reading & libraries i || reaching the rural reader: traveling libraries in america, 1892-1920

Reaching the Rural Reader: Traveling Libraries in America, 1892-1920Author(s): Joanne E. PassetSource: Libraries & Culture, Vol. 26, No. 1, Reading & Libraries I (Winter, 1991), pp. 100-118Published by: University of Texas PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25542325 .

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Reaching the Rural Reader: Traveling Libraries in

America, 1892-1920

Joanne E. Passet

Melvil Dewey initiated the American traveling library movement in New

York State in 1892. Modeled on earlier attempts in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia, the idea spread like wildfire during an era

in which reformers regarded the book as a curative for societal ills. Librarians,

philanthropists, educators, and club women endowed traveling libraries with

the potential to Americanize immigrants, to help farmers, and to provide

uplift to juveniles who lacked direction and purpose. In many states, the

traveling library served as the pioneer in state library development. After

1920, however, traveling libraries gradually gave way to systems of county

libraries, branch libraries, and book wagons.

Had I the power I would scatter libraries

over the whole land as a sower sows his

wheat field.

?Horace Mann1

Here's to our traveling libraries; the promoters of civilization; the makers of true homes; the moral uplifters of communities; the benefactors of our district schools; true missionaries in the homes of the isolated;

co-operators with the district school library; destined to one day become

one of the most powerful influences in our state.

?Mrs. Edward Porter, former custodian,

Traveling Library2

The quality of each one's citizenship depends

mostly on the thoughts he thinks, and these

thoughts are determined largely by what he

reads.

?Ninth Biennial Report of Idaho State Library

Commission, 1917-19183

Joanne E. Passet is assistant professor of library and information science, Indiana University,

Bloomington.

Libraries and Culture, Vol. 26, No. 1, Winter 1991 e1991 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713



101

Introduction

Public libraries experienced dramatic growth during the late nineteenth

and early twentieth centuries, yet thousands of Americans, especially those in rural regions, remained beyond their reach. Melvil Dewey responded to this need when he circulated traveling libraries to citizens of New York

State in 1893.4 Librarians, club women, educators, and the public quickly

adopted this approach to achieving "the best reading for the largest num

ber at the least cost."5 The movement spread like wildfire throughout the

country and sturdy boxes of books soon traveled by rail, livery, stage, and

boat to library stations located in sod houses, mining and lumber camps,

general stores, post offices, schools, and homes. Approximately thirty states

had traveling library programs by the turn of the century.6 This paper examines the phenomenon of the traveling library, focusing

on four aspects: (1) its nature and extent, (2) the traveling library visitor and the obstacles she encountered, (3) the motivations and philosophies of the movement's promoters, and (4) the impact of traveling libraries on

public library development. The primary sources of documentation include

correspondence of state library commissions and state librarians, reports

of library visitors, printed reports of traveling and state library commis

sions, and contemporary articles appearing in library literature, the popu

lar press, and newspapers.

Background

A number of conditions enabled the traveling library movement to thrive in turn-of-the-century America. The innovation, industrialization, immi

gration, and urbanization characteristic of this era triggered concern about

their impact on society. As this rapid change threatened to weaken churches

and homes, and old-fashioned schools seemed increasingly powerless, educational reformers looked for alternative methods of teaching morality and good citizenship. Americans began to regard literacy as the social

cement that would "guarantee social stability and adherence to cherished

social and political norms."7 It provided a means to preserve traditional

values while embracing progress. At the same time, the ideas of such men

as John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, and G. Stanley Hall led parents, educa

tors, and Progressive-era reformers to focus on children, endowing them

with the potential to "redeem the lives of adults."8 Access to books was central to this cause, yet many communities lacked

public libraries. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, the middle- and upper-class women who constituted the growing club move

ment began to focus on this need. While initially concerned with self-im

provement, they "moved quickly and efficiently from philosophy to



102 L&C/ Traveling Libraries

philanthropy," devoting attention to such social reforms as free kinder

gartens and public libraries.9 Despite their efforts, which included estab

lishing community libraries, serving as volunteer librarians, and cam

paigning for library legislation, many rural regions remained without

library service.10 Thus, club women enthusiastically embraced Dewey's

plan of traveling libraries as a means to provide books to their sisters on the farms and in other isolated areas.

