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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you from house top

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline, and welcome back to our conversation

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Speaker 1: about librarians. Yes, poor yourself, a liberry beverage, which you

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Speaker 1: won't get that joke if you missed our first episode.

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Speaker 1: But in case you're wondering, it is lime, BlackBerry and

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Speaker 1: gin and maybe a little bit of fizzy water. Totally

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Speaker 1: fizzy water ever I it's our new summer cocktail. So

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Speaker 1: in our last episode, we talked about the original librarians

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Speaker 1: in the original librarian stereotype, which was a white, fusty

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Speaker 1: curmudgeon Lee Fellow right picture Giles from Buffy, but not

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Speaker 1: as cool. Yeah, totally not as cool. Um, if Melville

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Speaker 1: Dewey had been Buffy's watcher, it would have gotten real creepy.

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Speaker 1: Would have been the worst. I'm putting that image out

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Speaker 1: of my brain immediately. He would have been like literally

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Speaker 1: like watching her all the time, just like hug and

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Speaker 1: her like, no, I'm friendly, I'm friendly. This isn't creepy.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that was such a rough fight. Let me just

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Speaker 1: stop tell anyone I did this. So in case you're

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Speaker 1: completely lost right now. Don't worry, It's all explained in

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Speaker 1: the previous episode, because Melville Dewey of the Dewey decimal

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Speaker 1: System is a big reason why librarianship became so quickly

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Speaker 1: feminized and remains feminized. Like we said in our last episode, today,

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Speaker 1: more than eight percent of all librarians are women. It's

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Speaker 1: mostly white women. Um. Women of color comprised less than

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Speaker 1: six of all librarians. And we're going to get into

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Speaker 1: diversity later on in the podcast, but in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we want to focus on what was happening with the

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Speaker 1: women as Dewey and his cohorts were standardizing this profession

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Speaker 1: in quotes and I say in quotes because there was

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Speaker 1: this whole debate and kind of remains a debate as

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Speaker 1: to whether or not librarianship is a profession. Yeah, like

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Speaker 1: a profession like a lawyer versus a service oriented job exactly. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And and a lot of this information is coming from

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Speaker 1: this fabulous paper we read called the Tinder Technicians, not

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Speaker 1: Tinder the Tender, The Tender Technicians the feminization of public librarianship.

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Speaker 1: It's basically sminty in a paper. It's so fascinating and uh,

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Speaker 1: full of really incredible detail about gender dynamics and anxieties

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Speaker 1: about gender in librarianship. Yeah, there's so many intersections of gender, class,

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Speaker 1: raised sexual reality going on in the development of librarianship.

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Speaker 1: And now I will think of that every time. Ay

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Speaker 1: I smell that book smell love it, which is one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite smells. I wish that instead of the

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Speaker 1: new car smell, I could get a car that just

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Speaker 1: smells like a library gets that that old book, that

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Speaker 1: old book smell, and you just had a book in

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Speaker 1: your car at all times that you could rest your

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Speaker 1: face on. Am I the only one who likes to

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Speaker 1: snuggle a book? It's pages? Never mind? Anyway, Um, what

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Speaker 1: I was going to say is that we we move

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Speaker 1: after after the Civil War, we moved from the stereotypical

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Speaker 1: librarian being a curmudgeon lee, upper class white guy to

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Speaker 1: it being a spinster woman. And so what was going on. Basically,

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Speaker 1: libraries were opening very quickly, as we discussed in our

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Speaker 1: last episode. Uh, they needed workers and they need at

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Speaker 1: them cheaply, and as happens with so many fields and

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Speaker 1: industries in the world, in this country, Um, they looked

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Speaker 1: at women as a bargain. Yeah, women were absolutely a

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Speaker 1: bargain because there were very few job opportunities for women

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Speaker 1: at the time. And at the time we're talking about,

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Speaker 1: uh is the late eighteen seventies into the turn of

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Speaker 1: the century. So this is the period when the guys

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Speaker 1: at the top, Dewey at all, are really trying to

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Speaker 1: professionalize things. But um parallel to the development of the

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Speaker 1: public school system, they can't get teachers or librarians fast enough.

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Speaker 1: Because of industrialization and urbanization, men are being attracted to

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Speaker 1: different kinds of jobs and entrepreneurialism. So who's a bargain?

