William Austin Mahoney: A Prolific Canadian Carnegie Library Architect

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Andrew Carnegie began dispensing grants to Ontario libraries. Many ambitious cities and towns submitted a request for assistance. One important requisite that Carnegie demanded was that the library be “free” that is, open at the point of entry free of charge—there would no longer be a subscription for membership. This condition would make it eligible for a specific amount from its municipality according to Ontario’s public library legislation. More than a hundred communities followed through and received grants.

One architect from Guelph, Ontario, William A. Mahoney (born 16 Sept. 1872 and died 13 Oct. 1952) designed fifteen buildings across the province. This short history looks at Mahoney’s buildings and their subsequent development until the period of the Second World War, especially in connection with Angus Mowat, who inspected most of Mahoney’s buildings and reported on their status about a quarter-century after they originally opened. There were examples of progressive and struggling libraries in Mahoney’s grouping prior to 1945.

William Mahoney’s contribution to the Carnegie architectural history of Canadian libraries was large in number but small in terms of interior design and exterior features. His preference for simple, square, classical buildings with raised first floors requiring staired entrances, and open floor plans suited the building period and size of grants that the Carnegie corporation favoured for smaller towns across Canada, especially in Ontario. For his exteriors he followed the neoclassical style associated with the École des Beaux Arts in Paris which was in vogue across North America when he opened his office in Guelph. There were two basic exterior types of neoclassical style: a columned temple entrance with a triangular pedimented roof or a columned arch entrance divided into one or more bays which supported the roof line. In the interiors there were high ceilings, wooden shelving and chairs, oak floors, stained glass in a few windows, busts of famous literary figures, and fireplaces along with radiators to provide heating. Separate reading rooms for women and men were not uncommon. Spacing and reading for children for limited.

For the most part, Mahoney’s ideas were in accord with changing principles for library buildings. In the leaflet published in 1910, Notes on the Erection of Library B[u]ildings, James Bertram, the secretary of the Carnegie Corporation, introduced the open library concept wishing to receive a promise of funding. The Notes were intended for buildings in small communities or city branches. Bertram stressed simplicity: rectangular, one-storey buildings, undivided rooms, low ceilings, few restrictions separating readers from books, and unpretentious exteriors. Bertram personally inspected potential designs for libraries before authorizing funding. Fortunately, Mahoney’s plans usually passed muster. Mahoney continued a successful practice, building schools and commercial buildings for many years until his retirement. Seven of his buildings continue in use as libraries in 2023.

A testament to Mahoney's design concepts came from Angus Mowat, the Ontario Inspector of Public Libraries from 1937 to 1960, about thirty years after the libraries opened. The Inspector found most of Mahoney's libraries were still generally community assets, although crowded and in need of extensions or interior reorganization. One suggestion, used in a number of Carnegie buildings in the following decades, was to house children's sections in basement rooms that had being planned for other uses. Another testament to William Mahoneys success as an architect is that many of his buildings remain in use more than a century after their construction, surely a notable achievement.

My PowerPoint presentation was originally planned for the Port Hope Public Library in 2023, but due to illness I was unable to attend and I have reproduced it here in JPEG format.

A complete listing of William Mahoney’s buildings is at the website, Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada 1800–1950.

 Some of my earlier blogs on Carnegie library buildings:

Brantford, 1904

Brockville, 1904

Photo Essay on Ontario's Edwardian Libraries (1989) 

More Carnegie library buildings in Ontario are available at my previous website, Libraries Today, from the 1990s — The Ontario Library Photo Gallery — stored on the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive.

My chapter on Carnegie Philanthropy (pp. 165-203) appears in Free Books for All: The Public Library Movement in Ontario, 1850-1930 (1994) which is available on the Internet Archive.

 

 

Ontario’s Centennial Libraries, 1966—1967

     In 1961 the National Centennial Act established a federal Centennial Commission reporting to Parliament. This Commission intended to celebrate Canada’s birthday by planning and assisting projects across the country. Provincial departments helped coordinate finances with local groups and municipalities. In all, the total expenditure under various grant programs for all governments reached $200 million for about 2,500 projects, including the building of Confederation Memorial Centres, such as the one in Charlottetown which included a library. In Ontario, in 1965, the Department of Tourism established a Centennial Planning Branch to help plan and finance celebrations such as armed forces ceremonials, canoe pageants, the Confederation and train caravans, aboriginal events, sports events, municipal projects, and Queen’s Park celebrations. Approved local projects received funding from the federal government normally based on one dollar per capita to a maximum of one-third of the total cost. Provinces usually matched the federal amount, and municipalities funded the balance. Some new regional library co-operatives also provided funds for a few projects, notably Teck Township, where library facilities were the primary focus. Eventually, Ontario municipal projects totalled approximately $7 million; more than seventy-five libraries qualified for funding in the building category.

