Librarians
For spiritual libraries, reading rooms, and Children’s Progressive Lyceums
As access to printed texts expanded in the 19th century, spaces for readers also became more common. An idea at the time was that libraries would be socially beneficial to communities, and would improve citizenship, morality, piety, and patriotism [1]. Before public libraries took off in California in the 1880s, Sunday school libraries and social libraries (institutions that required users to pay a fee to use) circulated books to limited groups of people. Libraries existed for both white and African American communities [2].
Women were especially crucial to the establishment of libraries in the American West. Victoria Kline Musmann proves in her 1982 dissertation that a majority of the social libraries in California were started by women: “[t]he data indicate that women founded over half of the first libraries established in California and, thus, played a significant role in the founding of California's first libraries.” Clubwomen, especially, “believed in the uplifting effect of literature and culture and established libraries for the benefit of their children” [3].
This illustration from Andrew Jackson Davis' manual for the Children's Progressive Lyceum shows a meeting in session. The female group leader holds a book, and possibly leads the girls in song.
Children's Progressive Lyceum libraries
Spiritualists were also concerned with the education of children. San Francisco, Oakland, and Sacramento each had at various times chapters of the Children’s Progressive Lyceum, a kind of “Sunday school” for Spiritualist ideologies. Begun in 1863 in New York by Andrew Jackson Davis, the Children’s Progressive Lyceum sought to educate children outside of the institutional church, which many Spiritualists viewed as a place of harmful doctrines. The San Francisco chapter opened in 1865, and after a brief hiatus, lasted until at least 1900 [4]. The San Francisco Call reported in 1898 that over fifty adults and almost one hundred children were members of the local Children’s Progressive Lyceum at the time [5].
And these lyceums had libraries! In his manual for the lyceum, Davis lists guidelines for each chapter’s library, demonstrating how the library books were integrated into lyceum activities. Children had time during meetings to check out books. One of the leading lyceum officer positions was “Librarian”:
“It shall be the duty of the Librarian to keep a record of the titles of all books which may be added, either by contribution or purchase, to the Library of the Lyceum. He shall allow the Leaders every opportunity to select books for members, and shall enter upon his Record the number of each book so selected, charging the whole number to the Group represented by the Leader. It is also the duty of this Officer to keep the books in repair, and report the titles of books not returned to the Library, and the Leader’s name against whom they are charged. And he shall, aided by his Assistant, perform such other duties as belong to the office of Librarian.” [6]
While Davis uses male pronouns here, he also makes clear that “[m]ales and females are alike eligible to any of the offices of this Association,” and I have found women named in other officer positions in San Francisco [7].
There is evidence that San Francisco’s lyceum had a library. In an 1867 Banner of Progress, a Christmas-season announcement states: “The Children’s Progressive Lyceum of San Francisco will assemble on Sunday, (to-morrow,) December 1st, at half-past 1 o’clock, at Temperance Legion Hall, Post street, near Kearny. All books in the hands of the children must be returned to the library on that day.” Further — “Now is the time to donate books to the Children’s Lyceum Library, as well as pictures and keepsakes for the children…All donations during the week may be left at the office of the Banner of Progress” [8].
I am still searching for the names of these librarians.
Spiritualist library in The Carrier Dove office
The Carrier Dove (1883-1893) was a Spiritualist and reform journal run by Spiritualist, author, and speaker Julia Schlesinger and her staff. (See the newspaper editors/writers page for more on Schlesinger’s work with The Carrier Dove.) The journal advertised a public library run through its office by women librarians: Mrs. S. B. Whitehead and Julia herself.
“The Free Spiritual Library and Reading-Room of Progressive Spirituaiists[sic] is open every day from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. at 841 Market st., Carrier Dove Office. All are invited to avail themselves of its privileges. All the standard spiritual journals are kept on file for the benefit of those who wish to spend a pleasant hour in reading. Mrs. S. B. Whitehead, Librarian. Mrs. J. Schlesinger, Ass’t. Librarian.” [9]
This 1888 Carrier Dove notice announces the "Free Spiritual Library and Reading-Room of Progressive Spiritualists" staffed by women at the periodical's office.
Others
I have found a few details for the following:
Julia Schlesinger claimed in 1896 that the Society of Progressive Spiritualists (incorporated in 1883) had “the largest spiritual library on the Pacific Coast, and supports the leading meetings in the State” [10]. They may or may not have employed women as librarians, but likely served women patrons.
H. Snow’s Liberal and Reform Bookstore advertised a “select CIRCULATING LIBRARY” [11]. Mrs. Snow was essential to the running of the bookstore. (See the booksellers page for more on Herman Snow’s bookstore).
Sources
Images:
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[Children's Progressive Lyceum manual illustration] From Andrew Jackson Davis, The Children’s Progressive Lyceum: A manual, with directions for the organization and management for Sunday schools, adapted to the bodies and minds of the young (Boston: Colby & Rich, 1893), 145, HathiTrust Digital Library,
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100438718.
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[Carrier Dove library notice] From The Carrier Dove, August 11, 1888 (San Francisco, California), page 526. The International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals (IAPSOP), http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/carrier_dove/.
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[1] Kenneth E. Carpenter, “Libraries,” in A History of the Book in America: Volume 3: The Industrial Book, 1840-1880, ed. by Scott E. Casper, Jeffrey D. Groves, Stephen W. Nissenbaum, Michael Winship, and David D. Hall (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 304, ProQuest Ebook Central.
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[2] An African American “Literary Association” reading room was established by the San Francisco Athenaeum Society sometime in the early 1850s. Eric Gardner, Jennie Carter: A Black Journalist of the Early West (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007), 11, Proquest Ebook Central.
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[3] Victoria Kline Musmann, “Women and the founding of social libraries in California, 1859-1910,” PhD diss., (University of Southern California, 1982), 192, USC Digital Library, http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15799coll36/id/200110/rec/1.
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[4] Julia Schlesinger describes the Lyceum’s beginning in Workers in the Vineyard: A Review of the Progress of Spiritualism, Biographical Sketches, Lectures, Essays and Poems (San Francisco, California, 1896), 25, HathiTrust Digital Library, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100128052. The San Francisco Call advertises the “Children’s Progressive Lyceum and Free Spiritual Library” on January 14, 1900 (San Francisco, California), Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1898-12-27/ed-1/seq-10/.
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[5] “Entertained By Little Ones: A Large Audience Appreciated the Efforts of the Children’s Progressive Lyceum,” The San Francisco Call, December 27, 1898 (San Francisco, California), Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1898-12-27/ed-1/seq-10/.
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[6] Andrew Jackson Davis, The Children’s Progressive Lyceum: A manual, with directions for the organization and management for Sunday schools, adapted to the bodies and minds of the young (Boston: Colby & Rich, 1893), 32, HathiTrust Digital Library, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100438718.
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[7] Davis, The Children’s Progressive Lyceum: A manual, 30, HathiTrust Digital Library, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100438718.
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[8] Banner of Progress, December 1, 1867 (San Francisco, California), page 4. The International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals (IAPSOP), http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/banner_of_progress/.
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[9] The Carrier Dove, August 11, 1888 (San Francisco, California), page 526. The International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals (IAPSOP), http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/carrier_dove/.
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[10] Schlesinger, Workers in the Vineyard, 25, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100128052.
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[11] Common Sense, June 20, 1874 (San Francisco, California). The International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals (IAPSOP), http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/common_sense/.
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