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Speaker 1: Women are a bargain. And by eighteen seventy eight two

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Speaker 1: words of library workers in terms of the clerks and

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Speaker 1: assistants were women. And it's no surprise because libraries tended

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Speaker 1: to have pretty small budgets. They had to be thrifty

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Speaker 1: with what they had from taxes and endowments. And in

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Speaker 1: an eighteen seventies six article titled how to make town

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Speaker 1: Libraries Successful, one of the tips was quote women should

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Speaker 1: be employed as librarians and assistants as far as possible,

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Speaker 1: essentially as far up the ranks as possible. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: crazy to me to read about women as objects. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I know I'm saying that as a co host of

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Speaker 1: Sminty and so I should be used to that. But like, literally,

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Speaker 1: women aren't discussed as, oh, they're a great investment because

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Speaker 1: they're hard workers, or they're so smart, or like they

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Speaker 1: go to a fabulous all women library school. It's it's

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Speaker 1: literally like, get the as women bodied people in here

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Speaker 1: because they are so cheap. Yeah, and you'll get a

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Speaker 1: lot of bang for your buck, whereas if you hire

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Speaker 1: a man cheaply. And this is according to this eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventies article, this is me just not just going off

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Speaker 1: the mouth. If you hire a man at the same rate,

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Speaker 1: you're not going to get as much work out of

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Speaker 1: him because these are as. The title of the paper says,

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Speaker 1: they have the tender technicians. Again not to be confused

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Speaker 1: with the tinder technicians, because that's another podcast. Um. And

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Speaker 1: this kind of work, like being a secretary, like being

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Speaker 1: a teacher, but even more so, was considered respectable and

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Speaker 1: very women appropriate because books equaled culture and thus it

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Speaker 1: was within women's separate sphere during this Victorian era, right because,

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Speaker 1: as we discussed in our last episode, we had moved

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Speaker 1: away from the masculine ideal being the elite, genteel, non

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Speaker 1: working man, the man who sat around with his bubble

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Speaker 1: pipe at home. Uh. Now we have the ideal masculinity

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Speaker 1: being the self made, hard working man. And so you

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Speaker 1: have a job where, yes you have to leave the house,

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Speaker 1: but it's now so much better suited to, uh complimenting

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Speaker 1: what masculinity was perceived to be at the time. So

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Speaker 1: you have women being the overseers of culture working in

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Speaker 1: quiet libraries, and it was perceived to be this great position,

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Speaker 1: even more so than teaching, because you didn't have to

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Speaker 1: breathe that bad air of those stifled classrooms. And again

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Speaker 1: not my words words of the time, Um, you didn't

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Speaker 1: have to be around dirty children all day, and you

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Speaker 1: didn't have to put in all of that hard mental

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Speaker 1: and physical work. Well, and as we talked about in

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Speaker 1: our episode for a while back on the feminization of teaching,

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Speaker 1: like ye old public schools or kind of intend sometimes

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Speaker 1: like because you would have these untrained women teachers coming

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Speaker 1: in with students of all ages sometimes who were larger

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Speaker 1: and taller than them, and it could be physically uh

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Speaker 1: exacting to manage a classroom because you have, of course,

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Speaker 1: like all different grades smushed together, but not so in

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Speaker 1: a library. And the way that libraries were even advertised

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Speaker 1: was as domestic spaces, because these were public facing roles

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Speaker 1: where people would come in and you would be, you know,

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Speaker 1: obviously like guiding them to the kinds of books and

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Speaker 1: and learning. There was the benevolent feminine mission of libraries. Um. So,

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Speaker 1: on the one hand, it's good that libraries were so

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Speaker 1: welcoming to women, be as it gave them job opportunities.

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Speaker 1: But on the other hand, because it's so neatly fit

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Speaker 1: into that Victorian womanhood ideal that it really handicapped them

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Speaker 1: from asserting equal status with men since they were essentially

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Speaker 1: conforming in this role. Yeah, and it's no surprise that

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Speaker 1: the first children's libraries and reading rooms that this country

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Speaker 1: saw were overseen by women. And you know, we read

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Speaker 1: stories too about women in the progressive era who ran

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Speaker 1: reading rooms in like tenement housing and settlement housing, who

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Speaker 1: really dedicated themselves to the moral and social uplift of

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Speaker 1: either the lower classes or immigrants or both. Um through reading.

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Speaker 1: There was one woman in I wish I could remember

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Speaker 1: her story, but there was one woman in Boston who

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Speaker 1: established the Saturday what was it called the Saturday Evening

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Speaker 1: Girls Club, and I mean it was it was as

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Speaker 1: cool as it sounds. I'm going to say that it

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Speaker 1: sounded cool to me. And it literally brought um, poorer

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Speaker 1: young women together of all different backgrounds, Jewish girls, Italian girls,

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Speaker 1: you know who might Irish girls who might not meet

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Speaker 1: at church or at school because they are so separated

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Speaker 1: by neighborhood. They were able to come together in these

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Speaker 1: library clubs that started popping up in Boston. And they

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Speaker 1: were I mean, they took dance lessons, they obviously focused

