Preserving California Carnegie libraries : an exclusive interview with Lucy Deam Kortum

I'm Joan Cooper. And recently I had the distinct honor and pleasure of interviewing Lucy. Dean Cord about her life's work preserving the architectural heritage of California. Lucy and her new husband, Bill Kham moved to Snow County in the early fifties to establish his veterinary practice. And

Lucy helped with that and also raised, three Children, began to take courses at Sonoma State which was recently established in Roar Park. We got to speak about her work preserving and registering Silk Mill in Petaluma, as well as the Carnegie Library on the National Historic Registry

of buildings. She'll talk in depth about the complexity of the research and the application process as well as the fact that her master's thesis resulted in an additional 10 California Carnegie libraries being preserved and protected. Lucy was a partner in the environmental work that Bill spearheaded

and resulted in the preservation of Bodega Head from the PG and E nuclear plant, as well as the establishment of the Coastal Commission and the Now Open Coast Trail. Lucy was awarded the Jean Thurlow Miller Individual Award by the Sonoma County Historical Society for her work

preserving California's architectural heritage. And she was also recognized on the floor of Congress by now retired Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey in 2007. I know you're going to enjoy hearing from Lucy who recently celebrated her 90th birthday. Hello, I'm Joan Cooper and this is Lucy de, I'm here

today to interview Lucy about her. Um many decades of living in Sonoma County and um preserving its heritage by registering the Petaluma Historical Museum and Library on the National Register of Historic Places as well as the silk um factory. And, um, we're gonna be talking about

um, life in Sonoma County and how it's changed. We came and, uh, went to Bill was practicing at, uh, in that period before he went in the army was, uh, working at doctor Ney's Veterinary Hospital, which was on the old Redwood Highway. Still. I was there

all the time. I never left the veterinary hospital. And, uh, but we were aware of our proximity to San Francisco because there was no freeway in the car. The Redwood highway and main street to town was the way you got to San Francisco living at the

veterinary hospital. I, I didn't get out, we had one car. I didn't even get to the grocery store. We used to order our groceries at Asherman and they'd be sitting in a box and I never saw the, saw the library. Uh, I didn't see the silk

mill. I didn't see, uh, any of town at that time. Then when we came back from the army. Bill wanted to look for a place to start his own practice. And so we traveled all over the state of California and here and decided on which had

the advantages of being close to San Francisco. And, uh, but it was especially close to all the dairy areas and it was also, and it was close to family. But again, I didn't see the town I was, lived at the veterinary hospital. Well, this is interesting

to me because, you know, it's only, what, 5, 10 miles away. But your life was where Bill's work was, you've always liked books and libraries and the book mobile was important to you. Uh, you did have an undergraduate degree. Tell us a little bit about your

undergraduate studies, what you were interested in and, uh, what your degree was in and how that led eventually to your graduate degree in, uh, masters in history. My intention was to major in liberal arts but they didn't, they dropped that major the year I came and

I majored in education which, uh, allowed you to take a wide range of courses. I always loved journalism and that's where I had. And the, my other source of my search for a job was in, but that was kind of hard. They didn't hire women in

newspapers very much in those days. So this master's program, can you talk a little bit about what it entailed and how it led to you? Um learning how to apply a building for the National Register. Well, the original courses that I took were just because there

it was, and it was so exciting and it felt like you wanted to be in on the ground floor. And then I took random courses after that and along the line, uh, kids getting older and starting to, to school and bill becoming more involved in politics

while I was, was, uh, working out there and taking its own state and taking a variety of courses. I did hear about the uh a new master's program that was starting what they call public history. And one of the first courses I took was Doctor Dan

Marin's course called Society and Architecture. And in that course, uh one of the assignments was for uh to write a National Register nomination, looking around to decide what to what building I might nominate. Uh the Silk Mill leaped out and it's just a wonderful building and

it was a, a great experience. And John Agne, who is then the uh the manager of the of the building and the business then was very helpful, enthusiastic. So that was very much fun. Now, it's fairly complicated and lengthy to write one of these applications. How

many pages is an application and what goes into one? Well, there, there are two sections, it's sign. Uh there's one that describes, focuses on the building and one on the significance uh the social significance of the building. I don't think there's any uh number of pages

it has to be, but it had, there are points that has to cover in both those uh including in its description, the building materials and things like that. And then uh in the significance more the, the cultural aspect and its place in the community and, and

uh any anything that grows out of that because each building, each business would be somewhat different. Each building would be somewhat different. A San Francisco architect designed the building, but there is a big social aspect to it in that community leaders wanted the building. The company

