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Page history last edited by Don Reynolds 3 years, 6 months ago

 Mary Utopia Rothrock

19 September 1890 - 30 January 1976

 

 

Vanderbilt University:  BS (1911);  MS (1912)

New York State Library School: Certificate (1914); BLS (1922)

University of Chattanooga: D.Litt [Hon] (1948)

 

 

Rothrock’s philosophy was that of

“making books available to all.”

 

 “Wherever they live or work, the library follows.”

 

The librarian's role is,

 "to integrate the library thoroughly with the life and work of the community it serves."

 

Her slogan "Taking the Library to the Worker"

was the TVA policy of making the opportunity to read convenient and easy.

 

 She called schools, libraries, and bookstores

 “the appliances of mental growth.”

 

 “Our rural libraries have more need for knowledge of calves than of Plato.”

 


  

      Head of Circulation Department at Cossitt Library, Memphis (1914-1916)

      Director of the Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville (1916-1934)

      Tennessee Valley Authority Supervisor of Library Services (1934-1948)

      Tennessee Valley Authority Library Consultant (1948-1951)

      Knox County Librarian (1949-1955)

 

She is considered to be the founder of modern public library service in Knoxville, Tennessee,

and is responsible for the system of branch libraries used in Knox County.

Opened the Carnegie-funded Negro branch of the library in 1918; praised by the Knoxville Herald for

“her fine courtesy and gracious manner to those of the most lowly station…” (21 September 1928)

 

The Rosenwald Fund selected the Knoxville Library as one of ten libraries in the country where funds for

service to all the people of the county, rural and urban, Negro and white, were provided (1929).

 

President of the Tennessee Library Association (1919-1920 and 1927-1928) 

First Honorary Life Member of TLA (1956)

 

Founding member of the Southeast Library Association (1920) and its President (1922-1924)

 

Chair of Tennessee Education Commission’s Subcommittee on Libraries (1925-????)

 

One of the founding members of the East Tennessee Historical Society (1925)

Secretary (1925-1928), Treasurer (1929-1932), President (1932 and 1937),and

member of the Editorial Board (1929-1976)

Member of the Tennessee Historical Commission (1944-1967)

 

Lobbied the American Library Association to hire the first and only Field Agent for the South (1930)

 

Captured the imagination of those attending the 1933 Conference of Southern Leaders with her

proposal for the establishment of regional library services,

which evolved into the present-day Tennessee Regional Library System (begun in 1939).

 

Member of American Library Association Council (1932-1942) 

Member of Library Extension Board (1933-1938)

 

1938 Recipient of the first Joseph W. Lippincott Award given by the American Library Association

in recognition of the most outstanding professional achievement in librarianship during 1935-1936 for her

“rare vision, intelligence and skill ...

shown in the organization of a regional library and it's related adult educational activities. 

 

President of the American Library Association (1946-1947) 

 

Member of the U.S. Office of Education Advisory Committee on Libraries (1947-1950)

Member of the Advisory Committee for the ALA Public Library Inquiry (1947-1950)

 

Awarded ALA Honorary Membership for lasting importance to the advancement

of the whole field of library service (1976)

 

Author and publisher of school textbooks, Discovering Tennessee (1936; 1951) and

This Is Tennessee (1963) with Ben Andrews 

Editor of The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee (1946)

Editor and publisher of an annotated version of John Haywood's Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee 

[the state's first published history, which had been out of print for 136 years] (1959)

 

 

Mary Utopia Rothrock (“Topie”) was a librarian, community activist, historian, author, editor, (and some would say feminist) who, as one of her colleagues wrote, "knows all the answers and is one of the smartest persons in the library profession." She was active in her local community of Knoxville, Tennessee, throughout the state, the Southeastern states, and the nation with her substantial work with the American Library Association. Her career spanned the years from 1914 through 1955, always able to think ahead of her times.

 

After being invited at age 26 in 1916 to become the Director of the Lawson McGhee Library of Knoxville, Tennessee, she oversaw the building of a Carnegie-funded branch library (1918) for the Negro community who were not allowed by southern custom to use the main library in Knoxville.

 

In a 24 August 1930 newspaper-covered conversational debate with Knoxville Mayor James A. Trent, who wanted women to quit their jobs so unemployed men could have a job, Ms Rothrock said:

“You assume that your jobless men could take the place of your employed woman. But could they. Society would be injured more by the mal-adjustment set up by men in women’s jobs, than it is by unemployed men. Women get their jobs and hold their jobs because they can do the work better than men. ... When you deprive women of the possibility of economic independence, you have enslaved them. ...” The mayor had nothing to say, reported the paper.

 

In 1933 she created the idea of regional library services to help local communities establish public libraries. This idea evolved into the present-day Tennessee Regional Library System begun in 1939.

 

In 1934 she accepted a position as Supervisor of Library Services with the Tennessee Valley Authority where she was responsible for building library book boxes to be attached to the saw filers/tool box and then using bookmobiles to distribute reading materials to the workers building the TVA dams, fulfilling her slogan of "Taking the Library to the Worker."

 

In her seminal and prescient 1937 article, “The Objectives of Rural Library Service” (in Rural America, published by the American Country Life Association, September, 1937), she wrote that the librarian's role is "to integrate the library thoroughly with the life and work of the community it serves." With a tweak here and there, this article could be used in training workshops and library board meetings as a blueprint for customer service in rural and small communities (and larger ones too, for that matter).

