the mill president, two council members including the president of council and other member chosen by council, two school district representatives including the superintendent of schools, president of the women’s club and three residents at large appointed by the board members. Addendums were even made for board vacancies. Codicils for mill ownership transfers and Jones family retraction from the company were covered in her offer. Without mill advisement, Horne would be the assignee or in
33 Horne to Woodlawn Borough Council, letter, November 9, 1926 34 Horne, November 9, 1926. 35 Horne, November 9, 1926. 36 F.R. Fieger to R.J. Wysor, Jones and Laughlin Interdepartment Correspondence, July 26, 1926.
11 the case of her death, other B.F. Jones offspring and, at their absence, the closest kin. Horne’s detailed offer was not out of character. Horne and entourage demonstrated such attention to detail and planning throughout the next three years of the library project.37
On Nov. 15, 1926, Ordinance 301 of Woodlawn Borough, formally accepted Horne’s offer of a public library.38 (On Jan. 26, 1928, Ordinance 365, again accepted the offer _ the library was already in progress _ with identical terms except for term change of B.F. Jones
Memorial Library of Aliquippa because of the town’s name change from Woodlawn.39 )
The B.F. Jones Memorial Library was coming to Aliquippa.
SNAPSHOT OF THE TOWN
To understand the impact a library could make to the town of Woodlawn and later
Aliquippa, it is imperative to look at the town’s history, progress and composition. About 19 miles north of Pittsburgh, Woodlawn’s early history dates back to pre-Revolutionary times. The fertile river bottom land area was at the convergence of Shawnee, Iroquois and Delaware country and was used for trade purposes. The name Aliquippa, which became the official town moniker during the library’s erection and stands today, is derived from an Iroquois queen of that name whose name also christened the town rail station.40. The area has the claim of visits by LaSalle in
1659, frontiersman Christopher Gist and a twenty-year-old George Washington. Development was slow for the area in the frontier years. Until the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad built a station in 1877, the area remained primarily farm land, much of it owned by John MacDonald and his sons.41 The rail company leased a woodland area between the railroad and river and named it Aliquippa Park, an amusement park of “rollercoasters, razzle dazzle shows and other
37 Horne, Nov. 9, 1926; B.F. Jones Memorial Library Bylaws, Nov. 16, 1926 38 Woodlawn Borough Ordinance 301, Volume 3, Page 290, Nov. 15, 1926 39 Aliquippa Borough Ordinance, 365, January 26, 1928. 40 Woodlawn Gazette, Story of Woodlawn, 1924. 41 Woodlawn Gazette, Story of Woodlawn, 1924.
12 concessionaires and a bathing beach.”42 The whistle stop park flourished for 25 years but with little settlement growth. The town’s true boom didn’t come until after 1905.
In 1905, the steel industry came to town as Jones and Laughlin purchased the McDonald
Tract and several other farms on the river plain beneath the surrounding rolling hills. Here, Jones and Laughlin would build a steel mill that in decades later would extend to more than six-miles,
700 acres of factory and employee 11,000 workers.43 Two years after Jones and Laughlin came to town, the borough would be organized on Dec. 5 1907.44 In the following two decades, the population would explode; street cars, busy stores, restaurants and taverns would grow as jobs and steel production rose like the smoke that permanently billowed and huffed over the town. In
1929, Jones and Laughlin profits would reach 20.8 million as the Depression hit $18 million of deficits would accumulate.45
By the 1930 census, right after the library’s opening, the town snapshot showed a total population of 27,116 including 15, 241 males and 11,875 females, 24,716 whites and 2562 negroes. Of the over 27, 000 residents, nearly 20,000 were immigrants or had immigrant parents.46 During this time period, nearly every worker in the town worked in steel, a Jones and
Laughlin-owned business or organization, or a service that catered to the workers like the Greek restaurants or taverns along Franklin Avenue and neighborhood streets.47 Aliquippa was not the
42 Tom M. Girdler., “Bootstraps,” New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1943. 167. Girdler was the superintendent of J&L Aliquippa works, where he worked from 1914 to 1930. Bootstraps is his autobiography. 43 “Welcome to the Aliquippa Works, pamphlet Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation, 1979. 44 Woodlawn Gazette, Story of Woodlawn, 1924 45“Business: Family’s Fourth,” Time Magazine, April 13, 1936. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,756010-2,00.html#ixzz12TSETlYd.
46 1930 United States Census. 47 Charles Rumford Walker, “Steel: the Diary of a Furnace Worker,” Atlantic Monthly Press. Reprinted with preface and afterword, edited by Kenneth J. Kobus, Warrendale, PA: Iron and Steel Society, 1999.
13 only local town with a bloodline of molten steel. More than 40 percent of Beaver County’s total population was employed in the steel industry.48
Families were growing in Aliquippa when Horne came to visit. In the decade from school year 1919-1920 to school year 1928-1929, student enrollment rose in Aliquippa from 2,292 students to 6,611.49 In addition, night school for the large foreign-speaking population was a need. In 1923, 196 men and women attended the Americanization night schools at the Logstown school and 68 at the Jones school.50
Figure 2: Aliquippa, Pa. Used by permission, Don Inman Collection, Beaver County Industrial Museum. Mill Superintendent Tom Girdler in his autobiography, Bootstraps describes the town in the decade surrounding the library’s building: “There were thirteen major groups. The Italians had their hill; the Serbs, another. There were many Slavic people. There were many Negroes.”51
Girdler relayed a conversation with William Latimer Jones at the time of his hiring. W.L. was the nephew of B.F. Jones and an officer for Jones and Laughlin.52 A quiet, soft-spoken man, according to Girdler, they discussed the deplorable conditions of many other industrial towns.
