Roosevelt Branch Library

About this property

Roosevelt Library is one of 41 community libraries in the Hennepin County Library System, originally part of the Minneapolis Public Library System as it is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Roosevelt Library was originally built inside and named for Roosevelt High School (named after Theodore Roosevelt) in Minneapolis's Standish neighborhood in 1922. In this way, it not only served the high school students, but also the adults of the neighborhood. In the 1920s, Standish experienced a 50% population boom consisting mainly of Swedish immigrants, so Roosevelt was available to them for language-learning and job-finding resources. However, Roosevelt soon outgrew the high school as the neighborhood flourished, so in 1926 the Minneapolis Public Library purchased a package of land directly west of Roosevelt High School for $28,000. They hired Klarquist, S.M. and Son to design the new library building. The architectural firm did so, designing a brick and wood building in the Tudor Revival style. The building was modeled after the original East Lake Community Library, also a Minneapolis library, although Roosevelt had a small amount of front yard space where East Lake did not. On February 15, 1927, Roosevelt opened to the community at 4026 28th Avenue South. Upon opening the library's hours were 10 a.m. – 9 p.m., Monday–Friday and 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. on Saturdays. This quote from Theodore Roosevelt was included in Community Bookshelf article on the library, “After the church and the school, the free public library is the most effective influence for good in America.” It went on to state, “We hope we may justify this statement in this new neighborhood, and that the people will use our equipment freely for their enjoyment and education.” The opening day staff were: Ada N. Whiting, Librarian; Eleanor Heimark, First Assistant; Volborg Sobba, Assistant; Lessley Chilson, Assistant; Wallace Petri, Page; Mina Jacobsen, Janitress. Roosevelt was open five or six days a week for most of the 20th century. Depending on library funding, it was sometimes open on Saturday and other times closed then. Fluctuations in neighborhood population and the changing demographics of the community also contributed to library usage and open hours. During World War II, librarians at Roosevelt held special story times for the children of the area, many of whom had mothers in the workforce and fathers fighting in the European or Pacific Theater. This helped the children take their minds off the war, and also helped curb rising juvenile delinquency rates in the Standish neighborhood.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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