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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stefan

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Speaker 1: Never Told You production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And as this is coming out, we are entering into

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Speaker 2: Pride Month and we were looking at classics to bring back,

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Speaker 2: and I thought about librarians because Kristin and Caroline did

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Speaker 2: a two parter on librarians, and as we've discussed previously,

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Speaker 2: unfortunately there has been an increase in book banning that's

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Speaker 2: only gotten worse since we've talked about them last A

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Speaker 2: lot of it is targeted towards LGBTQ plus material, and

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Speaker 2: it's really infuriating because in several instances the material they're

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Speaker 2: med at is not at the library they're attacking. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: so you can see the episode we did about how

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Speaker 2: that's really an organized effort to get books banned. But

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Speaker 2: also there's been a lot of interviews with libraries lately

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Speaker 2: saying like I've had to leave because I'm getting attacked

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Speaker 2: for all these horrific things, which is upsetting, upsetting. I

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Speaker 2: have many good, fond memories of libraries.

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Speaker 3: So I just got my library card two months ago. Yes,

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Speaker 3: that's awesome, very delighted by all the options I have too.

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Speaker 2: I love that libraries like also offer all kinds of

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Speaker 2: other things.

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Speaker 1: Simpoint, I really do.

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Speaker 3: She may be a whole pamphlet in the librarian phenomenal

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Speaker 3: love her. She was so excited when I walked in,

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Speaker 3: told me all my options they're the best.

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Speaker 2: It's like, really, if you don't know, libraries offer like

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Speaker 2: a lot. I mean, the books are great, obviously, that's

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Speaker 2: there for it, but they offer like a ton of

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Speaker 2: other stuff you might not know about.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, definitely check them out. Support your local library.

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Speaker 2: But yes, in the meantime, enjoy part one of this

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Speaker 2: classic episode about librarians.

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Speaker 4: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from Houstuffworks dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline.

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Speaker 4: And by very popular demand, we're talking about librarians not

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Speaker 4: just in this podcast, but also in the.

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Speaker 1: Next because there's so much to talk about.

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Speaker 5: There is so much to talk about, and you are

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Speaker 5: just going to listen to me over the course of

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Speaker 5: two episodes. Try not to say librarians. And I'm not

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Speaker 5: teasing anyone. I'm not making fun of speech impediments. I'm

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Speaker 5: literally concerned about my lazy mouth.

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Speaker 4: Well, and it didn't help that the email I sent

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Speaker 4: Caroline with all of my library sources that I would

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Speaker 4: reading was subject lined library sources.

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Speaker 1: So now library is in my head.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, well, library sounds like some kind of refreshing tonic ooh,

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Speaker 5: a library juice?

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Speaker 1: Really go for a library right now? What flavor would

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Speaker 1: a library be? Something sour? I bet like lime and BlackBerry.

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Speaker 4: Ooh, hello, let's make that happen. Can that be a cocktail?

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Speaker 4: Throw some gin in there, I'm.

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Speaker 1: Sure it could.

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Speaker 5: But about specific actual human librarians. True, we seriously did

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Speaker 5: receive so many emphatic requests for this episode.

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Speaker 1: People out there who.

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Speaker 5: Work with books, work around books, they do tend to

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Speaker 5: call themselves librarians. And yeah, we couldn't not listen to

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Speaker 5: you guys. Your request.

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Speaker 4: We had to answer, well, because we mentioned offhandedly in

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Speaker 4: an episode. I think it was our episode about Hillary

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Speaker 4: Clinton's early life that we should revisit librarians because there

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Speaker 4: is a librarian themed episode of Stuff Mom Never Told

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Speaker 4: You from the Vault. I think it came out in

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Speaker 4: twenty ten, so we will be revisiting a little bit

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Speaker 4: of that. But I have a feeling a lot of

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Speaker 4: listeners either haven't heard that episode or it's probably been

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Speaker 4: a while since you have heard that episode.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, because I mean children born that year are like

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Speaker 5: six now.

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Speaker 1: I know, so so six year olds, this is for you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this goes out to you, and also all the librarians

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Speaker 1: out there.

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Speaker 4: If, by the way, the two bossy dames who are

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Speaker 4: fantastic librarians who send out a weekly newsletter that you

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Speaker 4: should absolutely subscribe to, if they're listening, because I think

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Speaker 4: they might know who we are.

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Speaker 1: Hello. I thought about you a lot during this episode,

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Speaker 1: just pondered them.

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Speaker 5: I'm picturing you like sitting in your window looking out

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Speaker 5: at the moon.

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Speaker 1: Because they're rad librarians. I mean.

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Speaker 4: And in college, Caroline, I really wanted to work at

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Speaker 4: our college library. Why so as part of my student aid,

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Speaker 4: I had an on campus job and you could check

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Speaker 4: off the ones that you wanted, and the library was

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Speaker 4: where all the cool kids worked, Like a lot of

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Speaker 4: townies worked at the library, and it just kind of

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Speaker 4: sounded cool, like, oh, I just came from my shift

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Speaker 4: at the library, and they always had.

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Speaker 1: Cool glasses and cool tattoos.

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Speaker 4: And instead I ended up working at the print shop,

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Speaker 4: which had its own you know, benefits hashtag free copies.

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Speaker 1: But still it was it was my dream to be

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Speaker 1: the college librarian.

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Speaker 5: Well, it's funny that you mentioned like the cool kids

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Speaker 5: and the cool glasses and the tattoos and everything, because

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Speaker 5: that is sort of a latter day librarian stereotype. You know.

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Speaker 5: Over the course of these two episodes, we will discuss

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Speaker 5: stereotypes a bit. But you know, I've always had the

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Speaker 5: image of the old spinster woman shushing children. But I

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Speaker 5: feel like, more recently, the new stereotype that's been introduced

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Speaker 5: is like it is a cool lady job, and here

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Speaker 5: I am the alternative librarian with the tattoos and glasses.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and she has really cool glasses, some great tattoos,

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Speaker 4: she wears modcloth dresses, has fantastic vintage decor in her home,

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Speaker 4: and a record collection, and essentially is just has really

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Speaker 4: great esthetic taste and also so many cultural references.

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Speaker 1: Because she's read so much cultural and literary references. She

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Speaker 1: sounds like somebody i'd want to hang out with. She's

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Speaker 1: kind of my ideal woman. I think it's what I'm

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Speaker 1: realizing right now. Sounds like you still want to go

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Speaker 1: work in a library a little bit.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I've also been thinking about librarians a bit though.