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Speaker 1: a lot on reading and literature and literacy um, and

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Speaker 1: it gave so many girls an opportunity to be out

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Speaker 1: of the house learning rather than holding down a job

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Speaker 1: at fourteen. Well, and that's the catch twenty two of

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Speaker 1: this whole thing, because yes, you have, like the the

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Speaker 1: restriction of all of the gender norms that were kind

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Speaker 1: of heaped upon this particular occupation. What like the importance

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Speaker 1: of their work like can't be emphasized enough. Well, and

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Speaker 1: it's also the fact that you know, we don't have

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Speaker 1: to tell you this fair listeners, but masculine is the

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Speaker 1: norm in our society. And so even with the important

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Speaker 1: roles that these librarians were playing. Because they were pursuing

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Speaker 1: a quote unquote more feminine way of doing things, it

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Speaker 1: was easier to dismiss Yeah. I mean, and they didn't

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Speaker 1: really have any power within the profession either, which leads

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Speaker 1: us to how some women were totally aware that the

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Speaker 1: system was rigged. Um. In we have Caroline Humans raising

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Speaker 1: the quote unquote woman question at a meeting of the

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Speaker 1: American Library Association, which means that she was essentially getting

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Speaker 1: up to a room mostly filled with men, saying, okay, um,

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Speaker 1: I'm a little concerned because women make between three d

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Speaker 1: and nine hundred dollars per year. That's not a lot

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Speaker 1: in case you were wondering, And she said, librarians, Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, we we aren't considered like that valuable. Yet

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Speaker 1: we write for six or seven hours a day. We

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Speaker 1: have to know multiple language and quote understand the relation

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Speaker 1: of all arts and sciences to each other, and must

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Speaker 1: have a minute acquaintance with geography, history, art, and literature.

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Speaker 1: And she said, in order to avoid just exhaustion and breakdown,

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Speaker 1: humans says, I mean, we we just have to make

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Speaker 1: sure we sleep and we eat well. And I also

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Speaker 1: recommend a two to three mile walk every day, which hey, listeners, Kristen,

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Speaker 1: if you can figure out how to do all of

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Speaker 1: this stuff in a day, let me know, because I

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Speaker 1: don't have I don't see how you can have all

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Speaker 1: of these things. Yeah, we do a lot. This is

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Speaker 1: more than that. And one thing that came to my

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Speaker 1: when I was reading Humans's account of having to understand

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Speaker 1: the interrelatedness of all those different subject matters knowing all

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Speaker 1: these languages is, uh, the comedy from the nineteen fifties

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Speaker 1: called Desk Set, which is on Netflix listeners, and it's

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Speaker 1: fantastic if you haven't seen it. It stars Katherine Hepburn

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Speaker 1: and she is the head of this team of reference

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Speaker 1: librarians and they were essentially human Googles because computers did

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Speaker 1: not exist. And these women are brilliant because essentially their

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Speaker 1: job is to answer telephones of you know, people in

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Speaker 1: the building needing to know answers to their questions and

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Speaker 1: like really esoteric kind of stuff, and these women would

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Speaker 1: just rattle it off immediately because they knew all of

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Speaker 1: these subject matters. They're brilliant. So going back to I

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Speaker 1: mean Humans and her cohorts were in a way like

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Speaker 1: human compute shoters. Yeah, and so you know, it sounds

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Speaker 1: like with humans's argument saying we're not paid enough and

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Speaker 1: yet we do all of this stuff, which is clearly

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Speaker 1: being I have to be brilliant, I have to work

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Speaker 1: really hard, I have to be on all the time.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm doing all of this work. That sounds like

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Speaker 1: an argument for a professional field. It does not sound

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Speaker 1: like an argument for a service oriented occupation. And I'm

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Speaker 1: not in any way disparaging service industry work. But what

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Speaker 1: I'm saying is that librarianship is strange and that it

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Speaker 1: exists in that sort of weird twilight area, that gray

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Speaker 1: area between professionalism and well in in perception at least,

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Speaker 1: and in pay, between professionalism and service industry. And it's

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Speaker 1: understandable that if those overworked and underpaid women at that

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Speaker 1: time wanted to climb the very limited ranks, they would

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Speaker 1: m Maine unmarried. It was really only the spinsters who

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Speaker 1: could succeed. So by nineteen o five, the prudish withdrawn

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Speaker 1: lady librarian stereotype was firmly entrenched. It took no time

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Speaker 1: at all. Well, yeah, and I mean, keep in mind

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Speaker 1: this this arrow burrows that's happening right here, because women socially,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of times, according to the rules of

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Speaker 1: the company, granted retirement libraries. But once you got married,

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Speaker 1: you typically couldn't hold a job anymore. You were expected