The Nature and Extent of the Movement

Although Melvil Dewey is credited with establishing the American

traveling library movement, its origins can be traced to a seventeenth

century proposal by Thomas Bray. He established "lending libraries"

packed in boxes and deposited in central locations for the public benefit of English deaneries, parochial libraries in Maryland and Virginia, and other "foreign plantations."11 In the early nineteenth century Samuel

Brown developed a similar plan of itinerating libraries in Scotland, de

positing rotating collections of fifty volumes in villages for two-year periods. The goal was to provide residents with fresh reading material. The American

Lyceum adopted Brown's idea in the 1830s, as did several other countries.12 The itinerating library idea surfaced again shortly after the Civil War when the Boston and Albany Railroad established traveling libraries to serve

company employees living along the line, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad developed a similar plan in 1884.13

Most sources suggest that Dewey modeled his plan for traveling libraries on the Australian example, begun in Adelaide and Melbourne in 1859.14

Dewey also was aware of related applications of this concept in the United

States. He admired the aggressive methods of people who drove mobile

chapels through the sparsely settled western country and those who trans

ported hives of bees throughout California. This missionary spirit appealed to Dewey, who, along with educators of the era, believed that free access

to books would positively influence children and contribute to "the mar

velous evolution of the race."15

Several state libraries followed Dewey's example and obtained appro

priations to conduct traveling library work. Under Mary C. Spencer's direction, Michigan extended the availability of state library books, be

coming the second state to establish a traveling library department.16

Elsewhere, separate commissions conducted the work, or it became a

department of the state library commission. Librarians regarded the latter

approach as ideal because commission workers could accomplish two tasks:

they could imbue managers of traveling libraries with the library spirit, and they could promote the establishment of public libraries.

Many legislators, however, were reluctant to create new commissions.



103

And even though Colorado's club women campaigned successfully to

establish a traveling library commission, its appropriation was not forth

coming for several years. Mindful of the difficulties encountered when

traveling library workers attempted to secure state funding, Lutie E. Stearns

preferred, in 1904, not to seek an increase in Wisconsin's appropriation.

She wrote, "I believe we should play 'possum and not have our laws codi

fied or do anything else to attract attention to us!"17

Legislative disappointments challenged, but did not retard, the move

ment's growth. In a number of states, philanthropists established local

systems of traveling libraries. Senator James H. Stout initiated Wiscon

sin's first county traveling libraries in 1896. After discovering that rural

readers were not patronizing his collections, he consulted the Wisconsin

Free Library Commission for aid in selecting more appropriate books.

Stout's example, and the system's subsequent success, became a model for

similar efforts elsewhere in the country.18

While state library commissions, state libraries, and philanthropists established numerous traveling libraries, women's clubs provided the

primary impetus for the movement. Many were motivated by idealism.

Alabama's club women felt that their commitment to bringing books to

the people brought them "in touch with the spirit of Thomas Jefferson."19 Their efforts and beliefs were not unique. By 1904 club women claimed

credit for establishing statewide traveling library service in at least thirty one states.20 In most instances, they maintained these systems while pro

moting legislation to legitimate and continue their efforts.

Club women sometimes involved prominent librarians in their campaigns.

Katharine L. Sharp, director of the Illinois Library School, served as

secretary of the Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs in 1897 because she

agreed with them that cooperation was the only way to ensure success.21

Unfortunately, Illinois legislators did not pass the proposed legislation, and the work continued there under the auspices of the enthusiastic but

financially limited women's clubs.

Several additional groups and institutions participated in the traveling

library movement. State normal school and agricultural college libraries

circulated collections in an attempt to aid farmers, housewives, and school

teachers. The librarian at the State Normal School in Gunnison, Colorado, believed that a county system would "be the best means of supplying the

[county] schools," but until one was established she circulated books to

them by parcel post.22 In the East, students at Hampton Institute carried

books to black readers.23 Finally, such urban public libraries as the Library Association of Portland and the Denver Public Library circulated traveling

libraries as precursors to countywide library service.24

The first traveling libraries consisted of thirty to one hundred carefully selected volumes shipped to communities in sturdy boxes that sometimes



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105

doubled as bookcases. State traveling library workers encouraged, and

often required, citizens to form library associations, electing one from their

number as librarian. Such associations were critical to the movement's

success because they guaranteed the preservation and safe return of books

and ensured that a number of people would have a vested interest in the

library.25 Local "librarians" ranged from schoolteachers to shopkeepers

to mothers, and they often cultivated a sense of library spirit within com

munities. Moreover, traveling librarians linked citizens to the state by

circulating books, keeping statistics, and representing community needs

and interests. In many remote areas, they were the "most striking evidence

of the existence of a state government."26

Initially, "fixed" collections "having something in each for every age and every taste" predominated.27 On occasion, regional tastes also in

fluenced the content of these collections. In addition to the regular fare, the Kansas Traveling Library Commission included "at least one volume on missions, temperance, good citizenship, and Sunday school work."28

These fixed collections often were too focused, or scholarly, for their clien

tele. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner prepared an American history

traveling library, but the Wisconsin Free Library Commission soon dis

covered that this "admirable" and scholarly collection was "very little used."29 As time passed dissatisfaction with the "fixed" plan gave way,

in many states, to the "open shelf plan: libraries were compiled to meet

the needs of individual communities.30

During the early stages of traveling library work, commission workers

urged local librarians to push certain classes of reading, often to no avail.

