Guardians of Morality: Librarians and American Girls’ Series Fiction, 1890–1950

Abstract

This article examines the contentious relationship between the first few generations of librarians and series fiction for girls. Librarians and library boards had mixed responses to twentieth-century series books; they favored earlier postbellum series that taught girls traditional religious behavior and caretaking, by authors such as Louisa May Alcott and Martha Finley. While such series could certainly offer empowering kinds of agency, they left out a great many options that were opening up to women, including higher education, new professions, and individualized consumption. Keeping more contemporary series off library shelves also meant that librarians were boycotting most of the work of publishing syndicates, particularly the work of Edward Stratemeyer. Syndicate volumes were often viewed as immoral and dangerously influential by the newly professionalized arbiters of reading.