 

Her 1946 ALA presidential inaugural address, "Libraries in a New Era," was a plea for librarians to become more actively involved with technology and non-print media.

 

In 1949 she wrote about the role of audiovisual materials in language that is equally applicable (maybe with a tweak or two) to electronic information today:

“Audio-visual materials can never take the place of books, of course. They should not be thought of as devices for building up the circulation of books. They are useful in themselves, but not for stimulating much more reading of library books. Neither should they be used merely to divert with sound and motion. Their function is purposeful communication. Wisely used they can enrich the library's book services by supplementing them. They can take information and ideas to large numbers of people whom books are not reaching. By increasing the volume and intensity of the library's services they can multiply its community contacts and increase its effectiveness."

 

In addition, she was a Fellow of the American Library Institute, a member of Delta Delta Delta Sorority, the Colonial Dames of America, the Presbyterian Church, and the Democratic Party. 

 

 

Objectives for Rural Library Service by Mary Utopia Rothrock.

http://tinyurl.com/RothrockRuralLibraryService37 

   

Books for the People by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

https://tinyurl.com/yy9zlpcz 

 

Taking the Library to the People video with current TVA Librarian, Nancy J. Proctor.

http://mybvi.org/wp/tva-library-history/ 

 

History of the TVA Libraries: From Book Boxes to Computers by Frances Edna Bishop.

http://tnla.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=260

 

“The Rare Vision of Mary Utopia Rothrock: Organizing Regional Library Services in the Tennessee Valley”

 by Mary Mallory.

The Library Quarterly. Vol. 65, No.1, pp. 62-88. University of Chicago, 1995. 

  

Topie: An Homage to a Bold Library Director, on Her Birthday by Jack Neely (16Sept2010 Metro Pulse)


Mary Utopia Rothrock: The Radical Librarian
A Historical Case Study of One Librarians Influence as a Librarian, Educator, and Historian  by Elizabeth H. Thigpen

Mary Utopia Rothrock: Innovative Librarian by Jim Tumblin (7Feb2017 Shopper)

https://tinyurl.com/RothrockInnovativeLibrarian

 

“Rothrock, Mary Utopia (1890-1976)” by Lucile Deaderick. Dictionary of American Library Biography. Bohdan S. Wynar, editor. pp.448-449. Libraries Unlimited, 1978. 

 

 

 

Other publications: 

 

Calvin Morgan McClung Historical Collection Of Books, Pamphlets, Manuscripts, Pictures And Maps Relating To Early Western Travel And The History And Genealogy Of Tennessee And Other Southern States

 

Carolina traders among the overhill Cherokees, 1690-1760.

 

EASTIN MORRIS' GAZETTEER 1834 AND MATTHEW RHEA'S MAP OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE 1832.

 

The library in relation to adult education. (1937)

 

"Tomorrow's Rural Libraries" in the Bulletin of the American Library Association, December 1937. 

 

"Libraries and Regional Development," by Mary U. Rothrock, The Library Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 3 (July, 1942), pp. 666-674, 

published by The University of Chicago Press.

 

 

Said Louisville, Kentucky, Free Public Library Director (1942-1977) Clarence R. Graham:

“I remember her best as a pleasant debater. She did not ‘suffer fools gladly,’

and one had to defend every single statement he made or be laughed into defeat. 

We called her ‘the Best Man in the Library Profession.’ ”

 

Wrote Cossitt Library, Memphis, Director (1925-1960) Jesse Cunningham:

She knows all the answers and is one of the smartest persons in the library profession.” (1949) 

 

 

Excerpt from Tennessee Valley Authority webpage:

To put libraries in such remote locations seemed an impossible task,

but in TVA’s view the more remote the location was, the greater the workers’ need. 

In 1934 TVA found just the woman to take on the challenge. Her name was

Mary Utopia Rothrock, and she was a firecracker.

Born and raised in West Tennessee, “Topie,” as her friends and family called her,

was a red-haired dynamo.

 

A Dangerous Woman

At a time when women were never alone with men to whom they were not related,

Miss Rothrock would march herself into the mayor’s office to present her ideas.

 

Excerpt from James V. Carmichael's It Only Hurts When I Flame:

Rothrock could also be a formidable opponent within ALA Council, and she was an entirely different type

of leader than [Tommie Dora] Barker: she was cherished by some colleagues for her lack of convention and

inclination to take a drink in the back rooms with the boys and she was feared by others for her strong-minded

and well-worded outbursts ...

 

Jean Preer, Indiana University at Indianapolis, noted in her article,

"Louder Please: Using Historical Research to Foster Professional Identity in LIS Students" 

In the 1940s, Mary Utopia Rothrock wrote of the power of audio-visual materials

in language equally applicable to electronic information today.

 

 

 

Women of Library History   

http://womenoflibraryhistory.tumblr.com/post/80968908396/mary-utopia-rothrock

 Women's History Month Project of the ALA Feminist Task Force 

 

 

Please contact Don Reynolds at don.reynolds2030@gmail.com

to make any comments, suggestions (all of which are welcome) about the information on this wiki.

 

  

UPDATED: AUGUST 2020

 

Thanks to Polly Potter, retired Assistant Director of the Nolichucky Regional Library,

for the original creation and design of this wiki.

 

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