You Go Girl

Mary Titcomb was a rebel rouser.  An innovator that couldn’t leave well enough alone.  She was frustrated by the fact that so many people were going without library books in rural Washington County, Maryland.  The current system shipped boxes of 30 books to 66 local post offices and generals stores, but Mary just wasn’t satisfied.  She came up with a brilliant idea and presented it to the Board of Trustees in 1905.  A bookmobile.  

Actually, it was a library wagon, pulled by two elderly horses, Dandy and Black Beauty, and commandeered by Mr. Thomas, the janitor, and it traveled to homes and communities handing out books like candy.  Can you imagine how exciting it must have been to see the library wagon pulling into town in 1905?  Mrs. Titcomb oversaw the design of the wagon and directed the painter to refrain from “gilt and scrollwork” and make the letters “plain and dignified”, it was a library after all.  It was so reserved that one resident saw it coming and said, “We ain’t got no use for the dead wagon here.”  Mary decided to loosen up a bit and paint the trim red.

In 1910 the beautiful wagon met a violent end when it was demolished by a freight train, all that remained was splinters.  From the ashes a new motorized bookmobile arose in 1912 and continued its work in Washington County.  There are some marvelous pictures and more history of the early bookmobile days at the Western Maryland Regional Library website.

Margaret Binkley Du Vernet remembered going out to homes in the ‘Dodge truck version’ of the Book Wagon, still under the direction of Mrs. Titcomb, and following a route that would take them to each place twice a year.  Twice a year!  Imagine waiting six months for your next book?  I have trouble waiting six hours for a book I want.  Immediately I wondered how many books they could take out at a time.  They were probably so thrilled just to have a book that they were very grateful (not greedy like me!)  Margaret remembered a stop at one derelict home with rags stuck into the broken windows,

“Miss Chrissinger drove up and she tooted the horn. And eventually this woman came down with her brood of children and a wheelbarrow full of books, and she was very eagerly getting new ones, and I realized as I checked in her old ones they were all books of travel, and I often wondered whether Miss Chrissinger had guided her into that as an escape from the miserable existence she seemed to have.”

I was relieved and excited to learn that Washington County still has a bookmobile, the horses are gone but the 32 ft. bus now holds 4,000 books, has four Internet stations, air conditioning, a wheelchair lift and an lighted awning.  Mary would be proud.