I’m one of those people who hunkers down in the winter months. My ideal winter day is spent inside — yes, with a book — warm and dry. Curtis Library’s 1904 building, with its fireplace and overstuffed leather chairs, is the apex of such comforts. But despite my determination to remain inside and as close to a heating source as possible, I still feel irrevocably cold by March.
This is why I perked up this winter upon discovering a model for the consummate library: one with an indoor pool. How fantastic it would be to be able to swim in a warm pool and then read in a leather chair by the fire!
In 1898, the Calumet & Hecla Mining Co. in Calumet, Michigan, built a combination library and bathhouse. This was during a period known as the Progressive Era, which saw many private concerns and individuals granting municipalities with institutions for the public good.
Between 1883 and 1929, for example, Andrew Carnegie financed the building of more than 2,500 libraries throughout the English-speaking world. Our own library was presented with land and funds from William J. Curtis to build a permanent structure on Pleasant Street in this same historical moment.
Needless to say, a pool would have been atypical for most libraries. But companies such as Calumet & Hecla and Copper Range Consolidated Co., which installed bathing facilities in the basement of its library, built in 1903, as well as the Quincy Mining Co., which created a similar facility in 1916, saw the library as part of a larger movement to support the public’s bodies as well as their minds.
These companies’ efforts should not be read as merely beneficent: Even while Calumet & Hecla operated their library and pool at a loss of $7,000 per year, it was worth it to them. Otherwise, they would have had to consider supplying their workers with bathtubs, hot water boilers, pipes and drains, none of which had been installed in worker housing, and all of which would have been much more expensive.
Nonetheless, the library/pool was enormously popular, serving almost 25,000 men and 8,000 women in 1906 alone.
I have no idea how such institutions kept their books from molding from pool-generated humidity, nor how a single library director managed such disparate municipal facilities at once, but the concept of a library/pool cheers me as we slog toward spring.
And, in the meantime, there are marvelous events happening at Curtis this month to help us along: The Winter Garden Workshop series, co-sponsored with the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust and Growing to Give, continues. March talks include planting a natural dye garden and exploring apple orchards.
The Repair Cafe, which features volunteers to help repair everything from electronics to lamps to jewelry, is back on March 22. Finally, the much anticipated Booked for the Night, hosted by the Curtis Contemporaries, is scheduled for the evening of March 22. Guests will have after-hours access to the library with typewriter poets, arts and crafts, excellent local catering, door prizes and a silent auction.
Curtis may not have a pool, but it’s plenty warm.
“Library Connections” is a monthly column that rotates among the three libraries serving Harpswell: Cundy’s Harbor, Orr’s Island, and Curtis Memorial.