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Speaker 1: to return to your home and cook for your husband

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Speaker 1: and whatever whatever, be a housewife, exactly like it was

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Speaker 1: with teaching, exactly. And so the women who remained in

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Speaker 1: the profession and wanted to stay dedicated, wanted to rise

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Speaker 1: through the ranks, didn't want to leave having a job

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Speaker 1: that they loved. Presumably, Well, of course, they were then

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Speaker 1: considered spinsters because they weren't married. And so it's just

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Speaker 1: like a cycle of well, wait, but society is creating

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Speaker 1: this trap, and then you're punishing women for it. You're

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Speaker 1: punishing women for being the undesirable, crotchety spinsters, when in reality,

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Speaker 1: if they had wanted to keep their job, they can't

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Speaker 1: get married. Yeah, and and hence we fast forward to

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Speaker 1: It's a Wonderful Life, And if George Bailey hadn't married Mary,

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Speaker 1: she would have become that spinster librarian. That's that was

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Speaker 1: her punishment. I remember watching that as a kid being like,

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Speaker 1: but I like librarians. Huh, she's so scary. Why she's

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Speaker 1: so scary. I'm gonna knit something. It's the tables returning conger.

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Speaker 1: You've never seen. It's a wonderful life. I've never seen.

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Speaker 1: It's a wonderful life. Okay, listeners, In case you're relatively

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Speaker 1: new to the podcast, my pop cultural knowledge spans from

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Speaker 1: about like nineteen forty to nineteen sixty almost just inhaled

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Speaker 1: my water. Um, you you've still got lot on me. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: my nineties which comedies or dramas whatever. But although I'm

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Speaker 1: finally watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I feel like I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm really reclaiming my youth, my lost youth. Good. So,

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Speaker 1: by the nineteen thirties, librarianship was female and second only

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Speaker 1: to public school teaching as the most feminized job in America. Yes, basically,

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Speaker 1: women could be teachers, librarians, or nurses or secretaries or

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Speaker 1: secretaries until they got married, in which case sometimes by law,

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Speaker 1: they had to quit their jobs. So womaning is great. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but well, next up we're going to talk about some

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Speaker 1: amazing women who are like, Okay, I see you cultural confines,

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Speaker 1: and I will raise you my brain my library card.

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Speaker 1: So in our last episode, which we're not going to

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Speaker 1: rehash every reason why Dewey is super creepy. Melvill Dewey

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Speaker 1: the father of modern librarianship. But it despite the fact

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Speaker 1: that he was a creep uh, he did draw so

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Speaker 1: many women into the profession. He was the one who

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Speaker 1: really sparked the feminization of librarianship. And again, despite his

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Speaker 1: general shadiness, because he trained so many women and he

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Speaker 1: expected such brilliance and hard work and efficiency, robotic efficiency,

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Speaker 1: he did have some pretty brilliant women emerged from his teaching.

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Speaker 1: So we wanted to highlight three of them, starting with

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Speaker 1: Mary salome A Cutler, who became a head cataloger at

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Speaker 1: the Columbia Library in eighteen eighty nine. And that's a

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Speaker 1: pretty big deal considering how Columbia University was all men

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Speaker 1: at the time. Now, eight eighty nine was also the

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Speaker 1: year that Dewey resigned from Columbia University. Because they were like, Dooey,

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Speaker 1: we don't want all these women around. Cutler had to

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Speaker 1: leave her job, and she followed Dewey actually to his

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Speaker 1: newly established New York State Library School, and I want

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Speaker 1: to say that she was actually in his very first

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Speaker 1: class um and in she chaired the American Library Association's

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Speaker 1: committee to build the model library for the World's Columbian Exposition.

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Speaker 1: And it doesn't sound like a big deal, perhaps to

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Speaker 1: modern ears, but it was quite a big deal. It

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Speaker 1: was a big deal. The the exposition was where you

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Speaker 1: showed off new advancements and innovations and peered into what

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Speaker 1: might be in the future shelves of books look at it.

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Speaker 1: But it was a pretty controversial move because Dewey was like, dudes,

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Speaker 1: I want Cutler to had this committee. Uh, And they

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Speaker 1: were like, Dewey, but we hate girls. Look at the

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Speaker 1: sign it says no girls allowed. And it was like,

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Speaker 1: only like girls, I'm leaving this tree house. And then

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Speaker 1: the second woman we wanted to highlight is Mary Wright Plumber.

