The New School was founded in 1919 in six brownstone buildings on West 23rd Street by a group of educators, scholars and thinkers eager to reform the higher education landscape in the United States. Two of the founders were Charles Beard and James Robinson, Columbia University professors who had resigned their positions in protest of the firing of colleagues who had opposed America's entry into World War I. Alvin Johnson, president of The New School, guided the institution through its first eventful decades, from 1922 to 1945. Photo: H. Shobbrook Collins.

Parsons School of Design finds its origins in the Chase School of Art, established by the artist William Merritt Chase in 1896. It later became the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, led by Frank Alvah Parsons from 1910 to 1930. The school was named after Parsons in 1941. Here is the library at 136 East 57th Street circa 1940.

The David Mannes Music School was founded in 1916 by David and Clara Mannes.  It was first located in this rented home at 154 East 70th Street. In 1938, the school's name was changed to The Mannes Music School.

Parsons founded its Paris program in 1921 at 9 Place des Vosges. The European program in France and Italy had the same courses as in New York: Graphic Art, Fashion Illustration, and so on. Parsons Paris is now located at 45 Rue Saint-Roch.  All of the library's online resources can be accessed from that location and from off campus. 

In 1931, The New School opened its doors in a new location at 66 West 12th Street. Designed by Viennese architect Joseph Urban, the structure has been hailed as America's first important Modernist building. The library was located on the 4th floor and originally connected by staircase to an exhibition gallery above. The library supported adult education students, as well as students in the graduate program initially known as the University in Exile, which Alvin Johnson established in 1933 to help endangered scholars flee the rise of fascism in Europe.

In the 1930s, Mannes moved to 157 East 74th Street, and remained there for five decades.

In 1944, The New School began offering undergraduate degrees, drawing thousands of new students returning from World War II, many of whom attended on the GI Bill. In this photograph, researchers study a map of Asia in the library at 66 West 12th Street. Photo: David Rosenfeld.

The Clara Damrosch Mannes Memorial Library was established after her death in 1948. At the time, her son Leopold Mannes served as the president of Mannes. This excerpt from the 1953 Mannes Course Catalog describes a library with "instrumental, vocal, chamber, orchestral and choral works" and "literature on music." It also had a "Record Library equipped with recordings and phonographs" and a "recording machine and tape recorder." In 1953, The Mannes Music School became The Mannes College of Music when it obtained a charter from the state and began granting degrees. 

In the late 1950s, The New School erected a new building at 65 West 11th Street, which was adjoined to the original building by a courtyard. The New School library moved into the ground floor of the new building. It can be seen here in a view from the courtyard, which featured the sculpture Garden Elements by Isamu Noguchi (1958). Photo: Peter Moore.

The New School's library served faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, continuing education students, and alumni. Undergraduate study at The New School expanded upon the establishment of the Seminar College in 1977. The College was named after trustee Eugene Lang in 1985. Here we have students at the 65 West 11th Street library in 1964. Photo: Peter Moore.

Librarian Jadwiga Pulaska stands before rare books at the Parsons library at 410 East 54th Street on the 3rd floor in 1962. These books are now part of the New School Special Collections and may be viewed by appointment.

The Mannes library lends out musical scores that are used in performances like the one shown here with conductor Carl Bamberger and the Mannes Orchestra in the late 1960s.  Today, the library still circulates printed scores; in addition, online scores can be downloaded both on or off campus.

The Graduate Faculty for the New School for Social Research moved to 65 Fifth Avenue, formerly Lane's department store, in 1969. Generous grants from the Albert A. List Foundation and Raymond Fogelman Foundation helped fund the Raymond Fogelman Library, which was located in the basement of the newly-acquired building. Photo: Laima Turnley.

In 1970, Parsons School of Design became part of The New School and began awarding the country's first university degrees in fashion design, interior design, and lighting design. To this day, students can be found making sketches and doing other creative work in the library. Photo: Mark E. Hamilton.

The Adam L. Gimbel Design Library opened at 2 West 13th Street on the 2nd floor in 1974 and was later rededicated the Adam and Sophie Gimbel Design Library after Adam Gimbel's death in 1981. Adam and Sophie Gimbel were major figures in American fashion retail history. Adam L. Gimbel led his family's department store, which merged with Saks Fifth Avenue, starting in the late 1920s, while Sophie was a fashion designer who headed Saks' Salon Moderne couture division. Photo: Mark E. Hamilton.

The Parsons library at 2 West 13th Street housed a visual resources collection, or slide library. This has since been digitized and is available through The New School Libraries and Archives website. Photo: Stanley Seligson.

Fogelman Library served The New School's Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment, which grew out of the J.M. Kaplan Center for New York City Affairs (CNYCA), established in 1964. CNYCA expanded, becoming the Graduate Center of Urban and Management Professions (GSMUP) in 1975, and was renamed the Robert J. Milano School of Management and Urban Policy in 1996. Bound journals such as these are kept at our offsite storage facility and can be requested with the library catalog.  Many journals are also available electronically through the library website.

The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, inspired by saxophonist Arnie Lawrence, was created in 1986 and began granting BFA degrees in 1992.  In this 1990s photo, a student examines musical scores at Fogelman Library.

By 2010, Parsons designers and researchers, shown here in Gimbel Library, were accustomed to using computers for their research and design work. In 2019, researchers access ebooks, e-journals, and specialized research databases through the New School Library website. Photo: Jennifer Weinraub

The Mannes School of Music was located at 150 West 85th Street from 1984 through 2015, and became part of The New School in 1989. Scherman Library, named after Harry Scherman, founder of the Book-of-the-Month Club, offered specialized music material including books, scores, and audio recordings.  The Mannes archives are now part of the New School Archives and Special Collections and may be viewed by appointment.

At its centennial in 2019, The New School's three libraries are located in close proximity to one another in Greenwich Village. Each library is open to students and faculty of all schools and divisions of The New School. The List Center Library, seen here in 2017, is located at 6 East 16th Street on the 8th floor and houses the Humanities and Social Sciences Collections. Photo: Jennifer Weinraub.

The Arnhold Forum Library, seen here in 2018, is located in the University Center Library at 63 Fifth Avenue on the 6th and 7th floors. It houses the library's art and design materials and provides inspiring and technologically-equipped study spaces. The 7th floor overlooks a green roof. Photo: Jennifer Weinraub.

The Library for the Performing Arts is located at 55 West 13th Street and provides access to a variety of formats, including musical scores and audiovisual material. Researchers can enjoy these materials in the 2nd floor reading room, pictured here in 2017. Photo: Jennifer Weinraub.

The next century of The New School Libraries will undoubtedly bring more new and exciting changes. Thank you for joining us on our journey thus far. Want to see more of these photos?  Go to https://digitalarchives.library.newschool.edu/ and search using the keyword "library."