Library Spotlights

Greetings:

Library Enthusiasts & Bibliophiles:

Gobble, Gobble, and Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. It is the season of giving thanks to family, friends, home, and health. As you gather this Thanksgiving, let’s keep the spirit of the holiday front and center. One of the many wonderful things I am grateful for is BOOKS! My fall trips took me to the E.C. Scranton Library in Madison, CT. At 34,000 square feet, this library has plenty of books and honors the legacy of Henry Bacon’s architectural design. Experience library joy at a public library near you!

Main brick entrance to the EC Scranton Memorial Library

Let’s Visit

The E. C. Scranton Public Library

Before Madison was known as Madison, it was part of Guilford, CT, and linked to Killingworth, Old Lyme, and Old Saybrook. The four towns formed the Four Town Library in 1737.

Madison established its own library in 1792. It was known as the Farmer’s Library, and Reverend John Elliot, the Congregational Church's Pastor, became the first librarian. The Pastor kept the books at his house, and borrowing them cost 5 cents. Over the next hundred years, as the collection expanded, residents became librarians. The grocer, butcher, and barber each had a library. Buy a new pair of shoes and borrow a book. Gives new meaning to the adage, "killing two birds with one stone.”

Members of the newly formed Madison Library Association collected the books from around town and relocated them to the schoolhouse. Approximately twenty years later, a fire broke out at the schoolhouse, resulting in near-total destruction of the collection. A building for the town library was found a year later.

Miss Mary Eliza Scranton built a library in memory of her father and donated it to the Madison Library Association in 1900. The Madison Library Association accepted a very generous offer and relocated one thousand books into the building.

The architect Henry Bacon designed the library, and six years later, he won the competition for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

The new Madison Library opened on July 21, 1900, at a total cost of $30,000.00. Mary E. Scranton was the benefactor of the library, paying the annual operating expenses. In 1913, she established a trust and deeded the building and grounds to the E.C. Scranton Library Corporation after the dissolution of the Madison Library Association.

Over the years, the library's collection and use by residents needed to expand, and town residents supported and undertook a renovation to the building that added a two-story wing.

A third and final referendum to renovate the library failed. There were objections to the design that failed to preserve the historic buildings near the library. In 2017, a referendum to renovate the library while maintaining the historic buildings near it received the residents' support. The newly designed library has a campus-like feel and can accommodate the technological and material needs well into the future.

“Our History.” Scranton Library - Madison, CT - Let Us Connect You, scrantonlibrary.org/about-us/our-history/. Accessed 2 Dec. 2025.

Scranton Memorial Library - The Madison Historical Society, www.madisonhistory.org/key-places/scranton-memorial-library/. Accessed 2 Dec. 2025.