Welcome Guests or Representatives of the “Mal-Odorous Class”?: Periodicals and Their Readers in American Public Libraries, 1876–1914

This article documents the extensive debate between 1876 and 1914 about the role of periodicals in American public libraries as well as how libraries accommodated the ever-increasing flood of periodicals during this period. It argues that millions of periodical readers played a major role in transforming public libraries from relatively elitist book depositories to democratic institutions that made available a great number and variety of periodicals. These readers as well as the changes they effected challenge a number of scholarly assumptions about who was using public libraries and controlling their policies during this time.