Owatonna (Minnesota) Builds a Library

Although Owatonna, Minnesota, enjoyed a limited amount of social library provision from the mid-nineteenth century onward, it was not until the 1890s that pressure mounted for a public library to be established under the terms of the State Library Act of 1879. The opportunity to provide a public library arose with a bequest from Mr. and Mrs. Elisha Hunewill, who had run a hardware business in the town. Attached to the money they left in their wills for a library building and books were conditions not greatly different from those imposed by Carnegie, but without the detailed design guidance that was later pioneered by Carnegie’s organization. This paper focuses on the way that the leaders of the community went about planning and building the new library, with the services of an able architect, but also with a determination to learn lessons from the users of earlier buildings that was to prove sadly unusual in the architectural history of a building type that combined to a high degree both functional requirements and cultural values. The small town public library building in America is so often the product of Andrew Carnegie’s largesse, that it is easy to forget the earlier tradition of local philanthropy and community self-help that funded most of the pioneer library buildings. Owatonna, Minnesota, started a library association before the Civil War. The People’s Press, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) later organized reading rooms, and a bookstore circulating library operated before pressure mounted in the 1890s for a public library under the State Library Act of 1879 (Vaillancourt, 2000, pp. 1–5). Action was finally achieved only after the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Elisha Hunewill, leaving money from their successful hardware 55 owatonna (minnesota) builds a library/pepper business for a library building and books under conditions not greatly different from those imposed by Carnegie, but without the detailed design guidance that was later pioneered by Carnegie’s organization.1 This paper focuses on the way that the leaders of the community went about planning and building the new library, with the services of an able architect, but also with a determination to learn lessons from the users of earlier buildings that was to prove sadly unusual in the architectural history of a building type that combined to a high degree both functional requirements and cultural values. The story of the Owatonna Public Library begins shortly after the death of Mrs Elizabeth Hunewill in February 1896, leaving to the city $15,000 plus two-fifths of her residuary estate to be used for a public library. Her conditions were that the city of Owatonna should undertake to put up a library building for not less than $10,000 exclusive of site, to provide for its perpetual maintenance, to stock the library initially at a cost of not less than $5,000, and to maintain a permanent book fund of $5,000. When the executors reported that the Hunewill estate would yield some $20,000 for the library, the city voted to establish a public library under Minnesota law and appointed a board of nine directors who met for the first time in January 1897. In September 1897, the city acquired a site on Elm Street for $3,000, one block away from the large central square. After a lively campaign in which were deployed all of the familiar arguments for the library as an agency for cultural progress and the well-being of Owatonna’s young people, in March 1898, the project gained overwhelming approval from the voters for a $10,000 bond issue, which allowed the building committee to proceed with plans for a building costing about $15,000. This, at any rate, was the advice given to the first board meeting after the bond issue vote, which was attended by Frank Gutterson of the Des Moines, Iowa, architectural firm of Smith and Gutterson (Owatonna Public Library, board minutes, April 6, 1898). Frank Gutterson was a local boy, the son of A. C. Gutterson who had taught music at the Pillsbury Academy in Owatonna, who had for many years directed the city’s Beethoven Society, and who was one of the original stockholders and chief cashier in the National Farmers’ Bank of Owatonna. Frank had trained as an architect at the University of Minnesota and MIT and had recently started a partnership with Oliver Smith with whom he practiced until his early death in 1901 from tuberculosis at the early age of twenty-nine (Vaillancourt, 2000, p. 12). Almost certainly, Frank Gutterson had been invited to advise his fellow directors by Carl Bennett, a contemporary Pillsbury student and an avid music and art enthusiast. Following a Harvard Education and travel in Europe, Carl Bennett had returned to Owatonna to join his father as a director of the National Farmers’ Bank, “Owatonna’s biggest,” and was soon himself to become its president. He was eventually to win his own place in architec56 library trends/summer 2011 tural history by commissioning Louis Sullivan to rebuild the Owatonna bank and, through his Midwest banking connections, to provide introductions leading to most of Sullivan’s final