The Library
Narrated by Volunteer Museum Tour Guide Sadie Sanchez
Library c. 1910. Courtesy of Denver Public Library.
The Library reflects Margaret’s own love of learning as evidenced by the original Brown family floor-to-ceiling bookcases. While living in Leadville and then in Denver she hired tutors to teach her family art and music.
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The family’s first exposure to international culture came during their visit to the 1893 Columbian Exposition held in Chicago. This trip influenced her love of travel and study of other cultures. She mimicked the Expo at a series of fundraisers for St. Joseph’s Hospital, with booths dedicated to other nations. As you’ll learn in the Dining Room, she would do this again on a larger scale for the Cathedral.
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Both of the children, Larry and Helen, first attended school here in Denver, with Larry at Sacred Heart and Helen at Loretto Heights Academy. Larry was then off to East Coast schools while Helen went to boarding schools in France and Germany. The Browns also helped educate other family members including their three adoptive nieces.
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Margaret continued her own education, attending classes at the Carnegie Institute after they created a women’s college. Margaret spoke French, Italian, German, and Russian as well as some Gaelic and Greek. To a reporter in 1922, Margaret said,
"Shouldn’t a passion for knowledge count for something in one’s own development?”
- Margaret Brown, 1922
Margaret was also an avid writer. She wrote mostly about her experiences traveling the world, which included her observations of the caste system while visiting India, as well as a family road trip across The Alps. Her essays were published in Denver newspapers and others across the country, which allowed others to share in her adventures and learn about the world. There were even several references in letters and newspaper articles about a possible personal memoir.
Later in the tour you’ll learn about Margaret’s Titanic experience, but in the months after the tragic event, Margaret corresponded with fellow survivor Colonel Archibold Gracie IV. In a letter to him, she announced that she would be writing an autobiographical memoir, which years later she did submit to a New York publisher. Unfortunately, it was never published and any copies have been lost to history.