Schools Archives - Page 19 of 23

Kent Memorial Library, Suffield Connecticut

August 15, 2017July 6, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The original Kent Memorial Library building in Suffield, probably taken around 1920. Image from Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Suffield, Connecticut (1921).

The building in 2015:

The Kent Memorial Library building was dedicated in 1899, on land previously occupied by the Old South building on the Connecticut Literary Institute campus. It was the town’s first public library, and was built using funds provided by Suffield native Sidney A. Kent in memory of his parents. He paid for the construction and for nearly 7,000 books, along with an endowment for the continued operation of the library. The town used this building until 1972, when a new, larger library was opened across the street. The new building took the name with it, and the old one was purchased by Suffield Academy, which is the current name for the old Connecticut Literary Institute. The academy built an addition in the back, and today it serves as the Legare Library.

Pearsons Hall, South Hadley, Mass

June 25, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Pearsons Hall on the campus of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, around 1900-1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Pearsons Hall in 2015:

Mount Holyoke College was established in 1837 as the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, and for most of the 19th century a single building, known as the Seminary Building, housed most of the classrooms and dorm rooms, as well as the library and gymnasium. However, it burned in 1896, and the following year the school built four new dormitories, one of which was Pearsons Hall. It is named for Dr. D.K. Pearsons, who donated money to the school to help rebuild following the fire. Today, the building is still there, and it continues to be used as a dormitory for the college.

Green District School, Westfield Mass

May 30, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Green District School in Westfield, at the corner of Washington and School Streets, probably around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892)

The location in 2015:

The Green District School was a public school in Westfield, but for a time it was also used as the observation school of the Westfield Normal School, located directly across School Street and visible in the background in the first photo. Here, prospective teachers at the Normal School could get in-classroom experience analogous to present-day student teaching. The Normal School later built their own training school in 1900, on the spot of the old Normal School building. This building is still there today, in the background of the 2015 photo. The Green District School continued to be used as a public school long after its affiliation with the Normal School ended, but today the Westfield Police Department headquarters occupies the school’s former location.

Normal School, Westfield Mass

February 12, 2020May 30, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Westfield Normal School at the corner of Washington and School Streets in Westfield, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892)

The scene in 2015:

The present-day Westfield State University has gone through a number of changes in name and location since it was founded in Barre, Massachusetts in 1838 as a training school for teachers. In 1844, the school moved to Westfield, becoming the Westfield Normal School. Two years later, the building in the first photo was completed, and it housed the school for the next 46 years, until a new, larger school building was constructed nearby on Court Street. During the time that this building was in use, its notable graduates included geneticist Nettie Stevens and Cabinet secretary George B. Cortelyou, who served as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Postmaster General, and Secretary of the Treasury during Theodore Roosevelt’s administration.

When the school relocated to the Court Street building in 1892, the old building here was demolished and in 1900 replaced with the State Normal Training School. From then until 1956, this school was used to train prospective teachers from the Normal School, and it was later used by the City of Westfield as a regular elementary school. Today, the building has been renovated into apartments for students at Westfield State University, which is now located several miles west of downtown.

Elm Street Grammar School, Springfield Mass

July 21, 2015May 29, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Looking west on Elm Street from in front of the Hampden County Courthouse, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892)

Elm Street in 2015:

The Elm Street Grammar School was built in 1867, and it stood on Elm Street just to the west of the old Hampden County Courthouse and across the street from Old First Church. It served as the modern-day equivalent of a middle school for the children in the downtown and South End area until around the turn of the century; it appears in the 1899 atlas but was demolished sometime in the first decade of the 20th century and replaced with the Springfield Institution for Savings building by 1910. Today, the Hampden County Hall of Justice is located on the site. One of the school buildings that replaced Elm Street Grammar School was the Howard Street School, which opened in 1905 as a primary and grammar school, and covered part of what was once Elm Street’s territory. The Howard Street School is still around, but not for long; the vacant, tornado-damaged building is going to be demolished soon to make way for the MGM Springfield casino.

These two photos were taken from nearly the opposite direction as the ones in this post, which show Elm Street facing east. As mentioned in that post, the massive elm tree in front of the school (seen here on the far right of the 1892 photo) is believed to be the one referenced by Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, in which he writes “Beautiful and stately she is beyond all praise.” The tree was later cut down, and a cross-section of it is now on display in the Springfield Science Museum.

Morgan Hall, Amherst Mass

May 26, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Morgan Hall at Amherst College in Amherst, around 1904. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Morgan Hall in 2015:

Morgan Hall was built in 1853, and was the first library building at Amherst College. Its Italianate architecture was popular in the United States in the mid 1800s, and it was constructed of gneiss that was quarried from nearby Pelham. The building served as the library from its completion until 1917, when the college’s holdings outgrew both the original building and an 1880s addition that had expanded the capacity to over 30,000 books. From 1874 to 1877, Melvil Dewey served as the Acting Librarian here, where he established the Dewey Decimal Classification. This library became the first to use the classification system, which today is used in about 200,000 libraries around the world. During its time as a library, this building would have also been used by future president Calvin Coolidge, who graduated from Amherst College in 1895.

Since the first photo was taken, the building has seen several renovations. When the library moved in 1917, the building was converted into classroom and office space, and today the building houses several academic departments. It is also home to the Bassett Planetarium, which was installed in the second floor in 1960. Today, Amherst College’s main library is across the street and is named for Robert Frost, who taught English at the college from 1916-1920, 1923-1924, and 1927-1938. Melvil Dewey would be disappointed to learn, however, that like most other academic libraries the Robert Frost Library now uses the Library of Congress Classification instead of the Dewey Decimal Classification that was pioneered here.