[Exterior of Cliff Rodger's Free Public Library, Marshfield Hills, Massachusetts]

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The library here bears the name of its benefactor, Cliff Rodger, and stands in the village of Marshfield Hills on Massachusetts's South Shore. Around 1906, small free public libraries like this one were spreading through New England, often founded by local donors who wanted residents of outlying villages to have access to books without the cost of a subscription library. A photograph of the building's exterior from this period records a modest civic structure of the kind that served as a community's main reading room and meeting place. Because the record gives few further details, the picture is most useful as a view of how rural Massachusetts towns invested in public education in the early twentieth century.

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