World War I Library Postcard

The American Library Association’s Library War Service operated forty-one camp libraries in the U.S. during World War I.  ALA produced postcards depicting most of the camp library buildings, and I have examples of almost all of those in my library postcard collection. I particularly seek out those postcards with messages, and I’m always delighted when the message refers to the library depicted on the postcard. The postcard above depicts the library at Camp Jackson, SC.  It was written on 11/10/18 but was postmarked on 11/11/18, Armistice Day.  The postcard bears a 2 cent stamp. On Nov. 2, 1917, the postage rate for postal cards and postcards was increased to 2 cents to help pay for the war.  The message is a testimonial for camp libraries.  It reads: “Here is where I spend a part of my time while loafing. They certainly have an assortment of good magazines and books. In fact most anything one wants to read. I am here [the library] at present.  This is a good picture of the building." I have written another blog post about camp library postcards with messages.

World War I & the American Library Association

April 6 marks the centennial of the U.S. entry into World War I.  Almost all history related organizations in the U.S. will do something to commemorate the U.S. participation in the war. The involvement in the war by the American Library Association through its Library War Service has been a longtime interest of mine and I have written many posts on this blog about that involvement.  I’m helping to commemorate the work of ALA’s Library War Service with two different exhibits this year.  I have an exhibit at the Middleton (WI) Public Library this month which features some of the larger artifacts in my collection related to the Library War Service (see photo above).  I hope to share this exhibit with other Wisconsin libraries also.  My other exhibit (see photo below) is one that I have developed for stamp shows and includes postal items and other paper artifacts about the Library War Service.  I have already shown the exhibit at two stamp shows and expect to show it in several more this year.

The American Library Association Archives which has an outstanding collection of archival materials related to the Library War Service will be doing a number of things to commemorate ALA’s involvement in the war.  The Archives has already posted several outstanding articles on its blog. More general online exhibits about the U.S. involvement in World War I have been created by the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.

ALA at Saratoga Springs, NY in 1918

I’ve recently added a name badge for R. L. Walkley (Raymond L. Walkley) at the American Library Association conference in Saratoga Springs, NY in 1918 to my collection of librariana.  The ALA conference ran from July 1 to July 6 and had 620 attendees.  It’s nice to be able to tie a library artifact to a specific librarian.  Walkley served as Assistant Librarian of the Minneapolis Public Library from 1914-1920. He took a leave from MPL to serve in ALA’s Library War Service in 1917-1918.  Obviously a major topic of discussion at the 1918 conference was the war effort of ALA. The 1918 conference hotel was the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs. Walkley later served as Librarian of Tufts College. See some other early ALA conference name badges HERE.

Where are my breeches? Library War Service, 1918

I recently came across a packet of correspondence related to uniform problems of a worker in the WWI ALA Library War Service. The 1918 correspondence involved Alvin W. Clark at the Camp Sevier South Carolina Library, the ALA Library War Service Headquarters in Washington, DC, and the contractor engaged by ALA to provide uniforms.  The gist of the matter relates to the fact that Clark was entitled to two pairs of breeches for his uniform and he only received one pair. Further, the measurements for the first pair were not satisfactory, and finally according to Clark the leggings he received “have now become creased or wrinkled in two or three places and consequently they look bad”.  Poor guy. The letter above from LWS Executive Director George B. Utley, who was simultaneously ALA’s  Executive Director, advises Clark of how he can correct his problems.  Interesting example of the practical logistics involved in the operation  of ALA’s Library War Service.  

Merchant Marine Library Postal Card, 1947

As a collector of postal librariana I am interested in both the postal history and library history of artifacts that have been sent through the mail. Of course, as a library history buff, library history takes precedence over postal history for me. Stamp dealers on the other hand mostly could care less about library history. They value their postal artifacts based on postal significance. I recently acquired a postal card mailed by the American Merchant Marine Library Association (AMMLA) in NY,NY in 1947 (shown above). The AMMLA came into being after World War I largely as a result of the work of the American Library Association's Library War Service in providing books on merchant marine ships during the war. I was happy to get a postal artifact related to this organization. The postal card has a great message. The New York AMMLA is notifying representatives of the S.S. George Bancroft that they can't deliver books to the ship because the railroad tracks near the pier "knock hell out of our tires", but the ship's representatives can come over to the (AMMLA) library and pick them up. Unfortunately the front side of the postal card indicates that the message never got through. And there lies the postal significance of the card. The postal card was mailed special delivery to get the card delivered fast, but the address was insufficient and the card was "returned to sender". I like the fact that a U.S. Merchant Marine commemorative stamp was used to help achieve the correct postage rate for special delivery. Too bad it didn't work.