A number of traveling library workers relied on the recommendation of Booklist to compile balanced and high quality collections. Cornelia Marvin,

however, abandoned this approach after learning that Oregon readers were

disinterested in the materials that she had purchased. Based on her ex

perience with Booklist, Marvin concluded that the "elitist" publication had been compiled by "a university community of educated, cultured,

people" who sometimes forgot that "the people who use traveling libraries

are untrained readers."31 When other commissions persisted in circulating collections of wholesome, but often dull, reading material, readers let them

languish on the shelf.

Commission workers employed several strategies in an attempt to arouse

interest in the more serious side of reading. New Jersey's Sarah Askew favored reading circles, while Minnesota's Clara Baldwin circulated anno

tated lists in the hope that they would stimulate people "to read some books which they might not otherwise choose."32 In Kentucky, commission workers used current fiction as "the entering wedge" to lead their people to read, hoping ultimately to convert them to books of a more useful na

ture.33 As the years passed, traveling library departments and commissions




gradually acceded to the heavy demand for fiction, but they refused to

completely abandon the idea of uplift.

The Library Visitor and Obstacles to the Work

As the movement progressed, library workers recognized the desirability of being aware of environmental, economic, and social realities of their

readers. Wisconsin's Frank A. Hutchins strongly advocated fieldwork

because it enabled commissions to "find the most needy communities and

the persons best fitted to be librarians."34 Moreover, it aided them in

matching books to the needs and tastes of readers. As a result, the field

worker, often female, came into existence. Edna Bullock's 1907 ALA tract

on traveling libraries emphasized that the work required "tireless energy, intimate acquaintance with conditions and people, an uncommon degree

of inventive genius, and a thorough knowledge of the principles of adver

tising."35 Thus, the women and men who were attracted to this work, with

its strenuous travel to remote and occasionally hostile environments, often

possessed a strong sense of missionary zeal.

Even though most readers welcomed the idea of free access to reading

material, fieldworkers encountered some obstacles as they attempted to

establish traveling library stations. Several communities regarded the move

ment with suspicion because they previously had fallen prey to fraudulent

companies that had worked the state selling worthless traveling libraries.

The head of the Parmalee Traveling Library Company boasted to Katharine

Sharp that "the clever solicitor can, on the average, place five . . . per

month."36 Other developing communities, or "boom" towns, suffered

from bonded indebtedness for waterworks, courthouses, and streets.

Churches and schools also took priority over libraries. The women of Foot

ville, Wisconsin, doubted that they could obtain signatures in support of a

traveling library because "subscription papers" had "gone around so

many times for the churches."37 Finally, a few towns had experienced

"dismal failure" with earlier attempts to maintain library associations or

reading rooms and were hesitant to try again.38

Religion also determined the success or failure of some traveling library stations. Stearns encountered a sect in Burnett Junction, Wisconsin, where

"the adherents read nothing but the Bible," and another community in

which the Methodist minister objected to traveling libraries because they contained "novels and kindred light literature."39 When Protestant

churches housed traveling library stations, Catholics and nonchurchgoers did not have access. Furthermore, priests and ministers sometimes voiced

objections to specific items in traveling library collections. The priest in

Oconto Falls, Wisconsin, admonished the children of his parish not to

patronize that community's traveling library because it contained a copy



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_4 Traveling Library Station in Downsville, Wisconsin, 1897

(Courtesy State

Historical

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of a Methodist weekly.40 A Minnesota commission worker experienced

similar difficulties with Lutherans who were "very critical in regard to the

moral tone of their books'' and those who became so indignant that they sometimes consigned books to the flames.41

Transportation posed another barrier for some communities. In Idaho,

the condition of stage roads during certain seasons of the year prevented

the delivery of traveling library cases, while in other states freight or postage

charges were exorbitant.42 Oregon's Cornelia Marvin observed that "the

greatest drawback to the success of these systems is the high rate of book

postage which makes country people . . . hesitate."43 Readers in Colfax,

Wisconsin, were discouraged because they had to hire a livery that cost

three dollars to transport traveling libraries from the nearest depot.44

Although some states secured favors from railroads for the free delivery of

traveling libraries, others were less successful.

