xt7m3775v662 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7m3775v662/data/mets.xml Breyer, William R. Kinkade, Edward L. United States. Work Projects Administration. Kentucky 1944 books The Hobson press This digital resource may be freely searched and displayed in accordance with U. S. copyright laws. Kentucky Works Progress Administration Publications Louisville Free Public Library Libraries--Kentucky--Louisville Libraries and lotteries; a history of the Louisville free public library text Libraries and lotteries; a history of the Louisville free public library 1944 1944 2012 true xt7m3775v662 section xt7m3775v662 . V · _
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 LIBRARIES AND LOTTERIES I
A History of the Louisville Free Public Library ,.

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  . :        I II. AE IE;. R E  
YjQjij`¥j5_}· A HISTORY OIT THE I
  _;»°vv 9   I LOUISVILLE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY
  _   Compiled by WO1'k€1`S in the Service Division
  L of the W01·l< Projects Admmistmtion
  ; in the State of Kentucky
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  ` THE HOBSON BOOK PRESS
"    _ CYNTHLANA, KENTUCKY
1944

   I I   R L I _ M   ___ I I I I A¢- 
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Copyright 1944 by the Louisville Free Public Library
\ All rights are reserved, including the right to reproduce this book,
or parts thereof, in any form
First Published in 1944
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  THE LOUISVILLE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY {E
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K*:N._._T Q. »

 FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY
MAJ .-GEN. PHILIP B. FLEMING, Administrator
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
GEORGE H. FIELD, Acting Commissioner
FLORENCE KERR, Assistant Commissioner
GEORGE H. GOODMAN, State Administator
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 INTRODUCTION
The members of the Board of Trustees of the
Louisville Free Public Library appreciate very
much the work of Mr. William R. Breyer, State
Supervisor, Kentucky Writers’ Project of the
Works Projects Administration, in compiling
this very complete history of the Louisville
libraries.
It is a valuable contribution to the histor-
ical literature of the State as well as most
, entertaining reading of the early endeavors to
give to the people of Louisville a library.
While rather startling in parts it will give
to the present generation a factual picture of
those early struggles which have culminated in
4 the present system of libraries in Louisville
and Jefferson County.
Mrs. W. A. Radford
Chairman of Publication
Committee of Library Board
IX

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 PREFACE
The Louisville Free Public Library is the
descendant, the grandson, so to speak, of the
Public Library of Kentucky, whose launching was
financed by a lottery. That library of seventy
years ago flourished briefly before passing on.
its property to the Polytechnic Society of Ken-
tucky; this organization, in time, gave way to
the present institution.
The colorful stories surrounding the libra-
ry’s origin persuaded Harold F. Brigham, then
librarian ofthelmuisville Free Public Library,
that a history of thelibrary movementin Louis-
ville should be written and published. At his
request the Writers’ Project of the Work Proj-
ects Administration in Kentucky in 1940 began
preparation of such a history.
lt was written by the undersigned, with the
collaboration of Edward L. Kinkade. Other mem-
bers of the Writers’ Project staff who assisted
` materially in assembling data for the book were
Edward A. Jonas, Emmett V. Riggs, and Robert P.
Arnold.
We wish to acknowledge with gratitude the
interest and co-operation of the librarians of
the Louisville Free Public Library which made
completion of the book possible: Mr. Brigham,
whose advice, suggestions, and criticism while
XI

 \~ l ·the manuscript was being written were of incal-
._ { bulable assistance, and his successor, Clarence
\ R. Graham, who assumed responsibility for the
` book in its final stage, that of publication.
The staff of the library, especially the de-
» partment heads, was most helpful in furnishing
\` information and locating necessary historical
material.
William R. Breyer,
State Supervisor, —
Kentucky Writers’ Project.
