St. Louis Mercantile Library

Last updated
St. Louis Mercantile Library
St Louis Mercantile Library.jpg
Current home of the library on the UMSL Campus
Country United States of America
Type Special collections
Scope Americana
Established1846
Branch of Thomas Jefferson Library
Collection
Items collected
SizeOver 250,000 books and 400 archival collections
Other information
DirectorJohn N. Hoover
Website http://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/
Map
St. Louis Mercantile Library

The St. Louis Mercantile Library, founded in 1846 in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, was originally established as a membership library, and is the oldest extant library west of the Mississippi River. [1] Since 1998 the library has been housed at the University of Missouri-St. Louis as a Special Collections library within the Thomas Jefferson Library. The majority of library materials can be assigned to one of four categories: the General (Core) Collection, the John W. Barriger Railroad Library, the Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library, or the Art Museum. [2] The collections of the St. Louis Mercantile Library have been named a City Landmark by the city of St. Louis, Mo., due to the cultural significance of the library. [3]

Contents

History

Establishment and development

In December 1845 a group of civic leaders and philanthropists joined to establish a membership library with the intent of creating a place "where young men could pass their evenings agreeably and profitably, and thus be protected from the temptations to folly that ever beset unguarded youth in large towns." [4] The library officially opened on April 19, 1846, and became chartered by the State of Missouri that year. [2] At the time, public libraries were not a standard institution. The St. Louis Mercantile Library, with a reading room, meeting rooms, book stacks, and the largest auditorium in the city, became a primary hub of cultural and intellectual interchange in the city in the years preceding commonplace public and academic libraries. [1]

James E. Yeatman was the first president. Yeatman would go on to be one of the founders of the Mercantile Bank as well as Washington University in St. Louis. By 1847 it had 1,600 volumes and 283 subscribing members. In 1851 it merged with the St. Louis Lyceum. The St. Louis Symphony played its first concerts in the library. A series of lectures were held in the auditorium, with noted speakers including Mark Twain, Carl Schurz, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oscar Wilde. [4]

Mercantile Library Hall, ca. 1870 Mercantile Library Hall.jpg
Mercantile Library Hall, ca. 1870

In 1854 the library moved to a new building at 510 Locust Street, on the corner of Broadway and Locust streets. The structure included the 2,000 seat Grand Hall, the largest auditorium in the city at the time. The first session of the Missouri Constitutional Convention in 1861 met in the library voting to stay in the Union at the beginning of the American Civil War. Another constitutional convention in 1865 abolished slavery. [4]

In 1884 Robert S. Brookings began a campaign to build a new fireproof building. The older building was demolished in 1887 and a new cornerstone was laid by Henry Shaw (botanist). In 1889 the new six-story structure was dedicated on the same site. The new structure had no lecture hall, but did include an elevator. The library replaced candles in the stacks with electricity for the first time in 1901. Notable library programs included a telephone service and Book Delivery Service using a Ford Model T established in 1915. The Library received its designated status as a City Landmark in 1973. [4]

History of the collection

With the opening of the free St. Louis Public Library in 1893, the Mercantile Library's mission shifted from serving as the primary modern library of the city to focus on its major historic collections of books, papers, and art works. [2] The Art Museum has actively collected paintings, drawings, sculpture, and folk art of America since its foundation, tracing back to an early loan from noted St. Louis artist Charles Deas. [2]

The Mercantile Library historically collected materials to reflect the industrial history of St. Louis and the surrounding region. In this spirit, a dedicated railroad collection was established in 1983, named after John W. Barriger III, an American railroad executive whose large personal library of books, corporate papers, and photographs formed the core of the railroad holdings. [5] In 1985, the library established a formal waterways collection named after Herman T. Pott, a prominent river industry executive. [6]

The newspaper photo morgue and clipping files of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat , established in 1854, moved to the library. [4]

The library today

The library's historic downtown location and status as an independent institution came under internal review in 1994, when the Board of Direction began a long-range self-study to determine how to make the library's collections more accessible to modern scholars. 1996 marked the 150th Anniversary of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Association, and also became the year the Board voted to approve an affiliation with the University of Missouri-St. Louis. This several-year long process culminated in 1998, when the Mercantile Library moved to its current location in the Thomas Jefferson Library building on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis and rededicated itself as its current status of a special collections library within the university. [4]

The library still maintains its membership model, but the majority of the collections remain open to the public for research purposes through a combination of open stacks, the archival Reading Room research program [7] and the UMSL Digital Library. [8] Instead of allowing access to the library, membership now provides additional borrowing privileges, access to non-public events, invitations to speaker series, and private tours. [9]

The library operates under an open-storage solution for much of its collection, meaning that a large percentage of the collections are on display throughout the library at any given time. The library also offers free physical art and history exhibits of materials from its collections as well as online exhibits. [10]

Highlights of the collections

Statue of Beatrice Cenci (1857) Beatrice Cenci Front by Hosmer.jpg
Statue of Beatrice Cenci (1857)

Notable among the library's collections:

Related Research Articles

Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad Former American Class I railroad

The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railway was a Class I railroad company in the United States, with its last headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Established in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railway, Southern Branch, it came to serve an extensive rail network in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. In 1988, it merged with the Missouri Pacific Railroad; today, it is part of Union Pacific Railroad.

Auguste Chouteau

René-Auguste Chouteau, Jr., also known as Auguste Chouteau, was the founder of St. Louis, Missouri, a successful fur trader and a politician. He and his partner had a monopoly for many years of fur trade with the large Osage tribe on the Missouri River. In addition, he had numerous business interests in St. Louis and was well-connected with the various rulers: French, Spanish and American.

