The spring of 1939 was a remarkable year in a turbulent
decade. The threat of war loomed over the Western
Hemisphere. America was slowly emerging from the
worst depression in its history. The promise of
equality and dignity remained unfilled for millions
of African Americans. But in the spring of 1939,
rising as a symbol of hope and achievement, The
Founders Library of Howard University was dedicated.
During the academic year of 1938-39, the President
of Howard University, Mordecai Johnson, reckoned
the years of the modern era for African Americans:
1938-39 was the 76th year since Emancipation; the
72nd year of Howard University and the 60th year
of support from the Federal government. It was also
the 10th year of the law authorizing annual Federal
appropriations to support the university’s construction
Howard was a thriving enterprise. According to
newspaper accounts, by 1938 Howard University had
trained 49 percent, or 1,799 of all the African
American physicians in the United States; and 835,
or 50 percent, of all the African American dentists.
Almost all, 97 percent, of the nation’s African
American lawyers passed through Howard University.
President Johnson reported proudly that the university’s
physical campus was valued at $7,315,830 and its
total assets were estimated to $9,527,896. These
were sums undreamed of when General Howard and 17
other men signed the charter that established the
university on the hilltop. The intervening sixty
years have produced growth that would have dwarfed
the imaginings of any university president.
The Founders Library has become Howard University’s
most durable and forceful monument, a living symbol
of the striving for liberty and achievement that
characterizes Howard since its beginnings. Standing
proudly on the hill overlooking the fabric of the
nation’s capital, The Founders Library is a complex
and eloquent expression of the hopes, history and
heritage of a great American university. It is a
tribute to the spirit of liberty and a demonstration
of the power of elegance and form.
After sixty years of welcoming generations of students
to the excitement of intellectual life, the time
has come to restore The Founders Library to the
vision of its creator. We must erase the marks of
time, and polish this beautiful structure for coming
generations to admire as we have.
Its creator, an African American architect, was
just 44 years old when Founders Library opened its
doors. But Albert Cassell had already brought forth
his vision of the university’s campus. During his
18 years of service to the university as a professor,
a planner and an architect, Mr. Cassell designed
and constructed its most prominent structures—Frederick
Douglas Hall, the Chemistry building and the
Power Plant. The power of his determination
and wisdom are evident throughout the Howard campus
to this day.
Architect, Planner, Entrepreneur
Albert Irving Cassell was born in Towson, Maryland
on June 25, 1895, the third child of Albert and
Charlotte Cassell. According to his son, Charles,
Albert’s father drove a coal truck and played trumpet
in the Baltimore Salvation Army Band. His mother
took into washing to supplement the family’s income.
As with many African Americans, Albert’s path to
higher education was not easy. To compensate for
the shortcomings of the Baltimore public high schools
of that era, Albert moved to Ithaca, New York, home
of Cornell University, where he enrolled in the
city’s high school. He was later admitted to Cornell
and earned his way through working as a caretaker
for one his professors and singing in church choirs.
His studies were interrupted by service in the
US Army in World War I. He was commissioned a second
lieutenant in the field artillery serving as a training
officer in France during 1917 and 1918. Mr. Cassell
completed his architectural degree at Cornell in
1919. His career as an architect began in that year
when he and William A. Hazel, an architect at Howard,
planned the initial architectural and structural
designs of five trade buildings at Tuskegee Institute.
In 1920, Mr. Cassell joined in the Architecture
Department of Howard University as assistant professor.
Over the course of the next two decades, Mr. Cassell
would make an indelible impression on the university.