XH
 v
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . ,.r, . ........,,,,rrI_,_______Y,,_I________,_rr_ V _ ]X L
O
PREFACE ..,....................,,_.____________   _________A V _____,_ _ __r_ V V   A XI
CHAPTER 1 II......O_,...............II..._._,,._.,..IO_.».IOI__.,I._.__ I __ _ H V____ 1 ‘
Early Louisville Libraries
CHAPTER H ,,_,ir..r,.i_,,.r,_......i..__________________________,__________,_>,____i_____ 20
"Sic Transit Gloria——"
CHAPTER IH ir,v. . .......r......__,___,__,_,___,,_____________r,_____,,____________V_____ 50
The Polytechnic Picks Up the Pieces
CHAPTER IV ...._ir...r,.. . ...............,r.,.»,_.._.._,.i_i_ci.,.._ , ._...___,.._.,, V 79
The Louisville Free Public Library Arrives
CHAPTER V ......,.er.......i..»........r_......i.............r..i.i..........,._...., A 100
The Free Public Library’s Formative Years
CHAPTER VI ...,ll......_l..l..ll......l.......Y...v...l............._...llll   . 124
From Cabinet of Curiosities to Museum
CHAPTER VH ..il.......r.....l...............r...........r..Y....`.l»»...... r rrlr I 135
The War Years and the Twenties
CHAPTER VIH ,.................r....r..».........Y.......».»......r l. Ar...r.~.re.... 156
The Troublous Thirties
CHAPTER IX .....V.......l..........V.................ri...».............i..r .. ...i V. 188
The Library at Work-—1942
NOTES ..,...il......... , ...4...............................>.»............l,l,...l...l... . 221
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: Finances   ......rr.rrr.ll . ..l.l,...... V .,.,.l.l.,,,... . 237
APPENDIX B: Circulation .lr.lll......,,...l.. . Yri,....,...... . . ..rr 248
APPENDIX C: Officers and Trustees, 1902-1942 . 252
APPENDIX D: Biographical Sketches of the
Librarians ...r,l....i........r.r».»...,rr...»»...,.... M .   257
APPENDIX E: The Library’s Art Collection . , .. 262 ·
BIBLIOGRAPHY . .l........Y...r......~.. . ..»....w...... . ..rr..r,... A   275
LNDEX I , _____,l______________,____,,_ _ ___4 , ______,_______________,__,,_     279

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ILLUSTRATIONS
MAIN BUILDING ..,......_,._._..._....................................... FRONTISPIECE
AIR VIEW—·MAIN BUILDING ........................................................ 90
LOBBY—MAIN BUJLDING .................................................................. 108
EASTERN AND SOUTHERN BRANCH LIBRARIES .................. 112
WESTERN BRANCH LIBRARIES .................................................... 114
_ A COLORED DEPARTMENT .................................................................. 118
I
{ CITY—COUNTY WORK ........................................................................ 138
  VIEWS OF THE 1937 FLOOD ................................................................ 160
 · CHILDRENS AND SCHOOL WORK ..............................................., 210
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8 LIBRARIES AND LOTTERIES
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Chapter One
EARLY LOUISVILLE LIBRARIES
Louisville, midway in the second decade of
the nineteenth century, was a crowded settle-
ment of some thirty-five hundred people. The
first historian of the town, Dr.Iienry McMurtrie,
whose SKETCHES OF LOUISVILLE AND TTS ENVIRONS
was published in 1819, relates that the commu-
» nity was growing so rapidly that many newcomers
could not find shelter. An important factor in
the rapid increase in population was the town’s
location on a large river, making it accessible
to travelersfromthe east and a point of depar-
ture for western emigrants.(l)*
At this time, says McMurtrie, there were b7O
dwelling houses,
principally brick ones, some of which
would suffer little by being compared
with any of the most elegant private edi-
fices of New York. It was calculated
pretty generally that from two hundred
and fifty tothree hundred brick dwellings
*Notes, references, and sources are indicat- ‘
ed by numerals. These refer to corresponding
numbers, arranged by chapters, at the end of l
the book under the heading "Footnotes."
