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Mayor Lori Lightfoot is right. Why we should love libraries, even on Sundays

Senior clerk Maryann Stephens works at the circulation desk at the Hall Branch of the library at 4801 S. Michigan Ave. in June 1963.
Senior clerk Maryann Stephens works at the circulation desk at the Hall Branch of the library at 4801 S. Michigan Ave. in June 1963.(John Bartley / Chicago Tribune)

A late Friday afternoon at the Harold Washington Library, the largest and most prominent of the city’s 80 public libraries that come in all sizes and shapes, and a little 14-year-old boy named Wilson Jackson sat reading a copy of “Charlotte’s Web.”

“It’s hot out and this is my favorite book and I have read it twice already,” he said.

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It was hot out, sunny and hot. But there were kids and adults scattered about the spacious library. Some were merely resting, others reading and still others staring at computers. They had come from all over the city, Jackson having ridden the “L” from Roseland.

“I once used a computer here to look up and see what it looks like in Japan,” Jackson said.

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There is no doubt that similar scenes could be found across town, even though in this time of smart phones, iPads, Google and Wiki-whatever, libraries have for many become relics, buildings once visited and enjoyed but now stuck in that dusty memory room along with such activities as hopscotch and such places as drive-in movie theaters.

But for a surprisingly large number of people — those who do not have the means to buy the gizmos of our plugged-in age or music, movies and books to enjoy at home — libraries remain an vital part of life. They give us shelter from the storms of the city. This is where inspiration lives.

So, some shrugged but many others were thrilled when our new mayor recently expressed her desire to have all the city’s libraries open on Sundays (currently only the Harold Washington and Sulzer, Woodson and Legler branch libraries are open on Sundays, 1-5 p.m.)

Lightfoot talked of her “fond memories” of the library across the street from her junior high school in Massillon, Ohio. She remembered, “Being able to go explore the world, have the librarians help you explore the world and help you with homework.”

There is no doubt that she is more attuned to the importance of public libraries than most lawyers, which is what she was, or politicians, which she is. Her wife, Amy Eshelman, was the assistant commissioner for the Chicago Public Library during the tenure of estimable commissioner Mary Dempsey. From 1994 to 2011 (with an eight month break for Dempsey to serve as interim head of the city’s Procurement Services Department), this pair orchestrated multi-million dollar investments that saw the opening of modern new branches and renovations of old ones, the introduction of computers and other technological updates. (Eshelman was the force behind YOUmedia, a digital media center for teens that started in 2009 at the Harold Washington). The two women started the One Book, One Chicago program.

But they left in 2011, in the wake of then-new mayor Rahm Emanuel hammering the CPL budget by cutting library hours and, more damagingly, slicing staff.

He also later closed, as you might recall, some 50 public schools and of those that remained, dozens were (and still are) without librarians or libraries and thus without books that can be read for pleasure and enlightenment rather than in the cause of testing.

Many independent organizations have been in the business to trying to fill this shameful gap. Two with which I am most familiar are Cool Classics, created by journalist/broadcaster Mara Tapp in 2006, which uses books and music to encouraging children to think critically and foster an appreciation (or even love) for the arts and SitStayRead, which since 2003 has used dogs to help kids read and read aloud. As one of its founders told me, “Reading aloud is a critical component of early childhood literacy, but reading in front of classmates can be an ordeal. We provide the children with listeners who are attentive and non-judgmental, our dogs.”

But libraries remain an essential resource as they have been for many years

The first library came after the Great Chicago Fire when a couple of Londoners named A.H. Burgess and Thomas Hughes organized the English Book Donation to help replace the 3 million books that were in storage and were lost in the fire. Thousands of books arrived here, some from such notable people as Queen Victoria, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning.

The first library opened in an abandoned iron water tank at LaSalle and Adams streets on Jan. 1, 1873. The city had a new mayor then, too. Joseph Medill, also owner of the Chicago Tribune, presided at ceremonies during which he said, “The influence and power of a city, state or nation is not measured by its numbers but by its enlightenment, by its thinkers.”

The oldest library is the Blackstone at 4904 S. Lake Park Ave., built in 1904 as the first branch library. It is the work of architect Solon Beman, whose buildings also stand in Pullman, the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue, and a few Hyde Park homes.

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Libraries began to sprinkle the city but African American neighborhoods were ignored.

Until, that is, prominent black doctor and activist George Cleveland Hall convinced philanthropist Julius Rosenwald of the need for one. Rosenwald, head of Sears, Roebuck & Co., bought land at the corner of 48th Street and Michigan Avenue in Bronzeville and gave it to the city. Thus pressured, the library board funded construction of a library built of Indiana limestone, featuring an octagonal rotunda with terrazzo tile, brass ornaments and dark English oak. It opened on Jan. 18, 1932. Named for Hall, its first head librarian was the city’s first black librarian.

Her name was Vivian Harsh and she began to amass the Special Negro Collection: books, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, photos and whatever else she could get her hands on. This compelled the then president of the city library board of directors, Andrew Kolar, to rail that the items Harsh “was installing ... were likely to cause a race riot.”

It did not and the building became home to such literary giants Richard Wright, Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks. They did research and writing there. They spoke at book review sessions and lectured there. It has remained an oasis for generations.

I bring this up because, talking about libraries, Lightfoot brought up an of-the-bloody-moment topic, saying, “libraries are a safe haven for a lot of folks,” and that is true and a pressing issue in these violent times. Walk around certain city neighborhoods this summer and you will see parks and playgrounds empty of children.

I bring this up because there is a small park named in honor of Harsh, who died in 1960.

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The Vivian Gordon Harsh Park sits in a quiet part of the city at 4458-70 S. Oakenwald Ave. It has swings and slides and on Jan. 29, 2013 it had death, when 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was shot dead there.

Lightfoot is now preparing her 2020 budget, a very complicated and surely painful task. Library funding will be a very small part of that but she realizes that for so many they offer safety, sustenance and salvation, all soon to be available even on Sundays.

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