was in San Francisco is then Carlson Courier Silk Mill and it was going to move from San Francisco and uh other communities were vying for it. And so it became a great community effort to have them uh select. And so uh there are many people in

all layers of the community that were excited about it and could see that it was important for the future. So tell, tell me a little bit about um you did the research to find all this information out. You were first attracted to it just because it

was an outstanding looking building and you knew very little about this history when you looked into it. Nothing. So um it would be interesting for me and our listeners to hear a little bit a synopsis of why it was so culturally uh important to you or

um pivotal. One thing they talked a lot about what was kind of surprising was that it would hire a lot of women. Uh And that would be work that women could do is uh working in the silk mill. But, but it, it was uh wanted it

just as a, as a really big boost to the community that became its biggest industry for a while. And uh the mcnear Canal, the canal right next adjacent to the river just south of town and coming up in front of the Silk Mill was built by

mcnear to serve the silk mill. So this kind of for fun, decided to write, do that, not for a class or anything. I like the way you what you consider fun. Other people would consider a very big, big job in undertaking. Um And then it became

the subject of your master's thesis, the California uh Carnegie libraries. Yeah, they, they pedal him at first and then uh helped on the other uh Hills uh Carnegie Library. Both of those buildings designed by Brainard Jones who had designed the uh the addition to the silk

mill. I didn't mention that it silt mill had been doubled in size along that it was Jones who was the architect who did that on the uh library as well as uh the Hills Library. So that, but at that, in the process of looking stuff up

for that, it became really interested in the other Carnegie libraries and found out that there were 100 and 44 Carnegie in California. And, uh, second, I think the second greatest number of any of the States. And, uh, so, you know, just kind of when we go

some place, look at them and got more and more interested. So when it came time to think of a, a master's thesis for that, uh, public history that just seemed natural to, uh, uh, to study them and go around and, and look at each one and,

you know, there hadn't been any much study till then, determining how many were actually left in California. There were lists of all the Carnegie, but there, the car California's hadn't been particularly set aside in anybody's mind or, and, um, so you are, I would call the

reigning expert on California Carnegie libraries. You have, uh, you wrote all of the words of a, uh, a live website now that people can access and learn about the California libraries. And, um, so tell us a little bit about, um, your mentor, your, um, advisor for

your thesis, uh, the title of your thesis and the grant that you received to pay for all this driving around and looking at these libraries. Well, Doctor Harris was the head of the program and, uh, he and Doctor Mark, when were the main two, professors in

the program? He recognized it would be pretty expensive to drive up and down the whole entire state and study each one. So um he suggested that uh to the state office, historic preservation that they might be interested and that actually resulted in two separate reports, one

for the state uh in which uh there was an uh uh a description of each one and uh they have a form of historical uh buildings form. And so they had some of a few were already on the National Register and then others, they had this

historic building form but that so complete that get all the libraries uh in the state and uh and nominate 10 more. And uh uh that for that, they, they paid $5000 to, for driving expenses. The idea was that I was incorporating that into my master's also

because I was traveling for the same goal and uh studying the same thing, finding the same information about each individual library and, and finding about the communities, the community itself is a very important part of any uh well of any library. It's architectural description kind of

in the building materials and, and its design and its style and uh and, and then its significance and its history and significance, how it, how the community managed to uh get together the um all the information and ask petition at the Carnegie program. He had started

a, a program in the last part of the 19th century uh of building libraries in the towns that he was uh active in and then more and more requests came in and he set up a whole program for anybody, any community in the country to apply

for a library. And so there's some more than 2000 libraries in the country. And as I said, 100 and 44 in California. So this would be a good time to provide a little education for our listeners about libraries and how they went, they were private until

communities got the funds or got together to provide free public libraries and what that meant to a community. And uh tell us a little bit about the history of libraries. Well, of course, they go way, way back and you know, the uh libraries in Egypt and

Alexandria and, and England, Alexander, uh Andrew Carnegie had come from Scotland where there was already uh a library in his, there was a library in his town that uh person had established. And uh there's a long history of libraries in the eastern United States and most,

a lot of them were set up by communities and some by wealthy people, benefactors who put up the money for libraries. But um by the time that uh Carnegie was pretty wealthy and, and he was, he was very attracted to libraries because he had been a

pretty poor kid and, but he had not, his family had known the libraries in Scotland. And when he was a young man, a very wealthy person in his town made his uh library open every Saturday to the young men in the town to get books and

it, it was the man and, and uh uh he be he benefited greatly from that. So after he had made a lot of money, then he's just started, he started giving these different towns where he had factories and this was top down, he was giving them,