Ontario Centennial Library Projects 1966–67    

About five percent of the total Canadian projects were library-related (144). Ontario communities accounted for slightly more than half of all Canadian library buildings. The most notable project, the Public Archives and National Library, which opened on 20 June 1967, fulfilled a need expressed since the beginning of the century. The Canadian Library Association received $12,000 to microfilm Canadian newspapers in the Confederation period, 1862–1873; these microfilms were subsequently used across the country in many research projects. In Ontario, few major cities choose to erect or renovate libraries because large buildings were more complex to plan and finance during the Commission’s short lifespan. In Canada, Edmonton’s towering $4,000,000 centennial central library was a remarkable example of municipal funding for library services.

Sault Ste. Marie Centennial Library, 1967

      In Ontario, only Sault Ste. Marie ($776,000), Chatham ($515,000), and Mimico ($300,000) were expensively conceived projects. The Sault Ste. Marie library’s lower level included space for a “Centennial Room” for lectures and exhibits. The vast majority of libraries were projected to be under $100,000 due to the per capita funding formula. Smaller municipalities sometimes entered into joint projects with their neighbours to combine their financial resources. One municipality, suburban Toronto Township, built three smaller libraries (3,000 sq. ft. each) that opened on the same day in October 1967—Malton, Lakeview, and Clarkson-Lorne Park.

Mimico Centennial Library, 1966

      The Centennial Commission was not concerned with library architectural features or functional requirements of libraries. By now, the excesses of the Carnegie era were well known: some communities—Cornwall (1956), Sarnia (1960), and Guelph (1964)—had simply demolished their buildings and rebuilt without regard to heritage considerations. Chatham, opened on 15 November 1967, followed the same process, moving to the Thames Theatre Art Gallery while demolition of the Carnegie proceeded. Sault Ste. Marie also razed its Carnegie building to make way for Sixties-style progress. 

   In keeping with the limited funds available on a per capita basis, the general architectural style of the vast majority of smaller Centennial libraries might be described as “commercial-vernacular” with the following usual characteristics:

▪ most new buildings were 4,000 – 8,000 sq. ft. in size and based on a simple rectangular or box plan, sometimes allowing for future expansion;
▪ modernist style exteriors were rectilinear in form with plain surfaces, featuring extensive use of glass, and horizontal roof lines;
▪ buildings had approachable “street-level” entrances often with adjoining parking;
▪ interior “open plan” mix of stacking, fluorescent lightening, and public space provided more convenient, individual study areas, larger lounge areas for reading, and improved interface with staff and book collections;
▪ structural elements featured concrete, glass, and steel that revealed skeleton-frame structure;
▪ lighting took on more importance with visible fluorescent and long, metal window mullions providing strength in single-storey buildings and allowing more interior daylight to make study and programming pleasant for users;
▪ in larger libraries, modular column squares made load-bearing and functionality simpler to plan for future redesign needs;
▪ use of vernacular, localized style combined with contemporary wood-steel furnishings created attractive, simplified library spaces.
The majority of Centennial libraries and extensions did not continue the monumental traditional style of the Carnegie era. Instead, the ideal, “form follows function,” was adhered to even if contemporary additions clashed dramatically with the older Carnegie style, as in Fort Frances. Many additions simply alleviated space problems, thereby limiting their scope and style. Renovated buildings, such as a service station at Sioux Lookout, did not present opportunities for architectural statements.

Streetsville Centennial Library, 1967

    The architectural qualities of Centennial libraries differed tremendously. Because of their size and community location Centennial libraries escaped the major elements of the Brutalist style, so evident in Ontario’s 1969 Centennial Museum of Science and Technology. One library, Mimico, opened in November 1966, received a Massey Medal for Architecture for its architect, Philip R. Brook. It was a spacious 18,000 sq. ft. building with a capacity of 60,000 books and an auditorium for 250 people. Streetsville, opened in November 1967 by the Premier, William Davis, reflected a contemporary cubic style with a capacity for 20,000 volumes  within 6,500 sq. ft. Larger libraries, such as Oakville, formed part of a civic complex and combined with art gallery space to satisfy municipal needs. The complex was on three levels: a lower area for technical services, main floor children’s library, and upper level (actually at street level) included adult services and the art gallery.

