Athenaeum gallery

The Boston Athenaeum was founded in 1807 by the Anthology Society. At the time, libraries were commonly referred to as athenaeums, but the name has become unique in its antiquity.

The athenaeum houses a statue of George Washington that served as a model for the large-scale brass version currently standing in the Boston Public Garden.

The athenaeum provides lockers where visitors can keep their belongings because large bags are not permitted beyond the vestibule. Folks can carry around smaller person items in a clear plastic bag, also provided by the athenaeum.

Stanford Calderwood Director Elizabeth Barker, gives the history of a painting by artist Enrico Meneghelli. The image depicts the third floor of the Boston Athenaeum’s building at 10½ Beacon Street as it appeared circa 1875/1876.

This particular painting is a rendition of Thomas Ball’s bronze statue of George Washington.

The athenaeum holds a little over half of George Washington’s personal library. Washington’s distant nephew, George Corbin, sold a portion of the late president’s library to an American bookseller in 1848. In that same year, the athenaeum purchased the collection.

The athenaeum displays a vast selection of busts throughout the building. This particular sculpture is a sentimental Victorian imagining of George Washington as a child.

The athenaeum’s circulating collection holds just under 500,000 volumes. Their non-circulating special collection of rare books and manuscripts contains over 120,000 items.

The athenaeum currently has over 5,400 membership households. Membership is open to anyone interested in applying, and more than 1,000 new members joined the Athenæum in the past year.

The fifth floor reading room was added just a century ago in 1915. It is a completely silent space where talking is strictly prohibited.

Legend has it that the sculptor Thomas Ball saw George Washington arriving in Boston in 1858 and quickly made a model of him on horseback based purely on memory.

The athenaeum’s fifth-floor terrace is one of two outdoor spaces to which members have access. It boasts views of the Old Granary Burying Ground, the Park Street Church, and the Millennium Tower.

The athenaeum has an in-house conservation lab, which is rare for a circulating library of its size. Conservation staff works to restore both circulating texts and special collection items dating back to the 16th century.

The conservation department strives to maintain the original integrity of each item. This is a photo of a restord book on calligraphy orginally published in the 19th century.

Evan Knight, associate conservator, is in the process of restoring an original slave ship illustration, “Plan and Sections of a Slave Ship,’’ from circa 1794/1795. The image was printed in Carl Bernhard Wadström’s “An Essay on Colonization.’’

Conservation intern Liane Naauao is in the process of restoring a very old volume.

Athenaeum members are welcome to browse the library’s 11-level drum stack, the construction of which began in 1913 and was finalized in 1915. Eighty percent of the books in the stack are open for circulation, while the other 20 percent are either bound periodicals or in prohibitively fragile condition.

The Athenaeum used the Cutter Card Catalog system to organize their books until 1978, at which point they migrated to the more ubiquitous Library of Congress filing method. Charles Ammi Cutter was a librarian at the Boston Athenaeum from 1868 to 1892, and his catalog system was the precursor for the filing method that was eventually developed by the Library of Congress.

The second-floor reading room holds over 500 periodicals including newspapers, magazines, and journals to which the athenaeum is subscribed.

The athenaeum is in the process of digitizing their expansive collection. Works that have already been digitized are available to the public on their website.

Visitors can peek down the athenaeum’s seven floors from the top of this spiral staircase.

The athenaeum’s new acquistion books are located on the first floor. The library recieves about 3,000 new books each year.

10½ Beacon Street is the Boston Athenaeum’s current and fifth home. The library moved into this particular building, designed by Edward Clarke Cabo, in 1849.