The Lady and the Library Loafer: Gender and Public Space in Victorian America Abigail A

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Winter 1996 The Lady and the Library Loafer: Gender and Public Space in Victorian America Abigail A. Van Slyck Connecticut College, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Van Slyck, Abilgail, A. "The Lady and the Library Loafer: Gender and Public Space in Victorian America" Winterthur Portfolio 31, No. 4 (Winter, 1996): 221-242.

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Keywords gender issues, interior design, public libraries, architecture, space

Comments Source: Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 31, No. 4, Gendered Spaces and Aesthetics (Winter, 1996),pp. 221-242

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The Lady and the Library Loafer: Gender and Public Space in Victorian America Author(s): Abigail A. van Slyck Reviewed work(s): Source: Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 31, No. 4, Gendered Spaces and Aesthetics (Winter, 1996), pp. 221-242 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1215236 . Accessed: 20/12/2012 11:52

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This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:52:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Lady and the LibraryLoafer

Gender and Public Space in VictorianAmerica

AbigailA. Van Slyck

ROOMS reservedexclusively for phor of the separate spheres as a way of under- READINGthe use of women were once a common standing the organization of the actual, physical featureof public librariesbuilt during the spaces of the Victorian world.' last quarter of the nineteenth centuryin the United States,England, and manyparts of the Britishempire. Small rooms stocked withfashion Rethinkingthe Separate Spheres magazines and communicating directlywith the women's toilet, these facilities were relatively The concept of the separate spheres has been short-lived, particularly in the United States, central to the studyof gender and space in Victo- where they abruptly disappeared in the early rian culture throughout the Anglo-American years of the twentieth century. Yet the ladies' world. The phrase initiallywas coined to describe reading room was often considered an absolute a highly gendered view of human interestsand necessityfor encouraging respectable women to aptitudes, one that associated men withpublic af- venture into the public library. Recovering the fairs and women with private,family life. Yet the circumstances of the proliferation, and subse- word spherewas itselfhighly suggestive. It called to quent decline, of ladies' reading rooms offers mind a literal space as well as a figurativeone and much to current considerations of the intersec- encouraged scholars of material culture to con- tion between Victorian gender ideology and the sider how the Victorian gender systemaffected design and use of space. Specifically,this recovery urban and suburban design, architecture, inte- provides a useful means for assessing the meta- rior decoration, and material objects of all kinds. The impact on the field was nothing short of rev- Abigail A. Van Slyckis associate professorin the College of olutionary,particularly in redeeming the domes- Architectureat the Universityof Arizona. tic realm and women's activitiestherein fromthe The author extends her thanksto a number of colleagues margins of architecturalhistory and in acknowl- whose and considered comments have penetratingquestions edging their important role in some helped in the process of expanding and clarifyingthis interpreta- expressing tion of the ladies' readingroom, especially Kasey Grier, Kathleen of the most deeply held cultural values of nine- James, and the many scholars who attended the session "Gen- teenth-centurysociety.2 dered Space and Aesthetics"at the AmericanStudies Association conferencein November 1995. She is also verygrateful to the 1 It is difficultto summarizethe fullextent of the ladies' read- many people who have helped uncover photographicimages of ing room phenomenon, since these facilitiesare routinelyig- ladies' readingrooms and other evidence of the materialculture nored in libraryhistory. However, primary documents reveal that of this elusive room type.Those to whom particularthanks are of the 18 public librariesbuilt in New Zealand withCarnegie owed include: Ken Breisch,who is alwaysready to share his exper- 8 funds included ladies' reading rooms when theyopened in the tise on Americanlibrary history; Marilyn P. Ryan of the Hackley earlytwentieth century, while 22 public librariesin Great Britain Public Library,Muskegon, Michigan; Nancy Gillfillanof the included such facilities in the 189os. "Women's Reading Dixon Public Libraryin Illinois;Jean Shrierof the Peoria Public Rooms," TheLibrary 4 (1892): Io8-11. Library;Patricia A. Blackettof the BuffaloPublic Library;and Mi- chael Ruffingof the Cleveland Public Library. 2 For a discussionof the use of thisconcept in women's history,see Linda K. Kerber, "Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, ?1996 by The Henry Francis du Pont WinterthurMuseum, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History,"Journal of Inc. All rights reserved. oo84-0416/96 / 310o4-0002oooz$3.oo AmericanHistory 75, no. 1 (June 1988): 9-39. Thanks to scholars

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Yet, in many respects,the concept of the sepa- vided into "turfs" that "belonged" (at least in rate spheres,with its dualistic opposition between practice) to distinctclass, sex, and age groups. In public areas and private,domestic realms, is too short,neither "public" nor "domestic" were mo- simplisticto provide a full explanation of Victo- nolithic categories in the Victorian world.3 rian space. Afterall, many of the building types Our understanding of the relationship be- invented in the late nineteenth centuryfit neatly tween gender and space in the nineteenth cen- into neither category. College dormitories, turyis furthercompromised by the tendency on nurses' residences, settlement houses, commer- the part of twentieth-centuryscholars to interpret cially run single-roomoccupancy hotels, philan- the separate spheres somewhat too literally-to thropicallysupported worker hostels, and other talk about women only in conjunction with the residential structureswere domestic in function home, to discuss men only in conjunction with but were not privatein the sense of housing a sin- the urban sites in which theyworked and social- gle nuclear family.Large in size, institutionalin ized. Such a literal interpretationof the separate character,and oftenurban in setting,these build- spheres is doubly problematic. On one hand, it ings seem more closely connected withthe public risksnaturalizing and universalizinga gender ide- sphere than with the private,single-family house. ology that tended to be class- and race-specific. Likewise, the "public realm" was composed of a On the other hand, it distortsthe historicalreality range of spaces that varied substantiallyboth in of the lives of those white, middle-classmen and their architecturalcharacter and in their explicit women who did embrace Victorian gender roles. and implicit admission policies. Private clubs Even the busiest of businessmen were regular in- were class- and gender-specific corners of the habitants of the domestic realm; indeed, ac- public realm, closed to all but a finite roster of cording to Victorian ideology, one of the home's dues-paying members. Restaurants and saloons most importantfunctions was to provide respite were more open but still required an outlay of and relaxation for the husband and fatherwho cash in the form of a purchase. The payment of had braved the cityon behalf of his wifeand chil- a fee was also required of anyone wanting to at- dren. Recent studies have also begun to look in tend a baseball game or to take advantage of the musical or theatricalentertainments. Theo- city's 3 For more on these residential structures in the late nine- retically,municipal museums and libraries were teenth century, see Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Alma Mater: Design open to everyone but nonetheless demanded and Experiencein the Women'sColleges (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, as behavior of those who would enter this 1984); Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, "Hull-House Women's genteel Space," Chicago History 12, no. 4 (Winter 1983): 40-55; Ann- part of the public realm. Sexes and classes mixed marie Adams, "Rooms of Their Own: The Nurses' Residences at more readily in corporate and professional of- Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital," Material History Review 40 were a (Fall 1994): 29-41; Karen Kingsley, "The Architecture of Nurs- fices, but these spaces heavily policed by ing," in Anne Hudson Jones, ed., Images ofNurses: Perspectivesfrom cadre of private employees, including doormen, History,Art, and Literature(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylva- elevator and nia Press, 1988), pp. 63-94; Paul Groth, Living Downtown: The operators, receptionists, secretaries. the the most area of Historyof Residential Hotels in UnitedStates (Berkeley: University Citystreets were perhaps public of California Press, 1994); Joanne Meyerowitz, WomenAdrift: Inde- the public realm, but even they were often di- pendent Wage Earners in Chicago, 188o-193o (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). For more on the range of public spaces, "The Masonic Room, such as Dolores Hayden, Gwendolyn Wright, Sally McMurry, and see William D. Moore, Lodge 1870o-1930: Annmarie Adams, we now have a very good sense of the specific A Sacred Space of Masculine Spiritual Hierarchy," in Elizabeth architectural forms and interior decorating practices that sus- Collins Cromley and Carter L. Hudgins, eds., Gender, Class, and tained ideas of "true womanhood" in middle-class houses Shelter:Perspectives in VernacularArchitecture V (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, Cynthia Rock, "Building throughout the Anglo-American world. See Dolores Hayden, The 1995), pp. 26-39; America," Heresies I I, Grand DomesticRevolution: A Historyof Feminist Designs for American the Women's Club in Nineteenth-Century Karen Blair, The Torchbearers:Women Homes, Neighborhoods,and Cities (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981); vol. 3, no. 3 (1981): 87-90; and Their Amateur Arts Associations in America, 1890o-93o Dolores Hayden, "Catherine Beecher and the Politics of House- Gunter Barth, work," in Susana Torre, ed., Womenin AmericanArchitecture: A His- (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994); Rise Modern Culture in Nineteenth-Century toric and ContemporaryPerspective (New York: Whitney Library of City People: The of City Archi- America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); Lawrence W. Design, 1977), 40-49; Gwendolyn Wright, "Domestic tecture and thePP- Cultures of Domesticity," Design Quarterly138 Levine, Highbrow,Lowbrow: The Emergenceof Cultural Hierarchyin America (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1988); Helen Lef- (Spring 1987): 13-19; Gwendolyn Wright, Moralism and theModel Cultural in Home: DomesticArchitecture and Cultural Conflictin Chicago, 1873- kowitz Horowitz, Culture and the City: Philanthropy Chi- the i880s to 1917 University of Kentucky 1913 (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1980); Annmarie Ad- cago from (Lexington: of Press, ams, Architecturein the Family Way: Doctors, Houses, and Women, Press, 1976; reprint, Chicago: University Chicago 1989); Business: Men and Womenin the (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996); Angel Kwolek-Folland, Engendering 187o-9oo00 (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Sally McMurry, Families and Farmhouses in Nineteenth-Century CorporateOffice, 1870-193o Children the At Workand at America: VernacularDesign and Social Change (New York: Oxford Press, 1994); David Nasaw, of City: Play Anchor University Press, 1988). (Garden City, N.Y: Press/Doubleday, 1985).