Nepean Centennial Library, 1967

      Some structures were built with an eye for successful extensions, such as Fort Erie. Others, such as Nepean Township’s modular octagon at Bells Corners, were too small at just under 2,000 sq. ft. to cope with population growth. Nepean was required to add later modular additions in 1970 and 1974. A few county library systems built better accommodations. The Middlesex library included a local branch for Arva residents as well as storage and garage to organize transport of books to other county branches via bookmobile—there was14,000 sq. ft. on one level. Several, notably Cornwall’s Centennial Simon Fraser wing, opened by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson in July 1967, were successful additions to existing buildings.

     Very little critical study of Centennial library building projects exists, Bracebridge being a noteworthy exception. Its 1908 Carnegie, of course, suffered space constraints before the trustees and town council decided to renovate the basement for a children’s library and add a small extension for a separate entrance. The project cost was just less than $20,000; it included renovation upgrades in the main building and a “centennial wing” which was really “just a concrete-block bunker” that blemished the heritage aspects of the original Carnegie design. Nonetheless, speeches at an official ceremony on 13 May 1967 deemed the town’s decision to be a wise investment in children’s education.

     Indeed, the Centennial helped enhance the library’s public image about an expanded range of services, for example, auditoriums for programs, meetings, and performances; exhibit areas for art; and accommodation for audio-visual departments. These advantages reinforced the library’s position as an educational and recreational locus for community activity. Improved library facilities were part of a rapid increase in library usage across Ontario: in 1961 libraries served approx. 4.4 million and by 1971 6.9 million, a 56% increase — the greatest single decade increase in Ontario library history. Across the province, Centennial libraries were a visible symbol of local pride, the growth of Canadian identity, the democratization of culture, and the utility of shared federal-provincial programs for the public benefit. In some ways, Centennial libraries emulated the local self-help philosophy and enthusiasm for library building inspired by Andrew Carnegie six decades previously without the need to venture beyond national boundaries for funding.

 

Brantford 1904 Carnegie library

Brantford Public Library in 1917

Brantford’s classic red brick Beaux-Arts Carnegie Library, constructed between 1902 and 1904, was located at 73 George Street across from Victoria Park in the city’s main square. The building was designed by the firm of William and Walter Stewart with Lewis Taylor and manifested a sense of grand monumentalism with its central dome and a 20-step main entrance as shown in a 1917 First World War picture taken more than a dozen years after it opened on July 4, 1904.

Andrew Carnegie promised Brantford $30,000 after receiving a 1902 request from a prominent local judge, Alexander David Hardy, who was deeply interested in books, libraries, history, and cultural life in the city. Judge Hardy became an active local library trustee who later served as President of the Ontario Library Association in 1909—10. Brantford was one of Ontario’s leading cities at the time, with a population (1901 census) of just over 16,000. In a contemporary 1902 report by Lawrence Burpee, “Modern Public Libraries and their Methods,” Brantford reported holdings of almost 17,000 volumes and circulation just short of 67,000 items per year. The library staff numbered four, and a printed catalogue recorded holdings. About eighty percent of the collection was classed as fiction. This figure may reflect that the library used an antiquated classification system initially designed for mechanics’ institutes in Ontario thirty years earlier. More proficient methods were about to be employed under a new librarian, Edwin D. Henwood, including the Dewey Decimal system. Henwood became one of the many Ontario voices for improved library service in the course of his twenty-two years as chief librarian. He died suddenly in 1924 leaving a bequest of $1,000 for the children’s section that he had introduced.

After the city council agreed to comply with Carnegie’s terms to support its new free library, during the construction phase, costs escalated well beyond original 1902 estimates. Again, Hardy wrote to the Scottish-American philanthropist, who responded with an additional $5,000 in 1904 to complete the city’s building on the main square. As years passed, Hardy remained fully engaged with the library’s development, and in 1913, when the need for an enlarged stack room and basement became evident, he again asked for increased funding. Fortunately, the Carnegie Foundation (est. 1905) granted $13,000 of the $15,000 required to make the new renovation possible. The three grants totalling $48,000 became one of the most significant for Carnegie library buildings in Canada.

Many different exterior architectural elements exhibited the Beaux-Arts symmetry and style of the library. These features are evident in a serious of pictures taken by the award winning Park Co. [Edward P. Park] that are preserved at the Archives of Ontario.The Beaux-Arts style was popular in Europe and North American and suited more refined cultural tastes and respect for literature and reading. The classical form included a large portico supported by four Ionic columns surmounted by a triangular pediment. The dome above the portico offered an impressive visual presence which was complemented by a hipped roof. “Public Library” was inscribed across the nomenclature beneath the pediment, and just below above the main entrance, a Latin verse from the Odes of Horace proclaimed, “I have erected a monument more lasting than bronze.” To some people, the library exuded a sense of permanence--it was a lasting storehouse of knowledge. The exterior classical form of the building also included smaller formal decorations. Three small palmettes (arcoteria) adorned the two sides and peak of the central pediment. The names of famous Anglo-American writers such as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Emerson, Dickens, Burns, and Thackeray were engraved on the smaller pedimented main-storey front windows.

