By Mary Davis
“No better method has ever been devised for reaching the dweller in the country. The book goes to the man, not waiting for the man to come to the book.”
Mary Lemist Titcomb, creator of the first U.S. bookmobile in 1904
The first recorded mobile library dates back to 1858 when the Perambulating Library, as it was called, rolled through the streets of Warrington, England. The Warrington Mechanics’ Institute in Cheshire, England, which was eager to increase the borrowing from its library, devised a plan to purchase a one-horse wagon and fill it with books to take to the people. The local residents loved the idea so much they enthusiastically organized a flower show and bazaar to raise the funds. Starting November 15th of that year, the Perambulating Library began its weekly rounds, increasing the borrowing from 3,000 books a year to 12,000 and continued until 1872.
Warrington Perambulating Library
The U.S. Version of a perambulating library was the brainchild of Mary Lemist Titcomb. She was a library organizer in Vermont for twelve years before moving to Hagerstown, MD, in 1901. She jumped into organizing the fledgling Washington County Free Library established in 1898 (the first incorporated county-wide library in the country).
Old Washington County Library, built 1900-01
Titcomb believed that giving out books was only a small part of the mission of a library.
“There is a great army of men and women, who use our public libraries to read because it gives them pleasure—because through books they are lifted out of all routine of every-day life, their imaginations are quickened and for the brief space that the book holds them in thrall the colors of life assume a brighter tint.”
Mary Lemist Titcomb
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| Mary Lemist Titcomb |
In 1901, Titcomb set up “deposit stations” in remote area stores and Sunday Schools with thirty to forty books. After four years, she had set up sixty-six stations. However, this wasn’t good enough for her. There were still many people not being serviced by the library. So in 1903, she convinced the library Board of Trustees to secure a Carnegie grant for a wagon to take the books to the people. The first book wagon, driven by Joshua Thomas, the library’s janitor, rolled through the countryside in April 1905, pulled by Dandy and Black Beauty.
Dandy & Black Beauty Book Wagon circa
1905
In the first six months, Thomas made the trek around the county’s backroads three times a week, averaging thirty miles each, for a total of thirty-one trips. Two drawbacks to this wagon were that the wooden doors on the sides made it impossible to see that there were books, and it was painted black. These factors made people think it was a “dead wagon” and urged it to pass on by due to superstitions. A new coat of paint and glass doors remedied this problem.
In August of 1910, tragedy struck the book wagon—or more accurately a freight train did. The driver and horses were unharmed, but the wagon was destroyed. The Carnegie grant had run out, so the county went without bookmobile service for a year until they could get additional funding. The horse and wagon were deemed outmoded, and the first motorize bookmobile hit the roads.
The 1930s ushered in the era of the Pack Horse Library Project. Librarians, mostly women, were hired under the Second New Deal to travel by horse or mule into the remote parts of the Appalachian Mountains. They delivered books to the residents who didn’t have access to a library. This program ran from 1935 to 1943.
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| Pack Horse Librarians |
Regardless of the mode of transportation, libraries and librarians have been determined to get books into the hands of those who want to read. Bookmobiles had their heyday in the 1960s and 1970s. There are still a few around the world.
Happy Reading!
Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of thirty-seven years and one cat. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at: Books2Read Newsletter Blog FB FB Readers Group Amazon GoodReads BookBub
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrington_Perambulating_Library
https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2018/04/first-bookmobile-in-country.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookmobile
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/04/10/library-on-wheels-sharlee-glenn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pack_Horse_Library_Project
I love this post. Books are special to me. I remember the bookmobile coming to our small town in the 1960s and it was a special time for us.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting today! I love this topic and it seems to have been a theme (or trope, to use the correct writer term) a couple of years ago, because there were many books written around the horseback librarian idea. I read a couple of them, and loved them. I didn't realize that there were traveling bookmobiles still until a couple of years ago when I saw "Bess the Book Bus" at a stoplight in our town!!! Apparently they have stops all across the country!
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