WWI ALA Camp Libraries for Veterans Day

To celebrate Veterans Day I'm posting some postcards showing soldiers and sailors in front of American Library Association Library War Service camp libraries during WWI.

Camp Gordon, GA

Camp Greene, NC

Camp Lee, VA

Pelham Bay Park, NY

Camp Doniphan, OK

WWI Camp Librarians Exchange Postcards

Through the generosity of a fellow collector (thanks Al) I recently acquired a group of 5 postcards which were mailed from ALA Library War Service camp librarians in WWI to the camp library in Camp Funston, KS. All of the postcards were published by the American Library Association and all depicted the camp library of the librarian mailing the card. The cards were from Camp Wheeler, GA; Camp Sevier, SC; Camp Lewis, WA; Camp Dodge, IA; and Camp Greene, NC. The librarian at Camp Funston was George W. Fuller. Three of the cards request a postcard in exchange from Camp Funston. Two just extend "Greetings". The card from Camp Wheeler (shown above) is signed by Frederick Goodell, and says, "May I ask you to send me a view of your library for a libraries exhibit?". ALA published postcards of the exterior of almost all of its camp libraries in the United States, and some postcards of the interiors of camp libraries. I have a collection that includes many of the camp library postcards. These 5 are especially nice since they are used and have a direct connection to the libraries. I have a couple of other postcards in my collection that request an exchange of postcards so I think this was a fairly common thing for camp librarians to do. Most camp librarians took a temporary leave from their regular library job to serve in this capacity. Almost all were ALA members and most continued their career as librarians after serving as a camp librarian. More information about the ALA Library War Service and its postcards can be found HERE.  

Harry Clemons, Representative of the ALA War Service in Siberia

On Nov. 6, 1918 Harry Clemons, Professor and Librarian at Nanking University in Nanking, China received the following cable from R.L. Raney, Director of Overseas Library Service for the ALA Library War Service in Washington, DC:

"Will you accept appointment official representative American Library Association Vladivostok to develop library service for American forces in Russia? Books being shipped steadily. Will meet all expenses and guarantee against salary loss. Cable Libcon, Washington." Clemons responded the next day with, "Will attempt library service when you direct. University desires my return by May." Thus began what must be one of the most amazing efforts by a single individual on behalf of the American Library Association. I have written previously about the work of Harry Clemons in Siberia, but recently I became aware of an envelope (shown above) mailed by Clemons shortly after his arrival in Vladivostok. This prompted me to do another post. One of the specialties in philately is the collection and study of military postal history. Examples of envelopes mailed by men in the American forces in Siberia during World War I are among the scarcest and most sought after by collectors. The envelope above may be the only envelope mailed by Clemons as ALA's representative in existence in private hands. It is part of the collection of Al Kugel, one of the world's most respected military postal historians. I appreciate his letting me use the image of the envelope in this post. Clemons mailed many letters to the American Library Association while in Siberia and they were compiled in a book titled appropriately The A.L.A. in Siberia. A copy of the book can be found on the Hathi Trust site. In the foreword to the book H. B. Van Hoesen who edited the book noted that Clemon's report on his work to the Commanding General "shows the activity as well as the activities of the A.L.A. Library War Service in Siberia; how in five months, one man was able to handle some ten thousand volumes (plus 10 boxes, 194 parcels, 75 mail sacks, not counting discarded magazines), unpacking censoring, sorting, cataloguing, and repacking; to distribute and organize these into a system of over fifty branches scattered all the way from the Yangtse Valley to no one knows how far towards the German frontier (not to mention gift distribution); and at the same time to act as reference department and superintendent of no inconsiderable circulation; and, on top of all this, to produce, in slow longhand manuscript, and in spite of obstacles like frozen ink, etc., a series of reports of real historical value among the chief literary "by-products" of the Library War Service." The compilation of Clemons letters was distributed to all the attendees of the 1919 ALA Conference in Asbury Park, NJ. After his service in Siberia Clemons returned to Nanking University where he worked until 1927. He then became Librarian of the University of Virginia Library in Charlottesville,VA where he worked until his retirement in 1950. Clemons is included in the Dictionary of American Library Biography (Libraries Unlimited, 1978).