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greater detail at the role that men played in par- inhabited this genteel public space: men were as- lor-making and other domestic activities. Like- sociated withthe sound constructionof the archi- wise, Victorian ideology may have associated tectural shell and with the installationof its tech- women with the domestic sphere, but it never re- nological innovationswhile women were assumed quired their total physical containment in the to care more about maintenance and interior home. Indeed, Victorian ideals of "true woman- decoration. In short,the Victorian gender system hood" encouraged even domesticated middle- did not bar women fromevery corner of the pub- class women to venture into many corners of the lic realm, but it did posit that men and women city.The department store, the church, the mu- experienced some public spaces differently.5 seum, and the librarywere all nondomestic sites Equally important, the Victorian gender sys- where women were expected to go in order to ac- tem also called for a more active reshaping of cumulate the domestic goods, religious piety,and some kinds of public space in order to encourage cultural refinementthat theydispensed at home. women's entry into socially sanctioned areas of By the end of the nineteenth century,middle- the urban realm. The creation of sex-segregated class women made explicit this connection be- rooms withinpublic and commercial institutions tween theirdomestic roles and their public activi- was a favorite strategyin the United States, so ties by deploying the concept of "municipal much so that historian Mary Ryan has identified housekeeping" as a rationale for their participa- the provisionof public space forwomen as a "ma- tion in the physical reformof the urban environ- jor civic project in the latter half of the nine- ment.4 teenth century." In fact,the phenomenon seems To say that the convention of the separate to have begun even earlier with the provision of spheres does not describe physical realityin an women's parlors on steamboats in the late 182os. absolute way,however, is not to suggest that gen- By the 188os, women could find rooms set aside der ideology is irrelevant to understanding the for theiruse on railroad cars, in commercial pho- cultural landscape of the Victorian world. Con- tographystudios and departmentstores, in hotels sider the opening of the new public libraryin and restaurants,in banks and post offices,in pub- Newark,NewJersey, in 1889. According to the Li- lic parks and public libraries. By the end of the braryJournal, "the people wandered through the century,middle-class women took a more active handsome rooms and admired everythingthey role in providing entire buildings that offered saw. The men liked the substantialappearance of sex-segregatedpublic space, both for themselves walls, floors, stairways,and clever lighting,while (in the formof clubhouses) and forworking-class the women admired the general cleanliness, the women (in settlementhouses and the YWCA).6 harmonizing colors, and the handsome furni- If there is a growing acknowledgment of the ture." Here middle-class men and women were existence of sex-segregatedpublic spaces in nine- both welcome to use municipallyfunded cultural teenth-centuryAmerica, there is thus far little amenities, but they were understood to repro- agreement about how to interpretthat phenome- duce theirhighly gendered domestic roles as they non. Some studies imply that such ladies' parlors represent the opening of the public sphere to women. In this interpretation,the city is under- role of 4 For the men in the home, see MargaretMarsh, "Sub- stood as an masculine urban Men and Masculine Domesticity, 1870-1915," American inherently realm, and Quarterly2, no. 40 (June 1988): 165-86; Cheryl Robertson, women's rooms effectivelycolonize a portion of "Male and Female Agendas for Domestic Reform:The Middle- Class Bungalowin Gendered Perspective,"Winterthur Portfolio 26, nos. 2/3 (Summer/Autumn 1991): 123-41; Christopher Lasch, 5 "The Newark(N.J.) Free Public Library,"Library Journal 14, Haven in a HeartlessWorld: The Family Besieged (New York: Basic no. 11 (November 1889): 437. Books, 1977); KatharineMartinez, "The AmericanHome as Ex- 6 MaryR. Ryan, Womenin Public:Between Banners and Ballots, hibition Space" (Paper presentedat the "Gendered Space and (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, Aesthetics"session of the '825-188o 1990o), American Studies Associationconfer- p. 78. For women's parlorson steamboats,railroad cars, and in ence, For women'suse of 1995). departmentstores and othercul- commercialphotographs, see KatherineC. Grier,"Imagining the turalinstitutions, see Susan Porter Counter Benson, Cultures:Sales- Parlor, 1830-188o" in Gerald W. R. Ward, ed., Perspectiveson women, and Managers, Customersin AmericanDepartment Stores, AmericanFurniture (New York:W. W. Nortonfor the HenryFrancis 1890o-94o (Urbana: Universityof Illinois Press, 1986); Horo- du Pont WinterthurMuseum, 1988), pp. 205-39; see also Ben- witz,Culture and the Anne Firor "Women and City; Scott, Librar- son, CounterCultures;, Carolyn Brucken, "In the Public Eye: ies," Journal of LibraryHistory 21, no. 2 (Spring 1986): 400-405. Women and the AmericanLuxury Hotel" in thisissue of Winter- For municipalhousekeeping, see Anne Firor Natural Scott, Allies: thurPortfolio; Galen Cranz, "Women in Urban Parks," Signs5, no. Women'sAssociations in American History(Urbana: Universityof Illi- 3 (Spring 1980 supplement):S8o-85; Rock, "Building the Wom- nois Press, 1992); Madeline Stein Wortman,"Domesticating the en's Club"; Blair, TorchbearersMeyerowitz, Women Horo- American Adrift; City,"Prospects 3 (1977): 531-72. witz,"Hull-House as Women's Space."

This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:52:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 224 WinterthurPortfolio 3 z:4 that masculine realm for female use, allowing, in tween the trulypublic space of the streetand the Lynne Walker's words, "a rapid growthin wom- store interior precisely because it was in the fi- en's unaccompanied presence in the public nancial interestof owners and managers to allow sphere" and providing "spaces for real change them to do so. Yet that experience cannot be gen- throughthe development of a public ideology for eralized to women's experience in other kinds of women." In contrast,scholars such as Ryan argue urban space, particularlythe municipallyfunded that such spaces are more accurately seen as a spaces created specificallyfor women's use. In or- closing down of the public sphere. In the early der to develop a betterunderstanding of how the nineteenth century, Ryan notes, even the city Victorian gender systemaffected the use of the streetwas "relativelycareless of male/female dis- city,we need to pay closer attention to places tinctions"; men and women of differentclasses where the interaction between men and women and differentraces moved easily in a heteroge- was unmediated by the promise of financial gain neous urban environment. Between 1825 and or the threat of dismissal. The public libraryis 184o, however,the urban environmentwas parti- one such space.8 tioned into a number of sex-segregated spaces, into all-male preserves that explicitly excluded women and, later, into all-femalepreserves (such Women as LibraryUsers: MidcenturyDebates as the ladies' parlors mentioned above) that im- plicitlymarked the rest of the cityas off-limitsto In the 185os, public librarieswere stilla rarityin respectable women. In either case, the develop- most American cities. Library facilitiesdid exist ment of sex-segregatedspaces served to limit the but primarilyin the form of social libraries or type and number of public places where respect- athenaea, privateinstitutions open only to paying able women feltfree to go.'7 members and offeringa wide array of cultural This difference in interpretation derives in amenities. One of the best examples is the Boston part from the time frame under consideration; Athenaeum, established in 1807 by the leading studies that focus on the late nineteenth century members of Boston's cultural aristocracy.At mid- often accept the Victorian notion of the cityas a century, the Athenaeum was housed in a new male preserveand thus interpretany female pres- building on Beacon Street.Designed byEdward C. ence in the cityas emancipatory.The difference Cabot, the building is most directly compara- in interpretationmay also have to do with a ten- ble to a gentlemen's club in both its architectural dency to accept the department store as the best imageryand interiorarrangements. Its facade was a exemplar of a public space rededicated to the fe- modeled on the Italian Renaissance palazzo, male user in the late nineteenth century.While popular new image for private clubs, particularly the department store is an importantsite for un- among Anglophiles familiarwith Charles Barry's derstanding the material expression of the Victo- designs for the Reform and Traveler's Clubs in fed the rian gender system,particularly for the role it London. Inside, a full range of facilities of played in forginga still-potentlink between con- scientific,artistic, and literaryappetites gentle- sumerism and femininity,its commercial nature men of taste,including a room used by the Ameri- also means that it cannot stand for all types of can Academy of Arts and Sciences, a sculpture public space. Privately owned entities, depart- gallery,a picture gallery,a library,and reading ment storeswere able to use employmentpolicies rooms. Double-height book alcoves lined the to control the interaction between male clerks principle reading rooms in an arrangement that and female customers,who moved effortlesslybe- recalled both European universitylibraries and the princely libraries on which they had been modeled (fig. 1). Having accepted the idea that of 7Lynne Walker,"Vistas of Pleasure: Women Consumers an innate capacityfor cultural appreciation was a Urban Space in the West End of London, 1850-1900oo," in Cla- function of class and gender, Athenaeum mem- rissaCampbell Orr,ed., Womenin theVictorian Art World (Manches- ter, Eng.: ManchesterUniversity Press, 1995), p. 79. Although Walkerwrites about the English scene, her interpretationis im- in studiesof women's spaces in the United States;Cyn- plicit many 8 in the notion of progressmay also play a thia Rock, for instance,characterizes the building of a women's An inherentfaith to female in the city club as "the claimingof space" (Rock, "Building the Women's role in the tendency interpretany presence scholarsseem to hold fastto the idea that 88), while Helen LefkowitzHorowitz refers to Hull- as emancipatory.Many Club," p. assume that the late nine- House as a thatallowed residents"to plunge into the life women's lives are gettingbetter and setting an of their time" (Horowitz,"Hull-House as Women's Space," p. teenth centurymust, therefore,represent improvementin women's livesover the beginningof the nineteenthcentury. 55). Ryan,Women in Public,pp. 66-68.