W.L. Jones said:
Around our Aliquippa Works, we have a blank page. We’ve bought the land. When the plant is fully built the men who work there will constitute with their families, the population of a good-sized town. We want to make it the best possible place for a steelworker to raise a family. 53
48 1930 United States Census 49 H.R. Vanderslice, “The All-Year School in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, The Elementary School Journal (1930). 576. 50 Woodlawn Gazette, Story, 1924. 51 Girdler, Bootstraps, 172 52 Wollman and Inman, Portraits, 57. 53 Girdler, Bootstraps, 166
14 Figure 3: Postcard of the mill. Used by permission of B.F. Jones Memorial Library.
THE JONES FAMILY FOUNDER AND STEEL IN ALIQUIPPA
William Latimer Jones’ idealistic attitude and the Jones’ family philosophy of civic duty were learned at the knee of founder B.F. Jones. The patriarch offered major support to
Pittsburgh hospitals—Allegheny General, Passavant, and Mercy— the arts and education including Boston’s Bibliophile Society, and scientific manufacturing research.54 From the humble roots of a canal clerk, he became the chairman of the National Republican Party twice, met with presidents, and was the president of the National Steel Association for 18 years.55
Such civic obligation, in addition to daughterly admiration, may have induced Elisabeth
Horne to build a library in memory of her father and gift the town.56 The Joneses traditionally
“had feelings for the people” and were open to company funds improving the community from building pools to helping the local Boy Scouts troop.57
B.F. Jones is credited with unveiling the sliding pay scale in Pittsburgh industry. His steel companies while not a stranger to labor unrest were managed without the tragedies of Carnegie’s
Homestead-Pinkerton clash.58 Jones was said to know the names of his workers and their family members’ names; when one of the workers bedecked smokestacks at his mill with a royal- appearing crest, Jones ordered the insignia altered to hats. He was a purveyor of democracy and as one business acquaintance of 60 years called Jones: “kindness personified.”59
54 “History of Allegheny County, Genealogy and History” Volume 1 (Unigraphic.) 1889. 233-236 ; W.T. Mossman, Biographical Sketch of B.F. Jones, Jones and Laughlin Steel, n.d. 4-5. 55 “Canal Clerk to Steel Magnate,” Pittsburgh Press, Jan. 21, 1931. 56 “Full text addresses from Library Opening,’ Woodlawn Gazette, Feb. 5, 1929 57Girdler, “Bootstraps,’ 175. 58 Wollman and Inman, Portraits, 15. 59 Butler, Joseph, “Recollection of Men and Events: An Autobiography,’” ( Putnam and Sons: New York.) 1927. 336-337
15 Jones himself would not live to see the Aliquippa Works emerge from the riverbank (he died three years earlier) but it was his vision of a large site where easy river access was available, in addition to rail, which brought steel to Aliquippa.60 Of Welsh, English, and Scots stock and
Presbyterian, Jones was a devoted husband to Mary McMasters, their children, siblings, and nephews and other family members.61
His governance was viewed as paternalistic, most likely as in a kind but just father but the steel mill’s role gathered a more dictatorial side as the years progressed and the founder’s rule faded. The company owned the mercantile, the land, the banks, influenced politics and news, laid out the town’s housing plans and sold the homes. “But, paternalistic, as it undoubtedly was, when I recall how well we realized the vision of The Family, I am proud to have a part in the making of Aliquippa.62 A new American town was born and it was a good town, although born out of a boom.”63
As the library building was coming to fruition, the Jones family, due to the aging of family members and none to take the reins, was losing its operational role but not its financial role at Jones and Laughlin, especially with the death of Benjamin Franklin Jones Jr., in 1928.
Rumblings of dissent and unionization were roiling at the furnaces. The town was referred to as
“Little Siberia;” not Girdler’s utopian steel town, for the company’s control and the large eastern
European population who had witnessed repression before.64 Pro-union organizers concurred.
Aliquippa is a dark town. Even Bill Foster’s organizers couldn’t get near it back in 1919. Company and city police barred the roads and watched the railroad
60 “Canal Clerk,” Pittsburgh Press, 1931 61 Genealogical Chart, Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation Archives, MSP33, John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh PA; Copy of Will of Benjamin Franklin Jones,St. B.F. Jones Memorial Library archives. 62 Girdler, Bootstraps, 166. 63 Girdler, Bootstraps, 169. 64 James Green, “Democracy Comes to Little Siberia: Steelworkers Organize in Aliquippa, PA 1933-37, Historical Collections and Labor Archives, Penn State, 1993.
16 stations. When strangers couldn’t account for their time, they were hustled to jail overnight and then out of town.65
One of the most vivid historical accounts of mill life from the time period is from the
1922 inside account of Charles Rumford Walker, a World War I vet and Yale graduate. In 1919,
Walker arrived in Aliquippa, which in his published account he named the fictional town Bouton to protect identities, and went straight to work at Jones and Laughlin to learn out about the steel trade. In later years, Walker admitted his story was about the Aliquippa Works. Walker portrayed the life in the town from getting a job and starting as the lowest worker in the Pit to the relationships between ethnic groups, “the mill Hunkies” to the hell of working the “long turn.”
He called the administration at Aliquippa fair for the most part but the long “turns’ and dangers in the mill a challenge.66
This is the town that Elizabeth Horne would tour with William Moreland to decide if
Aliquippa needed a library and if the town was the site to memorialize her father. Her gesture of a public library gift was not unusual in an industrial town. Historically, labor had a strong connection with public library history. Workers have long been viewed as the foremost recipient of the benefits of the public library.67 Library development has targeted workers for both educational purposes as well as in the area of “social control.”68 Public libraries have mentored and advocated for organized labor, as well as been sources of worker outreach, programs and joint services. Libraries have focused on laborers as both the individual and the work force. In the early 1900s, the education movement in labor was a focus for libraries which evolved toward union issues.69 It has long been perpetuated that libraries could have an equitable effect on class 65 Eric Leif Davin, “Blue Collar Democracy: Class War and Political Revolution in Western Pennsylvania, 1932- 1937, University of Pittsburgh, 269. 66 Walker, “Steel: The Diary,” 1922. 67 Ann Sparanese, “Service to the Labor Community: A Public Library Perspective. Library Trends. 51(2002) 19, Library Literature and Information Full Text. 68 Sparanese, Service to the Labor Community, 23. 69 Sparanese, Service to the Labor Community, 20.
