Living as we do in an age where the brain cannot engage unless the eyes are involved, this helps explain opera's popularity. So, assigning opera a special niche of its own, let's take a look at those small organizations in San Diego that get their audiences emotionally involved and are enjoying good health and growing support. There are any number that fit that description. The San Diego Early Music Society, Sushi, The Fritz Theatre and the Children's Museum are but a few. The small building by William Templeton Johnson at the corner of Wall Street and Girard Avenue in La Jolla that houses this membership library has been expanded so many times since its 1921 construction that it takes Athenaeum program director Dan Atkinson five minutes to point out and date all the additions.
Private libraries have a storied history.
Until the Civil War, there was no such thing as a public library in this country. Private membership libraries were the only reading resources for most American communities. The athenaeum concept, growing out of the private membership library idea, began to evolve in the early 19th century. These were centers for the enjoyment of the arts and literature and usually combined a reading room and an art gallery along with some sort of cultural program calendar. The smallest collection of them all, it nevertheless has a membership rivaling the largest and is always in the top six where annual budget's concerned.