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Speaker 4: Caroline because I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for

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Speaker 4: the first time, Thank you Netflix. And Giles the Watcher

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Speaker 4: is a librarian and he fits the stereotype of your

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Speaker 4: of the He's not a curmudgeon, but he's a little

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Speaker 4: bit fusty.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And it is interesting to see, and

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Speaker 5: I mean it makes total sense.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty self explanatory. It's interesting to.

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Speaker 5: See the evolution of the librarian stereotype and how it

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Speaker 5: exactly matches the trends that we see in librarian inging librarianship.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh sure that'll work as well.

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Speaker 4: Yes, And in this episode we are going to talk

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Speaker 4: about how librarianship used to be a dude's job and

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Speaker 4: how a guy named Melville Dewey came along and changed

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Speaker 4: all of that. And he also is the one who

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Speaker 4: created the Dewey decimal system. And while he often gets

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Speaker 4: praised for that, I mean he's kind of considered this

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Speaker 4: hero of librarianship, we have darker tales to tell about Dewey.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds like a he's a real joy.

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Speaker 4: But the whole transition of librarianship from being a man's

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Speaker 4: job to a woman's job, which it still very much

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Speaker 4: is today is a really intriguing exploration of how masculinity,

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Speaker 4: ideal masculinity changed in turn of the century America.

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Speaker 5: Yes, this is such a great episode to encompass all

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Speaker 5: of the themes that Sminty just loves.

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Speaker 1: Like what, So we've got women in.

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Speaker 5: The workplace, yes, but we've also got the professionalization issue

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Speaker 5: surrounding gender, so very professional when it comes to men,

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Speaker 5: but less professional when it comes to women and wages.

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Speaker 5: We've also got issues of the spinster and marriage and

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Speaker 5: relationships and who is allowed to be employed, both like

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Speaker 5: you know, legally and just socially, what is socially accepted?

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Speaker 4: And just a boatload of stereotypes. Yeah, Victorian womanhood, gender norms.

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Speaker 1: These two episodes, folks have it all.

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Speaker 4: So in this episode we're going to be focusing on

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Speaker 4: men in librarianship, and then in our next episode we're

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Speaker 4: going to be talking about rad lady librarians and how

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Speaker 4: it became feminized, and we should say that it is

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Speaker 4: still very much a feminized occupation. So, according to stats

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Speaker 4: from the American Library Association, as of twenty ten, women

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Speaker 4: made up eighty two point eight percent of all librarians

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Speaker 4: and eighty one percent of all masters in library science students.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, but it's not as diverse a field as ideal

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Speaker 5: it would be. Women of color actually comprise less than

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Speaker 5: sixteen percent of all librarians. And so this is another

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Speaker 5: very smintiesque tidbit.

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Speaker 1: I love all the sintiesque tidbits.

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Speaker 5: I know.

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Speaker 1: I do remember tidbits. They were little cheese snacks.

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Speaker 5: I don't think they make them anymore, but I ate

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Speaker 5: them so often as a child.

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Speaker 4: I was about to say that smintyesque tidbits sounds like

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Speaker 4: like a British cookie.

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Speaker 5: So we've got the library drink Library, drink library to

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Speaker 5: eat with our smintiesque tidbits.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm sorry.

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Speaker 5: I will get back to the topic at hand, But

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Speaker 5: basically what I'm getting at is that, like teaching, and

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Speaker 5: we discussed this inner episode on teachers, if you want

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Speaker 5: to go back and check that out, men are disproportionately

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Speaker 5: represented at the top higher ranks of librarian ship and

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Speaker 5: library societies. So men make up forty percent of all

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Speaker 5: university library directors, and they earn a median one hundred

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Speaker 5: and eleven thousand dollars. It's basically always been this way,

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Speaker 5: even when the profession became incredibly feminized, and the ranks

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Speaker 5: were overwhelmingly.

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Speaker 1: Filled by women.

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Speaker 5: Men were still at the higher ranks of running the libraries,

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Speaker 5: and the bigger libraries too.

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Speaker 4: Because of how Dewey and his male cohorts professionalized librarianship.

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Speaker 4: I mean, they essentially built this structure so that men

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Speaker 4: would stay at the top.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, We've got a quote about that later in

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Speaker 1: the episode.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and really quickly, speaking to the issue of diversity

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Speaker 4: and librarianship, we are going to talk about women of

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Speaker 4: color and librarianship and also libraries during the civil rights

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Speaker 4: movement in our next episode.

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Speaker 1: To stay tuned. Stay tuned, because real red stuff to come.

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Speaker 4: Let's talk about the original librarians who were fellows.

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Speaker 1: They were well to do, educated guys. That's right.

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Speaker 5: The original librarian, contrary to popular belief, was not the.

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Speaker 1: Ghost from Ghostbusters.

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Speaker 4: Oh remember I've never seen all of Ghostbusters.

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Speaker 5: It's at the very beginning question mark up speak. They

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Speaker 5: go to the basement and she makes the Dewey decimal

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Speaker 5: cards fly everywhere. Oh yes, okay, probably so pissed about

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Speaker 5: Dewey being a jerk.

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Speaker 1: AnyWho.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so the original librarians were dudes. They were curmudgeons.

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Speaker 5: They were curmudgeonly. As we have established.

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Speaker 4: There's a great quote from an article about librarian stereotypes

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Speaker 4: and the development of them in American Libraries Magazine, which

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Speaker 4: I wouldn't mind subscribing to, which describes these the original

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Speaker 4: librarian image as fusty, white male curmudgeons.

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Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's not even us slurring these male librarians.

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Speaker 5: So it sort of is Giles from Buffy. Yeah, totally.

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Speaker 5: I mean cardigans. I don't think that they didn't wear

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Speaker 5: cardigans back then, but you know, basically, so let's travel

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Speaker 5: back in time though, to this male dominated library era,

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Speaker 5: and this takes us back to the period before the

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Speaker 5: Civil War. We're gonna specifically visit Peterborough, New Hampshire in

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Speaker 5: eighteen thirty three, which is where we get the first free,

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Speaker 5: public tax supported library, and it was started by a

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Speaker 5: man named Abel Abbot. And I seriously like, I couldn't

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Speaker 5: get my internet to work before I came into the studio,

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Speaker 5: which is enraging. But I'm seriously wondering if I'm related

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Speaker 5: to him, because all of my people when they first

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Speaker 5: came to this country were in Vermont and New Hampshire,

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Speaker 5: and I have some Abbots in my family tree.