17 disparity and act as oil on water by offering literacy and knowledge to cure labor unrest.70
Documentation cannot confirm that this was Horne’s intention—to still ripples of labor—but the gift most probably influenced the climate and the sentimentality between Aliquippa and the
Jones family.
B.F. JONES MEMORIAL LIBRARY IS RESEARCHED AND BUILT
The Jones family members were proponents of the adage, “Rome was not built in a day.”
Extensive investigation and planning went into Elisabeth Horne’s public library gift.
Architect Smith and Liaison Moreland were charged with creating a library of beauty and use that did not smack of paternalism.71 A.O. Wilson Company of Pittsburgh was chosen as general contractor. Maitland Wilson, son of the company’s founder, would be well-appreciated for his efforts in making the building a reality that Horne would present him with a watch for his work.72 Moreland approached the building of the library with the detail of a scholarly researcher: he gathered his own library of resources about libraries including Bostwick’s The American
Library, library budget literature, library equipment company brochures, and a 100-library analysis of libraries across the United States.73 Moreland would study how libraries in all areas of the country were financed, how much they would cost to build, numbers or employees and even how they were insured and their relationship to schools.74
An architect was selected by Horne: Brandon Smith of the Pittsburgh firm of
Bartholomew and Smith who had toured Aliquippa with Horne on her visit. Smith was chosen, not by competition as many library architects were chosen of the time for library projects but by
70 Sparanese, “Service to the Labor Community”, 23. 71 Smith, Original Voided Description of Library, n.d. 72Account Officer, Library Statement, Aug. 6, 1929; Paid Receipt, Hardy and Hayes Company, Pittsburgh, January 21, 1929. 73 B.F. Jones Memorial Library Archives, a file contains a list and many of the items and books Moreland used for his research. 74 “Statistics of 100 Libraries,’ Compiled by S.E. Weber, Charleston, WV, pre-1926.
18 reputation as “the ablest great house planner” Pittsburgh had ever known.75 Like Moreland,
Smith was expected to do his homework. Brandon Smith is known for designing the Edgeworth
Country Club House and Sewickley Heights homes of Benjamin Franklin Jones, William
Latimer Jones, Rhea Beck and other wealthy Pittsburgh socialites; he had a reputation as an
“eclectic for blending classical elements and the use of light and airiness for function.”76
Scouting visits were made by Horne’s brigade to other libraries to glean input to the
Aliquippa project. Stops included public libraries in: Gary Indiana, April 23, 1926; Kenosha,
Wisconsin, April 24, 1926; Milwaukee, Wisconsin April 24, 1926; Erie, May 13, 1926;
Williamsport, PA, May 14, 1926; Johnstown, May 15, 1926.77
After the information was gathered, Moreland continued to oversee the building of the library with intensity of a new parent. Weekly reports and photos were sent to Horne so she had a handle on the progress as she traveled between residences and vacation spots from Park
Avenue, Palm Beach to Deep Creek, Maryland.78 At the arrival of a telegram, Moreland was available to board a train to New York to consult on the profile of the bronze cast of his former boss, Benjamin Franklin Jones, or offer opinion on a library problem for Horne.79
The physical work on the memorial library began in 1927. Lots were conveyed from
Woodlawn Land Company to Horne: lots 293, 295, 297, 299 in addition to lots 281, 283, 285,
287, 281, 299 were marked for the building of the library on Franklin Avenue. The building was staked out by Architect Smith and A.O. Wilson.80 A ground breaking ceremony was conducted on July 18, 1927. The cornerstone was laid in November. Work would continue for the next year
75 Abigail A. Van Slyck, “Free to All, Carnegie Libraries and American Culture 1890-1920,” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) 82. 76 Don Miller, “Sewickley Heights House Makes A Dramatic Comeback, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, January 29, 1995; Joyce Gannon,“Million Dollar Millstones,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette, May 5, 1996; 77 Statistics for 100 Libraries, Weber, pre-1926 78 Moreland to Horne, letter, December 23, 1929, weekly photos mentioned 79 Moreland to Horne, telegram, March 26, 1928.Mo 80 Moreland to Horne, letter, July 18, 1927
19 and a half. Horne would be apprised of projects through Moreland but signed the check herself through the Union Trust Company account assigned specifically for the library.81
Figure 4: The library is built across from company houses. Used by permission of B.F. Jones Memorial Library.
The work remained steady for the building of the library as laborers, craftsmen, artists and consultants frequented the site, perched on a rise across from a line of company-built residences. Family businesses provided some of the wares. Steel was provided by Jones and
Laughlin. Interior decor items were provided by the Joseph Horne Company, owned by Elisabeth
Horne’s in-laws. (Horne married, had children with and divorced the son of the Pittsburgh department store owner, Joseph Horne. She remained an heir to the Horne fortune.)82
The only minor glitches were a drainage reroute and a delay in some of the stone arriving but for the most part, planning and detail led to a fluid project. The original projection of costs rose but correspondences reveal that Horne’s plan to make the library the best overruled most cost considerations. That is not to imply free spending; Moreland, Horne, Smith, and accountants kept track of dollars. Correspondences debated contractor or artist choice. The choice of the renowned Oscar Bach was such a case for discussion on the wrought iron work.83 A few local tradesmen applied for subcontracting work.