He would be involved in every aspect of the campus’
physical growth. The campus we see today is the
result of his concepts and his dedication to detail
In 1930 he produced the master plan for the expansion
of Howard’s campus. Then, in his capacity as head
of the maintenance department as well as professor
of architecture, he systematically purchased the
land around the early quadrangle in order to execute
his master plan for the university. He and William
Hazel, as well as his architectural firm, Cassell
Gray & Sulton, designed and constructed the
substance of Howard’s academic quadrangle. Above
and below ground, Mr. Cassell left his mark:
- The Medical School: Dedicated April 9-10, 1928
- The Dining Hall: 1921-1923
- The Gymnasium: Constructed during 1924-26; Groundbreaking
Ceremony, March 16, 1924; Dedicated February 26,
- The Stadium: Dedicated February 26, 1926
- Three Women's Dormitory Buildings: 1929-1931
- The Chemistry Building: Dedicated October 26,
- Power Plant and Underground Power Distribution
Douglass Memorial Hall, 1936
Founders Library: Cornerstone, June
11, 1937; Dedicated May 25, 1939
Three of Mr. Cassell’s most important works, durable
contributions to Howard’s academic setting, are
the Chemistry Building (1936), Frederick Douglass
Memorial Hall (1936), and The Founders Library (1939).
Albert Cassell’s masterwork is Howard’s hilltop
campus; its jewel is its main Library. Mr. Cassell
left Howard University after its completion in 1938.
His career is an unequivocal testament to his ingenuity
When Albert Cassell left Howard in 1938, after
the completion of the library, he dreamed no small
dreams. Beginning in 1930 and continuing for many
years, Mr. Cassell pursued the development of an
innovative planned community for African Americans
on 500 acres on the shore of Chesapeake Bay. Later,
he continued to shape academic communities by designing
buildings for Morgan State University in Baltimore,
Maryland, and Virginia Union University in Richmond.
He designed and built civic structures for the State
of Maryland and the District of Columbia.
Mr. Cassell’s commitment to public housing produced
the highly respected Mayfair Mansions project and
the James Creek Alley Housing Development, both
in Washington DC. Howard University and much of
the surrounding region are the beneficiaries of
Albert Cassell’s legacy, as an architect, an engineer,
an entrepreneur and a visionary. His buildings use
the timeless power of good design, form and integrity
to teach the dynamism of the mind and the value
The Founders Library sits on Howard’s hallowed ground,
the site of one of Howard’s first permanent dedicated
structures, the Main Building. Until 1910, there
existed no separate building to house Howard’s library.
The Main building supported all the university’s
functions except for the faculties of Medicine and
Law. The office of the president was nestled in
with the classrooms of the theology department,
the college and the normal school, along with the
lecture halls for physics and biology. The Main
Building even contained the university’s treasure
room. The library occupied very tight quarters on
the building’s third floor.
In these early days, the library had no dedicated
staff. Although it contained about 7,000 volumes,
there was no full-time librarian. The academic officer
who served as librarian had other duties. As a result,
the university’s books were not accessible or manageable;
the library could only be open a few hours per week
and borrowing was severely limited. As a consequence,
the maintenance of the early Howard library was
neglected, and the collection did not serve to stimulate
the intellectual growth of students and faculty.
In 1910, the modern era began for Howard University’s
library functions when it occupied the Carnegie
Library, situated on the west side of the quadrangle.
Its construction was made possible through grants
from the Carnegie Foundation, the General Education
Board and the Rosenwald Fund. Its opening marked
the university’s realization that the library must
be a driving force in its academic development.
With the opening of Carnegie Library, the professionalism
and the size of the library staff grew in proportion
to the size of the university’s collection and its
burgeoning enrollment. By 1924, the university’s
holdings had grown to more than 40,000 volumes through
yearly appropriations for acquisitions of between
$3,000 and $4,000, a sizable sum indicative of the
university’s expanding intellectual stature. The
Carnegie Library building has remained an elegant
presence on the Howard University quadrangle, and
until 1977 housed the
School of Divinity.
