History: Library; Shreveport, Caddo Par., Louisiana
Submitted by: Pat Colby, RLCPAC9@aol.com
Date: July 2001



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HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY IN SHREVEPORT

Note: This article is from the Chronicles of Shreveport and has an additional 
story about the Shreve Memorial Library.

The beginning of the Mechanic's Library is told as follows by Mr. John Garson:
"This Library was started by Mode Cooper, (HIs full name was John Moton Cooper), 
W.F. Thoman and myse'f. In order to get a place where the workers could meet 
without having to go to the saloons, which at that time were the only places 
they had, we rented a room over W.W. Waring's Hardware store at 508 Texas Street. 
We had no furniture and no money. There was no work and there were only four 
white carpenters left here after the little boom we had was over, who joined us. 
But one of them is alive today -J.F. Lambert. In our room we had a table with 
benches on both sides. We wished to name our organization, but we did not wish 
to call it a club. We wanted some name that wou'd make an appeal to the public. 
I was subscribing to the Literary Digest; Mode Cooper, a machinist, had the 
Scientific American; someone had the Rip Saw; another the Iconoclast, all of 
which were placed on the tab'e and called it the Mechanic's Library. 
The Politicians hear of it and wanted to join, but they were not admitted. 
We did not want them to know how few we were in number. We went along that way 
for a year and increased to a few paper covered nove's such as Hamlin Garland's 
telling of the struggles of the western farmers, and others of that class, 
but we were not getting anywhere. 
In those days when you wanted a subscription for a public enterprise, you went 
to the banks and wholesa'e houses - Grocers, especially. I went to Wa'ter Jacobs. 
It appealed to him and he gave me the First National Bank's check for $250. There 
has always been a little rivalry among the banks, so I took the check to the 
Commercial National, the Merchants and Farmers, and McCutchen's and then to 
Ardis & Company, Hicks Company, and Crawford, Jenkins & Boothe, who had just 
started business, and before night I had about $1,100.
Walter Jacobs had told his mother (that grand old woman, who was always doing 
some good deed without letting the world know it) and she sent for me and gave 
me a check for $250. We decided that, as it was to be a reading room for the 
workers, they should elect officers from among themselves and have full charge 
of it, which they did. The money was then turned over to them. Mr. Kendrick was 
the first president, I think. 
A small frame store that stood where M.L. Bath's building on Market now stands, 
was rented. Chairs, tables and home-made book cases were put in and a sign, 
"The Mechanics' Library," in large letters was placed on the glass door and 
front of the show windows. 
Peter Trezevant took great interest in the Library, giving us books from his 
library, helped them select new books and was their advisor as long as he lived. 
We remained at this place until the consolidation with the Library the ladies 
had in the Court House, which was then called the Peop's Library, which later 
gave all its books to the Shreve Memorial Library in a building owned by the 
City as it should be. The censor may have been a bit careless, and you may still 
find some papers of the class of the Rip Saw and the Iconoclast among its tables.