{"id":3211,"date":"2013-04-07T16:08:45","date_gmt":"2013-04-07T23:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=3211"},"modified":"2013-04-07T16:08:45","modified_gmt":"2013-04-07T23:08:45","slug":"seafaring-libraries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=3211","title":{"rendered":"Seafaring libraries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/penobscotmarinemuseum.org\/pbho-1\/collection\/seamens-friend-society-library-box\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=floatRight src=\"http:\/\/penobscotmarinemuseum.org\/pbho-1\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/medium\/public\/collection\/Seamen%27s%20Friend%20Society%20Library%20Box.jpg?itok=34g-qUWl\"><\/a>At sea for ten months.  What would you take on your Kindle?<\/p>\n<p>Sailors in the 1800s, of course, had no such luxury.   <\/p>\n<p>The American Seamen&#8217;s Friend Society, starting in 1837, took it upon itself to package up book collections and ship them out on as many sailing vessels as possible.  <a href=\"http:\/\/library.mysticseaport.org\/manuscripts\/coll\/coll158.cfm\">By 1930, they had distributed 30,040 libraries<\/a>, which could be exchanged for a new set when the content was exhausted.  Each library contained about 40 books, mostly religious or focused on self improvement. <\/p>\n<p>Sailors wrote back with reports on the libraries they received.  Here is one example:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;No. 3,095. &#8212; Books all read; &#8216;Four Pillars of Temperance,&#8217; &#8216;Laurence Monroe,&#8217; &#8216;Light on the Ocean,&#8217; &#8216;Blind Tom,&#8217; and &#8216;Alcohol&#8217; were most read.  The last named book I read aloud to the crew, with delightful results.  All signed the pledge.  The books have been a great blessing; better send &#8216;Alcohol&#8217; in every library.  It is just the thing for sailors.&#8221; &#8212; A. Morrill, Capt. schr. W.H.Rogers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Because they were commonly provided in a standard wooden box, painted red, the libraries came to be known as &#8220;Little Red Box Libraries.&#8221;  One has to wonder if there is any connection to today&#8217;s DVD provider, Redbox.  I wasn&#8217;t able to dig up any details on how the company selected its name to find out.  I wonder!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At sea for ten months. What would you take on your Kindle? Sailors in the 1800s, of course, had no such luxury. The American Seamen&#8217;s Friend Society, starting in 1837, took it upon itself to package up book collections and ship them out on as many sailing vessels as possible. By 1930, they had distributed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38,64],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3211"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3224,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3211\/revisions\/3224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}