Mary L. Jones Librarian Activist

Mary L. Jones portrait

Mary L. Jones

Neil Long, History 250: The Historian Craft, Fall 2021

Mary L. Jones was a leader, a skilled librarian, and a pioneer for gender equality in the workplace. People who knew her well described her work as exceedingly proficient with good standards and cultivated taste into many different administrative areas. She was born months after the end of the Civil War and attended the University of Nebraska where she graduated in 1885. Of her graduating class she was the only female student. Jones occupied a campus without a single power line or an inch of paved roads. Life in Nebraska was difficult as many Nebraskans still lived in sod homes, trees were yet scarce, and dust storms would fill the air at a moments notice. At a university with a rich history of influential women, many great voices have been lost to time, but often the unknown and anonymous voices make the greatest impact. Mary Jones is often forgotten in the university's history, but her story deserves a larger place not only amongst the University of Nebraska's great women, but within American culture and history.[2]

Her contemporaries included names like Melvil Dewey, Anna Shaw, and Susan B. Anthony. Although Jones is less recognizable than her contemporaries, her story can be viewed as a case model of sexism and discrimination in a world that prioritized the thoughts and ideas of white men. The United States throughout the twentieth century transitioned away from traditional Anglo-Roman gender roles, pioneered by woman like Mary Jones. Although this transition would prove to be slow and continues today, Jones can be viewed as an influential figure in the struggle for gender equality. Jones was paid less than her rank, given job titles beneath her role, and was dismissed from two head librarian jobs based primarily on her gender. As was common with social norms, Jones was polite and humble, only gaining national attention after larger voices than her own helped provide a platform for her story to be told.[3]

Mary Jones was recognized as a diligent student and a skilled orator, evidenced by the essay she read at her graduation commencement. A University student newspaper The Hesperian, wrote in July of 1885, “this young lady is known as one of the most pleasant performers the University can produce, pleasant to look upon and pleasant to hear.” In a following article recounting the commencement The Hesperian again wrote “her appearance was charming, and she read with composure and considerable force, though, as is generally the case with young ladies, her tones were not sufficiently strong to reach the back rows of seats and the persons standing up against the wall.” [4] The language used to describe Mary Jones, and to the larger extent any woman of her era, presents the cultural ethos of gender relations in America at the turn of the century. As evidenced in the striking number of articles that began by describing her appearance and then her performance.

Upon graduation Mary Jones attended the New York State Library school in Albany, New York, where she studied under Melvil Dewey. Her relationship with Dewey proved to be one of the most influential in her life. He would become a lasting friend, adviser, and advocate. Under Dewey’s tutelage she learned the Dewey Decimal Classification System, which is the most common library sorting system used in the world today.[5] Along with Dewey she would become influential in spreading this methodology. The education Jones obtained at the New York State Library school, would provide the foundation for her expertise in growing and maintaining the original library at the University of Nebraska. Her efficiency would both be a positive and a negative in her professional life. Jones graduated from library school in 1892 and was hired by University of Nebraska Chancellor James Canfield the following year.

Canfield had an appreciation for Jones’ forward-thinking idealism, and he placed an importance on growing the library. When Canfield arrived at the University, only faculty had keys to the library and student access was limited to just a few hours a week.[6] Canfield’s tenure as Chancellor was focused on the expansion of the library and growing the number of volumes within. The library was originally contained in a single room on the second floor of University Hall. The faculty resisted relinquishing their reign over the library and during the following years would prove reluctant to accept the changes Jones intended for the collection. Libraries in the nineteenth century were rudimentary; widespread use of the printing press had just reached the West, which meant scholars had to hand copy most text. Additionally, documents had to be physically moved about the country which relied primarily on horsepower for transportation.[7] Codifying the University library would prove to establish Jones’ credibility as a professional, but also caused friction with traditional faculty members. Faculty perceived the use of the library as an employment perk and that student use would impede serious research. To provide resources to everyone on campus, Canfield and Jones began to overhaul the library.

