1 00:00:03,940 --> 00:00:09,340 Thank you, Liz. It's nice to be here. I'll start my talk with a quote. 2 00:00:09,340 --> 00:00:16,630 All of this is so close to my heart that I'm sure if anyone cut me open, they'd find a map inside with rivers and roads for veins. 3 00:00:16,630 --> 00:00:22,670 This was spoken by Anna L Young said at the end of her forty five year career working with maps. 4 00:00:22,670 --> 00:00:27,890 Began her career in an almost lucky way, with a friend recommending she apply for the job. 5 00:00:27,890 --> 00:00:35,420 When she was hired in January of 1917, Young was a typist and general assistant to Leon Dominion and J.R. Wallace, 6 00:00:35,420 --> 00:00:43,800 who were the maths curator and assistant curator of the MAP Department of the American Geographical Society, respectively. 7 00:00:43,800 --> 00:00:49,200 Young's duties at the time included filing sorting maps and other general office jobs. 8 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:55,770 After six months in employment, she went on a two week vacation in August, only to return as the sole employee of the department, 9 00:00:55,770 --> 00:01:00,090 saying the maths library was left high and dry with only me to look after it. 10 00:01:00,090 --> 00:01:06,450 After a few years in her role as the only maths department employee, she negotiated with the Agius director to be made the curator. 11 00:01:06,450 --> 00:01:13,190 He gave her a yearlong trial period, but she ended up staying in that role for the rest of her working career. 12 00:01:13,190 --> 00:01:20,630 Young earned her job at the end of this nationwide shift of males leaving clerical work and other types of jobs similar to librarians. 13 00:01:20,630 --> 00:01:25,880 Most women entering the workforce at this time fit the mould of white, educated and middle class. 14 00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:33,050 In addition to remaining single to fulfil their professional lives. Young fits into the category of all four of these. 15 00:01:33,050 --> 00:01:38,060 Librarianship as a career for women during this period of the 1910s and 1920s was considered 16 00:01:38,060 --> 00:01:43,580 especially appropriate because they drew on their natural talents of nurturance, 17 00:01:43,580 --> 00:01:48,050 sympathy, domestic management and self-sacrifice, end quote. 18 00:01:48,050 --> 00:01:57,350 One interesting development of the switch from Land Dominion to Young in 1917 was that the map department went from three full time employees to one, 19 00:01:57,350 --> 00:02:00,770 despite Young's eventual triumph in her domain. The Shirley, 20 00:02:00,770 --> 00:02:05,600 the Aegeus and its director did not think that one woman with only six months experience 21 00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:09,470 in this new field could successfully cover the extent of what was at the time, 22 00:02:09,470 --> 00:02:16,550 a very large collection. A likely theory is that the Agius simply did not have the bandwidth to hire for the position. 23 00:02:16,550 --> 00:02:23,150 In 1917, they was hosting the US Commission of Enquiry, a precursor to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, 24 00:02:23,150 --> 00:02:26,910 which would eventually go to France following World War One. 25 00:02:26,910 --> 00:02:31,980 Her role as the de facto map curator would have her thrown headfirst into the business of map reference and 26 00:02:31,980 --> 00:02:38,220 not even just general reference because experts in their field would be asking her questions about maps. 27 00:02:38,220 --> 00:02:43,710 And Atlas's to fulfil their role for the enquiry. 28 00:02:43,710 --> 00:02:50,950 Young also found herself on the tail end of the transition from gentleman librarian to women being mainly in library roles. 29 00:02:50,950 --> 00:02:54,850 Up until the late 19th century, men's jobs in libraries came through. 30 00:02:54,850 --> 00:03:00,670 What a joint pass it. Historian of librarians described as the virtue of life experience. 31 00:03:00,670 --> 00:03:05,110 Degrees in other fields or through a network of personal contacts. 32 00:03:05,110 --> 00:03:11,320 Most of my librarians had degrees in other fields which qualified them to be library or advanced their focus as librarians. 33 00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:14,440 Up until now had them focussing on their own research. 34 00:03:14,440 --> 00:03:19,600 This notion of the gentleman librarian prevailed throughout the eighteen hundreds and even into the 20th century, 35 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:26,830 despite the feminisation of the profession. That happened in the 19th centuries, last two decades, with examples like Lee on Dominion. 36 00:03:26,830 --> 00:03:31,840 Curator of the edgiest maths department and predecessor Too Young. 37 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:43,230 In 1970, 1915 to 1917, visibly Phillips, the first head of the geography and maths division of the Library of Congress from 1897 to 1924, 38 00:03:43,230 --> 00:03:51,690 and Lawrence Martin, the second head of the Geography and Maps Division of the Library of Congress from 1924 to 1946. 