Skilled stonecutters, carvers, casters and plasterers, who were more artists than tradesmen, were required for much of the exterior and interior decorative work on the library. Final costs for the building, property and contents are estimated at $465,000. Horne earmarked $17,000 for
81 Checkbook and Ledger, B.F. Jones Memorial Library archives. 82 Copy of Will of Joseph Horne, B.F. Jones Memorial Library, 1893. 83 Moreland to Horne, letter, May 18, 1928.
20 books; a Robert Aitken bronze statue of B.F. Jones Memorial alone cost $27,500.84 (See
Appendix A for cost breakdown.)
In addition, Jones and Laughlin donated a technical book collection valued at $5,000 and
Horne’s siblings donated miscellaneous items from a refrigerator and subscriptions of Harper’s and Godey’s to accent pillows. At the time of the library opening, newspapers and publications estimated the library’s cost at $465,000 to a half million dollars. Librarian Susan
Himmelwright, interviewed several times, was not specific on the dollar amount in initial press coverage.85
Himmelwright, who would serve as the head librarian at B.F. Jones Memorial Library through its birth until 1950, was involved heavily in the collection process for the new library and was well respected by Moreland, Horne, the Jones and Laughlin corporate offices, and colleagues in librarianship.86 According to the visitor’s records of the ALA archives,
Himmelwright journeyed to the ALA office in 1929. Documentation only tracks the visit not its purpose; however, Himmelwright was a researcher too. The ALA also has possession of suggested reading quotations and lists from B.F. Jones Memorial Library about the time of construction.87 Himmelwright was adamant in insisting on ALA standards and membership for the library as well as supplying Smith’s plans for the library and project information to ALA.
She served on Commonwealth Libraries state planning committee in the early 1930s with a group of other “eminent librarians.”88
84 Accountant to Horne, Disbursements, Aug. 6, 1929; Additional typed account expenses, B.F. Jones Memorial Library Archives. 85 Muswigan, Marie. “Beautiful Aliquippa Library Shrine to Steel Man’s Memory,” Pittsburgh Press, Feb. 1, 1929. 86 Himmelwright to ALA and Himmelwright to Borough Council, letters, 87 ALA Library, University of Ililinois at Urbana Series 85/7/6 and 29/5/2 visitor’s log. 88 Pennsylvania,State Planning Committee,Commonwealth Libraries, Preliminary report, 38, http://www.ebooksread.com
21 From the start, Susan Himmelwright is recommended strongly to remain head librarian due to her professionalism.89 The start-up collection for B.F. Jones would include 7, 151 books transferred from the Woodlawn borough facility in addition to the books purchased with Horne’s
$15,000 and the technical collection donated by Jones and Laughlin. The Carnegie Institute was consulted on collection choices.90 In 1929, the library would register 8,737 borrowers. In
Himmelwright’s 1937 report, when analyzing the books borrowed for the year, she broke down by classification books circulated from most to least: fiction led, followed by books for little children, sociology, useful arts, travel, science, literature, history, biography, fine arts, pamphlets, religion, philosophy, philology, general, and periodicals. Books from the technical collection and foreign titles were still important to the circulation numbers in the 1930s at the
Aliquippa library.91
By this time, the library had also opened two school book stations in the town’s schools.
Himmelwright through her programming stresses an alliance with Aliquippa schools. In 1928, high school students were placed in a formal training program to become library aides.in the new library. Students visited the library for regular school programming. Mother Goose story time was popular when the library opened. In 1930, when Horne delivered a story hour, more than
300 school children attended. The benefactress was delighted.92 Himmelwright, who would remain head librarian until 1950, is a visible library advocate, even authoring several library columns in the local Evening Times.93 Himmelwright was also very conscious of the connection between the company, Horne, and the library’s success.94 Throughout this process and years, she
89 Moreland, Library History, 1950 90 Moreland to Horne, letter, September 28, 1929. 91 B.F. Jones Memorial Library annual report s1934-1937. 92 Horne to Moreland, letter, 1930. 93 Himmelwright newspaper columns, Evening Times, 1945. 94 Himmelwright to Jones and Laughlin offices, letters, 1927-1929
22 balances the politics of the position. Other than collection and staff, Himmelwright’s role with the building of the library included furniture consultation with Moreland.
THE ARCHITECTURE
A 19-year veteran of the Jones and Laughlin Tin Mill—a section of the Jones and Laughlin plant— visited the library before it was open to the public. He was part of a work crew putting the final touches— light replacement, weather tighting—on the building before the doors were opened. Moreland wrote that the man was “carried away” by the beauty of the building. He relayed to Horne that the tin mill worker said that no one could imagine the building’s beauty unless they saw the inside of the building in person.95 Besides the social significance of the library, the architectural design, engineering, and accoutrements that remain impressive today at the Aliquippa Library and were the key to its selection as a National Historic Place.96
The architecture and design of B.F. Jones Memorial Library is primarily credited to the classical and sometimes offbeat vision of Brandon Smith, along with a splash of color consultation by New York Color Architect Nora Thorpe.
The lines of the library are classical. The T-shaped Library is built of Indian limestone structure of restrained Italian Renaissance Design.97 A one-story structure approximately 132 by
72 feet with a full basement, the building showcases four ionic columns supporting recessed colonnades on the façade of each of two wings of the library. Each wing also boasts three thirty- pane window, as do the building sides.98 Entablatures showcase detailed spiral carving. A two- flight stairway approaches the main entry_ a double doorway of bronze, wrought iron and glass.99
95 Moreland to Horne, letter, January 29, 1929 96 National Historic Place Listing for B.F. Jones Memorial Library, Department of the Interior, http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/pa/Beaver/state.html 97 Brandon Smith, Description of Architecture, n.d. B.F. Jones Memorial Library archives. 98 Smith, Description, n.d. 99 National Historic Place Application, 1978
23 The ornamental gutter-eave or cheneau is detailed cast bronze. Below the cheneau, the words-
Philosophy, Biology, Astronomy, Fiction, History, Science, Painting, Music Sculpture, Drama,
Poetry and Romance are carved and beckon to those who enter to learning. Library buildings themselves—as Rayward and Jenkins discussed concerning libraries during times of war, revolution and social change—infer substance, physical presence, solidity, permanence and continuity.100 A library building is often housed to “evoke awe, even reverence.”101 The authors referred to the library as symbolic of stability and organizational identity.102 With the B.F. Jones
Memorial Library, Smith achieved this aim from threshold to exits.