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Speaker 4: You could be the descendant of all Able Abbott, which,

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Speaker 4: by the way, that's a great name.

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Speaker 1: Abel Abbit. Well, when he.

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Speaker 4: Arrived in Peterborough, he was on this mission to of uplift,

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Speaker 4: essentially saying, like, you know what, we should have a

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Speaker 4: place with books where everyone can come in and check

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Speaker 4: them out and read them if they want, so that

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Speaker 4: we can all become more virtuous and more virtuous Republican citizens.

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Speaker 1: And we should note.

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Speaker 4: That parochial libraries were established here in colonial America, but

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Speaker 4: this is the big transition to people actually paying to

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Speaker 4: support libraries, which the small town of Peterborough voted on

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Speaker 4: in a town meeting. They were like Able Abbot, that's

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Speaker 4: a terrific idea.

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Speaker 1: We vote yay. We love places with books. Yes. And

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Speaker 1: then there was like one naysayer in the corner who's

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Speaker 1: like nay, and oh, Susan, sus all Susan than God,

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Speaker 1: all the town.

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Speaker 5: But this makes sense that this was happening in America

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Speaker 5: at this time. So this was the Peterborough Library opened

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Speaker 5: in eighteen thirty three, and America was coming down with

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Speaker 5: reform fever.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, This was the beginning of the reform era.

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Speaker 4: So over the next few decades you're going to have

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Speaker 4: the rise of the temperance movement, labor reform, common schools,

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Speaker 4: which you can learn more about if you go back

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Speaker 4: and listen to our episode on teaching. They were also

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Speaker 4: advocating for prison reform, specifically not throwing debtors in prison.

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Speaker 4: The suffrage movement was coming about abolition. This was even

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Speaker 4: when we get the first vegetarian society.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and don't we have an episode? We have an

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Speaker 5: episode on vegetarian.

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Speaker 1: Yes, we do. It's easy. Our catalog is large, it's bursty.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like this is really everything's really coming together.

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Speaker 1: And I know library episode.

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Speaker 5: We've been getting so many emails lately, which makes me

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Speaker 5: very happy from new listeners, and I love being able

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Speaker 5: to respond in the affirmative that we do have episodes

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Speaker 5: in our back catalog that they are requesting.

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Speaker 1: It's it's very fun and I.

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Speaker 5: Enjoy I enjoy conversing with these new listeners.

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Speaker 4: We almost need a Dewey decimal system for our seven

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Speaker 4: hundred episode plus library, although of course we would not

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Speaker 4: call it the Dewey decimal system for reasons. The listeners

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Speaker 4: will learn in just a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, people are like, what is the deal with you

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Speaker 1: doing so much dewey hostility because women are so aggressive?

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Speaker 4: Um.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so as you might imagine, because you know, christ

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Speaker 5: and I have definitely talked about this reform era and

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Speaker 5: the progressive era on the podcast before. But there were

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Speaker 5: a lot of ideas around virtue, people wanting to improve themselves,

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Speaker 5: help lift others so that they could improve themselves, and

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Speaker 5: free public libraries were part of that. They were considered

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Speaker 5: a sort of democratic gait way for citizens to be

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Speaker 5: able to better themselves and thus the country.

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Speaker 4: And then you have the issue of common schools popping up.

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Speaker 4: These were kind of the predecessors to public schools happening

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Speaker 4: around the same time, but they really couldn't open these

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Speaker 4: schools fast enough, so libraries also became supplementary to public

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Speaker 4: school education because another background idea of all this, in

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Speaker 4: the whole push for virtue, was concerns that if they

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Speaker 4: didn't educate this younger generation of newly American citizens in

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Speaker 4: the ways of religion and Republican ideals, then you might, oh,

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Speaker 4: I don't know, have something.

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Speaker 1: Like a civil war that would happen.

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Speaker 4: Even though even though we got libraries, Unfortunately they could

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Speaker 4: not prevent a civil war.

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Speaker 5: Well, I mean if, but if you look at it

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Speaker 5: from the other direction, it makes sense because if libraries

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Speaker 5: are part of a reform attitude abolition as part of that,

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Speaker 5: and educating people in the ways of, you know, not

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Speaker 5: being a jerk is all wrapped up in that, then

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Speaker 5: fighting to end slavery in public libraries seem.

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Speaker 1: To go hand in hand. Very true. I like that

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Speaker 1: glass half full perspective.

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Speaker 4: Now, Bostonians listening right now might be wondering why we

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Speaker 4: have not mentioned their library, because Boston does have a

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Speaker 4: claim to fame of opening the nation's first large public

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Speaker 4: library in eighteen fifty two. And I would like to

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Speaker 4: note that Boston the same year hired a female clerk.

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Speaker 1: Oh fancy, so good on you, Boston, Good on you.

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Speaker 1: But the you know, the original is in tiny Peterborough. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure I would love to go there. You know what, Caroline,

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Speaker 1: I think you can really Yeah, Okay, I'll have to

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Speaker 1: look into this.

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Speaker 4: You just rent a horse and carriage from Uber.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and clippity clop to the East coast Cuber

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Speaker 1: Cuber carriage Uber or Huber for horses. I'm done. I'm done.

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Speaker 1: I'm done.

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Speaker 5: So when these first libraries were being established, we've already

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Speaker 5: said that it was men running the show, running the

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Speaker 5: running the books, running the books, but it was associated

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Speaker 5: definitely with a higher class element of men working as librarians.

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Speaker 1: But it was also associated with this idea.

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Speaker 5: That you were a librarian because you had failed at

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Speaker 5: something else. Perhaps you had received a great education, but

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Speaker 5: you were not able to become a lawyer or a doctor.

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Speaker 5: So that's where we get the stereotype of the male

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Speaker 5: librarian who can't.

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Speaker 1: Do so he libraries.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, because it wasn't considered that much of an actual profession,

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Speaker 4: because oh, you're just babysitting books.

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Speaker 1: What are I mean?

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Speaker 5: It sounds great to me.

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Speaker 1: You know, right, pushing a cart listening to music. I'm

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Speaker 1: telling you, God, if I had time to read. But

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Speaker 1: in this time, the masculine elite status.