small-town bank building masterpieces (Millett, 1985, p. 9ff). Carl Bennett’s appointment to the building committee of the library board reflected his interest in the arts as well as his knowledge of finance, and it was to provide him with valuable first lessons in the delivery of a public building. At this stage, however, Bennett was as ignorant of library architecture as his fellow board members and their architect, although Gutterson was later in his career to design competition-winning Iowa libraries for both Des Moines (1900) and Ottumwa, Iowa (1901). The minutes of the April 1898 board meetings record Gutterson showing “plans of a library building he had with him,” and discussing fees for design and contract supervision (4 percent), for design and specification only (3 percent), and a daily rate of five dollars plus expenses for time spent viewing library buildings at the request of the board (Owatonna Public Library, board minutes, April 6 and 27, 1898). Probably the architect had been discussing the problem of library design in general terms. If Gutterson had hoped to gain early approval of the plans, however, he was quickly disabused. It was clearly envisaged at an early stage that the board’s architect would travel with the building committee to visit successful library buildings before key decisions were made. The research and brief-making phase of this important civic project was being tackled with a thoroughness that would have won the approval of William Poole or Soule, or indeed any of the more demanding of the professional librarians. On April 7, 1898, the day after Gutterson’s appointment as architect had been recommended by the library board, a circular letter went out over the signatures of B. E. Darby, R. G. Nelson, and Karl K. Bennett addressed to the librarians of recently completed library buildings seeking information to guide them in the erection and equipment of a free public library building (Building to cost $15,000. First installment of books to cost $5,000. Annual income about $1.800). The Board will feel under especial obligation to you if you will send them any information concerned your own library which you think of importance. Especially does the Board desire pictures of your building, floor plans and arrangement of interior and suggestions as to errors to be avoided. Would it be worth while for a committee of the Board to visit your library? An answer to the above question will be especially valuable in determining the direction of a trip of investigation and observation to be undertaken by a committee. How many letters were sent out is not known, but the Owatonna library still retains 124 replies, mostly from librarians, many of them indicating that floor plans and pictures of their buildings were being sent under 57 owatonna (minnesota) builds a library/pepper separate cover. These of course had been returned, as requested. The postbag also contained promotional material from the Library Bureau, various book dealers and other suppliers, and the familiar approach soliciting the architectural commission from Patton & Fisher, architects of Chicago. The Chicago firm enclosed blueprints and photographs, and in the cover letter drew attention to their recently completed library for Carleton College in nearby Northfield, Minnesota, which had been donated by the same Mr. Scoville of Oak Park, Illinois, for whom they had built the Scoville Institute. “Mr Scoville,” they said, “for whom we had already planned several buildings, made just two conditions when he gave this money for the [Northfield] building,—that it should not exceed $25,000 in cost, and that Patton & Fisher should be the architects.” They urged the committee to choose an architect, rather than to run a competition (letter, April 21, 1898).2 By then, of course, Gutterson had already been appointed architect: but this had never deterred Patton & Fisher, and their record as the most prolific library designers in the Midwest was testimony to aggressive tactics as well as the support that came later from James Bertram at the Carnegie Foundation. This time they did not get a foot in the door. Their plans and photographs, however, were added to the growing pile of material that was being studied by Gutterson, Bennett, Darby, and Nelson throughout the summer of 1898. There was no shortage of free advice. Fifteen respondents were very critical of their own buildings and urged the committee not to take them as models. Others were felt to be good for their time, but already outdated; too small to be of use; too expensive; or accommodated in old structures not designed as libraries. The importance of providing children’s facilities was stressed by a number of respondents, together with a preference for open stacks among those who addressed this divisive issue, and concern that sufficient book storage capacity should be provided. Some of the private replies were surprisingly frank, flatly contradicting the glowing reports published in semiofficial documents. Thus, Charles H. Greenleaf, librarian of the Adams Library, Chelmsford, Massachusetts: Replying to your favor, I regret that I cannot send you any drawings, or