Inside the library, the entry walls are finished in Kasota stone, a limestone quarried in
Minnesota while the floor is travertine imported from Italy; the ornate foyer ceiling is an Italian reproduction.103 A bronze statue of B. F. Jones himself, cast by New York artist, Robert Aitken, sits on a foundation of Vermont marble. The commissioned statue of the steel magnate cost
$27,500 at the time of its creation.104
Figure 5: Bronze Statue of B.F. Jones. Used by permission of B.F. Jones Memorial Library.
Aitken’s dossier includes an award winning memorial sculpture to writer Bret Harte, a monument to Admiral Dewey, a sculpture of architect Cass Gilbert, and pediment sculpture at the main entrance of the Supreme Count Building (in which the author included his own likeness).105
100 W. Boyd Rayward and Christine Jenkins, “Libraries in Times of War, Revolution and Social Change,” Library Trends. 55 (Winter 2007) 362, Academic Search Complete. 101 Rayward and Jenkins, “Libraries in Times of War” 363. 102 Rayward and Jenkins, Library in Times of War,” 363. 103 Smith, Description, n.d. 104 Addendum to Horne Library Expenditure Statement, June 1940 105 David Bernard Dearinger, “Painting and Sculpture in the National Academy of Design,” (New York; Hudson Hills Press, 2004). 10.
24 Near the sculpture, the stairwell extends to the basement and what was used as the exhibition room and lobby on the lower floor. The stairs have a bronze stair rail and center panels modeled by the president of the General Bronze Company; this company furnished the bronze work and the owner wanted something of his own creation in the memorial building.
Bronze door frames, birds, flower, book, and torch motifs are showcased as ornamental work.106
Figure 6: The Circulation Desk 1930. Used by permission of B.F. Jones Memorial Library.
The lobby spotlights another rare work of art: screens made of hand wrought iron with bronze medallions by Oscar Bach, named in Smith’s description as one of the leading wrought iron craftsmen in the United States of the time.107 Medallions on one side of the screen depict the iron and steel industry; the other side portrays the world of a child. Wall medallions of imported
Italian marble are also highlighted in the lobby. Light showers the lobby from a Smith trademark skylight high above the circulation desk. The ceiling is ornamental plaster created by the skilled workman of the Joseph Horne Company; colors are chosen by Nora Thorpe.108
Figure 7: Adult Reading Room. Used by permission of B.F. Jones Memorial Library.
The adult reading room features Renaissance style ornamental plaster and travertine marble floors. Walls are constructed of manufactured stone made in the Pittsburgh area.109 The room focal point is a portrait of Benjamin Franklin Jones by Theobald Chartran painted in 1892 and presented as a gift to the library by his daughter-in-law, Mrs. B.F Jones Jr. Chartran was a
106 National Historic Register Application, 1978. 107 Smith, Description, n.d. 108 Smith, Description, n.d.; Nora Thorpe, letter, n.d. Nora Thorpe of New York.was the ‘color architect” on the project. 109 Smith, Description, n.d.
25 French academic painter of celebrated Americans and also painted Senator Matthew Quay, another western Pennsylvania famous figure, and millionaire Charles Schwab110
Figure 8: B.F. Jones Portrait. Used by permission of B.F. Jones Memorial Library.
The reference room of the library features cast stone, Cretan, which is carved after casting by artists and was first popularized during the Norman Renaissance.111 The Junior Reading Room of the library received special attention by the architect because of Horne’s interest in children.112
Faux plaster beams are painted to look like gum wood, and polychrome terracota copies of the
Andrea della Robbia Bambino works found in the Foundling Hospital of Florence are represented.113 A polychrome terra cotta fountain is also highlighted. A plaster frieze above
Bach’s wrought iron screen exemplifies music, tragedy and comedy.
Figure 9: Elisabeth Horne. Used by permission of B.F. Jones Memorial Library.
Another key point of the room is Elisabeth Horne’s portrait by Alfred Hoen, Dutch painter who painted society portraits in American and France. A map of Fairyland imported from
110 “Senator Quay Painting,’ New York Times, May 31, 1902 111 National Historic Places Application, 1978 112 Brandon Smith, Unofficial Original Version General Description, n.d. 113 National Historic Places Application, 1978
26 England is also showcased. The doorway between the room and the children’s story room features an ornate frieze of the world of a child. 114
The story hour room, which today is the library director’s office, contains a series of leaded glass windows illustrating nursery rhymes. The stained glass was leaded by Henry Hunt of
Pittsburgh, a premier glass artist of city churches, at the cost of $675. The Miss Muffet window even sports the intricate spider in stained glass work. The fireplace is built of Cretan and Norman lines; the floor is tiled with insect patterns.115
Figure 10: Children’s Story Room. Used by permission of B.F. Jones Memorial Library.
The architectural detail of the library continued in the basement of the library with Doric styles, glazed terracotta and an alcove with statuary and gum wood attributes, the only wood décor in the building. A large exhibition room to accommodate crowds, staffroom, kitchen, work room, furnace room, fan room, and elevator completed the building and provided ample work space for employees and preparation of collection materials. The ventilation system was designed to cleanse the outside air before pumping it through the rooms of the library. Outside, a fenced garden added more beauty and sculpture for library visitors. Smith’s designs were lauded by The National Historic Register review as a blend of form and function.
