The New York Times > New York Region > In Library's Back Pages, a Vivid History Unfolds

A piece of Americana The New York Times > New York Region > In Library's Back Pages, a Vivid History Unfolds: "The 'liberry,' as the immigrants called it, functioned as the great educator and entertainer for the masses who made the clamorous streets their first American home. The reports from the 1920's describe how embryonic socialists intoxicated by volumes of Marx crowded next to bearded men bent over Yiddish versions of 'The Last of the Mohicans' and young working women drinking in Byron and Poe.
The hunger for knowledge and escape is palpable in one librarian's throwaway remark. The library, she said, had wisely decided to stop shelving books the same day they were returned and so 'did away with the restless, tired lines of children that often waited for hours in the hope of getting a better book.'"