By the early 1930’s, Carnegie Library was experiencing
significant strain. The collection had grown to
more than 85,000 volumes. In addition the staff
had increased along with library’s dedication to
meeting Howard’s expanding teaching and research
needs. It was clear that the university must devise
a library structure that would accommodate a constantly
expanding student body as well as growing scholarly
In 1929, the United State Congress appropriated
$1 million for the construction of a new library
at Howard University, but it would be some years
before those funds were put to use. In 1936, after
seventy years as a landmark for the university,
the Main Building was demolished to make way for
The Founders Library. The cornerstone was laid on
June 10, 1937. The library was named for the 17
men who established the university and to whom the
charter was issued. A contemporary account by one
of the leading architects in Albert Cassell’s firm
makes clear how the project began:
The university was fairly specific.
They gave us the names and the sizes for the principal
spaces, and the number of books that they wanted
to provide for. They suggested that this building
have a tower. Old Main Building had one. The site
given was on top of the hill where the Old Main
Building sat. It would have to go and the president’s
house would have to be moved. …
We found that a building about
200 feet long by 100 feet wide would do if we
made the building four healthy stories high and
provided for six levels of stacks. … The tower
should be exactly in the center and should read
as a tower from the north campus (the larger,
more prominent campus).
The tower was borrowed from Independence
Hall in Philadelphia. Since it was dedicated to
liberty we felt that we could do no better.
From these design parameters came
a structure of striking nobility. When it was
dedicated on May 25, 1939, The Founders Library
opened to rave reviews. Newspaper headlines shouted,
“Howard Memorial to Founders Is Like Aladdin’s
Palace.” No detail was too small to escape notice.
The sound proofed walls and ceilings
enable readers to talk in one corner of the room
without being heard in the other. Floors are of
cork and rubber, $1,000 rugs so deep readers will
sink in to their ankles.
There are five reading rooms,
the main one 120 feet by 32 feet, equipped with
twenty silver oak tables each having six chairs.
Overhead the ceiling carries…indirect lights of
500 watts each. So efficient is the lighting that
if an obstruction is held 2 feet above a book,
enough light will still come in at the side to
permit easy reading.
The browsing room is fitted with
cream colored monk’s cloth drapes, Spanish leather
easy chairs and couches and Axminster rugs that
cost $1,000 each.
Built at a cost of $1,106,000, this was one of
the most important academic structures of the period.
It was the largest and most complete library among
the historically black colleges and universities.
It was considered one of the most modern and sophisticated
facilities of its type in the nation. Intended to
house 200,000 volumes with future capacity reaching
500,000 volumes, it was a marvel.
Founders Library made use of the current technological
advancements such air conditioning and mechanical
elevators for moving books. Its high ceilings, long
hallways and vast reading rooms were the rival of
those of the Ivy League. Its Georgian facade, oak
paneled rooms and stately entrance way beckoned
students and faculty into the tranquil realm of
Harold Ickes, U.S. Secretary of the Interior and
advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt, spoke at
the May 25, 1939 dedication ceremony. Newspaper
accounts often described Mr. Ickes as the “Ex Officio
Patron of Howard University.” His role in providing
Federal funding through he Public Works Administration
was crucial to the project. His address, broadcast
over the radio, rings true today in the age of the
Internet and the World Wide Web:
can hardly over-estimate the role of libraries
in modern life. They constitute perhaps the most
important single agency for the perpetuation of
civilization. To the libraries we entrust for
safe keeping our accumulated social, artistic
and scientific knowledge. It is upon their resources
that we largely depend for knowing and understand
the past; it is by their help that we may undertake
to absorb the knowledge and develop the intellectual
habits necessary for effective participation in
the democratic way of life; and it is mainly through
them that w hope to be able to project our own
contributions into and influence the future."
On that May afternoon, Howard University dedicated
a library that was equal to its ambitions and its
heritage. Finally, it had a building that could
house its growing special collections on the history
and culture of African America, first the Moorland-Spingarn
Research Center's materials, and later other collections. At America’s
foremost African American university was the newest
and best window into the past.
of Knowledge, at Lower Quad, Albert I. Cassell,