Smith himself praised the workers:
In its construction, there was an unusual spirit amongst the workmen, each trying to put his best into his part of the work. When it was finished and they came to
114 Smith, description, n.d. 115 Library architectural biography, B.F. Jones Memorial Library, current
27 see the work of their hands, the plasterers, the painters, the stone masons – each felt they had never done so good a job as this.116
THE CARNEGIE CONNECT
Documents do not draw a direct link between the Carnegie movement and the erection of the B.F. Jones Memorial Library. However, for this time period, just following the Carnegie national library campaign, and this period in western Pennsylvania steel history, it would be impossible to claim that there was no connection by the Jones family and the company to
Carnegie and his movement.
The elder B.F. Jones knew Andrew Carnegie when he was a boy. Carnegie worked as a telegram runner when a lad. B.F. Jones, already a steel leader in the smoky city, was the recipient of young Carnegie’s deliveries. Carnegie claimed that he learned Morse code so he could take
Jones his messages because of the generous 25 cent tip.117 In addition, both men were steel barons based in the city of Pittsburgh. Both had Presbyterian roots in the town where the three rivers met. They had neighboring summer homes, both today confusingly labeled Braemar, in
Cresson, PA118 In the past two decades, Jones’ Queen Anne mansion has become the target of a preservation crusade. For years, the Jones abode was mistakenly thought to have been the
Carnegie home by locals; next door, the smaller, still-inhabited Carnegie cottage site was probably the true Braemar. However, both buildings utilize the name today. When Carnegie wrote Triumphant Democracy, a signed copy was kept in the Jones family library of B.F. Jones.
It is on the shelves in the director’s office of the B.F. Jones Library today, inscribed “To my friend Benjamin Franklin Jones with genuine respect and admiration, Andrew Carnegie.”119
116 Smith, letter, n.d. 117 Wollman and Inman, Portraits in Steel, 29. 118 Patricia Lowry, “Industrialist Benjamin Franklin Jones’ Summer Cottage Dodges the Wrecking Ball as another emerges from the Shadows,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 31, 2010. 119 Andrew Carnegie, Triumphant Democracy, Inscription, dated: January 18, 1894, New York.
28 In matters of librarianship, documentation of the connection is not so forthcoming but merits exploration. The Carnegie campaign exemplified what such wealth could accomplish for librarianship; the Joneses did this on an individual scale. Library history in the early twentieth century and library philanthropy cannot be examined, even for non-Carnegie libraries, without a look at the Carnegie story. Perusal of the scads of studies of the Carnegie effort— when Steel
King Carnegie girded the construction bills of new libraries from America’s metropolises to whistle stops— is integral to understanding the times and precedent set. In 1919, of the 3500 public libraries in the nation, Carnegie cash had built more than half.120 Preeminent Carnegie historian and architectural expert Abigail Van Slyck penned the influence of the Carnegie library program reached far beyond the 1,679 Carnegie-built American public libraries themselves.
Carnegie’s philosophy, writings, and beliefs spurred other philanthropists to found and support libraries, at the local level.121 The industrialist’s discovery of how this could be done more adeptly—especially in library design and architecture—was embraced by public library founders and builders to come.122 The Carnegie model redefined the role of the public library and its adaptation as information deliverer; this too, concluded Van Slyck, served to ground the philosophy of librarianship of the future.123 Van Slyck stated that Carnegie’s gauntlet was picked up and wielded by others; Carnegie gloried in the imitation.124 One could not help but think the
Jones project would create such sentiment.
In 1969, library historian George Bobinski wrote that historians had not evaluated
Carnegie’s library gifts in-depth for their significance to library development.125 He compared
120 T. Jones, Carnegie Libraries across America: Public legacy, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997, 3. 121 VanSlyck, “Free for All,” 216-217 122 Van Slyck, “Free for All,’ 218. 123 Van Slyck, “Free for All,’ 219. 124 Van Slyck, “Free for All,’ 218. 125 George Bobinski, Carnegie libraries: their history and impact on American public library development. Chicago: American Library Association.1969, 183
29 references to Carnegie’s philanthropy as that of noble benefactor to egotist and many roles in between. In Bobinski’s work, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Director Ralph Munn’s concept is presented: Carnegie prodded library development and promoted the library movement but also constructed small town libraries with a dearth of services and little support.126 This does not seem to be the case with Horne in the few years that she lived following the erection of the library. She remained ever-present with communications and even a few visits for tea and storytime.127
Bobinski also highlighted the opinions of European William Munthe who coveted for Europe the
American Carnegie movement with its stacks for all classes and a library in nearly every town, great and small.128 Bobinski himself stated that Carnegie validated the library as an institution, spurred on other library benefactors and rooted the tenet of local government responsibility for public libraries.
Libraries were not gifted by Carnegie without the promise of the town’s ongoing fiscal support.129 Elisabeth Horne’s gift too came with the agreement that ongoing support would come from the council and town coffers.130 However, it is not documented whether this stemmed from belief that the mill dollars would always pour into the town till or the Carnegie philosophy of communities standing on their own feet.
While the well-known Smith’s drawings and design with unique touches could not be mistaken for copies of Carnegie architect’s renderings or plans, the overall floor plan did adopt some of the Carnegie features. In the twentieth century, newly built public libraries were often
Carnegie-influenced plans of symmetrical buildings, marked by trends of the modern time riven
126 Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries, 186. 127 Moreland to Horne, April 2, 1929. Correspondence continued until Horne’s death Jan. 10, 1932. 128 Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries, 185. 129 Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries, 191. 130 Horne to Woodlawn Borough Council, letter, 1926.
30 with classical and Renaissance detailing.131 Open plans, children and adult reading areas with central delivery desk for oversight were the preferred blueprint. Many of these early twentieth century buildings and their architecture endure today and now symbolize libraries to the
American people.
Figure 11 : Original Floor Plans. Used with permission of B.F. Jones Memorial Library.
