Reading for 12 Feb: Apostles of Culture

Dee Garrison’s Apostles of Culture: the Public Librarian and American Society, 1876-1920 offers an insightful development of the librarian within the public library setting in the United States. She hits key issues of the library – like the addition of fiction to the collection – while also offering a glimpse at aspects many people would otherwise overlook – like the erratic character of Melvil Dewey. Historically – and contemporaneously – librarians have been or are viewed ad preservers of culture that motivate intellectual exploration. At the same time, as Garrison points out, the librarian profession has been marginalized as a semi-professional career choice. The role of the librarian in American society continues to raise question and concern in discussions today, and Garrison shines light on the origins of many of those discussions. Although at times some of her claims seem a bit far out and the book somewhat disjointed, her research and writing makes for an enjoyable and perceptive read.

Divided into four parts, Garrison’s first part tackles the genteel, missionary culture of the early public library. The gentry, at this point in American history, sought ways to maintain a social control in a changing and evolving society. As Garrison claims, they were “never comfortable in industrial America, [and] viewed themselves as saviors of society” (10). Having lost control of many economic and political affairs, the cultural sphere was the only one left, and the public library was the ideal opportunity by which to seize it. On this point Garrison is in agreement with many library historians, though I wish she explained this loss of control a bit earlier in the section. Quite possibly not writing to the political history crowd, the important role that the Industrial Revolution played on American class society cannot be overlooked and plays an important role in this genteel cultural control. Also in this section Garrison provides thirty-six quick socioeconomic biographies of early librarians, which seemed almost unnecessary. While they supported her point, it seemed like it could have been done much more concisely.

Part two discusses the dilemma of fiction in the public library. Much discussed by many authors in the profession, early librarians felt a need to control the content the public read and to which they had access. Feeling that most fiction (romance novels in particular) was a harm to society (elites pushing their cultural values through the library…?), librarians tried to push “better” material on its readers. After an almost unnecessarily detailed discussion of Victorian literature, Garrison goes on to discuss the shifting attitudes on the subject within the library. Noting the gradually increasing acceptance of fiction, Garrison relates it to a “changing perception of the institution’s social purpose” (89). However, claiming that this shift went from educational to “the supply of reading for recreation only” seems a bit extreme. Rather, it seems that the library struck a balance, allowing for the reading of fiction, but never abandoning its original purpose as provider of information and place for intellectual curiosity.

Admittedly, I am somewhat ambivalent about part three on Melvil Dewey. While I never knew anything about him except for his creation of the Dewey Decimal System, the insight into his character was certainly stimulating. As someone who has had such a large impact in the library with his classification system and establishment of library schools, it is important that people know a bit about him… definitely breaks with the stereotype of the quiet, passive librarian. At the same time, some of the information she provided seemed almost unfounded, using a bit too much of the psychoanalytic scientific terms. Still, the overall point was expressed even if it was a tad dressed up.

Part four, however, did not convince me. Now, I am an ardent anti-feminist but I was unable to find most her thesis valid in this section. To begin with, she accuses women librarians of contributing to the “domesticity imposed upon [them]” (179). She wants us to believe that because women did not “openly question sex roles,” it was impossible for them to be viewed as “disciplined intellects” (185). However, these women were not living in contemporary society and were in fact marginalized through a cultural norm. Fighting something like this would very likely have cost them their jobs, and I do not believe Garrison is in a place to judge that the rights of women and a few extra dollars should have been more important to them than making a living and living comfortably. Moreover, she later goes on to claim that women played an important role in the progressive era (196). While these two parts of the puzzle can reconcile with each other to some degree, this claim does not seem to go well with Garrison’s prime thesis of blaming women librarians. She discusses the tedious work involved in librarianship, so perhaps we should be blaming Dewey for college-educating women to do filing. Taking such a modern perspective – or even one in the time or Rosie the Riveter – seems unfair.

Overall, while Garrison’s book was an interesting read, some of her arguments seem a bit weak to me. My main issue with the book was the disjointed nature of the writing. The four parts stood as separate essays that could stand alone independent of one another. I do not see how they contributed to an overall point in the book, and wished she had at least connected them a little better. Nevertheless, despite the weaknesses in the book, it was educational and worth the read.