Hugh J. Chisholm wanted his employees at the Oxford Paper Company to have a quite place for reading and using books not easily available. The library and reading room in the Mechanics Institute, which he had built for his employees and their families, provided this service.

The photograph was published in a "Mechanics Institute, Rumford, Maine" booklet handed out at the building's ribbon cutting on November 9, 1911. It was published by University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.