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Fig. 1. Reading room, Boston Athenaeum, 1855. From AthenaeumCentenary: The Influence and Historyof the Boston Athenaeum from I 807-907 (Boston: Boston Athenaeum, 19o7), opp. p. 132.

bers treasured a settingthat allowed them to pur- of a general library should be to her a sealed sue these interestsin the company of like minds.9 book." 10 Such social libraries often excluded women, Not all of Folsom's contemporaries agreed even women of the same class and caste. Engrav- that women should be barred from the library, ings of the Boston Athenaeum in 1855 depict a but his comments are useful for articulatingthe fewwomen using the librarywith male guidance, anxieties raised by the presence of women in this but in realitywomen were welcomed only into private corner of the public realm. The issue was the art galleries. Indeed, Athenaeum librarian often couched in termsof protectingfemale sen- Charles Folsom reacted with shock and horror sibilities-both from the literaturethat might do when some of the trusteessuggested opening the her harm as well as from a social situation that doors of thisprivate preserve to women. First,Fol- would put her respectabilityat risk.Indeed, Victo- som noted that the building itselfwas unsuitable rian culture perceived women as particularlyvul- for the use of ladies; the veryidea of traversingits nerable to the symbolicviolations of the male leer narrow galleries and steep staircases should, Fol- and the impertinent comment and called upon som felt,"cause a decent female to shrink." Sec- women to exercise the most extreme forms of ond, because the unavoidable spectacle of the ac- bodily management in order to avoid these intru- tive female form "would occasion frequent sions. Soberly dressed, eyes averted, moving at a embarrassment to modest men," the proposed measured pace, the respectable woman sought to change in policy would inconvenience the Athe- avoid embarrassment by making her physical naeum's legitimate (male) readers. Finally, the presence as inconspicuous as possible. For a paternalisticFolsom was against givingany "mod- woman to mount one of the library'sspiral stair- est young woman" easy access to what he called cases, to expose her ankles to public view on one "the corrupterportions of the polite literature." of the library'selevated galleries, was to discard From his point of view, "a considerable portion her symbolic shield of privacyand actually to in- vite rudeness." 9 Kenneth A. Breisch, "Small Public Libraries in America, o10Quoted in Athenaeum Centenary,p. 41. 185o-189o: The Inventionand Evolution of a Building Type" (Ph.D. diss.,University of Michigan,1982), pp. 68-70; Athenaeum " The phrase bodilymanagement and the analysisof itsapplica- Centenary:The Influenceand Historyof theBoston Athenaeum from tion to Victorianwomen come fromJohn F. Kasson's studyof z8o07-z907 (Boston: Boston Athenaeum, 1907), pp. 35-37, 40. nineteenth-centuryetiquette books; John F. Kasson,Rudeness and

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Yet Folsom's tirade suggests that female re- onto the head of the startledmale reader below spectabilitywas hardly his only, or even his pri- her.'" mary,concern. Men, too, were vulnerable to em- The American libraryworld of the late nine- barrassment in public places, particularlywhen teenth centurywas less prone to such overt de- forced into visual contact with those who broke monization of women, but it continued to see the the rules of genteel deportment. An important female librarypatron as a special case. For one tenet of proprietywas the refusal to collaborate thing, librarians and libraryboards held fast to in another's self-exposure.Thus, a woman who the belief that adult reading tastes were highly moved outside established norms of respectable gendered. Even in the face of evidence to the behavior embarrassed both herself and the re- contrary,male libraryofficials persisted in their spectable men she encountered. For Folsom and assumptions that women came to the librarypri- other Victorians, female readers not only dis- marilyto consult fashion and home advice maga- rupted libraryorder but also threatened to rend zines and lightnovels. The 1898 annual report of the very social fabric of respectable Boston. the Peoria Public Libraryis a case in point. There Where gender and class were so intricatelyinter- the librarian cited by name eight women's clubs twined,the female presence had potentiallyterri- whose members had used the libraryto prepare fyingconsequences.'2 presentations on history, travel, fiction, and Beginning in the 185os, the development of Shakespeare. Yet, when writing about female public libraries brought the question of the fe- readers generically,he revertedto the stereotype male presence to the fore. By admittingmale and of "the lady of the house, or the daughter, [who] female readers of all classes (but not of all races), hungers for the last new novel, which to-dayis public libraries actually helped protect the elite and to-morrowis cast into the oven." Characteriz- masculine atmosphere of many American athen- ing this desire to read as an "appetite that may aea-a factthat helps explain whyso many athen- be appeased at the public library,"he furtherdi- aea members took an active role in establishing minished the seriousness of women's reading by public libraries that they themselvesdid not fre- associating it with bodily functions rather than quent. At the same time, however, the heteroge- with cerebral activity.'" neous climate of a public librarymade the pres- American library leaders may have seen ence of women even more problematic. Women women as shallow, but they still tended to em- were stillperceived as a disruptiveforce thatinter- brace the Victoriannotion thatwomen were supe- rupted the studyof serious readers. This was par- rior morallyand thus naturallysuited to enhanc- ticularlytrue in England, although British com- ing the library's cultural mission of uplift. In plaints about female readers were oftenreprinted many American cities, municipal officialssought in American periodicals. These complaints en- to attractwomen to public institutionssuch as compassed a stunning varietyof librarycrimes; parks because their presence was believed to en- women were accused of talkingand giggling "be- courage genteel behavior in the men who were neath the statelydome" of the British Museum the primaryobjects of many urban reformmove- Library,of "eating strawberriesbehind folios in ments. By the end of the century,the concept of the societyof some happy studentof the opposite "municipal housekeeping" encouraged middle- sex," and even of stealing fashion plates from li- braryperiodicals. When British librarians began 13 "Ladies in Libraries," LibraryJournal i1, no. to (October readers free ac- to debate the desirabilityof giving 1886): 4o20; "Women's Reading Rooms," The Library4 (1892): cess to bookshelves in the 189os, opponents of 109. The cartoon"Chaos in the Lending Library"was the frontis- the idea their worst fears in a car- piece to an anonymouspamphlet entitled "The TruthAbout Giv- encapsulated ing Readers Free Access to the Books in a Public Lending Li- toon entitled "Chaos in the Lending Library," brary,"printed in 1895 and reproducedin Thomas Kelly,History where the central figureis a woman perched on ofPublic Libraries in GreatBritain, 1845-1975 (London: Library her Assoc., 1977), P. x179. a ladder, calling attention to herself by pre- 14Recent studiesof mid nineteenth-centurybook-borrowing several books carious position and by dropping recordssuggest that reading preferences were not as gendered as librariansand libraryboards believed. For an example, see Ron- ald J. Zboray, "Reading Patternsin AntebellumAmerica: Evi- dence in the Charge Records of the New York SocietyLibrary," Civility:Manners in Nineteenth-CenturyUrban America (New York: Libraries and Culture 26, no. 2 (Spring 1991): 301-33. The Eigh- Hill and Wang, 1990o), pp. 128-132. teenthAnnual Report of the Peoria Public Library (Peoria, Ill.: By the 12Kasson, Rudenessand Civility,pp. 126-27. library,1898), pp. 6-7.

