"Perhaps no place in any community is so totally
democratic as the town library. The only entrance
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| Main Entrance Sacramento Central Library |
requirement is interest." - Lady Bird Johnson
The Sacramento Central Library has a long and rich history, closely tied to that of the people who settled this central California region. The community's desire for a library began with the Mercantile Library Association, which formed a subscription library in 1850, a year after the beginning of the California gold rush. Two years later the library was lost in a fire. For the next five years there appeared to be no attempt to form another library.
In 1857 the Sacramento Library Association formed, led by four of the most influential men in the Sacramento region. They established another subscription library that would serve the community for the next twenty-two years. During those years the Library Association purchased a lot and built a library building on the corner of I and 5th Streets.
Despite a substantial investment by the founders the subscription library had financial problems, and in 1879 the building and its contents were turned over to the City of Sacramento. Utilizing the Rogers Free Library Act, Sacramento's Public Library opened to the public on June 14th 1879. The building was remodeled twice, but by 1913 the City Commission realized a new library building was necessary to serve a growing population. A design competition was held, Carnegie funding was granted, and in 1917 construction of the new building at the corner of 9th and I streets began. The Carnegie Library opened its doors in April of 1918 (Sacramento Public Library digital Collection, 2011). In the late 1980s the library was extensively remodeled, with the original building incorporated into the new structure.
Chartier described libraries as the "ideal place for retreat, study, and meditation" (1989.p. 168). For the City of Sacramento the new Carnegie Library was also a place to display the civic pride they felt in their community. "The key public buildings in cities and towns, large and small, were usually well-designed and intended to be the centerpieces of the community" (Senville, 2001, para. 6).
Sacramento History: 1850-1920
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Riley's Map showed the settlement of Sacramento in 1849 as a tiny square at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers. With the beginning of the gold rush, miners, developers and entrepreneurs began to pour in. In 1850, the California State Legislature granted an official charter to Sacramento City. In that same year California became the 31st state. In 1854, Sacramento became the permanent state capital, and the city's first segregated school opened.
Persistent flooding of Sacramento's downtown prompted the residents to build levees, and to raise the downtown area up fifteen feet. This resulted in main floors becoming basements, and second floors turned into main floors. Fires were also a problem, and the big fire of 1852 destroyed the Mercantile Library Association's building and records. After 1852 the majority of buildings were constructed with brick instead of wood.
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| K Street about 1910 |
In 1861, the Central Pacific Railroad was incorporated. In 1891, the Central Street Railway replaced horse-drawn streetcars with trolley- driven streetcars. The first use of electricity was at the California State Fair in 1895, and that year Sacramento held a "Carnival of Light" to mark power transmission. 1900 marks the year of the first automobile in Sacramento, by 1905 there were 27 registered autos in Sacramento County.
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| From Women's Suffrage Journal |
In 1856, the first foreign language newspaper in Sacramento, The Chinese News, began publication. In 1866, Mark Twain visited Sacramento and agreed to write a series of articles on Hawaii for the Sacramento Union. The first Japanese immigrants to the Sacramento Valley arrived in 1869 to begin an agricultural community. The D. DeBernardi & Co. grocery store installed refrigeration equipment, allowing the purchase of fresh meat, fish and produce during the summer months. In the 1900s a series of progressive politicians rose to power, and Sacramento women were granted the right to vote in 1911, nearly nine years prior to the passage of the nineteenth amendment.
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| 1918 Library "Time Capsule" (now kept in a safe at Central Library) |
In 1879, the City's first "free" library opened. In 1918, the Carnegie building which served as the Sacramento City Central Library opened. A time capsule was entombed in the cornerstone of the building. The time capsule was composed of a copper box and its contents, which included coins, a train schedule, and a quill pen.
(Sacramento History Online, 2011)
(Wikipedia: History of Sacramento, 2011)
Mercantile Library Association
The first bookstore in Sacramento opened in 1850. At the same time a group of prominent citizens decided to organize a subscription library. The Mercantile Library Association of Sacramento followed the precepts of the Boston Mercantile Library Association "to establish a library and reading room for the use of young men engaged in mercantile pursuits" (Boston Mercantile Library: Purpose, 1849, para.1). The primary founders were Joseph W. Winans, Dr. John F. Morse, and Colonel James Warren; a lawyer, a doctor and a successful businessman respectively. As a subscription library, it was available only to those who were able to pay an initial five dollar fee, and another five dollars quarterly (Muriam, 1975). This was a substantial sum of money at the time, and so limited those who could join to the well -off members of the community. Subscription libraries did not meet the needs of the entire reading population. The Sacramento fire of 1852 destroyed the library and its records, and no attempt was made to rebuild. Five years would pass before another subscription library opened (Scott, 2006).
