Photo Album of American Library Association Annual Meetings. 1894-1912

Title: Photo Album of American Library Association Annual Meetings. 1894-1912
Publication: Various locations: various dates between 1894-1912

Description: Softcover. Quarto. Ward's Cream Leaf album, cloth over flexible boards. The album contains 137 gelatin silver images of many of the American Library Association annual meetings held between 1894 and 1912. Most measure about 3" x 3" and are in very good or better condition. The photos are laid in and held in at the gutters, as intended for this type of album, and can be removed. The collection also includes an additional 28 gelatin silver photographs with captions that have not positively been identified as being associated with a specific ALA annual meeting, but are likely also set at the meetings, laid in at the rear of the album.

Several of the images have the name Carr written on the verso in the lower corner and an empty envelope that is laid-in is addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Henry J. Carr. Henry Carr (1849-1921) was a public librarian at various times in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Saint Joseph, Missouri; and Scranton, Pennsylvania. He served as president of the ALA in 1900-1901, as the association's secretary from 1898 to 1900 and its treasurer from 1886 to 1893.

On the verso of nearly every photo is a short caption written in pen. One photo from the 1901 annual meeting in Waukesha, Wisconsin shows the backsides of a row of men and women sitting along a block wall near a lake. The caption reads: "Behind. Who shall say librarians are not standard size, except of course Mr. Dewey who is above the standard." The caption writer is likely referring to Melvil Dewey (1851-1931), inventor of the Dewey Decimal System. At this conference in 1901, The Library of Congress announced to the profession it would begin using printed catalog cards. Dewey stated: "I feel today, now that we hear in this able report that printed catalog cards are really to be undertaken at the National Library, that we have waited for over 20 years and what we have been dreaming about has come to pass at last."

The number of images in this collection associated with the following conferences is indicated in parenthesis following the location of each of the conferences.

1894 September 17-22 Lake Placid, NY (2)
1895 August 13-21 Denver and Colorado Springs, CO (9)
1896 No identified photos
1897 June 21-25 Philadelphia, PA (14)
1898 July 5-9 Lakewood-on-Chautauqua, NY (10)
1899 May 9-13 Atlanta, GA (10)
1900 June 6-12 Montreal, Québec (14)
1901 June 3-10 Waukesha, WI (19)
1902 June 14-20 Boston and Magnolia, MA (11)
1903 No identified photos
1904 October 17-22 St. Louis, MO (4)
1905 No identified photos
1906 No identified photos
1907 May 23-29 Asheville, NC (6)
1908 June 22-27 Lake Minnetonka, MN (4)
1909 June 28- July 3 Bretton Woods, NH (3)
1910 No identified photos
1911 May 18-24 Pasadena, CA (2)
1912 June 26 - July 2 Ottawa, Ontario (1)
*Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science*, Volume 14, page 457

A wonderful collection of images documenting early American Library Association conventions. .

Seller ID: 422758

Subject: Book Collecting, Photography