Finally, people expressed concern about the diseases that books might transmit. Members of one traveling library association were quite distressed

when the librarian let an elderly man "with cancer on the face in an ad

vanced stage" have books.45 Stearns, however, supported the librarian's

efforts to make the victim's life "happier and brighter" and, as a compro

mise, offered to send magazines that could be destroyed after he read them.46

In at least one state, Native Americans were denied traveling libraries

because of the prevalence of tuberculosis in their communities.47 Smallpox

and scarlet fever also concerned commission workers, who sometimes had

health officers destroy books to allay the fear of'' any contagion traced to

traveling libraries."48

Motivations and Philosophies of Traveling Library Workers

As she traveled about the state by team, stage, and horseback, Wiscon

sin's library visitor, Lutie Stearns, carried the gospel of books to Hurley, "the Pittsburg[h]-and-worse of Wisconsin," and she met "people feeling their isolation and making no attempt to overcome it." Other fieldworkers

encountered similar conditions. Concerned about the extreme poverty

they saw in Appalachia, Kentucky Traveling Library Commission workers

hoped to instill in the mountain people "a desire for better and cleaner

homes and a demand for a common school education."50 New Jersey's

Sarah Askew believed that books were the antidote for a town populated

by "women gossiping," dissenting churches, poor schools, and few if any

clubs.51 And the saloons and "blind pigs" that thrived in many communi

ties, especially near western lumber and mining camps, caused great con

cern. Commission workers believed that men frequented such places

because they suffered from mental starvation. Exposure to such conditions



109

encouraged them to provide communities with compelling alternatives in

the form of wholesome books in attractive reading rooms.52

Like most social reformers of this period, advocates of traveling libraries

focused on youth. They hoped to achieve "a decided advance in intelli

gence in the next generation."53 Other groups shared the belief that a

"terrible national disaster" would result if America continued to neglect the education of rural boys and girls.54 In 1895 the Women's Education

Association endorsed the movement, stressing that every community con

tained someone "eager for knowledge, whose whole life" might be changed

by having the opportunity to read.55 Statements by young men in reforma

tories such as "If we'd had some [books] like that, I wouldn't be here now"

reinforced this belief.56 In the eyes of commission workers, the flawed American educational system taught children to read but did not provide

opportunities to exercise that ability once they attained adulthood.

Often, the rural readers' beliefs mirrored those of traveling library workers and social reformers. When writing to request libraries, they described the beneficial influence that books had in their communities.

One woman emphasized that they were "better and cheaper than reform

schools . . . our cheapest police force."57 Concern for children prevailed.

A woman in an Oregon coastal town boasted of her success in reaching the bad boys who had "bin brakin [sic] windows and doing all kinds of mis

chief."58 And a mother on the Kansas prairie wrote, "I don't ask anything better for my boys. It's chance enough."59

Although they believed it was critical to develop reading as a lifelong habit, workers differed on the subject of placing libraries in schoolhouses. The Michigan State Library favored the idea because the school was the

"literary center of the district."60 Believing that the habit of reading was

contagious, most commission workers regarded the schoolchildren as the

key to making "readers of the whole family."61 Others recognized that

traveling libraries served as a supplement to inadequate school libraries

and as aids to teachers. Nonetheless, several library visitors objected

strenuously to this approach because schools often were located in out-of

the-way places, closed during the summer, and relatively inaccessible to

adults.

Librarians also focused on regions with high concentrations of immi

grants, hoping that traveling libraries would prevent them from being "led by the appeals of future demagogues."62 At times, however, the

challenge seemed daunting. Stearns described Prentice, Wisconsin, as a

"foresaken-looking [sic] town" where it took "the combined energy of the Americans to maintain the little church, the library and the usual

lodges."63 In another village she encountered seventy-five Italians living in a half-dozen cottages whose "time, when away from work, hangs heavily



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Missouri, circa 1911

(From Fifth Annual Report of the Missouri Library Commission, 1911 [Jefferson City:

Hugh Stephens Printing, (1911)], opposite p. 19)



Ill

on their hands."64 Elsewhere, traveling library workers were appalled

to find immigrant children who could not read, or speak, English. It was difficult for public libraries to maintain collections of foreign-language books because "after being read once or twice by each foreign patron"

they stood "idle on the shelves."65 As a result, commissions began to

experiment with traveling libraries in a variety of foreign tongues. While some

merely met the demand for material in native languages, others

systematically used these collections "as bait" to lure readers to English

language books.66

Cognizant that immigrant groups constituted a growing base of tax

payers, commission workers also circulated foreign-language traveling

libraries in an attempt to cultivate their support of public libraries. In

1905 one local librarian, representative of many, requested a few German

books so she could interest the German community in the library.67 Another value of foreign traveling libraries, as Cornelia Marvin explained

to the Immigration Commission, was that immigrants might be persuaded to locate in a community if they knew that books in their own language

would be available.68

The "unwholesome" movement of young men and women from the

country to the city led traveling library workers to target the farmer. As they visited rural regions that had "no books in the homes aside from an occasional Montgomery-Ward catalog,'' they concluded that this popu