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Speaker 4: Was achieved through breeding, education and gentility, like hard work

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Speaker 4: was not the name of the game. So a leisurely

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Speaker 4: occupation considered leisurely in quotes occupation like librarianship was something

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Speaker 4: that would have fit into that ideal. Because there was

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Speaker 4: also this paternalistic mission of educating the poor through you know,

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Speaker 4: all of these books that you would essentially be babysitting

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Speaker 4: for them to come in and check out.

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Speaker 1: And read reading.

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Speaker 5: So earlier, you know, Kristen mentioned this, this shifting idea

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Speaker 5: of sculinity and what the ideal masculinity was. And this

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Speaker 5: happens after the Civil War. So rather than the ideal

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Speaker 5: man being this genteel elite who sits.

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Speaker 1: At home, I don't know, smoking a bubble pipe, he

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Speaker 1: probably calls up a huber every now and then.

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Speaker 5: As he probably owns huber.

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Speaker 4: Well his father's father, did you know, when he first

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Speaker 4: came to this country and received a land grant.

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Speaker 1: But so that's out.

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Speaker 5: We were class warriors. Now we don't care so much

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Speaker 5: about being those genteel men wearing tights, and instead we

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Speaker 5: get the ideal of the capitalistic, self made man. You know,

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Speaker 5: we're leaving the babysitting and preservation of books and culture

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Speaker 5: to the womenfolk.

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Speaker 4: Because this is also the era of separate spheres, you know,

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Speaker 4: this is the Victorian era is also coming in full steam,

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Speaker 4: and this shift in masculinity norms and the separation of

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Speaker 4: those spheres really positioned librarianship societally to become a female

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Speaker 4: dominated occupation, but at the same time it also fostered

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Speaker 4: a cultural and downright sexist reluctance to consider it a

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Speaker 4: bonafide profession like being a doctor or a lawyer, for instance,

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Speaker 4: because it was still associated with gentility. So that left

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Speaker 4: the male librarians of the day in a little bit

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Speaker 4: of a pickle because they're like, Okay, we realize that

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Speaker 4: this is rapidly becoming women's work, but we want to

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Speaker 4: be respected for this, so though, we're going to professionalize it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is where Dewey finally comes in.

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Speaker 5: All Melville Dewey, Melville Dewey, which is a really adorable name.

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Speaker 4: It's a shame it's attached to such a jerk, the

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Speaker 4: labbit Melville Dewey.

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Speaker 1: There's some good names in this effect.

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Speaker 5: They all sound like cartoon characters too. But yeah, So

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Speaker 5: Melville Dewey and his book loving contemporaries mail book loving contemporaries,

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Speaker 5: I should say, wanted and therefore worked to professionalize the field.

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Speaker 5: They were like, we don't want any of this Lucy

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Speaker 5: gasey librarianing.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and Dewey was also motivated by that

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Speaker 4: shift into you know, the masculine ideal of the self

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Speaker 4: made man. So he was like, you know what, I'm

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Speaker 4: going to take advantage of this passion I have for

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Speaker 4: librarianship and this you know, mission to build these communities.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time I need respect.

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Speaker 4: So we're going to institute hierarchical organizing and standardizing of systems.

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Speaker 1: Because at the.

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Speaker 4: Time, you could have a library in Peter, New Hampshire,

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Speaker 4: which also doubles as the general store and the post office,

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Speaker 4: which wonderful, I know, right, a real one stop shop.

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Speaker 1: Dudes love a hierarchy, it's true.

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Speaker 4: But you have something like that, which might be a

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Speaker 4: little loosi er goosier, and then a Boston Public Library,

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Speaker 4: which is obviously much larger and are probably running on

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Speaker 4: different kinds of structures.

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Speaker 1: So Dewey's million dollar idea, although I don't think he

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Speaker 1: ever made a million dollars.

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Speaker 4: Off of it, was to basically institutionalize libraries.

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Speaker 5: Yes, that's right, and we start to see the official

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Speaker 5: associations and organizations popping up. In eighteen seventy six we

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Speaker 5: get the founding of the American Library Association. So we

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Speaker 5: do have Dewey to thank for that, and he was

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Speaker 5: member number one, because.

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Speaker 1: Of course he was. Of course he was, and he

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Speaker 1: like that.

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Speaker 4: He's like the commenters on YouTube videos. First yeah, really

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Speaker 4: adding to the die.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah.

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Speaker 5: And in eighteen eighty seven, Columbia College establishes its School

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Speaker 5: of Library Economy. So schools are being established. The next

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Speaker 5: stop on this journey is surely the continuing trajectory of

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Speaker 5: librarianship becoming even more professionalized.

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Speaker 4: Right, but no, no, because the Columbia College was essentially

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Speaker 4: like going to a technical school, because that's what you

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Speaker 4: would be learning. It would be getting more of an

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Speaker 4: associate's degree rather than a full bachelor degree. Partially because

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Speaker 4: it was rapidly becoming so feminized. Because you know, libraries,

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Speaker 4: even from the very beginning, as is the case today,

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Speaker 4: did not tend to have huge budgets. They were supported

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Speaker 4: by taxes and also trustees, and they were like, you

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Speaker 4: know what, we need a lot of cheap labor, similar

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Speaker 4: as was happening in public schools at the time, Like, okay,

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Speaker 4: we need a.

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Speaker 1: Teachers and librarians who is really cheap and does not

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Speaker 1: have a lot of job opportunities.

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Speaker 5: Oh right, women, Women were a cost saving measure in

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Speaker 5: the same way that it's like let's use the cheaper

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Speaker 5: you know, desks, or let's buy robots.

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Speaker 4: I don't know if those are cheaper. I don't know

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Speaker 4: how much of robots going for these days. Probably more

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Speaker 4: than I can afford.

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Speaker 5: But we are about we're on now the precipice of

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Speaker 5: the Dewey period, and we're gonna introduce you more to

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Speaker 5: Dewey when we come right back from a quick break.

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Speaker 4: So let's talk a bit more about Melville Dewy and

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Speaker 4: the whole Dewey period, which is the period of librarianship

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Speaker 4: from around eighteen eighty seven to nineteen twenty three. Because

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Speaker 4: I mean Dewey, yes, what is kind of the father

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Speaker 4: of librarianship.

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Speaker 1: But he was an intense man. Yeah, that's I feel

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Speaker 1: like that's very generous.