The library that Chancellor Canfield and Mary Jones took over contained around twelve-thousand volumes but had no organizational system. Robert E. Knoll, author of a collective history of the University of Nebraska in the book Prairie University, described the library in 1892 as one with, “no records of any value, no catalogues, or anything that goes to make up the machinery of a modern library.” By the end of her tenure at the University of Nebraska the library’s collections would grow to over seventy-thousand volumes. Additional evidence of Jones’ acumen is found in a Daily Nebraskan article written upon the hiring of her replacement, they wrote, “with Miss Mary Jones at the library’s head from 1892 until 1896 it experienced a rapid growth both in number of volumes and in improved library methods.” Although she is mentioned as the ‘library’s head,’ remarkably the woman that reconstructed the university's library had the official title of ‘Assistant Librarian.’[8] Unfortunately, this form of discrimination would remain common at the University for many decades after Jones’s departure. As found in the “Women’s Rights Committee Report in the Spring of 1972, Dr. Roy Loudon found, “in very major job classifications, women’s salaries average less than men’s regardless of rank or degree held.” In the same report, Dr. Loudon finds that many secretaries performed the tasks of administrator without proper recognition.[9] Jones faced a type of soft discrimination, one that existed not through official policy, but instead, one that was baked into society.

George E. MacLean replaced Canfield as chancellor in 1896 and Jones would face stronger discrimination from both faculty and administrative members alike. Chancellor Canfield was a supporter of Jones and defended her from faculty pushback. The faculty were less supportive of Jones once Canfield left the University and became more vocal to a less sympathetic Chancellor MacLean. As complaints of Jones began to surface, friction with Chancellor MacLean made the workplace intolerable for Jones. Little is written about Jones’ departure from the University, but it is evident that both Jones and the University were ready for a split. Knoll writes of Chancellor MacLean’s arrival, “he found a library newly organized on the latest professional principles by a professional librarian.” As Jones had grown the library, she would now be faced with a problem. Not uncommon for the time period, men proliferated that women, as a gender, were incapable of leading large organizations. Kay Logan-Peters wrote in the book University of Nebraska-Lincoln, “when MacLean arrived, he announced that he would ‘secure a man librarian as soon as the University could salary.”[10] Jones had built the library into such a success, and to such a large scale, Chancellor MacLean believed the library could only be led by a man. Knoll writes that MacLean promptly told Jones that “as soon as he could find a male, he would replace her.” it was suggested that MacLean was searching for a man before she left for the University of Illinois in 1897. Jones was followed by this form of discrimination repeatedly throughout her professional career. [11] As Jones would attempt a fresh start in several other midwestern Universities, her attention was soon directed to the West Coast.[12]

In 1889 she moved to the California and joined her family in Los Angeles where she took a job at the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL). The previous city librarian retired in 1900 and Jones was hired in his place. The LAPL published an in-depth blog in 2018 about Jones titled ‘The Great Library War of 1905,” which covers Jones in Los Angeles extensively. The article found that Jones was the first Los Angeles city librarian who was both a college graduate and a graduate of a library school.[13] As with her tenure in Nebraska, Jones increased the library’s volumes and began to overhaul its organizational structure. In the early 1900s political changes brought uncertainty for the city library, or more precisely, uncertainty for Jones. Owen McAleer was elected mayor in 1901 and appointed a new Library Board of Directors.[14]

Once again Miss Jones would be challenged, not based on the merit of her work, but her gender. Immediately the board began a private investigation to ‘railroad’ Jones, the Los Angeles Herald described the investigation as “a well-digested plot to railroad Miss Jones out of her position, and that to cover the plotters tracks ‘public scandal’ will be avoided by private intrigue.”[15] In one luncheon with the Library Board, the Mayor of Los Angeles was heard saying that the library “ought to have a man at the head.” Later that year Jones approached Library Board President Dr. J.W Trueworthy and asked for a pay increase. Dr. Trueworthy noted that Jones was ‘insolent’ and ‘sarcastic’ after telling her a pay raise was ‘impossible.’ Trueworthy asked Jones if she intended to leave without notice, to which she replied, “I will consult my own convenience.” Jones’ response was enough evidence to convince Trueworthy that her dismissal was necessary. Board members then decided it “was in the best interests of the library that we should have a man at the head of it.” In Trueworthy’s decision he said, “the board had decided that it wanted a man for the librarian. No woman could administer a library with an income of sixty-five thousand [dollars].” Consequently, the board would ask for Mary Jones’ resignation on March 31, 1905.[16] She declined. Jones responded with a letter in which she wrote, “I have concluded that it would not be fitting for me to tender my resignation as the head of a department where only women are employed. When such a resignation is tendered solely on the grounds that the best interests of the department demand that its affairs no longer be administered by a woman.” The board was stunned, as a silence swept over the room. Dr. Trueworthy acknowledged the letter and summarized the boards sentiment when he told the Los Angeles Herald, “we all felt and believed that she would resign without a fight.”[17] The board reconvened on April 12th and fired Mary Jones.[18]

