Carnegie libraries visited: Jennings
If you walk into the Carnegie in Jennings, Louisiana you will be facing directly into the library’s main librarian desk. The layout of the library is one that was favored by designers at the turn of the 1900s. Bookshelves and desks slant out on either side, as if the librarian’s workstation was the cockpit of a jet. With this layout, the librarian can observe all the goings on of the patrons.
Mrs. Nellie Humphreys, one of the librarians, wrote a history of the Library in 2024. In an elegant script on fragile stationery, she stated that as early as 1885 – a mere four years after a Mr. A.D. McFarlain settled there – “a number of pioneer women conceived the idea of a reading room where the young people could congregate socially and also secure good reading to help while away some of the leisure moments which the pioneer life affords.” To build this reading room, 14 women (Mrs. Celestia Flint, Mrs. J.N. Hulbert, Mrs. D.E. Shankland, Mrs. S. L. Cary, Mrs. W. Daniels, Mrs. William Briggs, Mrs. James Mound, Mrs. H. Killinger, Mrs. Amelia Calkins, Mrs. H.F. Childs, Mrs. Frank Noble, Mrs. F. M. Rowe, Mrs. G. H. Morse) met at the home of Mrs. Mitti Roberts for the purpose of contributing books from their homes. In 1887 these women paid $100 for two lots on Main Street as a site for the library but, deciding that these lots were too far from the center of town, they sold them and bought a house on Main Street closer to the town’s center.
Mrs. Shankland wrote further about the reasons why Jennings needed a public library: “The men were a problem in those days.” (Some things never change.) Local men were working on their farms all through the week, and they came into town on Saturday “for a change of something to eat, something to read, and to see their sweethearts.” The solution? A public library.
In 1888, most of these women, and a few others, formalized the Ladies Library Society, which previously had been called The Society for Mutual Aid, Social and Intellectual Improvement. The Society meant business. Included in their bylaws was the item: “Resolved, that this society shall pledge itself to abstain from all slander and idle gossip.” These women worked “unceasingly and untiringly” to maintain the existing library and to labored with “avowed determination” to develop a fund for the purpose of bringing a public library to Jennings. A priest, Father S.L. Cary, donated land to the Ladies Library Society for the library. This land, together with the money the ladies had raised, helped the Society to secure a pledge from Carnegie to build their library.
In 1901, the library burned down and most of the books were destroyed. Again, Mrs. Shankland writes “Just one year ago our library building and furniture and nearly all our books were consumed by fire. Our prospects for rebuilding at that time were discouraging – the future looked dark indeed.” The (renamed) Literary Society set to work to raise more money, with which they bought a new plot of land, on which the Carnegie library stands today.
As I leafed through the archives, I found some jottings about the library’s history on a notepad advertising Butazolidin. I recognized that medication immediately. When I was in high school, I had persistent pain in my right shoulder caused by the way I played tennis. My doctor prescribed that drug, and I probably used it for three years. I remember my doctor saying, in effect, “This drug is really good. It’s been banned for race horses.” Today, I looked up Butazolidin. This is what the wikipedia page said: “In the United States and United Kingdom, it is no longer approved for human use, as it can cause severe adverse effects such as suppression of white blood cell production and aplastic anemia.” Oh. My senior year I had surgery on that shoulder. Oddly, I think four other team members had the same surgery from the same doctor. What are the chances?
On November 11, 1952, the Jennings News ran the text of a speech given by Mrs. Meredith Necessary on the history of the Jennings Carnegie Library. To do: transcribe this.
In January 1964, the Library Board sent a letter to the local Commission Council requesting it to approve new policies the library had established. The Council replied “It was moved by Major John J. Connor…that there not ever be anything in your rules which might tend to treat any one individual of the City differently from another in matters pertaining to the benefits and services of the Jennings Public Library.” This motion was carried unanimously.
Oddly, there is a parish (the Louisiana equivalent of a county) library immediately across the street. The librarians did not know why, and after scanning many news articles I did not understand, either. It does look like a classic turf fight. It seems to me that the problem could easily have been solved if the parish library was located elsewhere. Yet the town of Jennings wanted to preserve its own library, even if it meant paying taxes to support both that library and the parish library one can see out the windows of the Carnegie library.
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