This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:52:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Lady and theLibrary Loafer 227 class women to exercise their moral and cultural raised the specter of the libraryloafer to explain influence on the wider communityand prompted his opposition to the scheme. Writingto the edi- many women to look to the libraryfor employ- tor of the Otago Daily Times,he complained of ment. Whether working in paid positions in ur- conditions in the Wellington Public Library, ban branches or serving as volunteers in the "where wharf loafers, the unemployed, the un- small-towninstitutions established as an exten- employable, and the unwashed made their pres- sion of women's studyclubs, the large number of ence known in many offensiveways. I have per- women in public library work was a distinctly sonally had drunken and snoring visitorsturned American phenomenon that attractedcomments out of the rooms by the attendantson more than from Britishlibrarians.'5 one occasion . .. in all the public libraries, this Because this goal of moral uplift required class of objectionable visitorsis more or less in evi- their presence in the heterogeneous mix of pub- dence and cannot entirely be kept out." Four lic libraryusers, female readers were increasingly years later, the American LibraryAssociation's Li- perceived as potential victims,susceptible to the braryJournal published reportsof a Britishconfer- advances of vulgar males. Of particular concern ence at which librarian W. E. Doubleday decried were "library loafers," unredeemable working- the fact that opponents of the public librarycon- class men whose loiteringthwarted the noble pur- tinued to characterize it as "a reading room for pose of the public library.The loafer took on al- tramps,a shelter for loafers of all kinds, and the most mythic proportions in library literature haunt of betting men." "Loafers and Loungers" throughoutthe Anglo-Americanworld and could was even a subject heading in H. G. T. Cannons's be evoked to support a range of librarycauses. Bibliographyof Library Economy, which indexed En- When the question arose of amalgamating the glish and American libraryscience periodicals is- private Dunedin Athenaeum with the newlycon- sued from 1876 to 1920o; this section included structed Carnegie Free Library in that New eleven articles on the subject published between Zealand city in 190o8,one Athenaeum member 1883 and 1915, more than three times the number of articleslisted under "Ladies' Rooms." It is not clear to what extent 15For women as a moral influencein public institutions,see the "loafer" stereotype Cranz, "Women in Urban Parks,"pp. S80-85. For women in the fitmany actual readers, but libraryofficials were paid workforceof American librarianship, seeJoanne Passett,Cul- forced to confrontthe perception that such men tural Crusaders: WomenLibrarians in theAmerican West,I900- I917 existed and that a serious (Albuquerque: Universityof New Mexico Press,1994); Dee Garri- theyrepresented threat, son, Apostlesof Culture:The PublicLibrarian and AmericanSociety, both to library order generally and to female 1876-192o (New York: Free Press, 1979), pp. 173-241; Laurel readers in particular.'6 Grotzinger,"Biographical Research: RecognitionDenied," Jour- nal of LibraryHistory 18, no. 4 (Fall 1983): 372-81; Mary Niles Maack, "Toward a Historyof Women in Librarianship:A Critical Analysiswith Suggestions for Future Research," Journal of Library Ladies' Reading Room as Strategy History17, no. 2 (Spring 1982): 164-85; Barbara E. Brand, "Li- brarianshipand Other Female-IntensiveProfessions," Journal of LibraryHistory 18, no. 4 (Fall 1983): 391-406; Wayne Wiegand, The tendency to take a protectivestance toward "The Developmentof Librarianshipin the United States,"Librar- female readers was exacerbated somewhat by the ies and Culture24, no. 1 (Winter 1989): 99-109. Western women cultural involved in and were so activein establishingand administeringlibraries for their politics establishing ad- towns that in 1933 the American LibraryAssociation credited ministering public libraries in late nineteenth- women's clubs withinitiating 75 percent of the public libraries centuryAmerica. In large cities, public libraries then in existence. Victoria Kline Musmann, "Women and the were controlled trusteesdrawn Founding of Social Librariesin California,1859-191'0" (Ph.D. by fromthe ranks diss., Universityof Southern California,1982), p. 33, citingSo- of the native-bornsocial elite who had dominated phonisba P. Breckenridge,Women in theTwentieth Century: A Study the boards of privatelibraries and athenaea. Like ofTheir Political, Social, and EconomicActivities (New York:McGraw- Hill, 1933). The connection betweenwomen's clubs and library their predecessors, they tended to claim the pur- organizinghas been well documented; see Scott, "Women and suit of culture as an upper-classactivity and to see Libraries"; Louise Caldwell "Texas Bocock, Libraries and the even publicly supported libraries as essentially Texas Federationof Women's Clubs," TexasLibrary Journal 62, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 26; Deanna B. Marcum, "The Rural Public Li- elite institutionsthat could be opened to the pub- braryin Americaat the Turn of the Century,"Libraries and Culture 26, no. (Winter David 1 1991): 91; Taylor, "Ladies of the Club: 16"Absorbing the Athenaeum," Otago Daily Times, An Arkansas February 1, Story," WilsonLibrary Bulletin 59, no. 5 (January 1908, p. 13; W. E. Doubleday, "Public Libraries and the Public," 1985): 324-27; June O. Underwood, Kansas: Wom- "Civilizing quoted in LibraryJournal 37, no. 12 (December 1912): 681; en's Organizations,1880-1920," Kansas History7, no. 4 (Winter H. G. T. Cannons, Bibliographyof Library Economy (Chicago: Ameri- 1984-85): 300. can Library Assoc., 1927), p. 506.

This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:52:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 228 WinterthurPortfolio 3 z:4 lic only with the benefit of fatherlywisdom and aea, adopting the classical vocabulary and exte- foresight.In smaller towns,the paternalisticqual- rior image of the Renaissance palazzo; the first ityof the public librarycould be even more acute, Boston Public Libraryis a case in point. Afterthe especially when the richest man in town be- Civil War, however, it was more common for li- queathed a small fortuneto finance the building brarytrustees to express their paternalisticvision of a librarythat would carryhis name. The librar- in designs that drew heavilyon the domestic im- ies that H. H. Richardson designed in the 187os ageryof houses in the Queen Anne style.Richard- and 188os for the Massachusetts towns of Wo- son's design for the Winn Memorial Library in burn, North Easton, Quincy, and Malden are per- Woburn, Massachusetts,is a particularlyclear ex- haps the best-knownexamples of this phenome- ample of the phenomenon. On the exterior, a non but are only a few of the many small-town sheltered porch, steeplysloping roofs,and irregu- librariesfinanced by and named for a prominent lar fenestrationwere all design elements that also local philanthropist.In a number of other Massa- appeared in houses of the period. Inside, the chusetts towns, elite women played a substantial double-height book hall lent the building the role in libraryaffairs, often servingon boards of monumental scale of a public place, but the read- trustees in the place of fathers,husbands, and ing room, with its inglenook and its massive fire- brotherswho fellin the CivilWar. Yet theycontin- place, displayed a domestic scale and the coziness ued to see the townlibrary as the domestic library that played such an importantpart of the Victo- writ large and to support the familymetaphor rian ideal of home (fig. 2). In other libraries,a that sustained the libraryactivities of their male painting of the founder hung above the mantel counterparts. Women also played a prominent like an ancestral portrait,enhancing the illusion role in many western towns, where they estab- that familial ties bound gratefullibrary users to lished town librariesas an extension of their par- the generous, paternalisticphilanthropist.8 ticipation in studyclubs.'7 For some library boards, a ladies' reading The architecturalcontainers for these institu- room stocked withfashion and home advice mag- tions were typicallyconstructed without the ad- azines seemed to be an appropriate means of ac- vice of professional librarians, a state of affairs commodating female readers. As early as 1856, that infuriated members of the newly formed the firstAmerican manual of libraryarrangement American LibraryAssociation. Because fewwom- and administrationrecommended the provision en's clubs could afford to erect a purpose-built of "a smaller reading room which may be used structure,libraries in small western towns were exclusivelyby females" in the librarybasement. typicallyad hoc arrangementson the upper floor This room placement is tellingin that it seems to of the courthouse, cityhall, or one of the town's parallel contemporary assumptions about the commercial blocks. In larger cities and in towns lower order of reading in which women engaged. where a local philanthropistoffered the library The author of this manual, Nathaniel Shurtleff, substantial financial support, librarytrustees of- was a trusteeof the Boston Public Library,which ten selected an architect, oversaw construction, subsequently opened its firstbuilding in 1859 and finallyhired a librarianafter the building was witha small ladies' reading room relegated to the complete. At midcentury,these librarybuildings floor below the general reading room.'9 often followed the lead of earlier private athen- In the flurryof public librarybuilding thatfol- lowed the Civil War, however, ladies' reading

17For the elite nature of nineteenth-centurypublic libraries, 18For the physicalform of ad hoc librariesestablished by see Michael H. Harris,"The Purpose of the AmericanPublic Li- women's clubs,see AbigailA. Van Slyck,Free to All: CarnegieLibrar- brary:A RevisionistInterpretation of History,"Library Journal 98, ies and AmericanCulture, I890-192o (Chicago: Universityof Chi- no. 16 (September 15, 1973): 2509-14; Levine, Highbrow,Low- Press, pp. For purpose-built libraries, see brow,pp. 206-19; PhyllisDain, "Public LibraryGovernance and cago 1995), 1'28-33. Breisch, "Small Public Libraries"; and James, "Masculine and Changing 26, no. 2 (Spring a NewYork City," Libraries and Culture Feminine." For more on the Winn MemorialLibrary and the ar- 1991): 219-50. For Richardson's library commissions, see see A. "Small Public Libraries";Ann Melissa Gilkerson,"The chitecturalexpression of paternalisticphilanthropy, Abigail Breisch, " Effectiv Accommoda- Public Librariesof H. H. Richardson" (Honors thesis,Smith Col- Van Slyck, 'The UtmostAmount of [sic] tion': Andrew Carnegie and the Reformof the American Li- lege, For the role of womenin Massachusettslibraries, see 1978). brary,"Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 5o, no. 4 (De- KathleenJames,"Masculine and Feminine:The ShiftingImage of cember 1991): the Public Libraryin Nineteenth-CenturyMassachusetts" (Paper 359-83. A Decimal the and presentedat the annual meetingof the Societyof Architectural 9 NathanielShurtleff, Systemfor Arrangement Historians, 1985). For the libraryactivities of women's study Administrationof Libraries(Boston, 1856), quoted in Breisch, clubs, see note 15. "Small Public Libraries," pp. 91-92.

