Civic Pride in a Lost America: Library Postcards
Philadelphia'sÂ
Carnegie Branch Libraries
Philadelphia had 25 Carnegie Branch Libraries bestowed on it, from a 1903 grant. Talk about brotherly love! The Free Library of Philadelphia has a great deal of information on the history of its branches, with a few gaps. I lack postcards yet of several locations.
​
Images on the monochrome postcards are attributable to the William H. Lau studio. Some were printed by the Albertype co. of Brooklyn.
Falls of Schuylkill
Falls of Schuylkill Branch, Warden Drive and Midvale Avenue
Still in use as a library. This Tudor building was constructed from stone, and lends a foreboding air.
Frankford
Built 1906. Demolished ca. 1959.
Germantown
Vernon Park
Converted to a senior center. It's as if the card at right presaged it.
Kingsessing
Fifty-First Street below Chester Avenue
Still in use.
​
Postcard is marked Rau Art Studios, Inc., and appears older than the Albertype series.
Lehigh
Sixth Street and Lehigh Avenue
Now known as the Lillian Marrero branch, this Beaux-Arts building is still in use.
Logan
Wagner Avenue and Old York Road
Still in use. This is one of the plainest Classical Revival buildings of the group.
Manayunk
Fleming and Dupont Streets
A very dramatic building, which is now a nursing home. Those stone walls would slow any escapees down.
Oak Lane
Oak Lane and Twelfth Street
This branch building conforms to the Carnegie "standard plan," which leads me to believe it was one of the later buildings (the last from the grant was complete in 1930!
Southwark
N.W. Corner Fifth and Ellsworth Streets
No longer a library, but houses the Philadelphia Overseas Chinese Association. It does not seem to have undergone any exterior renovation except for signage.
Spring Garden
Seventeenth and Spring Garden Streets
Opened in 1907. Closed as a branch library in 1955 but reopened in 1957 as the Free Library of Philadelphia Library for the Blind. It was demolished after 1970, but before 1991; a curiously wide range of years given on a library web site.
Tacony
Torresdale Avenue and Knorr Street
Again, likely to have been one of the later construction projects.
​
I don't know why the large group of adults was at this location.
Thomas Holme
Frankford Avenue and Hartel Street
Apparently this community was known as Holmesburg, and the library was built post-World War I as a memorial.
​
It is still in use.
West Philadelphia (Walnut)
Fortieth and Walnut Street
Originally known as the West Philadelphia Branch, it is now known as the Walnut Branch, and is still in use.
Wissahickon
Manayunk Avenue and Osborn Street
This was another difficult location for a library. Sometime after 1969, the attractive building burned, and its replacement is the Roxborough Branch Library.