The Library District had been looking for ways to improve access to library services in Poughkeepsie’s Northside neighborhoods that are cut off from our two other libraries due to the local traffic and transport topography. Early in 2021, the Family Partnership Center informed the Library District of an opportunity to partner with the Library Action Committee to create a full-service branch to better serve Northside residents.

The Family Partnership Center building was formerly Poughkeepsie High School, and later, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School. The new library branch opened April 9, 2022 and occupies the same space that housed the schools’ libraries. The branch has a particular focus on early literacy as an important developmental step for children.

View History of:

Adriance Memorial Library

Boardman Road Branch Library

Sadie Peterson Delaney and Bibliotherapy:

Sadie (Johnson) Peterson Delaney (1889 to 1958) was born in Rochester, but moved to Poughkeepsie as a child in 1899 when her father took the job of Sexton at St Paul’s Episcopal Church. She attended Poughkeepsie High School and Miss McGovern’s School of Social Work.

She became a very active member of the Smith Metropolitan AME Zion Church. In October 1915, the church’s newsletter noted that she was, “serving our church as President of the J. W. Hood Literary Society, President of the General Claims Auxiliary No. 2, Leader of the Children’s Class, Sabbath School Teacher, and member of the Busy Bee Sewing Circle.”

She was 30 years old when she left Poughkeepsie to study at the 135th Street Branch of the New York City library system, now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, in Harlem. She was active there when the intellectual, musical and artistic activities of the Harlem Renaissance took place. Today, that library houses a collection of her letters, clippings, and photographs.

In 1923, Ms. Delaney assumed the post of Chief Librarian at the Veterans Administration Hospital Library in Tuskegee, Alabama, where her work in bibliotherapy received international attention.  Bibliotherapy is a creative arts therapy that involves storytelling or the reading of specific texts with the purpose of healing. It consists of selecting reading material relevant to a client’s life situation. Bibliotherapy is often combined with writing therapy and has been shown to be effective in the treatment of depression.

In her January 1957 “My Day” column, Eleanor Roosevelt applauded Ms. Delaney and her practice of bibliotherapy in serving more than 1,000 patients. She also noted that Ms. Delaney had added a library binding service to give patients vocational experience and started a department for the blind that featured classes in braille.

Learn more about Sadie Peterson Delaney via our Local History Blog or by visiting Dutchess County Historical Society‘s recording program about Sadie P. Delaney.