Join us in celebrating National Library Week from April 23-29. This year’s theme is “There’s More to the Story.” The story of libraries in Davenport, Iowa began in 1839 with a library in the LeClaire Hotel. In the following decades, the community saw the building and dedication of the Clarissa Cook Memorial Library in the 1870s as well as one of its prominent citizens, Alice French, advocating for the building of a free public library with financial assistance from philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie.

Davenport’s Carnegie Library was dedicated on May 11, 1904, after the library levy was passed in 1900 to support library services. Each historical moment in our past shares more of our story. To read more about the Davenport Public Library’s history, check out the following blogs:

• Happy Anniversary to the Library of Tomorrow
• Main Street Library’s 50th Anniversary Series: The Children’s Library Wing
• Breaking the Cornerstone: Demolition of the Carnegie Library
• 40 Years Ago: The Annie Wittenmyer Branch of the Davenport Public Library

We are honored by the City of Davenport with a Proclamation for National Library Week.

Celebration Days during National Library Week!

During National Library Week, there are special celebration days that highlight aspects of Library work and the mission of libraries.

Monday, April 24th — Right to Read Day

Learn about book bans and their call for support from “readers, advocates, and library lovers to fight back against censorship in a national day of action to defend, protect, and celebrate your right to read freely.”

Tuesday, April 25th– National Library Workers Day

Libraries would not be the same without their friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable staff members! Celebrate a librarian or library worker in your life. Check out some photos of the wonderful staff at the Davenport Public Library:

Wednesday, April 26th– National Library Outreach Day

Our staff is busy inside the library, but we are just as busy out in our community! Check these fun photos of staff out and about in Davenport and the Quad Cities:

Thursday, April 27th– Take Action for Libraries Day

Get involved with Davenport Public Library by considering joining our Friends of the Davenport Public Library or a being library trustee. Another way to get involved in volunteering with us! Check out the positions here: https://www.davenportlibrary.com/about-us/contact-us/volunteer.

Here are some pictures of our Friends of the Davenport Public Library supporting the library:

We would love for you to celebrate with us however you can! Come visit us at your favorite library branch! Or check out your new favorite! Learn about local history and genealogy with us at the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center located in The Library | Main.

Visit us online with all our many resources. You can access them through our website: https://www.davenportlibrary.com/.

Follow us on social media:

• DPL Facebook / SC Facebook
• DPL Instagram / SC Instagram
• DPL Pinterest / SC Pinterest
• Twitter
• TikTok
• GoodReads
• YouTube

Happy National Library Week!

(posted by Kathryn)

Here in Special Collections, we Give a Hoot for History!

Saturday, April 22, 2023, is Earth Day. In observance of the event here are some photographs and clippings representing our commitment to preserving Davenport’s history of caring for Mother Earth.

Special Collections serves as the Archives for the City of Davenport. In the 1980s the city began a public-private coordinated effort to reduce litter called Operation Clean Davenport.

The program was an integral part of reducing litter by 70% by 1992 according to an article in the QCT from February 17, 1992. Lack of funding brought the program to a close at about that same time, but here are some images showing Davenport’s citizens in action.

Davenport Public Library got involved as well, inviting Woodsy the Owl to read with some of our younger patrons.

Remember Woodsy’s catchphrase??

Speaking of birds, we are pleased to have the collection of Dr. Herbert J. Hodges, an amateur naturalist and professor at Saint Ambrose University. He challenged a group of students on the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, to join him at Credit Island for a chance to “see a natural ecological setting at work”.

One wonders if the fifteen students who walked the Island that day took his words to heart? Hodges maintained his love of nature and Credit Island until his death in 2009. We proudly preserve his papers in Accession 2014-03 containing over 1000 color photographic slides, research, records, observations, statistics, and correspondence regarding the local bird population in the Scott County, Iowa, and Rock Island County, Illinois greater Tri/Quad City area.

Over the years, many projects have been undertaken for Earth Day. On the very first Earth Day, some Davenport students chose to create a work of art from their clean-up project as shown in this newspaper clipping.

