Harriet Cheney Cowles Memorial Library
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- Memorial Type
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Memorial Structure
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Named Building
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Cowles, Harriet Chaney
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Harriet Cheney Cowles Memorial Library
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Harriet Cheney Cowles was the wife of William Hutchinson Cowles Sr. and the mother of W. H. Cowles Jr. After her passing in 1938, her husband and later, her son—following the death of Cowles Sr.—donated funds for the construction of a library on Whitworth University’s campus. Following its completion in 1948, the library was dedicated to Harriet Cheney Cowles and the Cowles family by Whitworth President Frank Warren. Part of the fortune of W.H. Cowles Jr. came from selling five subdivisions in what is now the South Hills district of Spokane, Washington. As a part of this sale, W.H. Cowles Jr. attached restrictive covenants to the conveyance deeds of nearly 200 homes in the South Hills, blocking people of color from purchasing them.
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The original brick building, which was largely funded by W.H. Cowles Jr., stood in the heart of campus, offering 8,556 square feet and holding 100,000 volumes. It has undergone numerous major renovations, the first in 1965, which added nearly 20,000 square feet, and the most recent occurring in 1992, which added a new wing and increased the building’s footprint to just over 53,000 square feet. This last renovation also included the modernizing of a number of the library’s resources and adding an East wing complete with two computer labs.
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November 10, 1948
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1965
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1992
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https://spokanehistorical.org/items/show/778
https://libguides.whitworth.edu/main
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