About The Oldest Library In America
America’s first purpose-built library
A library is defined as a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals (and sometimes films and recorded music), for people to read, borrow, or refer to. Redwood Library and Athenaeum is America's oldest library. It is America’s first purpose-built library and the oldest continuously operating in its original building.
Digital Collections at Providence Public Library defines it at the oldest public library in America. Library Technology describes Redwood Library and Athenaeum as the oldest lending library in America. The New England Historical Society recognizes it as the oldest community library still occupying its original building.
The Redwood Library and Athenaeum is a truly historic library and museum located in Newport, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1747 by a group of socially prominent Newport residents who sought to create a library that would rival the great libraries of Europe. It started off as a 45-member literary society founded by Bishop George Berkeley, the great Irish philosopher. Berkeley moved to Rhode Island in 1729 to start a college.
The Company of the Redwood Library in Newport, R.I., was founded in 1747 for the purpose of ‘having nothing in view but the good of mankind. The Redwood Library and Athenaeum was designated as a Registered National Historic Landmark in 1962. The library's collection includes more than 200,000 books, manuscripts, and artifacts, many of which date back to the 18th and 19th centuries.
The library has a long history of serving as a cultural and intellectual hub for Newport and the surrounding area. Over the years, it has hosted lectures, concerts, and art exhibitions, and has been visited by many notable figures, including George Washington, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
As such, it is the only remaining secular public cultural institution in this country with an unbroken link to the colonial period and the Nation’s founding fathers. It is also the nation’s oldest public Neoclassical building.
Today, nearly three centuries after its inception as a premier institution of the American Enlightenment, the library continues to create and transmit knowledge in multiple ways—both on site and online—fostering inclusiveness by cultivating a variety of constituencies and catering to their broad interests.
The Redwood Library and Athenaeum holdings include rare books, early American imprints, manuscripts, maps, and fine art. The library building itself is a beautiful example of Georgian architecture, with a red brick exterior and white trim. It is open to the public for tours, events, and research.
This very special library holds a special place in American cultural history as one of the oldest libraries in the country and a symbol of Newport's rich heritage. It has served as a center for intellectual and cultural life in the community for more than two and a half centuries.
It continues to fulfill its mission of promoting learning, scholarship, and the exchange of ideas through its diverse programs and resources while preserving its historic building and collections for future generations.
The Redwood Library and Athenaeum aims not only to provide accessible humanities programming for the widest possible audience but also to specifically address researchers, students, culture tourists, the underserved, and local patrons seeking communal cultural experiences alongside the solitary digestion of books
*Note: Other libraries claim to be the oldest in America but those claims are inaccurate. The Sturgis Library in Cape Cod, MA is in the oldest library building that was built in 1644, however the library itself did not open in the building until 1867. The Darby Free Library in Darby, PA was established in 1743, however its existing library building was not erected until 1872. The Library Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1731, however the existing building only dates back to 1966. This makes the Redwood Library and Athenaeum, built in 1747, the oldest library in America.