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1881–1895
The act: David N. Foster conceived the campaign for a public library in Fort Wayne, and Robert S. Robertson drafted Indiana's public library act, passed 7 March 1881, which allowed a library tax of up to three cents on each 100 dollars of valuation.
The evasion: Fort Wayne's Common Council evaded the act for fourteen years, sheltering behind what the library's centennial history calls the "Evansville loophole" — the remnant township-trustee library collections, held up as a reason the city needed no library of its own.
The breakthrough: The Woman's Club League, formed in 1892 by eleven women's clubs with Alice Peacock Dryer as its first president, petitioned the Common Council on 25 July 1893. The council levied a tax of one and a half cents, which raised 3,261.11 dollars, and in June 1894 a room for the library was secured in City Hall.
Sources:
- Slater-Putt, Beyond Books (1995), ch. 2 — Foster, Robertson, the 1881 act, the fourteen-year evasion, the Woman's Club League petition and the 1893 levy.