- City:
- Milwaukee, WI
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Libraries
- New Deal Agencies:
- Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civil Works Administration (CWA)
- Completed:
- 1936
Description
The Milwaukee Public Library opened in 1898 in a building combining French and Italian Renaissance styles at a cost of $780,000 (mpl.org). In 1936, Works Progress Administration (WPA) laborers assisted, according to museum director Samuel Barrett, in “completely overhauling the building, redecorating it from cellar to garret, installing a new lighting system, repairing the mosaic floors, repainting and relining exhibition cases, reinstalling a large number of exhibits, restoring photographic negatives and prints and other study and research collections, and in myriad ways improving the conditions of the institution and increasing it usefulness to the 2,500,000 people it serves annually.” (“Milwaukee Journal.”) It is now the Central Library facility for the Milwaukee Public Library.
Source notes
Lois M. Quinn, Jobs for Workers on Relief in Milwaukee County, Employment and Training Institute, Division of Outreach and Continuing Education Extension at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (February 1995). National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Work Projects Administration, Information Service, Primary File, 1936-42, Box 11, Folder 236-A (a document in the file sites “Milwaukee Journal, June 14, 1936”). https://www.mpl.org/about/history, accessed October 28, 2014.Site originally submitted by Erin TerBeek and Brent McKee on October 27, 2012.
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