Temple of Learning

In his 1941 short story “The Library of Babel,” Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges imagines an infinite series of hexagonal galleries filled with books that contain all human knowledge. The only trick is that the real books are mixed in with every possible variation of their text. Babel’s librarians go insane trying to find the books with actual meaning amid the nonsense.

Anyone who has lost sanity searching for high-quality content in a sea of AI-spawned junk can relate.

Babel was a nightmare, but Borges still likened paradise to “a kind of library,” a place where wisdom is preserved and shared by humans with the intelligence to recognize and value it.

How charmed he would have been by the Boston Athenaeum—a library, art gallery, and cultural center in one, housed in a magnificent historical building on Beacon Hill with glass doors framed in resplendent red leatherette and the pleasingly quirky address of 10 ½ Beacon Street.

The Athenaeum is a sanctuary for lovers of the written word. 12 floors of reading rooms offer general readers an escape from city bustle and noise into an atmosphere of singular refinement. Paintings and sculptures—including a 7-foot-tall bronze statue of patron goddess Athena—line the halls and accent the rooms. Patrons of all ages and backgrounds work and lounge in the museum-like space, recently updated in a $17 million renovation.

The organization is a cultural treasure house. In addition to the library’s circulating collection of 600,000 volumes, the Athenaeum owns at least 100,000 rare books, maps, and manuscripts, and more than 100,000 works of art.

Leah Rosovsky, who has been the Stanford Calderwood Director since 2020, says the core mission hasn’t really changed since the Athenaeum’s founding.

“We’ve always been a good fit for people who want new ideas, new opportunities, new ways to learn. We work hard to get people in the door, and we want to make sure they have a terrific time when they’re here,” explains Rosovsky.

Boston’s Athenaeum was established in 1807, one of the first of hundreds of athenaeums that cropped up across the country during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Named for the ancient Athenian temples to the goddess of wisdom where poets and philosophical types gathered to debate ideas, Athenaeums were founded by classically educated, civic-minded philanthropists interested in fostering an intellectual culture. Today, only about 18 athenaeums remain. Boston’s is one of the oldest, largest, and most distinguished.

Independent private libraries are rare, and upkeep of collections is costly. The Athenaeum has made a concerted effort in recent years to widen its reach and welcome new members and donors. The staff finds creative ways to express the organization’s mission through author talks, art exhibitions, member-run discussion clubs, and vibrant social gatherings.

Rosovsky estimates that about 300 people walk through the Athenaeum’s doors every day.

“People come here for different reasons and different experiences. Some are here for the exhibitions, some are engaged in discussions with other members, some are scholars doing research.”

The Power of Place

In 1807, decades before the Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts existed, the Athenaeum was the hot spot for highbrow culture. While it was a members-only club, Shaw extended reading privileges to several people, including “Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott, who lived across the street. Nathaniel Hawthorne and journalist Margaret Fuller also became regulars.

By 1846, a bigger space was needed to accommodate the growing collection, so Shaw and others invited architects to come up with proposals for a new building. The founders eventually commissioned architect Edward Clarke Cabot, who had recently designed a house for the wealthy Gibson family, now a museum in Back Bay, to create a permanent home for the Athenaeum.

Cabot found space on Beacon Hill and designed the building in the Italian Renaissance revival style. It’s a Boston landmark, just down the street from the State House, overlooking the Granary burial ground, the final resting place of Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and others.

A significant renovation during the pandemic expanded the Athenaeum’s footprint by 15,000 square feet and added contemporary space while maintaining the historic library. The project increased gallery space, enlarged the children’s section, and created comfortable nooks for readers. The building reopened in November 2022, along with a new adjoining restaurant—the Folio Bistro, run by The Catered Affair.

While the entire building is an architectural treasure, the fifth floor is breathtaking, especially at night, when the lights of the city shine through the giant windows of the room’s upper terrace. The space is available for event rental, and the organization hosts an annual members-only, period-themed party with a live band that spans multiple floors. Past balls have incorporated playful scavenger hunts through the stacks, secret password access to certain floors, champagne on tap, and cheeseburgers served at midnight.