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A ` ILHHSVHLE FREE PUBLK2iJBRARY
Y___ · would have been erected during the last
(Q summer (1818), but such was the scarcity
` of money that not more than twelve to
fourteen were completed.(2)
\ Those early homes were built in Louisville
without much regard for street boundaries. The
fronts of some protruded into the streets, giv—
ing the thoroughfares a somewhat ragged appear-
ance. Before 1806 anyone who wished could
install a kiln in the street and use the clay
( soil to make bricks. ln 1812 the streets re-
ceived their official names; but it was not un-
, . til 1821 that their straightening was begun
Y when the trustees ordered the removal of houses
Z standing on them.(3)
V In accordance with a style of architecture
Q popularim1the early years of the century, many
houses had an exterior flight of steps leading
from the street up to the first floor,and base-
V ments, somewhat below street level, that served
` is as kitchen and servants’ quarters. A good ex-
ample of this style of architecture remains
(1942) in the old Grayson House, built in 1810,
on the west side of Sixth Street near Walnut.
V Until 1828 Louisville was administered by a
. trustee form of government. Near the close of
the trustees’ regime, according to McMurtrie,
( private residences were scattered among the
business houses on all principal streets. Not _
until considerably later did they come to occupy
sections of the city exclusively their own.
` Though mostof the buildings were oftwo stories
{ and built of bricks, a few of the original log
1, cabins were still standing along the main thor-
oughfares. Besides the buildings of municipal
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 EARLY LOUISVILLE LIBRARIES
government, there were five churches, three
banks, three public halls, and a theater. 0f I
manufacturingestablishments,there were a wool-
en mill, a cotton factory, two potteries, a
steam gristmill, two iron foundries, a planing
mill, three breweries, two lead factories, four
rope walks, and fifteen brickyards.(4)
The primitive beginningsof the fire depart-
ment date from 1807, in the form of a bucket
brigade. The earliest fire department was fi-
nanced by theimposition of a ten—do1lar license
fee on showmen for each exhibition. The first
to pay it was Arnold and Company, exhibitors of
the first elephant to be seen in Louisville and
said to be the first imported to America. With
increased revenues, better fire-fighting equip-
ment was acquired: engines and suction pumps.
The engines were drawn to fires by men and
worked by hand.(5) ·
It was not until 1810 that there was a sem-
blance of a police force. In that year the
trustees, to safeguard against evi1—doing in
the darkness that blanketed the unlighted town, ,
engaged two watchmen to patrol the town at
night with lighted 1anterns.(b)
Louisville’sfirstnewspaper was the FARMER’S
LIBRARY, founded in 1801 by Samuel Vail. It
was a folio sheet, nineteen by eleven inches,
printed in long primer type on coarse paper
made at Georgetown, Kentucky. The press and
. type with which it was printed had been lent by
a Connecticut friend to Vail who transported
this equipment over the mountains and down the
Ohio. The FARMER’S LIBRARY continued publica— ·
tion until 1808 when Vail,tiring of journalism, a
enlisted in the United States Army.
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A second paper, the WESTERN AMERICAN, was
`\ V started in 1806 by F. Peniston, but suspended
x publication after only a few issues. Other
papers that lasted longer were the LOUISVILLE
GAZETTE, begun in 1808 by James Gray and David
\ G. Rannals, the WESTERN COURIER, founded by
Nicholas Clark, and the LOUISVILLE CORRESPOND-
ENT, established by E. C. Barry, both in 18lO.
In 1818 Shadrach Penn issued the first edition
of the PUBLIC ADVERTISER, which was to become
one of the most famous newspapers in the
country. Penn also published Dr. McMurtrie’s
SKETCHES.(7)
Few books were published in Louisville dur-
i ` ing the trustee period. Those that did come
I from local printers and binders numbered about
" forty and were for the most part political,
A legal, educational, religious, and scientific
{ books. Exceptions were the SKETCHES and a vol-
F ume of humorous verse, FESTOONS OF FANCY, by
William Littel, published in 1814.
r In 1798 the State Legislature appropriated
" to Jefferson County b,OOO acres to establish a
I public school, to be called Jefferson Seminary,
in Louisville. Until that year there were sev-
- eral `schools in the town, but all were under
· private proprietorship. Nothing was done by
‘ the trustees of the seminary,exceptto disagree
among themselves and get various acts passed by
“ the legislature, until 1813, when a tract of
1 land of two and three—fourths acres was pur-
chased onEighthStreet between Walnut and Green
L ~(now Liberty) Streets.