 

 Inside the library, the primary visual feature at the entrance was, of course, the rotunda under the dome. Several stained-glass skylights at the top gave an air of elegance and permitted more highlighting of the recessed displays, marble walls, mosaic tiled floor, and adjoining rooms.  The two separate reading rooms (each 884 sq. ft.) flanking the rotunda were designed separately for ladies and gentlemen. The stack room (1,560 sq ft.) was located at the back and fronted by a charging station with two smaller rooms to each side (each 300 sq. ft), one for reference another for the librarian. There was no direct public access to the bookshelves, and the library enforced an age limit of fourteen which barred children. Stairs to the lower level led to a men’s smoking and conversation room (35 ft x 25 ft), a lecture room (35 ft x 25 ft), and a board room for meetings.

The principal defect in the library plan for adults seemed to be the separation of the two reading rooms from the books. Book retrievals by staff from the delivery counter were required, and users then had to retire to the rooms beside a noisy entrance area to browse or read items. The reference area was small and accommodated only one table for multiple users. As well, the front entrance steps for infirm or aged residents were a barrier indeed. The absence of a separate children’s area or room was soon recognized. An enlarged area for book stacks was built in 1913. Despite these physical drawbacks and necessary changes to the original plan, the Brantford library was known to be a progressive and service oriented. For several years after 1906, short regional library “institutes” for library staff and trustees were held at which new ideas were exchanged and hands-on training conducted.

 

Two decades after the library opened, residents were borrowing more than 140,000 volumes each year, just less than five volumes per capita. A children’s department had been developed in the basement in 1910 after the elimination of the onerous age limit. Sunday afternoon openings in the reading and reference rooms came into effect in 1911. Judge Hardy continued to play an important role in the development of the library due to his interest in historical works and progressive civic ideas. Speaking in 1910 at the Ontario Library Association meeting in Toronto, he looked forward to library progress:

 

One feature of this modern age which we must all recognize is that a knowledge of the fact whatever that fact may be about is the lord and master of the situation; and the modern library tends, by its reference department and by its methods for investigating, and its educative processes, to give citizens generally the opportunity of establishing the fact about anything. 

 

Judge Hardy’s contributions to the Brantford library were memorialized with a plaque in 1956 when new steps were dedicated to make the approach more functional. His young grandson, Hagood Hardy, who later became a notable musician and composer, was present and spoke briefly about the tribute to his grandfather. The Carnegie library continued in operation until a new building opened in 1992.

An earlier post on Edwardian library buildings in Ontario

Brockville 1904 Carnegie library

At the turn of the 20th century, library grants from the foundation Andrew Carnegie had created became readily available for Canadian municipalities. Carnegie believed in the efficacy of public libraries to improve society and in the ability of local governments to better the lives of all residents. In order to qualify for a grant, a municipality submitted a letter outlining its local need for library service. Carnegie required local governments to provide a building site, provide ten percent of the construction cost each year from public taxation for the library’s future operation, and allow free access for residents. These were generous terms, and 125 Canadian cities successfully obtained and built Carnegie libraries.

Brockville was one such community, a small market town in rural Eastern Ontario with a population of 8,940 according to the 1901 Canadian census. After receiving a sizable $17,500 grant in April 1903, the city opened a new building on 13 August 1904 at the corner of Buell and George streets. Fortunately, several images of the library taken in 1906 have been preserved at the Archives of Ontario. These offer some insights into Canadian library features and architecture for smaller towns and cities during the earliest period of the Carnegie library building era.

Before the First World War, the organization of interior space and the interrelationships between staff and patrons underwent a dramatic change. Improved library functions, new programs, and public access arrangements were under active development: children’s services, improved reference service, better classification and cataloging schemes, and open access to collections were all becoming new features. Reliance on long-standing library conventions -- the emphasis on physical custody and storage of books, use of printed catalogues and leaflet updates for holdings, closed stacks, surveillance of public reading rooms, the use of indicators (a British practice) for circulation status in lending departments, and occasional lectures or evening classes for the technical education of working classes (an inheritance from mechanics’ institutes) -- was ebbing. A more “modern” public library as we know it today was emerging that stove to connect people with books and promote an educational ethos to improve its local citizenry. Architectural features of Carnegie exteriors became all too well known for their Beaux-Arts style featuring classical columns, steps, porticos, and domes. It was an exuberant architectural style with classical lines and elements that promoted civic grandeur and acknowledged the intellectual heritage of Graeco-Roman civilization.

