five years Middletown Thrall Library will celebrate its One
Hundredth Anniversary.
This history may be of some interest to Middletown's citizens, library patrons, and staff at that time.
THE PROBLEM
A complete history of Middletown Thrall Library and its
antecedents has not been written. In 1951 Grace Bennett, the
Library Director at that time, researched the history of Thrall Library and produced a four page report entitled "Being a history
of library service in Middletown, New York, and in particular a
history of Thrall Library in commemoration of its fiftieth
Anniversary." This report, dated June 1951, was discovered in an
unmarked folder in the library's local history room during my
research for this paper. It traced both the years of 11brary
service prior to the opening of Thrall Library, and the opening
of the Library in 1901. The recollections of Archibald E. Vail
were also recorded by Grace Bennett. He was the only person then
alive that had worked in the Library from 1899-1902.
Unfortunately the 1951 Annual Library Report which might have
shed light on any celebration or commemoration was not found in
the library's records. Many of Thrall's Annual Reports have been
preserved but not the one for 1951. A fragment of what appears