Mercantile Library

The mission of The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction is to promote the reading, writing, and enjoyment of literature. To accomplish this, the Library acquires works of fiction and related non-fiction and circulates these works to its members, provides low-cost work-space to individual writers and non-profit literary organizations, and produces and presents programs of literary interest.

The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction was founded in 1820 by merchants and their clerks before the advent of public libraries. By the mid-nineteenth century, it was thriving as one of the foremost cultural institutions in the United States, with an extraordinary collection of books in the humanities, and a popular lecture program that featured such renowned speakers as William Makepeace Thackeray, Frederick Douglass, and Mark Twain. The Library offered classes on many subjects and was considered a meeting place for social and educational pursuits.