A Brief History of the Cranford Public Library

The beginning of the Cranford Public Library goes back to the Cranford Library Organization, a subscription library founded in 1880. In 1895 the Cranford Library Organization, short of funds, gave its 1,061-volume collection to the Wednesday Morning Club, which then formed the Cranford Circulating and Subscription Library. In 1907 the Cranford Free Public Library Association was founded by three women’s clubs, the Wednesday Morning Club, the Village Improvement Association, and the Progress Club. The Library Association’s sole mission was the creation of a free, non-subscription library. Thanks to the efforts of the Association, a referendum to establish a tax-supported public library was passed by Cranford voters. On December 2, 1908, the Township Committee appointed the Trustees under whose direction the library would be operated. In 1910, a library building, financed in part by the Carnegie Fund, was erected on Miln Street between Alden and Eastman Streets. A white-columned structure, it looked more like a Southern mansion than a typical Carnegie library. Cranford’s population at the time was 3,641.