Marilla Waite Freeman: The Librarian as Literary Muse, Gatekeeper, and Disseminator of Print Culture

Abstract

Contrary to the popular image of the librarian as a passive organiser of books and other forms of print, librarians are and have been active selectors, collectors, and disseminators of print and print culture. As such, they serve as gatekeepers for their communities. In addition, librarians have included ‘children’s book reviewer’ among their professional titles, serving as gatekeepers for readers at large and as de facto literary agents, and have inspired and nurtured poets and authors. Marilla Waite Freeman exemplified each of these roles in her nearly seventy years as a librarian. She was known for acquiring and promoting new forms of literature and opposing censorship, using motion pictures to encourage the reading of books, and lecturing and writing on modern library service, producing speeches and essays which were required reading in library schools of the day. She is identified as the model and inspiration for the librarian Helen Raymond in Floyd Dell’s novel Moon-Calf and was a long-time friend of John Masefield, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. This paper will explore the ways in which her career exemplifies the librarian as literary muse and as gatekeeper and disseminator of print culture in the community.

Keywords:

• Cleveland Public Library
• disseminators
• Floyd Dell
• gatekeepers
• Frieda Lawrence
• John Masefield
• librarians
• Marilla Waite Freeman
• muses

Notes

Notes

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5 Christine Pawley, “Advocate for Access: Lutie Stearns and the Traveling Libraries of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, 1895–1914,” Libraries & Culture 35, no. 3 (2000): 434–58.

6 Plummer Alston Jones, Jr, “Cleveland’s Multicultural Librarian: Eleanor (Edwards) Ledbetter, 1870–1954,” Library Quarterly 83, no. 3 (2013): 249–70.

7 Phillip Jones, “The Mission of “Little Star”: Juana Manrique de Lara's Contributions to Mexican Librarianship,” Libraries & the Cultural Record 45, no. 4 (2010): 469–90.

8 Marilla Waite Freeman to William H. Brett, 22 October 1899, Cleveland Public Library Archives (hereafter CPLA), William Howard Brett Correspondence.

9 Freeman to Brett, 22 October 1899; and Suzanne M. Stauffer, ““Mr. Dewey is Crazy and Katharine Sharp Hates the University of Chicago”: Gender, Power, and Personality and the Demise of the University of Chicago Course in Library Science 1897–1903,” Journal of Education for Library & Information Science 56, no. 2 (2015): 101–13.

10 “The Mortar Board,” University of Chicago Cap and Gown 2 (1896): 123.

11 “Nu Pi Sigma,” University of Chicago Cap and Gown 2 (1896): 143.

12 Freeman to Brett, 22 October 1899; and Marilla Waite Freeman, “Letters,” University of Chicago Magazine 49, no. 4 (1957): 31.

13 Marilla Waite Freeman to Mary Eileen Ahern, 18 November 1899, CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

14 Barbara Hockman, “Filling in Blanks: Nella Larsen’s Application to Library School,” PMLA 133, no. 5 (2018): 1178.

15 A social and political progressive, John Cotton Dana (1856–1929) began his library career as librarian of the Denver (Colorado) Public Library from 1889 to 1896. During that time, he introduced open stacks, made library cards available to every citizen, extended library hours into the evenings and weekends, and increased the size of the collection from 2,000 to more than 25,000. He also created the first children’s room and displayed children’s artwork. In 1895 he was elected President of the ALA. He served as librarian of Springfield, Massachusetts, from 1896 to 1901, and there instituted outreach to civic organizations and established the first branch libraries. In 1902 he moved to the Newark (New Jersey) public library, where he remained until his death in 1929. He created a business room and business branch in order to increase the number of men who used the library. At the same time he established the Newark Museum, an art museum, with the goal of merging the library and the museum into one civic institution (Mattson, 514–34). The ALA awards the annual John Cotton Dana Public Library Relations Award in recognition of his pioneering work https://www.ebsco.com/about/scholarship-awards/john-cotton-dana (accessed September 5, 2019).

16 Who’s Who in American Education: An Illustrated Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Living Educators of the United States, ed. Robert C. Cook, 8th ed. (New York: Robert C. Cook Co., 1938), 324; “Miss Marilla Freeman Resigns Library Post,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, 15 May 1940; and Gerald D. McDonald, “Marilla Waite Freeman, Feb. 12,1870–Oct. 29, 1961,” Library Journal 86 (1961): 4157.

17 “Miss Marilla Freeman Resigns”; Gerald D. McDonald, “Marilla Waite Freeman,” Bulletin of Bibliography, 19, no. 2 (1947): 29–31.

18 Rose L. Vormelker, “Freeman, Marilla Waite (1871–1961),” in Dictionary of American Library Biography, ed. Bohdan S. Wynar (Littleton, CO: Library Unlimited, 1978), 188–91.

19 Vormelker; and C. H. Cramer, Open Shelves and Open Minds: A History of the Cleveland Public Library (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1972), 148–55.