441
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 4: Yes, that is, so please tell our listeners more about

442
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 4: just like the type of dude that Dewey was.

443
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:22,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, dude, we did we stop trying to make such happen. Caroline, Well, yeah,

444
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:27,120
Speaker 5: he was intense. He for one, he he absolutely hated

445
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:31,560
Speaker 5: the idea of wasted time. He advocated for us, all

446
00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:35,200
Speaker 5: all of US Americans to not only adopt the metric system,

447
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 5: which isn't crazy, that's pretty smart, but he also advocated

448
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 5: for shortening words and everyone using.

449
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,159
Speaker 1: Shorthand. So was dewe we kind of ahead of his

450
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:52,400
Speaker 1: time for tech speak? Yeah? Yeah, was he totes totes

451
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: ahead of his time? He was totes ahead of his time.

452
00:27:55,400 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 5: But part of that uh tendency, I guess is that

453
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:04,919
Speaker 5: he literally had his wife record how each minute of

454
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 5: her day was spent because he wanted to be sure

455
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 5: that his spouse was not twiddling her thumbs during the day.

456
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 4: Are there some contemporary scholars who suggest that Dewey probably

457
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 4: had some type of OCD?

458
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we read this fascinating article giving a glimpse

459
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 5: into Dewey's background, and the authors write that he very

460
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 5: likely had legit obsessive compulsive personality disorder, which briefly lets.

461
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 1: Distinguish that from OCD.

462
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 5: So OCD is obviously when you have obsessive and compulsive

463
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 5: tendencies but they are unwelcome. You have intrusive thoughts and

464
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 5: intrusive compulsions and you realize it's terrible and you hate it,

465
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 5: but you're powerless over it, whereas oc PD, those compulsions

466
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 5: and obsessions energize you. So in this article, he's compared

467
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 5: to like an earlier Steve Jobs and his very likely

468
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 5: AICPD is also associated with his extremely turbulent and questionable

469
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 5: interpersonal relationships, which, as we are about to dive into,

470
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 5: were largely with women.

471
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and.

472
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 4: It sounds like from everything that we've read about doing that,

473
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 4: his mind just never stopped because, in addition to his

474
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 4: librarianship passion, he was also an innovator. Generally, he was

475
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 4: always kind of trying to start up little entrepreneurial side

476
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 4: hustles that would never really take off. And when he

477
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 4: really dove into librarianship, on the one hand, he sounds

478
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 4: really progressive at first because in eighteen eighty three he

479
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 4: hired six Wellesley grads to help him organize the Columbia

480
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 4: University Library, and of course Wellesley is a women's college,

481
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 4: and the Columbia University staff were scandalized at the idea

482
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 4: of this guy hiring women.

483
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 5: That those vaginas were way too close. Yeah, get those

484
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:11,240
Speaker 5: vaginas out.

485
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 4: Of here, well, I mean, and how incompetent they must be,

486
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 4: and how could you be in such close quarters with them,

487
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 4: and Dewey, you know, is kind of championing them, being like,

488
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 4: no women have brains and they're pretty good at using them.

489
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 4: So point for Dewey, that's all. That's really the only

490
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 4: point I can give him.

491
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 1: Though.

492
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like this is echoes of our look

493
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 5: into Jay Mary and Sims, where it's like, oh, god,

494
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 5: you contributed so much, but you were also the works

495
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 5: are our.

496
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: Father of gynecology, as he's called. Yeah.

497
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 5: So four years later, in eighteen eighty seven, Dewey insists

498
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 5: that women be admitted to Columbia's newly established Library School,

499
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 5: and again the trustees freak out, Oh my god, we're

500
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 5: gonna have all these hysterical women around us working with books.

501
00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 5: This is crazy, And that's actually a little bit ironic,

502
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 5: like people who were freaking out to worry about hysterical women.

503
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 1: Right.

504
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 4: And also by this time, I mean there were a

505
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 4: lot of women working as clerks and assistants in librarians

506
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 4: but of course Columbia University at the time was exclusively male.

507
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, most of those women were able to keep their

508
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 5: uteruses from floating away.

509
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 4: Well, they probably had to kind of, you know, tighten

510
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 4: their corsets, yeah, hold it in.

511
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 5: Well, they got you know, when you get the balloon

512
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 5: at the grocery store, and they gave it a little

513
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 5: plastic discs to weigh it down.

514
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's what they were doing.

515
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they had weighted corsets, right, gotcha. Well, Dewey,

516
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 4: to his credit, was like, okay, listen to these trustees

517
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 4: are not going to officially let these women in. So

518
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 4: from what it sounded like, he kind of claimed a

519
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 4: little space like a closet.

520
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically, he had a shed.

521
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 4: He found a shed on the Columbia University campus and

522
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 4: was like, ladies.

523
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: Come on, just come into the shed.

524
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 5: Ladies, ladies, ladies, that doesn't sound shady at all.

525
00:31:59,160 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 4: I know.

526
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: Ye, Dewey's shady shed.

527
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 4: But he was training these women under the radar essentially

528
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 4: until finally everything came to a head and Colombia was like, listen,

529
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 4: this is not okay.

530
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: You have to stop, like have to. We're you gotta

531
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 1: get out of this.

532
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 5: She hate women and we hate that you're in the

533
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 5: shed with them.

534
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 4: Uh So Dewey resigns in a huff, which, again like

535
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 4: good on Dewey. Okay, he like stuck by his guns,

536
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 4: and in eighteen eighty nine he's like, peace out Columbia

537
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 4: and he transfers the technical school to the New York

538
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 4: State Library, and as we'll talk about more in the

539
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 4: next episode, he did train during this period some superstar

540
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 4: students who became like pioneers in libraries, who created some

541
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 4: of the state of libraries that we still use today.

542
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 5: Well, sure, I mean, like you said, Kristen, he was

543
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 5: absolutely an innovator, and he did believe in women's abilities.

544
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: To do this work.

545
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 5: And he also, man or woman, had incredibly high expectations

546
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 5: of the people who surrounded him. And so if you

547
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:23,720
Speaker 5: were a like minded person who also wanted to have

548
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 5: a job, work outside the home, wanted to work around

549
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 5: books all day, wanted to push those cards, and wanted

550
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 5: to learn from someone brilliant, then it makes sense that

551
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 5: some pretty brilliant women would come out from under.

552
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: His tutelage as well.

