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From Mercantile Roots to Cultural Cornerstone: The 150-Year Evolution of Rosenberg Library

• Galveston Unscripted | J.R. Shaw

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Mike Miller, director of the Rosenberg Library, shares the fascinating 150-year evolution of one of Texas's oldest public libraries and how it became Galveston's premier historical research institution. The Rosenberg Library stands as a unique cultural cornerstone housing all four GLAM components—Gallery, Library, Archive, and Museum—preserving irreplaceable Texas history dating back to the early 1700s.

• Founded through Henry Rosenberg's will in 1893, with $600,000 (millions in today's dollars) dedicated to creating a public library
• Opened in 1904 but traces its roots to the 1871 Galveston Mercantile Library, a subscription service created by local merchants
• Houses the collections of the Texas Historical Foundation, focusing on pre-Civil War Texas history and comprehensive Galveston records
• Contains the first map identifying "Galveston Bay" from 1722 and numerous historical treasures
• Established one of the first libraries for African Americans in Texas before quietly desegregating
• Combines all four pillars of information institutions—Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum—making it exceptionally rare for a city of Galveston's size


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Speaker 1:

We're what is referred to as a GLAM, and GLAM stands for Gallery, library, archive and Museum. Very few institutions have all four. There's many institutions that are two or three of those perhaps, and so we're unique that we have all four under one and for a city of Galveston's size, a GLAM, the size and scope of what we have here, it's truly amazing. It's what brought me to Galveston was the ability to be a part of this. Hello and welcome to Galveston was the ability to be a part of this.

Speaker 2:

Hello and welcome to Galveston Unscripted. In this episode today I sit down with the director of the Rosenberg Library, mr Mike Miller. Mike and I discuss the 12-decade-long history of the Rosenberg Library, one of Galveston's great institutions. It officially opened in June of 1904 as one of the many generous gifts to the city of Galveston from Swiss immigrant, mr Henry Rosenberg. Generous gifts to the city of Galveston from Swiss immigrant Mr Henry Rosenberg.

Speaker 2:

Rosenberg arrived on Galveston Island in February of 1843 at the age of 19. He became a wealthy merchant and died in 1893 with no children to pass along his wealth. Rosenberg's will outlined several projects, including the establishment of a new and improved public library for the residents of Galveston. But the roots of this library stem back to 1871, making it one of the oldest public libraries in Texas. Without further ado, let's hop right into this episode with Mr Mike Miller, director of the Rosenberg Library. The Rosenberg is the premier place to research history here in Galveston, so I wanted to have you on and just talk to you about the history of the library and talk a little bit about research libraries and what you guys have to offer.

Speaker 1:

So a little bit about the library itself, as the Rosenberg Library got our start from Henry Rosenberg, who was a Swiss merchant in Galveston. He was a very successful merchant, made a whole lot of money and died childless and so he had all this money to leave and in his will he set aside portions of money for certain causes. Around Galveston there's the Rosenberg Fountains I think it's about 17 of them left around.

Speaker 2:

The.

Speaker 1:

Orphan's Home was funded with Rosenberg money but the biggest chunk of his estate was set aside to create a public library for the city of Galveston and that was Henry's wish, that there was a place for people to come learn, to grow, to hear lectures, to have access to literature and information and that was really important for him to do that. So that's the bulk of his money. At that time it was $1,895. It was $600,000.

Speaker 2:

That's millions of dollars.

Speaker 1:

Today's dollars. But that was the genesis of the library. In his will he also said that nothing could happen for five years because he wanted the money to sit and grow before they would form what's called the Rosenberg Library Association, which is the governing body of the library. And so they did form in 1900, put out bids for a building and they erected the building that we're in now in 1904. That's the.

Speaker 1:

Rosenberg Library. But our history actually dates earlier. In 1871, the Chamber of Commerce, of which Henry Rosenberg was a member, believed he was a part of this effort to create what was called the Galveston Mercantile Library. By its name, mercantile was a library put together by the area merchants. It was a subscription library, so people had to pay an annual subscription to be a member and be able to go in and use it. That was a pretty typical way the library started. You saw that all across the country, kind of like what a subscription library sounds like. It was an opportunity for these businessmen. It wasn't just the businesses, it was the business owners, the merchants. Instead of them all buying their own copies of books, they could go in together and so it was almost like a co-op in that way in some ways for people to know what co-ops are, and so that's what it was doing.

Speaker 1:

And it would be newspapers, magazines. They would do like a subscription, so that the Mercantile Library would have a subscription to the Cincinnati Times or something, and it would come in then they could have it, and they would.

Speaker 1:

they could go sit and read it in the reading room at the Mercantile Library and then a book collection and there but there were also probably was reference collection as well, to help them with things that they might help them with their businesses. Instead of again, instead of each business buying their own copy, they could go in together and start a library, which is why this was a fairly common phenomenon across the country. As you saw, Mercantile libraries popping up in the mid to late 19th century. Within a couple of years it became a free library, so they dropped the subscription and then over time from 1871 to 1904, it went back and forth between the chamber running it and the city running it. One time the city agreed to put up some money and they ran it and then the city stopped caring about it. So the chamber stepped in to keep it going and it just kind of went back and forth.