Library War Service Library in Paris in WWI

Before the American Library in Paris was founded in 1920 it served as the central library for the American Library Association's Library War Service for France during World War I. I recently added an advertising card (see above) promoting the opening of ALA's library in Paris to my collection of librariana. The card has a map on the back showing the location of the library. The ALA library opened in July, 1918 and was located in the former residence of the Papal Nuncio to the French Republic at No. 10 rue de l'Elysee.  Burton Stevenson head of the Library War Service in Europe later said, "I dare say no public library was ever before installed amid such glittering surroundings." I was really pleased to get the card because it will go well in a philatelic exhibit I'm putting together for the stamp show in Denver, CO which takes place in May. The exhibit is titled appropriately "The American Library Association and World War I" and consists of sixteen 8 1/2 by 11 inch pages on which a variety of philatelic and other paper artifacts are mounted. I've written blog posts about many of the items in the exhibit which can be found HERE. Another post about the American Library in Paris can be found HERE. Arthur P. Young's Books for Sammies, The American Library Association and World War I (Beta Phi Mu, 1981) was a source for some of the information in this post. 

The Merchant Marine and ALA in WWI

The Merchant Marine is the fleet of American ships which carries a wide variety of cargo around the world during peacetime and becomes a naval auxiliary during wartime. The Merchant Marine played an essential role in World War I by delivering U.S. troops and war material to the European theater. During World War I the Library War Service of the American Library Association provided books to the men who served on the ships of the Merchant Marine. As part of its promotion of this service ALA published a series of eight postcards depicting Merchant Marine mariners/sailors using the service. I've managed to collect seven of the eight postcards, two of which are depicted above. The rest are located HERE. The postcards indicate that: "The A.L.A. furnishes free crew's libraries to American merchant ships and through representatives at principal ports provides a free library service to American seamen." One postcard states that: "Boxed crew's libraries, each containing about eighty books of fiction, travel, books on seamanship and others, are exchangeable at principal ports." After the war the books from this service were transferred to the American Merchant Marine Library Association which was created in 1921. It was one of the legacies of the ALA Library War Service.

Brooklyn Naval YMCA Library

The Brooklyn Branch of the Naval Young Mens Christian Association in Brooklyn, NY was established in 1899. It was the first permanent branch of the Naval YMCA and was located near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The establishment of the Brooklyn Navy Yard YMCA Branch grew out of the work of the YMCA in providing services to soldiers and sailors in the 1898 Spanish-American War. One of the services provided at the Navy Yard YMCA Branch was a library. The YMCA involvement in providing library services to the military dated back to the Civil War and the work of the U.S. Christian Commission (see previous post). The YMCA also provided library services to the military along the U.S./Mexican border in 1916 and during World War I. I have two postcards in my collection that show sailors using the Library. The postcard above was mailed to Iowa on January 4, 1910. The postcard below was mailed on September 26, 1904 to Germany, and the message on the postcard is written in German. The message on the 1904 postcard was written on the picture side of the postcard. Prior to March 1, 1907 only the address could appear on the address side of the postcard. A third postcard (shown below) depicts the Naval YMCA building which was located on Sands Street in Brooklyn. The building which was a gift of philanthropists Miss Helen Miller Gould and Mrs. Russell Sage included a full range of services in addition to the Library. The Naval YMCA Branch was closed in 1964. The building has been converted into condominiums.

ALA WWI Bookmark to Bookplate Promotion

The American Library Association went to great lengths to promote its Library War Service during World War I. A primary goal of these promotions was to solicit gifts of books and magazines that could be distributed to servicement through ALA's camp libraries, hospital libraries, and deposit collections. ALA used postcards, posters, and other media for this purpose. I recently acquired a bookmark (shown here) that was evidently placed in books in bookstores. The bookmark is perforated in the middle so the top half could be used as a bookplate. The buyer of the book was encouraged to donate the book after reading it for use by men in uniform by taking the book to any public library or bookstore. The back of the bookmark has information about the scope of ALA's Library War Service. To see my other posts about ALA's Library War Service click HERE.