39 00:03:51,690 --> 00:03:56,820 The wording of gentleman librarian came from a Janice Monk article regarding the women workers of the ages. 40 00:03:56,820 --> 00:04:02,910 Throughout its history, she used the phrase to describe men who are part of a library without training. 41 00:04:02,910 --> 00:04:08,470 No relevant experience in library science was needed by this type of person. 42 00:04:08,470 --> 00:04:13,890 And by virtue of being men with other advanced degrees, they were awarded jobs in libraries. 43 00:04:13,890 --> 00:04:21,160 In furthering this definition. The gentleman librarian terminology specifically applied to map librarianship. 44 00:04:21,160 --> 00:04:28,030 The gentleman library and four men who had degrees or specialities in other fields and worked by virtue of that experience in maths libraries. 45 00:04:28,030 --> 00:04:32,200 Maths librarian and historian of maths librarianship Walter Restyle term geographer, 46 00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:36,870 a librarian is a similar type of figure to the gentleman librarian. 47 00:04:36,870 --> 00:04:40,860 This employment amongst their field of study allowed these men to work on their personal research 48 00:04:40,860 --> 00:04:45,270 projects with the very materials that they administer to the phenomenon of the gentleman, 49 00:04:45,270 --> 00:04:53,430 librarian may have happened less often in public library spheres and more in archives and special collections, such as a map library. 50 00:04:53,430 --> 00:05:00,980 Since the material lends itself better to a particular area of study and less on circulating a collection for the general public. 51 00:05:00,980 --> 00:05:04,370 The notion of the gentleman librarian in a specialised library setting. 52 00:05:04,370 --> 00:05:09,500 Was it evidenced by a person who was not trained to be a librarian but is an expert in their fields, 53 00:05:09,500 --> 00:05:13,790 which can often be seen from the perspective of historians of cartography? 54 00:05:13,790 --> 00:05:19,810 The people with expertise in this field have detailed knowledge of maps and geography, likely through throughout different areas, 55 00:05:19,810 --> 00:05:25,780 and have the knowledge to teach his material while lacking the information science background to communicate the knowledge. 56 00:05:25,780 --> 00:05:33,670 As the field of map librarianship began to develop in the late eighteen, hundreds, mostly men, were librarians and administrators. 57 00:05:33,670 --> 00:05:39,070 And as time passes, female librarian ships enter the ranks compared to general librarianship. 58 00:05:39,070 --> 00:05:43,600 However, the women of the number of women stays relatively low. 59 00:05:43,600 --> 00:05:46,990 For example, in a young of ages was Walter Rissoles, 60 00:05:46,990 --> 00:05:55,100 mentor for much of the first year of his entrance into maths librarianship, which was 20 years after Young began her career. 61 00:05:55,100 --> 00:05:59,160 His trajectory, his career had a trajectory of advancements, further proving maths. 62 00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:05,580 Labour in was the exception to the rule when it came to the feminisation of the profession. 63 00:06:05,580 --> 00:06:09,000 Specifically in terms of the literature published by mob librarians, 64 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:13,680 the male author is overwhelmingly more present in the field from eighteen fifty three 65 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:18,000 to nineteen forty of the ninety three articles written about Mac librarianship. 66 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,870 Sixty eight of the articles were written by men. Four were written by women. 67 00:06:21,870 --> 00:06:33,690 And then eleven came from unknown or anonymous persons. The next batch of articles from 1941 to 1956 introduced two hundred and fifty publications, 68 00:06:33,690 --> 00:06:43,060 one hundred and sixty two of those were written by males, sixty one were written by females, and twenty six came from unknown or anonymous persons. 69 00:06:43,060 --> 00:06:48,010 With 73 percent and 65 percent mail written articles, respectively, 70 00:06:48,010 --> 00:06:53,320 for each batch of articles, map librarianship proved to be a male dominated profession. 71 00:06:53,320 --> 00:07:00,480 Even if the number of female librarians was high, the viewpoint from the viewpoint of general librarianship. 72 00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:05,310 Most of the map librarians were men because of the amount of articles they'd written. 73 00:07:05,310 --> 00:07:09,780 Their voice was stronger in the profession or louder. 74 00:07:09,780 --> 00:07:17,970 In addition to being the authority figures in the fields, reinforcing the narrative of the gentleman librarian that dominated maths ranger. 75 00:07:17,970 --> 00:07:25,000 Young had a unique place following the gentleman librarian era and bridging into the modern map, library and era. 76 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:27,320 Another historian of. 77 00:07:27,320 --> 00:07:35,570 Matchplay brain chip Walter Bristo stated that the first generation of map librarians, American map librarians, was of necessity, self trained. 