CHICAGO LIBRARY

Southland Times, Issue 20498, 29 May 1928, Page 11

CHICAGO LIBRARY

FIRST COLLECTION. THOMAS HUGHES RESPONSIBLE. New York, March 7. Thomas Hughes, author of “Tom Brown’s School Days,” was responsible for the large collection of English Books given to Chicago as a nucleus for a new library after the disastrous fire attritubed to Mrs O’Leary’s cow. Mr Hughes made several visits to the United States, the first in 1870. He became interested in the Rugby model co-operative community in Tennessee and lost a considerable sum of money there. His mother and her younger sons remained in the Tenessee colony, however, and she died there ten years later. On a visit to Chicago after the fire, Mr Hughes set to work, persuading his friends to contribute books for a new municipal library. A special feature of the collection was a lable of bookplate in every volume, which bore the inscription, “Presented to the city of Chicago towards the formation of a free library after the great fire of 1871, as a mark of English sympathy.” The British Government contributed many volumes. Oxford University sent 234 volumes. Cambridge also contributed, and, amongst the original donors were James Bryce, Samuel Smiles, John Bright, Lewis Carrol, Walter Besant, W. E. Gladstone, Charlotte Yonge, Christina and W. M. Rossetti, Charles Kingsley, Herbert Spencer, and many other notable Englishmen and Englishwomen of the day. The British donation totalled 7000 volumes, and the movement resulted in many volumes being donated from Germany and other Continental countries. Mr Hughes’ interest in the United States was largely due to his admiration of James Russell Lowell’s poetry and his friendship for the American poet, whom he met when the latter was American Ambassador in London and later visited in the United States.