Wisconsin Library Heritage Center
The Wisconsin Library Heritage Center is a program of the Wisconsin Library Association Foundation promoting understanding and appreciation of the history of libraries and librarianship in Wisconsin.
Postcards depicting libraries are wonderful souvenirs and also serious historical artifacts. The “golden age” of postcard production and collecting was from 1898 to 1918. That period coincided with the construction of large numbers of library buildings as a result of the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie and others.
I’ve lived in Wisconsin for 32 years and I’ve never experienced a serious ice storm. I missed the devastating ice storm of March, 1976. In February of 1922 Wisconsin also experienced one the worst ice storms in its history.
I’m always on the lookout for postcards depicting Wisconsin libraries. I’ve been so successful that it is not often that I come across one that I don’t already have. So it was a real treat when I found a Real Photograph Postcard (RPPC) showing the the public library on the Main Street of Brodhead,
My wife and I installed the exhibit “Andrew Carnegie’s Wisconsin Library Legacy” early this week at the T. B. Scott Free Library in Merrill, Wisconsin. The exhibit is sponsored by the Wisconsin Library Heritage Center.
Two of Wisconsin’s oldest libraries are connected to seminaries that date back to the 1840s. The Nashotah House Library is part of the Nashotah House Episcopal Seminary that was founded in 1842.
In 2010 the Angie W. Cox Public Library in Pardeeville will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the gift of books from Angie W. Cox that eventually evolved into the public library that exists today.
On February 11, 1891 (119 years ago today) a group of librarians and educational leaders gathered in the office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction for the purpose of organizing the Wisconsin Library Association. At that time the State Superintendent’s office was located in the State Capitol.
A postcard mailed in March of 1911 to announce the American Library Association Conference in Pasadena, California provides a link to one of Wisconsin’s longtime special librarians. When Clarence S. Hean received this postcard he had been the Agricultural College Librarian and the University of Wisconsin for three years.
This is National Postcard Week. Diana Dretske, collections coordinator for the Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda, Illinois, provides some background information on National Postcard Week on her blog “Illuminating Lake County, Illinois History”. I have previously posted on the WLHC blog about Wisconsin library postcards.
The original painting of a very popular image showing an elderly gentleman standing on a ladder in a library is owned by the Milwaukee Public Library. The painting is “The Bookworm” by Carl Spitzweg.