By Invitation Only: The American Library Association and the Woman’s Building Library of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893

Abstract

From May to October 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition hosted over 27 million visits from people who came to witness the myriad technological and cultural wonders on display. One such marvel was the seven‐thousand‐volume library housed within the Woman’s Building. The convergence of the American Library Association and the fair’s Board of Lady Managers at the special conference session held at the midpoint of the fair’s six‐month run brings into focus competing visions of culture and progress that contended within the public space of the Woman’s Building and in the larger theater of the Columbian Exposition. These competing visions are nowhere more evident than in the discourses of inclusion and exclusion that informed the cultural projects of the Woman’s Building Library and the ALA. On the one hand, the inclusiveness of the collection in terms of genre, literariness, and subject matter illustrates the breadth, depth, and diversity of women’s contribution to print culture (particularly in the United States) up to 1893. On the other hand, the exclusiveness of the collection in terms of the class and ethnicity of the women who contributed to it illuminates the mechanisms involved in the mediation and erasure of race and class in women’s print culture.