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Fig. 2. Readingroom, Winn Memorial Library, Woburn, Mass., 1891. (Photo,Baldwin Coolidge, Society for the Preservationof New EnglandAntiquities.)

rooms were by no means ubiquitous. Indeed, ties, easy social intercourse offered no threat to most New England libraries failed to follow the female respectability.20 lead of Boston. Perhaps the prominent role In the 188os, the idea of the ladies' reading played by elite women in the region ensured that room was reintroduced into the American public other women would feel comfortablein any pub- librarywith the support of the newly organized lic room in the library.Certainly, none of Rich- libraryprofession, which was dominated by men ardson's Massachusetts libraries included such who were highly critical of Richardson's library facilities,perhaps because the relative social ho- designs and who increasingly claimed library mogeneityof the towns involved meant that most planning as one of the cornerstones of their spe- prospectivelibrary users could be expected to ad- cial expertise. Chief among them was William here to the code of genteel behavior demanded Poole who wrote frequentlyon the subject in the by the middle class. Indeed, to the extent that LibraryJournal, the officialorgan of the American Richardson and his clients embraced a paternalis- LibraryAssociation. In 1885 he published his rec- tic model of philanthropythat cast libraryusers into the role of dependent relations, they may 20Negative evidence is alwaysdifficult to interpret,so I am have seen a ladies' room as irrelevant.After all, if gratefulto KathleenJamesfor suggesting this explanation for why all libraryusers were connected by fictivefamily so fewMassachusetts libraries included ladies' reading rooms.

This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:52:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 230 WinterthurPortfolio 3 1:4 ommendations and plan for a small public li- dies' reading rooms shared a number of common brary, including "a reading-room for ladies, if characteristics.The decor of the ladies' reading such a room be thought desirable by the direc- room, for instance, was noticeably less institu- tors," and a double-lengthdelivery desk with two tional than the rest of the library.Contemporary windows, "the men being served at one, and the observersoften described these rooms as harmo- women at the other." Thus sanctioned, the la- nious, handsome, inviting,cozy, homelike, ele- dies' reading room became an accepted part of gant, and tasteful.Such adjectiveswere, of course, American library design. Between 1884 and oftenassociated withthe domestic parlor and sug- 1897, at least one third of the forty-fourAmeri- gest that libraryboards may have followed the can librarybuildings pictured in the LibraryJour- lead of other Victorian commercial entities- nalincluded ladies' reading rooms. (These librar- photographers, steamboat and railroad compa- ies, as well as others identified from other nies, hotel proprietors,and restauranteurs-who sources, form the basis of this analysis and are created "parlors" for the exclusiveuse of theirfe- listed in the appendix.)21 male clients.This equation was explicitlystated in Yet whatwas the purpose of the ladies' reading descriptions of the Seattle City Library when it room? The obvious answer-that it provided li- moved onto the fifthfloor of the Collins office braryfacilities for women-is only a partial expla- building inJune 1894; according to a LibraryJour- nation. How did libraryfacilities intended for the nal article published the next year, the ladies' exclusive use of women serve the purposes of reading room was "furnishedas beautifullyas the the institution?Were they intended to minimize drawing room of a private house."22 the impact of the large number of female readers The almost ubiquitous hearth played an im- who already patronized the library,segregating portant role in supporting the analogy between them fromthe "serious" readers at work in other the ladies' reading room and the domestic parlor, parts of the building? Or were they intended to where it symbolized the closeness of familyties. increase the number of female readers by making Sometimes the fireplace in the ladies' reading a place where respectable, middle-class women room was the only one in the building. Such was could read without mixing with men whom they the case at the O. B. Dodge Libraryin Dixon, Illi- found unsavory?Did libraryboards interpretthe nois (designed by W. A. Otis and M. H. Vail, female presence as an effectivemeans of raising opened 1901), where the domestic character of the tone of the public library,thus enhancing its the fireplacewas enhanced by the low bookcases, abilityto uplift?If so, how did the libraryresolve adorned with potted plants, that flanked it on ei- the conflictinherent in tryingto protect middle- ther side (fig. 3). Other libraries included multi- class women fromlower-class men while exposing ple fireplacesbut typicallygave the one in the la- lower-classmen to the purifyinginfluence of mid- dies' reading room special attention. This was dle-class women? To what extent did the ladies' done either throughelaborate ornamentation,as reading room signify a willingness to accept in the Minneapolis Public Library (designed by women as full and active participantsin the pub- Long and Kees, opened 1889; fig.4), or through lic realm? its central placement in the room, as in the Peoria Public Library (designed by Richardson and Salter, opened 1897; fig. 5), or by doubling the Public Li- Furnishing the Ladies' Reading Room number of hearths, as in the Buffalo brary (designed by Cyrus Eidlitz, opened 1887; The physical arrangement of ladies' reading fig. 6).23 rooms offerssome clues to the social conventions Furniturewas an equally importantmeans of associated with the room type.Despite the diver- creating a parlorlike setting for female readers. sity of nineteenth-centurylibrary buildings, la- The seating furniturein a ladies' reading room

21William F. Poole, Library Buildings," LibraryJournal "Small "22R. R. Bowker, "Some Libraries of the Northwest," Library 1O, nos. 9/10 (September/October 1885): 250-56. The Library Journal 20, no. 3 (March 1895): 79. Journal was first issued in 1876. Between that time and 1897 23 O. B. Dodge Library, ArchitecturalReview 9, no. 1 (January (when ladies' reading rooms began to disappear from American "The Public Library," Journal 16, public libraries), the LibraryJournal published illustrations (plans 1902): 49; Minneapolis Library Public or elevations or both) of 44 American public librarybuildings. Of no. 6 (June 1891): 176-79; "The Peoria Library," Library The Li- these, 14 definitely included ladies' reading rooms. In 6 other Journal 22, no. 3 (March 1897): frontispiece, 145; Buffalo N.Y.: the cases, the information provided in the LibraryJournal is insuffi- braryand Its Building, Illustratedwith Views (Buffalo, By cient to determine the existence of a ladies' reading room. library, 1887), p. 30.

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Fig. 3. O. B. Dodge Library,Dixon, Ill., ca. 19go1.(Photo, Dixon PublicLibrary.) Ladies' readingalcove at left.

was often upholstered and carved to match- room were smaller than their counterparts in more like "a parlor suit" than the institutional other parts of the libraryand, in some cases, were furniturethat dominated the rest of the library. designated for letterwriting rather than for read- What is more, the ladies' reading room often in- ing and note taking. In Newark, the ladies' read- cluded seating typesnot commonly used in pub- ing room included a large round-top table-the lic places. Upholstered settles were featured in only round table in the building-that mimicked the Newark Free Public Library (designed byVan the shape of the parlor center table (fig. 7). In Kampen Taylor,opened 1889) and in the Minne- the ladies' reading room in Minneapolis, tables apolis Public Library,while rocking chairs were a were almost nonexistent,and most of the chairs part of the ladies' reading rooms in the Buffalo in the room, with their low, upholstered seats, library(where therewere at least fivesuch chairs) were not intended to be used with tables at all and in the Tacoma librarywhen it was housed in (see fig. 4) .24 the CityHall in the mid 189os (see figs.4, 6). Ta- Other furnishingsoften completed the par- bles, too, are noteworthy.While the general read- lorlike atmosphere. The ladies' reading room was ing rooms provided serious readers with large often the only public room provided with carpet- rectangulartables that encouraged extended, sol- ing and draperies, furnishingsparticularly associ- itaryexamination of heftytomes, ladies' reading ated with domestic comfortin that theysoftened, rooms typicallyprovided tables that suggested a at least visually,the hard, architectonic edges of verydifferent interaction with books. In Tacoma, for instance, the tables in the ladies' reading 24Bowker, "Some Librariesof the Northwest,"pp. 78-79.

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Fig. 4. Ladies' readingroom, Minneapolis Public Library. From ThePublic Library, Minneapolis: Described and Illus- trated(New York:Exhibit Publishing, 1890o).

the building. This was explicitlystated in contem- source of beauty, natural motifswere particularly porarydescriptions of the ladies' reading room in popular and appeared in many media, including the Buffalo library,which noted that "its floor is stained-glasswindows, elaborately carved mantel- made softwith rugs, and it is furnishedwith the pieces, and frescoes. Indeed, at the Hackley Pub- most comfortable of chairs." Like the domestic lic Libraryin Muskegon, Michigan (designed by parlor, the ladies' reading room was also devoted Patton and Fisher, opened 1890o), the ladies' to the celebration of beauty, as revealed in both reading room was decorated with frescoes de- art and nature. Not onlywere such rooms favorite picting "sprays of roses and other flowers to places to display individual works of art (includ- lighten the general effect."In manylibraries, the ing plaster casts of classical sculpture, paintings, beauty of the natural world was introduced into prints,and photographs of historicmonuments), the ladies' reading room witha vase of cut flowers but they were often fittedout with the most or- or a potted plant (see fig. 3). Although plaster nate and "artistic" furnishingsin the library(see casts, paintings, and plants sometimes appeared figs.3-6). Thanks to contemporaryaesthetic the- in other parts of the library,ladies' reading rooms ory, which interpreted nature as the ultimate were particularlyassociated withbeauty, thanks in

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Fig. 5. Peoria PublicLibrary, Peoria, Ill., ca. 1897. (Photo,Peoria PublicLibrary.) Ladies' readingalcove in rear.

