Melvil Dewey

American librarian

• Born: December 10, 1851
• Birthplace: Adams Center, New York
• Died: December 26, 1931
• Place of death: Lake Placid Club South, Florida

The creator of what has come to be known as the Dewey decimal system of library classification, Dewey was the most original and effective American educator in developing modern library organization and the professional training of librarians.

Early Life

Melvil Dewey (he changed the spelling of his given name, Melville) grew up in rural upstate New York. Descended from one of the original English settlers in America, Dewey’s family was comfortable but not wealthy; their income was based on small properties and business operations. During the first half of the nineteenth century, upstate New York was a center of intense Protestant evangelical zeal and movements for social reform. Reflecting this fervor, Dewey’s youthful diaries recorded the beginning of his dedication to reform and concentrated work.

In 1870 Dewey chose to enroll in Amherst College in Massachusetts because it had an innovative curriculum that included physical education. Because of a life-threatening sickness during his youth, Dewey was concerned about maintaining his physical health. Another concern became the use of his time with maximum efficiency. The young man was tall and dark-haired with strong features, especially a prominent chin. Although only an average student, he did nonetheless distinguish himself in mathematics.

It was as a student employee in the Amherst College library that Dewey accomplished the first of a series of historic contributions he would make to librarianship. At that time, books in libraries were arranged by fixed location on shelves. The books were not arranged in relation to each other based on their contents but rather by their placement on a particular shelf in a bookcase. Dewey considered such a system ineffective. In 1873, as a junior, he devised a method for arranging books and other library materials based on subject matter using a system of whole and decimal numbers.

Life’s Work

Upon graduation in 1874, Dewey became head of the Amherst library. He proceeded to apply and refine his decimal classification system, which, in its fundamental principles, is much the same today as it was then. In 1876 he published the first edition of his book on classifying library materials. It became the bible for library cataloging and is now known as the decimal classification and relative index. It was in its twenty-first edition as of 1996. The classification method became known as the Dewey decimal classification (DDC) system and was adopted in later decades by libraries in the United States and throughout the world.

Also in 1876, after meeting and corresponding with some of the leading librarians of the time, Dewey was the key person in organizing the American Library Association (ALA). Its first meeting occurred in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Dewey was elected secretary. He also became managing editor of the association’s official publication, the Library Journal. In 1878 Dewey married Annie Godfrey, librarian of Wellesley College. They had one son, Godfrey, born in 1887.

Improvements in libraries were only one of several reform movements that engaged Dewey. He was also instrumental in organizing associations for the use of the metric system in the United States and the reform of English spelling. After resigning from Amherst College in 1875, he began a series of businesses for selling supplies, equipment, and publications related to his reform interests. All of these interests had the common goal of using time more efficiently.

In 1883 Dewey was appointed head of the library of Columbia College (now University) in New York City. He quickly moved to reorganize and consolidate its library collection and supervised the construction of a new building. Because of the need for trained personnel for his expanding library work, Dewey established the first library school for the professional training of librarians in 1887, thereby establishing the modern profession of librarianship. This school, however, proved to be a bone of contention to the college administration. Dewey believed that librarianship was a field highly appropriate for “college-bred” women. Columbia, however, did not at the time admit women students. In opposition to this policy, Dewey enrolled women in the inaugural classes of his School of Library Economy. The ensuing controversy caused him to leave the college the following year.

In 1889, Dewey became the state librarian of New York and moved to Albany. In addition, he was made secretary to the board of regents for the University of the State of New York. The latter was not an educational institution but a government agency that supervised educational institutions. He moved his library school with him, renaming it the New York State Library School. As state librarian, Dewey initiated many innovations and presided over extensive growth. He determined that the library should collect not only books but also visual and audio materials. To expand access to materials, he established traveling libraries in book wagons (modern bookmobiles) and began statewide extension services. In addition, he established special services and collections for the blind, for women, for children, and for medicine.

Dewey’s position as secretary to the regents had a political dimension that often led him to display a confrontational manner. He entered into conflict with other state officials concerning increased funding for public libraries, extension education, and certification of educational institutions. The bitterness of one of these conflicts forced him to resign as secretary in 1899. He nevertheless remained state librarian.

Dewey and his wife had long dreamed of establishing a recreational club in an area of natural beauty that would foster healthy recreation and cultural improvement. They selected Lake Placid, just north of Albany in the Adirondack Mountains, as the site of this club. The club, formulated in 1893, was meant to congregate the social peers of the Deweys, that is, upper-middle-class Protestant white people of Anglo-Saxon descent. To foster a wholesome atmosphere, the club prohibited or regulated smoking, drinking, gambling, and certain dancing. Furthermore, it prohibited the admission of African Americans and Jews. The latter, a growing ethnic group of rising influence in New York, challenged this prohibition in 1904. They questioned why a state official being paid by taxpayers that included Jews should be allowed to conduct such an exclusionary policy. Because of mounting criticism and controversy, Dewey presented his resignation as state librarian the following year.