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Speaker 1: She helped establish the Pratt Institute's Free Library and pioneered

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Speaker 1: library children's rooms, among of course a lot of other

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Speaker 1: amazing stuff, and became the American Library Association president in

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Speaker 1: nine And even though she was one of Dewey's earliest students, Plumber,

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Speaker 1: as we talked about in the previous episode, when she

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Speaker 1: became a l A president, she was like, Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: now that I'm in a position of power, guess what

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Speaker 1: do do we I'm not gonna I'm not gonna meet

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Speaker 1: with you. Yeah, no, be out of here. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: guys goes in any other episode if you haven't um.

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Speaker 1: And then we have to talk about Katherine Sharp, Katherine L. Sharp,

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Speaker 1: who was such a whiz. When do We was asked

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Speaker 1: for the best man to start a library program at

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Speaker 1: Chicago's Armor Institute, do We said that the best man

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Speaker 1: is a woman, which to me sounds like such a

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Speaker 1: romantic comedy line. Um, except that Dewey is super creepy

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Speaker 1: and I would not want to see a character based

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Speaker 1: on him in a rom com um. And Sharp actually

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Speaker 1: became director of the University of Illinois library program and

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Speaker 1: the university's library. And you know that doesn't sound like okay,

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Speaker 1: university librarian great, but no, like there were caste systems

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Speaker 1: in place almost for librarians, and university or academic libraries

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Speaker 1: were seen as such a big deal compared to your

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Speaker 1: smaller local libraries. Well in, the University of Illinois apparently

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Speaker 1: still has one of the most renowned library science programs

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Speaker 1: in the US. So oh, kathanel Sharp did a good

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Speaker 1: job because she was there their first director, and she

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Speaker 1: set up everything being a dual director of an academic

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Speaker 1: program and a library. Yeah. Well she did such a

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Speaker 1: good job that she actually retired in nineteen o seven

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Speaker 1: because quote, it was crushing the human element out of

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Speaker 1: her life. So she wrote that in her Reside Nation

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Speaker 1: letter Lord. So that's burnout. So then I recommend you

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Speaker 1: go listen to our episode with Emily Airies of bossed

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Speaker 1: up on Burnout. Well, I mean, but that just goes

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Speaker 1: to show what Caroline humans was talking about, Like, we

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Speaker 1: are doing so much and and kathanel Sharp surely didn't

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Speaker 1: have time for a two to three mile walk every day.

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Speaker 1: Who does? So there were these women who were so

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Speaker 1: dedicated to the job and really passionate about this work

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Speaker 1: and obviously um innovative, just as innovative as Dewey was.

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Speaker 1: And all of our librarian history that we've talked about,

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Speaker 1: even in the last episode and up till now, has

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Speaker 1: been exclusively about white folks, and even today the profession

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Speaker 1: is largely quite But you know who else was trailblazing

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Speaker 1: as all of this was going on, even though they

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Speaker 1: were very much shoved to the side. Or African Americans. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right. There is such a rich history around African

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Speaker 1: American library culture in this country, but it tends to,

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Speaker 1: like so many things around, diversity in this country just

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Speaker 1: not be discussed as much. Yeah. So Philadelphia is home

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Speaker 1: to both the Reading Room Society, which was the first

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Speaker 1: social library for African Americans, which was established in eighty eight,

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Speaker 1: and the Female Literary Society, which was established in eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty one, which was the first social library for black women.

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Speaker 1: So Philadelphia got it going on right, um, which just

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Speaker 1: Philadelphia just makes me want to start singing the Fresh

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Speaker 1: Prince song. Me too. I got to start it. I

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Speaker 1: held back. I did too. I did to conger. We're

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Speaker 1: I feel like we're growing up, although I really must

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Speaker 1: grown up from our fresh Prince, Fresh Prince days. Um.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't until nineteen o four that in Henderson, Kentucky,

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Speaker 1: we get a one room annex opening at the rear

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Speaker 1: of the eighth Street Colored School to serve as a library.

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Speaker 1: This is the first structure built specifically to offer public

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Speaker 1: library services to African Americans, whereas the first white essentially

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Speaker 1: public library, tax supported library had been established all the

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Speaker 1: way back in eighteen thirty three. Um, and you would

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Speaker 1: have a little kind of blacks only library rooms popping

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Speaker 1: up here and there that would have been privately funded

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Speaker 1: or funded through churches, but this was the first one

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Speaker 1: supported by public tax dollars. And the thing is as

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Speaker 1: lofty as public libraries original goals were in terms of

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Speaker 1: enriching the entire community, what they really meant at the

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Speaker 1: time was the white community, because libraries were aggregated. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so what do you do when you're unwelcome in

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Speaker 1: essentially a public facility that says we don't want you

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Speaker 1: or won't serve you. You start your own organizations. And

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Speaker 1: so you have Molly Lee Houston, who established a library

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Speaker 1: for African Americans in Raleigh, North Carolina. And this would

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Speaker 1: have been happening around the same time as women's clubs