large part to the highly visible role of women's cluded a "richly moulded and carved" chim- clubs in furnishingthese rooms with thingsartis- neypiece, stained-glasswindows over the mantel tic. In Seattle, for instance, published accounts shelf,and handsome wrought-ironandirons. On noted the effortof the ladies' society,"which has the floor, Oriental rugs "of harmonious color- special charge of this room, and provides a spe- ing" completed the homelike atmosphere of the cial fund for pictures and books on art,which are room. In the public librarybuilding in Minneapo- displayed in it."''25 lis, the ladies' reading room was more than twice In some cases, the analogy with parlor fittings that size, but its elaborately carved mantelpiece, was remarkablythorough. In 1889 in the Newark works of sculpture, carpeted floors, draperies, library,the ladies' reading room was a relatively and informalarrangement of chairs evoked both small space (22' X 23') with a wide fireplace and the culture and comfortassociated with the do- tiled hearth flanked by built-inoak settles in an mestic parlor (see fig. 4)26 arrangement that mimicked the domestic ingle- Not everylibrary board was willing to provide nook that was often a part of contemporary such capital-intensivedisplays of hominess, but houses in the Queen Anne style (fig. 7). Uphol- many did include one or two parlor elements as stered in Spanish leather and supported by a material culture shorthand for domesticityand, carved ends, these settles matched the other fur- niture in the room, including a sofa, chairs, and a table. Other ornamentationin- 26 "Newark (N.J.) Library,"p. 440. For the symbolicassocia- large round-top tionsof the domesticparlor, see KatherineC. Grier,"The Decline of the MemoryPalace: The Parlorafter 1890," in JessicaFoy and 25 BuffaloLibrary, p. 30; TheHackley Public Library of Muskegon, Thomas J. Schlereth,eds., AmericanHome Life, 1880-1930: A So- Michigan(Chicago: A. C. McClurg,1891), p. 89; Bowker,"Some cial Historyof Spaces and Services(Knoxville: University of Tennes- Librariesof the Northwest,"p. 79. see Press, 1992), pp. 53-54.

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Fig. 6. Ladies' readingroom, Buffalo Public Library, Buffalo, N.Y. From The Buffalo Library and ItsBuild- ing, Illustratedwith Views (Buffalo, N.Y.: By the library,1887), opp. p. 3o.

by extension, femininity.For instance, when the might have selected for their own homes? Was it public libraryin Paterson, New Jersey,opened in inevitable that public facilitiesfor women mimic the converted Danforth house in 189o, the la- the domestic parlor? dies' reading room was the only public room with To answer these questions, it is helpful to con- carpeting. By the early twentiethcentury, the li- sider the town libraries established by women's brarian in San Diego quipped that the only way study clubs in the trans-AppalachianWest in the to tell the differencebetween the sex-segregated late nineteenth century. While these libraries periodical rooms "was that the women's reading have recentlybeen recognized for the important room held a potted palm.""27 part they played in the growth of the public li- How are we to interpretthese material trap- brary movement, they also constitute an unusu- pings of domesticity?Were theyan attemptto an- ally good example of a public space furnished ticipate female tastes? Were the upholstered and administeredby middle-classwomen without chairs, round tables, draperies, and sculptural male interference.Although such libraries often busts simply intended to make middle-class fe- depended on the good will of male elected offi- male readers feel more comfortable by giving cials to secure rent-freerooms in the cityhall or them the sortsof furnishingsthat they themselves county courthouse, they were otherwise under the control of club women who volunteered their 27G. F. Winchester,"The DanforthLibrary Building," Library time to furnish,arrange, and supervise the library Journal16, no. to (October 1891): 308. Althea Warren, San facilities.Despite the frequent use of furnishings Diego citylibrarian 1916-26, quoted in Clara E. Breed, Begin- nings: San Diego Public LibraryHistory, 1882-1970 (San Diego: By cast off from private households, these town li- the library, 1970), p. 3. braries were often devoid of domestic imagery.

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WJ l J

Jun0li~ C i

D 'C I. ...". I LcI . [lR [] I][1 L C LJ I,

Fig. 7. First-and second-floorplans, Newark Free PublicLibrary, Newark, N.J. From "The Newark(N.J.) Free Public Library," LibraryJournal 14, no. 11 (November 1889): 439. Left(first-floorplan): C = cata- logue room; L = ladies' parlor; T = trustees' room; D = deliveryarea and book storage. Right(second- floorplan): R = generalreading room; Co = coat room; U = upper partof book storage.

The turn-of-the-centurylibrary room in Xenia, and commercial offices of their husbands and Ohio, is a case in point. As Helen Hooven Sant- brothersthan the domestic settingsthey arranged myerremembered it, the old librarywas at home. In short,a parlorlike settingfor the ladies' reading room was hardly a great rectangularroom; windowsin the side wall inevitable. Rather, it a choice on the looked downbehind and beneaththe stairs to thealley suggests culturallysignificant below;those at the end offereda viewof a jumble of part of public libraryorganizers.28 roofs,ending with the sheriff'shouse and the barred windowsof the countyjail. In the centerof the floor was a railed enclosure and the librarians'desk; two Locating the Ladies' Reading Room rowsof round posts,painted public institution brown, held up the ceiling,and bookcases-tall walnutbook- The ladies' reading room may have been fur- cases with glass doors-stood against the wall all nished like the domestic parlor, but it functioned aroundthe the shelveswere not out room..,. top only in verydifferent ways. The domestic parlor was ar- of reach-they were out of sight;however much you that those were the best could suspected books,you 28Helen Hooven Santmyer,Ohio Town (Columbus: Ohio onlyhope thatMiss McElwainput up therethe ones State UniversityPress, 1963; reprint,New York: BerkleyBooks, thatno one wanted. 1985), p. o20. For late nineteenth-centurycommercial spaces, see James M. Mayo, TheAmerican Grocery Store: The Business Evolution The floor-to-ceilingglass-front bookcases that of an ArchitecturalSpace (Westport,Conn.: Greenwood Press, figure so largely in Santmyer's description, the 1993), PP. 52-54; William Leach, "Strategies of Display and the Production of Desire," in Simon J.Bronner, ed., ConsumingVi- railed enclosure, and other spatial barriers lim- sions: of Goods Accumulationand Display in America,1880-I92o ited the readers' freedom of movement and em- (New York:W. W. Nortonfor the HenryFrancis du Pont Winter- phasized the library'sinstitutional quality. Their thurMuseum, 1989), pp. 1ioo-10o6;ThomasJ. Schlereth,"Coun- tryStores, County Fairs, and Mail-OrderCatalogues: Consump- presence suggeststhat club women aspired to cre- tion in Rural America,"in Bronner,Consuming Visions, pp. 339- ate settingsthat were more like the professional 56.

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. P/ B -

? ;u IZ- I.

V 'V T=* /e ---!,,

= t.,a f" , '.. . .

Fig. 8. Cummingsand Sears,first-floor plan, unbuiltcompetition entry for Woburn, Mass., public library.From "Design forthe Woburn Library," American Architect and BuildingNews 2, no. 63 (March io, 1877): betweenpp. 76 and 77. W = women'sreading room; T = trustees' room; V = vestibule; R = general reading room; L = librarian's room; Re = refer- ence room;D = deliveryarea; B = book storage. guably the most important room in the middle- in the United States many small towns opted to class house, its importance marked by its large forgo the newspaper reading room altogether.Li- size, by its prominent location at the frontof the braries that maintained theirnewspaper subscrip- house, and by the expense and care devoted to tions sought to isolate the loafer fromrespectable its furnishings.The settingfor the most intense female readers by placing the newspaper reading social interaction between residents and visitors, room at some distance from the ladies' reading the parlor was the public face of a private space. room, often on another floor. In Buffalo,for in- In some circumstances, the parlor was the only stance, the ladies' reading room was located on part of the house that visitorswould see, and in the second floor, directly over the newspaper those cases, it was called upon to represent the reading room. In Minneapolis the ladies' reading whole house. In contrast, the ladies' reading room shared the main floor with the other polite room played no such central role. In fact,its size, functionsof the librarywhile the newspaper read- shape, and location reveal its somewhat con- ing room was consigned to the basement. If the flicted position in the hierarchyof public library ladies' reading room was figurativelyand literally space. above the newspaper reading room, it was usually An important consideration for the ladies' placed in a secondary position to the general reading room was its relationship to the newspa- reading room intended for the use of "serious per reading room, a place that conventional li- readers." This hierarchyof spaces was sometimes brary wisdom identified with the libraryloafer, difficultto maintain. In the firstBoston Public Li- who came to the libraryprimarily to consult the brary building, the general reading room occu- racing news. The loafer's threatto libraryrespect- pied the entire second floor in order to accom- abilitywas real enough that by the 189os some modate the multilevel galleries that allowed Britishlibrarians began to advocate blacking out serious readers to enjoy visual access to the entire the betting news from librarynewspapers, while book collection. In such an arrangement,the la-

