Olive Pratt Young came to Sag Harbor alone, by train from Philadelphia.
Catherine Creedon, the current director of the John Jermain Memorial Library, imagines that Young — the library’s first director — strolled down Main Street from the village train station, arriving at the foot of a building where she and the library’s benefactress Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage would open Sag Harbor’s first public library 100 years ago this Sunday, October 10, 1910.
Creedon connects most with Pratt in the history of Sag Harbor’s public library, and in particular with the director’s commitment to reaching the entire Sag Harbor community, both natives and immigrants who found work and home in the whaling port and industrial village.
“She was extremely forward thinking,” said Creedon in an interview this week. “In 1910, the library had a wonderful collection of books, and she had a strong commitment to life of the mind, an understanding that resources needed to be available to everyone in the community.”
Boasting a large collection of literature in foreign languages, as well as newspapers, Pratt also started an English language program at JJML, and hosted Victrola nights at the library where she would invite the community to listen to music, when many did not have access to such a luxury.
“It was actually written into the original deed of trust, this mandate that the library be used time and time again, and as necessary, for cultural events,” said Creedon. “Central to the library’s mission is that we provide informational resources and cultural resources in all available formats so all the people may benefit.”
Trained as a public service librarian in the Mid-West, Creedon said this philosophy is central to her personal beliefs in the value of librarianship.
“I was one of those people who decided as a grade schooler to be a librarian,” she laughed. “I laugh when I say it, but it always seemed to be a particularly noble profession. To me, it is up there with being a rock star.”
And celebrated was Pratt, who served first as librarian at JJML and then as director when the position was created from 1912 to 1922. Her death shut down Main Street as shopkeepers closed for the day in order to attend her memorial service.
Pratt will be among several honorees this Saturday at a community celebration of the library’s 100 years of service to Sag Harbor, on the Custom House lawn, from 1 to 3 p.m.
Sag Harbor has actually had a library district since 1862, according to a detailed history of JJML compiled by former library director Allison Gray.
Mrs. Sage, also known as Mrs. Russell Sage, funded the library’s construction in honor of her grandfather Major John Jermain at a total cost of $92,000, including the price of the land.
Mrs. Sage died on November 4, 1918, a moment Pratt called a “shock” in her writings.
JJML’s first librarian, Cora H. Bunker, left before the official opening on October 10, and was replaced by Pratt who would later be named a library trustee.
According to Gray’s records, 5,000 volumes were available on opening day, with 250 books checked out, the first piece checked out by Mrs. Sage herself. Within a month, 1,248 Sag Harbor residents were registered borrowers, with an annual circulation of 51,755 volumes.
“Among our patrons we include all classes of people, and it is not alone those who are used to books . . . but also by those who have never owned a book and know very little about them,” wrote Pratt in 1916. “This shows that it is a library for the people and this is really the test of the usefulness of a public library…to reach everybody, rich and poor.”
Creedon said Pratt often complained of a lack of shelving space at the library, a problem that has plagued every director since.
Pratt died in 1922, with Alida Dutcher Martin taking over as director in 1923, with Martin also discussing the space constraints during her tenure.
JJML continued to operate as the heart of Sag Harbor through the 1940s, with trustees even offering mortgage loans to residents, and the library remained active through wars, providing resources and meeting places for residents in the throes of conflict.
In 1948, Elizabeth S. Phillips was hired as the new librarian, noting in her entries about the library that it had become a hub for researchers and students interested in the history of whaling.
“We have requests for interlibrary loans from as far away as California,” she wrote in her inaugural entry.
Throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s, a number of librarians reported continued concern over the deterioration of JJML, even with a roof replacement in 1950.
In 1957, JJML began to receive public funding through the school district for library services, in the face of growing financial difficulty, and joined the Suffolk Cooperative Library System in 1962.
Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, under library director Jim Ashe, JJML officials battled the village and historical society in their goal to renovate the basement and introduce a handicap accessible ramp, which was approved in 1993.
“The problem with the skateboarders in front of the library has begun,” states an anonymous entry in 1994.
The issue of handicap accessibility and the continued damage to the library building itself moved trustees, which eventually became a publicly elected board, to pursue a building plan for the library, one that continues to this day.
Eventually able to convince voters in the Sag Harbor School District to fund a nearly $10 million restoration, renovation and expansion of JJML in August of 2009, the library continues to await approval from the village for the roughly 7,000 square-foot modern addition.
However, public support for the library and its expansion has given Creedon much to celebrate with ice cream and cake on Saturday, when she will be thinking about the director who started it all and the benefactors, who over the years made the evolution of JJML a possibility.
“She was an adventurer,” said Creedon of Young. “And in her writings, you can tell she was very humble. She would probably be quite cross with me for all the times I have gotten her into the newspaper
on Oct 8, 2010