![]() Central Library consists of the Julia Ideson Building and the Jesse H. The library system now consists of 35 neighborhood libraries, including four regional libraries, the Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research in the Museum District, and the Central Library in Downtown. On August 21, 1953, library facilities for high school students and adults were desegregated – without public announcement to the black community. In June 1953, Mayor of Houston Roy Hofheinz told the HPL board that library facilities should no longer be segregated. Supreme Court, which challenged the " separate but equal" legal doctrine. Smith, stated they would prefer a voluntary desegregation program despite their likelihood of winning a lawsuit shortly before the letter was printed, Sweatt v. Desegregation occurred after a letter printed in the Houston Informer from several prominent black Houstonians, including Smith v. Beforehand, blacks were permitted use of the Colored Carnegie Branch and deposit stations located at a park, a high school, and an elementary school whites were permitted use of the main library, six branches, two bookmobiles, and several deposit stations. The library system racially desegregated in 1953. Johnson Library in Sunnyside, dedicated on June 16, 1964. The branch, auctioned in February 1962 and shortly afterward demolished except for the cornerstone, was replaced by the W. The library facility required extensive repairs and it was in the path of the Clay Avenue extension project. On July 31, 1961, the Carnegie Colored Library closed. It was transferred to the management as a branch library of Houston Public Library in 1921. The Colored Carnegie Library of Houston opened in 1913 with an African American board of trustees and management. ![]() Smith lobbied local white leaders and the Carnegie Foundation for a library to serve the black community. A group of African-American educators led by Ernest O. However, those working at the library turned away African-Americans educators who visited in 1907, while ostensibly referring the matter to the trustees. The board for the Houston Carnegie Library had planned for universal access to the facilities. The building constructed as Houston's Central Library in 1926 was later named the Julia Ideson Building in her honor. The new building opened with a collection of more than thirty thousand volumes. The second floor hall lay under a rotunda, fronted by an interior oaken gate with carved columns and entablatures. The Spanish Renaissance design draws from regional history, and includes carvings of explorers and missionaries of Texas. The building was completed in two years and at a cost of $500,000. They commissioned Cram and Ferguson as design architects, in consultation with William Ward Watkin and Louis A. Bagby, a co-founder of the 1848 Houston Lyceum. The library board selected a lot once occupied by Thomas M. A few years later, the library sold its property to raise money for a larger facility. ![]() By this time, they had outgrown their space and relocated several staff members to the Harris County Courthouse. The city changed the name from Carnegie Library to Houston Public Library in 1921. By 1913, the library counted seven persons on its payroll. By 1907, 10,000 Houstonians held accounts at the library. Located at the corner of Travis and McKinney in what is now known as Downtown Houston, it originally housed 10,000 volumes. Betty Trapp Chapman wrote in The Houston Review that the city's women "were instrumental" in the library's establishment and that the educated women "had long recognized the need for a library to serve the community." Julia Ideson was named its first librarian and she hired one employee. The facility opened in 1895 and obtained its own building in 1904 with financial assistance from Andrew Carnegie. In 1892, William Marsh Rice, a Houston businessman and philanthropist who later chartered Rice University, donated $200,000 for the construction of a free public library. The lyceum's library eventually split into a separate institution at the end of the 19th century. The lyceum was preceded by a debating society, a special-interest mechanics' lyceum, and a circulating library. The Houston Public Library system traces its founding to the creation of the second Houston Lyceum in 1854.
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