plans, which could be of any service to you. We have a building, the plan of which is to be avoided. If you propose to visit this section, which is especially rich in small library buildings, it would be well for your committee to visit this Library to note what should be avoided, for although it has cost, with grounds, over £27,000.00, the Donor would select very different plans had he to do it over again. (letter, April 18, 1898) The influential and widely distributed Massachusetts Library Commission’s Report of 1899 said of Greenleaf’s building that a “convenient reading room forms a part of the ground plan, and all the appointments are complete and admirably suited to their purpose” (p. 75).3 58 library trends/summer 2011 William Cutter, writing from Henry Hobhouse Richardson’s Winn Memorial Library at Woburn, Massachusetts, was more tactful. “While beautiful architecturally, it is probably not exactly what you want.” Richardson, who had also died at an early age, was already recognized at home and abroad as America’s outstanding architect from the 1870s and 1880s. His Woburn library building (1876–79) and others that followed at North Easton (1877–83), Quincy (1879–81), and Malden (1883–85)—all in Massachusetts—delighted architects and patrons with their magical dark interiors, galleried alcoves, monumental fireplaces, beautifully crafted stonework, and the large round-headed arches, which soon gave his name to a style that was copied all over the United States and described as “Richardsonian Romanesque” (Breisch, 1997). However, Richardson’s library buildings did not find favor with librarians who criticized the low levels of daylight, the winding stairs and narrow galleries that had to be used to fetch books, and their inability to observe all parts of the buildings.4 Like a number of others who responded to the Owatonna letter, Cutter recommended an approach to the Library Bureau, and he picked out for their attention “the beautiful little building” at Lincoln, Massachusetts, which had been completed in 1884 (letter, April 23, 1898).5 Charles Soule, writing in his capacity as a trustee of the Brookline (Boston) Public Library enclosed an offprint of his well-known Library Journal article on “Points of Agreement between Architects and Librarians” and invited the party to visit his building, which demonstrated, he promised, lessons in how to cope well with inadequate arrangements (letter, April 22, 1898). Many correspondents courteously extended invitations to visit their buildings, but—more significantly—over thirty buildings were recommended for visits by librarians or trustees working in other places. Most but not all of these recommended buildings were in New England. The letter that was eventually to prove most useful came from Mr. C. B. Tillinghast, Massachusetts state library commissioner. Tillinghast sent the latest reports of the state library commission (the monumental 1899 report was of course not yet published), offered help should the Minnesotans visit Boston, and recommended visits to three recently completed Massachusetts buildings in the Owatonna price bracket, those at Middleton, Northfield, and Westford (letter, June 28, 1898). It had been envisaged since April that Directors Bennet and Ford, together with the architect, would visit the East in June, perhaps stopping at Ilion, New York, to see a library that much interested the directors in the spring and for which additional information on costs had been requested.6 By early July, Mr. Bennett and Dr. Ford were trying to make way for substitutes, but all of the other directors urged them to go “believing it necessary in order that no mistake be made in the building.” Director Connor moved that the committee go, “as soon as possible, and not later than August 1st, 1898” (Owatonna Public Library, board minutes, 59 owatonna (minnesota) builds a library/pepper May 5, 1898). In the end, Bennett and Ford, without Gutterson, spent two weeks in the East in late August and reported in great detail, in writing, on their return. Like the records of all other board meetings, the minutes were printed in the Owatonna newspapers and the cutting pasted into the ledger, which served as a minute book for the chairman’s signature. Their report covered most of a broadsheet page (Owatonna Public Library, board minutes, September 7, 1898). The party had begun their visit in Boston, where they were shown the newly completed Public Library, the Athenaeum, the Cambridge Public Library (that is the Rindge Library), Harvard College’s Gore Hall and its various extensions, and H. H. Richardson’s library buildings for Malden and Quincy. Except for McKim, Mead, and White’s Boston Public Library, these were already “old” buildings, and one is left with the suspicion that the Midwesterners were taken there to admire the architecture but to be persuaded of their many defects as modern working libraries. Bolton at the Athenaeum, Tillinghast at the State Library Commission, and Goodwin, superintendent of the Library Bureau, gave much assistance and presumably recommended the less well-known libraries that were to be visited. These included (“amongst others”) the libraries