20 Marilla Waite Freeman, “Tapping the Underground,” University of Chicago Magazine 37, no. 1 (1944): 6–7; and McDonald, “Marilla Waite Freeman,” Bulletin of Bibliography.

21 McDonald, “Marilla Waite Freeman,” Library Journal; and Cramer, 148.

22 Cramer, 152.

23 Ibid., 148.

24 McDonald, “Marilla Waite Freeman,” Library Journal.

25 Jean to Marilla Waite Freeman, 1.10 Saturday [1942?], CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

26 “News of the Classes,” University of Chicago Magazine 33, no. 1 (1940): 30.

27 American Women: The Official Who’s Who among the Women of the Nation, 1935–36, ed. Durward Howes (Los Angeles: Richard Blank, 1936), 191.

28 Marilla Waite Freeman, “Personal Glimpses of Some Modern Poets,” CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

29 “Miss Marilla Freeman Resigns.”

30 McDonald, “Marilla Waite Freeman,” Bulletin of Bibliography, 30; and Freeman, “Personal Glimpses,” 16.

31 Cramer, 154.

32 Marilla Waite Freeman to Marie Gilchrist, [February 1929], CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

33 McDonald, “Marilla Waite Freeman,” Bulletin of Bibliography, 30.

34 McDonald, “Marilla Waite Freeman,” Library Journal.

35 Marilla Waite Freeman, The Theory of Play (Oneonta: Ediciones El Pozo, 2013).

36 Marilla Waite Freeman, “Management of Small Libraries,” in The Library and its Organization, ed. Gertrude Gilbert Drury, Classics of American Librarianship, 4 (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1924), 88.

37 Marilla Waite Freeman, “Social Outlook of the Librarian,” Library Journal 63 (1938): 490.

38 Freeman, “Social Outlook,” 652.

39 Marilla Waite Freeman, “The Relation of the Library; or, The Library and Publicity,” in The Library Without Walls, ed. Laura Janzow, Classics of American Librarianship, 6 (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1927), 646.

40 Freeman, “Social Outlook,” 492.

41 Ibid., 651–52.

42 Marilla Waite Freeman, “The Joint Work of the High School and Public Library in Relation Education to Life,” Library Journal 38 (1913): 179–83.

43 Marilla Waite Freeman, “Censorship in the Large Public Library,” Library Journal 53 (1928): 223.

44 Marilla Waite Freeman, “A Cleveland Librarian Disagrees,” Bulletin of the American Library Association 26, no. 9 (1932): 711.

45 Marilla Waite Freeman, “What Can We Do Today to Attract More Readers?,” Wilson Bulletin for Librarians 13, no. 5 (1939): 301.

46 Library Editor, “Poetry in the Library,” The Open Shelf 4 (1929): 50–1.

47 Marie Gilchrist to Marilla Waite Freeman, 15 January 1929, and Marie Gilchrist, “Poetry in the Making: An Experiment in the Cleveland Public Library,” CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

48 “Goetz, Bernice,” in Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Case Western Reserve University https://case.edu/ech/articles/g/goetz-bernice (accessed November 21, 2018); Library Editor, 51–2; and Marie Gilchrist, “Adult Poetry Group Report (1931),” CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

49 Marie Gilchrist, “Annual Report of the Adult Poetry Group 1933,” CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

50 Library Editor, 52.

51 L. Buker, “A Hymn to the Virgin (to M.W.F.),” CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

52 Karen F. Gracy, “See the Movie, Read the Book! Cleveland Public Library’s Bookmarks Programme, 1923–1972,” Library & Information History 33, no. 4 (2017): 243, 250, DOI: 10.1080/17583489/2017/1372924.

53 Ina Roberts, “Annotations to Librarians – M.W.F.,” CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

54 Gordon W. Thayer, “Lines on M Day (May 12, 1942),” CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

55 John Goldstron to Gordon W. Thayer, 21 December 1931, CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

56 “Marilla Says She Finds Truth in Her Lies,” CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

57 John E. Hart, “Floyd Dell (28 June 1887–23 July 1969),” in American Novelists, 1910–1945, ed. James J. Martine, ix (Detroit: Gale, 1981), 192–201.

58 Floyd Dell, Homecoming: An Autobiography (New York: Farrar, 1933).

59 Floyd Dell, Moon-Calf: A Novel (New York: Knopf, 1920), 173–74.

60 Dell, Moon-Calf, 174.

61 Ibid., 176.

62 Ibid., 177.

63 Ibid., 182.

64 Marilla Waite Freeman to Richard Watson Gilder, 3 February 1908, New York Public Library (hereafter NYPL), Manuscripts and Archives Division, Century Company Records, 1870–1930s. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/3f984960-f78f-0134-fad0-416328197b59 (accessed September 5, 2019).

