This is just the beginning! Our collection holds over 300 years of history, including rare newspapers, obituaries, marriage records, birth records, and so much more—most of which you won’t find anywhere else!
The Bristol Free Library Dedication Speech
A late 19th century civic address lauds the opening of the Rogers Free Library in Bristol Massachusetts. The speaker traces the history of public libraries from ancient to modern times, praises Boston and Wayland reforms, and urges a broad, nonsectarian, community backed institution enriching education, civic virtue, and local pride.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Storyhouse of Medicine
Nineveh
Greece
Rome
Pompeii
Herculaneum
Monastries
Ireland
Europe
Florence
Macauley
Italy
Artas
Tribune
Raphael
Tiian
Michael Angelo
Virgil
Amalfi
Nicholas the Fifth
Vatican
Herodotus
Thucydides
Mazarin
Ludwig
Longfellow
Pirckheimer
Bern
Geneva
Germany
England
France
Franklin
Philadelphia
Redwood
Newport
Providence
Atheneum
Simeon Potter
Potter Library Company
John Jacob Astor
City
New York
Boston
Quincy
Massachusetts
Library of Congress
United States
Publc
Terest
Astor Library
Commonwealth
John B. Wight
Wayland
Bristol
Philip
Narragansett
Walley
Byfield
Church of England
Oxford
Harvard
Old New England
Potter Library
Anson and Cook
Spectator
Rambler
Paley and Ferguson
Vattel
Tuffendorf
John DeWolf
Siberia
St. Petersburg
Rogers Free Library
Free Public Library
Museum of Art
Natural History
Stewart
Meissonnier
Shakspeare
Milton
New England