“Mr. Dewey is Crazy and Katharine Sharp Hates the University of Chicago:” Gender, Power, and Personality and the Demise of the University of Chicago Course in Library Science 1897–1903

Abstract

In 1897, the University of Chicago Extension Division began offering what we today would call “bibliographic instruction” under the aegis of the Bureau of Information of the Illinois State Library Association. The program was expanded under university librarian Zella Allen Dixson, and by 1900 was designed to train librarians and library assistants. The program was severely criticized by Melvil Dewey in 1902 and by the American Library Association’s Committee on Library Training in 1903. In several letters of rebuttal, Dixson accused him and Katharine Sharp of conspiring to close the program for their own personal and professional reasons. This study examines the interactions among the three principals, and of gender, ego, and power in the demise of the program, as well as the ALA’s attempts to construct librarianship as a masculine profession.