The public response was swift as Los Angeles women’s groups, including the prominent Friday Morning Club, rallied in support of Jones. Jones’ support spanned the country, as librarians praised her with sentiment like that of Carl Roden from Chicago, who described Jones as “among the best of the kind in the country.”[19] Dewey came to Los Angeles and publicly spoke on Jones’ behalf. At a July 27th library meeting, attended by Susan B. Anthony and the Reverend Anna Shaw, the board appointed Charles Lummis as the new head librarian. Anthony was quoted in a later article as saying “I wonder why it is that the city of Los Angeles can afford to pay Mr. Lummis one hundred dollars a month more than Miss Jones without even trying him. How has he proved himself a hundred dollars a month more valuable than the woman whose place he will take?” She added that “No woman stands an equal chance with a man for a position where honor and money are concerned.”[20]

The next day more than one thousand women rallied to hear Anthony and Shaw speak on behalf of Jones. Anthony said during the speech, “As long as you women say you have rights and are satisfied, just so long will you continue to be displaced. Here is a position, some man wants it, of course the man will win because there’s only men to settle it.”[21] Jones encountered the upheaval with superior courage and respectability, it was told this discrimination was never apparent in either resentment or disillusion.[22] The protests had little impact on restoring Jones within the Los Angeles Public Library system. The political class made attempts to backtrack and portray her dismissal as a result of her lack of intellectual acumen and not her gender. It was said that Jones could have been of considerable usefulness as an ‘assistant’ librarian, “under the forceful direction of a superior.”[23] This sentiment that a woman was physiologically incapable to lead a large organization would be used two times to remove Jones’ from a position she was dully capable and qualified to perform. Like Chancellor MacLean in Nebraska, the LAPL damaged their own organizations by losing a quality librarian based solely on her gender. Jones was disaffected by her dismissal at the LAPL and would spend years attempting to remove herself from the protests and restore her credibility as a librarian.

Although she was routinely humbled by the cultural structure of her era, Jones remained efficient and productive throughout the rest her career. In the years following her firing, Jones distanced herself from Los Angeles. For two years she taught courses in library management at the University of California -Berkely and for another six years she was the head librarian at Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania. Jones ultimately returned to Los Angeles at the invitation of her friend and former colleague, Celia Gleason, where Jones finished the remainder of her career at the County Library System. Jones retired in Pasadena, California, where she lived out her remaining years with her brother, sister and nephew.

The University of Nebraska’s library is the most valuable collection of any kind in the state. Jones reclassified the entire existing collection in her first year of work, created the first card catalog system, and reshelved nearly five-thousand books. She not only increased the total number of volumes to nearly seventy thousand, Jones also taught several courses training the assistants that would continue her program after her departure. The foundation of this incredibly valuable resource, used by countless Nebraskans each year, can and should be directly correlated to the work of Jones. The discrimination that Jones faced both in Nebraska and in California are representative of the socio-political atmosphere in which she lived. She did not seek the public spotlight and would have preferred to do her work in peace; however, the impact of her struggle raised the public awareness of gender-based inequality throughout society.

Mary Jones, educated at the University of Nebraska and employed throughout the Western United States, was essential in the formation of libraries in the early 1900s. Her impact on library organization and the utilization of the Dewey classification system provided the foundation for modern libraries. As described in her obituary, Jones was “quietly constructive, rather than original or dynamic, her spirt was liberal and forward looking, her professional interest always vital and outgoing.”[24] She was a trailblazer in the workplace and pioneered new opportunities for women as leaders of large organizations. Jones was a key figure in the struggle for equal pay or equitable treatment in the workplace, yet her legacy has been generally ignored. Her legacy has not been built on her own name as her story has been mostly lost to time, but her voice is embedded within the gender equality movements of the next one-hundred years and continues as an example of progressive reform today.

