Celebrating 150 Years of Chicago Public Library

Celebrating 150 Years of Chicago Public Library

by Suzanne Hanney / photos provided by the Chicago Public Library

As the Chicago Public Library (CPL) celebrates its 150th anniversary, its commitment “to provide relevant, non-biased information to help foster equity, inclusion and healing in our city” is consistent with its founding after the Chicago Fire of 1871, to offer access to the “common man.” CPL celebrates its sesquicentennial Saturday, June 10, with parties at every location. (See listing, page 11-13).

Two months after the Chicago Fire, A. H. Burgess of London proposed in the Chicago Tribune “an English Book Donation, a Free Library to Chicago, to remain there as a mark of sympathy now, and a keepsake and a token of true brotherly kindness forever,” according to the CPL website. Bookplates inside each of 8,000 books bore the name of a donor – Queen Victoria among them.

Prior to the Fire, libraries in Chicago were private, with membership fees, and efforts were underway to augment them with a public institution, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago. The Illinois Library Act of 1872 authorized cities to establish tax-supported libraries, so a public meeting led to a library board of directors.

The first library opened Jan. 1, 1873, in a circular water tank that had survived the Fire, at the southeast corner of Adams and LaSalle. Public access was primarily through deposit stations – stores throughout the city – where patrons had called for a specific book to be delivered. By the early 1900s, 2 out of 3 CPL books circulated this way.

A shift from “service” to “uplift” occurred in Chicago’s cultural renaissance of the 1890s, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago. A central library on Michigan Avenue between Washington and Randolph streets opened on Oct. 11, 1897. Today, the building is the Chicago Cultural Center, with a central dome and hanging lamps designed by Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company of New York. Just inside its Washington Street entrance, a white marble grand staircase contains authors’ names and quotations that praise learning in mosaics of colored stone, mother of pearl and favrile glass.

Henry E. Legler, chief librarian from 1909 until his death in 1917, presented “A Library Plan for the Whole City” in 1916 that called for 70 neighborhood branches to bring “library services within the walking distance of home for every person in Chicago who can read or wants to use books,” and five more extensive regional collections, according to the CPL website. The first regional library was named after Legler in 1920 in West Garfield Park.

Appointed chief librarian in 1918, Carl B. Roden had been Legler’s assistant, and he carried out much of his vision. Roden served until 1950, in which time staff and circulation doubled, and bookstock increased threefold.

A Water Tank, Some Mighty Owls & More: 150 Years of the Chicago Public Library

Through two World Wars, a recent pandemic, societal upheaval, and vast transformations related to how people consume and digest information, the Chicago Public Library has embodied the "I will" Chicago spirit. Max Grinnell, an author, urbanologist, historian and professor, will take interested parties on a breezy history through the Chicago Public Library's modest first home in a Loop water tank up to the present day, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 13, online. Along the way, you'll hear about the expansion of branch libraries, the system's celebrated public art, local outreach programs, and the multi-decade quest to build a new central library that culminated in the construction of the Harold Washington Library Center.

Grinnell has designed and taught urban studies, community development, geography, planning, and sociology courses at the University of Wisconsin, Boston University, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and the University of Chicago. Only one registration per household is needed, at least 24 hours ahead, at https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/ events/643837aba06b7e2b56129a90

Grinnell will repeat the class, in person, 6-7:30 p.m. June 21 at the Near North Branch, 310 W. Division St.

Grinnell will also lead a walking tour of the Harold Washington Library Center, 2-3:30 p.m. Friday, June 16.

Since the Harold Washington Library Center opened in 1991, it has been a repository of remarkable public art, including murals, sculptures, paintings, and other artworks funded by Chicago’s Percent for Art ordinance. This guided tour will take visitors around a dozen or so of these vital artworks, and stop at the Winter Garden and Special Collections.

The George Cleveland Hall Branch at 48th and Michigan, significant to the African American community, opened during this period. Named for the chief of staff at Provident Hospital, the second African American on the CPL board of directors, the Hall branch became a meeting place for writers during the Chicago Black Renaissance (1930s–50). Managing the branch was Vivian Gordon Harsh, CPL’s first Black librarian, who established the largest African American history and literature collection in the Midwest.

Harsh was assisted by children’s librarian Charlemae Hill Rollins. Rollins

Left: Charlemae Hill Rollins, children's librarian at Hall Branch in 1952. Below: Chicago Public Library's Traveling Branch circa 1960s. OPPOSITE PAGE: The water tank, one of the only structures to survive the Great Chicago Fire, hosts the library afterward. An 1870s rendering of the old water tank's exterior.

started as a junior library assistant, and CPL paid for her further education, in summer sessions at Columbia University and at the University of Chicago. In her 31 years at Hall Branch, and as the first African American president of the children’s division of the American Library Association, Rollins helped change the image nationally of African Americans in children’s literature. She also defined the ideal:

“The standards for selecting books about [Blacks] for young people are the same as those for selecting any book: it should have literary merit and interest because of lively moving action or interest in the people and backgrounds. You should ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are the people portrayed in the book natural or real, or are they presented from a distorted point of view?

