Library system turns the page on a century
Orlando’s growth truly roared during the 1920s during Florida’s fabled land boom, and no year shone brighter than 1923, a century ago, as the city morphed from a modest market town to an aspiring urban center, distinguished by new, classy buildings. One was the city’s first “skyscraper,” the 11-story Angebilt Hotel, designed by architect Murry S. King for developer J.F. Ange at 37 N. Orange Ave. It’s still with us, now an office building, and looking pretty dandy.
Another King-designed 1923 building, the Albertson Public Library at Central Boulevard and Rosalind Avenue, has been replaced, but its legacy remains strong in the 14-branch Orange County Library System — this year celebrating its 100-year anniversary.
Centennial events begin Jan. 7 at 10:30 a.m. at the Orlando Public Library with a ribbon-cutting and rededication of the library to the community for the next 100 years that will also kick off a yearlong celebration. Events are set to include 1920s music from a local band, as well as a virtual-reality Albertson Public Library experience. (You can find details of the day at the library system’s website, ocls.info.)
I’m especially interested in that chance to revisit the Albertson by virtual reality. I’ll confess that one of my most vivid memories of the old library was the green drop box that sat outside the library by the curb, for the return of books after hours. I remember the countless times during high school I screeched up to that drop box to return
books at the last possible minute. Now the library system has announced that it’s “fine free,” and my high school self is cheering.
The club and the captain
The inspiration and books for the Albertson sprang from two main sources: an Orlando women’s group and an ex-New York City police officer.
The women’s group, Orlando’s Sorosis Club, had been organized in 1893 to bring together “a congenial set of women who were interested in literature,” according to Eve Bacon’s history of Orlando. They adopted the name “Sorosis” from the Latin word for sisterhood and are credited with starting Orlando’s first circulating library, operating initially from the homes of members.
Several years later, the club and its lending library moved to nearby quarters in the Knox-Bacon Building at 34 E. Pine St., where a brass plaque pays homage to these women who put
books in the hands of others, for free.
As preparations of Orlando’s
first taxpayer-supported public library began about 1921, the Sorosis
Club’s lending library formed part of the nucleus of its initial collection, joining a donation from the man whose name would go above the library’s door: Capt. Charles L. Albertson, who had retired to Orlando in 1913.
An avid book collector, Albertson offered to give his personal library — 12,000 volumes — to the city, if it would construct a building to house them. The books weighed 40,000 pounds and were valued at $75,000, according to Bacon’s history. When the library opened its doors in November 1923, it contained about 20,000 volumes from the Albertson and Sorosis collections.
1924: The first branch
Sadly, because of the institutionalized segregation of the times, the Albertson’s doors were closed to members of the Black community until the mid-1960s — but the vision of having a library for Orlando’s Black residents was wide open in the early 1920s, beginning with teachers at Jones High School, then on Parramore Avenue, who created an unofficial library for the community.
Others shared the teachers’ vision, including Olive Brumbach, the Albertson’s founding director. In June 1924, less than a year after the Albertson opened in November 1923, a news report noted that the library’s first branch had opened in the rectory of a church on Terry Avenue, near West Church Street.
The new Booker T. Washington branch — named after the great educator, who had died in 1915 — would have also a substation at Jones High School, the story said, adding that “the library is starting off with an equipment of more than 1,200 volumes, placed in two reading rooms and a reference room.” The children’s area had received special attention.
Mrs. Eddie Cromartie Jackson, the first librarian at the Booker T. Washington Branch, was a graduate of Morris Brown University in Atlanta who initially worked as a schoolteacher during the day and managed the branch after school and on weekends. Her starting salary was $30 a month.
Among Mrs. Jackson’s words: “A person cannot travel everywhere, meet people of all types, converse with men of all minds, unless he reads.” Amen to that, and here’s to the next century of creating a learning environment and experiences that foster growth and development, as the library system’s mission states.