In 1999 the United States Postal Service issued a pre-stamped postal card depicting an 1879 rendering of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to help celebrate the university’s 150th anniversary. The stamp image on the postal card helps tell the history of the University of Wisconsin Library up to 1900. The University of Wisconsin Library was founded in July, 1850 with the appointment of H. A. Tenney as Librarian. Tenney had previously been designated as Curator of the Unitversity’s Cabinet, a collection of specimens. The first home of the library was North Hall (the building at the top right of the stamp image) which opened in 1851. The library moved into South Hall (the building at the top left of the stamp image) when it was completed in 1855. It moved into College Hall (later Main Hall and now Bascom Hall; the building at the top center of the stamp image) in 1859. At the time of the move it had a collection of about 3,000 volumes.
In 1879 the library moved into Library Hall (now Music Hall, the building at the bottom left of the stamp image) with a collection of around 9,000 volumes. It stayed in this location unil 1900 when it moved to the new State Historical Society of Wisconsin building. It’s collection had grown to 75,000 bound volumes by the time it made this move.
The postcard below depicts Library Hall which is now Music Hall. More about this building can be found here.