We leave you with this catchy illustration from another item from the City Archives created by Philip Tunnicliff for the Parks department in 1941.

We anticipate you will find a way to “Toot Your Hooter” while cleaning up your community, planting a tree, raising awareness, visiting a wildlife sanctuary, or creating a work of art as you observe Earth Day 2023.

(posted by Karen)

We recently received additional items to the Schmidt Family – Crescent Macaroni and Cracker Company Collection – 2016-46 that we had to blog about this week.

First, a brief history of the company. In 1875, Hugo Schmidt, Sr. along with Charles Reupke and Bernhard Schwarting opened the Davenport Steam Bakery which was later known as Reupke, Schmidt & Co. It was one of the first cracker and macaroni companies in the middle west.

After Hugo’s untimely death in July 1878, his oldest son Oswald (aged 16 years) joined the business as an accountant. Oswald soon bought out his father’s partners and joined with his cousin, Paulo Roddewig, in 1887 as the Roddewig-Schmidt Cracker Company. In the early 1890s, the cousins sold the cracker and cookies portion of the business and focused on candy. They became the Roddewig-Schmidt Candy Company located at 4th and Iowa Streets in Davenport.

In 1904, Oswald and Paulo purchased the Crescent Macaroni Company from the Loos Brothers of Chicago, IL along with their factory in Davenport. The macaroni and candy sections thrived in the early 1900s until a fire destroyed the Macaroni factory in 1915. A new fire-safe factory was built on the site of the old one at 427 Iowa Street. The Schmidt family sold the company in the late 1960s. The Crescent Macaroni and Cracker Company closed in 1991 and the building was turned into loft apartments in the early 2000s.

We are endlessly amazed at the items in this collection. Here are a few of the items recently donated:

A program from the 1927 Sales Conference held in Davenport.

Advertisements and brochures of items produced by the company.

A flattened box of Crescent Mac’ro Nets pasta along with two recipe books dating from the early 1900s. What better way to advertise than to give out recipe books in the stores or by mail for housewives looking for new menu ideas.

Just in case you want to try some new recipes; we are including four recipes for your enjoyment.

In this donation were several identical metal boxes. The majority of the boxes contained paperwork relating to factory business. This one held an unusual surprise.

Written over the original ink writing (which stated canceled checks) was a new darker ink that stated Old Pkgs. That is what it contained. Two old Crescent Macaroni and Cracker boxes.

One contained elbow macaroni. Most likely dating to the early 1900s.

The second box is unusual in that it is labeled as Hard Bread. We knew hard bread was a newer name for hard tack that soldiers carried during the Civil War. While it still existed in the early 1900s, it was not listed as a product commonly sold by the Crescent Macaroni and Cracker Company.

The mystery of the Hard Bread may have been solved when we came across a letter in the donation dated October 4, 1918, to Crescent Macaroni and Cracker Company salesmen. The letter is a patriotic stance on supporting the fight for the war effort even when it pinches at home. We learned the Crescent Macaroni and Cracker Company had received a government contract to supply the U.S. troops with Hard Bread. Round-the-clock production of Hard Bread meant fewer regular items would be produced due to shortage of supplies and the need for factory equipment to be dedicated to the production of Hard Bread. In the end, for the salesmen, it meant fewer sales on fewer items.

We hope you enjoyed a peek into this wonderful collection. We extend our deepest thanks to the Schmidt family’s descendants for their donation.

(Posted by Amy D.)

April is National Poetry Month, so we searched our archival collections for local poetry and/or poets to share with all of you. We came across a donation that we received 30 years ago, but we haven’t done extensive archival processing yet. The description stated it contained “poetry newsletters and publications, some original and some photocopies.”

We looked in one of the boxes and found a 3-ring binder with the cartoon character Ziggy on the cover dated 1981. Inside were hand-written notes by Davenport poet Nel Modglin. She researched modern poetry forms and developed a few new ones herself!

