San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks Master's Theses Master's Theses and Graduate Research Spring 2013 Made Marian: Myth and Reality in the Redondo Beach Public Library, 1895-1924 Lisa Blank San Jose State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses Recommended Citation Blank, Lisa, "Made Marian: Myth and Reality in the Redondo Beach Public Library, 1895-1924" (2013). Master's Theses. 4261. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31979/etd.pzph-m24n https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses/4261 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Master's Theses and Graduate Research at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MADE MARIAN: MYTH AND REALITY IN THE REDONDO BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY, 1895-1924 A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the School of Library and Information Science San José State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Library and Information Science by Lisa Blank May 2013 © 2013 Lisa Blank ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Designated Thesis Committee Approves the Thesis Titled MADE MARIAN: MYTH AND REALITY IN THE REDONDO BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY, 1895-1924 by Lisa Blank APPROVED FOR THE SCHOOL OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY May 2013 Dr. Debra Hansen School of Library and Information Science Dr. Judith Weedman School of Library and Information Science Dr. Anthony Bernier School of Library and Information Science ABSTRACT MADE MARIAN: MYTH AND REALITY IN THE REDONDO BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY, 1895-1924 by Lisa Blank Librarians have been depicted in the literature as missionaries, apostles, and crusaders, militant maid Marians spreading the gospel of the library spirit. This thesis examines the historical depiction of the "typical" early librarian by posing two key questions. First, to what extent was the work of librarianship different or unique compared to that of other middle-class female occupations? And second, in what way was the librarian herself distinct from other middle-class women; that is, what defining characteristics or life events brought her to and kept her in librarianship? Utilizing local newspapers, official reports, and census and vital statistics data, this study contrasts the lives of forty-one women who, between 1895 and 1924, worked in or took the six-month library training course at the Redondo Beach Public Library to those of other librarians as well as to the lives of their mothers, sisters, neighbors, fellow church members, and clubwomen. The conclusion reached is that librarianship was similar to other female-dominated work, and that librarians were not special or unique, were not self-sacrificing idealists, or missionary reformers, but simply middle-class women working in a middle-class occupation. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Historical research and writing is a solitary effort which cannot be successfully accomplished without the collaboration of others. My thanks to Anthony Bernier, whose participation in this project contributed greatly to formulating the basic questions of the thesis. To Judy Weedman, who provided exactly what any writer needs, an enthusiastic reader who can point out where the writer is not as clear as they thought they were. And, finally and most importantly, to Debra Hansen. I was lucky to have Debbie as the instructor for my first class at SJSU/SLIS, and she has been my teacher, mentor, guide, editor, and cheerleader throughout my career at the school. It is without doubt that whatever merit this thesis has as a work of historical scholarship is due entirely to her tireless guidance and encouragement. Sanity requires that some outside activities be maintained. But the mind never strays far from the topic. So, to all my horse-back-riding, country-western-dancing, and just-plain-old friends and family, my many thanks for their inquiries on progress, and for allowing me to blather on, and on, about librarians and librarianship at the turn of the twentieth century. Special thanks in this regard must be given to Tori and Steve Thompson, who listened to me blather on and on; Professor Paul and Dr. Ellen Alkon, who not only listened to me blather on, and on, but also fed me delicious homemade teas and lunches; and to Walt and Kathy Ashford, who not only listened to me blather on, and on, and fed me wonderful homemade lunches and dinners, but also took me for carriage v rides and gave me driving lessons. My brain still works due to these many, patient, friends. