Clergy of the Mind: Alvin S. Johnson, William S. Learned, the Carnegie Corporations, and the American Library Association

Abstract

During the early twentieth century, Alvin Johnson and William S. Learned produced two separate but related studies relative to the donations of the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) to public library construction. These reports became means for the planned disassociation of the philanthropic organization from its historical relationship with the development of public libraries in North America. Through the coordination of efforts by such men as Johnson, Learned, Henry S. Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and Frederick Keppel of CCNY, the American Library Association, with Carl Milam at the helm, emerged as the locus of control for public libraries in North America, via the Ten Year Program in Library Service. The struggles that accompanied this shift reflect the engagement of the concepts of “associationalism” versus localism and professionalism versus service.