at Holbrook, Everett, South Weymouth, Littleton, and Westford. It would be interesting to know what “others” they saw, but the report lists only those mentioned. The Holbrook library occupied rooms in the town house and had recently lost many of their books in a fire, resulting in a $5,000 insurance claim and the opportunity to introduce a new card catalog when the replaced library reopened in June 1898 (Massachusetts Library Commission, 1899, p. 167).7 Presumably the visitors were taken there to see the most recently installed Dewey catalog system in a small-town library. In their report they drew attention to the importance of “many ingenious inventions—such as cards of different colours to indicate the class of a book, as fiction, poetry, history, etc, the card system of charging books, and much more of the same kind” and urged the acquisition of the latest labor-savings devices for the librarian’s desk as well as three distinct card catalogs: one by topics, another by authors, and another by title. They also urged the employment of a trained librarian to select and catalog the first $5,000 worth of books.8 The other libraries were all in new buildings completed within the previous three years and demonstrating a variety of styles. Everett, Massachusetts, in what is now part of Boston’s blue-collar suburbs, had two new buildings. The Frederick Parlin Memorial (architect, John C. Spofford) had cost $22,300 total and had been dedicated in September 1895. The materials and the use of a low-key Romanesque is similar to the architectural formula that appealed at Westford. The Shute Library (architect, William S. Lougee of Everett) had been completed in June 1898 at a total cost of $9,000. It was much smaller than the Parlin 60 library trends/summer 2011 Memorial library, but used a wide-fronted layout similar to that later adopted in Owatonna.9 The Fogg Memorial Library of South Weymouth was so new it had not yet opened when Bennett and Ford visited. It was to be dedicated about two weeks later on September 14, 1898, and had cost $25,000. Described as “Italian Renaissance” in style, it boasts an arcaded Renaissance portico, although the building itself is more Northern European in feeling, with crow-step gables at each end. It too is wide-fronted, and the main floor plan was mentioned particularly in the report for its openness, for the central location of the librarian, and ease of control by one person. Drawings were to be sent on to Owatonna.10 The Reuben Hoar Library of Littleton, completed in 1895, was another “Renaissance” building with Palladian touches; but the stack room had been open for readers since the opening, and the library made very full provision for children. These aspects of library administration may well have been why the visitors were directed there (Massachusetts Library Commission, 1899, p. 202). It was also close to Westford, near where the Bennett family had first settled in New England, before moving to Illinois where Carl was born. Whether it was this old family connection that brought Bennett and Ford to Westford, or whether it was Tillinghast’s strong recommendation, it was here that they found the building which “came nearer to our idea in many respects than any other.” What appealed to Bennet and Ford about the Westford library building was its simple, chaste appearance (their words) and the materials employed to give a range of natural colors (fig. 1). In the words of the report: The foundation is of gray granite . . . in four courses. The superstructure is of light buff brick with a course of granite just under the windows of the second story and another course of granite somewhat wider between top of second story windows and the cornice. The front steps are of the same material as the foundation and the lower half of the arched doorway is granite, while the upper half is of special moulded brick, same color as the body of the building. The roof is slate, the cornice and ridge finishing and gutters are copper, natural color. This building is rich in color, plain, massive, substantial, with hardly any ornament. It looks as if it would be there just the same in a hundred years. . . . The arrangement and quality and color of materials, the chaste, neat, substantial style of building we should do well to follow. (Owatonna Public Library, board minutes, September 7, 1898) The only real problem with the Westford building, as Bennett and Ford saw it, was that it was much deeper than its frontage, and with the main door on the front there was a good deal of wasted circulation space between the front door lobby and the rear book stack extension. But it had an upstairs art room and museum, which appealed greatly to Bennett, who had noticed this feature in a number of the New England buildings 61 owatonna (minnesota) builds a library/pepper they had visited and had ambitions of his own to bring art to Owatonna.11 There were also local precedents. The Minneapolis Public Library on Hennepin Avenue incorporated an art gallery, and the Winona, Minnesota, Laird Library (opened January 21, 1899) also included a formal art gallery. The final Owatonna scheme borrows only some features