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Speaker 1: popping up in African American communities and progressive era ideals

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Speaker 1: of lifting as you climb and providing these kinds of services,

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Speaker 1: in particularly literacy for this community. That was, you know,

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Speaker 1: coming out of the grips of slavery. Um. So fast

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Speaker 1: forward to and we have the West Virginia Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: ruling that Charleston libraries cannot exclude black patrons since as taxpayers,

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Speaker 1: they're equally entitled to library service. But it wasn't until

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four Supreme Court ruling in Brown versus Board

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Speaker 1: of Education that across the country you have separate but

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Speaker 1: equal being outlawed in those public spaces like schools, but

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Speaker 1: also libraries. We never hear about civil rights and libraries.

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Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, I know, people just think libraries

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Speaker 1: or nothing but super quiet spaces where nothing ever happens.

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Speaker 1: But so much happened, right, I mean, they became another

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Speaker 1: yet another site of civil rights sit ins for integration,

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Speaker 1: like integration in reality, not just the legal dismantling of segregation,

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Speaker 1: actually legitimately integrating libraries UM. In nineteen sixty three, for instance,

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Speaker 1: a white mob attacked two black men who were just

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Speaker 1: trying to get library cards in Anniston, Alabama. I read

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Speaker 1: that and I just wanted to throw my laptop out

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Speaker 1: the window because if like that crystallizes so much, like

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Speaker 1: the level of seated racist hatred that you would want

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Speaker 1: to attack someone for getting a library card, like, it's horrifying. UM. So,

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Speaker 1: not surprisingly these were sites of protests, but to its credit,

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Speaker 1: the American Library Association was on record as pro integration UM.

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Speaker 1: And I think it was actually in the fifties that

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Speaker 1: they held their first meeting in the South because initially

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Speaker 1: they had been kind of nervous about racial tensions in

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Speaker 1: the South. Um, but they amended their Library Bill of Rights,

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Speaker 1: which how cute is that? That's really sweet? Um, But

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Speaker 1: they amended the Library Bill of Rights in the early

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Speaker 1: sixties to codify its stands, saying like, you cannot exclude

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Speaker 1: people on the basis of race from entering these places

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Speaker 1: of public learning. Yeah, I mean not everyone was terrible.

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Speaker 1: You have during the civil rights era, twenty five freedom

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Speaker 1: libraries that were established in Mississippi by volunteer civil rights

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Speaker 1: advocating librarians talk about some superheroes, and anyone listening who

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00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 1: knows more about these freedom libraries please write to us

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00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: mom stuff at how stuffworks dot com because this was

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00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 1: we found this information on the American Library Association's website,

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00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 1: so to me, that means it's legit. But when I

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00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,639
Speaker 1: started doing more research trying to find out more about

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Speaker 1: freedom libraries, because hello, how cool is that, I couldn't

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00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 1: find anything else because so much of our popular civil

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Speaker 1: rights history is focused on desegregating schools and things like that.

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Speaker 1: So if anyone knows anything, I want to know, because

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Speaker 1: I just want to be able to give those librarians

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00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: or druthers. Yeah. And what is so fabulous about this

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00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: is that when we talk about the history of African Americans,

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Speaker 1: when we talk about the history of black people in

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00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 1: this country, so much is lost. We don't have some

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Speaker 1: of the names, the amount of names that we do

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00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 1: from pioneering white people, even pioneering white women. But we

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Speaker 1: are so happy to be able to give you a

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Speaker 1: few names of some badass black librarians who led the way.

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Speaker 1: So in nineteen three you have bibliotherapy pioneer Sadie Peterson

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Speaker 1: Delaney who establishes the library in the Veterans Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama,

426
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: for recuperating black soldiers. And I have not heard the

427
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: term bibliotherapy before, Caroline, but it makes total sense. So

428
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: Delaney realized that there are therapeutic benefits to reading, and

429
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: she specifically sought out African American focused reading material at

430
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: the time, which was a bit of a task, um,

431
00:29:56,320 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: but she did it because she knew how Horton having

432
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: that inspirational literature would be for these soldiers who I mean,

433
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: they're coming back home, they're injured, but they're coming back

434
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: to a prejudice society even after they fought for their country. Yeah.

