One of the most beautiful buildings on Baylor University’s campus is the Armstrong Browning Library & Museum. Sources such as Campus Grotto and Flavorwire have named the library to their lists of the fifty most beautiful libraries in the United States and in the world, respectively. The three-story Italian renaissance style building houses the world’s largest collection of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning material. Collected by Dr. Andrew Joseph Armstrong throughout his life, the artifacts have resided in the Armstrong Browning Library since its opening in 1951.
Born in 1873 in Louisville, Kentucky, A.J. Armstrong grew up wanting to be a college professor. He lost his father when he was fourteen, so when his mother fell ill a few years later, he delayed his college education to care for her. She died when he was twenty-six, and he began his studies at Wabash College. After he graduated in 1902, he accepted a position teaching English at East Texas Baptist Institute, where he met his future wife, fellow English teacher Mary Maxwell. Armstrong went on to earn his doctorate from University of Pennsylvania in 1908. That same year he accepted an interim teaching position at Baylor University. After three years teaching at Georgetown College, he returned to Baylor as the chair of the English department.
Dr. Armstrong possessed an interest in Robert Browning from an early age. Browning and his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, were two of the greatest of the English Victorian poets. A master of dramatic monologue and psychological portraiture, Browning was a prolific poet, writing hundreds of poems and eight plays in verse.
Around 1905, Armstrong began to collect Browning's writings. His interest grew greatly upon his meeting the Brownings’ only son, Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, called Pen, on a visit to Italy in 1909, and he resolved to collect every artifact he could. When Pen died in 1912 without a will, Sotheby’s auction house in London sold off the Browning estate. Armstrong was able to acquire a copy of the sale catalogue, including sale prices and purchasers, from a Sotheby staff member named E.H. Courville. From this starting point, Armstrong began to track down the Browning effects to bolster his fast-growing collection of Browning writings and relics.
Armstrong donated his collection of Browning materials to Baylor in 1918. Throughout his life, he continued to track down Browning artifacts, funding his passion with donations, gifts, and profits from events he hosted on campus. Many of these events were live readings, concerts, or dramatizations, featuring poets, musicians, actors, politicians, and scholars such as Robert Frost, Basil Rathbone, W.B. Yeats, Vachel Lindsay, William Taft, and Katharine Cornell. The university kept the Browning materials in Carroll Library, and designated a Browning Room to house the collection after the 1924 building renovation.
The collection grew quickly, and in 1943 Baylor President Pat Neff provided $100,000 to begin work on a new library to house the artifacts. Dr. Armstrong took upon himself the task of raising the remaining money. With the aid of his wife, Mary, he began an enormous fundraising campaign, writing to alumni, colleagues, politicians, and celebrities for whatever donation they could spare. Each letter he wrote was personal, and each gift was recognized with a thank you note. According to Dr. Armstrong, one person out of every four asked provided a donation. Several local and campus groups with which Dr. Armstrong was involved sponsored specific features of the building. For example, Dr. Armstrong’s Literature Survey class funded the front stairs, and the Tuesday Club of Brady, Texas and Mr. & Mrs. John Leddy-Jones of Dallas donated the Pippa statue on the front lawn.
Five years later, having obtained the $1.75 million dollars necessary for the construction of the building, the university held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Armstrong Browning Library. In 1950, about halfway through the building’s construction, a second ceremony was held for supporters to place keepsakes such as pictures, books, and papers in the library’s cornerstone along with a list of the 5,117 individuals that contributed to the Browning fund. Finally, in December of 1951, the library officially opened to the public. By now, Dr. Armstrong’s collection was the biggest collection of Browningiana in the world.
The library stands three floors high. Its majestic Italian Renaissance architecture serves as a stunning backdrop for the thousands of artifacts housed within its walls. The Armstrong Browning stained glass collection is the largest collection of secular stained glass in the world, featuring sixty-two stained glass windows depicting the lives and poetry of the Brownings. The ground floor of the library underwent renovation in 1995. Until then, the first floor held offices and classrooms for the English department, while the second and third displayed the various Browning materials. The ground floor now houses the Cox Reception Hall, the ABL Gift Gallery, the Mary Armstrong Seminar Room, the Lewis-Birkhead Lecture Hall, and climate-controlled book stacks. The second floor holds the Martin Entrance Foyer, the Hankamer Treasure Room, the John Leddy-Jones Research Hall, the McLean Foyer of Meditation, and the Cloister of the Clasped Hands, which holds a bronze cast of the hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barett Browning done by artist Harriet Hosmer. The stairwell joining the three floors holds a collection of paintings by Pen Browning. The third floor boasts the Austin Moore-Elizabeth Barrett Browning Salon and the Belew Scholars’ Room (originally Dr. Armstrong’s personal classroom) as well as a balcony overlooking the Foyer of Meditation. Spaces found outside the building include the Garden of Contentment, added in 2012, and an amphitheater.