John W. Barriger III

John Walker Barriger III was an American railroad executive; he successively led the Monon Railroad, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad and the Boston and Maine Railroad. In 1969, he was chosen as Railroader of the Year by industry trade journal Modern Railroads.

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat was originally a daily print newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1852 until 1986. When the trademark registration on the name expired, it was then used as an unrelated free historically themed paper.

François Gesseau Chouteau was an American pioneer fur trader, businessman and community leader known as the "Founder" or "Father" of Kansas City, Missouri.

State Historical Society of Missouri

The State Historical Society of Missouri, a private membership and state funded organization, is a comprehensive research facility located in Columbia, Missouri, specializing in the preservation and study of Missouri's cultural heritage. Established in 1898 by the Missouri Press Association and made a trustee of the state in 1901, the Society is the official historical society of the state of Missouri and is located on the campus of the University of Missouri in Downtown Columbia, Missouri. The Society publishes the quarterly Missouri Historical Review, the only scholarly academic journal produced in the state.

The Waterways Journal Weekly is the news journal of record for the towing and barge industry on the inland waterways of the United States, chiefly the watershed of the Mississippi River and its tributaries and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Known as The Riverman’s Bible, the periodical has been published continuously from St. Louis, Missouri, since 1887. Published by H. Nelson Spencer, it is the only American maritime publication that focuses exclusively on the inland waterways of the United States, and is one of the few remaining family-owned, advertiser-supported trade weeklies of any description.

Central Visual and Performing Arts High School is a magnet high school in St. Louis, Missouri, part of the St. Louis Public Schools.

Pierre Chouteau Jr.

Pierre Chouteau Jr., also referred to as Pierre Cadet Chouteau, was an American merchant and a member of the wealthy Chouteau fur-trading family of Saint Louis, Missouri.

Gasconade Bridge train disaster 1855 railroad accident in Missouri

The Gasconade Bridge train disaster was a rail accident in Gasconade, Missouri, on November 1, 1855. The Gasconade bridge collapsed under the locomotive O'Sullivan while crossing. More than thirty were killed in the first major deadly bridge collapse in American history.

University of Missouri–St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, United States

The University of Missouri–St. Louis (UMSL) is a public research university in St. Louis, Missouri. Established in 1963, it is one of four universities in the University of Missouri System and its newest. UMSL's campus is located on the former grounds of the Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis County, with an address in St. Louis city. The campus stretches into the municipalities of Bellerive, Bel-Nor and Normandy. Additional facilities are located at the former site of Marillac College and at Grand Center, both in St. Louis city.

St. Louis Gateway Mall

The Gateway Mall in St. Louis, Missouri is an open green space running linearly, one block wide, from the Gateway Arch at Memorial Drive to Union Station at 20th Street. Located in the city's downtown, it runs between Market Street and Chestnut Street.

George Duncan Bauman was the publisher of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat from 1967 until 1984.

Stan Masters American painter

Stan Masters was an American realist painter from the St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood, Missouri.

Firmin V. Desloge

Firmin Vincent Desloge II was an American industrialist lead mining pioneer in the disseminated lead fields of the Southeast Missouri Lead District and member of the Desloge family in America.

John Francis Alexander Sanford (1806–1857) was a frontiersman of the American west who worked with Native American tribes as an Indian agent. He later joined Pierre Chouteau Jr. in a fur trapping and trading business. He extended his interests into other areas of commerce and became very wealthy. In the final years of his life he was involved with the landmark court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford [sic], which is perhaps what he is best known for today. He suffered mental illness and died in an asylum.

Chouteau Springs, Missouri

Chouteau Springs is an unincorporated community in Pilot Grove Township, Cooper County, in the U.S. state of Missouri.

James E. Yeatman

James Erwin Yeatman was a bank founder and philanthropist in St. Louis, Missouri. He was the founder and president of the Western Sanitary Commission and Washington University.

Daven A. Anderson is an American oil and watercolor painter who is well known for his representational paintings, especially marine scenes.

Mill Creek Valley Place

Mill Creek Valley was a historic neighborhood located in the central corridor between 20th Street and Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. European settlement began in the 18th century with mills established along La Petite Rivière, now known as Mill Creek. It became an industrial and railroad center in the 19th century. Union Station was opened in 1894. The building was closed in 1978 and renovated for commercial use. Also a residential and commercial center, Mill Creek Valley was populated by German immigrants and African Americans, before and after the Civil War. More people moved into the area during World War II to support the war effort.

References

  1. 1 2 "Part I: Cultural Life".
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Summary of the Collections of the St. Louis Mercantile Library | UMSL".
  3. ↑ "Mercantile Library Collection".
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 http://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/collections/mercantile-library-special-collections/assets/pdf/special-collections/mercantile-timeline.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  5. 1 2 "John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library - History | UMSL".
  6. ↑ "Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library | UMSL".
  7. ↑ "Research at the Mercantile Library | UMSL".
  8. ↑ "UMSL Digital Library | University of Missouri-St. Louis Digital Library".
  9. ↑ "Memberships | UMSL".
  10. ↑ "Online Exhibitions | UMSL".
  11. ↑ "History of the Herman T. Pott Inland Waterways Library | UMSL".
  12. ↑ "M-112: St. Louis Globe-Democrat Collection | UMSL".
  13. ↑ "M-022: Auguste Chouteau Papers | UMSL".

Further reading

Coordinates: 38°42′37″N90°18′40″W / 38.710200°N 90.311055°W / 38.710200; -90.311055

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.