{"nrhp_refnum":"91002052","name":"Thomas, M. Carey, Library, Bryn Mawr College","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Bounded by Morris, Yarrow, Wyndon and New Gulph Rds., Bryn Mawr College campus","address_restricted":false,"city":"Bryn Mawr","county":"Montgomery County","state":"PA","lat":40.02677966750005,"lon":-75.31420950418865,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1991-07-17","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1991-07-17","areas_of_significance":["Education","Social History"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"The M. Carey Thomas Library is a Jacobean Gothic style library building on the Bryn Mawr College campus in Bryn Mawr, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, completed in 1907. It forms three sides of an enclosed cloistered quadrangle and is built of gray stone.","why_significant":"The document argues the building best illustrates the achievements of M. Carey Thomas, who expanded academic opportunities for women at Bryn Mawr to match the highest standards in men's higher education. It is described as the first building in the United States in the collegiate Gothic style, and it is tied to Thomas's campaign to create serious scholarly spaces for women.","narrative":"Completed in 1907 on the Bryn Mawr College campus, the library is a gray stone building designed by Walter Cope and John Stewardson in the Jacobean Gothic style of the seventeenth-century English universities. Its three sides enclose a cloistered quadrangle with a fountain and grotesques carved by English sculptor Alec Miller. The main section, 174 feet long, has a three-story stack once holding 88,000 volumes and a great hall with tall lead-paned windows and oak paneling. Its entrance porch copies a pre-1752 drawing of the porch at Oriel College, Oxford. The building is regarded as the first American example of what became known as collegiate Gothic architecture. It was chosen as significant because it reflects M. Carey Thomas's presidency, during which Bryn Mawr established serious graduate programs, an entrance examination, and student self-government. Thomas's campaign to design the campus in this style linked the college to European universities. The library was later converted to academic offices and classrooms.","period_of_significance":"1907 to 1922","architect_builder":"Walter Cope and John Stewardson","architectural_style":"Jacobean Gothic (Late Gothic Revival / Tudor Revival also listed)","criteria":["A","B"],"status_note":"Holdings were transferred to Miriam Coffin Canaday Library in 1970; the building was renovated to house Art History and Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology departments and is still used for offices and classrooms.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:28.919701-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/91002052_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/91002052/8507dea8e9-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/91002052/8507dea8e9-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carey_Thomas_from_S.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carey_Thomas_from_S.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"79002299","name":"Bryn Mawr College Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/pennsylvania/bryn-mawr-college-historic-district-79002299/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71994155","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Library_(Bryn_Mawr_College)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6712468"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/montgomery-county/thomas-m-carey-library-bryn-mawr-college-91002052/"}