The Armstrong Browning Library & Museum is a testament to how the tireless effort of one person can accomplish a lofty goal. The library continues to inspire students, scholars, poets, and tourists with its beauty and resources.
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]]>Mary Maxwell Armstrong’s intelligence, insight, and perseverance made her an influential figure in twentieth-century Waco. Her determination combined with her love for great literature aided in the establishment of a world-renowned library on Baylor University campus.
Mary Maxwell Armstrong was born at Buena Vista, Texas, on September 21, 1882, the tenth child of Baptist minister Wilder Richard Maxwell and his wife Melissa Anne (Williams) Maxwell. After attending Baylor University and receiving a bachelor of arts degree, she completed additional coursework for one summer at University of Chicago. When she finished her coursework, Mary began to teach at East Texas Baptist Institute (ETBI) in Rusk, Texas, where her brother served as president. In 1902, she met her future husband, Andrew Joseph Armstrong, who taught at ETBI while pursuing his PhD. On January 24, 1911, Mary married A. J. Armstrong and they moved together to Georgetown, Kentucky, so he might resume his professorship at Georgetown College.
The Armstrongs shared an impressive dream of amassing a collection of the works and materials of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and establishing a library. In the fall of 1912, A. J. Armstrong accepted a full-time position at Baylor University, and the couple moved to Waco in order to realize their goal of establishing the library. Together, the Armstrongs raised the funds to construct a building to house the materials. They also toured Europe twenty-nine times in search of materials to add to the collection. When her husband fell ill, the bulk of the consulting work with the architects, builders, designers, and stained glass experts during the construction process fell to Mary.
The dedication of Armstrong Browning Library on December 3, 1951, realized the Armstrongs’s dreams. The library is widely considered to be the largest accumulation of Browning materials in the world. Mary’s influence is strongly evident in the design of the Elizabeth Barrett Browning Salon and many of the ornate stained glass windows visible throughout the building.
Following the death of her husband in 1954, Armstrong served as director of the library for five years. After retiring in 1959, she served as a special consultant for her successor, Dr. Jack Herring, and kept an office in the library. She resided at 116 North Thirtieth Street (as indicated on map) until she moved to Pennsylvania in September of 1966 in order to reside with her son's family.
Though often noted primarily for her work on the Armstrong Browning Library, Mary M. Armstrong was a highly involved member of other areas of the community as well. She taught freshman English at Baylor University for a number of years and also served as a member of Baylor Round Table, Daughters of the American Revolution, and as an honorary member of Waco Woman's Club. She passed away on September 1, 1971, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was buried in Waco's Oakwood Cemetery.
]]>The plans for F. L. Carroll Chapel and Library were announced in 1901, following substantial gifts to Baylor University from F. L. Carroll for the Chapel and Library and from G. W. Carroll for the Science Hall. While the Science Hall is separate from the Chapel and Library, the two buildings are linked in both style and historical significance. The cornerstones for both buildings were laid February 28, 1902, and their construction was a major landmark in Baylor history, lauded by the student newspaper as the moment when “Greater Baylor Begins.” Construction of F. L. Carroll Chapel and Library was completed in 1903. Period documentation describes the building’s original winding staircases, marble entryways, and seven marble pillars that supported a domed stained glass window. The building housed donated book collections. The dome on top of the building covered the chapel area which included an organ purchased by F. L. Carroll. In 1918, the collection of Dr. A. J. Armstrong’s Browning materials was donated to Baylor University and was housed in Carroll Chapel and Library.
On February 11, 1922 the F. L. Carroll Chapel and Library Building was damaged by a fire that destroyed much of the wooden interior. The Browning collection and many of the books were saved, as was the exterior of the building. Between 1922 and 1924 the building was reconstructed to house the University’s main library as well as several other smaller collections, including the Browning Collection, the Law School library, and the Texas Collection. The domed chapel was not reconstructed; in its place, a third floor was added. A basement was also added during this reconstruction. The quoin work from the original facade as well as some of the stone string course between the second and third floor are still intact. Throughout the years the building also housed the Strecker Museum, the J. B. Tidwell Bible Library, classrooms and offices for various academic departments, and temporary space for departments whose buildings were being remodeled.
After a 1992 hail storm damaged some of the windows, the University decided to remodel the building. The architectural work for the renovations was done by F&S Partners Incorporated from Dallas, Texas, and the contractor was Waco Construction, Incorporated. The landscape architect was J. Robert Anderson from Austin. In 1993 the renovations began, and in 1994 the building was once again fully functional, housing such entities as the Institute for Oral History, J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, the University Historian, and the Texas Collection. The building was rededicated on February 26, 1994.
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