lation was in "a desperate condition of poverty, both intellectual and

otherwise."69 Library visitors encountered families that had begun "to believe [that] there was nothing in books for them."70 Exposure to such conditions convinced them that access to books was the key "to make

country life adequately and permanently satisfying."71 Askew reinforced

this belief with the description of a young boy who, after encountering a

traveling library, wrote, "We used to think we couldn't be nothing but

farmers, but now we can get books and be anything we want, and we think

maybe it's nice to be farmers."72

Commission workers soon learned, however, that farmers did not always want to read what was "best" for them. Traveling libraries of agricultural bulletins and such works as The Story of a Grain of Wheat, Cereals in America, and Bacteria in Relation to Country Life were unpopular.73 One farmer

complained that "folks down to the State House think because I'm a farmer I want to spend my nights reading about fertilizers."74 Those

who were aware of the realities of farm life, however, recognized that

the agricultural life was comparatively monotonous, "and if the toiler

reads at all, it is for recreation solely."75 Consequently, traveling library workers began to respond to farmers' requests for fiction.

As library visitors attempted to encourage the reading habit, they discovered that residents of some rural areas

already possessed an insatiable




hunger for books. Readers near Fryburg, North Dakota, braved sub

zero weather daily to see if their latest traveling library had arrived at

the depot.76 Some areas had been settled by people who had previously encountered excellent library service. The educated men and women who

relocated in Colorado, often for health reasons, wanted to be able to

"keep up with these times of progressive thought."77 As other regions

passed beyond the pioneer stage of "drought, prairie fires, and grass

hoppers, ''

residents wanted to give their children some of the advantages

of "back East."78

By 1904 the demand for Wisconsin's traveling libraries was so great that Frank Hutchins cautioned Stearns to "conserve" her energies.79

Such conditions prompted some readers to respond by providing traveling libraries. When limited funding made it difficult for Nebraska's Public

Library Commission to meet the Bohemian community's demands for

books, they took up a collection and donated seven hundred volumes to

the state.80 Their patronage, involvement in local library associations,

service as local librarians, and contributions to book funds confirm that

rural readers did not view themselves as passive recipients of benevolent

charity.

Impact on Public Library Development

In 1897 Frank Hutchins observed that less than 5 percent of the public libraries established in Wisconsin had been permanently successful. He

attributed failures to two factors: libraries stocked with uninteresting books and infrequent supplies of new materials.81 Similar problems

con

fronted public libraries throughout the country; carefully selected traveling libraries rotated on a regular basis provided one solution. Although communities recognized the value of libraries, such civic improvements

as waterworks, streets, jails, and courthouses took precedence. In the

West, geographic barriers and widely dispersed populations further compli cated cultural growth. Thus, the soil in many states was not conducive

to public library development.

Exposure to the environmental realities of these developing communities

led state workers to view the traveling library as a compromise measure

for areas that were unable to support public libraries. Many states relied

upon the traveling library as long

as it re,mained "more convenient and

economical for books to go to an organization of patrons than for the

organization of patrons to go to the books."82 In particular, traveling

libraries were suited to such areas as Oregon and Washington, with their

mountain ranges and desertlike regions that supported only minimal

settlement.

While library workers recognized that newly established communities



113

could not support public libraries, many believed that the mere presence of a traveling library "quickens the intellectual activities of the people and

excites in the community a desire for a permanent collection of books."83

To encourage the public library idea, some commissions began circulating larger collections to be used in local reading rooms "until the town grows up to the public library idea."84 They remained careful, however, not to urge the establishment of a public library "in places so small that they

were unable ... to properly take care of it."85

The establishment of local public and county libraries gradually decreased

the need for traveling libraries. California's State Library discontinued

traveling library work in 1911, shortly after it established a county library system. In other states, the movement lingered longer, peaking shortly before World War I. With the "traveling library machinery" in place,

library workers mobilized quickly to send books to camps at the very outbreak of war. In fact, a number of state traveling library commissions

contributed books to the American Library Association for use by soldiers,

believing that the war was "blazing a new trail for their work."86 By the

war's end, however, momentum for the traveling library movement had

slowed; after 1920 traveling libraries increasingly gave way to county libraries, branch libraries, and book wagons.87

Conclusion

Traveling libraries thrived during an era in which reformers regarded the book as a curative for social ills. In fact, an underlying principle of

many philanthropic movements of this era was to popularize education and to bring it within reach of every person.88 Furthermore, such late

nineteenth-century advances as electricity and improved modes of transpor tation created time for reading and a means of delivering books to remote

areas.

Influenced by this climate of change and social reform, librarians,

philanthropists, educators, and club women viewed the traveling library as an educational and social protective measure.