435
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 1: And another incredible woman carving out of space for African

436
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: American readers is Vivian G. Harsh, who in ninety two

437
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: with Chicago's first black librarian, and she established a world

438
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: renowned research collection of African American history and literature that

439
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: is still at the Chicago Library. It's still in existence,

440
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: and according to a biographical source on Vivian Harsh, this

441
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: library that she established became quote a mecca for literary

442
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: and cultural icons of the period, including Richard Wright, Lankston Hughes,

443
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 1: Zora Neil Hurston, and Gwendolen Brooks, some of whom even

444
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: contributed manuscripts to the institution. And Vivian G. Harsh is

445
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: someone who we could go back and do an entire

446
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: podcast on because she's one of the most important librarians

447
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: in American history, because she made it her mission to

448
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 1: essentially preserve African American culture and is considered one of

449
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 1: the reasons why the like Chicago Black Renaissance happened because

450
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: they were she essentially like set up this whole repository,

451
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: this like cultural center, saying look here, here, we are,

452
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: here is here all of the things that we've produced,

453
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: here's our history, all those things that otherwise would have

454
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 1: been marginalized or completely lost. And not too far away

455
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 1: from Vivian G. Harsh in Detroit, a little bit later,

456
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 1: you have Clara Stanton Jones, who became the first woman

457
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 1: and African American to serve as director of Detroit's Public Library,

458
00:31:55,880 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 1: despite white public protests. They're like, no, how, how how

459
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: gonna an African American woman be serving in this role?

460
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 1: But thankfully she was able to claim her post and

461
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: later went on to become the first African American president

462
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: of the American Library Association, and in night she was

463
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Commission on

464
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: Libraries and Information Science, where she served until nineteen eighty two. So,

465
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: in other words, she was a big deal. Yeah, and

466
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: I love that. Um. When Miss magazine in two thousand

467
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: three was recognizing the contributions of incredible women to this country,

468
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 1: they looked to Carla Diane Hayden, who was the second

469
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: African American president of the a l A. And she

470
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: basically her reaction was basically like who me? And she

471
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: told the magazine when people ask what's unusual about me?

472
00:32:57,120 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 1: Being the a L as president. The first thing that

473
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: comes to mind is that I'm Africa an American, but

474
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: really what's more significant is that I'm a woman, because

475
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 1: even though it's a female dominated field, most library directors

476
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: are men. And thus these two episodes have come full

477
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 1: circle and the hierarchy is still in place. So we

478
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: have all of these amazing female librarians throughout the twentieth century,

479
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 1: who I mean, essentially or to thank for our public

480
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: learning and literacy in a lot of ways and community

481
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: building absolutely um and they don't get nearly as much

482
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 1: recognition as they should because I feel like the only

483
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 1: name that we associate with libraries is Malville, Dewey and um.

484
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 1: So I hope that this raises some awareness of just

485
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: what what amazing women and men librarians are. But like

486
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 1: the women who really built the libraries from the ground up, yeah,

487
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:02,239
Speaker 1: and who who had so few positive expectations put on

488
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: them and exceeded them to the moon and back. So

489
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 1: now we want to hear from you. Do you have

490
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: beloved librarians in your life? Are you a librarian? We

491
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:16,919
Speaker 1: want to know all of your library thoughts. Mom Stuff

492
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com is our email address.

493
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or

494
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages

495
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 1: to share with you right now. Okay, well, I have

496
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:35,280
Speaker 1: a letter here from Joshua in response to our Queer

497
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: Fashion episodes. Uh. Joshua says, greetings from Sitting Bowl College

498
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 1: on the Standing Rock Lakota Indian Reservation in fort Yates,

499
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: North Dakota. I'm from another plane's tribe, but I'm here

500
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 1: for an intensive summer program that trains teachers and how

501
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: to teach the Lakota and Dakota languages. First off, is

502
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:54,879
Speaker 1: everyone in Atlanta as cool as you too. I've been

503
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast for years, and I appreciate the

504
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 1: sensitivity with which you address a variety of topics. I

505
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,280
Speaker 1: usually can't bring myself to listen to white, straight people

506
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: discuss any of the minority groups I'm part of, because

507
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: they almost invariably wind up saying horribly offensive things, even

508
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 1: when they mean well. But I'm always seriously impressed with

509
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 1: what a great job y'all do. Thanks so much for

510
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: keeping me company on my recent twenty five hours of

511
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:19,360
Speaker 1: driving from California to North Dakota. One of your episodes

512
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: prompted me to write in the Queer Fashion episode, thanks

513
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 1: so much for covering this topic. I always wondered why

514
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: men's Western clothing was so much more boring than what

515
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 1: was Western women wear, and I found it fascinating to

516
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 1: learn that it was the result of a deliberate social

517
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: movement to tone things down. But also I feel like

518
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:39,480
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that this boring men'swear phenomenon is not

519
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:43,440
Speaker 1: universal in Native American cultures. I see men wearing regalia,

520
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: ceremonial clothing and every day where that is just as

521
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,360
Speaker 1: colorful as what women wear. I'm a pow wow dancer,

522
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: and I also so pow wow regalia. There's definitely a

