Democracy Bestowed: The Boston Public Library and the Evolution of the Ideal of Civic Education By Katherine Sophia Fichter B.A. History The College of the University of Chicago, 1995 Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in City Planning at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY June 2002 © 2002 Katherine Sophia Fichter. All Rights Reserved. The author hereby grants to M.I.T. permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Author Department of Urban Studies and Planning /1 May 13, 2002 Certified By Professor Lawrence J. Vale Department of Urban Studies and Planning Thesis Supervisor Accepted By A Professor Dennis Frenchman Department of Urban Studies and Planning MASSACHUSETTSINSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Chair, M.C.P. Committee JUL 2 2002 ROTCH -1- LIBRARIES TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract Page 3 Acknowledgements Page 4 Frontispiece Page 5 Epigraph of the Boston Public Library Page 6 Introduction Page 7 Chapter 1 - The Meanings of Buildings Page 16 Chapter 2 - The Foundations of the Boston Public Library Page 26 Chapter 3 - A Palace for the People: Charles Follen McKim and the Boston Public Library Page 38 Part I - Urban Context Page 39 Part II - Design and Construction Page 49 Part III - A Palace for the People Page 62 Part IV - McKim: Conclusions Page 72 Chapter 4 - A Monument to Function: Philip Johnson and the Boston Public Library Page 75 Part I - Urban Context Page 76 Part II - Design and Construction Page 84 Part III - A New Face Page 96 Part IV -Johnson: Conclusions Page 106 Chapter 5 - An Urban Network Page 109 Conclusion Page 123 Appendix Page 130 Illustrations Page 134 Notes and Bibliography Page 161 Biographical Note Page 178 -2- DEMOCRACY BESTOWED: THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEAL OF CIVIC EDUCATION By KATHERINE SOPHIA FICHTER Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on May 13, 2002 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of City Planning ABSTRACT A critical examination of the architectural and institutional history of the Boston Public Library, this thesis blends primary sources and contemporary architectural theory to develop a thematic argument about the linkages between architecture, urban design, and the institutional mission of the Library. Beginning with a review of the early history of the public library movement in Boston and working through an in-depth analysis of the design and development of the Copley Square Library building (1895) of Charles Follen McKim and its substantial addition (1972) by Philip Johnson, this thesis demonstrates that the tools of architecture and urban design have been used in varying ways throughout the history of the Library to emphasize or de-emphasize different elements of the Library's institutional mission. In particular, the thesis traces the ways in which the use of architecture evolved in the seventy-seven years between the McKim Building and the Johnson addition, arguing that the design of the second structure implicitly and explicitly rejected the cultural agenda of the McKim Building in favor of a design of functionalism, efficiency, and consumerism. Where McKim integrated the aesthetics of personal and social uplift into his design, a design simultaneously elitist and democratic, Johnson produced a structure dedicated primarily to utility. The thesis concludes that, by so doing, Johnson sacrificed an opportunity - important to the core mission of American public libraries - to communicate the pleasure and privilege of reading and self-education. The thesis also includes a discussion of representative branch libraries, applying the same method of architectural and urbanistic analysis to three local facilities in order to provide a sense of the architectural and cultural development of the Boston Public Library outside of Copley Square. Thesis Supervisor: Lawrence J. Vale Title: Professor of Urban Studies and Planning -3- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis began with a curiosity about the role of civic architecture in the urban environment and gradually developed into a focused and rewarding study of the history of the Boston Public Library. Much of the pleasure of an effort such as this one comes from the opportunity to work within a community, without which the experience would be both less meaningful and less satisfying. I am grateful to all who have generously shared their ideas, insights, time, and resources over the past months. Many members of the M.I.T. community have contributed to this project. First, my academic advisors in Department of Urban Studies and Planning - Professor Lawrence J. Vale, Lecturer Lois A. Craig, and Professor Thomas J. Campanella - have been consistently supportive and encouraging throughout the effort. Other M.I.T. faculty, including Professor Robert M. Fogelson and Professor Sam Bass Warner, have offered many good ideas and suggestions. Professor Fogelson in particular has always urged me to follow my intellectual instincts, and to him I am especially grateful. The staff of Rotch Library has been unflaggingly patient and generous with my many requests. My classmates have also been crucial in helping me to develop my ideas, particularly Brent Ryan, Raja Shankar, and my fellow students in Graduate Thesis Seminar. I am also grateful to Professor James F. O'Gorman of Wellesley College for his comments and thoughts on early drafts. This project would not have been possible without the assistance of the staffs at several Boston institutions, including the Boston Athenaeum, the Bostonian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. I am also indebted to the Landmarks Commission of the City of Boston and the Beebe Communications Library of Boston University. I am particularly grateful for the help and encouragement I received from staff members at the Boston Public Library, particularly John Dorsey of Research Library Services, June Eiselstein of General Library Services, and Worth Douglas of Capital Planning and Implementation. For assistance in understanding the on-going restoration of the McKim Building, I owe a debt of thanks to William G. Barry of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott. Lastly, and most importantly, my family has been unstintingly accommodating and inspiring as I have worked through the months of this project, offering their ideas, time, and support seemingly without limit. To my husband, Jonathan Lehrich, and my parents, Robert Fichter and Abigail Collins, for this as for all things I am grateful. Cambridge May 2002 As to the terms on which access should be had to a City Library, the Trustees can only say, that they would place no restrictions on its use, except such as the nature of individual books, or their safety may demand; regarding it as a great matter to carry as many of them as possible into the home of the young; into poor families; into cheap boarding houses; in short, wherever they will be most likely to affect life and raise personal character and condition. -Report of the Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, 1852 What is the Boston Public Library? To the people who make up the city's budget, it is a service . .. But the library is also a legacy. It contains the knowledge of the past, from Homer, Emerson and even Wilfred Owen. And it is a gift from the past: from former Boston generations who contributed their money and their books to build a library befitting the "Athens of America." -The Boston Globe, 1981 The main entrance to the Boston Public Library used to face Copley Square across Dartmouth Street. There was a broad exterior stairway and inside there was a beautiful marble staircase leading up to the main reading room with carved lions and high-domed ceilings. It was always a pleasure to go there. It felt like a library and looked like a library, and even when I was going in there to look up Duke Snider's lifetime batting average, I used to feel like a scholar. -Robert B. Parker, Looking For Rachel Wallace, 1980 THE PUBLIC LIBRARY OF THE CITY OF BOSTON BUILT BY THE PEOPLE AND DEDICATED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 1858 1895 1972 FREE TO ALL -6- INTRODUCTION Democracy Bestowed i _1 - ----- _ - 16.1 1111 11 ---.- 20_ --- -- Setting On the 17th of September 1855, a group of prominent Bostonians gathered on Boylston Street, across from the Boston Common, to witness the laying of the cornerstone for a new building of the Boston Public Library. Housed since the early 1850s in several rooms of a local schoolhouse, the Library had outgrown its quarters and needed a new structure designed specifically for the storage and use of its collections. The construction of the Boylston Street building was prompted by the pledge of a substantial donation from Joshua Bates, a Weymouth native and wealthy banker, for the purchase of new books for the Library. Bates, who had spent happy hours of an impoverished childhood reading in a local bookstore, believed that a public library would be a vital resource for the residents of Boston, many of whom were eager to better themselves through reading but unable to afford the purchase of books.1 Writing of his childhood memories, Bates was "confident that had there been good, warm, and well-lighted rooms to which we could have resorted, with proper books, nearly all of the youth of my acquaintance would have spent their evenings there, to the improvement of their minds and morals."2 Bates's gift was conditioned, however, on his request that the City of Boston construct a building for the Library. Indeed, Bates suggested that the new library, the first truly public library in urban America, would honor the city by fulfilling its important mission.