They endowed it with,

among other things, the potential to Americanize immigrants, to enable farmers to better utilize natural resources, to provide uplift for towns

devastated by unstable economic conditions, and to provide juveniles with direction and purpose. By extending library service to regions too

poor, remote, or undeveloped to support public libraries, library workers

also hoped to improve reading taste, to promote literacy, and to supple ment the public schools.

The traveling library movement constituted an important phase in America's library history as the missionary spirit often characteristic of new movements and professions emerged in this form of library extension.




Zealous workers believed that traveling libraries would extend the book's,

and consequently the library's, positive influence on society. While it is difficult to assess the extent to which access to books improved social

conditions, it is clear that traveling libraries, in many regions, served

as the pioneer in state library movements. Thus, turn-of-the-century

librarians rode the crest of social and cultural conditions to advance the

traveling, and ultimately the public, library idea. For approximately thirty years, the traveling library movement had served as a temporary, but highly successful, expedient.

Notes

1. Lutie E. Stearns, Traveling Libraries in Wisconsin (Madison: Free Library

Commission, 1910), end leaf.

2. Traveling Libraries in Wisconsin with Directory of Stations (Madison: Free Library

Commission, 1910), front leaf.

3. Ninth Biennial Report of the Idaho State Library Commission for the Years 1917

1918 (n.p., n.d.), p. 3.

4. The New York Board of Regents passed legislation, in 1892, authorizing Melvil Dewey to circulate "collections of 100 volumes in a neat oak case" to

communities throughout the state ("Library History and Economy," Library

Journal 18 [March 1893]): 188). 5. Melvil Dewey, "Field and Future of Traveling Libraries," in Traveling

Libraries, Bulletin 40 (Albany: University of the State of New York, Home Educa

tion Department, 1901), p. 7.

6. Frank A. Hutchins, Traveling Libraries (Madison: Free Library Commission,

[1899]), p. 5. 7. Lee Solotow and Edward Stevens, The Rise of Literacy and the Common School in

the United States: A Socioeconomic Analysis to 1870 (Chicago: University of Chicago,

1981), p. 193.

8. Bernard Wishy, The Child and the Republic: The Dawn of Modern American Child

Nurture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968), p. 93.

9. Theodora Penny Martin, The Sound of Our Own Voices: Women's Study Clubs, 1860-1910 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), p. 4.

10. The early efforts of women's clubs on behalf of library development are

described in Jennie June Croly, The History of the Women's Club Movement in America

(New York: H. G. Allen, 1898). 11. Jessie M. Good, "The Traveling Library as a Civilizing Force," Chautauquan

36 (October 1902): 65-66. For additional information about Thomas Bray, see

Charles T. Laugher, Thomas Bray's Grand Design (Chicago: American Library

Association, 1973). 12. L. G. Durbidge, "Itinerating Libraries," in Encyclopedia of Library and

Information Science (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1968), vol. 13, pp. 154-160; and

Samuel H. Ranck, "Forgotten Traveling Libraries," Library Journal 2? (1901): 263.

13. Lutie E. Stearns, "Railroad Traveling Libraries," Free Traveling Libraries in

Wisconsin (Madison: Democrat Printing, 1897), pp. 33-34.

14. Good, "The Traveling Library as a Civilizing Force," pp. 65-68.

15. Dewey, "Field and Future of Traveling Libraries," pp. 4, 6-9.



115

16. John C. Larsen, "All This from Books We Could Not Own: The Story of

Michigan's Traveling Libraries," Michigan History 13/1 (1977): 36. 17. Lutie E. Stearns to Katherine MacDonald, 14 March 1904, Wisconsin Free

Library Commission, Series 1076, Box 18, State Historical Society of Wisconsin,

Madison, Wisconsin.

18. Demand for Stout's traveling libraries led to the establishment of Wisconsin's

statewide department of traveling libraries seven years after his first gift. 19. Kate Hutcheson Morrisette, "Traveling Libraries in Alabama," Sewanee

Review 6 (1898): 347. 20. Helen E. Haines, "The Growth of Traveling Libraries," World's Work 8

(September 1904): 5233. 21. Katharine L. Sharp to Frances LeBaron, 13 October 1898, Library School

Director's Letterbooks, 18/1/1, University of Illinois Archives, Urbana, Illinois.

22. Edith Morgan to Frances Simpson, 17 October 1916, Morgan Library School Alumni File, University of Illinois Archives, Urbana, Illinois.

23. Georgia H. Reynolds, "Traveling Libraries: How Free Books Are Sent

to Remote Country Districts," Craftsman 12 (April 1907): 60.