Brockville had enjoyed modest library service for several decades. The Brockville Mechanics’ Institute was founded in 1842 and incorporated in 1851. A report from 1858 indicated it held about 800 volumes. It was a membership library requiring an annual subscription. In the early 1880s, the institute fell on hard times and underwent a reorganization to receive provincial grants. Eventually, after 1895, the Brockville town council passed a by-law establishing the Brockville Public Library as a free library open to local residents without charge at the point of access. At this point, the city’s library board and staff were among the most energetic in Ontario. One board member, Edward A. Geiger, a railway agent, attended the American Library Association meeting in Montreal in 1900 and attended a small meeting of leading librarians and trustees that led to the founding of the Ontario Library Association in the following year, 1901. Another member, Judge Herbert S. McDonald, became an OLA councillor. Brockville’s librarian, Carrie Anne Rowe, presented a paper on “Useful Methods for Small Public Libraries” at the second annual meeting in Toronto.

In a 1902 report by Lawrence Burpee, “Modern Public Libraries and their Methods,” Brockville reported holdings of almost 10,000 volumes and a circulation of 40,000 items per year. The library staff numbered three, and holdings were recorded in a card and printed catalogue for the librarian’s use. An “indicator” recorded circulation, usually a board in the lending section indicating by numbers or colours which books were currently lent out or available in the stacks. Indicators were suitable for more limited “closed access” collections but took up considerable space and were giving way to “open access” and book-card charging systems. Due to lack of space, there was no separate children’s section, and an age limit of fourteen was in force.

The library’s architect, Benjamin Dillon, was active in eastern Ontario and had experience with schools, churches, and public buildings in the region. The new Carnegie library featured pressed red brick, grey stone, and a slate roof. It had a corner entrance and a tetraportico supported by four columns topped by a prominent triangular pediment. Keystones decorated the windows. “Public Library Reading Room” was engraved above the entrance. With raised basements, there were the obligatory ten front steps from the sidewalk to reach the main floor. The building measured 61 ft. x 65 ft., just short of 4,000 sq. ft. A central corridor led to a small reference room (17 ft. x 26 ft.), a general reading room (26 ft. x 28 ft), and a circulation desk that separated users from books in the stack area (26 ft. x 28 ft.). Rooms had suspended lighting from high ceilings. Brockville continued to rely on indicators to display the status of stack items., but this type of library device was in declining use in Canada. There was free access to the reference collection housed in glassed-in shelving, but the general circulating collection was only available through staff retrievals. Stairs to the lower level led to a large lecture 47 ft. x 27 ft. hall; however, there was no separate street entrance/exit from the basement, a serious defect considering this large room could hold more than a hundred people. Coal powered the building’s hot water heating during the winter. The building was an early version of Carnegie libraries, built to local standards of the day. There were a few drawbacks in terms of service. It was a compartmentalized plan with a significant portion of space devoted to corridors and stairs. There was no separate children’s department.

Among the members of the library board when the library opened were the Rev. H.H. Bedford-Jones (Chair), R.H. Lindsay (Vice-Chair), Mr. Edward A. Geiger (Secretary-Treasurer), Judge Herbert S. McDonald, Dr. A.J. Macaulay, W.C. McLaren, Mayor Samuel J. Geash, Albert Abbott, and R. Laidlaw. Miss Carrie Row continued as the librarian until she moved to Toronto in 1907.

Brockville’s building made a reorganization to open access or children’s work difficult. A report in 1910 by Patricia Spereman, a library assistant in the Ontario Department of Education who travelled to smaller libraries to introduce children’s services and the Dewey Decimal system, indicates a slow adoption of new methods especially removal of the age limit and open access service.

In this library there are about 13,000 volumes. I gave instructions in the cataloguing and classified all the library, as well as establishing a Children’s Department. The Library Board at that time were not very favourable to having the children become members of the Library, and an age limit existed of 14 years. [I]Gave one “Story Hour,” with an attendance of about 80 children. This Library is very fortunate in having a good librarian [Margaret Stewart], who is not afraid of work. She has undertaken to carry on the work of the Children’s Department as well as finishing the cataloguing, all this without assistance.

Within a few years, the staff shelved and catalogued children’s books separately and held a weekly story hour. Many teachers cooperated by sending their pupils to the library for assistance in writing their compositions. One of the main disadvantages of the original building had been overcome.

Over the following decades Brockville’s population grew slowly -- the 1971 census recorded just under 20,000 people. The Carnegie library also remained substantially unchanged until a small addition was made at that time in 1971. Two decades later, in the mid-1990s, the library was completely remodeled and enlarged with a new entrance adorned with a pediment. This new wing retained many of its original external architectural elements (e.g., symmetry) which were considered heritage features.

