The Many Lives of Libraries

JSTOR Daily has curated stories exploring libraries and librarians as forces in social change. Libraries in the nineteenth century opened pathways for women to education, challenging norms about their capabilities. Librarians played crucial roles in World War II and the Cold War. But libraries also codified oppression: Nella Larsen discovered that American libraries embedded racial bias into knowledge systems. That sparked freedom libraries across the South, where Black Americans could learn outside those constraints. In the nineteen-seventies, librarians challenged catalog systems that classified homosexuality as deviance. Librarians haven't just preserved knowledge—they've been active participants in fights for justice and access.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton