The Key to a Library

by

Lauren Roberts

All readers have fond memories of libraries. It would be, I think, nearly impossible to be one without the other. The memories—first library cards, browsing the shelves, taking books home, being hushed by librarians for giggling, feeling grown up when you checked out your books, making sure your books got back on time—that were so much a part of reading that even as adults it is hard to separate the experience from the passion.

Several of BiblioBuffet’s have written about about libraries, more specifically about their relationships with them. So have I. But what particularly attracted me to writing about a library again was a bookmark I purchased several years ago. It is made of celluloid, an early form of plastic, and is die-cut, that is, it is in the shape of a key. This bookmark was specially designed for the opening of the Cabanne Branch Library of the St. Louis Public Library system in 1907.

The library and the Cabanne subdivision had been named for Jean Pierre Cabanne, a French settler who arrived in St. Louis in 1798.  He was one of the incorporators of the city of St. Louis, a commissioner of the Bank of St. Louis founded in 1816, and a member of the city’s first Public School Board.

The Cabanne Branch was one of six branch libraries constructed between 1906 and 1912 with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie gave the city of St. Louis $1,000,000 in 1900, but stipulated that only half could be used for a Central Library building; the other half was for neighborhood branch libraries.

The first night was spectacular. Five thousand persons attended the opening of what was the second Carnegie branch, Cabanne, at the corner of Union and Cabanne avenues, on July 27, 1907. A dedication ceremony with a reception and music by Poepping’s Orchestra struck the proper note, and the bookmark the proper donor gift. The evening gala had been planned and funded by the Cabanne Library Association to honor the donation by Andrew Carnegie and the design by George Kessler of the architectural firm Mauran, Russell and Garden. The library was built with an exterior facade of stone and sand colored brick with copper trim, and large windows separated by stone columns. Each reading room had a large white marble fireplace. Brick fireplaces were found in the basement club room and workrooms.

The library’s classic architecture was not surprising given its designer’s background as one of the most celebrated architects of his time. Kessler (1862-1923) was born in Germany but brought to the United States by his parents when he was two. They lived in Dallas, Texas, until his father died in 1878. His mother then returned to Europe with the boy so he could be trained for what she viewed as a proper career. His multi-disciplinary studies—forestry, botany, landscape design and civil engineering among others—were a distinct advantage, and under the direction of a private tutor, he spent three years abroad investigating the civic design of major cities including Paris and Moscow.

It was in 1882, while in New York that he received a challenging assignment—lay out a park in Merriam, Kansas. That he accomplished this and follow-up assignments so well is indicated by the decision of the Kansas City Board of Park & Boulevard Commissioners to hire him as “Secretary” in early 1892.

Kansas City was experiencing rapid growth, and the city planners had determined to force a rigid gridiron of streets on its “eccentric topography.” Kessler presented another plan, one that enhanced the natural landscape with interwoven boulevards and parks. It proved to be a success. By 1900, he had married, become a consultant to the Kansas City Park Board, and moved temporarily to St. Louis to become a landscape advisor for the 1904 World’s Fair.

Kessler proved himself a visionary again when, despite the objections from other architects, he “secured the approval of the planting of avenue tress along the lagoons and the Plaza of Saint Louis.” Upon the closure of the fair in December 1904, Kessler and Wright were brought back to repair the park, and two years later, Kessler’s drawings showed a joint St. Louis/Kansas City address. Commissions continued, and the Cabane Branch Library was one of those. Its classically inspired styling makes it instantly identifiable as a “Carnegie.”

Carnegie libraries were those built with money donated by businessman Andrew Carnegie. More than 2.500, both public and university, were funded between 1883 and 1929, and of those, 1,689 were in the United States. Carnegie libraries were known for their architecture, though each community chose its own style. They were and are both simple and formal with prominent doorways topping a staircase.

Books and libraries had been very much a part of Carnegie’s life. As a child in Scotland, he often listened to readings and discussions of books from the Tradesman’s Subscription Library that his father helped to create. And when he was working in the U.S. for the local telegraph company in Alleghney, PA, he took advantage of the offer of Colonel James Anderson who opened his personal library to his workers every Saturday. The feeling of the day was that “working boys” were not “entitled to books,” and Carnegie’s experience with Anderson’s generosity solidified his belief in giving to the “industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve and will be benefited by help from others.”

Such generosity was in perfect alignment with societal changes. The system of public and university libraries was expanding rapidly. Today, hundreds of the “Carnegie’s” have been converted into other purposes public and private, but more than half of them still serve their communities—more than a century after their constructions. One of those is Cabanne. It’s original collection of 10,000 volumes, mostly English, Greek, and Latin classics has today grown to over 48,000 volumes, and I am sure that those adults who pass through its doorways have the same fond memories while the children are busy gathering their own memories for the future.

Bookmark specifications: Cabanne Library opening
Dimensions: 5" x 1 1/4"
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: St. Louis Public Library system
Date: 1907
Acquired: eBay

Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, nearly 1,300 bookmarks and approximately the same number of books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. Contact Lauren.