Two Civil War widows became pioneering librarians

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Melissa Smith, with her son, Eugene and husband, 2nd Lt. DeWitt Clinton Smith. Melissa became the state librarian, a post her husband had held previously, after he was killed by Confederate guerrillas in Tennessee during the Civil War.

Two Civil War widows became pioneering librarians
By Curt Brown
March 30, 2019 — 7:01pm

Pay equity for women probably wasn’t a burning issue in 1865 for Louisa Goodwin. The 33-year-old widow from Owatonna lost her husband, 2nd Lt. James Goodwin, to a Civil War gunshot wound two years earlier.

But when Louisa became the nation’s first woman appointed as state librarian in 1865, she was offered $400 a year — two-thirds of her male predecessor’s $600 salary.

Goodwin and fellow Civil War widow Melissa Smith served back-to-back terms as state librarian from 1865-1873 — long before women librarians became common in the late 1800s.

In 1880, 15 years after Goodwin’s appointment, “the library was still an organization run by, and catering to, men,” writes Susan Orlean in “The Library Book” — her 2018 nonfiction project that weaves library history with an arson mystery that unfolded in 1980s Los Angeles.

Orlean says women in 1880 were not yet allowed to have library cards and were restricted to the Ladies’ Room. When the American Library Association formed in 1876, the group’s founders included 90 men and only 13 women. An article that year titled “How to Make Town Libraries Successful” hinted that even educated women would be willing to work for lower pay than male librarians.

Louisa Goodwin and her husband came from Maine and owned a $2,000 Owatonna farm, according to the 1860 census. James died in a St. Louis hospital in 1863, a few months after being wounded in a Mississippi battle.

By 1865, census rolls show Louisa had moved to St. Paul, where the state Senate confirmed her appointment as state librarian that March. Stephen Miller, the state’s fourth governor, offered her $400 and asked her to report “as early as was convenient.”

The appointment was historic — coming four years before Michigan became the second state with a female state librarian. But the moment went unreported in both St. Paul and Owatonna newspapers, according to Patricia Connelly, a lawyer and librarian who was interning at the State Law Library in 2003. She wrote about Goodwin in the Minnesota State Law Library’s newsletter.

Goodwin landed the job only after the Senate rejected the appointment of George Oakes, the governor’s private secretary.

In her two years as state librarian, Goodwin lobbied for more state funds to print a new catalog, bind newspapers and acquire law books for the library at the old state Capitol. She remarried while in office, resigning in 1867 as Louisa Jones.

Her successor, Melissa Smith, might have been the first woman to apply for the state librarian job. Born in New York in 1827, she married DeWitt Clinton Smith in Michigan in 1847. By the late 1850s, they moved to a farm in Osseo

Wounded at the Battle of Antietam in 1862, DeWitt came home and became the state librarian briefly before returning to the to Army as a paymaster. He was killed while trying to defend the steamboat he was on from Confederate guerrillas in Tennessee.

She applied for the state librarian job, prompting Gov. Miller to say he had “doubts as to whether a lady could be appointed.”

Smith moved to her parents’ home in Wisconsin, and Miller named Goodwin state librarian. Smith returned to Minnesota and replaced Goodwin in 1867. A Law Library article says her six-year run was “characterized by her intelligent and professional approach to librarianship, with a fierce determination to improve” the library’s space and book collection.

She helped secure state funds for more books and additional room — not to mention new furniture, carpet, gas fixtures and steam heat to replace the wood-burning stove in the State Library.

In a letter to the governor who appointed two women as state librarian more than 150 years ago, Smith wrote: “It affords me much pleasure to be able to congratulate you and through you the people of the State, upon the improvements that have been made in the State Library.”


Full article can be found here - http://www.startribune.com/two-civil-war-widows-became-pioneering-librarians/507885871/

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
Too funny- but really, no Yanks even if they're librarians? Everyone loves librarians. Think you guys should make an exception. Now if they were ... well, never mind.