A brick building sixty feet long,twenty feet
/ j wide, and a story and a half in height was then
° A erected. It had two large rooms on the ground `
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 EARLY LOUISVILLE LIBRARIES
floor and four small rooms in the half-story A
above, and was completed in 1816. Dr. Mann ,
Butler——educator, graduate in medicine and law,
and historian, who in the same year became the
leader of Louisvi1le’s first library enterprise
--was engaged as principal at a salary of $600
a year. Tuition was $20 for six months, and
there were between forty and fifty pupils.
After some vicissitudes, the institution, in
1845, became the Academic Department of the
University of Louisville, and fifteen years
later was re—named Male High School and removed
from the University’s jurisdiction. lt retained
its college status, however, and continued to
give academic degrees until lQl3.(8)
The following characterization found in Dr.
McMurtrie’s SKETCHES may serve to round out
this picture of Louisville in the years just
after the War of 1812:
Commercial cities of newly settled
countries, whose inhabitants are gathered
from every corner of the earth, who have
emigrated thither with buta.sing1e object
in view, that of acquiring money, are
stamped with no general character, except
that of frugality, attention to business,
and inordinate attachment to money. Ab-
sorbed in this great interest of adding
dollar upon dollar, no time is devoted to
literature or the acquirement of those
graceful nothings which, of no value in
themselves, still constitute one great
charm of polished society...
_ There is a circle,sma1l’tis true, but p
within whose magic round abounds every
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I pleasure that wealth, regulated by taste
`¤ or urbanity, can bestow. There the "red
\ Heel" of Versailles may imagine himself
in the emporium of fashion, and whilst
leading beauty through the mazes of the
\ dance, forget that he is in the wilds of
America. The theatre, public and private
balls, a sober game of whist, or the more
scientific one of billiards, with an oc- _
casional reunion of friends around the
festive board, constitute the principal
amusement; and it is with pleasure l am
able to assert, without fear of contra—
y diction, that gambling forms no part of
{ them. Whatever may have been the case
Z formerly, there is hardly at the present
U day a vestige to be seen of this ridicu-
_ lous and disgraceful practice; and if it
V exists at all, it is only to be found in
the secret dens of midnight swindlers,
. within whose walls once to enter isdis—
’} honor, infamy, and ruin.(9)
It was in such a frontier metropolis that
the first of a succession of abortive attempts
V was made, in l8l6, to establish a library in
A Louisville. lt was not Kentucky’s first libra-
ry, nor even one of the first ten in the State.
In 1796 some leading citizens of Lexington
founded a library, the first west of the Alle-
gheny Mountains, for the benefit of the stu-
dents of Transylvania Seminary. As the Tran-
— sylvania Library, it was housed`at the seminary
at first. In lSOO, though, its proprietors,
J/_ believing that it would be more generally use-
t ful if it were centrally located, removed it to
{ a 6
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 EARLY LOUISVILLE LIBRARIES
the town and,by legislative act,had it renamed .
the Lexington Library Association. In the p
first quarter-century after the change of name, W
it absorbed two similar enterprises, the Juve-
nile Library and the Lexington Athenaeum.(lO)
ln l902 the city of Lexington obtained a grant
from Andrew Carnegie for construction of a pub-
lic library building; whereupon, the Lexington
Library Association transferred to the new
` Lexington Public Library all its books, furni-
ture, and other possessions, and dissolved its
organization.
Between 1796 and l8l6 library associations
were chartered successively at Georgetown, Dan-
ville, Lancaster,Paris,Newcastle, Shelbyville,
Winchester, Washington, Versailles, Frankfort,
and Mt. Sterling. None of these achieved per-
manence, however.(ll)
Mann Butler,leader of thefounders of Louis-
ville’s first library, must have ranked high
among the men of superior intellect in the city
in the first half of the nineteenth century.
He was born in Baltimore in July, l784, and was
taken at the age of three to the home of his
grandfather at Chelsea, near London. He re-
mained in England until he was fourteen years
old. Therefore he had the advantage of an edu-
cation in his early years in an old and settled
country, in much better schools than could be
found in a country so recently emerged from
pioneer status.
