{"id":424,"date":"2012-03-12T12:04:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T12:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/forms.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/heads\/a-pictorial-history-the-university-of-iowa-libraries-4\/"},"modified":"2021-03-31T20:17:53","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T01:17:53","slug":"mechanics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/past\/mechanics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mechanics&#8217; Academy 1855- 1859"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"historynav\">The Emerging University Library \u2013 1855-1951 <a href=\"\/history\/past\/\">previous<\/a> | <a href=\"\/history\/past\/oldcapitol\/\">next<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 396px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/digital.lib.uiowa.edu\/cdm\/compoundobject\/collection\/ictcs\/id\/15939\/rec\/13\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/files\/academy.jpg\" alt=\"Mechanics Academy\" width=\"386\" height=\"270\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Northeast view of Mechanics&#8217; Academy, the University of Iowa, 1897 (Iowa Digital Library: <a href=\"http:\/\/digital.lib.uiowa.edu\/cdm\/ref\/collection\/ictcs\/id\/15939\">http:\/\/digital.lib.uiowa.edu\/cdm\/ref\/collection\/ictcs\/id\/15939<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Mechanics&#8217; Academy, which had been built in 1842 by the Mechanics&#8217; Mutual Aid Association, was rented by the University trustees in 1855 so the first classes of the new State University of Iowa would have someplace to meet.<\/p>\n<p>A short letter to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute from the Office of Public Instruction, dated May 7, 1855 states:\u00a0 &#8220;Our university is but in its infancy the present being the first Session of the University proper.\u00a0 We are wishing to collect a Library as fast as possible, and as this is the only one of your Const[?] which we have, can you not furnish us with the previous 5 volumes?\u00a0 If so please direct to Iowa City.&#8221;\u00a0 It is unknown if these volumes were sent.<\/p>\n<p>In November of 1855 approximately 50 books were received from President Amos Dean in New York, and they were put in the Academy in a four-by-four foot room. Thus was started the University&#8217;s library.<\/p>\n<p>Librarians: D. Franklin Wells, Professor, Normal Department Frederick Humphrey, Professor of Mathematics<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/digital.lib.uiowa.edu\/cdm\/search\/collection\/ictcs\/field\/corpor\/searchterm\/Mechanics'%20Academy%20(Iowa%20City,%20Iowa)\/mode\/exact\">Additional Mechanics&#8217; Academy\u00a0images<\/a> are available in the <a href=\"http:\/\/digital.lib.uiowa.edu\/\">Iowa Digital Library<\/a> \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/digital.lib.uiowa.edu\/ictcs\">Iowa City Town and Campus Scenes collection<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Emerging University Library \u2013 1855-1951 previous | next The Mechanics&#8217; Academy, which had been built in 1842 by the Mechanics&#8217; Mutual Aid Association, was rented by the University trustees [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"parent":416,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"pagetpl-default.php","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1031,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/424\/revisions\/1031"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}