Rosenberg Library, a public library located at 2310 Sealy Street in

Galveston Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Ga ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, is the oldest continuously operating library in

. It serves as headquarters of the Galveston County Library System and its librarian also functions as the Galveston County Librarian.

History

The library was established in 1900, and the building constructed a few years later. In 1905 it absorbed the collection of the defunct Public Library (est. in 1871 as the Galveston Free Library).

Segregation

Central High School (1894) Galveston Texas

Like many institutions in the American South, during segregation the library maintained a separate branch for African Americans. This new library, built in 1905, was added to the western wing of Central High School, the city's high school for African Americans.

Galveston & Texas History Center

The Galveston and Texas History Center collects materials relating to Galveston and early Texas. Major manuscript collections include the papers of Samuel May Williams,

Gail Borden Gail Borden Jr. (November 9, 1801 – January 11, 1874) was a native New Yorker who settled in Texas in 1829 (then still Mexico), where he worked as a land surveyor, newspaper publisher, and inventor. He created a process in 1853 to make sweet ...

, John Grant Tod, Jr., and James Morgan; the records of several 19th and early 20th century businesses, including those of I.H. Kempner, Harris Kempner, Henry M. Trueheart, and J. C. League; the records of several organizations and churches in the area; and 20th-century collections reflecting recent events and activities in Galveston and the upper Gulf Coast. The map collection includes maps and charts of Texas, the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

, the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexic ...

, and adjacent coasts dating from the 16th century to the present. Holdings of the museum department include historical artifacts pertaining to Galveston or early Texas, paintings of Galveston subjects or by such local artists as Julius Stockflethqv and Boyer Gonzalez, and a sizable collection of Russian and Greek icons. The rare book collection contains incunabula, first editions, and examples of fine printing. RosenbergLibraryGalvestonTX

Statue of Henry Rosenberg at the Rosenberg Library, Galveston

References

Bibliography

* * 1910- * *

External links