Speaker 1:

When the Rosenberg Library opened in 1904, there was a competing. It was called the Galveston Free Library and it was run by the city at that time and so the city approached the Rosenberg Library Association and said we don't need two libraries, so why don't you take over operations of the Galveston Free Library and the city will commit some funds to keep it going. The Rosenberg Library Association can take over that public library duties that you usually see in municipalities, and so we date ourselves back to 1871 because we claim that library's history. Since we assumed their operations, we brought their collection over. I say we I wasn't there at the time and took over that, and that's kind of the genesis of the Rosenberg Library.

Speaker 1:

So at the same time that the Galveston Mercantile Library started, there was an organization that was created in Galveston called the Texas Historical Foundation and it went by different names at different times. When it started, essentially it was a group of guys. They were acknowledging that a lot of the people who had lived through the Texas Revolution and the early Republic days of when Texas was an independent republic, that they were starting to die off and move off like that and no one was making an effort to preserve their history. And so they formed this organization for the sole purpose of reaching out to these people, collecting documents, collections, stories, to create an early Texas history collection. And they, off and on. They were active, inactive, inactive and the collection just floated around Galveston throughout the first 20, 30 years when the storm, Great Storm hit, the library and the Historical Foundation were both officed in the Scottish Rite building just down the street. Here they were on the top floor.

Speaker 1:

That building was, of course, damaged, as most of the island was. It wasn't completely destroyed. The library side was spared. The side with the historical group was, that's the side where the wall collapsed and whatnot, and so they lost a significant part of that collection. Oh man, and the guys that were running at the time, during the early 1900s, recognized that you won there, maybe were they weren't the best equipped to be managing and protecting these records. They were also starting. That's when you started to see their focus to the built environment. So this organization is the predecessor to what's now the Galveston Historical Foundation.

Speaker 2:

GHF.

Speaker 1:

They renamed it as the Galveston Historical Society Again. They went through different names at the time before they finally realized okay, we're going to be focused on the built environment and historic buildings and maybe we don't need to be collecting records. And so shortly after the Rosenberg opened, this organization approached the library and said can we deposit our collections at the library to keep them safe? And within a year after that deposit they came back and said why don't you just own them? They're now your collection Texas, because of the collecting efforts of that early organization and we had such a phenomenally rich early Texas history collection that came with that, and so we still build on to that. But we don't collect Texana after the Civil War.

Speaker 2:

So the focus is pre-Civil War Texas For Texas and then Galveston, from prehistory to present day. And you guys have some pretty amazing artifacts in the library. On top of written accounts of early Galveston, early Texas, old maps dating back to the 15, 16, 1700s, we do we have the first map that's known that identified Galveston Bay as Galveston Bay.

Speaker 1:

It's a early 18th century, 1722. It's a map, it's a French map. There's a third kind of arm of the library is our museum. The Special Collections Department of the library oversees the archives and the museum, but in the information world we're what is referred to as a GLAM, and GLAM stands for Gallery, library, archive and Museum.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:

And so those are the kind of. Those are like the four pillars of the information library world. Very few institutions have all four, many institutions that are two or three of those perhaps, and so we're unique that we have all four under one, and for a city of Galveston's size, a glam, the size and scope of what we have here, it's truly amazing.

Speaker 2:

It's what brought me to Galveston was the ability to be a part of this, because I think it truly is unique brought me to Galveston was the ability to be a part of this, because I think it truly is unique Going inside that library, especially the old section, the 1904 building. The original part is really cool to see. So the original building, of course, is still there, and then it's had the addition onto the back, the Moody Wing. The Moody Wing, yeah, which was built and opened in 1971.

Speaker 1:

So that is now more than 50 years old. Yeah, it's actually now part of our National Register listing to talk about race in libraries. Just because we've for so much of our history has been segregated and the Rosenberg Library was no different. But we did have one of the, if not the first, libraries for African-Americans at what's now the Old Central Cultural Center. That was the old central high and then so the rosenberg had what was then called the colored branch, which was the terminology of the day, and that was something it was actually.

Speaker 1:

The community had requested the rosenberg library association to open a branch there and the rosenberg library association agreed without any contention. That I could tell in the minutes and stuff and it was one of the very first libraries for African Americans in the state. And then the Rosenberg desegregated pretty quietly, I think, like a lot of things in Calvacent. It just kind of just happened and when that did they no longer saw the need to maintain a second location and so all that just kind of got absorbed. If you go to the Rosenberg Library Museum's webpage and go to our Treasures of the Month, the backstories, there's two or three really nice blog posts on there about some of those first librarians of the colored branch and the work that they did. That's a great place if you want to learn more about that story.

Speaker 2:

Mike, thank you so much for coming in today. I really appreciate you. I appreciate everything the library has helped me with my research and live events that we've done over there in the past year or so. So thanks for everything, man. I really appreciate you. Thank you.

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J.R. Shaw

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