553
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 5: It makes sense, But a lot of not so great

554
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 5: things came out of his working with so many women too.

555
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're On the one hand, he really got along

556
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 4: better with women than he did.

557
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 1: Oh yeah with men.

558
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 5: Well, he was surrounded almost entirely by women. He almost

559
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 5: refused to associate with other men.

560
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 4: And in a way, he's kind of the Florence Nightingale

561
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:07,320
Speaker 4: of librarians because weird, well, because Florence Nightingale stepped in

562
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 4: with nursing and was like, dudes, get out of here.

563
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 4: Women are better suited for this. Like temperamentally, women are

564
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 4: suited better to this job. They're nurturing and tender, and

565
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,880
Speaker 4: men you just you can't. You don't have any bedside manners,

566
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 4: So get out of here. And in the same way,

567
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:29,399
Speaker 4: Dewey thought that women were even better suited than men

568
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 4: for these technical jobs, more of the assistant ships and

569
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 4: doing all of the organizing rather than the administrating. And

570
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 4: the thing is, when he was, you know, running his

571
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 4: library school, he had some peculiar application requirements for his

572
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 4: female students, including their height, weight, hair color, eye color,

573
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 4: and a photo which I have a feeling that, like

574
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 4: in eighteen eighty nine, in eighteen ninety getting a photo

575
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 4: of yourself seems like you would be kind of hard, right,

576
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 4: you could like snap a selfie, but in his words,

577
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 4: he wanted to know that they would be attractive enough

578
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 4: because quote.

579
00:35:13,880 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: You can't polish a pumpkin.

580
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 4: What that has to do with organizing books and classifying them,

581
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 4: I don't know, but he didn't want any pumpkins essentially.

582
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:29,359
Speaker 5: Yeah, and one of these articles that we read in

583
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:35,880
Speaker 5: the Library Association magazine by Joshua Kendall, you femistically referred

584
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 5: to Dewey as a quote serial hugger and kisser and

585
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:45,040
Speaker 5: a literary litherario with quirks. Yes, seriously quirks. I mean

586
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 5: that makes it sound like your dad's or your grandfather's,

587
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 5: like creepy friend who you know, like we've all I

588
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 5: feel like we've all known that we've all met creepy Jim,

589
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 5: Like why yeah, creepy Jim Batman, why are you hugging me?

590
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: Why are you?

591
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 5: I don't want the sloppy kiss on the cheek, Like

592
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 5: this is gross. It makes him sound like a harmless

593
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 5: duttering Is that a word?

594
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:08,280
Speaker 1: Old fool who.

595
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 5: Like I don't know what's bad and good, I'm gonna

596
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 5: hug you.

597
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 1: Oh but he did.

598
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 4: He absolutely did, getting you know, all of those heights weights,

599
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 4: and as Joshua Kendall emphasized.

600
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 1: Not their bust size, he was like, there is a myth.

601
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,240
Speaker 4: That that Dewey wanted to know their bus size.

602
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 1: That's that's not true. No, because he had the picture

603
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: with which to judge exactly.

604
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 4: And this whole sexual harasser side of Dewey is something

605
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:41,880
Speaker 4: that has only come to light in more recent decades

606
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 4: because earlier biographies of him, of course, didn't really talk about.

607
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: They were like decimal system.

608
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 4: He was really smart, and he had quirks, but he

609
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,800
Speaker 4: I mean, he essentially sexually harassed many of his students.

610
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 4: We had two assistants that lived with him and his

611
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 4: wife in Albany, New York, both of whom were repeatedly harassed.

612
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:09,840
Speaker 1: And Joshua Kendall.

613
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 4: I have a little bone to pick with Joshua Kendall

614
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 4: and the way he wrote this Dewey profile in the

615
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 4: Ala magazine, because he says, yes, there are records of

616
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 4: him having unwanted contact with his assistants, but they never

617
00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 4: reported it to authorities. It was like WHOA, Okay, Well,

618
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:35,760
Speaker 4: the term sexual harassment didn't exist for another century, mister Kendall.

619
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 4: But even though that term didn't exist, there came a point.

620
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:45,640
Speaker 4: It was so egregious that he became known as essentially

621
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 4: a sexual harasser.

622
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: However you would have called it at that time.

623
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 4: And apparently things peaud And went public in a Library

624
00:37:56,200 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 4: Association meeting conference in Alaska, which that seems like a

625
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:08,239
Speaker 4: pretty exotic trip to take where he made four librarians,

626
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:13,879
Speaker 4: female librarians at the time, feel incredibly uncomfortable, and since

627
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 4: they were already in the profession, they.

628
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: Weren't his assistants under his tutelage.

629
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,840
Speaker 4: They were like, whoa, Okay, there's a problem here, and

630
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 4: it is your hands on my body without my consent.

631
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:27,840
Speaker 1: Ah.

632
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean no, they didn't have the words

633
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 5: sexual harassment to use, but you did have Tessa Kelso,

634
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:38,800
Speaker 5: who was the Los Angeles Public Library director, who said,

635
00:38:39,239 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 5: for many years, women librarians have been the special prey

636
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 5: of mister Dewey in a series of outrages upon decency.

637
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 5: In other words, he is a sexual harassing creep.

638
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 4: Well, and Mary Wright Plumber, who was one of his

639
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 4: original students who will talk more about in our next episode,

640
00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:01,879
Speaker 4: would eventually become the president of the American Library Association

641
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:07,720
Speaker 4: in nineteen fourteen, and once she got in that role,

642
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:10,240
Speaker 4: she refused to meet with Dewey.

643
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, but not only for her sake, But I got

644
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 5: the impression reading the article that it was also in

645
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:18,839
Speaker 5: solidarity with other women who had dealt with his crap. Yeah,

646
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 5: the like, I promise I won't meet with this guy.

647
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 5: Like I don't want to talk to him, and I

648
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:23,959
Speaker 5: know y'all don't want to be around him either.

649
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 4: But as all of this was going on in the

650
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 4: background and sometimes in the foreground, the library education that

651
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 4: he and other male counterparts were architecting at this time

652
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 4: was really designed for essentially training.

653
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 1: Yes, a lot of women.

654
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 4: They were welcoming women into the fold, but it was

655
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 4: training them for lower level positions of being clerk's assistants,

656
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 4: maybe the heads of smaller libraries. To the point that

657
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 4: publicly librarianship was just considered this, you know, kind of

658
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 4: rowaway job for women. They didn't get paid really anything

659
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 4: at all. It didn't have a reputation of being super

660
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 4: respectable because you couldn't.

