Revisiting C. H. Milam's What Libraries Learned from the War and Rediscovering the Library Faith

As 2003 unfolds and the world is again troubled with the immediate threat of multinational military conflicts, it is an appropriate time to remember the pioneering contributions made by librarians during a previous conflict, World War I. Although colleagues from this time are now gone, their accomplishments set standards for service that librarians still strive to emulate today. These accomplishments are chronicled in historical accounts of the period and in an obscure Library Leaflet series from the U.S. Bureau of Education. ¹

During the early 1920s the Bureau of Education issued a series of thirty-six pamphlets to provide educators with lists of references on various topics, including A List of References on Rural Life and Culture, A List of References on Educational Tests and Measurements, and A List of References on Playgrounds. Among these similar titles one stands out: Library Leaflet no. 14, What Libraries Learned from the War by C. H. Milam (1922). ²

The pamphlet's author, Carl H. Milam, is synonymous with the American Library Association (ALA) and the great twentieth-century champions of public libraries. ³ Reading his articulate pamphlet, we relive the wartime experiences of librarians and discover how these experiences influenced the development of library services in postwar America. Milam takes us back to a time when free universal library service was only a dream, total illiteracy rates hovered between 7.7 and 10 percent (for minorities the rate was as high as 44.5 percent), and the average educational attainment was no higher than the eighth grade. ⁴

As Milam points out, World War I offered an opportunity for librarians and their supporters to demonstrate the valuable educational role libraries could play in American society both in war and in peace. Under the direction of Herbert Putnam (and later Milam himself), the resources of the ALA were joined with those of the Library of Congress and received support from the Red Cross and the YMCA. Skilled librarians eagerly joined the war effort and brought public library and research services to the average enlisted man wherever he was stationed, at home or abroad. These wartime librarians quickly realized that the majority of their clientele had never been in a public library and that reading was not a part of their everyday lives. Experienced military men "hooted the idea" that their men would make use of books, but the librarians and the servicemen proved them wrong. ⁵ The ALA promised to "mail upon request to any member of the A.E.F. [American Expeditionary Force] any book which he may desire (provided it is obtainable) or the best book available upon any subject." ⁶

The ALA War Services Program initiated the "Books for Sammies" campaign, which collected donated books for American servicemen, who were dubbed Sammies (from the French phrase nos amis, "our friends"). ⁷ This aggressive donation campaign was an attempt to enlist the public to help meet the ever-growing demands for reading materials from camp libraries and overseas installations. It also served as a nationwide publicity campaign for libraries. However, the promise to deliver "any book desired" was not entirely accurate. Both the military and the postmaster general banned the mailing of certain books and pamphlets determined to be seditious by the War Department. These seditious materials were identified as pacifist or as having a pro-German point of view. ⁸ Arthur Young, in his Books for Sammies, reported that the War Department attempted to ban the distribution of Popular Science magazine under the assumption that enemy agents "might glean technical secrets" from its pages. ⁹ To its credit, the Library War Service pointed out that the magazine was readily available to soldiers and the public through other means, and the subscription was restored to camp and overseas libraries. Reviewing the lists of banned books, it is easy to see the arbitrary nature of...