Happy 50th Birthday Audrey Bruce Currier Library

By Kerri Gonzalez, Assistant Librarian and Archivist

“. . . how truly essential I feel the library, any library, to be: for I look on the library of any school or college or university as the academic heart, the life-giving organ whose injury or removal would lead to the withering and death of the whole learning process and of the imagination.” From the remarks of Mr. Paul Mellon at the dedication of the Audrey Bruce Currier Library, October 17, 1969.

Libraries are often described as the heart and soul of communities, offering people a place to gather, grow, connect, and learn. In the early years of the School, Miss Charlotte was intent on creating a comfortable space for the Foxcroft community to come together. The first library at Foxcroft was built in 1916 and was located in the space we now recognize as the entrance to the dining hall. This addition to Brick House was designed for the girls and filled with books, a piano, and comfortable furniture. Miss Charlotte often read to her students here, and on occasion, she told ghost stories by candlelight in the library.

Miss Charlotte reads to girls in the Brick House library.

The Foxcroft Library outgrew its place in Brick House and moved to the neighboring building of Wing around 1923. This was followed by a move next door to Porch House sometime later.Porch and Wing were adjoining buildings that stood across from Schoolhouse and served as both dormitories and academic buildings until they were razed in 1952. In the 1940s, there was a push to increase the scope and size of the library collection to meet increasing academic rigor. This was accomplished through the Wayman Fund, named in honor of Christina Wayman, the first Academic Head of Foxcroft.

As Foxcroft continued to grow, a new Schoolhouse replaced Porch House and Wing. Included in the beautiful, red-brick building was a library complete with floor to ceiling shelves, large windows, and plenty of tables for students to sit and study. In order to move the books from Porch House to Schoolhouse, students and teachers formed a book brigade that stretched from one building to the next. The entire library was moved book by book, and as written in a student’s scrapbook, at the end of the day, Miss Charlotte proudly declared that each of her students had touched every book in the library!

By the 1960s, the School, yet again, had outgrown the designated library and plans were drawn for a large, stand-alone building that would meet the current and future needs of students and faculty. Not only would this building house books and study carrels, but it was also to become the community hub. The spacious new library provided students with a bounty of books, a typing room, seminar rooms, and an abundance of space to study and relax. The Goodyear Room, given in honor of Alison Harrison Goodyear ’29, offered the students a comfortable retreat for reading, studying, listening to music, and spending time with friends. Fifty years later, the Foxcroft community continues to connect, imagine, and learn in the Audrey Bruce Currier Library. Here’s to the next 50 years! •

Though the coronavirus pandemic has temporarily taken us away from these beautiful spaces in the Library, we continue to gather as a community through virtual Morning Meetings and online collaboration between faculty and students.