661
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: Go very far in it.

662
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 4: So the American Library Association was like, Okay, we need

663
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 4: to kind of burnish our image. So they said, you

664
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 4: know what high level librarianship being like a capital l librarian,

665
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 4: like a Dewey, that is something that you were born with.

666
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:29,800
Speaker 1: That's such crap.

667
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 5: I know when I read that, I couldn't believe it,

668
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 5: because how can you whether it's eighteen seventy, nineteen seventy,

669
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 5: or twenty seventy, Like, seriously, how can you read that

670
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 5: and believe it, but librarrianship, no, I just can't like.

671
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 4: But that also, but that also speaks to the paternalism

672
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 4: of the occupation at the time too, because they really

673
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 4: did think they I mean, they kind of had a

674
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 4: little bit of a christ complex about.

675
00:40:58,320 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 1: It, sure well.

676
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:01,320
Speaker 5: And I mean, who it's not like they were saying,

677
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:06,359
Speaker 5: you're born with it, whether you're a man or a woman, right,

678
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 5: and whether it's Mabelne, you are born with it because

679
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 5: you're a man.

680
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 1: Yeah.

681
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:15,319
Speaker 4: And that's something that the author of a paper we

682
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 4: were reading on the feminization of librarian pointed out sort

683
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 4: of an outrage at this idea of the suggestion that

684
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 4: being a librarian was something that you would be born

685
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 4: with because, as she wrote, because it also required being

686
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 4: born with a penis.

687
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, although maybe you come out of the

688
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 1: womb with a little book.

689
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 5: In your hand, well then yeah, maybe you are born

690
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 5: to be a librarian.

691
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:45,799
Speaker 4: So but with this hierarchy that they were establishing, you

692
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 4: have sort of a pyramid structure with the much higher

693
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 4: paid administrators usually men, at the top in place to

694
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 4: kind of tamp down on individuals being able to rise.

695
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 1: Up through the ranks.

696
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 4: So unlike university faculty at the time, which would have

697
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:10,040
Speaker 4: been mostly men, if you were a professor, you could

698
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:12,799
Speaker 4: make a name for yourself as a professor and would

699
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 4: probably be better known than say, the administrator of that university.

700
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 4: But with librarianship and same thing going on with the

701
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:26,359
Speaker 4: development of public school teaching and the feminization of that,

702
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 4: you have these strict standards put in place to essentially

703
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 4: just like level the playing field, So you kind of.

704
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 1: Have to stay in these little boxes.

705
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:41,239
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's really hard to break through the ranks.

706
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 4: You kind of have to go around being a clerker

707
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,399
Speaker 4: assistant and jump right into administration.

708
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: But they weren't training them in the.

709
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 4: Library schools because again they thought that it was something

710
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:56,880
Speaker 4: at that time that you would be born with slash penis.

711
00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 5: And I mean, obviously in the next episode we're going

712
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 5: to talk more about women and feminization specifically, but there

713
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 5: was one source that we read that cited a male library,

714
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 5: contemporary male librarian who was saying all of this stuff

715
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:18,799
Speaker 5: about how the fact that the lower ranks in libraries

716
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 5: were dominated by women is what ruined essentially ruined the field,

717
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 5: which is hilarious if it weren't so depressing because when

718
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 5: you look at this stuff, like things were engineered to basically,

719
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 5: like you were saying, keep women in their box or

720
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 5: in their lane, keep people from advancing up the ranks.

721
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:41,959
Speaker 5: And so if you establish a system where the only

722
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 5: people who are in those higher ranked positions are like

723
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 5: clearly born to be there, and they happen to be men, well,

724
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 5: how can you break that bookish ceiling?

725
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:53,760
Speaker 1: I mean, you really can't.

726
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:57,919
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's also such an ironic contrast of

727
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 4: the lofty mission of those top library administrators of considering

728
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 4: themselves really the arbiters of culture and learning and virtue

729
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 4: for all of these communities and these developing urban centers,

730
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:20,839
Speaker 4: but at the same time keeping women's work in the

731
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 4: field devalued.

732
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: Yeah.

733
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 5: And it's also worth noting, if we jump forward in

734
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 5: our timeline, that in nineteen thirty a seventy eight year

735
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:35,400
Speaker 5: old Dewey settled for two thousand dollars a sexual harassment

736
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:37,799
Speaker 5: lawsuit brought against him. And of course, again we don't

737
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:41,359
Speaker 5: have the term sexual harassment yet, which should tell you

738
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 5: something even more that before people were literally and legally

739
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 5: protected from issues of sexual harassment.

740
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 1: A woman sued him for his behavior.

741
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:55,239
Speaker 4: Which is why I suggested to Caroline that the Doe

742
00:44:55,400 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 4: decimal system should be renamed to what not Sure, but listeners,

743
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:05,760
Speaker 4: I am open to suggestions because there's so many amazing

744
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:10,399
Speaker 4: women librarians that you could name it after. But of course,

745
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:12,839
Speaker 4: I mean, that's never gonna happen. But because we're only

746
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:16,279
Speaker 4: just now really acknowledging the fact that Dewey in his

747
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:18,800
Speaker 4: personal life was kind of a shady dude.

748
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:20,239
Speaker 1: Not kind of he was a shady dude. He was

749
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:20,959
Speaker 1: a shady dude.

750
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:24,359
Speaker 5: But in that regard, I really am interested to hear

751
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:28,319
Speaker 5: from our librarian listeners. I know, you guys have a

752
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 5: lot to tell us about Dewey, and so I'm interested to.

753
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 1: Hear, Like, do you do you feel a degree.

754
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 5: Of conflict when you look at him as the father

755
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 5: of librarianship who was also shady in the shed?

756
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:41,439
Speaker 1: Yeah?

757
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 4: I mean, because that is the thing that his profiler,

758
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 4: Joshuma Kendall, in that Ala Magazine piece, was kind of

759
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 4: wavering between like the acknowledgment of like, Okay, yeah, he

760
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 4: was a quote serial hugger and kisser, but he was

761
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 4: so brilliant and he, you know, gave us this thing

762
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 4: which did revolutionize our learning, our public learning.

763
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean Steve Jobs was also a creep, but

764
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:09,319
Speaker 5: we all have iPhones, you know.