65 “Dell’s Librarian of Port Royal Steps from Book: Helen Raymond, “Spirit Half Familiar and Half Divine”,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, 17 December 1922.

66 “Masefield on Air, Hails Friend Here,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, 13 May 1937 (morning edn).

67 “Nineteenth Century Club, Memphis. January, 1916. Masefield,” NYPL, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, John Masefield Collection of Papers, 1894–1966.

68 Freeman, “Personal Glimpses,” 12.

69 John Masefield to Marilla Waite Freeman, 30 January 1916, NYPL, John Masefield Collection of Papers, 1894–1966.

70 John Masefield to Marilla Waite Freeman, 22 November 1917, NYPL, John Masefield Collection of Papers, 1894–1966.

71 John Masefield to Marilla Waite Freeman, undated, headed “Boar’s Hill, Oxford,” NYPL, John Masefield Collection of Papers, 1894–1966.

72 John Masefield to Marilla Waite Freeman, 1922(?), “The Hill Players” letterhead, NYPL, John Masefield Collection of Papers, 1894–1966.

73 John Masefield to Marilla Waite Freeman, 1926(?), “Introducing Dr. Jean Lorraine-Smith,” NYPL, John Masefield Collection of Papers, 1894–1966.

74 John Masefield to Marilla Waite Freeman, 3 January 1929, NYPL, John Masefield Collection of Papers, 1894–1966.

75 Marilla Waite Freeman to John Masefield, 8 August 1930, NYPL, John Masefield Collection of Papers, 1894–1966.

76 Freeman to Masefield, 8 June 1933, NYPL, John Masefield Collection of Papers, 1894–1966.

77 Marilla Waite Freeman to John Masefield, 2 February 1933, NYPL, John Masefield Collection of Papers, 1894–1966; Cramer, 154; and “Masefield on Air.”

78 “Masefield on Air.”

79 Hockman, 1175.

80 Cramer, 151.

81 Freeman, “Management of Small Libraries,” 88.

82 Ibid., 95.

83 Ibid., 95–6.

84 Freeman, “The Relation of the Library,” 643.

85 Ibid., 650.

86 Freeman, “What Can We Do?,” 301.

87 Marilla Waite Freeman, “Hospital Library Service and the Home Front,” Library Journal 67 (1942): 210.

88 Freeman, “A Cleveland Librarian Disagrees,” 716.

89 Freeman, “Censorship,” 223.

90 Freeman, “A Cleveland Librarian Disagrees,” 713.

91 Ibid., 715.

92 Gracy.

93 McDonald, “Marilla Waite Freeman,” Bulletin of Bibliography, 30.

94 Marilla Waite Freeman, “Tying Up with the Movies: Why? When? How?,” Bulletin of the American Library Association 23, no. 8 (1929): 364.

95 Marilla Waite Freeman, “The Library, Motion Pictures, and the Radio,” Harvard Educational Review 9, no. 4 (1939): 424.

96 Marilla W. Freeman, “Inviting Movie Fans to Read,” Publishers’ Weekly 105 (1924): 1580.

97 Director, American Academy of Poets, to Mrs John Doe, President, Women’s Club, New Jersey (after 1940), NYPL, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Marilla Waite Freeman Papers.

98 Marilla Waite Freeman, “Discovering Poetry,” CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

99 Marilla Waite Freeman, “Books and Films: The Eyes Have It,” CPLA, Marilla Freeman Papers.

100 Freeman, “Personal Glimpses.”

101 William L. Richardson to Marilla Waite Freeman, 21 March (1922?), NYPL, Marilla Waite Freeman Papers.

102 William L. Richardson and Jesse M. Owen, Literature of the World: An Introductory Study (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1922).

103 Marilla Waite Freeman to Joel Elias Spingarn, 22 January 1925, NYPL, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Joel E. Pingarn Papers.

104 Marilla Waite Freeman to Joel Elias Spingarn, 13 February 1925, NYPL, Joel E. Pingarn Papers.

105 Robert F. Martin, “Spingarn, Joel Elias,” in American National Biography Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), DOI: 10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1500638.

106 Joseph Montebello, “Historic and Storied Troutbeck Returns to Life,” Litchfield (New York) County Times, 16 November 2017 http://www.countytimes.com/passport/historic-and-storied-troutbeck-returns-to-life/article_11acc588-b067-5b8b-96ed-8c48f9999f21.html (accessed August 21, 2018).

107 Todd Plummer, “Inside the Newly-Renovated Hotel where Emerson, Thoreau, and Hemingway Once Stayed,” Vogue, 23 March 2018. https://www.vogue.com/article/troutbeck-hudson-valley-renovated-historic-property (accessed August 21, 2018).

108 Marilla Waite Freeman to Frieda Lawrence, 2 February 1932, NYPL, Marilla Waite Freeman Papers.

109 Frieda Lawrence to Marilla Waite Freeman, 15 February 1932, NYPL, Marilla Waite Freeman Papers.