Armstrong Browning Library

Andrew Joseph Armstrong, chairman of Baylor's English department, began collecting books on Robert Browning around 1905 and gave his small collection to the university in 1918. A fire in Carroll Library in 1922 spared every Browning item, a Browning Room was dedicated in 1924, and by 1925 Baylor's holdings were already the largest single concentration in the world. In 1943 Baylor president Pat N. Neff offered $100,000 toward a separate building and challenged Armstrong to raise the rest.

Ground was broken on May 7, 1948, and the library was dedicated on December 1-3, 1951. Wyatt C. Hedrick of Fort Worth was chief architect, with Eggers and Higgins of New York as associates for the main floor and S. B. Swigert Construction Company of Waco as builder. The walls are Indiana limestone. Inside are marble columns, black walnut paneling, a terrazzo floor inlaid in brass with a bells-and-pomegranates motif, and, by the library's count, sixty-two stained-glass windows.

The Handbook of Texas lists about 2,000 original letters and manuscripts by or to Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, all first editions of both poets, a statue of Pippa out front, bronze entrance doors, and Harriet Hosmer's cast of the poets' clasped hands in the Cloister of the Clasped Hands. The library runs rotating exhibits, lectures and symposia.