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The Field Memorial Library photographed shortly after its completion around 1900: a Beaux-Arts limestone civic building seen in black-and-white from the street, with a low central pediment over a recessed entry flanked by paired Ionic columns, a hemispherical dome rising over the central rotunda, low gable wings extending to either side with tall ground-floor sash windows, ornamental urns at the corners of the parapet, broad stone steps climbing to the entry, and bare deciduous trees in winter behind the building.
Things to See · Historic Site
Field Memorial Library, Conway, Mass., shortly after completion, c. 1900. Library of Congress photograph, source, public domain.

Field Memorial Library

Conway, Franklin County

Category
Historic Site
Town
Conway
County
Franklin
Admission
Free during library hours

The Field Memorial Library is a 1901 Beaux-Arts limestone library in the center of Conway, designed by the prominent Boston firm Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, successor to H. H. Richardson’s practice. It was a gift to Conway from Marshall Field (1834–1906), the Chicago department-store magnate who was born and raised in town, and was dedicated to the memory of his parents, John and Fidelia Field.

The building is wildly out of scale with the small hill town around it: a copper-domed central rotunda rises over a symmetrical, urn- crowned facade of cut limestone, fronted by paired Ionic columns and a broad flight of stone steps. It still operates as Conway’s public library.

What to see

  • The exterior: Beaux-Arts limestone with a low central pediment, paired Ionic columns at the entry, ornamental urns along the parapet, and a verdigris copper dome over the rotunda.
  • The rotunda: the domed central reading space, lit from above.
  • Italian marble in the entry hall and around the rotunda.
  • The spiral staircase and original woodwork throughout.
  • Original cast-iron book-stack shelving: the 1901 stacks have not been replaced, and are unusual to find still in service.
  • Civil War memorial set into the grounds beside the library.

Visiting

The library is open to the public during posted hours and admission is free. Current public hours are Monday 3-6 PM, Wednesday 2-7 PM, and Saturday 10 AM-2 PM. The building is on Main Street (Route 116) in Conway Center, a short walk from the town hall and the Congregational church on the common.

A note on the donor: Marshall Field left Conway at 17 for a dry-goods job in Pittsfield, moved on to Chicago at 22, and built Marshall Field and Company into one of the largest department-store operations in the United States. He never moved back, but the library and the Field family plot in the town cemetery remain the two most visible Conway artifacts of his career.

For more on the town and Marshall Field’s connection to it, see the Conway entry.

Sources