24. Mary Frances Isom to Marvin, 18 September 1912, Oregon State Library

Correspondence, RGL8, 61-8/1, Box 17, State Archives, Salem, Oregon. 25. Zana K. Miller to Marvin, 13 February 1908, Oregon State Library Cor

respondence, RGL8, 61-8/1, Box 15, State Archives, Salem, Oregon. 26. Seventh Biennial Report of the Idaho State Library Commission for the Years 1913

1914 (Weiser, Idaho: Weiser Signal, [1914]), p. 20.

27. Sarah Askew, "Library Work in the Open Country," Annals of the American

Academy of Political and Social Science 67 (1916): 258. 28. "Home Mission Traveling Libraries," Public Libraries 2 (1897): 50.

29. MacDonald to Stearns, 20 January 1904, Wisconsin Free Library Commis

sion, Series 1076, Box 18, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis

consin.

30. From the beginning the Ohio State Library adopted the open shelf plan.

By circulating all of the books on the library's shelves, workers there avoided

seeking an additional appropriation and eliminated the need to maintain a separate collection. For more information, see Alice Boardman, "Traveling Libraries

in Ohio," Library Journal 23 (1898): 105. 31. Marvin to Matthew S. Dudgeon, 26 March 1912, Oregon State Library

Correspondence, RGL8, 61-8/1, Box 17, State Archives, Salem, Oregon. 32. Askew to Marvin, 8 March 1913, Oregon State Library Correspondence,

RGL8, 61-8/1, Box 15; and Clara F. Baldwin to Marvin, 18 March 1909, Oregon State Library Correspondence, RGL8, 61-8/1, Box 14, State Archives, Salem,

Oregon. 33. Fannie C. Ransom to Clara G. Bostain, 23 November 1917, State Library

Correspondence, Box 15, State Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky. 34. Hutchins, Traveling Libraries, p. 11.

35. Edna D. Bullock, Management of Traveling Libraries (Boston: ALA Publishing Board, 1907), p. 4.

36. H. Parmalee to Katharine L. Sharp, 18 November 1895, Katharine L. Sharp

Papers, Box 1; see also Library Visitor's Reports, 14-26 December 1903, 11-23

January 1904, and 28 November-10 December 1904, Wisconsin Free Library Commission, Series 1108, Box 1, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison,

Wisconsin.

37. MacDonald to Stearns, 19 September 1903, Wisconsin Free Library




Commission, Series 1076, Box 18, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

38. Library Visitor's Report, 14-26 December 1903, and 8-20 Februaryl904, Wisconsin Free Library Commission, Series 1108, Box 1, State Historical Society of

Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

39. Library Visitor's Report, 8-20 February 1904, Wisconsin Free Library


40. Library Visitor's Report, 12 June 1905, Wisconsin Free Library Commis

sion, Series 1108, Box 1, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

41. Karen M. Jacobson to Mary E. Hazeltine, 1 May 1908, Wisconsin Free

Library Commission, League of Library Commissions Correspondence, Series

1090, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

42. First Biennial Report of the Free Library Commission of the State of Idaho, 1901-1903

(Nampa: Idaho Leader Print, 1903), p. 7.

43. Marvin to Hon. W. C. Hawley, 15 September 1913, Oregon State Library

Correspondence, RGL8, 61-8/1, Box 1, State Archives, Madison, Wisconsin.

44. Anna Fuller to Wisconsin Free Library Commission, 8 July 1909, Wisconsin

Free Library Commission, Series 1112, Box 20, State Historical Society of Wiscon

sin, Madison, Wisconsin.

45. Grace Howe to Stearns, 25 March 1905, Wisconsin Free Library Commis


46. Stearns to Howe, 31 March 1905, Wisconsin Free Library Commission,

Series 1112, Box 19, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

47. Library Visitor's Report, 10 April 1911, Wisconsin Free Library Commis


48. Second Biennial Report of the Nebraska Public Library Commission, November 30, 1904 (Lincoln: [Public Library Commission], 1904), p. 15.

49. Library Visitor's Report, 15 October 1908 (Hurley) and 20 July 1909

(Friendship), Wisconsin Free Library Commission, Series 1108, Box 1, State

Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

50. Helen Haines, "The Growth of Traveling Libraries," World's Work 8

(September 1904): 52-53.

51. Sarah B. Askew, "Jersey Roads and Jersey Paths," ALA Bulletin 3 (1909): 353.

52. Bertha Kumli to J. L. Gillis, 26 February 1907, County Library Files,

Correspondence 1906-20, F3616, Folder 763, State Archives, Sacramento, Cali

fornia; and "Libraries in Lumber Camps," Wisconsin Library Bulletin 10 (December

1914): 269-270. 53. "Traveling Library Department," Bulletin of the Vermont Library Commission 1

(1905): 3, 23. 54. Joseph H. Freeman, "Opportunity of Developing a Civic Consciousness

through the Traveling Libraries," Public Libraries 15 (1910): 396. 55. Alice E. Chandler, "The Woman's Education Association," Library Journal

20 (1895): 305. 56. Georgia H. Reynolds, "Traveling Libraries: How Free Books Are Sent to

Remote Country Districts," Craftsman 12 (April 1907): 61.