78 00:07:35,570 --> 00:07:41,840 The 1930s was a period in which librarianship more generally was becoming more professionalised in 1934. 79 00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:45,680 Gilbert H. Dunn, the author of The Librarian as writer, 80 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:52,850 he put a call out for librarians to bring more writing into their field so that the field of librarianship could be taken more seriously. 81 00:07:52,850 --> 00:07:58,040 This excluded special library and special libraries like maths, librarianship or archives. 82 00:07:58,040 --> 00:08:05,870 But the thought is there. If you professionalise yourself, then you get more respect for the field. 83 00:08:05,870 --> 00:08:12,740 Based on Young's work documents from the Archives of The Aegeus, she began to establish herself more at this point with more examples of 84 00:08:12,740 --> 00:08:17,300 exhibits that she'd curated and acquisitions that she'd made before that point. 85 00:08:17,300 --> 00:08:22,220 She had mentioned herself in past. In the past tense. 86 00:08:22,220 --> 00:08:31,140 So she wrote a. A little history of herself, and that's where I gotten most of my information about her early career. 87 00:08:31,140 --> 00:08:37,920 And she doesn't actually begin making her own work documents and saving them until the 1930s, the 1940s. 88 00:08:37,920 --> 00:08:45,710 She began to join professional societies like the newly formed Special Libraries Association, the Geography and Maps Division, 89 00:08:45,710 --> 00:08:50,610 the United States involvement until World War Two brought about a 15 to 20 year period of intense 90 00:08:50,610 --> 00:08:56,280 popularity in maps and the increase of scholarship related to maths libraries was astounding. 91 00:08:56,280 --> 00:09:03,870 The United States government and private media made use of maps to a much greater extent than in World War One, as maths librarian Bill Woods argues. 92 00:09:03,870 --> 00:09:08,580 The library community, parallel to the feelings of the United States as a whole, 93 00:09:08,580 --> 00:09:13,440 began to see the respectability of maps as legitimate material for collecting in reference. 94 00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:17,160 Not only are there more maths libraries than ever in the years following World War Two, 95 00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:21,030 but there are more libraries needed guidance from the professionals who have 96 00:09:21,030 --> 00:09:26,630 become pillars in an established but largely unpublished and unrecognised field. 97 00:09:26,630 --> 00:09:35,540 To further help these newly minted maths librarians with their newly acquired Army Map Service and Federal Depository Library Programme maps in 1950. 98 00:09:35,540 --> 00:09:41,480 Library Journal published a special issue entitled Maps in the Library, in which eleven articles were published. 99 00:09:41,480 --> 00:09:47,570 This denoted another milestone for the fields Risto almost refers to at a turning point in his article. 100 00:09:47,570 --> 00:09:54,650 What about maps? Researchers hope that this kind of exposure of the field to the rest of the library science world shines through in his writing. 101 00:09:54,650 --> 00:10:02,210 Additionally, the excitement of all the authors, all the authors show and getting to publish in Library Journal is evident in their writing. 102 00:10:02,210 --> 00:10:06,230 Young, the curator of the maths department at the time, 103 00:10:06,230 --> 00:10:13,520 was the editor for this issue owing to her status as a member of the Special Library Association in New York City Division. 104 00:10:13,520 --> 00:10:18,800 She edited 10 articles and wrote her own contribution entitled These Maps Are Essential, 105 00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:25,220 which instructs a novice maths librarian about which maps Atlas's and MAP series are good foundation for a collection. 106 00:10:25,220 --> 00:10:31,130 Her contributions as an editor and writer in this article series helped to prepare the next generation of map 107 00:10:31,130 --> 00:10:37,340 library and professionals who might be receiving maps without having other important maps in their collections. 108 00:10:37,340 --> 00:10:41,530 This period saw more maths librarians than ever be graduates of Library School, 109 00:10:41,530 --> 00:10:48,290 my master's degree programme, which further proved the legitimacy of this profession. 110 00:10:48,290 --> 00:10:54,410 It also shows the trajectory of the profession as now it would be very hard pressed to find a map library. 111 00:10:54,410 --> 00:10:59,930 Didn't have some sort of advanced degree. Young managed to navigate the waters of the gentleman, 112 00:10:59,930 --> 00:11:08,480 lumbering geopolitics and her workplace and the strange contrast between the strange contrast of being part of a Liberian ship that was not feminised. 113 00:11:08,480 --> 00:11:15,170 Her predecessor, Dominion, and her co-workers with Agius were examples of Gentleman Leverenz. 114 00:11:15,170 --> 00:11:24,000 And somehow they were listed as pillars of the agius. When Young, a forty five year instalment of the society was not in geography, 115 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:29,350 in the making book, what I Jaquet write about the first hundred years of the Aegeus. 