765
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 4: I mean yeah, it's like, do the ends justify the

766
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 4: sexually harassing means?

767
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:15,919
Speaker 1: Yeah?

768
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:17,480
Speaker 5: And I mean I'm not saying that Steve Jobs is

769
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 5: the harasser. I don't know about that. I just know

770
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 5: that he was incredibly difficult, right and.

771
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 1: Tempestuous.

772
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, they seem to have similar temperaments for sure.

773
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:35,239
Speaker 4: But quickly, in terms of men and librarian stereotypes, because

774
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 4: it was so feminized so quickly by the time you

775
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 4: get into the twentieth century, you get the stereotype of

776
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 4: male librarians having to be gay because how could a

777
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 4: straight guy want to do quote unquote women's work. Yeah,

778
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 4: and it seems like from more recent research that the

779
00:46:55,600 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 4: stereotype has fallen away and that men don't feel, you know,

780
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:04,720
Speaker 4: uncomfortable being librarians because they worried that people might assume

781
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:06,880
Speaker 4: that they're gay, like they might have and say like

782
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 4: nineteen fifty or sixty. But in terms of that administrative hierarchy,

783
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 4: after World War Two, there was I think from the

784
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 4: American Library Association a recruitment effort specifically for men, to

785
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:28,520
Speaker 4: get more men in libraries, but not as clerks or assistants,

786
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 4: but into administrative.

787
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 1: Roles make libraries great again. Yeah, so it just it

788
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 1: just kept on going.

789
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 4: So with this, we're going to close the book on

790
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:46,919
Speaker 4: dudes and librarians. Dudes and dewey dewey dudes and librarians.

791
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 4: We absolutely want to hear from you about this.

792
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 1: And male librarians listening. We want you to weigh into.

793
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:57,520
Speaker 4: We want everyone to weigh in, and also quickly thank

794
00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 4: you librarians teachers. I feel like they are always so

795
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 4: undervalued in our communities but indispensable. So mom Stuff at

796
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:09,919
Speaker 4: housetuffworks dot com is our email address. You can also

797
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:13,200
Speaker 4: tweet us at mom stuff podcasts or messages on Facebook,

798
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:15,359
Speaker 4: and we've got a couple of messages to share with

799
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 4: you right now.

800
00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 5: So I have a letter here from Ella in response

801
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 5: to our Boston marriages episode.

802
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:28,440
Speaker 1: She says, I think Boston.

803
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 5: Marriages may be more common than we think among young people.

804
00:48:31,640 --> 00:48:34,760
Speaker 5: I'm not that aunt yet, but I have every intention

805
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 5: of being one eventually. My roommate, that's her quotes and

806
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 5: my ridiculous way of speaking, my quote unquote roommate and

807
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 5: I are both in our twenties. We share a bed

808
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:47,400
Speaker 5: and a dog and often describe each other as our

809
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:50,520
Speaker 5: girlfriend or partner to explain why we have no interest

810
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 5: in dating other people. But neither of us is into ladies.

811
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 5: We're just uninterested in traditional romantic entanglements. I'm a sexual

812
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 5: and she's a lapsed great person who's disillusioned with men.

813
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 5: And we save an awful lot on rent by sharing

814
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 5: a bedroom and a wardrobe. I've never seen a reason

815
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 5: why I would want to stop living with a roommate,

816
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:11,240
Speaker 5: even if I could afford it, other.

817
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: Than that's what's expected of me.

818
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:15,359
Speaker 5: It's a sleepover every day, and my ten year old

819
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:17,480
Speaker 5: self is really and truly living the dream.

820
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 1: Thanks for the awesome episode.

821
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:21,440
Speaker 5: I never knew what to call what we do before,

822
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:23,800
Speaker 5: and it's genuinely a great relief to have a label

823
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 5: to apply to myself other than just weird.

824
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: And if I ever marry her for tax reasons.

825
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:33,560
Speaker 5: The invitation is absolutely going to read please join us

826
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 5: in celebrating our Boston marriage, and everyone but you and

827
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 5: me will just think it's a weird reference to the

828
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:42,160
Speaker 5: fact that we lived in Boston for a while. You're

829
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 5: totally invited, Well, thank you.

830
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 1: Ella for that great story.

831
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 4: So I have a letter here from Francis also about

832
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 4: our Boston Marriage's episode and France's writes.

833
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 1: I grew up in the Bible Belt.

834
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 4: And never knew that lesbian couplings were so accepted. I

835
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:01,760
Speaker 4: don't have a personal experience with Boston marriage, but whatever

836
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 4: the male equivalent is, I do. My grandfather was originally

837
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:08,879
Speaker 4: a New Englander, but after marrying my grandmother, they moved

838
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 4: to North Carolina, where my mother was born, and I

839
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:13,920
Speaker 4: spent most of my life. I didn't know anything about

840
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:16,840
Speaker 4: same sex couplings, and growing up in the eighties and nineties,

841
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 4: we frequently visited confirmed bachelor friends of my grandfathers. Not

842
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 4: until many years later did I realize those men were

843
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 4: actually long term, monogamous gay men. My parents are extremely

844
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:32,440
Speaker 4: against homosexuality, but to hear my mother lovingly speak of

845
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 4: these men is interesting. I think a lot of our

846
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 4: society's issues come from not understanding the humanity of people

847
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 4: who are different than us and refusing to know them

848
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:44,240
Speaker 4: as individuals with feelings and personalities.

849
00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:47,400
Speaker 1: All that said, is there a term for men in

850
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 1: Boston marriages? I'd be interested to know.

851
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:53,720
Speaker 4: Love the podcast and now I forced my husband to listen.

852
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:56,640
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Francis.

853
00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:03,520
Speaker 4: I think that we could call male Boston marriages, what like,

854
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:05,239
Speaker 4: maybe like a Philly.

855
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:08,320
Speaker 1: Marriage, Key West marriages, Key West marriages.

856
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:14,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, what's a really like dudely City San Antonio marriages?

857
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:19,919
Speaker 1: Sure well, keep your letters.

858
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:23,400
Speaker 4: Coming, mom, stuff at hellstuffworks dot Com is our email

859
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 4: address and for links to all of our social media as

860
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:28,880
Speaker 4: well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts with

861
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 4: our sources. So you too can learn about Melville Dewey,

862
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:39,520
Speaker 4: head on over to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com.

863
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 4: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

864
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 4: houstuffworks dot com