Civil Defense at the WFPL
Elizabeth Simms
During World War II and the Cold War, fears of air raids and nuclear attack prompted civil defense measures at the federal, state, and local levels. These measures included the creation of an Office of Civilian Defense to help create local defense councils and train volunteers to provide civil defense measures during emergencies. Libraries played an essential role in these civil defense measures, and the WFPL was no exception. In particular, libraries offered rooms in their buildings for civil defense meeting places and bomb shelters, in which communities could both prepare for and protect themselves from possible air raids. The WFPL had one such space, known as the Civilian Defense Report Center, located in the basement during World War II in order to prepare for the possibility of air raids like those happening abroad. In 1947, after the room was no longer needed for the purposes of self-defense, it was converted into the Francis Shaw Room to be used by any organization wishing to use it.
As the Cold War ramped up, fears of another war and nuclear attack prompted federal, state, and local governments to take civil defense measures once more. During the 1950s and 1960s, libraries were at the front line of civil defense as library staff turned the buildings into community fallout shelters, trained for emergency operations, and disseminated survival information to their local communities in the case of a nuclear attack. The WFPL utilized a room in the basement as a Civil Defense Room during the 1950s. Civil defense personnel had the authority to use the keys to this room in case of emergency, which they kept locked in a filing cabinet when the keys were not needed.
By 1958, the Wayland Library had more pressing concerns than civil defense. With a growing need for more space due to an increasing number of books and users, the library began construction on a new Children’s Room, designed by the architect Charles Way. The WFPL converted the Civil Defense Room and the former Civilian Defense Report Center into this new children’s space, repurposing a space that had once been devoted to wartime needs and concerns. The Children’s Room opened in 1960, furthering a tradition of service to children that continues to this day.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Spencer, Brett. “Preparing for an Air Attack: Libraries and American Air Raid Defense during World War II.” Libraries & the Cultural Record 43, no. 2 (2008): 125-147. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25549472.
Spencer, Brett. “From Atomic Shelters to Arms Control: Libraries, Civil Defense, and American Militarism during the Cold War.” Information and Culture 49, no. 3 (2014): 351-385. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43737397.
“Civilian Defense on the Home Front, 1942.” AP US History Study Guide. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Accessed 8 March 2023. https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/resources/civilian-defense-home-front-1942.
Library Trustee Records Box II, 1941-1956, Unpublished. WFPL Archives.