| Helen Day Memorial Library and Art Center | |
| Location: | 90 Pond Street Stowe, Vermont, United States |
| Type: | Art Center and Public Library |
| Director: | Rachel Moore, The Current; Loren Polk, The Stowe Free Library |
| Website: | https://www.thecurrentnow.org/ and https://www.stowelibrary.org/about.html |
Helen Day Memorial Library and Art Center is a historic building in Stowe, Vermont, United States. The building houses The Current, a non-profit contemporary arts and education organization, and the Stowe Free Library.[1]
The building which was built in 1863 as Stowe Village School is a classic Greek Revival building. It was eventually used exclusively for upper grades and abandoned in 1974 when a new high school was constructed at a location away from the center of town. After a bequest from Helen Day Montanari and work of local preservationists, the building, once known as “Old Yeller,” was restored in 1981 to house the Stowe Free Library and the Helen Day Art Center (now The Current). A major addition to the building was completed in 1994 through local support and a modest interior renovation was made to the library in 2002 through a grant from the Freeman Foundation of Stowe.
The building was founded via a bequest left by Helen Day Montanari and Marguerite E. Lichtenthaeler.[2] Dr. Lichtenthaeler moved to Stowe, Vermont, with Helen Day Montanari. She established her own practice in town and continued to see patients until she was eighty years old. Helen Day Montanari was born in Boston, Massachusetts. The two women shared intellectual interests, loved to travel, and shared a concern for the quality of life in their town. Lichtenthaeler supported library appropriations at town meeting. Montanari left a $40,000 trust after her death in 1955, for the establishment of an art center and a library. Years later, there was a successful campaign to raise the remainder of the money that was needed for the Stowe Free Library and the Helen Day Art Center.[3]
Established in 1981, The Current hosts exhibitions of visual art by internationally and nationally recognized artists and local Vermont artists. "Exposed" is The Current's annual outdoor sculpture exhibit.[4] [5] [6] The Current also offers art classes in a variety of media for youth and adults, as well as guided tours of exhibits, extensive public programs and a free hands-on room and Art Lounge.[7]
The earliest libraries in Stowe were subscription or membership libraries as was popular in the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1866, the Stowe Free Library was founded with a donation of 51 books from a group of visiting summer artists and supplemented by a town appropriation of $100. Stowe was the first town in Vermont to appropriate a sum of money for library purposes under the state of law of 1865.
After occupying several locations in the village, the library finally found a real home in the “new” town hall, the Akeley Memorial Building, in 1904. Seventy-seven years later, the library moved to the renovated old High School building at the corner of Pond and School Street.
The library is operated as a municipal department of the Town of Stowe and, as such, is about 90 percent tax-supported with the remaining income from endowment interest, fees, fines, gifts, and the proceeds from an annual book sale.[8]