made a great big library, uh splendid library for, for them. But more and more towns heard of it. And he devised a system where a different a town could apply for a library. And uh and he, he didn't turn down libraries just Willy nilly, I mean,

but he wanted all the information and the that know the town was behind it. There were little libraries starting all over in the individual towns and there were a lot of private libraries mostly by um sometimes by groups of women, mostly by um uh lodges and

organizations would start a library. And so Petaluma had a number of libraries over the years and the fellows library was what it turned out to be one of the most long lasting and successful. And, and this was happening all over the state and the state passed

a law that's encouraged a library such as the odd villas to give their library to the city and uh and allow them to have members of uh rep be represented on the board of the library. And so that started more established libraries and these were the

libraries that Carnegie would fund only ones that belong to cities and that could pass a tax. Uh, I understand there's an interesting story behind the, um, uh, the building of the Carnegie Library in Petaluma, uh relative to the donation of the land and the funds for

building it and its, um, requirements to always remain a library. Can you tell us about how the community came together to get these funds from Carnegie? Well, actually the women wrote first, but he, he was only dealing with cities. I mean, he felt that the only

way the library could be stable was to have a city tax base. So a couple of years later, when the city requested funds for a library, it was accepted though, not quite as much money as they had hoped. And the city had to pass a tax.

They were required to pass a certain amount of tax to be able to, to be able to sustain the library to prove to Carnegie that they could sustain it. And uh and also provide the land. And so, uh Mrs Addie Atwater, uh who was one of

the women that had originally requested a library and had been snubbed, um because he didn't deal with individuals, she sold her land at probably somewhat less than half price at this, this prominent site. And uh so they could put all that in their application. They had

a site they passed a tax and the money came and uh they sought out a lot, uh, architect and Brainard Jones was selected and the library was built and then the earthquake came and uh the library listed the earthquake beautifully. It wasn't finished and it was

pretty hard to get workmen to work on the library because of all the damage in Santa Rosa and other places. So, but even uh about a year later, the library was completed and uh so it was almost ready to open in April 19 6. So and

it was the town library for many years until the eighties. When a larger was it the eighties? When the their town required a larger seventies, the library had been crowded for a long time and they and they, they tried to pass uh the bond to build

a a new library and it just, it never passed Mrs Atwater when she donated the land had said if the land were ever not used for a library, it would revert to her or her heirs. The the city council would finally commit that it would remain

as a library. Ah but they would build a new library and it passed and new that was in 76 the old library would be converted into a museum. Uh but it would have a functioning library as an aspect of it. And its name is Petaluma Library,

historical library and museum. So that conforms with uh any the ex expectations of any out water air who still turns up. So, um preserve the um land and the building by maintaining a historical library on site. And it's also a wonderful resource now full of um

photographs and memorabilia. And it's a research center and I understand you volunteer in this library as well as sit on the board and I don't sit on the board. I have at different times but I don't have it for a long time. But, uh, I have

worked in the library for a long time. And, uh, one of the, one of the librarians who moved to the new library, uh, was about to retire and she came back and were, and more or less started the, the library at the museum. And that was

Leo and Hopkins and her husband Hoppy Hopkins and Ed Man, were and Ed Fortini were the real, uh movers of the and had started a historical society before that. And, uh, long before that. And so that was also fundamental in, uh, the eventual establishment of the

historical a library in the building. Do you think that the building would have been in danger of being torn down at any time? Had it not been registered or had not Eddie Atwater had her, uh, caveat on what should happen to the land. Well, it certainly

could have because buildings were turned down. The City Hall was almost next door, you know, up closer to Western Avenue. And it was torn down. Uh, it, it almost could have but the tide had pretty much changed by then. Also, people were being less hasty to

tear down buildings. And, uh, but that's, it's certainly possible. It probably never seemed possible anybody would tear down the City Hall or, uh, any of the other buildings that have been lost. So, yeah, it could have. So, uh, let's get back a little bit to your

master's thesis because I understand that in it, you were asked to also set criteria for other uh applications for Carnegie Library preservation. Can you talk about criteria and how, how to set them and what you did, your master's was one document and then the state, you

provided something else for the state. Is that what you're saying? They were very similar and used the basic, the, the document for the state and the document for Sloma State for one for the state of California, one person on the state we're similar in, in many

ways and we use the same survey form and the same reporting form. But uh for the one person on the state, uh I just, you know, wrote a text describing the library process and uh libraries developed and how California Library is developed and where they all

were and kind of talked about the different factors in different communities that led to their being Carnegie libraries or not. A lot of communities opted not to have a Carnegie library. Because another uh what he say, important person in their town with lots of money, donated