Sources:

  1. Haines, Helen E. Obituary, RG 52-01-01, Box 1, Folder 4, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
  2. Jones, Mary. Photograph, RG 52-01-01, Box 1, Folder 5, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
  3. Knoll, Robert E. Prairie University: A History of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press : Alumni Association of the University of Nebraska, 1995.
  4. University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Nebraska State Historical Society. “Hesperian Student (Lincoln Neb.) July 05, 1885, Page 6.” Nebraska Newspapers. Students of the Nebraska State University.
  5. “About Melvil Dewey the Dewey Program at the Library of Congress.” (1851-1931), Library of Congress, n.d. https://www.loc.gov/aba/dewey/about-dewey.html.
  6. Knoll, Robert E. Prairie University: A History of the University of Nebraska. Page [ ]
  7. Lawrence C. Wroth (1938), "Diffusion of Printing", The Colonial Printer, Portland, Maine: Southworth-Anthoensen Press, OL 6370726M
  8. All quotes and information above, are sourced from:  Knoll, Robert E. Prairie University: A History of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press : Alumni Association of the University of Nebraska, 1995
  9. Gierhan, Ron. Title IX Self-Study Summation, RG 29-02-05-07, Box 1, Title IX Records 1976, UOffice of the Chancellor, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
  10. Logan-Peters, Kay. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2017.
  11. All quotes and information above, are sourced from:  Knoll, Robert E. Prairie University: A History of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press : Alumni Association of the University of Nebraska, 1995
  12. Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 1: Have You Met Miss Jones?”, March 21, 2018. https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/great-library-war-1905-part-1-have-you-met-miss-jones.
  13. Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 1: Have You Met Miss Jones?”
  14. Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 2: The 'Slush' of Concession.”, March 24, 2018. https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/great-library-war-1905-part-2-slush-concession.
  15. Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 2: The 'Slush' of Concession.”
  16. All quotes and information above, are sourced from: Maxwell, F. Margaret, The Lion and the Lady – The Firing of Miss Jones, RG 52-01-01, Box 1, Folder 3, Archives and Special Collections, University of Nebraska Libraries, Lincoln, Ne.
  17. Maxwell, F. Margaret, The Lion and the Lady – The Firing of Miss Mary Jones, RG 52-01-01.
  18. Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 3: The Firing of Mary Jones.”, March 28, 2018. https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/great-library-war-1905-part-3-firing-mary-jones.
  19. Maxwell, F. Margaret, The Lion and the Lady – The Firing of Miss Mary Jones, RG 52-01-01.
  20. Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 3: The Firing of Mary Jones.”
  21. Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 3: The Firing of Mary Jones.”
  22. Haines, E. Helen, Obituary, RG 52-01-01.
  23. Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 3: The Firing of Mary Jones.”
  24. Haines, E. Helen, Obituary, RG 52-01-01

Bibliography

  • Jones, Mary. Photograph, RG 52-01-01, Box 1, Folder 5, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
  • Logan-Peters, Kay. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2017.
  • “About Melvil Dewey the Dewey Program at the Library of Congress.” (1851-1931), Library of Congress, n.d. https://www.loc.gov/aba/dewey/about-dewey.html.
  • Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 1: Have You Met Miss Jones?”, March 21, 2018. https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/great-library-war-1905-part-1-have-you-met-miss-jones.
  • Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 2: The 'Slush' of Concession.”, March 24, 2018. https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/great-library-war-1905-part-2-slush-concession.
  • Beyelia, Nicholas. “The Great Library War of 1905, Part 3: The Firing of Mary Jones.”, March 28, 2018. https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/great-library-war-1905-part-3-firing-mary-jones.
  • Gierhan, Ron. Title IX Self-Study Summation, RG 29-02-05-07, Box 1, Title IX Records 1976, Office of the Chancellor, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
  • Haines, E. Helen, Obituary, RG 52-01-01, Box 1, Folder 4, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
  • Knoll, Robert E. Prairie University: A History of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press : Alumni Association of the University of Nebraska, 1995.
  • Lawrence C. Wroth (1938), "Diffusion of Printing", The Colonial Printer, Portland, Maine: Southworth-Anthoensen Press, OL 6370726M
  • Maxwell, F. Margaret, The Lion and the Lady – The Firing of Miss Jones, RG 52-01-01, Box 1, Folder 3, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
  • University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Nebraska State Historical Society. “Hesperian Student (Lincoln Neb.) July 05, 1885, Page 6.” Nebraska Newspapers. Students of the Nebraska State University.
Mary L. Jones Librarian Activist