Elmendorf started her career in Milwaukee where she worked as the deputy librarian of the Milwaukee Public Library, then as the librarian after an embezzlement scandal led to the arrest of her predecessor.  After she married, Elmendorf and her husband relocated to Buffalo, New York, where Elmendorf focused on editing and authoring professional publications.  She became the vice-librarian of the Buffalo Public Library after her husband’s death in 1906 and would continue to work there until her retirement in 1926.[1]

Theresa West Elmendorf,
Record Series 99/1/13

At the 33^rd Annual Conference Elmendorf was elected president with 115 votes.  According to the Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference, Elmendorf was not present when the official announcement was made.  Instead, she sent a telegram to express her gratitude and her first words as the ALA’s president: “Thank you.  Say to the association, ‘Now is the time for all good men and true to come to the aid of the party.’”

Frank P. Hill, a former president of ALA himself, responded, “Madam President, the good men and true will come to her aid.” [2]

Elmendorf would preside over the 34^th Annual Conference in Ottawa the following year.  She would speak to the members of ALA about a topic she was passionate about, public libraries and serving the public in her address, “The Public Library: ‘A Leaven’d and Preparéd Choice.’”

In her address, she asked her colleagues about the best ways to serve the public and how to make them aware of the resources of libraries: “Books are the medium of appeal, the stuff of human knowledge, experience and wisdom stored by means of the printed leaf.  The extent to which each individual shares in the stored treasure of the race-mind, is, in its sum, the measure of public safety and happiness and the starting point for service.  How show, how make known the attraction and stored power of books?” [3]

With such a distinguished career and passion for her work, it is of little surprise that Elmendorf inspired enough confidence in her fellow ALA members to be elected as their president.

Sources:

1 – “Elmendorf, Theresa Hubble West (1855-1932),” Dictionary of American Library Bibliography (Littleton: Libraries Unlimited, 1978), 159-160;  “Mrs. Elmendorf Retires from Library Work,” Buffalo Courier-Express, (September 17, 1926), Librarians Photographs, Record Series 99/1/13, Box 1, American Library Association Archives at the University of Illinois.

2 – Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Meeting of the American Library Association, (Chicago, 1911), pg. 195, Record Series 5/1/2, American Library Association Archives at the University of Illinois.

3 – Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association, (Chicago, 1912), pg. 71, Record Series 5/1/2, American Library Association Archives at the University of Illinois.

Biblioteca Benjamin Franklin, January, 1944

On April 13, 1942, General Manuel Ávila Comacho, President of the Republic of Mexico, spoke at the formal dedication of the Biblioteca Benjamin Franklin in Mexico City.  The dedication of the library, made possible by a grant from the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs to the American Library Association, was attended by Mexican officials, American embassy staff, and Mexicans and Americans active in the library organization.  Presentations and receptions occurred throughout the week for library organizers and contributors, university representatives, and the public.

At a time when the world was at war, this collaboration between the United States and Mexico provided brief relief from perpetual bleak news.  As President Comacho proclaimed, “Because of its high purpose and modern technical organization, because the desire for intellectual cooperation which inspired its initiation, as well as because of the illustrious name which it bears, in remembrance of one of the most celebrated figures of the New World, the library which we are inaugurating today is valuable testimony of the friendship which binds the peoples of Mexico and the United States of America.”

Library Dedication with Judge Basham, Library Board Chairman; George S. Messersmith, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico; Soledad Orozco García; General Camacho, President of Mexico; Mrs. Messersmith, and Carl H. Milam, ALA Executive Secretary

The library, housed in a fine residence near the heart of the city, was remodeled by Carlos Contreras, one of Mexico’s most distinguished architects.   Beginning with a staff of seven–all Spanish speaking–and overseen by a board of nine directors, this venture between neighboring countries became a resounding success.  The Biblioteca Benjamin Franklin  is a thriving public library for the people of Mexico City, having recently celebrated its 70th anniversary.

Works Cited:

Comacho, Manual Avila. “A Testimony of Friendship.” American Library Association Bulletin, 36 (1942): 311-12.

Lyndenberg, Harry Miller. “Why A North American Library in Mexico?” American Library Association Bulletin, 36 (1942): P-7.

Milam, Carl H. “The Benjamin Franklin Library Dedication.” American Library Association Bulletin, 36 (1942): 312-14.

