Time Machine: Cedar Rapids Public Library, ‘the people’s university,’ turns 125

In the city election of March 2, 1896, Cedar Rapids gained a public library by a mere 59-vote margin, 1,105 to 1,046.

Ada Van Vechten had begun the drive for a library and shepherded it to its successful conclusion. Women, who were able to vote on the issue even though they couldn’t yet vote in general elections, were credited for the win, according to The Gazette.

Van Vechten chose the new library board’s trustees at the request of Mayor George Lincoln. The four women and five men were confirmed by the city council in June 1896 and elected Van Vechten as board president.

The library trustees were already procuring books and magazines in July even though taxes to pay for them wouldn’t come in until Jan. 1, 1897. Virginia Dodge, the first librarian, started work in November 1896.

The Cedar Rapids Free Public Library opened Jan. 15, 1897 — 125 years ago — on the first floor of the Granby building, 230 Second St. SE, with a collection of 1,325 books.

It was dubbed the “university of Cedar Rapids” by attorney Frank F. Dawley, the library board’s vice president.

Dodge left the library in 1899, replaced by Harriette McCrory.

When the library ran out of space in the Granby Building, the library moved to the second floor of the Dows Building, 200 Second St. SE, in May 1900.

For the first time, the children’s room was separate from the adult reading rooms.

“The room has proved so attractive that children come to us in overwhelming numbers,” McCrory wrote in the library’s annual report. ”Over 400 children who have never used the library before have registered during the last three months.”

New library

In 1904, library board members turned their focus to building a new library at Third Avenue and Fifth Street SE. They wrote Andrew Carnegie, a rich steel baron who was giving away millions to build libraries around the nation. He sent a check for $75,000.

The new library was designed by architect Henry Josselyn of Josselyn & Taylor. Clubs and private citizens began donating books and print materials, and the library continued its collection of art and art reproductions.

The cornerstone was laid May 10 without a lot of fanfare. A tin box placed inside it contained seven library annual reports, local newspapers, a postage stamp of the World’s Fair and 1904 coins.

The library building, at 428 Third Ave. SE, was dedicated June 23, 1905, and opened to the public the next day.

“A good collection of books has truly been called by Carlyle ‘the people’s university,’” Iowa State Library Commission Secretary Alice Tyler said at the dedication.

The staff made some changes once it had its own building. One was to keep newspapers available for patrons to read longer before articles were clipped and filed.

Ada Van Vechten died five months after the new building’s dedication.

Expansion

The library expanded in 1909 with branch libraries at Tyler, Van Buren and Harrison schools. After Joanna Hagey became librarian in 1910, those branches were discontinued as schools added classroom libraries under the direction of teachers.

The library also made books available in manufacturing plants, including Quaker Oats, T.M. Sinclair and Williams & Hunting.

In 1912, Kenwood Park — a neighboring town annexed to Cedar Rapids in 1925 — contracted for library services.

Trends

In the ensuing decades, the library expanded services to coincide with popular trends.

A record-playing room was added in 1950 along with a wide variety of records. In 1951, a first-floor browsing room, which allowed smoking, was added and furnished with comfortable sofas and chairs. In 1952, 25 years of microfilmed pages from The Gazette were also added.

The first bookmobile — a van that took books into neighborhoods on a regular schedule — was ordered for delivery on May 15, 1952. The library would acquire three more for use over the next 20-plus years.

Contracts were let for a new wing to the Carnegie library building on April 2, 1951. The ground floor would house a new children’s department. The second flood would house a processing department, offices, restrooms and lockers.

New buildings

As the city grew and library use increased, the need for a new library was evident. But voters rejected five bond issues — between 1969 and 1980 — that would have funded construction.

Following the last defeat in January 1980, the Hall Foundation offered $6.8 million over 10 years to build the new library if the city would provide the land and the library foundation would collect $1 million in private donations.

The deal was accepted.

The Carnegie building — now part of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art — closed, and the $7 million, 83,000-square-foot library opened in February 1985 at 500 First St. SE.

After the flood

After the June 2008 flood filled the library’s first floor and destroyed 160,000 items, a new 94,000-square-foot library was built at 450 Fifth Ave. SE. It opened Aug. 24, 2013.

The total cost approached $50 million, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency providing $26.5 million for the building and lost contents, and the Library Foundation raising almost $7 million in donations. The I-JOBS program awarded $10 million, the Hall-Perrine Foundation $3 million and local-option sales taxes another $4 million.

In Feburary 2013, the Ladd Library opened as a permanent west-side branch at 3750 Williams Blvd. SW, replacing the temporary library set up in Westdale Mall after the flood. The library was named after Marilyn J. Ladd, a retired Rockwell Collins technician and avid library user, who left the library nearly $750,000 after she died in 2011.

One connecting thread since 1907 — besides the library’s mission of access to information — is the Ada J. Van Vechten window. Commissioned by her friends after her death, the window was designed and built in the studios of Joseph and Richard Lamb of New York City. It hung in the Carnegie library, the First Street SE library and now the newest library.

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