The state legislature recently cut the budget for libraries in Arkansas by $1 million. That is a huge percentage of their appropriation, and it means that every public library in the state faces deep cuts. Approximately $27,000 will have to be cut from our public library in Hot Spring County.
I have been a book person all my life. I can recall childhood hours spent walking along hot dusty country roads to visit the bookmobile from the Hot Springs regional library. One of my favorite places as a young boy in Eisenhower's America was sitting on the floor reading a National Geographic magazine in the old public library building in Mena, the white curtains gently swaying under the influence of a rare air conditioner. I wish I could tell you that Arkansas has a grand and glorious heritage of supporting books, writers, readers, and libraries. But such is not the case.
One of the rude discoveries I made as a college student embarking on a career in state history was to discover the low value of public education and learning in early Arkansans. I clearly recall the first time I read the words of Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison comparing Arkansas and Michigan, the sister states that came into the Union in 1836 and 1837, respectively. Morison wrote, "The first Michigan legislature created a university, at Ann Arbor. The first Arkansas legislature was remembered for a fatal brawl, when the Speaker of the House came down from his chair and slew a member with his bowie-knife."
Morison goes on to include comparative statistics on the two states in 1850 after almost 15 years of statehood. He noted that 1850 Michigan contained 280 libraries, while Arkansas had one. Further, those Michigan libraries contained 65,116 volumes, while our single library contained 362 books. Perhaps the most painful statistic from the 1850 census was the fact that Michigan had begun a public school system serving over 110,000 students; Arkansas did not get a public school system for another quarter-century.
This does not mean that 19th-Century Arkansans did not read. The newspapers were full of short stories, serialized novels, and no small amount of original poetry. Newspapers also frequently advertised books, and occasionally they ran book reviews. But we did not have libraries--except for one in Hot Springs.
The first circulating library created in Arkansas was the work of a young Massachusetts immigrant by the name of Hiram A. Whittington, who arrived in Little Rock in 1826 and worked as a printer. In late 1832 he relocated to Hot Springs where he opened a store. Here's how he described his home and business in April 1833: "I live here in a little cabin of logs about 10 feet square, with an adjoining room of about seven by nine feet. The larger room is my store. The smaller is my private apartment, sitting room, drawing room, clerk's office, post office and bed chamber. My bed, a table, two trunks, and a box with a small stool comprise my household furniture; and on an unplaced shelf in one corner of the room is my library consisting of the Encyclopedia Americana, 12 vols, . . . Buffon's Natural History, 5 vols, Cicero's Orations, . . . Shakespeare, Holy Bible and a few others not worth mentioning. . . ."
Whittington was forever calling on his family back in Boston to send him more books and providing them detailed packing instructions. In September 1833, having lived in Hot Springs for almost a year, Hiram wrote his brother Granville, "my object is to keep a Circulating Library here next season."
He then proceeded to instruct his brother on the types of books he sought, including Byron's works of poetry, the collected works of Washington Irving, the writing of former President Thomas Jefferson, and the collected speeches of Daniel Webster--of which he wanted three copies.
Hiram's brother, Granville, was a bookbinder by trade, and he suggested that several titles be bound together to save costs. Hiram would have none of this, and he instructed his brother to bind all the books separately and in "muslin cloth." Thus Arkansas came to have its first library in the years just before statehood in 1836. A few years later William E. Woodruff of Little Rock, the founder of the Arkansas Gazette, opened a library that circulated books for a small fee.
Today Arkansas has hundreds of public libraries, and I think most citizens recognize their value to our society and, most importantly, to our educational system. Public libraries are probably the most successful educational institutions in Arkansas, so why does the General Assembly pour billions into the schools while punishing the public libraries? I wonder how many legislators even have library cards.
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Tom W. Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.
Editorial on 05/31/2015