Sacramento Library Association
In 1857, some of Sacramento's leading citizens, including "The Big Four"- Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Collis Huntington, formed the Sacramento Library Association. Sacramento had developed rapidly by this time, and consisted of "a railroad, city hall, newspaper, steamboat service, ten churches, brothels, theaters and a Wells Fargo Express Office" (Sacramento Public Library Digital Collections, 2011, para. 2). $25,000 was raised by selling shares at twenty-five dollars per share to buy books, furnishings, and to purchase land for a new building. New subscribers were required to pay five dollars initially, and then two dollars and fifty cents quarterly. A lifetime membership could be purchased for one-hundred dollars. The subscription library opened in November 1857, at 5th and J Streets with 800 books. "The following year, another 800 books sailed from New York around Cape Horn and through the Delta to Sacramento" (para.4).
The first librarian was S.B. Freeland, he was hired at $30 per month. By 1872, the Sacramento Library Association had enough money to build a new building on the corner of 5th and I Streets at a cost of $17,000 (Scott, 2006, p. 12). Library membership in 1873 totaled 260, and there was an annual circulation of 4,234 books. Membership started to decline after this, and by 1879 the Association was unable to pay its expenses. The Rogers Free Library Act of 1878 provided the impetus for the City of Sacramento to take over the property to be used as a free public library (Sacramento Public Library Digital Collections, 2011).
Rogers Free Library Act:
The Rogers Free Library Act was state legislation that allowed incorporated towns and cities to levy taxes for the support of public libraries. The act encouraged the transfer of private libraries to municipalities by allowing the exchange of all assets and debts to the receiving city. In return, up to one-half of the new library board could be composed of the board members that had served the private library. The Act became a means for California municipalities to build public libraries around the nucleus of the old social and membership libraries (Martin, 2002).
The Associates
The "Big Four", (known amongst themselves as "The Associates"), were instrumental in building the Central Pacific Railroad and developing California's railroad system. They accumulated enormous wealth and power, which resulted in people both admiring and detesting them. The four men left a lasting legacy in California, and in the Sacramento region.
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| Charles Crocker (1822-1888) |
Charles Crocker was born in Troy, New York, and later moved to Indiana, and then to Iowa. Crocker led a party of Forty-niners to California in 1850. Deciding that mining was not a way to make a fortune, Crocker opened a store in Sacramento. By 1854, he was one of the wealthiest men in town. His friendship with Stanford, Hopkins, and Huntington led the four to organize the Central Pacific Railroad in the early 1860s. Crocker managed the actual construction of the railroad, and used Chinese immigrants to do much of the dangerous labor. Crocker set records for laying track by driving his workers to exhaustion. He later became involved in banking and real estate. In 1886, Crocker was seriously injured in a carriage accident and he died two years later.
Amasa Leland Stanford (1824-1893), was born in Watervliet, New York into a well-off farming family. Stanford trained for the law, and began his practice in Wisconsin in 1848. He moved to California in 1852 and became a merchant, making a large sum of money selling equipment to miners. Stanford's membership in the Republican Party introduced him to the other three men. He served as Governor of California from 1861-1863. After his term expired, Stanford was named President of the Central Pacific Railroad. Stanford's style often frustrated his partners with Crocker complaining, "Don't know what he is doing. I guess nothing--in fact I never knew him to do much himself--he is awful lazy & never attends to details--wants somebody to come along afterward & stop the leaks & do the work" (Galloway, 1989, para.6). His colleagues also complained about Stanford dipping into company holdings to fund palatial homes and the chartering of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Stanford died of heart failure and is buried on the Stanford campus.
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| Mark Hopkins (1813-1878) |
Mark Hopkins was born in Henderson, New York, and moved with his family to Michigan. Hopkins formed a consortium that purchased goods and services to sell in California. His first store in Placerville, California failed and he moved to Sacramento to partner with Collis Huntington in a hardware business. Hopkins was convinced to invest in the Central Pacific Railroad, and became its treasurer. Hopkins was cautious with the company's money, and often refused to endorse his partner's schemes. When a scandal in 1872 threatened the Central Pacific, Hopkins burned the record books. Even though he was frugal in his personal life, Hopkin's wife convinced him to build a house on Nob Hill in San Francisco. He did not live to see it completed, dying in his sleep aboard a railroad car. The house was later destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and the Mark Hopkins Hotel was built in its place.
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| Collis Potter Huntington (1821-1900) |
Collis Huntington was born in Harwinton, Connecticut, and at an early age began a job as a salesman and a peddler. He set out for California at the start of the gold rush, and formed a partnership with Mark Hopkins. Huntington was the first of the four to invest in the new railroad. Huntington was considered the most ruthless businessman of the four, and he became a frequent visitor to Washington as a lobbyist. Huntington maintained an espionage network that kept him informed about rival Union Pacific's progress. Huntington's later business interests centered on the East Coast, where he also began a number of philanthropic projects. He is credited with helping to develop Colonial Willamsburg, collaborating on black-education projects, and contributing schools, museums, and parks. Huntington was the last of the "Big Four" to die, he is buried in New York.
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