Richmond Public Library (United States)

Last updated
Richmond Public Library
Established1924
Branches9
Collection
Items collectedbooks, e-books, music, cds, periodicals, maps, genealogical archives, business directories, local history, movies, TV shows
Access and use
Population served200,000 population
Website http://www.richmondpubliclibrary.org/

Richmond Public Library is a public library in Richmond, Virginia. While many other libraries in the United States were provided initial funding by Andrew Carnegie, the City of Richmond famously [1] [2] rejected Carnegie funding twice. [3]

Public library Library that is accessible by the public

A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants.

Richmond, Virginia Capital of Virginia

Richmond is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and the Greater Richmond Region. Richmond was incorporated in 1742 and has been an independent city since 1871.

Andrew Carnegie American businessman and philanthropist

Andrew Carnegiekar-NAY-gee was a Scottish-American industrialist, business magnate, and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away $350 million to charities, foundations, and universities – almost 90 percent of his fortune. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.

Contents

History

After the City of Richmond's finance committee rejected the first Carnegie offer in 1901, Carnegie offered to donate $100,000 to the city of Richmond, Virginia, for a public library. The city council had to furnish a site for the building and guarantee that $10,000 in municipal funds would be budgeted for the library each year. Despite the support from the majority of Richmond's civic leaders, the city council rejected Carnegie's offer. A combination of aversion to new taxes, fear of modernization, and fear that Carnegie might require the city to admit black patrons to his library account for the local government's refusal.[33] (fear that Carnegie might require the city to admit black patrons to his library account for the local government's refusal.[35] A Richmond Public Library did open in 1924 with alternative sources of funding.) Richmond formed a Richmond Public Library Association in 1905. The Association did not gather sufficient funds to open a library until 1922, when John Stewart Bryan became president of the Association. The next year, in 1923, Bryan became chairman of the Richmond Public Library Board, [4] and in 1924, the Board chose the former home of Lewis Ginter as the site of the first Library. The first branch opened in 1925 as the Phyllis Wheatley Branch of the YWCA to serve African-Americans. In 1925, Sallie May Dooley died and left $500,000 to the City to construct a public library in memory of her husband, Major James H. Dooley. The Dooley Library (at the same location as the current Main library) [5] [6] opened in 1930 and the contents of the original library were moved in.

John Stewart Bryan American academic administrator

John Stewart Bryan was the member of a prominent Virginia newspaper family and was the nineteenth president of the College of William and Mary, serving from 1934 to 1942. He also served as the fourth American chancellor of the college from 1942 to 1944.

Ginter House is the historic 1892 former residence of Lewis Ginter. It is on the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) campus. It was used as Richmond's first public library from 1925 until 1930, was used as part of a school, and was the main administrative building on the Monroe Park, Virginia campus of VCU for more than 40 years.

Lewis Ginter American businessman and philanthropist

Major Lewis Ginter was a prominent businessman, military officer, real estate developer, and philanthropist centered in Richmond, Virginia. A native of New York City, Ginter accumulated a considerable fortune throughout his numerous business ventures and became Richmond's wealthiest citizen despite his exceptionally modest demeanor. While the Jefferson Hotel, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, and Ginter Park embody some of Ginter's major urban contributions to Richmond, many of his philanthropic gifts were given anonymously to charitable organizations and individuals in need. His continued devotion to Richmond is captured in his famous remark, "I am for Richmond, first and last."

In 1947, RPL Board opened all branches of the library system to blacks. [7]

Locations

In addition to its Main branch in Downtown Richmond, RPL currently operates eight other branches [8] to serve the Richmond City population.

East End (Richmond, Virginia)

The East End of Richmond, Virginia is the quadrant of the City of Richmond, Virginia, and more loosely the Richmond metropolitan area, east of the downtown.

Ginter Park United States historic place

Ginter Park is a suburban neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia built on land owned and developed by Lewis Ginter. The neighborhood's first well known resident was newspaperman Joseph Bryan, who lived in Laburnum, first built in 1883 and later rebuilt. In 1895, many acres of land north of Richmond were purchased by Ginter in order to develop into neighborhoods. Ginter Park and other neighborhoods were developed from this initial land purchase. In Ginter Park are Union Presbyterian Seminary and as well as Pollard Park.

West End (Richmond, Virginia) Neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia, United States

The West End is a part of Richmond, Virginia. Definitions of the bounds of the West End vary, it may include only the western part of the city of Richmond or extend as far as western Henrico County. As there is no one municipal organization that represents this specific region, the boundaries are loosely defined as being north of the James River, west of I-195, and south of Broad Street. Historically, the Richmond neighborhoods of the Fan and the Museum District were a part of the West End. A primary conduit through the West End is Interstate 64.

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Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts is a public non-profit art and design school located in Richmond. One of many degree-offering schools at VCU, the School of the Arts comprises 18 bachelor's degree programs and six master's degree programs. Its satellite campus in Doha, Qatar, VCUarts Qatar, offers five bachelor's degrees and one master's degree. It was the first off-site campus to open in Education City by an American university.

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EleanoraClare Gibson Houston was an American painter, women's rights advocate, and suffragist. Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, Houston studied art at an early age, traveling to New York and abroad, before returning to Richmond to teach and open a studio with Adele Goodman Clark. She was an active participant in the women's suffrage movement in Virginia.

References

  1. ↑ Leatherman, Carolyn (1988). "Richmond Considers a Free Public Library: Andrew Carnegie's Offer of 1901". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 96 (2): 181–192. JSTOR   4249008.
  2. ↑ http://www.iucat.iu.edu/iusb/4558475 Carolyn Hall Leatherman, "Richmond Rejects a Library: The Carnegie Public Library Movement in Richmond, Virginia in the Early Twentieth Century (PhD disserationa, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1992)
  3. ↑ http://www.richmondpubliclibrary.org/content.asp?contentID=54 "The first offer, of $100,000, in March 1901, made it as far as the selection of Trustees for the Library, a recommendation for a site for the proposed building and the sum of $22,000 to purchase it. After consideration, the Finance Committee rejected the recommendation. Mayor Carlton McCarthy tried again in 1906, at which time Mr. Carnegie was willing to double his original offer to $200,000. The matter again came to the Finance Committee, where it was "read and ordered to be received and filed." No further action was taken. Individuals and community leaders in business, education and civic institutions had rallied to the Library, to no avail. "
  4. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-12-11. Retrieved 2016-01-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) "[Bryan was] ... member, Richmond Public Library Board (chairman)"
  5. ↑ "Richmond Public Library Main Branch". architecturerichmond.com.
  6. ↑ Dabney, Virginius (2012-10-05). Richmond: The Story of a City. University of Virginia Press. p. 379. ISBN   9780813934303.
  7. ↑ Dabney, Virginius (2012-10-05). Richmond: The Story of a City. University of Virginia Press. p. 335. ISBN   9780813934303.
  8. ↑ "Welcome to Richmond Public Library". richmondpubliclibrary.org.
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