The Living Room, the Art Studio, and Even the Barn: The Evolution of the Behrend College Library
By Jane Ingold, assistant librarian, Penn State Erie, the Behrend College
The Behrend library in the 1950's
She couldn’t stand the sawdust in her house anymore. Mary Brownell Behrend had lived with her husband Ernst on the company grounds of Hammermill Paper Company since 1907. The proximity to the plant made it easy for him to oversee the operations, but paper mills mean wood and wood means sawdust, so the Behrends bought several farms in Harborcreek Township. They combined their 400 acres into an estate they called Glenhill Farm. They hired prominent Pennsylvania architect R. Brognard Okie to refurbish the main farmhouse in his signature Colonial Revival style. After Ernst died suddenly in 1940, Mary began spending more time with her family in New England and she contemplated selling Glenhill Farm.
Meanwhile, a group of prominent Erie businessmen were meeting to discuss founding a new college in Erie. The men, led by attorney J. Elmer Reed, contacted Penn State University in hopes that they would be willing to establish a campus in Erie. Penn State officials came to Erie to scout locations in the spring of 1948. Mrs. Behrend spotted them from a window of the farmhouse and spoke to them about the project. After discussions with her daughter Harriet Behrend Sayre, she decided to donate the estate for the establishment of a college that would bear her husband’s name.
Behrend students and faculty member Ben Lane
clean the library during the annual Student Work Day
The deed was signed in July 1948 and by September Behrend Center’s first administrator T. Reed Ferguson, welcomed the first students to campus. All of the buildings were put to use including kennels, carriage houses, and barns. Glenhill Farmhouse was then, and remains now, the administrative center of campus. The second floor was used as a women’s dorm while the first floor housed offices. The living room was designated as the school’s first library.
This room contained a fireplace and built-in hutches to display antiques, and had been used extensively by the Behrends for entertaining their friends. Mrs. Behrend expressed dissatisfaction with the use of the room as a library. She envisioned it as a club room for student organizations. By 1950 the room had been restored with its original furniture and decorations. It is now called the Memorial Room and it still showcases much of her china and other prized possessions.
The library was moved to a small, rustic building that had been Mary’s art studio and had been used as a student lounge. Measuring 30’ by 40’ feet, it featured a fireplace and oaken yokes on the walls as well as wagon wheel chandeliers. Librarian Margaret Schumacher described the library she was charged with when she arrived on campus in 1958: “The library contained 3500 volumes. Seating capacity was limited to 36 with tables and chairs arranged (of necessity) so close together that it was almost impossible to get to the shelves to examine a book. “
By 1962 the campus had added two new buildings and it was time to once again relocate the library. When students returned from Christmas vacation, they found a more spacious library on the second floor of Turnbull Hall which had been the Behrends’ barn. A $42,000 renovation of the building provided a second floor library with adequate lighting (a major improvement from the studio), new furnishings with seating for 72, and shelving for 10,000 volumes. The library thrived in its new home with more books and furniture being added over the next six years.
Students studying in the Turnbull barn
location of the campus library
Plans were being drawn for a permanent home for the library, but when the Reed Union building was completed in 1968, the decision was made to locate the library there temporarily. The library continued to grow, adding a copy machine, multi-tier stacks, and computers. Funding for the proposed library construction fell through in 1969 due to state budget cuts and then, in 1975, Governor Shapp impounded the money for its construction. In 1985 the funds were approved twice by the legislature and vetoed both times by the governor. Ten million dollars were released in 1988 and construction was scheduled to begin in the spring of 1989, but the architects missed the deadline and it was pushed back to 1990. Finally, in 1994 the permanent home of the Behrend Library was dedicated by President Joab Thomas. Time spent in its “temporary” home in the Reed Union Building? Twenty-six years.
In 2002 former Behrend College administrator John M. Lilley was surprised with the news that the library was being named for him. It has become a centralized location for students to study, hang out in the new lounge, and work on state-of-the-art media projects in the digital commons. The Lilley Library now includes the Behrend Archives which showcase not only the history of the campus but the legacy of the Behrend Family and Hammermill Paper Company.