Civic Pride in a Lost America: Library Postcards
Public Libraries of Tennessee
Divided from Kentucky in June, 2025.
Chattanooga
After trying to research this building online, I gave up. There are scads of interior pictures. There's a Google Street View of a different building. All I discovered is that this building also seems to have also served the University of Chattanooga, now the University of Tennessee--Chattanooga. It's not standing on campus.
So, here's a W.M. Cline postcard for you.
Cleveland
The building still seems to be serving as the Library's history branch.
E.C. Kropp card, mailed in 1935.
Crossville (Art Circle Library)
According to Wikipedia, the Art Circle, a women's club, founded a lending library in 1898. This building is supposedly a former bank building, into which the library moved in 1939, and away from, in 2010.
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The unattributed postcard shows a Dr Pepper ad by the chimney of the stone building.
Knoxville (Lawson McGhee Library)
Oldest continually operating library in Tennessee, believe it or not. This iteration, initially segregated, was built in 1916. It was replaced in 1971.
According to the Library's video, segregation ended in 1950.. Interestingly, Andrew Carnegie funded the Free Carnegie Colored Branch, demolished in 1965 in a flurry of urban renewal.
(L) Curt Teich linen finish postcard.
(R) Dexter Press Dextone (chrome) card, slightly newer.
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Memphis (Cossitt Library)
(L) Original building: very beautiful.
(R) 1958 addition on a Plastichrome brand card.
Worst library addition ever.
The Memphis Cossitt Library site asserts that this was the most common Memphis landmark ever seen on postcards. It was a striking 1893 building. Sadly, it sat empty for a year, awaiting books.
Then the city dump became its unwanted neighbor.
It had an addition in 1925, and then it was mainly demolished for the 1958 wing (R).
Now it's demoted to being a branch library.
Rugby (Thomas Hughes Public Library)
The community of Rugby (Morgan County) has an interesting history, being a failed attempt at merging the British educational ("public") school system with nascent American culture. The Library was built in 1882, despite a large portion of colonists succumbing to typhoid the previous year.
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Apparently the Library is a classical time capsule, open to tourism.
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The postcard dates after 1962 (ZIP) and likely pre-1980. Barbara Paylor was the photographer.