Although there had been attempts to establish a community library in St. Louis as early as the 1820s when a subscription library, the St. Louis Library Association, was formed, the St. Louis Public Library traces its beginnings to an 1860 proposal by superintendent of public schools Ira Divoll to establish a library as an integral part of the public school system. Lack of funds and the Civil War delayed action on Divoll's proposal, which in 1864 he modified to permit the establishment of a library related to the school system but not dependent on public funds for its support. The Public School Library Society of St. Louis was created by the Missouri legislature on 3 February 1865 "for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a public school library and lyceum." The library, with Ira Divoll as its first temporary librarian, opened shortly thereafter to all directors, officer, teachers, or pupils of the public school system, upon a payment $3 annual fee or a $12 life membership. Honorary membership was open to others for $25, payable in cash or books.

            Over the next three decades the name changed to "St. Louis Public School Library" and then, simply, to "St. Louis Public Library"; the collections were expanded and augmented by donation and absorption of other local libraries; and the location changed several times. These changes can be traced in the many bookstamps and bookplates present in the library books from this period. Three of these appear here, the earliest partially obscured in the example shown (opposite page, with inventory date stamps). The bookplate illustrated on the cover was produced by August Gast & Co. of St. Louis and New York, then the leading lithographic and steel plate printing establishment in the United States, and was in use at least by 1886, shortly after the word "school" was dropped from the name. By this time the free library movement in St. Louis was gaining momentum. A leader in efforts to make the Library completely free to all (in 1874 it had been made free to all persons for all purposes of reading and reference within the rooms, and the fees for library membership were gradually reduced beginning in 1878) was the librarian, Frederick Morgan Crunden. A bill drafted by Crunden authorizing municipalities to tax themselves to establish and maintain free libraries was passed by the Missouri legislature on 10 April 1885. After a vigorous campaign led by Crunden, the city electorate voted on 4 April 1893 to transfer the Library from the administration of the board of education to an independent board of library directors, with a special property tax assessment dedicated to support it. Although the transfer, which also required the assent of a majority of the life members of the Library, did not take place until 1894, the 1893 election date is commemorated as the year the Library became a free public library, as seen in the book stamp used at the time ("St. Louis Public (Free) Library") and in one of the bookplates illustrated here (p. 312).

            The year 1893 was a watershed for the St. Louis Public Library, both a beginning and an ending. With the early period of its history definitely behind it, the Library prepared to enter the twentieth century and the period of its greatest growth. Under the leadership of Frederick Crunden, himself a national figure (a founder of the American Library Association and an early ALA president), the Library would advance to the front rank of American public libraries. In 1901 Andrew Carnegie made a gift of one million dollars to the Library, one-half to be used to establish branches and one-half to be used toward the building of a central library. The new central library building, one of the finest public buildings designed by Cass Gilbert, opened in 1912. Ill health forced Crunden's retirement in 1909, after more than 30 years as librarian, and he was succeeded by Arthur Elmore Bostwick. Under Dr. Bostwick, also a figure of national importance in librarianship, and his successor, Arthur Herrick Compton (both of whom served long terms), the Library entered the modern phase of its history, still in the making.

 Erik Bradford Stocker,

St. Louis Public Library