of Westford— notably its use of a simplified style of architecture, a limited range of exterior materials, and its upstairs art gallery. Owatonna eventually adopted a restrained classical style, while Westford—of which Bennett reported, quite correctly, “This building does not conform to any one style of architecture”—employed an understated Romanesque for its roundheaded main doorway, the most prominent facade feature. However, the floor plans of a deep T-plan library such as Westford were not at all the same as those adopted for Owatonna. Bennett and Ford clearly liked the South Weymouth plans. The plans that most closely resemble the final Owatonna scheme are those of the Lithgow Library in Augusta, Maine, which had not been visited, but whose librarian had already supplied drawings and a brochure in the summer.12 This material had of course been returned, as promised. However, the Lithgow Library trustees were also responsible for a lavishly produced book describing all aspects of its history, the Lithgow donation, and the events of the Masonic cornerstone laying and dedication ceremonies. Plans of the basement and the two main floors are also included, together with background information on the two Pittsburgh-based architects who had landed the commission for the very similarly planned library at Norwood, Massachusetts, Figure 1. Westford Public Library, MA. Source: 9th Report of the Free Library Commission of Massachusetts (1899). 62 library trends/summer 2011 on the wave of publicity surrounding the Augusta building. Norwood is not mentioned in the report of Bennett’s tour, and its styling—Collegiate Gothic—is quite different; but it is part of the southwest Boston conurbation and could easily have been reached when the party visited Holbrook and South Weymouth. It was opened in January 1898, but cost about $70,000 and for this reason could have been considered too expensive for the Midwesterners. Tillinghast at the State Library Commission would almost certainly have had information on such a recently completed building so close to Boston. The report was presented to the full Owatonna Library Board on September 7, 1898, only a few days after Bennett and Ford returned from their 3,500 mile journey.13 It dealt pragmatically with matters of library administration, furnishing, and planning. A “most expert lady of long experience,” they told their fellow directors, had offered to spend from two to four months in Owatonna, cataloging the 5,000 volume collection and training a suitable person as librarian. All the latest catalog devices should be provided. For the new building, abundant daylight was an important requirement, as well as a much greater provision than in most buildings of electric light for evening use. The importance of ventilation was stressed, “as the reading room will at times be crowded.” Fireplaces served a useful role here as ventilation flues, although the building was to be centrally heated. A children’s room was advised by the best authorities, with a separate entrance. Here they could be accommodated in the basement, with an entry at the rear of the building. On the advice of most librarians, there would be no conversation room and no public toilet room. Owatonna’s library was to be for serious people, old and young, not for loafers. Ease of control by one person was something to which Bennett and Ford had given special attention and would “practically decide the shape of the building.” Indeed the report that Bennett drafted (using the “I” form much more frequently than “your committee” in his presentation) went on to describe in words a plan that turned upon openness and visibility and apparently left the architect—who was present at the meeting— very little to do: The main body of the building should be a rectangle, say 80x40 feet, the librarian’s desk . . . should be the partition between the stack room room and the reading room. There should be no partition between these two rooms, no corners or alcoves in the reading room. In such an interior every part is visible from the librarian’s desk. The main entrance should be about at the middle of one side of the building, so that the visitor appears at once before the librarian’s desk at the left for business there or turns to the right for the reading room. Of course there must be a suitable vestibule and perhaps an external porch which will occupy a projection on one side of the building beyond the large rectangular room already described. This projection 63 owatonna (minnesota) builds a library/pepper may also include a reference room connected with the reading room by a door near the librarian’s desk. Exactly opposite the main entrance . . . another projection may contain secondary entrance, stairway to second story and basement and librarian’s room. At South Weymouth, Mass., we saw an interior first [ground] floor of this kind, well nigh ideal for our use. In a few days we shall have the floor plans of this building. Only after explaining his own and Ford’s current thinking on the planning, did Bennett turn to the exterior features of the Westford library, which they had both so much admired. “The interior must largely