THE UNVEILING
The Carnegie style may have even insinuated itself into the well-planned and orchestrated unveiling of the library also. Memoranda from the Jones and Laughlin Company and mill archives sent Librarian Himmelwright copies of the Homestead and Southside Carnegie opening programs to be used for reference in creating the B.F. Jones publication for the grand gala. In addition, a Carnegie Art program sported typeface preferred by Horne. The company tracked down the Philadelphia printer used at the Carnegie event and informed Himmelwright of Horne’s choice.
After that, the library opening became B.F. Jones original.
The debut of the library included a private showing by invitation only and then the grand opening event. Himmelwright was responsible for invitation lists, guided by Horne and
Moreland. The program, preserved in the state library and B.F. Jones Library archives, delineated event speakers: Willis King, mill officer and nephew of the founder, Mill
Superintendent Girdler, Borough Solicitor W.D. Craig and William D. Evans, general counsel for Jones and Laughlin Company.132
131 Van Slyck, Free for All, 218; George Axelrod, The Colonial revival in America ( New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1985) 94. 132 B.F. Jones Memorial Library Dedication Program,
31 King, Jones’ relation who joined the Jones and Laughlin and Company in 1869, was the first speaker for the day and reviewed Jones’s heritage, career and family. He remarked on
Jones’ dedication to the best things: social, domestic, and national. King agreed the memorial library lived up to Jones’ “high ideals and lofty aims.”133 Craig accepted the gift of the library from Horne whose comment was that she hoped the community’s joy in receiving it could only equal her joy in giving the library.134 William D. Evans commented on the importance of libraries and the hope they offer the young. He also made disparaging comment on the fleeting fashion of fiction or the “fiction problem,” a common social commentary for the day.135 Girdler welcomed the crowd and complimented the library. The Rev. Clarence Edward Macartney of Pittsburgh, a prominent Presbyterian minister, delivered the invocation and blessing.
A flag-raising and the “B.F. Jones March,” specially written for the occasion and played by the Harding High Marching Band, were part of the ceremony. The headlines of the Aliquippa
Gazette front page on February 5, 1929 proclaimed over 9,000 attended the opening events. The opening of the library garnered above-the-fold- coverage and headlines in Pittsburgh Sun
Telegraph, Pittsburgh Press, Evening Times, and Aliquippa Gazette as February dawned.
Architectural attributes and master art works were main subjects of the newsprint.
Western Pennsylvania readers were not the only ones regaled with the success story of the mill-town library; the opening of the doors of the B.F. Jones Library also earned national press coverage. Library Journal in July 1929 devoted a two-spread article to the library opening authored by Susan Himmelwright.136 The librarian focused on the building’s design and planning but peppered real-life stories of visiting children, one who wondered if the story room
133 Full Text Addresses, Aliquippa Gazette, February 5, 1929 134 Full Text Addresses, Aliquippa Gazette, February 5, 1929 135 Full Text Addresses, Aliquippa Gazette, February 5, 1929; Ring, Men of Energy, 406. 136 Susan Himmelwright, “Aliquippa’s Beautiful New Library,” Library Journal, July 1929, 591-592.
32 chimney was where Santa arrived. The details of the unveiled B.F. Memorial Library were also featured in Carnegie Magazine, which Moreland forwarded to Horne.137 Horne was affronted because her portrait by Hoen was featured without her permission by the Carnegie publication.138
The Quotarian, the national publication of the Quota Club, also published a story about the library scribed by Himmelwright that year. The story included physical description and a peek at library usage: During National Book Week, more than 1200 Aliquippa tykes participated in the Mother Goose story program.139 Company publication for Yawman and Erbe
Manufacturing, Library Equipment also featured B.F. Jones on its cover and an inside two page spread announcing that the company products were used at the library and estimating building costs at one half million dollars.140
In 1932, the library again caught the nation’s eye when it was showcased in June 1932 in
Architectural Forum. The premise of the story was that libraries should combine the aesthetic and functional. The article featured photos of thirteen national libraries besides B. F. Jones
Memorial Library including: the Folger Shakespeare Library, Haishe Memorial Library, San
Pedro Park Branch Library, Alexander Sanger Branch Library, Greenwich Public Library,
Richmond Public Library, West Toledo Branch Library, Winchester Public Library, Dunbar
Branch Library, Palos Verdes Public Library, and Bexley Public Library.141
THE LIBRARY TODAY
Following much of the hoopla of the library opening, Moreland expressed that he was instituting a hands-off approach with the library to give Himmelwright and the staff the freedom
137 Carnegie Magazine, “B.F. Jones Memorial Library,’ March 1929., 138 Moreland to Horne, letter, March 29, 1929. 139 Himmelwright, Susan, “Individuals in Quota,” The Quotarian, circa 1930p. 11.12 140 Library Equipment, Beautiful Aliquippa Library –Shrine to Steel Man’s memory, March 1929, 3 141 Edward Tilton, Library Planning and Design, Architectural Forum ,(56 no 6 June 1932) 573-604.
33 to run the library as it should be.142 That has been happening for 80 years. Today, a mill worker from the 1930s may look at the exterior of B.F. Jones Memorial Library and think that little changed in those decades. Patrons still go in and out of the brass doors on a daily basis. Children attend several storytime activities each week.
But a glance down the Franklin Avenue to the Wye near the plant tunnel reveals the town has undergone vast change to include empty storefronts, abandoned buildings and empty lots.
Girls in the Aliquippa schoolyard no longer avoid mill dust. Smoke does not billow. Stacks and mill buildings are gone. A barren moonscape—interrupted by a new jail and drywall plant— stand where thousands came, tin lunch pails in hand, to work the long turn.
