Smith Hill Library

Providence Public Library first placed a small collection of books for the use of Smith Hill residents as part of PPL’s early "extension plan" in 1907. The "library" was housed in a small room on Orms Street. This developed into the North End Branch and remained on Orms Street until PPL erected its fourt h branch building in 1932 on property on Candace Street it had purchased two years earlier. 1 As PPL noted in its monthly newsletter Books for All, this library was constructed according to the "cooperative arrangement" that had been worked out between the PPL trustees and the city of Providence in the late 1920s, and PPL looked forward to continuing its building campaign with new branches in Mount Pleasant and Washington Park, "whenever the City of Providence is ready to co-operate." 2 Unfortunately, as the Great Depression deepened, these plans had to be postponed.

• 1. “Smith Hill Branch Library Dedicated,” Providence Journal (September 29, 1932): 4.
• 2. “A Branch Library for Smith Hill,” Books for All, Vol. 6, No. 10 (December 1931): 270.