“Do I Need Blue Stockings To Attend?”
The Provincial Training School for Librarians 1911-1927

At

Amazing Stories @ Your Library
OLA Super conference
February 3-5, 2005

	Today we will examine a snapshot of training for librarians, we will focus on the years 1911-1927, the time the Provincial Training School for Librarians operated in Toronto.  It was a time when librarianship was considered a woman’s profession.  In many ways it was a close cousin to the “other” women’s professions of nursing, social work and teaching.  In fact the Government of Ontario, through the Department of Education chose to model their library training on the normal schools that educated teachers at the same time.
	Librarianship was a socially acceptable “career” for women, it closely mirrored the domestic sphere, there were elements of care giving and care taking, work with children and the work itself took place in a nice, comfortable environment.  Most women who entered the field at the time - and those who sought training found work in public libraries.
	Librarianship offered the opportunity to continue an education, to study and to learn.  Applicants to the Provincial Training School had to have a minimum education - many had a year or two of university - soon a degree was common.
	Librarianship offered the opportunity to live the life of the mind in a socially acceptable way without being labelled a Blue Stocking.
	The term Blue Stocking originated in the 18th Century to identify men who wore blue worsted instead of black silk stockings to meetings of intellectuals.  These gatherings included women.  Soon the “Blue Stockings” identified a sisterhood of bright, educated women.  It became a label - a pejorative term in the 19th Century as more and more women demanded and received entry into institutions of higher learning.  A Blue Stocking was considered to be too focused on study, on education - to prefer books to men - perhaps even to be unmarriagable!  A threat to the patriarchal society.
	According to Marjorie Theobald, an educational historian...”the stereotype of the Blue Stocking comes to life most vividly in 19th Century cartoons which depicted the learned woman as plain, boyish in physique - angular, flat-chested and hairy! And of course poorly groomed.
	The Blue Stocking was the woman who appropriated what had been considered masculine knowledge in pursuit of self-esteem, intellectual authority and the potential for economic autonomy and competence in the public sphere.
	The labelling of knowledge seeking women grew to a concern about “race suicide”.  Doctor, politicians and others began to fear that educated women would choose not to marry, would choose not to bear children.  Statistics were trotted out to claim that university educated women - that women in careers were remaining single.  By the 1920’s this fear led many to continue to question the value of educating women.
	The irony for many many women who chose to enter the field of  librarianship was that marriage and this career could not be reconciled.  Married women were not permitted at the Provincial Training School, they were not welcome as employees in most libraries.  Librarians who did marry usually had only 2 choices - keep it secret or quit.  Librarianship in the eyes of employers and the Department of Education which offered formal training was for the young to enter.  Applicants over 30 were highly discouraged.
	The Provincial Training School offered an opportunity to enter a learned profession - one that required broad knowledge, often facility in more than one language, technical abilities and a love of reading.  The school had high expectations of the abilities of its students and as we shall see demanded a great deal of intelligence from applicants.
	For the first time in the summer of 1911 a short course for training Librarians was offered in Toronto by the Department of Education.  The establishment of this course was regarded as highly progressive in Ontario.  It demonstrated the success of the OLA's success in lobbying government on the need for professional training.  In its first years, students at the school were, in the main, already employed in library work, predominantly in public libraries.  Applicants to the school generally had practical experience and often a significant amount of formal education.  Senior matriculation was the minimum requirement.
	From 1911 until 1917 the school ran for one month during the summer.  In 1915 no course was held due to the war and administrative changes in the Inspector of Public Libraries office.  In 1917 and 1918 the course was two months long.  From 1919 until the close of the 1927 session, the library school ran for three months in the fall.  Comments were generally positive about the school but students and staff of the school all felt that the course was too short.
	Instruction began in literature, cataloguing, classification, reference work, book selection, bookbinding, children's work, story hour and technical and administrative methods.  With such an exhaustive list clearly a four week program could only scratch the surface.  Students did have practical experience to fall back on.  Individuals new to library work would have found this program staggering in the material and amount of work required.
	Thirty-one students attended the first course and twenty-three completed it.  Students dropped out of this and subsequent courses for a number of reasons.  Some students could only leave their place of employment for part of the time required, others became ill or had family commitments.  Students were graded A, B or C on their practical work and the demonstration of knowledge gained.  The government covered all costs, including stationary and travelling expenses - for those who successfully completed the course.
	Most of the students who attended the Provincial Training School from 1911 until 1927 were women.  Out of four hundred and sixty students in 16 years only six were men.  Thirty percent of the students were university graduates.  
	The Inspector of Public Libraries and instructors in the school struggled to balance practical and theoretical instruction.  Guest lecturers who were prominent in the library field were brought in to augment the sessions.  Each session some changes were made to content and structure to increase the professional nature of the course.  In 1912 a final exam was instituted, certificates were awarded starting in 1914 and in 1921 an entrance exam was added.  The introduction of certificates for successful students was an important step in government recognition of the professional nature of the work.  According to academics who study the professions credentialling is a significant benchmark in acceptance of professional status. The Inspectors of Public Libraries hoped that eventually all librarians in the Province would have formal training and that the certificates would lead to higher wages for those working in the field.
	Changes also occurred in procedures.  The registration forms and requirements for admission were frequently tinkered with.  The school became increasingly interested in each prospective student's educational background and library experience.