523
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: pretty strict gender binary in force, and I seriously cringe

524
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: when outsiders portray Native American cultures as some magic gender

525
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: fore utopia. But you'll see a lot of things that

526
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: would be stylistically off limits for Western men, long hair,

527
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: dangly earrings, sequence, shiny fabrics, and bright colors as standards

528
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:13,880
Speaker 1: styles and attire in the pow wow arena. These styles

529
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: are sometimes misinterpreted by outsiders, but it's not uncommon for straight,

530
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:20,800
Speaker 1: macho pow wow guys to wear pink regalia with sequins,

531
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: for example, and think nothing of it. Maybe something about

532
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 1: different gender standards and different cultures and what happens when

533
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: they clash and come together would be a good future topic.

534
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 1: Two of the younger boys in my pow wow family

535
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: have attached pink scarves on the belts of their pow

536
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 1: wow regalia to support a loved one who is a

537
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:39,959
Speaker 1: breast cancer survivor, which I find very sweet. The bright

538
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 1: colors coming together in the individual and collective dancers regalia

539
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: are an inegal part of the pow wow, so I'm

540
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: glad we have defied this mainstream trend. So thank you

541
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:52,279
Speaker 1: so much Joshua for writing in. Well, I've got a

542
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:56,160
Speaker 1: letter here from Nicole about our episode on women in

543
00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: political campaigning, and she writes, I love your podcast about

544
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 1: women in politics. It really summed up a lot of

545
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: my feelings about where women have been placed in campaigns

546
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 1: in my struggles with that. I started out wanting to

547
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 1: be a media consultant or campaign manager in politics, but

548
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 1: while interning for a media consulting firm, I was steered

549
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: toward fundraising by my all male bosses in the city

550
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:21,799
Speaker 1: I worked in all of the fundraisers were women, and

551
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 1: my bosses told me that to be a fundraiser, you

552
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:27,800
Speaker 1: must be well dressed, and then they ranked the fundraisers

553
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 1: on their level of bitchiness. This is one of the

554
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 1: hundreds of stories I could share about sexism in the

555
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:38,800
Speaker 1: campaign office. Since then, I interned on a presidential political

556
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:41,240
Speaker 1: finance team and now work full time at a political

557
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 1: fundraising firm where I worked for the governor of my state.

558
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: What what, Nicole impressive? As you mentioned, in politics, it's

559
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 1: important to have a mentor to advocate for you. This

560
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: is really the only way to get the best jobs.

561
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 1: Most campaigns never post a job ad, but instead asked

562
00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: their friends if they have anyone to recommend. Also will

563
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:04,279
Speaker 1: normally choose to mentor someone that they think is like them.

564
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: So it's a lot harder for women to be recommended

565
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 1: for the best jobs in other fields because they're so

566
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: concentrated in finance. Other factors that lead to women being

567
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 1: fundraisers is that they're the most abundant job, since candidates

568
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 1: always need more money. If a person doesn't know the

569
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 1: right people or have a mentor to get their resumes

570
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 1: passed around, than fundraising jobs are normally the only ones

571
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:29,800
Speaker 1: posted on political jobs boards. In regard to why people

572
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: assume women are better suited for fundraising, something I've noticed

573
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: is that donors are nicer to women. We often spend

574
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: a lot of time calling people for money, and people

575
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: get irritated when they receive those calls. When you call

576
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 1: very cheerfully and sound as sweetly as possible, donors normally

577
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: won't yell at you. My boss is too badass. Women

578
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:51,799
Speaker 1: always tell me to be as peppy as possible when

579
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 1: dealing with difficult clients. I have male coworkers and they

580
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 1: get yelled at more often than the women in my office.

581
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: I could go on and on about women in campaigns

582
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: and specifically fundraising. I hope my email makes sense. As

583
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:06,839
Speaker 1: you mentioned, everyone in campaigns were crazy hours and I'm

584
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:10,760
Speaker 1: very sleep deprived. Thanks for validating all of my feelings

585
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: about my industry, and for your other episodes get me

586
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:18,120
Speaker 1: through hours of staring at Excel sheets. Well, Nicole, thank

587
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: you so much for your insight and more power to

588
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 1: you in in that field, because I can only imagine

589
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:28,880
Speaker 1: that it is look toughie, So listeners now, I want

590
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,440
Speaker 1: to hear from you mom stuff at how stuff works

591
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:33,880
Speaker 1: dot com. Is our email address and for links to

592
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:35,800
Speaker 1: all of our social media as well as all of

593
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:39,400
Speaker 1: our blogs, videos, and podcasts with our sources so you

594
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,799
Speaker 1: can learn so much more about librarians. Head on over

595
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:48,879
Speaker 1: to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more

596
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

597
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com