Abstract

In 1900 the Iowa Legislature authorized the creation of the Iowa Library Commission, which immediately hired Alice S. Tyler as its first secretary to promote library growth. During her tenure of thirteen years, there was phenomenal growth in the number of libraries and library buildings. The growth was due primarily to Carnegie monies for buildings, which Iowa’s communities individually and enthusiastically pursued without official oversight by Tyler. It is evident from Tyler’s publications that she was not a proponent of Carnegie funding, and her writings reveal the strategies she developed to attempt to mitigate the perceived negative consequences of Carnegie library grants.

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