Checking Out America: Libraries as Agents of Acculturation in Three Mid-Century Girls' Books

In 1931 James Truslow Adams published his best-selling book The Epic of America, which chronicled the "whole colorful pageant of the great epic which is [American] history" (vii) and coined the term "The American Dream." In his epilogue, Adams praises one institution in particular: the Library of Congress. Calling it "the greatest library in this land of libraries" (413), he insists that it "has come straight from the heart of democracy, as it has been taken to it, and I here use it as a symbol of what democracy can accomplish on its own behalf . . . Anyone who has used the great collections of Europe, with their restrictions and red tape and difficulty of access, praises God for American democracy when he enters the stacks of the Library of Congress" (414). For Adams, the American library was the circulating blood of American democracy, a semidivine establishment providing vital nourishment to all who desired it. American public libraries were free, as opposed to private subscription libraries popular in Europe.

By the time Adams wrote his epic, the dream of the American library had become a reality in many communities. Despite the economic and structural problems that plagued some fledgling libraries, the public library had become a perdurable cultural force, both as an ideal and as an actual presence in the lives of millions of Americans. With the expansion of the library dream, books became more accessible to historically underprivileged groups: minorities, the working class, and children. In particular, children, because of their capacity for engagement and the relative lack of demand upon their time, were perfectly positioned to reap the fruits of the library. Not only could they find numerous books for their reading pleasure, they could also be more easily persuaded to accept the practices and procedures of this institution than would their older counterparts. Since children could be steeped in library culture throughout their entire lifetimes, they offered library leaders the opportunity to mold the perfect library patron—and the perfect American citizen.

The library as a space of acculturation is a common theme in children's literature, especially in girls' books. While the classic girls' bildungsroman—books such as Jane Eyre and Little Women—depict the protagonist in thrillingly forbidden reading rooms, later novels often focus on sanctioned reading spaces and wholesome reading materials. Below, I examine three books of this second type: Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace, Emily's Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary, and All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor. In each book, the library acts as a crucible in which complicated notions of girlhood, racial and class identity, and "Americanness" are formed.

I have chosen these books in part for their depictions of a variety of library experiences based on population and geography: All-of-a-Kind takes place in New York City, Betsy in a small Minnesota city, and Emily in rural Oregon. All are set in the first three decades of the twentieth century, the end of the Golden Era, when libraries were reaching out to a larger number and variety of patrons than ever before. Although situated in the early twentieth century, each book was published approximately forty years after the time period it depicts. That is, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (originally known as Downtown) was published in 1943, although the action of the book takes place in 1904. Likewise, All-of-a-Kind-Family was published in 1951 and set in 1912, and Emily's Runaway Imagination was published in 1961 and set in the early 1920s.

The era these books represent was a time of profound change in America, not only in library culture, but also in the culture at large. The influx of immigrants, reforms in education, and fight for female suffrage made this a tumultuous but exciting time. These books offered mid-century readers a chance to explore this very different but not-so-distant past. Moreover, in the middle of the century, according to Suzanne Rahn, the genre of historical fiction began to show greater "potential for depth and...