The Spirit of ALA's Library War Service in WWI on Canvas

 

In 1919 after the end of World War I the American Library Association published a small book titled Books At Work In The War During The Armistice and After in which ALA tells the story in words and pictures of its role in providing library service during and after the War. One of the more dramatic illustrations in this publications is an image of a painting by Denman Fink of one soldier reading to another soldier who is in a wheel chair and whose eyes are covered with bandages. Nearby is a box of books with the ALA logo. A scan of that image from a copy of the books in my personal library is shown above. In trying to find out more about the painting I came across an article about Fink's painting in the January, 1919 issue of Library Journal by Frank Parker Stockbridge titled "The Spirit of Library War Service on Canvas". Fink's painting was one of seven paintings executed by well known artists on the steps of the New York Public Library during the 1919 United War Work Campaign. The painting was on a huge canvas that measured 9 x 17 feet. Stockbridge's article indicates that after being exhibited at the New York Public Library the painting was also to be exhibited in several large cities as part of ALA's efforts to appeal for books for wounded soldiers in hospitals and convalescent camps. The final resting place for the painting was to be the ALA Headquarters in Chicago. The ALA Archives at the University of Illinois has a glass slide related to the Fink painting. What eventually happened to the painting is unknown to me.

The blog for the New York Historical Society Museum & Library has a very nice post about the Library War Service of the American Library Association.

Military Libraries Division, SLA 60th Anniversary

This year, the Military Libraries Division of the Special Libraries Association is celebrating its 60th anniversary so I thought I would feature a couple of artifacts in my collection to honor this occasion.  The first artifact (shown above) is a letter written by J. H. Offley, the Librarian of the War Department Library, on November 11, 1839 to Hilliard Gray in Boston in regard to several missing volumes of the Works of Benjamin Franklin which the library had previously ordered. The War Department Library was established in 1832. The War Department existed from 1790 to 1947 and is now the Defense Department. The successor to the War Department Library is the Pentagon Library which was created in 1944 when 28 departmental libraries and information centers were consolidated into a single library. The second artifact is a reprint of an article about the Pentagon Library and other military libraries in Library Journal for February 16, 1966 for National Library Week (see below). See some of my other posts about military libraries.

German POW Camp Libraries in WWI

 

 

I have a special interest in military libraries during wartime. Most of the items in my collection on this topic are about U.S. libraries, but in this post I am featuring two items for German prisoner of war libraries during World War I. By the end of World War I the number of prisoners held in camps operated by Germany reached almost two and a half million prisoners. Dealing with this overwhelming number of prisoners led to some atrocious conditions in the camps. However, many of the camps had libraries by 1915. Most of the books came from donations by organizations set up to provide aid to prisoners. The postcard above shows prisoners using the library in the camp at Heuberg, Germany. The envelope shown above was mailed by the librarian of the library at the Parchim, Germany camp to Paris, France. The Wikipedia article on German prisoner of war camps provides a good overview of the camps.

Postmaster Burleson's Magazines and the ALA Library War Service

During World War I Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson implemented a program that allowed used magazines from individuals to be placed in the mail at a special rate of one cent. The Post Office Department would then arrange to have the magazines delivered to organizations which would distribute the magazines to the members of the Armed Forces. The ALA Library War Service played a major role in the distribution of these magazines and its camp libraries were significant beneficiaries of this program. Magazines during this period often carried a "Burleson notice", a short statement from Burleson about the program and the procedure for its implementation (see at left). While certainly of benefit to the camp libraries and those that used them, the program also had some negative aspects. The major one being that the libraries were often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of magazines, many of which were not of great  interest to the men in uniform. As many as twenty sacks of magazines weighing a hundred pounds each were received by some camp libraries in a single day. The library at Camp Dix (NJ) ended up selling some of the older magazines for waste paper and using the funds received to purchase current in-demand magazines. The photograph below shows sacks of magazines being handled at the ALA Library at Camp Custer (MI). The magazine distribution program was a positive program implemented by  Postmaster General Burleson. Burleson was also responsible for some especially negative activities. One involved his efforts to segregate and eliminate African-American postal workers. The source for much of the information in this post and the photograph below is Theodore Wesley Koch's Books in The War: The Romance of Library War Service (Houghton Mifflin, 1919).