determine the general outline. Our architect must largely do the rest.” Bennett clearly felt that they had already decided the main lines of the planning, leaving Gutterson to add the “architecture,” with a very strong hint about the approach that the key directors wished to see adopted. Director Darby then moved the acceptance of the report and, after further consideration on the form of the building, the minutes recorded, “It was the sense of the board that the architect remain here and continue making sketches and plans of the proposed building until something satisfactory to the board is secured. As soon as such are ready for inspection the members of the board are to be notified and a special meeting held.” Gutterson and Bennett were of course old friends. It may be that an offer of hospitality in his home town and close client collaboration in the design development process made acceptable what most other architects would have regarded as very tight constraints, if not intolerable intrusiveness. Whatever his feelings, Frank Gutterson stayed in Owatonna and one week later presented outline drawings and sketches of the proposed library building (Owatonna Public Library, board minutes, September 13, 1898). These included the main west front elevation to Elm Street; the highly visible south end elevation; and plans of the basement, ground, and upper floors (fig. 2). “After long and careful consideration and a thorough discussion,” recorded the minutes, “Director Bennett moved that the tentative plans and sketches be accepted subject to final approval of the prospective [sic] plan to be sent here later if it was also found to be satisfactory.” A water color perspective was considered at the board meeting on October 6, and accepted with “slight modifications,” namely the substitution of range-stone lintels over the windows in the stack room instead of brick. A motion was also carried unanimously that the library building face onto Elm Street, as shown in the sketch, which suggests that an alternative orientation (presumably facing toward the East) had been under discussion (Owatonna Public Library, board minutes, October 6, 1898). The board continued to prod their architect, however, and it was not until November 25, 1898, that Gutterson made his final presentation and read through the specifications, with so many interruptions for comment and explanations and detailed discussions about the types of stone 64 library trends/summer 2011 and brick to be used, that the meeting continued on November 26 to discuss the measures needed to render the building fireproof. The main potential stumbling block to progress, however, was the architect’s cost estimate. If all the approved features were to be included, the building would “probably cost in the neighborhood of $18,000 while the funds at the disposal of the board were only $12,500” (Owatonna Public Library, board minutes, November 25–26, 1898). The board pressed ahead, however, to obtain competitive bids in February 1899, when contracts were signed with the local firm of Hammel Bros & Anderson for $19,000 excluding finishes for the basement and upper floor rooms. It had been decided before Christmas to save money by leaving these rooms unfinished, but this policy was reversed when the trustees of the Hunnewill estate indicated that they would withhold a final payment until the building was fully finished. Also excluded in February 1899 were the costs of furniture and equipment—including expensive items such as the stack shelving—which was still being priced and ordered in the summer. What promises and personal guarantees had been given to justify this hazardous policy are not recorded in the library board minutes, but before the end of the construction program, a further $5,000 bond issue had been approved by the city and an additional $5,000 raised by public subscription. To the leading citizens of Owatonna, the completion of the highest quality public library building had become a question of private and civic pride and the resources of the community were fully mobilized. Work on the Elm Street building site also stimulated gifts and contributions in kind. The Hon. M. H. Dunnel, of the House of Representatives, gave a lead with a letter to the press urging acceptance of the second bond issue and himself donating 700 volumes (Owatonna Public Library, board minutes, August 28, 1899). But less spectacular donations are probably a better index of community support. Mr. O. Lindesmith, who had supplied the stone, presented a large mounted spread eagle for the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) exhibit, which it had been agreed would form a permanent display in the Trustees’ Room (Owatonna Public Library, board minutes, July 19, 1899). Mrs. Colonel Drum [sic] presented the library with a set of the Official Records of the Rebellion—which at the turn of the century was still one of the most heavily used works in American public collections (Owatonna Public Library, Board Minutes, August 20, 1900). The ladies of the Cosmopolitan and Nineteenth Century clubs undertook the furnishing and staffing of the children’s room in the basement (letter,