This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:52:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Lady and theLibrary Loafer 237 dies' reading room was relegated to the floor below, uncomfortablyclose to the periodical and newspaper reading room.29 In subsequent decades, American libraries increasingly used differences in room size and shape to signal the secondary importance of the ladies' reading room. Not only were ladies' read- rooms smaller, were also often ing but they Ej planned as simple rectangles. In contrast, the general reading room was often given a special Li shape, and by the 1880s and 189os, it was common to see such rooms withlarge curved bays and bow windows.This was the case in two unbuilt designs by Cummings and Sears for the libraryin Woburn, Massachusetts (a commission that even- Li tuallywent to H. H. Richardson), at the Minneap- Re n D ~ILi olis Public Library,and at the O. B. Dodge Li- brary (figs. 8, 9).o30 Finally,adjacencies were often used to distin- ladies' rooms and guish between reading general R L reading rooms. In many cases, the general reading room communicated directlywith the refer- ence room, while ladies' reading rooms were more likely to be adjacent to less intellectually stimulatinglibrary facilities, either the children's room (as in the San Diego Public Library, de- Fig. First-floorplan, MinneapolisPublic Library. signed byAckerman and Ross, opened 1902), the 9. From "The MinneapolisPublic Library,' Jour- trustees' room in the Newark Library (as libraryand in nal 16, no. 6 (June 1891): 177. R = generalreading the later of the two Cummings and Sears plans room;L = ladies' readingroom; Re = referenceroom; for the Woburn library),or the librarian's office D = deliveryroom; Li = librarian'sroom; B = book (as in the Minneapolis Public Library). It is un- storage. clear whetherthis placement was intended to protect female readers from the library loafer or whether it was to allow libraryofficials to super- Ladies' Reading Room as Spectacle vise female readers who were increasingly ma- ligned-especially in the British press-as the The issue of the visual connection between the la- class of reader most likelyto deface libraryprop- dies' reading room and the rest of the librarywas ertyby cutting out fashion plates and other illus- of particular concern to VictorianAmericans, for trationsfrom magazines (see figs. 7-9).31 whom the unwanted male gaze-the leer--was taken as a serious threatto female purity.Women 9 For Britishdiscussions of the newspaperroom, see J. Elliot, who called attention to their bodies-through "Extinctionof the BettingEvil in Public Newsrooms,"Library 5 or the D dress, through demeanor, through simple (1893): 193-94; R. rent,"Inroduction to Discussion on use of conveniences-were Blacking Out of SportingNews in Libraries," Library6 (1894): public particularly 127-29. For the Boston situation,see Breisch,"Small Public Li- vulnerable. Thus, ladies' reading rooms were of- braries," pp. 91-93. Accordingto Walter Muir Whitehill,"the ten arranged to provide female readers with dis- high standardof decorum among users of the librarymade such crete entrances to toilet facilities.A case in segregationof the sexes unnecessa" (Walter Muir Mrqitehill, point BostonPublic Library: A ntennialHistory [Cambridge: Harvard is the Brooks Library, which opened in Brat- UniversityPress, 1956], p. 57). in 1 rooms so tleboro,Vermont, 887. There, reading "Design for the Woburn Library,"American Architect and for men and women were identical in size and BuildingNews 2, no. 63 (March ito, 1877): between pp. 76 and 77, shape, but the ladies' reading room provided di- 1 rect access to the "Free Public Library,San Diego, California,"Architectural ladies' toilet via a corner door Recordg, no. 1 (January19o2): 48. For women as librarycrimi- nals,see "Ladies in Libraries,"p. 4o20; B. Wood, "Women's Read- PublicLibraries: A Treatiseon TheirDesign, Construction, and Fittings ing Rooms," Library4 (1892): 1o8-11; Amian L. Champneys, (London: B. T. Batsford,g19o7), p. 88.

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Fig. io. StratfordLibrary, Stratford, Conn. From StratfordPublic Library: Dedication Exer- cises(Bridgeport, Conn.: By the library,1896), opp. p. i6. that was invisiblefrom other parts of the library. Yet protection from the male gaze was rarely In contrast,the toiletfacilities for men opened di- absolute. In many cases, the ladies' reading room rectlyinto the public deliveryroom. There was a was not a separate room at all but ratheran alcove similararrangement at the Carnegie Free Library off the main reading room. Such rooms allowed (designed by Smithmeyer and Pelz, opened male scrutiny of female readers and, in some 1890) in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania,where a cases, actually encouraged visual contact by fram- small reading alcove for ladies provided access to ing the view into the ladies' reading room with what one newspaper account described as "a cozy elaborate architecturalelements. In the Stratford, resortwhere all the operations of the toilettecan Connecticut, library (designed by W. H. Miller, be performed in agreeable seclusion." Ladies' opened 1896), the ladies' reading room was as reading rooms in the Portland, Oregon, Library open for general viewingas the periodical room; Association Building (designed by William M. both areas were located in alcoves off the main Whidden, opened 1893), in the BuffaloPublic Li- reading room, with wide openings framed by brary,in the Newark Free Public Library,and in "columns running from floor to ceiling, of the the Cummings and Sears designs for the Woburn same materials as the outside walls, but highly librarylikewise shielded the door of the women's polished, and finished with elegantly carved toilet fromgeneral view (see figs.7, 8). 32 caps" (fig. io). The O. B. Dodge Librarywas arranged in a similar way,with the ladies' reading 32For Victorianprohibitions on calling attentionto bodily room and a "file and reading room" located in functions,see Kasson,Rudeness and Civility,pp. 124-26. For Brit- alcoves on either side of the general reading ish debates about public toiletsfor women, see Walker,"Vistas of Pleasure," p. 77. On AlleghenyCity situation, see "AndrewCar- room; in this case, a centrallyplaced fireplace in negie's Gift,"The Bulletin, clipping preserved in the CarnegieCor- the ladies' reading room emphasized the symme- porationArchives, Rare Books and ManuscriptLibrary, Columbia tryof the space, givingit the character of a shad- University.It is also worthnoting that the men's toiletcould be reached eitherthrough the public deliveryroom or directlyfrom the librarian'sprivate office, a clear indicationthat librarianship was stillunderstood to be a male professionin the 188os. See also 1887): 130-34; "Portland LibraryAssociation Building," Library "The Brooks LibraryBuilding," LibraryJournal 12, no. 3 (March Journal20, no. 3 (March 1895): opp. p. 79.

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owbox (see fig. 3). At the Peoria Public Library, sure, a few new librarybuildings were designed female readers found themselves in a stagelike withladies' reading rooms around the turnof the area, brilliantlylit by windows on two sides and century,including the previouslydiscussed O. B. carefullyframed by three round-head arches (the Dodge Libraryand the Carnegie-financedlibrary only round-head arches on the main floor) sup- in San Diego. Likewise, the Danforth library ported by classical columns (see fig.5). In Minne- building in Paterson, New Jersey,retained its la- apolis the ladies' reading room was a self-con- dies' reading room afterundergoing a substantial tained room, but the prominent position of the enlargement in 1901, as did the Carnegie Free mirrorover the ornate fireplace may have served Library in Allegheny City. Yet ladies' reading to remind female readers to consider themselves rooms were increasinglydismantled, often with so on display (see fig. 4).33 littlefanfare that it is difficultto pinpoint an ex- The frequency with which ladies' reading act date. The Cleveland Public Libraryhad pro- rooms were visible from the other public areas of vided a separate area forwomen when the library the librarysuggests that not every incidence of facilities in the Cleveland Board of Education the male gaze was construed as a leer that threat- building were rearranged in 1893, but no such ened to disrupt the social order. The male gaze, accommodation was provided when the library appropriately directed, could also maintain the moved into new quarters in i901. In Portland, social order. On one hand, it reinforced female Oregon, it is unclear how long the ladies' reading virtue by policing behavior of women. On the room in the 1893 building functioned as origi- other, it encouraged male moralityby exposing nally designed; certainly,a new central library men to the upliftingimage of female respectabil- building opened in 1913 without a ladies' read- ity.In this sense, the goal of the ladies' reading ing room. In the San Diego Public Library,the room was never the total physical segregation of men's and women's reading rooms were com- the sexes. Instead, the ladies' reading room pro- bined into one periodical room in 1915, while at vided a carefullyconstructed stage on which fe- the Carnegie libraryin AlleghenyCity, the ladies' male readers were encouraged to enact an ongo- reading room was dismantled sometime before of ing spectacle respectable femininity,perusing 1931.35 in light literature, relaxed postures, surrounded In large part,the decline of the ladies' reading by material symbols of their essentiallydomestic room was hastened by the professionalizationof nature. Like tableauxvivants that often used the librarianshipand its new emphasis on public ser- silent,motionless female formto educate and en- vice. Like workers in many middle-class occupa- lighten a predominantly male audience, ladies' tions who aspired to professionalstatus, librarians rooms reading facilitated and even celebrated a increasinglylinked their work to progressive so- public enactment of privatevirtues. To the extent cial reformefforts, redefining the libraryas an in- that such virtueswere understood to be class and tegral part of the scientificallydetermined pro- gender ladies' specific, segregated facilitieswere cess of public education. In so doing, they an important tool for introducing orderliness enhanced theirpublic image and found an unas- into the heterogeneous city.34 sailable argument for finallywresting responsibil- ity for librarydesign away from librarytrustees and trustee-hiredarchitects."6 The Decline of the Ladies' Reading Room Allowing readers direct access to the books and providingservice to children were two of the The practice of providing sex-segregatedreading most important innovations associated with the facilities to decline in the United began States in social reform effortsof the American public li- the early of the twentieth years century. To be brary.Both had profound implicationsfor library

Stratford S"The Library,"Scientific American, Building Edition 5 "Danforth Library Building," Bulletin ofthe Paterson Free Pub- (June 1896): 95. For the mirroras a device to remind women lic Library4, no. 1 (December 1901): 13; Eleventh Annual Report thatthey were on display,see Brucken,"In the Public Eye." ofthe Carnegie Free Library, Allegheny City (n.p., 1901); Plans, Views, '4 For tableaux vivants and other parlor theatricals, see Karen and Descriptionsof theFree Public Library Building of Cleveland (Cleve- Halttunen, ConfidenceMen and Painted Women: A Study ofMiddle- land: Free Public Library,1893); Annual Reportof theCleveland Class Culture in America, x83o-187o (New Haven: Yale University PublicLibrary (Cleveland: By the library,1901), pp. 60-62. Press, 1982), pp. 174-87; Robert M. Lewis, "Tableaux Vivants: 36For linksbetween librarianship and social reform,see Gar- Parlor Theatricals in Victorian America," Revue Franpaise d'Etudes rison,Apostles of Culture, Van Free Americaines no. pp. 196-225; Slyck, toAll, pp. 8, 36 (April 1988): 280-91. 174-76.