Women Librarians and ALA's Library War Service in WWI

Mary Josephine Booth

By 1917 women librarians in the United States had begun to exert more and more leadership in a profession previously dominated by men.  With the decision of the American Library Association to play an active role in providing reading materials to America's armed forces during World War I, it was only natural that women would seek to be involved in that enterprise.  Their efforts, however, to be part of ALA's Library War Service was thwarted to a large degree by Herbert Putnam, the Librarian of Congress and the General Director of the Library War Service. In particular Putnam opposed women serving as the head of the camp libraries operated by ALA. At the ALA Conference in Saratoga Springs in the summer of 1918, seven women including Theresa Elmendorf, ALA's first woman president, petitioned ALA's War Service Committee which had oversight over the Library War Service to modify the policy against women serving as camp librarians. Interestingly, Blanche Galloway had become the first woman to direct an ALA camp library (at the Pelham Bay Naval training Station in NY) in May of 1918 just prior to the ALA Conference. Even before that, female librarians had played other roles in the ALA Library War Service including serving as hospital librarians on military bases. Two prominent women librarians, Gratia A. Countryman and Electra C. Doren, served on the Library War Service Committee.  Female librarians also served in ALA libraries overseas including Portland librarian Mary Frances Isom who served in hospitals in France. She wrote to her Portland library staff: "I can stand anything now. I can even look on the most horrible wounds without flinching." By the summer of 1919 women were in charge of eight camp libraries.  The source for most of the information in this post is Arthur P. Young's Books for Sammies: The American Library Association and World War I (Beta Phi Mu, 1981). Also consulted was Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West, 1900-1917 by Joanne E. Passet (Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1994).  The photograph of a Library War Service worker in Europe shown above was recently sold on eBay. Robert V. Hillman, University Archivist at Eastern Illinois University has identified her as Mary Josephine Booth. According to Hillman, Booth was on leave for a couple of years (1917-1919) from her position as library director at Eastern Illinois State Normal School (now Eastern Illinois University.)  During those years she served overseas, first as a Red Cross volunteer, and then as a member of ALA’s Library War Service.  When she returned to Eastern she resumed her duties as library director here, a position she held for a total of 41 years. The library building at Eastern is now named in her honor. The postcard showing the  World War I military hospital library in New Haven, CT with a female librarian is from my collection. 

A Postcard Tribute to Military Libraries on Veterans Day

For Veterans Day 2012 I've put together a collection of my World War II era military library postcards. Also see my 11-11-11 tribute, my 11-11-10 post, and my 11-11-09 post.

Fort McClellan, AL

San Diego Marine Corp Base

San Diego Naval Training Station

Camp Livingston, LA

Library, USO Club, Spartanburg, SC

Carnegie's World War I Libraries

First camp library completed with Carnegie funds 

Interior of Camp Johnston, FL Library

When the American Library Association assumed a major responsibility for providing reading matter for U.S. armed forces during World War I through its Library War Service, it applied to the Carnegie Corporation for funding to build camp libraries. On September 14, 1917 the Carnegie Corporation approved a grant for $320,000 to build thirty-two camp libraries.  The cost of each building could not exceed $10,000. The buildings based on a uniform plan were designed without charge by noted New York architect Edward L. Tilton.  The single story buildings were originally designed to be 120 feet long and 40 feet wide although costs later required a reduction in size.  Seating was provided for 225 library users and shelving for 14,000 volumes. A room was set aside for living space for the librarian. Eventually, the Carnegie funding actually provided for thirty-six camp libraries. ALA came up with funding from other sources for four more for a total of forty camp library buildings. The first camp library was opened at Camp Lewis, Washington on November 28, 1917. Most of the others were completed by February 1918. Sadly, there is only one surviving ALA camp library building and it has been significantly modified. It is the Camp Sherman library building in Chillicothe, Ohio. Other posts on this blog about ALA's Library War Service can be found HERE. More ALA camp library postcards can be found HERE. An architectural biography of Edward L. Tilton can be found HERE (large pdf file). The primary source for information in this post is Books for Sammies: The American Library Association and World War I by Arthur P. Young (Beta Phi Mu, 1981).

A Postcard for Memorial Day

Ninety-five years ago young men all across America were being mobilized to go to a far off war in Europe. The postcard above depicts some of these men at a YMCA library and mail station at Camp Dix, New Jersey. The caption on the back reads: "On the left are bundles of civilian clothing to be sent home by the new soldiers. On the right are soldiers sending home letters and purchasing postcards at the Y.M.C.A. Also library well stocked with good books." A postcard that combines the topics of mail, postcards, and a library - a nice find for a collector of postal librariana. A major appeal of the postcard, of course, is the soldiers themselves. A large number of library postcards show only relatively sterile buildings. I'm particularly interested in library postcards that show people using libraries. A surprising percentage of military library postcards do this. Although the American Library Association played a major role in providing libraries for service men in World War I, the YMCA, a much larger organization, also played a significant role in this area. Though there was some rivalry between the two organizations, ALA and the YMCA collaborated to a significant degree in providing reading matter for our troops in WWI. ALA maintained a full fledged camp library at Camp Dix during WWI (see postcard below).  In 1939 Camp Dix became Fort Dix and a permanent Army post. On a personal aside, my father went through Fort Dix on his way to Europe during World War II.