	By 1919 the Inspector of Public Libraries, W.O. Carson was successful in lobbying his superiors for a three month course.  Classes and practical work were held at the Toronto Public Library.  With the course lengthened social events became a factor.  TPL staff members entertained students with teas and luncheons.  Students were receiving an occupation specific education, making career contacts and developing a sense of themselves as professionals.  The school went well beyond instructing students in the basics of library work to foster a professional attitude toward their training and their work in the libraries of the province.  With the new three month course a new type of student began to apply.  Librarians from colleges, universities and government wanted to attend.
	This session also marked an addition to the registration form.  Two new questions were asked.  "Are you free from serious organic affections and from defects in hearing and sight?" and "Are you in every way physically able for the work of a librarian?"  The school, like libraries wanted participants who would enter or re-enter the library as healthy employees.  What this meant in an era in which society continually questioned the delicate physical nature of women and women's ability to function in the workplace, was that women needed to demonstrate that they were up to the work in a library.  Women in delicate health need not apply.  There was a clear difference between urban and rural and ideal and reality at a time when women were running farms and had been pressed into other types of war work.
	Passage of a new Public Libraries Act in 1920 changed the legal status of the library school.  Until this Act the school was designed for librarians and assistants in Ontario.  Those from other provinces or countries were not encouraged to attend.  The school was also designated for those who had or expected to have paid employment in a library.  The 1920 legislation gave Library Boards a larger grant in the expectation that each would use the additional money to hire trained librarians.  In fact the 1920 legislation was foreshadowing a time when trained and certificated librarians would be a prerequisite for employment in the province's public libraries.  As a result of this new Library Act potential students could now apply to the Provincial Training School without previous library experience.  The school would serve as an educational means of entering the field.  This instantly created a larger pool of applicants to the school and an enlargement in the pool of those able to staff the growing number of libraries.  Because of this willingness to relax requirements and let more people pass through the gates, or, perhaps, because government
was responding to large numbers of applicants who wanted to work in public libraries as trained professionals but did not have significant work experience, education for librarianship became part of the school's mandate.
	For the 1921 session all applicants without a university degree or senior matriculation sat an entrance exam on history, literature and current events.  The 1922 session brought yet another step toward higher professional standards for librarians.  All candidates for the school who did not have a university degree were required to pass an entrance exam.  The examination included questions covering history, literature, current events and an essay question to test the applicant's level of writing ability.  The 1922 course followed the form of previous sessions with forty percent of the course devoted to lectures and sixty percent to practical work.
	In the announcement for the 1923 session of the library school yet another new entrance requirement was introduced.  Students were advised to familiarize themselves with if not become competent in the use of a typewriter.  The ability to use a typewriter proved to be a double edged sword for women in the paid workforce.  Although in the early 1920's the technology of the typewriter increased the number of employment opportunities for women, unfortunately, it also tended to "ghettoize" women into the pink-collar workforce.  This, in turn reduced opportunities for management positions.  In libraries however, typewriters were understood as an increasingly necessary tool in the day-to-day operations of the library and typing was a skill that librarians were thought to need whatever their place on the library ladder.
	The 1923 session also saw the introduction of a new application form with several new questions needed to assess the applicant's aptitude for librarianship.  The Department of Education also continued to ask applicants about their general health and defects in sight or hearing.  Applicants were also questioned about their age, and past thirty was unacceptable.  Of course most applicants to the school were women in their early twenties or younger who had completed high school or university and were looking for professional training.  The questions were also designed to sort out those who might be seeking a long term career and those who only sought a temporary stop on the way to marriage.  The Ontario Library Review in February 1924 held a strong caution, "persons over thirty-five are advised against taking the work.  Local libraries have their own rules as to the age-limit at which they accept candidates.  In the majority of cases this is thirty."  If the Department of Education would not blatantly use age as a reason to exclude any candidate the message was clear.  Older applicants were unlikely to find a library job.  It was just as well if those over thirty recognized that point and left the field and spaces at the library school to younger applicants.  Perhaps one reason for setting thirty as an age limit was to discourage married women, particularly with children from attempting to enter the field or perhaps because there would have been few employment opportunities.  This may have been an accepted norm and perhaps no different from teaching or nursing.
	The 1925 session continued to build on the previous years' successes, but the Inspector now saw the school as a compromise.  He wanted a professional one or two year program along the lines of those common in the United States.  For the time being, the three month course, a balance between brief elementary training and a full academic year or more of professional training would have to do.  As the Ontario Library Review advised, "librarians and assistants with little or no professional training are advised to attend the school for the purpose of acquiring the elementary qualifications that every librarian and assistant should desire."  This publication and the Department of Education also began to refer to the school's instructors and special lecturers as regular staff.  In 1926 and 1927 the school continued on the pattern previously established.  But the school was coming to the end of its usefulness.  The Inspector was actively discussing a new educational order with members of the OLA, George Locke at the Toronto Public Library and the University of Toronto.
	In looking back over the courses and special lectures given at the Library School from 1911 until 1927 one can conclude that students received a solid but elementary education.  They were given experience in practical library matters and exposure to important library issues.  The school ran smoothly with a core group of regular instructors and special lecturers, augmented each session by lectures from visiting library leaders in the United States and Canada.  The program which expanded into a three month course worked very well but was gradually recognized as a temporary compromise between a short course and a full academic year.