An earlier post on Edwardian public libraries in Ontario

PHOTO ESSAY ON ONTARIO'S EDWARDIAN PUBLIC LIBRARIES (1989)

An illustrated address I originally gave at the Canadian Library Association library history interest group session at Edmonton in June 1989. Thanks to Pearl Milne, University of Guelph Library, for her digital assistance with these photographs. Additional images of Ontario libraries ranging from the early- to mid-twentieth century are archived at my older now archived University of Guelph original website, Libraries Today. I have made a few minor revisions, such as adding headers to make reading more convenient.

Photographs can be used in historical accounts for many different purposes. Often, they serve to illustrate the reality a writer wishes to capture, an effective and time-honoured technique. But they also may be used in their own right, not just as adjuncts to the literary record, but as original sources. Images are part of a broader methodological trend, one that has historians utilizing many non-traditional sources both to establish information about people, places, and events, or to develop new lines of inquiry. Of course, visual history is not new in itself, what has changed in the past twenty years is that more rigorous use of photographs as historical sources has evolved.

Uxbridge Library, c 1887

Historical photographs are being used now in a variety of critical ways in research and teaching. (Note 1) In some cases, they may establish or verify facts, an important consideration when traditional documents are lacking or present discrepancies. Visual histories depicting social or cultural values of an era or place are becoming more frequent; in these works, photographs frequently help to determine the text which may be supplemented by other resources. Sometimes, photographs can be used to reinforce historical interpretations shaped with other source materials. In library history all these photographic dimensions can be employed when different aspects concerning the history of public libraries are analyzed or narrated. (Note 2)

Many photographs pertaining to library history exist at local libraries, museums, and archives across Ontario. Although there is no comprehensive catalogue or index to holdings, they can be as valuable as surviving textual sources because they can be used to formulate new ideas about libraries or to reinterpret a period. For instance, historical works frequently refer to the four decades between 1880 and 1920 as "Victorian" or "Edwardian" or as a "Progressive Era." This period is normally characterized as one of growth and progress for Ontario public libraries, an expansive theme culminating in the revised Public Libraries Act of 1920. Like most eras, the years between 1880-1920 were ones of transition for libraries, a view confirmed by many photographs.

By 1914, distinctively modernist trends were emerging in Ontario's libraries; the Victorian synthesis of ideas and methods common to mechanics' institutes and their immediate successors, free libraries, was giving way to modern trends. Simply put, the public library in the first decade of the twentieth century was modifying its functions and assuming additional roles in society, a process allowing it to serve more people and redefine its character as "modern" at a time when Modernism, a conscious cultural rejection of the past by twentieth-century artists and scientists, was beginning to sweep western nations. At the same time, Ontario was becoming an urban province directed by new values. Historical photographs of libraries help indicate the extent of these fundamental changes.

1 - Toronto Mechanics' Institute

Victorian Library Building Heritage

 

In the Edwardian era there was a mixture of old and new in many Ontario libraries, particularly in cities. The physical reminder of mechanics' institutes, a symbol of nineteenth-century ideals, survived in a few places, notably Toronto where the old institute building, built in the Italian Renaissance style of the 1850s at considerable cost, lingered on, first as an undersized central library, then, after the larger reference library opened on College Street in 1909, as a community branch at the intersection of Church and Adelaide. It finally closed its doors just before the Great Depression.

2 - Toronto Church St. Branch, 1924

Other pre-Carnegie structures, specially commissioned as free libraries, existed in larger centres at Hamilton and London. London's library, designed by the local architect Herbert Matthews in 1895, reflected the popularity of eclectic exteriors, in this case, a Romanesque facade with conical towers, rounded arches, and smooth-faced red brick cladding. It was a late-Victorian revival style that imparted a sense of permanence and strength, solid qualities most communities were anxious to express in the educational facilities they were striving to build at this time.

3 - London Public Library

4 - Hamilton Public Library, c.1905

Interiors of Victorian free libraries were usually spartan: for example, in Hamilton, a building completed at a cost of about $45,000 in 1890, furnishings in the reference section, general reading room, and ladies' reading room were basic staples. These rooms flanked a main corridor leading to a large counter behind which stretched a closed stack room capable of accommodating 50,000 books. The separate reading area for women was a fashionable (and space consuming) fin-de-siècle enhancement that recognized the increasing number of women registering as borrowers. Children under 16 years were less fortunate; generally, they were denied borrowing privileges. In this respect Hamilton's library, led by Richard Lancefield, was relatively liberal; its board began to lower the age restriction for children before 1900. Children's rooms and storytelling would be future projects.

