Building the Oakmont Library, 1900

1900

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Building the Oakmont Library, 1900
  • Title
  • Building the Oakmont Library, 1900
  • Creator
  • Dr. W.H. Cooper Family
  • Date
  • 1900
  • Identifier
  • 20100204-ocl-0350
  • Source Identifier
  • Cooper 1
  • Description
  • This rare image, the earliest known photograph of the Oakmont Carnegie Library, shows men finishing up work on the exterior of the building. The library opened in 1901, and it is likely this photograph was taken in the late summer of 1900. L.M. Forester, an Oakmont resident, had asked his cousin Andrew Carnegie if he would fund a library in Oakmont. Carnegie accepted, and the Oakmont Carnegie Library was built with the full support of the townspeople, especially schoolchildren. Still in the same location on the corner of Allegheny River Boulevard and Pennsylvania Avenue, the library would have been a daily sight for the Cooper family. From 1907 until his death in 1925, Dr. Cooper lived with his family in the house across the street from the Oakmont Library at 701 Allegheny Avenue, now the home of the Oakmont Candle Company. Dr. William Henry Cooper and his wife, Harriet Lillian Bettes Cooper, lived in four different houses in Oakmont from at least 1897 to Dr. Cooper's death in 1925. They had met when Dr. Cooper was a doctor and professor at the Homeopathic Hospital of Pittsburgh, now Shadyside Hospital. Harriet had been a student nurse there, and was valedictorian of her class. They had four children: Catharine (born 1897), Charles (1899), Franklin (1905), and Caroline (1912). Charles Cooper's daughter, Caroline Carroll, presented the Oakmont Carnegie Library with 80 glass plate negatives taken by Dr. Cooper from approximately 1890-1910 in the winter of 2009.
  • Type
  • still image
  • Genre
  • photographs
  • Subject
  • Oakmont (Allegheny County, Pa.)
    Allegheny River Boulevard (Oakmont, Pa.)
    Libraries--Pennsylvania--Oakmont
    Oakmont Carnegie Library (Oakmont, Pa.)
  • Source
  • Oakmont Carnegie Library Archives, Cooper Collection
  • Contributor
  • Oakmont Carnegie Library
  • Collection
  • Oakmont Historical Image Collection
  • Rights Information
  • Copyright Not Evaluated. The copyright and related rights status of this Item has not been evaluated. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use.
    http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/