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1887–1895
Founded: Emerine J. Hamilton and her daughters Mary Williams, Ellen Wagenhals and Margaret Hamilton established the reading room in 1887 at 19 West Wayne Street, with about 400 volumes. In 1889 it became a circulating library. After Mrs. Hamilton's death the room was renamed in her memory.
People: Its first librarian was Susan Catherine Wines Hoffman — who in 1895 became the first librarian of the public library. Its other librarians, Laura Detzler, Nancy McLachlan and Helen Tracy Guild, with Emma Eckles as assistant, likewise all went on to work at the public library.
Fate: When the reading room closed in 1895 its books went to the YWCA, and some of them were in turn donated to the new public library.
Sources:
- Slater-Putt, Beyond Books (1995), ch. 1 — founding, staff, the 1889 circulating turn and the 1895 disposition of the books.