Here are some examples:

iowetta a poem of three stanzas. Each stanza is made of two couplets in iambic tetrameter and one line in iambic pentameter. The three pentameter lines all have the same rhyme. The subject is generally irony, fantansy, or adventure. Originated by Nel Modglin.

Modglin, Nel. The Rhymer, and Other Helps for Poets. Philadelphia, PA: Dorrance, 1977.

lavelle a poem made of couplets and tercets, in the following order: couplet, tercet, tercet, tercet, couplet, couplet. The first and last couplets have identical rhymes. This poem is written in iambic tetrameter lines; it was originated by Nel Modglin.

Modglin, Nel. The Rhymer, and Other Helps for Poets. Philadelphia, PA: Dorrance, 1977.

sonnet, Illini This form varies in syllable count, having 8, 10, 10, 8/8, 10, 10, 8/8, 10, 10, 8/10, 10 per line. The rhyme scheme is ABCA/BCDC/CDEC/EE. Nel Modglin invented this form.

Modglin, Nel. The Rhymer, and Other Helps for Poets. Philadelphia, PA: Dorrance, 1977.

mānardina a poem of twelve iambic lines, having 4, 8, 8, 8, 8, 4/4, 8, 8, 8, 8, 4 syllables. First and last lines must rhyme. The third, fourth, ninth and tenth lines must also rhyme, but not with the first and last lines. This form was originated by Nel Modglin.

Modglin, Nel. The Rhymer, and Other Helps for Poets. Philadelphia, PA: Dorrance, 1977.

Nell Louise Modglin was born August 11, 1904, in Brookport, IL. She was the 8th of 13 children born to Joseph and Lucinda (Simmons) Modglin. She married Sheridan Maynard on September 3, 1935, in Rock Island, IL. She moved to Ypsilanti, MI after her husband died in 1959.

She worked as a country school teacher in southern Illinois, a hydrotherapist at a Chicago hospital, a gift shop owner, and a secretary at the Univeristy of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She retired in 1965 and moved to Davenport, Iowa in 1966.

She was editor of the Brookport Independent weekly newspaper; associate editor of the employee newspaper of Construction House of Maxin in Guam; worked in the circulation department of the American Artisan Magazine; was a columnist for the Missouri Messenger; was a correspondent for the Paducah (KY) Sun-Democrat, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and Church of Christ periodicals.

Nel was listed in the International Who’s Who in Poetry and the Dictionary of Poetry International Biography. She was a member of several poetry societies including The American Academy of Poets, Poets Round Table, Ind., Kentucky State Poetry Society, and the New Jersey Poetry Society

Her poems were published in many anthologies, magazines, and newspapers, including the Quad-City Times’ Poet’s Podium (1970-1978), Modern American Sonnet (1954 – 1957), Fine Arts Discovery (1968 – 1973), Lyrical Iowa (1970 – 1972), Iowa Poetry Day Association (1972 – 1982), Pegasus (1972 – 1983), World Poetry Society Intercontinental (1972 – 1983), Prairie Poet (1973), Encore (1974 – 1981), Jean’s Journal (1974 – 1983), North American Mentor Magazine (1974), Fellowship in Prayer (1975), Writers’ Newsletter (1981 – 1984), Christian Writers League of America (1981), Our Greatest Poems of the Twentieth Century (1982), Parnassus Magazine for Writers of Poetry and Prose (1982), Rhyme Time (1983), The White Rock Review (1983), and Silver Wings (1984).

Her published books include To Light A Flame (1973), The Stones Would Cry (1975), Music At Sunrise (1981), Reaching Other Rooms (1981), Where Love Is (1982), and The Rhymer and Other Helps for Poets (1977).

You never know what you’re going to find in the archives!

(posted by Cristina)

Sources:

Nel Modglin Maynard scrapbooks and writings, #1992-09, Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center, Davenport Public Library, Davenport, Iowa. https://archives.davenportlibrary.com/repositories/4/resources/230 Accessed April 08, 2023.

“Nell Maynard.” Quad-City Times. October 10, 1991.

“Finding The Right Word.” Quad-City Times. April 2, 1978.