"The library is a bridge of books between cultures."
Hello, and thanks for stopping by. A while ago, I posted the stories of a few women who were in reality part of Ms. Morgan’s book brigade during WWI. Janet Skeslien Charles depicted them beautifully in her fictionalized work, Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade. The following overview is of one of those women, both in real life and in the book, that I haven’t featured before. She was an enormous force during the war, and there is much more to know about her. I hope this whets your appetite, and you will explore her life further. I still highly recommend the book!
Dorothy M. Reeder was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on June 21, 1902. When she was just a year old, the family moved to Washington, D.C. where her father had accepted a position as a plate printer of the Bureau or Engraving and Printing. Dorothy attended Central High School, then the Paul Institute, and she graduated with a degree in Library Science and French, in May 1919. The Institute was a girl’s boarding school founded by Nanette B. Paul, law professor, author and suffragette.
Dorothy worked as a clerk for the Treasury Department for a while and then as a librarian at the Library of Congress. Next, Dorothy traveled to the Ibero-American Exposition in Seville, Spain in 1929, where she provided assistance displaying extensive books on American literature and Culture. Dorothy remained in Europe after the Exposition and became a staff member at the American Library in Paris.
The following year, Dorothy became the head of the Periodical Department at the American Library. 1934 found her on a committee that determined the acquisition budget for books and periodicals. In 1935, she became General Secretary for the library, taking on publicity and organized events such as Book Week. In 1936 Dorothy became Acting Director of the Library.
War was declared shortly after Dorothy’s appointment as Acting Director.
Refusing a passive role, she organized the American Library’s Soldiers’ service, sending over 100,000 books to British and French troops and establishing an underground network to smuggle literature to Jewish readers banned from libraries by France’s Nazi occupiers. Because the German occupation of Paris was imminent, the Soldiers’ Service ended. Dorothy, sensing the danger, urged her staff to leave the city. Late one evening, Dorothy and her team of volunteers lay sandbags on the top floor of the Library. They covered the windows with paper to protect themselves against falling glass from the bomb blasts.
“We had no idea of closing. Each member of the staff was notified to go and was told that whatever they decided was right. They all stayed.” Dorothy saw the American Library as a window to the free world. “No other thing possesses that mystical faculty to make people see with other people’s eyes. The library is a bridge of books between cultures.”
In June 1941, Dorothy left her post as Director of the American Library in Paris, leaving behind a lengthy and confidential report to the Board of Trustees outlining life at the Library since December 1939. Dorothy then returned to the United States and the Library of Congress sent her to Biblioteca National in Bogota, Columbia, as part of a collaboration with libraries in Columbia, Peru, and Mexico. The Rockefeller Foundation funded the program.
In Columbia, Dorothy supervised the implementation and opening for Columbia’s first circulating library and organized the National Library’s first general open-shelf reference collection. The library’s design was based on American public library systems, with all books cataloged using the Dewey Decimal System.
For four years in 1943, Dorothy served with the American Red Cross in Europe, establishing Red Cross clubs for American soldiers in England, and, days after Paris’s liberation, establishing War Relief communications offices for Western Europe.
Dorothy worked in government service from 1948 to 1954, and then the Library of Congress appointed her as a reference assistant.