Deep Pockets

The Athenaeum owes its existence largely to William Shaw, Harvard graduate, lawyer, and obsessive bibliophile. In 1805, Shaw founded The Anthology Society, a literary club that published a regular gazette. The society quickly determined it needed a library of periodicals for research purposes, and Shaw set about procuring them.

According to his friend, Judge William Tudor, Shaw went about the streets of Boston, cramming political and religious tracts—the Instagram of their day—into the extra-large pockets of a coat he’d had custom-made for the purpose. Shaw himself scribbled what Tudor said about him on the back of one of Tudor’s essays: “Gentlemen, said [Tudor], that dog Shaw goes everywhere. He knows everybody. Everybody knows him. If he sees a book, pamphlet, or manuscript –– Oh! Sir! the Athenaeum must have this. Well, have it he will and have it he must, and have it he does, for he seldom goes out of a house without having something under his arm.”

Shaw, whom another friend described as “a sturdy beggar for the Athenaeum,” left the library with his impressive collection of periodicals, which grew into over 7,000 linear feet of newspapers, tracts, and pamphlets.

Washington’s papers are a cornerstone, but the collection contains many other gems, including one of only 16 known institutionally held copies of the Declaration of Independence in book form. It was printed by Philadelphia patriot Robert Bell at the end of a pamphlet entitled “The Genuine Principles of the Ancient Saxon, or English Constitution” on July 8, 1776, four days after the Declaration was adopted unanimously by the Second Continental Congress, and on the same day it was read aloud in public for the first time. The copy is currently on display on the Athenaeum’s first floor.

Early art acquisitions were equally astute. One of the first items purchased was an 1816 painting of Hawaiian leader King Kamehameha the Great, who preserved Hawaii’s independence from colonial oppressors for most of the 19th century. The artist is unknown, and it wasn’t displayed until recently, yet the Athenaeum’s early curators clearly found it compelling.

There’s also the work of African American (and Boston resident) artist Allan Rohan Crite, recently the subject of a major exhibition in concert with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The Athenaeum is the largest and most important repository of Crite’s work, and the exhibit featured 100 objects drawn from the collection, including his vivid portrayals of Boston’s Black neighborhoods and multicultural communities, some of which hang on Rosovsky’s office walls.

Forging a Connection

The Athenaeum continues to build its own community of the intellectually curious. “My sense is people are longing for more connections to other people. During the pandemic, people sort of lost the habit of getting out and doing things. We try to make those connections feel comfortable,” says Rosovsky.

Members are invited to start their own discussion clubs around topics they’re passionate about. A long list on the organization’s website includes topics such as “Shakespeare,” “Banned Books,” “Weird Literature,” and “James Joyce Adjacent.” Rosovsky points out there are two groups alone dedicated to the French author Proust. The general rules are relaxed, since the point is to commune over a love of books and ideas.

“You can prepare lectures, have discussions, or just sit and read together,” she explains.

There’s also a movie and martini night, and a popular series of talks with prominent authors, which Rosovsky says are often standing room only.

The Athenaeum, like many nonprofits in the city, is competing for people’s time and interest, which has led to inspired marketing campaigns. To promote the Crite exhibition, the staff created decals that depicted 10 places in the city that Crite painted, and placed them in those neighborhoods, which helped attract record audiences.

A self-directed visit to the first-floor museum experience is $11. Day memberships for full library access are $40, an amount that can be applied to annual memberships, which start at $338 a year. A bargain, considering the perks, especially for Bostonians who live in small spaces and yearn for a larger, more luxurious place where they can stretch out.

Rosovsky thinks the earliest founders would approve of the organization’s direction in the 21st century.

“I suspect a lot of people who were Athenaeum fans in 1807 would really get what we’re doing today, and they would love it. They’d be shocked by our clothes, but otherwise, they’d feel right at home.”

Reserve your ticket for free at bostonathenaeum.org/events.