the library too. And so there are a number of those for the document for the state uh also was asked to nominate 10 more libraries, which we kind of was selected uh geographically around the state and uh different styles and different times. And so they weren't

all alike and they were uh some were big and some were little to kind of show the diversity of the Carnegie Library. But uh the other big thing that the state asked that the that wasn't for the first known, the state was that come up with

criteria that would be because libraries didn't always have the same criteria as a typical other building. And the state is getting more and more into less individual building nominations and into more community center ones uh type of building, you know, where a group of buildings meet

some criteria. And so, uh and so for the libraries of the, of the state, they had some aspects uh in them that were required for libraries for the national register that weren't necessarily uh required for an individual nomination. And in fact, there probably would be very

few more individual nominations and they would go more to looking comprehensively at uh at how the state the library was meeting community news, news norms, was staying prominent in the community, staying uh architecturally uh suitable. And uh so there's there's not a huge difference, a big

line to draw, but there's definitely a, a line, of course, I don't know if they still stayed with those ones that I prescribed, but I didn't do it all independently too. I work with the historians in the State Office of Historic Preservation and come up with

those. So presumably the ones that are in my paper pretty much to the ones they still use now. Well, that must be very satisfying to you to know that your work is still vital and still working to preserve our historic and architectural heritage. Uh Have you,

um, checked out any of the 10 libraries you nominated in addition to Petal? Have you been able to travel around again to see them what's going on? But we've talked about, uh, resurveying all the libraries to see one thing we, at the time that I did

this in 19, this was in what, uh, 19 eighties and the 19 seventies, a library, one library in Corona had been destroyed because they couldn't save it. And, uh, so that was already gone by the time I did my paper, but there hadn't been any since

then. And as far as I know from everything I've heard and learned from people, there hasn't been any since then, but I'm not positive. So it's kind of we're thinking about doing an updated survey and, and finding out what changes have been, have been made and

uh both up to some up to meet National Register register standards or some that have been converted to other other uses. A lot of libraries had been converted to other uses. There's uh well, one is a private residence and several are business offices. I'm so happy

to hear that. Um You have a potential new project to work on because I can't imagine you without a vital new project uh to dig into uh any other um plans and projects that you have relative to either history or the environment. Uh Well, the libraries

are going our museums, at least in our our library as in now, a museum are going through some revolutionary changes in how things are stored with the changes in technology and all. So we're doing a lot at the library to preserve our collection. We also have

to uh do more than has previously been done to preserve our library in terms of earthquake, of preparedness. So, quite a few projects on the horizon and you're deep into them as well. Um Would you like to add anything else about uh uh people who have

influenced you during your life or um possibly people who you are mentoring uh Now that you are in that position to be the grand dome of Carnegie Libraries. Well, I don't think that kind of holds too because Carnegie libraries have, everything is kind of moved on

and so they're kind of different, but uh I certainly enjoy keeping up with them. I really appreciate all the help that's sent on the State and the State Office of Historic Preservation. And I were talking the other day just realizing how many of those professors at

Sonoma State were really young and active professors at that time had all gone to college on the G I Bill of rights for our country to have been providing, offering that to people that wanted kind of the same principle as the library, Carnegie or what his

goal is to offer, help their offer knowledge and help there for people that wanted to seek it in the library that you have to go to in a college too. So it's really um that's encouraging. Well, and Bill was Bill was a tremendous help throughout all,

all that process because even though he was very, you know, more involved in uh environmental uh uh programs. And so the, and we, you know, there's a lot still happening, there are things that everybody worked on are still needing to be worked on like the coast

and uh you know, protecting the coast, they get available for everybody and not get tied up oil drilling. There's nothing stops, it just keeps moving on and we keep having to inspire the next generation, which I think you do in your very being of who you

are Lucy Forum. So, thank you. Um I guess we both share a love of books and history and architecture. And um I think it's contagious being around someone like you who, um, is so hungry for knowledge. Uh, what do you think of the new technologies? And

will libraries become, uh, you know, like a dinosaur or will libraries go on? Oh, I think they'll have to go on. They're not the same. But, uh, I mean, the volume of stuff to be saved and the, the, the dangerous gosh, what was that dish? Yesterday?

The big, uh a big library museum in Brazil burned down with practically all of Brazil's historic treasures in it. I mean, that then we've yet at the same time, we're finding better ways of saving things. So, uh yeah, I mean, it, it's a, it's an increasing

challenge I think. Well, thank you very much for sharing your insights and your memories and um this uh interview will be in the archives for all to see when we are long gone. Well, thank you and thank you all. OK.