However, widespread acceptance of this 'model' developed slowly, in part because other views identified the 'public library' as one that was accessible to all residents of a community, but not generally free or a constituent part of local government because it relied on voluntary personal payments or contributions from philanthropic individuals, community groups, or persons willing to pay a membership fee. This type of library performed a public function but was not a state agent, i.e. the municipal, provincial, or federal government. Often, the establishment of libraries open free to the public was furthered by philanthropic efforts and managed privately. In some cases, these libraries received assistance and direction from government in recognition of their beneficial public function.
It is these atypical or hybrid libraries that will be discussed here in a Canadian context. They were public libraries open freely to the public without direct charge or with small personal (or family) charges. They were clearly regarded as community-based service agencies. In many ways, they characterized the importance of nineteenth-century ideas about voluntarism, civic promotion, and public-private partnerships working in the interest of the public good. They were distinctive in their own right and founded in all parts of British North America as the following few examples illustrate.
New Westminster, B.C. --- In 1865, New Westminster was the capital of the mainland colony of British Columbia. There were two initial inducements to establish an institute and public library: a collection of books offered by the disbanded Columbia Detachment of Royal Engineers and Queen Victoria's donation of a copy of her late husband Prince Albert's speeches "to the public libraries of her more important colonies." The New Westminster Library and Reading Room opened on 15 August 1865 on Columbia Street supported by a grant from the colonial government and by membership and regular subscription rates, e.g. to borrow books a member paid $5 a year. The library operated from a building that formerly housed the colony's official Mint and was run by a board of management composed of four colonial officials and the president of the municipal council. This happy state of affairs continued for a few years until the colony's government funding was withdrawn by 1868. Subscriptions--a common method of financing 19th-century local libraries--supported library operations thereafter until 1890. At this point, the federal government offered the Mint property to the city provided a new building would be erected and opened as a free public library. The offer was accepted: the mint was demolished and a new building opened in 1892 with renewed funding from the municipality. For most this period, the library was never a 'free library' in the modern sense but exhibited a private-public partnership to support a 'public library' that was not unusual in the 19th century.
Montreal Free Library/Gésu Free Library (est. 1889) --- "Any bona fide resident of Montreal, irrespective of class or creed, is entitled, under certain conditions, to draw books from the Gésu Free Library." So read the introduction to an 1895 catalogue of circulating books for the Gésu Free Library opened on 4 October 1889. It was aimed at primarily English-speaking Catholic Montrealers. The library was essentially a parish library situated near the Jesuit Collège Sainte-Marie on Bleury Street. The library owed its existence to the dedicated work of a few ladies active in the Promoters of the League of the Sacred Heart who raised funds through annual afternoon teas. They desired to promote books based on Christian beliefs and morals. A small committee, ultimately responsible to the Sacred Heart Union, managed the library. By 1895, the library was circulating 15,000 books to an extended public in downtown Montreal and receiving in-kind donations and money from private citizens. The library offered titles in English, with translations of French authors who were mostly Catholic. Notably, however, there were fiction books for youngsters, such as Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy, at a time when many public libraries maintained age limits excluding children. There were also popular British novelists: Dickens, Trollope, Collins, Bulwer-Lytton, and Scott. American authors, such as Irving and Cooper, and few women authors, such as the Irish novelist Rosa Mullholland and Lady Georgiana Fullerton, were also available. The Montreal Free Library (sometimes called Sacred Heart Union Library) was not a municipal institution of course, it was a small library without charge at the point of entry and based on the ideas of its Catholic promoters that good reading (including fiction). Considering the mid-19th century controversies in Montreal about liberal works and fiction in general regarding the closure of the Institut Canadien de Montréal, this was a progressive step. Books for children was another important ingredient that would eventually become an orthodox feature of public libraries.
Fraser Institute, Montreal (est. 1885) --- In his 1870 will, the businessman Hugh Fraser placed most of his possessions amounting to $200,000 in trust to John J. C. Abbott and Frederick Torrence to establish an institution--a free public library, museum, and gallery open to all Montreal's citizens regardless of class and without any fee. The Fraser Institute was incorporated by a statute in 1870 that determined its course: "to aid in the diffusion of useful knowledge by affording free access, to all desirous of it, to books and to scientific objects and subjects, and to works of art, and for that purpose to erect appropriate buildings, and to procure books, scientific objects and subjects, and works of art, making always the acquisition and maintenance of a library the leading object to be kept in view." The Institute was managed by an elite Board of Governors; however, legal battles over Fraser's will delayed progress. Finally, a building was acquired and opened in 1885. The Institute, located at the corner of University Street and Dorchester Boulevard, initially was a reference library. A circulating collection commenced operations in 1889. Thus, after almost 20 years, the Institute was able to fulfill its original purpose outlined in the 1870 Act. Hugh Fraser's philanthropic vision involved a private institution--starting as an endowed library--operating in the public interest to further educational standards. It had a self-perpetuating incorporated private board of managers which, from time to time, made substantial contributions to its success and ensured free access.
Yarmouth Public Library, N.S. (est. 1872) -- Loran Ellis Baker, a prominent local businessman and politician, was instrumental in establishing a public library in Yarmouth in 1872. He first purchased 2,500 books and then presented a library, housed on the second floor of the Young and Baker building, to the town's citizens. The library was open for limited hours each week, but books circulated free of charge. All the library expenses, including the salary of a custodian who also maintained the library, were assumed by Baker. From time to time, townsfolk contributed books and material objects which eventually formed the basis for a museum. For more than a quarter-century, Baker's generous civic-mindedness served local residents well and in the 1890s, the Yarmouth Council made small appropriations to the library. When L.E. Baker died in 1899, his will stipulated that the library, its books and materials, as well as $8,000 would be made available to an incorporated body with the proviso that an equal amount be raised to establish a free public library and museum within five years. The Yarmouth Public Library and Museum was incorporated in September 1904. It was a 'free library' operated by a private body--the Yarmouth Free Public Library Association--that did not charge a fee for borrowing books. Residents could, however, pay a nominal fee to become a member of the Association managing the library and museum.
