DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Twentieth Century Club of Borger, Texas. Now settle in, because this one starts with roughnecks and ends with libraries, and that is a more remarkable journey than it might first sound. Borger sprang to life in 1926 as an oil-boom town — and if you know anything about oil-boom towns, you know the word rowdy barely covers it.
Transient workers, fast money, faster trouble. Not exactly the kind of place you'd expect a literary society to take root. But that's the thing about people — they'll build something civilized just about anywhere you put them.
Among the early citizenry of Borger there was, alongside all that roughhousing, a social and professional set accustomed to a more refined cultural and literary environment. One of them was Sadie McBride, society editor for the Borger Daily Herald. Early in 1927, McBride arranged a meeting of several of her women friends to consider an offer that had come their way — a sales representative of Berle's Twentieth Century Self-Culture Company was pitching a monthly book plan.
Now, a subscription book plan sounds modest enough. But McBride and her friends accepted the offer, and later that same year they organized the Twentieth Century Club of Borger. The club became a Federated Woman's Club.
In 1928 they opened a subscription library right on Borger's main street. And here's where it gets good — they didn't have deep pockets, so they got creative. They exchanged books for movie tickets.
They held women's basketball contests. Whatever it took to augment that library collection, they did it. Then in 1937, club members set their sights on something bigger: a county library in nearby Stinnett.
Their efforts paid off in a way that turned some heads. The Works Progress Administration — the WPA — built a native adobe brick branch library there, and by 1938 it was finished and highly praised. A handsome thing, by all accounts.
The Twentieth Century Club wasn't done. In 1967 they helped open another branch library in nearby Fritch. All of it tracing back to one meeting in early 1927, a sales pitch, and a society editor who thought the oil fields of the Texas Panhandle deserved a good book.
Turns out she was right.
What the marker says
Borger, the oil-boom town that sprang to life here in 1926, had among its otherwise transient and rowdy early citizenry, a social and professional group of people accustomed to a more refined cultural and literary environment. Such a person was Sadie McBride, society editor for the "Borger Daily Herald" newspaper. In early 1927 McBride arranged a meeting of several of her women friends to consider an offer by a sales representative of Berle's Twentieth Century Self-Culture Company to subscribe to a monthly book plan. McBride and her friends accepted and later that year organized the Twentieth Century Club of Borger. The club became a Federated Woman's Club and opened a subscription library on Borger's main street in 1928. The club sponsored fundraising activities, such as the exchange of books for movie tickets and women's basketball contests to augment their library collection. Club members' efforts to establish a county library in nearby Stinnett in 1937 resulted in the building of a highly praised native adobe brick branch library here by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1938. The Twentieth Century Club helped open another branch library in nearby Fritch in 1967 and continues to be a positive influence in the county's library system. (1993)