2. Does the book set up standards of superiority or feelings of inferiority in the minds of children who read it?

3. Is the book free from derisive names and epithets that would offend?”

When Gertrude E Gscheidle took over as chief librarian in 1951 she expanded service to Chicago neighborhoods by modernizing the bookmobile system. During the 1960s, CPL added neighborhood branches, through new construction or by leasing storefronts: – 76 in all by 1985.

Chinatown service initially consisted of a weekly bookmobile stop at 201 W. 23rd St. Circulation grew, even though there were no books in Chinese. Neighborhood advocates from the Chinese American Service League, Chinese consulate general in Chicago, St. Therese and Haines Schools pushed for increased services and a larger, relevant collection. The result was the first Chinatown branch, a 1,500-square-foot storefront at 2134 S. Wentworth that opened in 1972.

Community support led to a second, 12,000-square-foot branch in 1990 at 2353 S. Wentworth Ave., fronted by fu dogs gifted from the People’s Republic of China. Neighborhood use was so heavy that this space was also outgrown. The third branch opened in 2015 at 2100 S. Wentworth Ave. Its 16,000 square feet encompass a feng shui interior, an energy-efficient-glass-and-exterior steel frame, excellent views of downtown, and a green roof.

By the late 1970s, CPL was outgrowing the Central Library on Michigan Avenue. Mayor Harold Washington and civic leaders planned for a replacement at 400 S. State St., in what was then a blighted area of the South Loop. The Chicago City Council and Mayor Washington approved a $144 million bond issue in 1987. Groundbreaking was in 1988 and the library opened in 1991.

Mary Dempsey, appointed library commissioner in 1994, led a five-year strategic rebuilding plan. In 1996, the Chicago City Council approved the request of Mayor Richard M. Daley and the CPL board for a three-year, $65 million capital improvement plan for 52 new or renovated branches. Another $44 million investment in 2000 resulted in infrastructure improvements to 65 percent of neighborhood libraries.

“One Book, One Chicago” was launched in fall 2001 to bring the city’s diverse population together around a great piece of literature. Selections have ranged from Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” to Mavis Staples’ “I’ll Take You There,” about life with her singing family; Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns” about the Great Migration and Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction” on climate change. The City of Chicago received a 2003 City Livability Award from the U.S. Conference

of Mayors for the program, and more than 100 other locales worldwide have copied it.

YOUmedia, a 5,500-square-foot, youth-centered, digital learning space, opened in 2009 at Harold Washington Center and now includes 29 sites. The drop-in environment encourages youth to hang out and to explore graphic design, photography, videomaking, 2D and 3D printing, and STEM. YOUmedia has been praised by the White House and replicated across the U.S.

Similarly, in 2013, the Maker Lab at Harold Washington became the first such space at a large urban library. It is an environment where people share knowledge and resources – laser cutters, sewing and knitting machines and more – to design and build items. Also in 2013, CPL expanded its Teacher in the Library program to offer homework help in all 80 locations. Additional help through Brainfuse made CPL’s homework assistance program the largest in the nation.

CPL became the largest public library system in the U.S., in 2019, to eliminate overdue fines on its items, which were seen by Mayor Lori Lightfoot as regressive and a barrier to economic inclusion. The library system met the COVID pandemic head-on, in 2020, by expanding online offerings such as eBooks and online homework help and by going remote with its 2020 Summer Learning Challenge, Teen Summer Challenge and One Book, One Chicago.

Public libraries today are not so much used for passive, recreational reading as they are for computer access, job training, early literacy exposure, which overall strengthens the community’s capacity for economic development as the economy shifts from the manufacturing era to the information age, ac-

cording to a 2007 study by the Urban Libraries Council. As a result, the buildings themselves – whether downtown or in the neighborhoods – stimulate nearby commercial growth.

CPL is helping commercial growth in two ways. First, in a partnership with the Chicago Housing Authority, neighborhood branches anchor new developments at Independence, Northtown and Little Italy. There is also a new library at Altgeld Gardens, combined with a childcare facility. Second, new branches are being planned as part of mixed-use developments planned for Back of the Yards and Humboldt Park, through the INVEST South/West initiative, which clusters public infrastructure expenditures (on streets, transit and more), to encourage private sector investment in offices, housing, retail and restaurants.

“We are thrilled to unveil new library locations that are not just spaces to access information, but also serve as catalysts for community growth and development,” said CPL Commissioner Chris Brown. “In addition, these projects support educational milestones, provide vibrant cultural hubs and bridge the broadband gap by bringing together books, technology, and community services to create vibrant, mixed-use spaces that will benefit residents for generations to come.”

“The inclusion and creative reimagining of library resources as community hubs within the buildings, elevates these simple, mixed-use, residential projects to the status of new civic icon,” said Department of Planning and Development Commissioner Maurice Cox. “Centered around colorful, light-filled multi-purpose spaces that serve as a beacon and focal point visually for the neighborhood, they underscore ‘Hey, this is the cool place to be!’”

Top row: Circa 1980s to 90s, researching the Harsh archives. 1990, construction on the Harold Washington Library Center. 2013, a staff member works with a patron in the Maker Lab. Second row: Chicago Public Library receives the National Medal for Museum and Library service in 2015 with (L to R): Chris Force, Brian Bannon, and Michelle Obama. Guest author Alice Waters one Book, One Chicago 2016-17 seaason. Young patrons

celebrate getting their first library card in 2022.