Civic Pride in a Lost America: Library Postcards
Public Libraries of Indiana
Cities I-M
Indianapolis
Currently the system is known as the Indianapolis Public Library. Five Carnegie libraries were part of the system at one point.
Printed for Rochester News Co.
I don't know if this building dates back as far as the 1873 founding. There are a few web sites (and Wikipedia) which study this Marion County system, but none that I have found expound upon this library.
Central Library (Cret Building)
(L) Photo postcard, possibly by Grogan. The cars date from the late 1920s and early 1930s.
(R) 1951 Curt Teich linen finish card.
James Whitcomb Riley, perhaps my absolutely least favorite poet of all time, did do something redeeming in 1917: donating the land that the Central Library stands upon. It is also known as the Cret Building, after its architect.
According to a postcard in my collection:
THE CENTRAL LIBRARY and 21 branches make 675,000 volumes available to all parts of Indianapolis, one of the foremost cities in book circulation and registered borrowers.
It has recently been extensively renovated, and houses The Learning Curve.
Lafayette (A.A. Wells Memorial Library)
The Old White House
From the postcard:
"The Old White House" was erected as a home by Albert S. White in the early forties. Opened as a Public Library in 1882.
Yes, that is a "lawn jockey" hitching post. I dearly hope that this was an image from the eighteen-forties.
The Reynolds Home
Card by Kimmel & Herbert.
The second Lafayette library building, known as the Reynolds home, this building served as the library from 1901 to 1927.
1927 building now in use as the Tippecanoe Arts Foundation.
The Library is now known as the Tippecanoe County Public Library. The current building was opened in 1989. Its branch library is also part of the Ivy Tech campus. I'd like to see this combination.
LaPorte
(L) William Seeholzer postcard with pen date of
8-5-07.
(R) Also a ca. 1907 card, with an unevenly divided back.
Logansport
Chrome Dexter Press card with commentary:
Original building erected 1903. Destroyed by fire in 1941 and rebuilt in 1942. Building houses over 123,000 volumes.
The 1903 building came from a Carnegie grant. This is the 1941 replacement.
Mentone (Bell Memorial Public Library)
Mentone was another city which decided against a Carnegie grant. This building, the second iteration, was in use from 1936 to 1960.
Mentone's library was named for the parents of aerospace pioneer Lawrence D. Bell, per the postcard commissioned by the Mentone Reading Club.
Michigan City
Opened in 1897.
Replaced by a very odd, controversial modern building, designed by Helmut Jahn, in 1977.
This is a Rotograph card, exquisitely handcolored, and mailed in 1907, shortly after the evenly divided card back was adopted.
Mishawaka
Replaced a Carnegie building in 1969.
This Henry McGrew chrome postcard was issued by Mishawaka Federal Savings and Loan Association.
Notice the tandem bicycle near the entrance.
