Reading the Meekins Library Façade: Have you read the Meekins Library lately? Look up. Like a big granite book, the Meekins Library building has something to say. The name, MEEKINS LIBRARY and the date of construction, 1896 are chiseled above the entrance to the original structure. Two sayings, WISE MEN LAY UP KNOWLEDGE and KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, are carved into the frieze on either side of the entry.
Walk around the building—and you will see the surnames names of 19 American authors on the other three sides (although some are now obscured by the 2003 addition): Louisa May Alcott, George Bancroft, William Cullen Bryant, Frances Hodgson Burnett, George Washington Cable, George Curtis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Helen Hunt Jackson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Elizabeth Payson Prentiss, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Wallace, Elizabeth Phelps Ward, John Greenleaf Whittier. The final name remains a bit of a mystery: only Whitney is carved. Is this for James Lyman Whitney or Adeline Dutton Train Whitney?
Unfortunately, no record of how the names were chosen remains. Yet those names are literally carved in stone—so come to the beautiful Meekins grounds and “read” the Library. Daria D’Arienzo, Meekins Archivist and photographer. #throwbackthursday; #tbt.
Posted to Facebook 4/27/2023
