At the turn of this century, Wisconsin workers and volunteers established a network of public and traveling libraries that provided reading materials for "ordinary" people. Focusing on isolated areas, librarians traveled the State by sleigh, wagon, passenger coach and caboose, distributing books and learning about local information needs from farmers, loggers, miners, children and other rural residents. But by the late 1940s, 23% of Wisconsin's population still lacked free library access. Rural literacy rates were also low. The Door-Kewaunee Regional Library Demonstration of 1950-52--part of a nation-wide movement to improve library service to rural areas--attempted to create a model by which the State could help bridge this gap in active cooperation with rural residents themselves. A key component was the "library on wheels"--two buses fitted as "bookmobiles" that made regular stops at crossroads and one-room schools. However, despite the establishment of "People's Library Committees," the Project failed to garner the popular support it needed to continue. Promoters perceived that a persistent problem was that the Project's main users consisted of rural children--individuals who could not themselves vote, and whose parents lacked the resources of the middle-class town-dwellers who dominated local politics.
The Project kept careful records, including the bookmobiles' circulation records. Only rarely have public libraries retained circulation records, so that this promising source of reading data is often no longer available to historians. I have created an electronic database of the Door-Kewaunee circulation records, and in this project analyze the reading choices of these rural residents, at a time when their close neighbor, Senator Joseph McCarthy, and other Cold Warriors, were trying to restrict intellectual freedom rights, especially targeting libraries and schools. Conflicts between policies based on the exercise of cultural hegemony by experts, and those based on a desire to incorporate a more radical collective approach, were also evident in the history of the Door-Kewaunee Project.
Researchers have frequently pointed to gender as an important dimension for understanding who used (and uses) public libraries, but have suggested few explanations for the lack of adult male support. The voices raised via the local newspapers in the debate over the Door-Kewaunee demonstration may provide some clues. Gender is also an important element in understanding who put the demonstration together and how. A group of imaginative and energetic women carried out most of the work, but it is the reports of the male directors that have endured. Yet another element in the story is McCarthyism. Commission correspondence indicates that from the Secretary down, officials were constantly glancing over their shoulder. Fending off accusations of being soft on communism, they engaged in public and private strategizing as they fought battles on multiple fronts. Finally, a more thorough examination of both the book and patron records should eventually fill in some of the missing pieces in the "who read what" puzzle. And the major single drawback to studying a project that took place only fifty years ago--that crucial records are protected by privacy considerations--may turn into an advantage after all. Many of those children who swarmed eagerly onto the bookmobiles in the early 1950s are probably still alive; some may be prepared--even eager still--to share their memories. I hope that an oral history project will get off the ground in the next few months.