Beginning in 1906, Dewey concentrated his attention almost exclusively on development of the Lake Placid Club. Transferring his residence there, Dewey expanded and elaborated its comforts and offerings so that in the following decades it became one of the largest and most famous resorts in the world and the pioneer for winter sports activities. The club hosted the Winter Olympics in 1932.

In 1922 Dewey’s wife died; he remarried in 1924. During this decade, comments about intimate relations that Dewey attempted to impose on female colleagues and employees became increasingly open. A former stenographer threatened a lawsuit. In 1926 Dewey began spending his winters in Florida, where he devised the idea of establishing a club resort similar to the one in New York and created Lake Placid South. In 1931, he died in the midst of this endeavor just after his eightieth birthday.

Significance

With exceptional energy and commitment to a range of educational reforms, Dewey was the single most important influence on the development of the profession of librarianship and the modern organization of libraries. Through his library schools, he created the core of professionals who developed and managed the exceptional infrastructure of libraries in the United States and who influenced the development of librarianship throughout the world.

Dewey’s reforming efforts for metric measure and English spelling were not as successful as those for improved libraries. The nonlibrary movements had to struggle against deeply ingrained patterns of behavior and long-standing interests. The library movement, however, was an innovation without entrenched interests to oppose it. Moreover, it had the winds of time behind its sails. There was intense public interest in and support for improved and expanded educational opportunities, which offered the chance for the rapidly increasing U.S. population to obtain access to the goods and services of an expanding American economy and society. Libraries and librarians were considered vital elements in the educational process.

During Dewey’s lifetime, public and college libraries in the United States increased rapidly in number. Steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie was responsible at this time for building more than one thousand public libraries throughout the small towns and big cities of the United States. The energy and resolution of Dewey’s commitments, however, frequently found him conflicted and overextended. Although known for his efficiency and for having accumulated a small personal fortune, he became mired in situations beyond his limits in terms of time and money. Moreover, in contradiction to the moral and cultural ideals he preached, he would later be judged for serious racist and sexist behavior.

Bibliography

Beck, Clare. “A ’Private’ Grievance Against Dewey.” American Libraries 27, no. 1 (January, 1996): 62. Based upon her reading of archival letters, Beck learned that a woman librarian at the New York Public Library charged Dewey with making improper advances. The article discusses these allegations and examines what Dewey did for women in library management positions. This is one of three articles about Dewey featured in this issue of American Libraries, the journal of the American Library Association. The issue also contains an excerpt from Wayne Wiegand’s biography of Dewey (see below) and the recollections of a woman student at Dewey’s New York State Library School.

Dawe, Grosvenor. Melvil Dewey: Seer, Inspirer, Doer, 1851-1931. Lake Placid, N.Y.: Lake Placid Club, 1932. This biography was published immediately after Dewey’s death by the winter sports resort center that he founded and nurtured to world renown. Uncritical and full of high praise, the work is divided into three parts: early development, professional achievements, and a compilation of important writings. The work is extensively illustrated with photographs.

Rider, Fremont. Melvil Dewey. Chicago: American Library Association, 1944. The chapters of this slender volume each outline the contributions Dewey made in his various fields of endeavor. While highly praiseworthy of the founder of the ALA, it frankly confronts some of his personality difficulties.

Stevenson, Gordon, and Judith Kramer-Greene, eds. Melvil Dewey: The Man and the Classification. Albany, N.Y.: Forest Press, 1983. This work, published by a press founded by Dewey, is a compilation of presentations from a seminar in 1981 sponsored by the New York State Library commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Dewey’s death. Examining Dewey and his legacy from various perspectives, the articles deal with reminiscences about him, his evangelical zeal and ideals, and his work for the development and organizing of the library profession.

Vann, Sarah K., ed. Melvil Dewey: His Enduring Presence in Librarianship. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1978. The first fifty pages of this work provide a capsule life of Dewey. The remaining two hundred pages are a selection of Dewey’s writings on librarianship, libraries, the ALA, education, cataloging, classification, and the future. It also includes a list of his publications.

Wiegand, Wayne A. A Biography of Melvil Dewey: Irrepressible Reformer. Chicago: American Library Association, 1996. This book by a noted library history scholar is among the most detailed, frank, and readable works on the life of Dewey. Through extensive archival research, Wiegand demonstrates the origins and methods of Dewey’s thought and activities. Because of its candor and thoroughness, the book escapes an older mold among librarians of canonizing Dewey and stands as a singular contribution to understanding the complexities and contradictions of the man.