Vanderbilt builds a library and a relationship with its Peabody neighbor

by Bill Carey

"Old Main," now Kirkland Hall, was gutted by "the great fire of 1905." The building once housed the University's main library. Only 4,000 of the library's approximately 22,000 books were saved.

When Vanderbilt opened a $2 million library in 1941, it turned a considerable weakness into one of its strengths, and did so thanks to the generous support of one of the nation's largest foundations. The University also laid the ground work for what would eventually be the most significant merger in its history.

During the first 65 years of its existence, Vanderbilt had no library building and kept its book collection in a large room of the "Old Main" (later renamed Kirkland Hall.) When that structure was destroyed by fire in 1905, all but 4,000 of the library books were burned, and the University had to start its collection anew.

Vanderbilt's lack of a library building was a notable deficiency. Not only did it keep the University from having virtually any doctoral programs, it damaged the institution's national image. By the 1930s, both Duke University and the University of Texas had library collections almost twice as large as Vanderbilt's. "In the crunch, the library always had the lowest priority, below observatories, four major classroom buildings, the gym, dorms, the stadium, and auditorium and a student union," Paul Conkin wrote in Gone With the Ivy: A History of Vanderbilt University.

In 1929, Chancellor James H. Kirkland made the construction of a library the last major goal in his administration. In an era before Vanderbilt had a large enough alumni base to fund capital projects internally, he knew where he had to turn for help. During the 1920s, the John Rockefeller-backed General Education Board (GEB) and the Rockefeller family made several major donations to Vanderbilt, funding construction of the Vanderbilt Medical School and a classroom building (named after GEB secretary, Wallace Buttrick). Kirkland asked the GEB to contribute $500,000 toward a new Vanderbilt library that he at first believed would cost about $1 million.

By coincidence, George Peabody College for Teachers asked the GEB to contribute to a new library there about the time Vanderbilt did. The GEB responded to both institutions by saying it would not contribute to separate library buildings so close to each other, but would consider a contribution to a joint library of Vanderbilt and Peabody that could also be used by Scarritt College and the YMCA College (then located where Wesley Place Apartments now sit.) But it left the plan for joint ownership and operation of that library up to the schools.

It took Vanderbilt and Peabody several years to meet the GEB's criteria. Eventually, that plan not only addressed the joint operation of a library, but reorganized the two institutions to work together to avoid overlapping functions and reduce inefficiencies. The key person in working out this arrangement was Frederick Kuhlman, who came to Nashville in 1935 from the University of Chicago to work on the Vanderbilt-Peabody library concept.

Under the new Vanderbilt-Peabody arrangement, the two schools agreed on a mutual calendar and to recognize course work taken by students at either institution. They vowed to eliminate 280 quarter hours of duplicating work. The agreement also called for Vanderbilt to teach all content courses, with all education, fine arts and practical courses left to Peabody.

The YMCA College went out of business in the mid-1930s, leaving Vanderbilt, Peabody and Scarritt officials to work out details on how they would all share a common library. Under the agreement finalized in 1938, the universities set up a board consisting of faculty members from all three institutions. The three schools agreed to contribute financially to a facility that would be known as the Joint University Library. It would be built on the part of Vanderbilt's main campus closest to Peabody and Scarritt.

With this new working relationship between Vanderbilt and Peabody, the GEB agreed to contribute half of the money needed for the construction and endowment of the $2 million JUL facility. The Carnegie Foundation pitched in $250,000. That left Vanderbilt, Peabody and Scarritt in need of $750,000.

"Nashville Banner" owner and Vanderbilt alumnus, James Stahlman, headed up the library's fundraising campaign. He and other fund drive leaders appealed hard to Nashville's sense of spirit, pointing out that it would be a black mark on the city if the three institutions could not raise enough money to take advantage of the GEB's offer.

"Nashville is facing grave embarrassment which if not relieved will seriously impact the city's standing and future growth in the educational world," one article in Stahlman's "Banner" said. "As pointed out publicly by visiting educators in the recent symposium of higher education in the South, the library facilities of Nashville's leading educational institutions are wholly inadequate to support their purpose and opportunities."

During a two-week period in the fall of 1938, fund drive organizers spoke at separate luncheons sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, the Exchange Club, the Centennial Club, the Lions Club and the Kiwanis Club.

The fund drive largely succeeded when it raised more than $600,000. More than $104,000 of that amount was raised from Vanderbilt faculty, staff and students, with most of the rest coming from Vanderbilt alumni living locally and Nashville's business leaders. The Vanderbilt Board of Trust allocated the remaining $150,000 from University reserves to put the library project over the top.

By this time, Kuhlman had been named director of the JUL. Vanderbilt hired Nashville resident Henry Hibbs, who had previously designed the YMCA Graduate School building and Buttrick Hall, to be the library's architect.

Hibbs designed a four-story collegiate gothic structure with beautiful reading and reserve rooms, a Treasure Room for rare collections and special study rooms for professors engaged in research. It had space for 500,000 volumes, making it the fifth largest university library in the South at that time. Hibbs paid so much attention to detail that rubber tile was used throughout the building in order to make its interior as quiet as possible.

One of the big questions in planning the library building was whether it should be air conditioned. At the time, there were no buildings on the Vanderbilt campus that were equipped with central air. However, theaters, restaurants and stores were beginning to install it. Eventually, library planners concluded that air conditioning was needed for two reasons. One was because most of Peabody's students attended school in the summer. The other was the concern about the long-term impact of excessive heat on the library's book collection.

The JUL was completed in the fall of 1941, and its dedication took place Dec. 5-6, 1941. The next day, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and America's attention focused on war.

The Joint University Library and the cooperative agreement between Vanderbilt and Peabody that resulted from its need did not go unnoticed in academic circles. At the time of its opening, Louis Wilson, the dean of the library school at the University of Chicago, described the JUL agreement as "a document that renounces competition among institutions and libraries as a way of life and sets up in its stead a plan of co-operation for common benefits."

The plan would also have a long-term consequence that no one could foresee. In the 1950s, Peabody College began having financial problems because of competition from state colleges and from the fund-raising limitations. Those problems would eventually result in the 1979 merger between Vanderbilt and Peabody.

Bill Carey is a Vanderbilt alumnus, a writer for the Nashville Scene and the author of Fortunes, Fiddles and Fried Chicken: A Nashville Business History.