Libraries & Morality: What the Library Has Stood For
Many see libraries as “the most upright and progressive of American institutions” (Stewart, 2006, p. 405). While today we can argue that libraries have a progressive lean, the history of libraries show us that they have tried to stand for what is upright or moral a definition that has changed over the decades. American public libraries in the 19th century are well documented in practicing 'self-censorship' when it came to keeping 'bad books' out of patrons' hands.
Public Libraries in the 19th & Early 20th CenturyIn the mid-19th century, the United States saw a boom in public libraries. A common belief in the 1800s was that through literacy and education one could uplift the masses. A good example of this belief is in the case of George Ticknor, who is often thought of as a humanitarian leader who strove to reform public libraries for the education of the common man (Harris, 1972, p. 4). That with the establishment of the Boston Public Library in the 1850s, the country saw a emergence of libraries being established by “enlightened civic leaders” who would keep libraries away from “an aristocratic intellectual class” who were believed would only make the library movement an elitist one (p. 4). However, George Ticknor actually held a very common and conservative view of the mid-1800s, that public libraries and by extension reading could help with the morality of the public. Immigration was the hot topic of the day and George Ticknor believed of immigrants, as quoted by Michael Harris (1972), that “at no time, consisted of persons who, in general, were fitted to understand our free institutions or to be instructed with the political power given by universal suffrage,” and saw education as a way to “assimilate their masses” (p. 14).
The image to the left is a list of 16 of the 20 reasons from Thomas Greenwood’s (1890) “Why Should Every Town Have a Public Library?” found in Public Libraries: A History of the Movement and a Manual for the Organization and Management of Rate-Supported Libraries. The very first reason states: I. Because a rate-supported Public Library is as necessary for the mental and moral health of the citizens as good sanitary arrangements, water supply, and street lighting are for the physical health and comfort of the people. (p. 511) Campaigns for public libraries would continue on into the early 20th century with many of these beliefs still prevalent. Public libraries were seen as “not a luxury” for the few, but a way to “[lift] up the entire community” as well as a way to “form patriotism […] for millions of foreigners coming yearly to our shores” (Why Do We Need A Public Library, 1910, pp. 10, 44). The consistent thought of the day was that libraries were symbols of morality and education, not idealistic protectors of intellectual freedom. |
Librarians as Intellectual Gatekeepers
From the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, librarians wholly embraced their roles as moral and intellectual gatekeepers. It was believed that librarians could and should guide readers away from immoral books. At the time the United States was influenced by the Comstock law of 1873 which suppressed the circulation of literature and articles deemed obscene or immoral. It was this law that framed the country’s sense of morality that would “not [be] challenged […] until the 20th century” (Geller, 1976, p. 1256). In fact even as libraries gained in prominence and opposition arose against the library’s paternalism, these objections were still framed within the “consensus that certain works should be excluded from the library” (p. 1256).
This sense of their being right and wrong books in the library was still prevalent even in the early 1900s. In the editorial from a Chicago paper The Day Book on November 3, 1914, the writer criticizes the head of one of the largest public libraries’ call to boycott a magazine featuring 'sex stuff.' While the writer is arguing against the boycott, they still make the distinction between good materials in the library and bad. The writer even acknowledges that it is a generally accepted belief that public librarians keep “filth” out of the library. One quote from the editorial stands out: So if there is to be a boycott of “sex stuff” let it keenly discriminate between writings meant to teach and writings meant to sell. (The Day Book, 1914, n.p.) Even with a call to reconsider a boycott of a magazine, the writer still frames their criticism of the library within a framework of good and bad library materials. It is also important to note that even in the 1910s there is an emphasis on good library materials being those that educate rather than those that are just meant to be popular and sell well. |
Collection Development in the 19th & 20th CenturiesOver the course of the 19th century to the early 20th century, book selection in the library matured and many books, editorials, and various guides were written to inform library policy. Some books included reader’s guides like The Best Books by Skim Sonnenschein and William Swan in 1901. One of the defining characteristics of libraries during this time was their aversion to novels or popular fiction. In fact the American Library Association in 1893 saw the model library as “only 15 percent fiction” (Stauffer, 2007, p. 388). Many librarians at the time warned against reading sensational fiction and opposed their inclusion in the collection. The Library Journal article to the left was written in 1895 by a librarian of the New York Free Circulating Library. In her article, Ellen M. Cox (April 1895) provides advice to fellow librarians on how to coax boys away from reading popular novels and towards more appropriate literature. She suggests:
If the boy has delighted in red handed tales of Indian border wars coax him into the realm of history by means of Custer's books. I have never seen the boy who would refuse these. And there are quite a number of similar books sufficiently sanguinary to conceal their strictly historical character which will keep him in reading until his taste is formed for the historical without the ultra-sanguinary coloring. If detective stories have been his only intellectual food give him some of the historical criminal biographies and remarkable escapes. There are one or two which cannot be condemned, and they are so much better than what he has been reading that they are a distinct advance; and they certainly do “exhale a moral” which he (with his intimate knowledge of crime and its penalties, if he is a city boy) will not fail to perceive. (pp. 118 – 119) Librarians of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused their efforts on steering patrons towards 'good books' instead of helping patrons find the books they want to read without judgement as is policy (in theory) for today's public libraries. |