116 00:11:29,350 --> 00:11:34,150 Geopolitics sure work from the beginning with the enquiry and again during World War Two. 117 00:11:34,150 --> 00:11:41,480 She undoubtedly helps with reference services for all kinds of questions of the United States government had for the maps of the collection. 118 00:11:41,480 --> 00:11:44,690 This narrative ends with the older retirement in 1962. 119 00:11:44,690 --> 00:11:52,090 But even after her retirement, she remained an active figure in the Map Labour inch world by consulting on collections internationally. 120 00:11:52,090 --> 00:11:55,420 She also wanted to write her own paper about the history of cartography, 121 00:11:55,420 --> 00:12:01,210 specifically about the work of Lieutenant George Wheeler and his work in the United States west of the 100th Meridian. 122 00:12:01,210 --> 00:12:07,400 She sadly never finished this work as she passed away on December thirty first nineteen seventy one. 123 00:12:07,400 --> 00:12:15,650 Her legacy lives on in the collection, now housed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with the Library of the Aegeus was moved in 1978. 124 00:12:15,650 --> 00:12:21,890 The black dedicated to her, to her in New York City, now hangs at the entrance to the raw materials room in the current location 125 00:12:21,890 --> 00:12:25,760 of the American Geographical Society Library at the University of Wisconsin, 126 00:12:25,760 --> 00:12:32,870 Milwaukee. A tribute to the maven of map librarianship. The plaque reads her lovely quote, which I started with. 127 00:12:32,870 --> 00:12:39,890 All of this is so close to my heart that I'm sure if anyone cut me open, they'd find a map inside with rivers and roads for things. 128 00:12:39,890 --> 00:12:42,450 Thank you so much. 129 00:12:42,450 --> 00:12:52,410 Thank you very much indeed for that lovely talk, which which opened for us, that whole world of map librarianship, which has been so important, 130 00:12:52,410 --> 00:12:59,970 I found intriguing the fact that you point out that map librarians were maybe to a certain extent 131 00:12:59,970 --> 00:13:06,780 are valued more for their independent scholarship than the service that they provide to readers, 132 00:13:06,780 --> 00:13:12,300 that the way of achieving status and certainly in the early days was not the 133 00:13:12,300 --> 00:13:16,840 normal route that we might think of things we value in a library collection. 134 00:13:16,840 --> 00:13:22,320 And I wonder if you could talk about that element of of service and public helping the 135 00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:30,910 public to use maps as something that that fits in with a sort of expected gender roles. 136 00:13:30,910 --> 00:13:39,770 Well, I think as a recent graduate of the library science programme, like we prioritise access and things like that, information literacy. 137 00:13:39,770 --> 00:13:44,260 And I could definitely see in early documents of my librarians who are men. 138 00:13:44,260 --> 00:13:49,480 It was their all their scholarship was their own research about the maps themselves. 139 00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:56,860 Like a lot of the papers we've seen today would fit into what they would have talked about and less so about like articles about how 140 00:13:56,860 --> 00:14:06,040 to be a maths librarian like we saw in the 1950s with that Library Journal series where all eleven articles were by both genders. 141 00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:16,520 That said, all genders. That said, how to effectively administer your collection, how to get people to see it. 142 00:14:16,520 --> 00:14:21,080 An unhappy is that mesh with the sort of feminisation of the of the profession? 143 00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:27,580 Do you think? I think in a lot of ways it just a. 144 00:14:27,580 --> 00:14:33,550 There were so few people, so few women that were library librarians, 145 00:14:33,550 --> 00:14:38,380 like you'd see a lot of, you know, filer's typist, that kind of thing working in that role. 146 00:14:38,380 --> 00:14:47,730 So I think when the profession opened up to be shifted to be more women, you didn't see it as much with the library, with maths librarianship. 147 00:14:47,730 --> 00:14:54,430 But I do think that that had a big role in why that changed. 148 00:14:54,430 --> 00:15:08,480 Thank you. Well, I think your paper draws us very elegantly to the end of our session today, reminding us as we broadcast from the Bodleian, 149 00:15:08,480 --> 00:15:20,120 reminding us of the importance of map collections in facilitating scholarship and in opening up maps to as wide an audience as possible, 150 00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:24,110 as well as obviously curating and conserving maps. 151 00:15:24,110 --> 00:15:28,340 So but they they can be accessed by future generations. 152 00:15:28,340 --> 00:15:33,890 So thank you very much for for your paper, which brings things very, very nicely to an end. 153 00:15:33,890 --> 00:15:38,135 Thank you so much.