U.S. Army Hospital Ward Service
Fort Dix, New Jersey, circa 1945
Record Series 99/1/18, Box 2, Folder 17

Libraries across the county answered the call the ALA Executive Board issued in 1942 to organize “services and expenditures without delay to meet the necessities of a nation at war.”  For the Victory Book Campaign alone, thousands of volunteers assisted in the enormous task of sorting and shipping millions of donated volumes.

These donations were primarily intended to support existing libraries in the U.S. army, Army Air Corps, Navy, and U.S.O. Units, although some were also set aside for distribution to devastated libraries in Europe, prisoners of war, and conscientious objectors’ work camps.

Librarians’ enthusiastic participation in the war effort often came at the expense of library services at home, in the form of shortages of gas and tires for bookmobiles, staff shortages as librarians offered their services to the army, and even a lack of fiction as collection development funding was re-allocated for war-related materials and technical manuals for defense workers.

National Cash Register Company Rolling Library, Dayton, Ohio, circa 1915
Record Series 99/1/15, Box 7

One of the WPA’s most idealistic goals was to send books and librarians to areas where there were none. To this end, the WPA sponsored not only bookmobiles to rural areas, but also built tiny log cabin libraries and supported small libraries in general stores and other public places.

Perhaps most innovative was the employment of pack-horse librarians, most of whom were women, who served remote rural areas of Appalachia. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) also cooperated with local libraries and cut across state lines to provide service to rural populations.

Tennessee Valley Authority Pack Horse Library, circa 1938
Record Series 29/5/13, Folder 1

Despite these advances in rural outreach, the distribution of library services was by no means uniform across the nation. In “Books Where There are No Books,” published in the October 15, 1939 ALA Bulletin, Harriet C. Long wrote that public library service was still only available to 26 percent of rural people, compared with 92 percent living in urban areas.

New York City, New York Book Collection, February, 1919
Record Series 89/1/13

Within a few weeks of America’s entrance into World War I, the American Library Association undertook an enormous campaign to send books and other reading materials to American forces at home and abroad.

The ALA collected $5 million in donations, amassed a collection of ten
million books and magazines, and set up thirty-six camp libraries with the help of the Carnegie Corporation.  “A book for every man” was the initial aim.

According to the March, 1919 ALA Bulletin, this motto was eventually regarded as “yet another casualty to the boneyard of discarded slogans” resulting from the war’s end.

Magazines for Marines at Quantico, circa 1919
Record Series 89/1/13

At the height of U.S. involvement in the war, the ALA was not able to maintain a sufficient supply of reading materials. Large numbers of books were lost between American and Europe, greatly reducing the effectiveness of the U.S. libraries in France. And, as librarian John Cotton Dana noted, 7 million books for 4.5 million solders was not enough.

Despite these significant shortcomings, the Library War Services Program was an impressive first demonstration of mass library service to armed forces.

Magazine Corner, Newbark Hospital, New York City, New York, circa 1919
Record Series 89/1/13

Military departments assimilated the ALA programs after the armistice. Hospital library service also continued, first under the U.S. Public Health Service and then under the sponsorship of the Veteran’s Bureau.

Carnegie Public Library, Phoenix, Arizona
Record Series 97/1/65

As the face of the typical library patron changed, the concept of “library” quickly evolved to meet the increasingly specialized needs of library users. As the editors of the 1901 edition of Public Libraries put it, “the day of one colossal building…standing more for a place of exhibition and resort for scholars of leisure than a people’s university is certainly passing.” The new library, re-envisioned as a bastion of democracy rather than a sanctuary for elitist scholarship, would provide information wherever it was needed, and to whomever needed it.

Nowhere was this notion more evident than in the numerous small deposit libraries that cropped up all over–in general stores, on factory floors, in drugstores, churches, even in fire stations.

Enoch Pratt Free Library Book Wagon
Record Series 99/1/18, Box 2, Folder 20

Then, in 1904, the Washington Country Free Library in Hagerstown, Maryland purchased a horse and wagon to reach depot stations not covered by trains or trolley.  Mary  Titcomb, Washington County’s librarian, reasoned that the wagon could function as a library unit rather than just a mechanism for delivery. Shelves were mounted in cabinets on the sides of the wagon. The bookmobile was born, and the era of the traveling library had begun.