Town of Portland, N.B. (est. 1882) -- After Isaac Burpee, a prominent MP representing the local riding in Parliament, provided a small collection of books for Portland, the town turned to the local branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) for assistance. The members of this branch had built a Union Hall for the promotion of temperance and social and moral reforms, a fitting home of a town library. In 1882, the Portland WCTU incorporated (45 Vic. Chap 93, Act of NB 1882). The management of the library within the Hall was vested in the hands of the WCTU. Although the town provided support for the building and its maintenance, a small fee was also charged for library use by the WCTU library committee. This situation continued for a few years until Portland was annexed by Saint John in 1888, after which this library began to receive regular grants provided residents would not be charged for borrowing books and use of the library. The activity of the WCTU was an early manifestation of the interest by women's groups in promoting and maintaining public libraries across the nation.
Pettes Memorial Library, Que. (est. 1894) -- Narcissa Farrand Pettes built and donated a library to the village of Knowlton and Brome Township, Quebec, in memory of her late husband, Nathaniel Pettes. In the same year, 1894, the Quebec Legislature enacted An Act to Incorporate the "Pettes Memorial." This legislation stipulated that the Pettes building would be "a free public library and reading room, to be open to all honest and respectable persons whomsoever, of every rank in life, without distinction." Also, the building would function as "a lecture hall, to be used in connection with the said library and reading room, and solely for purposes calculated to promote and advance the interests and usefulness of the same." The purpose was clearly Victorian in mindset: the Pettes Memorial was intended to promote "the diffusion of useful knowledge, by affording free access, to all desiring it, to books, magazines and periodicals, making always the acquisition and maintenance of a library the leading object to be kept in view." An incorporated board of seven trustees was established to oversee the library. Narcissa Pettes also agreed to pay the salary for the librarian, to assume the cost of maintenance during her lifetime, and to leave funds to be invested to meet future annual expenses.
Halifax Citizens' Free Library, N.S. (est. 1864) -- At Halifax, the collections of two previous incorporated subscription libraries, the Mechanics' Library (est. 1831) and the Halifax Library (est. 1823-24), formed the nucleus of the Citizens’ Free Library by the mid-1870s in the city hall courthouse. In 1864, the city council accepted a generous offer from Chief Justice William Young, who had purchased the collection of the Mechanics’ Library, to administer and to open a library freely to local residents. A Halifax newspaper lent hearty support for ‘public institutions of a literary character’ especially at modest cost. Later, in 1876, the city bought books from the defunct Halifax Library, which the privileged classes had supported for half a century. In the following year, provincial legislation (40 Vic. chap. 34) permitted municipal funding for the Free Library to pay debts and maintenance costs without resort to direct personal fees: "The City Council may payout of the general assessment of the City or may add to the sums authorized to be assessed, such a sum not to exceed one thousand two hundred dollars, as may be necessary for the maintenance of the Citizens' Free Library and defraying the expenses thereof." A committee of city aldermen parsimoniously managed affairs and the library moved a few times before settling into the city hall in 1890. During this time, the library suffered a chronic shortage of funds, a situation that did not improve in the first part of the 20th-century. Nonetheless, the Citizen's Free Library was the first Canadian instance of 1) ongoing municipal tax support without a specific rate clause that a managing committee could not rely on and 2) municipal administration of a library open to the public without charge at point of access.
In the late Victorian era, commentaries on the rationale for free public libraries serving the general public were becoming commonplace. This evolution in thinking combined with legislative standards, enhanced physical library access, and claims that libraries advanced literacy, educational attainment, and societal progress, reinforced support for libraries. In a more prosperous and educated nation, with wealthier business leaders, an increasingly literate populace, a growing middle-class interested in cultural uplift, and civic-minded leaders, the formation of libraries became a cause--a movement--that attracted promoters and followers. Given the disparate state of local government across the new Dominion, a variety of options emerged after Confederation in 1867 for alternative methods of governance and private-public financial support for libraries open to the public without charge to users
Further Reading
Moodey, Edgar C. The Fraser-Hickson Library: An Informal History. London: Clive Bingley, 1977 at the Internet Archive
Hanson, Elizabeth. “Books for the People: The Fraser Institute, 1885-1900.” Épilogue : Canadian Bulletin for the History of Books, Libraries, and Archives 11, no. 2 (1996): 1–10
Montreal Free Library. Analytical and Descriptive Catalogue of the Montreal Free Library. 3rd ed. Montreal: Montreal Free Library, Library Hall, 146 Bleury Street, 1895 at the Internet Archive.
Lamonde, Yvan. “Un aspect inconnu du débat autour de la bibliothèque publique à Montréal: la Montreal Free Library (1889- ).” Les Cahiers des Dix, no. 57 (2003): 263–71. https://doi.org/10.7202/1008108ar.
Rotherham, G.A. The History of the Pettes Memorial Library Knowlton, Quebec, 1894-1983; The Oldest Free Public Library in the Province of Quebec. Knowlton, Québec: Privately Printed, 1983.
Free Public Library (Yarmouth, N.S.), ed. Catalogue, Free Public Library of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia: Established 1872. Saint John, N.B.: J. & A. McMillan, 1872.
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