Books and Reading in the Connecticut Western Reserve: The Small-Settlement Social Library, 1800–1860

Abstract

Encouraged by the Puritan emphasis on literacy and mission, and energized by sociocultural needs and frontier voluntarism, New Englanders and others founded 107 small-settlement proprietary and subscription libraries in the Connecticut Western Reserve (part of present-day northern Ohio) before 1860. This article discusses the background context, organization, administration, patronage, and content of a representative number of these libraries as well as their evolution as predecessors of the tax-supported public library in nineteenth-century Ohio.