This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:52:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 240 WinterthurPortfolio 31:4 facilitiesin the early twentiethcentury. Commu- were less likelyto embrace the idea of innate fe- nities lucky enough to erect a new building in male moral superiority.Given the new emphasis these years (often with the aid of a Carnegie on professional training as the basis for their grant) tended to dedicate a substantialpart of the claims to professional status, librarians-includ- main floor to a children's reading room. In fact, ing a growingnumber of female librarians-were guidelines for libraryplanning published by the loathe to accept the suggestion that the mere Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 rec- presence of any woman might enhance the li- ommended devoting a full half of the library's brary's efficacyat social uplift. Certainly,those main floor to the use of young readers but ig- who encouraged women's entryinto the profes- nored completely the once-common practice of sion argued that some aspects of librarianship providinga room for the exclusive use of women. were particularlywell suited to innatelyfeminine For communities that eked out space for new li- qualities. John Cotton Dana, Newark's librarian, braryservices in nineteenth-centurylibrary build- called upon conventional female stereotypesto ings, institutinga children's area could mean los- support his claim that women were well suited to ing a ladies' reading room. At the Hackley Library many aspects of librarywork, including catalogu- in Muskegon, Michigan, the children's depart- ing, classifying,indexmaking, and book repair. ment was opened on the second floor in 1922 in Yet the characteristicsthat he identifiedas partic- a room thathad originallyserved as the director's ularlyfemale had nothing to do withmoral supe- office. That function was, in turn, eventually riority,stressing instead a viewof the ideal woman moved into the space that had been designed in as pleasant, malleable, accurate, and detail ori- 1888 as the ladies' reading room.37 ented. Even when women rejected these passive Equally important, these changes in library roles in favorof more active participationin work philosophy prompted professional librarians to with children, they were careful to use the new temper theirfear of the libraryloafer. Indeed, in field of child psychology-not innate moral supe- order to defend the library'ssocial usefulness (as riority-as the theoreticalbasis of their claims to well as their own), theyneeded to maintain their professional expertise.39 faiththat working-class readers were redeemable, In short,modern librarytheory turned the ta- susceptible to the library'spower to uplift. It is bles on all of the arguments that had once sup- true that many leaders in the field, men such as ported the ladies' reading room. Where library ArthurBostwick of St. Louis, continued to com- order had once been maintained through the plain about the tendency of newspaper rooms to provision of a number of small reading rooms, attract "the tramp element-rough and often modern libraries maintained order with open dirtypersons who come to lounge or rest, per- planning. Where libraries had once sought to haps to sleep, rarelyto read." Yet, in identifying limit (but not eradicate) the visual contact be- homeless "tramps" as the problem group, librari- tween readers of differentsexes and different ans had made a subtle shiftin theirthinking. Un- classes, modern librariesequalized all clients and trustworthylibrary users certainlystill existed, but sought to facilitate surveillance by the library they were now defined as outsiders rather than staff.Where women were once perceived as po- community members, as the exception rather tential victimswho threatened to disrupt library than the rule. To the extent that the specter of order by attractingthe unwanted leers of fellow the libraryloafer faded from the libraryimagina- readers, women increasingly adopted a profes- tion, so too did the stereotypeof the vulnerable sional persona in modern libraries,enforcing li- female reader in need of protection in a sex- braryorder by deploying a stern glance of their segregated reading room.38 own. Where women's primaryrole in the library At the same time, twentieth-centurylibrarians had once been as passive spectacle, theyemerged in the modern libraryas active participantsin the libraryscene. 37For the impact of the Carnegie libraryprogram on children's reading rooms,see Van Slyck,Free to All, pp. 179-92. For the rearrangementof the HackleyLibrary, see MarilynAndersen, TheHackley Public Library: A CentennialHistory (Muskegon: Marilyn Andersen,Hackley Public Library,and Public Schools of the City 39JohnCotton Dana, "Women in LibraryWork," TheIndepen- of Muskegon,1990). dent71, no. 3270 (August 3, 1911): 244-50. For women and pro- 38Arthur E. Bostwick,The American Public Library (New York: fessionallibrarianship, see Van Slyck,Free to All, pp. 173-92; Gar- D. Appleton, 1910), p. 67. rison,Apostles of Culture, pp. 207-17.

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Conclusions public librarymarked important changes in the social dynamics of the American city, changes Ladies' reading rooms established in American that point to the close connection between atti- public librariesin the late nineteenth centurydid tudes toward class and ideas about gender. When not welcome women as full participants in the the Victorian world had sought social stabilityby public sphere. Rather they played an active role maintainingclass distinctions,respectable women in reproducing a particularset of gender assump- were deployed to police the line between classes. tions. Their design and location suggest that they On display in the ladies' reading room, middle- constituted a partitioning of the public sphere class women were boundary markersbetween the through the provision of specially arranged set- genteel world of the trustees and the suspect tings that encouraged female readers to assume world of the loafer. In contrast, the Progressive culturallyprescribed postures of genteel feminin- generation hoped to produce social stabilityby ity. Like the tableauxvivants that were a favorite eradicating class distinctions (although in prac- activityof the study clubs organized by middle- tice they often confused a classless society with class women, such public enactments were pri- one that achieved universaladherence to middle- marilyfor the consumption of a male audience; class standards of behavior). In this setting,re- the stretchingof a woman's mind was not prohib- spectable women-as librarians-were now ex- ited, but it certainlywas not the primarygoal of pected to bridge a gap that theyhad once helped the exercise. Indeed, the ladies' reading room maintain. Working at the circulation desk or in marked its users as a special category in the li- the children's room, middle-classwomen played braryworld, confirmingthe assumption that seri- mother to immigrantchildren and were instru- ous readers and female readers were two distinct mental in campaigns to introduce them to mid- groups. Offered as a means of protectingfemale dle-class modes of gentility.In the early twentieth respectability in the public realm, the ladies' century,middle-class women were still deployed reading room also served to reinforce-even to along an unstable cultural frontier,but the fron- naturalize-a socially constructed hierarchyof li- tieritself had shiftedaway from the confrontation braryreaders based on class and gender. between the lady and libraryloafer that had once The decline of the ladies' reading room in the been staged in the ladies' reading room.

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Appendix AmericanPublic Librarieswith Ladies' Reading Rooms

Date City Building Architect Buildingstatus

Opened 1859 Boston FirstBoston Public Charles Kirk demolished 1899 Library Kirby Designed 1875 Woburn,Mass. competitionentry 1 Cummings neverbuilt and Sears Designed 1876 Woburn,Mass. competitionentry 2 Cummings neverbuilt and Sears Opened 1883 San Diego CommercialBank, - librarymoved to second floor fourthfloor, 1889 Published 1885 - ideal plan WilliamPoole neverbuilt Opened 1887 Buffalo,N.Y. BuffaloPublic Library CyrusEidlitz demolished Opened 1887 Brattleboro,Vt. Brooks LibraryBuilding J. M. Currier demolished 1966 Opened 1887 Belchertown,Mass. Clapp MemorialLibrary H. F. Kilburn standing Opened 1889 Minneapolis MinneapolisPublic Long and Kees demolished 1961 Library Opened 1889 Newark,N.J. NewarkFree Public Van Kampen demolished Library Taylor Opened 1889 San Diego CommercialBank, - librarymoved out fourthfloor of building,1893 Opened 1890 AlleghenyCity, Pa. Carnegie Free Library Smithmeyer standing and Pelz Opened 1890 Paterson,N.J. convertedDanforth - demolished house Opened 1890 Muskegon,Mich. HackleyPublic Library Pattonand standing Fisher Opened 1893 Portland,Oreg. LibraryAssociation WilliamM. librarymoved to Building Whidden new quarters,1913 Opened 1893 Tacoma, Wash. CityHall Hathertonand standing,city McIntosh vacated in 1959 Rearranged 1893 Cleveland Board of Education - demolished,ca. Building 1901 Opened 1894 Seattle,Wash. Collins officebuilding - - Opened 1894 Hoboken, N.J. Free Public Libraryand AlbertBeyer standing Manual TrainingSchool Opened 1896 Stratford,Conn. StratfordLibrary W. H. Miller standing Opened 1897 Peoria, Ill. Peoria Public Library Richardson demolished 1966 and Salter Opened 1901 Dixon, Ill. O. B. Dodge Library W. A. Otis and standing MorrisonH. Vail - Enlarged 1901 Paterson,N.J. convertedDanforth house Opened San Diego San Diego Public Library Ackermanand demolished 1952 190o2 Ross

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