We Love Libraries

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Want to foment a revolution or win a war? Fight for justice, freedom, and civil rights? Make sure women have a safe social space? Or just leave your mark on the world? We recommend you start at the library. As this collection of stories shows, libraries (and librarians) can be both quiet witnesses to and active participants in social change and history-making events. In the nineteenth century, for instance, libraries offered some women the freedom to explore, learn, and work, challenging social norms that styled (some) women as too frail to earn a living outside the home. Moving into the twentieth century, libraries and their caretakers became as important to the Allies in the Great War as they would be during World War II and the Cold War (which is to say: very important).

But as Nella Larsen discovered in the 1920s, American libraries codified and preserved knowledge classification systems that contributed to the oppression of members of Black communities. Soon rose the freedom libraries, undermining those systems and building safe spaces for Black Americans tor read and learn. And let’s not overlook those bold librarians of the 1970s who found a way to challenge a card catalogue that aligned homosexuality with deviance.

Libraries are important for all these reasons and more, and we invite to read some of our favorite JSTOR Daily stories that have featured them.

Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.28550903

How American Librarians Helped Defeat the Nazis

Katie McBride Moench

November 29, 2023

Recruited to the war effort thanks to their deft research skills and technological know-how, librarians used microforms to gather and share intelligence with Allied forces.

War Camp Community Service. Newport News. American Library Association. c. 1919

Uncle Sam Wants You to Donate Books!

Kristen Finch

April 19, 2023

During World War I, the American Library Association built libraries on military training camps in a project that championed patriotism, literacy, and self-improvement.

Graffiti Limbo

April White

March 21, 2025

A University of Virginia professor enlisted students to document the messages—profane, hopeful, despairing—left on library carrels by previous generations.

The Children's Reading Room at the 135th street Branch of the New York Public Library

Nella Larsen’s Lessons in Library School

H.M.A. Leow

August 20, 2024

Larsen’s novels were influenced by her training in the New York Public Library system, where she faced rigid ideas about the racial classification of knowledge.

US President Ronald Reagan waves as he stands at the top of a stairway, preparing to board Air Force One, Dothan, Alabama, 1986

Ronald Reagan’s Library Legacy

Sarah Thomson

May 29, 2024

Archival material shows the hefty and careful investment the president and his team put into crafting his image for perpetuity.

Freedom Libraries and the Fight for Library Equity

Ashawnta Jackson

January 10, 2022

Freedom libraries in the south provided Black residents with access to spaces and books, whether in church basements or private homes.

Black and white photo of The Boston Athenaeum by Southworth & Hawes

The Boston Athenæum

Emily Zarevich

January 13, 2023

Founded in 1807, the subscription library was a gathering place for local scholars, “men of business,” and members of the upper classes in search of knowledge.

Out of the Card Catalog Closet

Matthew Wills

October 14, 2022

Librarians gathered in 1970 to challenge Library of Congress classifications and catalog subject headings that aligned homosexuality with deviance.

Library Fires Have Always Been Tragedies. Just Ask Galen.

Caroline Wazer

June 7, 2021

When Rome burned in 192 CE, the city's vibrant community of scholars was devastated. The physician Galen described the scale of the loss.

Librarians in Gary, Indiana protect themselves with masks in October 1918 during the flu pandemic

Libraries and Pandemics: Past and Present

Julia Skinner

April 14, 2021

The 1918 influenza pandemic had a profound impact on how librarians do their work, transforming libraries into centers of community care.

Illustration of a woman walking with a book

The Library That Walked Across Belgium

Matthew Wills

May 19, 2020

What two scholar-artists learned from taking ninety books on a very, very long walk.

Being a Victorian Librarian Was Oh-So-Dangerous

Livia Gershon

August 7, 2018

In the late 19th century, more women were becoming librarians. Experts like Melvil Dewey predicted they would suffer ill health, strain, and breakdowns.

Preparing Libraries for Nuclear War

Erin Blakemore

June 6, 2018

During the Cold War, America's libraries helped patrons prepare for nuclear war, from stocking reference materials to providing fallout shelters.

women in a reading room at Smith College in 1898

The Reading Rooms Designed to Protect Women from “Library Loafers”

Erin Blakemore

January 19, 2018

In the late 1800s, American women began to move more freely in public. In response, public libraries created sex-segregated reading rooms, intended to keep women in their proper place.