The photograph below, from Marshall Public Library’s Digital Archive, is one of my favorites. It was taken in 1940 or 1941 in Darwin Township, and it shows a group of boys posing with their newly acquired books alongside the Clark County Bookmobile in front of the Sherman School building. You can also see several faces pressed up against the classroom window, watching the scene outside.

The bookmobile visited participating rural schools in Clark County twice per month and was funded by the school districts, each contributing $15 yearly to the county school office. According to letters to the county school superintendent’s office, there was a “wild scramble to get these books whenever the bookmobile stops.” I was a voracious reader in school, and I can easily imagine myself as part of that wild scramble!

You can see this photograph in the Marshall Public Library Digital Archive in the Illinois Digital Archives.