Burton E. Stevenson, librarian at Camp Sherman in Chillicothe, Ohio, during World War I:
“When I started this work, I had some very plausible theories about the kinds of books the men would want; but I soon discarded them. We have had requests here for every sort of book, from some books by Gene Stratton Porter to Boswell’s ‘Life of Johnson’ and Bergson’s ‘Creative Evolution.’ We have had requests for Ibsen’s plays; for books on sewage disposal; and so many requests for ‘A Message to Garcia’ that I had a supply mimeographed. In one building there were so many requests for books on religion and ethics that we set up a small reference collection. Broadly speaking, of course, most of the men read fiction ; exciting, red-blooded fiction-detective stories, adventure stories, and so on. But there is also a steady demand for Conrad, and Wells, and Hardy, and Meredith. Poetry is also in demand, and good books of travel go well. The only kind of books we don’t want is the salacious, risqué sort—for they have no place in our camp libraries. And we don’t care for unattractive, cheap editions, with yellow, muddy paper and flimsy binding. We want attractive books—nice, clean copies of good editions—and the more of these we get the better service we can give the men.
This quote is found in a 1918 pamphlet, “War Service of the American Library Association”, by Theodore Koch of the Library of Congress. It describes a project by the American Library Association, in collaboration with the War Department and other organizations, to acquire and make books available to soldiers and sailors during WWI. Libraries were set up at many training camps in the U.S. and books were sent overseas for distribution to the front lines, military hospitals, and prisoners of war. (Regarding the trenches, one British officer, when writing back home to request some books, noted “Don’t suggest that I should read ‘War and Peace.’ If one makes ambitious plans like that, one certainly gets killed in the midst of them.”).
Koch subsequently expanded his observations in a book, Books in the War; the Romance of Library War Service. The book describes not only ALA’s War Service, but also the efforts of the French and British to distribute books, including books in Braille for the benefit of soldiers blinded during the war. ALA’s overseas efforts eventually led to the establishment of a headquarters library in Paris. That HQ ended up becoming itself one of the memorials to the war that is going strong to this day: The American Library in Paris, the largest English-language lending library on the European continent.
The pamphlet ends with the following poem, read by Mr. Nixon Waterman at the dedication of the ALA Library at Camp Johnston, Florida:
Arms and the Man
Men, with War’s challenge before you,
You who must win in the fight,
You who shall bring the glad morning
After War’s terrible night;
Here find the way and the wisdom
To match and to master the Hun,
Translating the book and its message
Into the speech of the gun.Here find the counsel to stay you
Down through the riot and ruck,
Here find the zeal that shall lift you
Out of the mire and muck.
Here are the words of your seniors,
Your masterly skill to increase,
And type’s many tongues to direct you
On toward the daybreak of peace.
Perhaps not the best example of poetry, but it serves to express two of the purposes of the Library War Service: helping the soldiers fight better via technical materials and distraction during pauses in combat, but perhaps more importantly, laying groundwork in those who survived to see the peace to make the most of it.
I will close this post with another extract from the book:
“A handsome young blond giant who looked like a native American, one arm strapped to his side, was scrutinizing closely the papers in my bag. ‘What is that you have there?’ he asked, most politely. *Oh, nothing you would care for,’ said I; ‘only two old Greek newspapers.’ ‘Well, Greek is my language,’ said he, ‘and it’s a long time since I’ve seen a word of it. May I have them?’ And as he sank into the nearest chair and lost himself in the precious papers he murmured rapturously, ‘First Greek words I’ve seen in six months.'”
This little incident. Miss Freeman went on to say, brought home to her, as nothing else had, a realization of how many nationalities have gone into the making of America, and have poured out their blood, as stanch Americans, upon the fields of France.
May we never forget the sacrifices of those who came from all over the world to be Americans and sometimes lost their lives in service to our country.