6 - Claremont Library, c.1895

5 - Dundas Library, c.1896

In the smaller communities throughout rural Ontario, libraries had to make do with more modest resources: rented offices, donated property or rooms, or combined business quarters. The small, one-room, subscription library managed by volunteers and part-time staff was commonplace. For instance, at Dundas the library occupied part of the old Elgin House block on busy King Street. In the police village of Claremont, the library operated from a commercial storefront for several years under the guidance of the incumbent shoemaker-librarian, Mr. James Jobbitt, who resigned in 1903.

7 - Streetsville Library, c.1905

 

At Streetsville, affairs were more upscale. In 1901 the board of management received a gift comprising part of a small frame commercial building. It converted the space into a serviceable one-room library housed with a jewelry shop. Streetsville was considered advanced by small-town Ontario standards: it operated on a free basis without an age limitation for children, possessed a card catalogue, and used the decimal classification system at a time when the Education Department still clung to an outdated class system adapted from mechanics' institutes.

Edwardian Library Progress

Sarnia Library, c. 1903

When Carnegie grants became readily available, architects, trustees, and workers began transforming the organization of interior space and the interrelationships between staff and patrons. Improved functions, programs, and arrangements for access were under active development between 1900-10: there were larger branch libraries, children's services, improved reference service, better classification and cataloging schemes, and open access to collections. The familiar Victorian free library conventions--the emphasis on physical custody of books, on printed catalogues for holdings, and on public reading rooms; the use of indicators (a British practice) for circulation status in lending departments; and a desire to offer lectures or evening classes for the technical education of working classes--was ebbing. Libraries were changing their methods, expanding the scope of their public services, and re-evaluating their connections with another developing field, adult education. The modern public library as we know it today was emerging.

8 - Laying Toronto Cornerstone, 1906

Carnegie gifts to local communities for library buildings not only attracted public attention at openings and the laying of cornerstones but also stimulated rhetoric about the merit of libraries. The Globe covered one Toronto ceremony, presided over by Ontario's Lieutenant-Governor and Chief Justice William G. Falconbridge, the board chairman, on 27 November 1906:

His Lordship stated that there was no question in this day of the value of free libraries to communities. The objection that a preponderating number of works of fiction circulated through a free library, instead of more solid reading, was not a serious objection in the mind of the Chief Justice, who admitted that he was no enemy to novel reading. . . .

 

9 - Free Public Library, Belleville, 1911

 The box deposited in the corner-stone contained, among other things, a catalogue of the central circulating library, copies of the Toronto daily papers, Canadian coins, and a scroll containing names of those directly interested in its construction. This type of ceremony was re-enacted on many occasions during the Carnegie years. Sometimes a benefaction other than Carnegie's was invoked, for example at Belleville, Henry Corby, a Conservative member of Parliament, donated money for a library that opened January 1908 in the remodelled Merchants' Bank building.

 

10 - Berlin Library, c.1905

11 - St. Thomas Library, c.1905

After 1900, the interior organization and services of libraries began to change dramatically. At Berlin (now Kitchener), the traditional plan of housing a stack room behind a barrier surmounted by grillwork and railing originally was followed, but later the board decided to permit open access to the collection except for fiction. A special area set off for children and use of the decimal classification were enterprising steps here. The same rationale about safeguarded free access to all books except works of fiction also applied at St. Thomas. The interior here was more ornate: classical busts and handsome wood columns graced the main corridor leading to the circulation desk, the reading room directly across from it, and the reference section at the end of the hall.

12 - Sarnia interior, c.1905

Sarnia's library was constructed along similar lines, but here the board adopted unrestricted access to all books, a bold move in 1903, although the building design easily allowed this measure. The board was fortunate to employ Patricia Spereman, who developed children's services and conducted story hours. She had trained at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and became a pioneer in children's work in Ontario and Canada.

 

 

13 - Sarnia Library Story Hour, 1907

14 - Guelph Public Library, c.1905

Carnegie exteriors were celebrated (or detested) for their Beaux-Arts style featuring classical columns, steps, porticos, and domes. It was an exuberant style with classical lines and elements that promoted civic grandeur even in smaller cities which served as markets for the surrounding rural populace. Guelph's library was an Ontario leader in these regards and noted for its lack of functional interior space. However, some architects were influenced by local factors. In Cornwall, where a significant French-speaking community existed, a French chateau appearance was conveyed by the entrance, roof, and small corner tower.