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Marian and Other Librarians 1 Chapter One: Imagining Marian: Melvil Dewey and 26 the Myth of Marian, the Librarian Chapter Two: A Library in our Midst: From Reading Room 44 to Public Library, 1893-1909 Chapter Three: Finding Marian: The "Trained Librarians" of 91 the Redondo Beach Public Library, 1909-1911 Chapter Four: Some Local Girl: Training at Home, 131 Working From Home, 1911-1916 Chapter Five: Made and Not Born: Training Does Not Always 176 a Librarian Make, 1917-1920 Chapter Six: Marian and Other Maids: Librarianship and 207 Women's Work in Redondo Beach, 1920-1924 Chapter Seven: The Sadder but Wiser Girl: 239 Charles C. Williamson Reimagines Marian Conclusion: Made Marian 272 Bibliography 277 vi Introduction Marian and Other Librarians Meredith Wilson set his story of Marian, that quintessential American librarian, in the small midwestern town of River City, Iowa, a stand-in for Wilson's own hometown of Mason City, Iowa, circa 1912. White, middle-class, educated, working at the library, and giving piano lessons to support her widowed mother and younger brother, Marian lives happily ever after when she at last finds her "someone," leaving the library to fulfill the American (woman's) dream of marriage and family. This description so informs the American psyche that one has merely to say the name to invoke the archetype. The very first libraries fulfilled what were and still are considered the main functions of libraries ever since. First as repositories of information for laws and decrees, situation reports, statistics on rents owed and tithes received, libraries carefully stored and consistently organized information so that it could be reliably identified and retrieved when needed. Second, libraries served as guardians of public standards of culture and morals, where priests with specialized knowledge could place in the hands of the needy soul the correct book to meet the spiritual quest, the very earliest form of reader's advisory for moral uplift and improvement. As books moved into the secular world, they remained objects for the rich, those with the money to purchase and the houseroom to store such items. Libraries outside of church, school, or the wealthy home were initially confined to the use of those prosperous enough to at least purchase membership in the private clubs and societies that owned them. All this changed with the Industrial 1 Revolution, which brought about not only a radical transformation of the economy, but an accompanying change in the society as well. The Industrial Revolution altered the concept of "manufacture" from the creation of goods in small, family-centered workshops to the mass production of goods in large factories using production-line techniques. Immigrants who lacked the economic means to purchase land and become farmers and emigrants, single men and women who previously had been a drain on the family income, flocked to the industrial centers that offered this new kind of independent job. Factories required concentrated pools of cheap labor, workers who could understand and communicate effectively and efficiently with one another regardless of social or geographic origin. In addition, the success of this new business model relied on an army of literate managers and clerks to oversee the workers and track the orders, purchases, and expenditures. Neither the moneyed manufacturing magnate nor the factory-floor worker, this new middle class consisted of professionals, bankers, merchants, lawyers, and doctors. These professionals were supported by an army of office workers: secretaries, receptionists, file clerks, typists, stenographers, and bookkeepers. Lumped under the title "clerical workers," they occupied a slightly lower rung on the social ladder. In 1876, the year of the centennial of the nation's birth and the founding of the American Library Association, the Bureau of Education of the Department of the Interior published a comprehensive report on the history and status of the library in the United 2 States. 1 The report counted 3682 libraries in the United States, of which only about one- tenth, or 395, were considered "public libraries," that is, libraries that were tax-supported and open to all at no cost. Of these public libraries, fully two-thirds, or 282, were located in the northeast, 164 in Massachusetts alone. 2 It is no small wonder, then, that library scholars such as Amherst's librarian William I. Fletcher, writing in 1894, would present "library history" as the history of libraries in New England or those states "which were socially descended" from New England. 3 Fletcher's libraries were almost entirely confined to the places of the social and political elite, the private libraries of wealthy men, the universities they attended, and the private clubs they founded and financed. These were non-public institutions open only to those with the right connections socially, economically, and even politically to make use of them. Libraries did not so much provide information as store and protect it, doling it out in small portions often a single volume at a time to the privileged few. Librarians during this period were the men in black, the bookmen-scholars. They acted as custodians and gatekeepers, amassing volumes and organizing collections largely for themselves and incidentally for the use of others and then only under carefully controlled conditions that would prevent damage or loss to the books.