57. G. W. C. to Miss Roberts, in Seventh Biennial Report of the Idaho State Library

Commission for the Years 1913-1914 (Weiser, Idaho: Weiser Signal, [1914]), p. 20.

58. Mrs. D. W. Rhodes to Marvin, 14 January 1914, Oregon State Library,

RGL8, 61-8/1, Box 4, State Archives, Salem, Oregon.



117

59. Jessie Wright Whitcomb, "A Prairie Sod House and the Kansas Traveling

Library," Craftsman 26 (July 1914): 454. 60. Mary G. Spencer to Marvin, 13 December 1912, Oregon State Library,

RGL8, 61-8/1, Box 14, State Archives, Salem, Oregon. 61. Hildegard Hawthorne, "Books on the Lonesome Trail," Bookman 51 (1920):

137.

62. Frank A. Hutchins, "Free Traveling Libraries in Wisconsin," in Free Travel

ing Libraries in Wisconsin (Madison: Wisconsin Free Library Commission, 1897), p. 15.

63. Visitor's Report, 17 December 1904, Wisconsin Free Library Commission, Series 1108, Box 1, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

64. Visitor's Report, 24 March-7 April 1906, Wisconsin Free Library Commis


65. "County Systems of Traveling Libraries," Wisconsin Library Bulletin 1 (Sep tember 1905): 74.

66. Visitor's Report, 17-29 April 1905, Wisconsin Free Library Commission, Series 1108, Box 1, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

67. Fay Price to the Wisconsin Free Library Community, 29 August 1905, Wisconsin Free Library Commission, Series 1112, Box 19, State Historical Society

of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

68. Marvin to Hector McPherson, 8 June 1914, Oregon State Archives, RGL8,

61-8/1, Box 1, State Archives, Salem, Oregon. 69. Visitor's Report, 20 July 1909, and 2-6 April 1910, Wisconsin Free Library


70. Askew, "Library Work in the Open Country," Annals of the American Academy

of Political and Social Science 67 (1916): 257'. 71. J. Welden, "The Problem of the Rural Reader," Wisconsin Library Bulletin

13 (1917): 263. 72. Askew, "Library Work in the Open Country," p. 264.

73. Second Biennial Report of the North Dakota Public Library Commission, 1909-1910

(Bismarck: Tribune, State Printers and Binders, 1910), p. 8.

74. Askew, "Library Work in the Open Country," p. 259.

75. "The Reading of Farmers," Nation 83 (30 August 1906): 178.

76. Jennie Matteson to North Dakota Public Library Commission, Sixth Biennial

Report of the Public Library Commission of the State of North Dakota, 1916-1918 (Bismarck: Tribune Printing, [1918]), p. 25.

77. "The Traveling Library in Colorado," Public Libraries 2 (1897): 54.

78. Charlotte Templeton, "With the Prairie Dwellers of Nebraska," Bulletin of the American Library Association 3 (1909): 349.

79. Frank A. Hutchins to Stearns, 16 August 1904, Wisconsin Free Library Commission, Series 1076, Box 18, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison,

Wisconsin. Hutchins was suffering from poor health at this time.

80. Fourth Biennial Report of the Nebraska Public Library Commission (Lincoln: [Public

Library Commission], 1908), p. 6.

81. Hutchins, "Free Traveling Libraries," pp. 1-2.

82. First Biennial Report of the Kansas Traveling Libraries Commission, 1900-1901

(Topeka: W. Y. Morgan, 1901), p. 12.

83. First Biennial Report of the Free Library Commission of the State of Idaho, 1901-1903 (Nampa: Idaho Leader Print, 1903), p. 5.

84. Wisconsin Free Library Commission to Emma Pflughoeft, 19 October 1906,



118 L&C/ Traveling L ibraries

Wisconsin Free Library Commission, Series 1076, Box 19, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

85. Legler to Stearns, 16 August 1904.

86. "What the Traveling Libraries Are Now Doing," New York Libraries 6 (1918): 19.

87. "Traveling Libraries for Texas," Texas Libraries 1 (July 1914): 2.

88. Georgia H. Reynolds, "Traveling Libraries: How Free Books Are Sent to

Remote Country Districts," Craftsman 12 (April 1907): 59.



reading & libraries i || reaching the rural reader: traveling libraries in america, 1892-1920

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