Back in the United States, he continued his
education and was graduated at St. Mary’s Col-
lege in Georgetown, District of Columbia, then
was graduated in medicine at the same college.
But he conceived a great distaste for medical
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practice and remained at St. Mary’s to study
»\ ' law and acquire an LL. B. degree. He was ad-
\ mitted to the bar in Washington and Baltimore,
F and in March, l80b, removed to Lexington, Ken-
tucky, where he practiced law for a short time.
\ Lacking the eloquence that characterized Henry
` Clay and other attorneys of Lexington,he became
discouraged and abandoned legal practice. He
taught school successively at Versailles, Mays-
ville, and Frankfort, and then was called to a '
professorship at Transylvania University.
Dr. Butler relinquished this post to become
· principal of the Jefferson Seminary in Louis- I
ville, and became known as an outstanding edu-
{ ‘ cator there before he left the city for St.
I Louis in l845. In 1834 he published his HISTORY
· OF KENTUCKY from its earliest exploration and
Q settlement to the close of the Northwestern
"' Campaign in l8l3. At the time of his tragic
· death in l852, in a railway accident caused by
the collapse of a railroad bridge, he had near-
, ly completed a HISTORY OF THE VALLEY OF THE
· F OHIO, being published monthly in the WESTERN
JOURNAL AND CIVILIAN. Of this he left the man-
uscript, revised and almost ready for publica-
tion in book form; but during the War between
, the States it was lost.(l2)
It was he who, with four others, founded
Louisville’s first library, the Louisville Li-
I brary Company,in l8lb. Dr. Butler’s associates
in this undertaking were Dr. William C. Galt,
Brooke Hill, Hezekiah Hawley, and William Tomp-
kins.
They took for their pattern the subscription
g library fathered by Benjamin Franklin in Phila-
I delphia eighty—odd years before. Inl73O Frank-
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 EARLY LOUISVILLE LIBRARIES
lin suggested to the Junto, a group of kindred .
spirits interested in public welfare,thatsince {
their books were often referred to during their 3
regular discussions, it might be convenient to
bring all the books together in a common libra-
ry. Then each would have the advantage of the
other members’ books. This arrangement lasted
a year, during which Franklin witnessed the
spectacle of books made common property treated
· as no man’s property. It must have been disil-
lusioningz if indifference was the rule among
the club members, cultivated and educated men,
what kind of treatment of books could be ex-
pected from the many onlowerlevels of culture,
if they were to be given accessto good reading?
But Franklin was not discouraged. He recog-
nized that responsibility for the care of the
property had been overlooked in planning the
library. In any similar undertaking it must be
provided for. It occurred to him that a library
for subscribers was the answer. By the very
condition of personal investment a lively and
abidinginterestand feeling of obligation could
be counted on. The new project was launched
with the payment of about ten dollars each by
fifty underwriters, who pledged ten dollars
more annually. By November, l732, it was pos-
sible to dispatch a substantial sum to a London
agent instructed to purchase and forward a
carefully selected list ofbooks. Eleven months
later they arrived: GULLlVER’S TRAVELS, Mil-
ton’s PRlNClPlA,the ILTAD and ODYSSEY,possibly
in P0pe’s translation, the Magna Charta, a book
on gardening, and Montaigne’s essays--a list
which should afford some notion of the intel-
lectual climate of the time.(l$)
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\~ This was the model from which the Louisville
o___ T founders wrought. The Louisville Library Com- “
` pany was a joint stock association, with the
\ right to issue as many shares as its directors
might consider necessary and of any denomina-
tion they thought best. The directors could
\— assess the shareholders, for the benefit of the
library, any sum annually up to one-fifth the
A value of each shareholder’s stock.(l4)
Apparently when Dr. McMurtrie published his
history of Louisville three years later this
library had reached its prime, although there
* ~ is evidence that it lingered on for several
years more. In l8l9 it contained five hundred
I A volumes which were housed in the second story
i‘ of the south wing of the Courthouse.
Y Beyond the fact that the collection included
V valuable historical volumes collected by Dr.
A Butler, and works on science obtained by Dr.
A ‘ McMurtrie, thenature of the books can only be a
matter of surmise. Certainly, inthose