Reading Willa Cather at the Jaffrey Public Library

In collaboration with the Jaffrey Public Library in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, join us for a sesquicentennial celebration of Willa Cather, one of the most singular and treasured American writers of the 20th century. Cather’s story is one defined by a lifetime of determination, struggle, and gradual emergence. Cather’s groundbreaking fiction (O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, One of Ours, The Professor’s House, Death Comes for the Archbishop) set a new standard in American literature. This presentation of Cather's life and times will explore her turbulent biography and uniquely American voice. Sprinkled into the lecture will be readings of Cather’s work and letters.

Our presenter is Peter Cipkowski, Ed.D., an interdisciplinary scholar at UCLA and Vice President of the National Willa Cather Center Board of Governors.

As Willa Cather spent many autumns (from 1917-late 1930s) on writing retreats at the Shattuck Inn beneath Mount Monadnock in Jaffrey, it is likely that she may have visited the Clay Memorial Library (Jaffrey Public Library). Built in 1895 to a Romanesque Revival design by architect Henry Martyn Francis, the library was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in October 2023.

Susan Bethiah Clay (1826-93) left a portion of her estate to the town of Jaffrey to build the library, noting in her will that it “should contain suitable rooms for books, cases for minerals, and also rooms for use of town officers, and a fireproof vault for safe keeping of town records.” Her gift was part of a pattern of philanthropists funding public library buildings in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, following the example set by Andrew Carnegie.

Julie Perrin, present day Library Director, writes: "The library has changed a lot in recent years and is very community centric. The top floor is now a public space (formerly historic and archive storage), termed the History Floor as it still houses many of the historic portraits and is part of the original building. We also house our history books on that floor and have a small Willa Cather display at the top of the stairs."