I recently became aware of an article about Mary Frances Isom written by Penny Hummel which is on the website of the Multnomah County Library (Portland, Oregon) website. I highly recommend the article and commend the Multnomah County Library for acknowledging an important part of its heritage on the library's website. Isom was head librarian of the Library Association of Portland, a predecessor of the Multnomah County Library, from 1902 to 1920. Although, the Library Association of Portland began as a subscription library in 1864, it became Oregon's first tax-supported free public library in 1902 when Isom became head librarian. Among Isom's many accomplishments was a new central library building completed in 1913 with the assistance of a grant from Andrew Carnegie. Isom was instrumental in the passage of a state law creating the Oregon Library Commission (predecessor to the Oregon State Library) which was influenced by the Wisconsin Free Library Commission. Isom served on the new commission and recruited Cornelia Marvin, a staff member of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, to serve as the Secretary of the Oregon Library Commission. Both Isom and Marvin are among America's great early librarians. The postcard above shows the 1893 building of the Library Association of Portland which was replaced by the Carnegie building.
John Jamieson in his book Books For The Army: The Army Library Service In The Second World War (Columbia University Press, 1950) says this about the Armed Services Editions: "The outstanding achievement in the history of the wartime activities of the Army Library Service was the production and distribution of the paperbound books known as Armed Services Editions. It was the best organized and most efficiently operated of all the activities in which the Army Library Service had a part, and with the possible exception of the overseas distribution of magazines, it directly affected the largest number of soldiers. Indeed, for the bulk of our troops overseas, Armed Services Editions were the only books that were widely and easily accessible." The Armed Services Editions project was a cooperative effort involving army and navy agencies, publishers, printers, and a variety of other entities. The project was coordinated by the Council on Books in Wartime. According to Jamieson, between the fall of 1943 and the fall of 1947, 1,322 titles were printed and a total of 122,951,031 volumes were delivered to the army and navy overseas. On February 17, 1983, the Library of Congress celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the Armed Services Editions. One result of that celebration was the publication of the book Books In Action: The Armed Services Editions, edited by John Y. Cole (Library of Congress, 1984). The Library of Congress has placed the contents of that book online. Between April 20 and September 10, 1996, the University of Virginia which has a large collection of the Armed Forces Editions put on an exhibit about the books. A virtual representation of that exhibit entitled "Books Go To War" is located here. The online publication edited by Cole includes a complete list of the books in the Armed Forces Editions. The Library of Congress has a complete set of the Armed Services Editions and the University of Alabama Library also has a set. The Princeton University Library also has a large collection of the books and the archival files of the Council on Books in Wartime are located in the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Prinecton. The book shown above is from my personal collection.
Mudie's Select Library was a for-profit lending library established by Charles Edward Mudie (1818-1890) in London, England in 1842. Initially, for one guinea a year an individual could borrow unlimited books from the library one at a time. Mudie's Select Library and similar for-profit libraries were referred to as "circulating libraries". David Kaser's A Book For A Sixpence: The Circulating Library in America (Beta Phi Mu, 1980) discusses this library format in the United States. In his book Kaser indicates that Mudie's library was probably the largest such library ever established and at one point contained over seven million volumes. The economic model for distributing books to the public created by Mudie had an enormous impact on publishing in England in the 19th century. That impact is described here by George P. Landow of Brown University. Guinevere L. Griest's Mudie's Circulating Library and the Victorian Novel (Indiana Univ. Press, 1970) has a more comprehensive discussion of that impact. In 1864 Mudie's Select Library was converted into a limited company which sold shares. The share shown above was issued on October 26, 1864. Seymour Eaton's Booklovers Library, a similar enterprise in the United States, which was established at the beginning of the 20th century was probably greatly influenced by Mudie's library.
Under the leadership of Melvil Dewey, the State of New York initiated a state funded traveling library system in 1892. Traveling libraries were small rotating collections that provided a method for extending library service to rural areas. These small libraries usually from 30 to a hundred books were located in a post office, a store, or someone's home with a volunteer acting as the caretaker of the collection. Michigan initiated a similar system in 1895. Iowa and Wisconsin followed in 1896. Many other states also adopted this model of public library extension including among others California, Idaho, Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Other interesting traveling library efforts were the Seaboard Airline Railway Free Traveling Library System and the United States Lighthouse Service Traveling Library. In 1897 the Wisconsin Free Library Commission published a 39 page booklet entitled Free Traveling Libraries in Wisconsin: The Story of Their Growth, Purposes, and Development; With Accounts of a Few Kindred Movements. The cover of the publication is shown above. The cover includes the statement: "It is after all, not the few great libraries, but the thousand small ones, that may do most for the people". The booklet has been digitized by the Wisconsin Historical Society and can be viewed here. More about traveling libraries in the United States can be found here. Historian Joanne E. Passet has written about traveling libraries in "Reaching the Rural Reader: Traveling Libraries in America, 1892-1920," Libraries & Culture, 26 (Winter 1991): 100-118.
This cover (envelope) was sent to Miss Alma Jonson at the Library of Hawaii on January 28, 1935 by Harold Gatty (1903-1957), the aviation navigator who was called "the prince of navigators" by Charles Lindbergh. In 1931, Gatty was the navigator for Wiley Post on their record breaking flight around the world. Although he was Australian, Gatty worked for a time for the U.S. Army Air Corps. This cover was mailed from Rockwell Field, Coronado, California where the U.S. Army Air Corps was located. Alma Jonson who was a librarian at the Library of Hawaii did research for Gatty over a period of years. Some of the research was conducted by Jonson as an employee of the Library of Hawaii and some was done for pay outside of her work. Although this particular cover did not have an enclosure, I came across a letter from Gatty to Jonson offered for sale on the Internet. That letter was dated January 27, 1935 and may have been sent in the envelope that I have. The letter reads in part: "The information you sent definitely proved U. S. occupation of 21 years, which will go a long way to establishing U.S. jurisdiction. It is very important that nothing get out about these islands at this time. The Navy and State Department state that occupation at the present time will make the establishment more certain so we are making a move to send an expedition down there to establish occupancy. I am very interested in the information regarding the other islands which you sent me and I appreciate it very much. I would like to get copies of any information pertaining to Midway, Wake, Johnston, Palmyra, Fanning, Jarvis, Howland and Baker...". One can surmise from this letter that the U.S. Army Air Corps is interested in establishing air bases on islands in the Pacific. Did the research performed by Jonson for Gatty have an impact on World War II in the Pacific? I have two other covers sent from Gatty to Jonson at the Library of Hawaii and I have a letter sent by Jonson to Gatty in 1938. From that letter it is clear that Jonson is performing research for Gatty which is not part of her job at the State Library of Hawaii. In the letter Jonson refers to the purchase of covers for Gatty which indicates that Gatty may have been a collector of philatelic covers. This post was also the Library Cover Story for January for the Library History Buff website.
