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The Very Slow Decline of the American Social Library

In the United States as a whole, social libraries did not begin to decline in popularity when the public libraries first became popular around the middle of the nineteenth century. Records of the founding of social and public libraries, as well as counts of the numbers in existence at various times, show that by 1875 social libraries were more popular than ever before and were still considerably more popular than public libraries. By 1900, the public library had caught up with the social library and, in one respect, had surpassed it: among the largest institutions there were more public than social libraries. The American periodical literature published before 1876 shows very little opposition to either type of library. Several aspects of American society are suggested as possible reasons for the continuing popularity of the social libraries after public libraries had begun to be established.