Program

NYS Historic

Subject

People

Location

560 Ridge Rd, Lackawanna, NY 14218, USA

Lat/Long

42.82598, -78.83101

Grant Recipient

Lackawanna Historical Association

Clara A. Whealen and members of the Pioneer Study Club of Lackawanna in Erie County, New York, helped to establish a public library in the city of Lackawanna. The Pioneer Study Club, a women’s social club that formed in 1909, established a library committee around 1914, with Whealen serving as leader of the committee. For the next two years, Whealen and the library committee worked to secure funding that would allow for the construction of a public library building in the city.

The front page of the May 10, 1917 edition of the Lackawanna Journal reported that Whealen and the Pioneer Study Club’s library committee had successfully secured funds for the library, exclaiming that, the “Carnegie Corporation Allots Lackawanna Library Committee $30,000 for Library Building.” The Carnegie Corporation of New York was established in 1911 by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to provide funding and support for educational programs and institutions throughout the world. This included the awarding of construction grants for the building of what became known as Carnegie libraries. The Journal praised Whealen’s efforts in the campaign for the Carnegie construction grant:

Mrs. Whealen is deserving of all the good things that the Journal can say for her in the landing of this big enterprise for this city and when we say that she has worked with the will of iron one does not grasp the real meaning of the word who has not followed her in the work, more or less, during the last two years.

For over two years Mrs. Whealen has written a weekly story for the Journal, that during the time has covered every phase of the situation that could have the least bearing on why we should have a library here and every week the Journal went to the Carnegie Institution and to the State Librarian at Albany.

A month ago the State Librarian came to Lackawanna as the guest of Mrs. Whealen and while here he called at the Journal office and commended the campaign that Mrs. Whealen had waged thru the Journal and he told us that he had caused to be clipped from the Journal, each week, and pasted in a scrap book, in his office, in the educational building, at Albany, the library stories that appeared therein as a guide for future campaigns of the same nature.

The Journal went on to relate how Whealen successfully advocated for an additional $10,000 in funding from the Carnegie Corporation when it was discovered that the originally awarded $20,000 would not be enough to construct the building. Whealen also secured $3,000 from the city for the annual maintenance of the library.

A short while later, ground was broken on land deeded to the city located on Ridge Road. The Pioneer Study Club worked to obtain books to fill the shelves of the new library and by 1922 the building was complete. The Lackawanna Public Library was formally dedicated on July 10, 1922 and opened its doors to the public on July 12. Whealen served as the first president of the library board of trustees.

As of 2022, the Lackawanna Public Library continued to serve its community in the 1922 Carnegie library building on Ridge Road in the city of Lackawanna.