{"id":128543,"date":"2019-11-08T11:15:06","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T16:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=128543"},"modified":"2023-01-24T13:45:24","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T18:45:24","slug":"whats-in-a-bates-name-libbey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2019\/11\/08\/whats-in-a-bates-name-libbey\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Name: Libbey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dedicated on Oct. 1, 1909, Libbey Forum was donated to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ by Lewiston textile mill owner W. Scott Libbey.<\/p>\n

Once home to the student literary societies, the building then was used for faculty offices and classrooms. It’s now home to Student Financial Services and the Registrar.<\/p>\n

Hit the Bricks<\/h5>\n

The 1917 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Catalog<\/em> said the new ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ building was \u201cprobably the most solid and substantial structure in Lewiston.\u201d<\/p>\n

When It\u2019s Libbee, Libbey, Libbe<\/h5>\n

English originally, the name in America has been spelled Libby, Libbey, Libbee, Libbe, Lebby, Lebbey, Lebbee, and Lebbe.<\/p>\n

Good to Know<\/h5>\n

\u201cAs a family in America, the Libbeys have been largely respected by their neighbors as men of sterling worth and uprightness and honesty of character,\u201d said a 1920 issue of Americana.<\/em><\/p>\n

Big Break<\/h5>\n
\"A<\/a>

A distinctive ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ building, Libbey Forum features a Romanesque entrance and hipped roof. (H. Jay Burns\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Born in 1851, W. Scott Libbey started his career as a self-taught telegraph operator. It made the newspapers when he took 6,000 words of Morse code \u2014 tens of thousands of electric dots and dashes \u2014 without requesting a \u201cbreak,\u201d or a request for the sender to repeat a word.<\/p>\n

Ambitious and inventive, he eventually owned Lewiston\u2019s Lincoln and Cumberland mill buildings and the Lewiston & Auburn Electric Light Co.<\/p>\n

He built a hydropower dam above Lewiston\u2019s Great Falls and founded an electric railroad line, the Portland-Lewiston Interurban,<\/a> which ran between Monument Square in Portland and Union Square in Lewiston.<\/p>\n

Libbey \u201cpractically hews the fortune out of the very town in which he began,\u201d said Americana<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Libbey Legacy<\/h5>\n

Libbey, who died in 1914, sent three of his four children to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Son Harold graduated in 1905 and daughters Gertrude and Alla, both Phi Beta Kappa, graduated in 1901 and 1906, respectively. Many descendants have attended ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.<\/p>\n

\"W.<\/a>

W. Scott Libbey poses with his son W. Scott Jr. in 1911.<\/p><\/div>\n

The fourth Libbey child, son W. Scott Jr., served as a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ trustee, as did his son, Paul Libbey, who lives in Lewiston and has remained active in the family textile business into his 90s.<\/p>\n

The family\u2019s mausoleum is at Riverside Cemetery near campus.<\/p>\n

Society\u2019s Sake<\/h5>\n

Dedicated in 1909, Libbey Forum created important new space for the college\u2019s three thriving literary societies (Eurosophian, Polymnian, and Piaerian), as well as the YMCA and YWCA.<\/p>\n

In ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½\u2019 early years, the societies dominated extracurricular life and helped to nurture the tradition of debate. By the mid-1900, Libbey was home to the economics, sociology, and anthropology departments, offering classroom space as well.<\/p>\n

Today, Libbey Forum houses the offices of Student Financial Services and the Registrar.<\/p>\n

Train of Thought<\/h5>\n

After announcing his intention to give ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ a building, Libbey traveled widely, studying possible designs.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s been said that Libbey Forum was intentionally<\/em> designed to resemble a train station, that\u2019s probably apocryphal.<\/p>\n

The design features a low, hipped roof and a Romanesque entrance. It was modern for its time \u2014 very different from other ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ buildings \u2014 yet in keeping with early-1900s buildings having large interior spaces, such as schools and, yes, train stations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dedicated 110 years ago, Libbey Forum was donated to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ by Lewiston mill owner and entrepreneur W. Scott Libbey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":128549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"bates_author_byline_override":"","_estimated-read-time":"","_post-template":"","_header-color":"#000000","_photo-credit":"","_header-effect":"parallax","override_related_with_tag":"","_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[31,224,11009],"tags":[10830,11507],"class_list":["post-128543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lewiston-auburn","category-society-culture","category-the-college","tag-lewiston-auburn","tag-whats-in-a-lewiston-name"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128543"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128935,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128543\/revisions\/128935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}