It's a wonderful thread, thanks for posting! I'm old enough to remember when libraries were THE place to go on a rainy day ( otherwise it was collecting all the dirt outside you could drag into the kitchen ). Have terrific memories of librarians, all women for some reason, probably this. Talk about positive role models.
 
Too funny- but really, no Yanks even if they're librarians? Everyone loves librarians. Think you guys should make an exception. Now if they were ... well, never mind.

It's a wonderful thread, thanks for posting! I'm old enough to remember when libraries were THE place to go on a rainy day ( otherwise it was collecting all the dirt outside you could drag into the kitchen ). Have terrific memories of librarians, all women for some reason, probably this. Talk about positive role models.
It was the same old story, JPK. Traditional men's job until someone figured out that they could hire women for less money. Same as teaching. But yes they were positive role models, for me too. I loved the library. I still remember the little squares cushion seats that we sat on for story time. I always wanted a red one, hated to have green, :cry:. I think the first place I was allowed to walk to by myself was the library. Sorry, just tripping down memory lane.:D
 
Too funny- but really, no Yanks even if they're librarians? Everyone loves librarians. Think you guys should make an exception. Now if they were ... well, never mind.

It's a wonderful thread, thanks for posting! I'm old enough to remember when libraries were THE place to go on a rainy day ( otherwise it was collecting all the dirt outside you could drag into the kitchen ). Have terrific memories of librarians, all women for some reason, probably this. Talk about positive role models.
I don't get to the library near as much as I used to. Didn't hit it for several years, but the ladies all remembered me on my return. God bless them.
 
Really interesting--thanks for sharing! Have worked in a library for years, so library history always interests me. :smile:
Haven't been inside a library in years. Technology seems to be rendering them somewhat obsolete. I remember sitting in the library for hours doing research. All of which can be done from the comfort of anywhere, with a smart phone today. :smile: Having info at your fingertips today, is quite different from a generation ago.

As a side, when I was in 9th grade, I worked in the school library. Was pretty cool at the time because, even though I felt like a nerd being there, I learned the dewey decimal system, & how to find pretty much anything, anywhere, in the library, providing it was put in the right place that is...:nerd: My nature would drive me nuts when a book was out of place.

If I remember correctly (been a few years), non-fiction was decimalized, & fiction was alphabetized. :unsure:
 
Haven't been inside a library in years. Technology seems to be rendering them somewhat obsolete. I remember sitting in the library for hours doing research. All of which can be done from the comfort of anywhere, with a smart phone today. :smile: Having info at your fingertips today, is quite different from a generation ago.

As a side, when I was in 9th grade, I worked in the school library. Was pretty cool at the time because, even though I felt like a nerd being there, I learned the dewey decimal system, & how to find pretty much anything, anywhere, in the library, providing it was put in the right place that is...:nerd: My nature would drive me nuts when a book was out of place.

If I remember correctly (been a few years), non-fiction was decimalized, & fiction was alphabetized. :unsure:
Libraries are keeping up with the technology more than they might seem! :smile:
 
Libraries are keeping up with the technology more than they might seem! :smile:
I live in the Boonies. In my area, the first place to get REAL high speed internet was the little tiny library, in the little tiny town, I'm pretty close to. When I couldn't suffer the slow d/l speed, I would go to the library to do it. If I needed to d/l a big file, I'd go there.

Once I got decent internet, I haven't really had a need. Light pipe is coming soon :D They were on my road last week. I talked to a couple guys who assured me, I'll have it by Christmas :skip: :smile:
 
I live in the Boonies. In my area, the first place to get REAL high speed internet was the little tiny library, in the little tiny town, I'm pretty close to. When I couldn't suffer the slow d/l speed, I would go to the library to do it. If I needed to d/l a big file, I'd go there.

Once I got decent internet, I haven't really had a need. Light pipe is coming soon :D They were on my road last week. I talked to a couple guys who assured me, I'll have it by Christmas :skip: :smile:
Internet access is a problem where I live, too, so we have a lot of folks who come to the library to use it. But we also have a lot of folks who are terrible at research, so even though they have decent internet, they still stop by because they know we'll find stuff faster than them. :bounce::nerd::D
 
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