1882 Pennsylvania Railroad Employe’s Circulating Library Card No. 456

Pennsylvania Railroad Employe’s Circulating Library

As a means of extending library services to thousands of company employees often residing in remote areas along the railroad lines, American railroad companies, including the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (PRR), established reading rooms and circulating libraries at train stations and depots. At its peak in the 1920s, the PRR system had over 11,500 miles of track that serviced 13 states, reaching as far as west as St. Louis, Missouri, and north to Detroit, Michigan. In the 1904 edition of the Bulletin of the International Railway Congress, it was noted that the PRR circulating library system had “31 branches, and 72,973 volumes (of which 35,000 were at the Mechanics’ Library at Altoona, PA).” The branch libraries provided technical trade publications, as well as recreational and reference reading materials.

One such reading room was located on the “upper story” of PRR’s Broad Street Station located at Broad and Market Streets in Philadelphia (now John F. Kennedy Blvd. and W. 15th Street). Opened on December 5, 1881, it was the primary passenger terminal for the PRR from 1881 to the 1950s.

The last train departed the Broad Street Station on April 27, 1952. The station was demolished in October 1952.