In a stroke of what could be labeled prophecy, William D. Evans, counsel for
Jones and Laughlin steel, addressed the opening ceremonies of the B.F. Jones Library,
that long, long after these great mills and factories are stilled and abandoned, even long after this beautiful structure has crumbled and passed away, the priceless treasure which it contains will live on, because they are the embodiment of everlasting truth. 143
The stilled mills came sooner than everyone in Aliquippa hoped. In 1984, the Jones and
Laughlin name ended with a merger of LTV Steel. That business would enter receivership in
1986.144 The town of 27,000 is now 11,000. Foreign born residents amount to only 342; about
881 speak a language other than in the home.145
Inside, the library, though, the works of Bach, Hoen, Hunt, Chartran, and countless stone and plaster artisans still awe the patrons. Horne’s oil overlooks the Young Adult area; Oscar
Bach’s gates open to a computer kiosk.146 A recent flood has changed the basement, a brightly lit
142 Moreland to Horne, letter, March 29, 1929.
143 Full Text of Addresses, Aliquippa Gazette, February 5, 1929. 144 Wollman and Inman. Portraits, 285. 288. 145 United States Census 2000. 146 Computers made possible by a Gates Foundation Grant.
34 children’s area has emerged, splashed in color. One must wonder what Nora Thorpe would add from her palette. Foyer and fountain are now preschool area and the lecture room is a children’s library.
The library serves as a district headquarters. On the library home page, library employee
Cindy Murphy has scribed in a Historic Images project.
The collapse of the American steel industry has changed the face of this area. Most of the Aliquippa Works has now been torn down and the Aliquippa area, like many other American rust-belt towns and cities, continues to struggle for a new identity. Yet, there remains a great sense of pride and historical interest by the area residents.147
Like Himmelwright, Murphy and her co-workers believe the B.F. Jones Memorial
Library is part of that pride as well as part of the hope for the town’s future.
CONCLUSION
This analysis of the establishment of the B. F. Jones Memorial Library in Aliquippa is a window to a small town library’s history, architecture, philanthropy, and industrial heritage as the 1920s came to a close. Philanthropy made resources available that town coffers were not capable of funding, especially when financial disaster loomed. A library’s history is often woven closely with the town’s history. A library gave dreams to girls in the school yard and veterans of the tin mill. Labor and public libraries are bound with ties. Architectural treasures and priceless art works are tucked in the libraries of small villages and vales across the land if one cares to look.
The archives at B.F. Jones Memorial Library still hold much of the town’s story and the steel industry’s story to be examined. More than 400 letters from B.F. Jones final years,
147 Cindy Murphy, Aliquippa Historic Images Projects, http://www.bfjoneslibrary.org/aboutaliquippa.htm
35 telegrams from the White House, a local history photo collection and oral town history await exploration.
In a history of the Erie Public library, Adam Blahut quoted Peter Dobkin Hall’s sentiment that the more fundamental an institution is to a town, the less likely society is to examine it.148
Change is long overdue for library history. The author hopes this Ohio River steel-town’s library story will stoke the furnace of further historical analysis of this library and other village library stories and, especially, the treasures within their walls.
Appendix I:
Table 1: Financial Statement of Library
Expenditures149______
Service Company Disbursement
General Building Contract A&S Wilson Company $299,072.23 Architect's Commission Brandon Smith $21,076.95 Furniture and Equipment Remington Rand * Furniture and Equipment Yawman and Erbe Manufacturing * Furniture and Equipment Art Metal Construction Company $15,725.93 * combined Books $15,000.00 Decorating Interior Joseph Horne Company *
148 Adam Blahut, A Study of the Founding of the Erie Public Library, 2005, 79. 149 Accountant to Horne, Disbursements, May 19 to Aug. 6, 1929; Additional typed account expenses, B.F. Jones Memorial Library Archives.
36 Decorating Interior Norah Thorpe Advisory $10,968.79 * combined Wrought Iron Screens Oscar Bach $6,750 Lighting Fixtures Beaux Arts $5,620 Shrubbery Ezra Stiles $1,048.63 Wrought Iron Fence Moore Metal Manufacturing $680 Leaded Glass Window Henry Hunt $620.00 Marble Benches C. Francini $605 Miscellaneous heating, lighting, janitor $537.47 Insurance $514 Watch for Maitland Wilson Hardy and Hays $204 Electrical Work W.P.Klein $203.00 Marble Discs Wall Medallions Iron City Marble $147.60 Dedication expenses Invitations, Decorations $141.70 Chelsea Clock Hardy and Hays Company $135 Toys for Children's Room Kaufmann's $113.15 Water Meter Woodlawn Water Company $80 Electric Light Bulbs Jones and Laughlin Steel $73.57 Portrait handling J.J. Gillespie Company $47.75 Waxing linoleum C.B. Townsend $33.16 U.S. Flag A. Mamaux & Son $20.00 ______
Total $379,418.09 150
150 The chart does not include the prior expenditures of the land parcels (valued by some at about $50,000); the cost of the Aitken bronze statue of B.F. Jones, $27,500; additional book fund from Horne, $2,000; forwarded bank balance, 2335.92; Alfred Hoen portrait of Horne, $3,500; picture frame, $500 and other contributions of the Jones family and friends. These additions bring initial outlay to more than $465,000 for the building at debut.
37 Appendix II:
Table 2: Statistics of 100 Libraries, compiled by S.E. Weber, Charleston, WV; used by William Moreland.
38 39 151
151 Statistics of 100 Libraries, compiled by S.E. Weber, Charleston, W.Va; this chart was used for visits and research by William Moreland and the B.F. Jones Memorial Library planners beginning in 1926.
40 Bibliography
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41 Green, James, “Democracy Comes to Little Siberia: Steelworkers Organize in Aliquippa, PA 1933-37,” Historical Collections and Labor Archives, Penn State, 1993.
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42 Pittsburgh Post Gazette, “Sewickley Heights House Makes a Dramatic Comeback.” January 29, 1995.
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Woodlawn Gazette. “Council Asked to Levy Tax For Library,” March 8, 1921
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44