15 - Cornwall Public Library, 1906

Some architects were able to use Beaux-Arts features in a restrained fashion; perhaps the most capable was Alfred H. Chapman, who in association with Wickson and Gregg, designed Toronto's reference library on the corner of College and St. George streets at a cost of more than $250,000. This two-storey structure featured large windows flanked by Corinthian pilasters, soft yellow brick, and main entrance set off to one side. By the standards of the day and even during the bleakness of the Great War, it was an approachable "people place."

16 - Toronto Reference Library, 1915

* * * * * In the years immediately preceding the First World War, therefore, Ontario's public libraries went through unprecedented change. The assumptions and characteristics common to Victorian free libraries--an adult clientele, priority on the safekeeping of books, limited services for users, systems of retrieval based on printed catalogues and indicators, classification and cataloguing systems that applied subject categories and accessioning practice developed in mechanics' institutes, and revival architectural styles--were being challenged and supplanted. The pace of change obviously had quickened in Edwardian Ontario, but faith in the library's contribution to societal progress, a belief that eventual improvements in society would ensue by assisting personal initiatives and stimulating their success, was unshaken. The service ethic became the most important constant in this era, a powerful rationale that spurred new library developments in a society that prized individual effort and public duty.

It is difficult to convey the spirit of any era or activity, but a review of pictures in this brief photo study reveals that it was time for libraries and librarians to look ahead, to question old views and methods, and to adopt fresh ideas.

PICTURE CAPTIONS AND CREDITS
 

Assistance with digitizing these photographs was kindly rendered by Pearl Milne of the University of Guelph Library.

Fig.1 The Toronto Mechanics' Institute before 1884 [AO, S-1178].
Fig. 2 An old Toronto library: the Church street branch, 8 Feb. 1924 [NAC, PA-86436].
Fig. 3 London Public Library opened after 1895, n.d. [NAC, PA-32789].
Fig. 4 View of Hamilton Public Library interior, c.1905 [AO, S-2042].
Fig. 5 Public library at Dundas, c.1896 [AO, S-6934].
Fig. 6 Palmer & Jobbitt store-library at Claremont, c.1895/1903 [AO, S-13475].
Fig. 7 Streetsville's new library, n.d. [AO, S-16035].
Fig. 8 Chief Justice Falconbridge laying the cornerstone of the public reference library in Toronto [AO, S-1252].
Fig. 9 Free Public Library, Belleville, 1911 [NAC, C-21464].
Fig. 10 Berlin Public Library interior, c.1905 [AO, S-2044].
Fig. 11 Central corridor of St. Thomas Public Library, c.1905 [AO, S-2055].
Fig. 12 Lending desk and stack room at Sarnia, c.1905 [AO, S-2057].
Fig. 13 After the Story Hour, 2 March 1907 [AO, S-2058].
Fig. 14 Sham pillars: Guelph Public Library, c.1905 [AO, S-2035].
Fig. 15 Cornwall Public Library, 20 Oct. 1906 [AO, S-2032].
Fig. 16 Toronto Reference Library at 214 College Street, 13 March 1915 [NAC, PA-61384].

AO: Archives of Ontario
NAC: National Archives of Canada

NOTES

1. For discussions on the use of photographs see:

Carol E. Hoffecker, "The Emergence of a Genre: the Urban Pictorial History," Public Historian, 5 (4) 1983: 37-48;
Walter Rundell, Jr, "Photographs as Historical Evidence: Early Texas Oil," American Archivist 41 (4) 1978: 373-398;
Stuart T. Miller, "The Value of Photographs as Historical Evidence," Local Historian 15 (8) 1983: 468-473;
Timothy J. Crimmins, "Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? Illustrated Urban Histories," Journal of Urban History 13 (1) 1986: 82-91; and
W. Gillies Ross, "The Use and Misuse of Historical Photographs: A Case Study from Hudson Bay, Canada," Arctic Anthropology 27 (2) 1990: 93-112.
For library applications see Boyd Childress, "Library History, University History, and Photographic History: Some Considerations for Research," Journal of Library History 22 (1) 1987: 70-84.

2. Recent Canadian works include:

Margaret Beckman, John Black and Stephen Langmead, "Carnegie Libraries in Canada," Canadian Library Journal 38(6) 1981: 386-390 and The Best Gift; a Record of Carnegie Libraries in Ontario (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1983);
David R. Conn and Barry McCallum, "Heritage to Hi-Tech; Evolution of Image and Function in Canadian Public Library Buildings," in Peter F. McNally (ed.), Readings in Canadian Library History (Ottawa: Canadian Library Association, 1986), pp. 123-149;
Margaret Penman, A Century of Service; Toronto Public Library 1883-1983 (Toronto: Toronto Public Library, 1983); and
Barbara Myrvold, "The First Hundred Years: Toronto Public Library 1883-1983," in McNally, Readings , pp. 65-79.