Celebrating 100 Years, This is Where it Started

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Minutes of the first board meeting of the Library board in 1917.
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Newspaper articles about the benefits of having a library in Seneca and ways to pay for it.

As far back as the 1880’s Seneca was library minded and working towards having a public library. In 1916 C.C.K Scoville, President of the Business Men’s Club began to research Carnegie Libraries. Upon discovering there was no Carnegie money left for libraries, several civic organizations, including the Seneca Women’s Club,  joined forces to find alternate sources of funding. The library has an original handwritten copy of several questions sent to municipalities throughout Kansas seeking information on funding. With a new City hall being built the time seemed right to push for a library. An article from the February 1, 1917 Courier-Democrat encouraged citizens to sign a petition to vote for a tax levy. The following week the Library Board had secured 276 names for the petition, according to the Courier-Democrat. The levy would amount to .50 cents per $1000 worth of property. We have a display with copies of some of these articles.  We hope you come in and read them. We will share more of the library history over the year as we celebrate – SPOILER ALERT – the passing of the vote in 1917 to establish a public library.

 

What else was happening around the world in 1917?

The State Library of Kansas? KGI Online Library shared a wonderful blog post, just for us?

Enjoy a look back:

http://kslib.info/Blog.aspx?IID=373#item

http://kslib.info/Blog.aspx?IID=373#item