Man's Right to Knowledge: libraries and Columbia University's 1954 Cold War bicentennial.

ABSTRACT

Celebrating its 200th anniversary in 1954, Columbia University organized bicentennial symposia, publications, and ritual observances around the theme "Man's Right to Knowledge and the Free Use Thereof." While not part of the original bicentennial plan, libraries became emblematic of its message. As librarians strengthened their commitment to intellectual freedom, libraries throughout the United States and abroad hosted the Bicentennial Panel Exhibit documenting with quotations and illustrations the worldwide quest for knowledge. Using books, film, recordings, and discussion groups on the bicentennial theme, libraries at the height of the Cold War demonstrated their role in providing free access to information.

INTRODUCTION

Celebrating its bicentennial in 1954, at the height of the Cold War, Columbia University put the role of free information in a free society at the center of its 200th anniversary celebration. Downplaying the usual self-congratulation, Columbia's trustees and its president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, adopted as the bicentennial theme "Man's Right to Knowledge and the Free Use Thereof." Combining institutional observance and media blitz, high culture and Madison Avenue, the year-long program evolved from a campus observance to an international focus on free expression in academic and civic life. Planned during the darkest days of McCarthyism, the bicentennial promoted an ideal of free information starkly at odds with the times. Although not part of the initial vision for the bicentennial, libraries were essential to its success, emblematic of its values, and agents of its message. Through their participation in the bicentennial, librarians affirmed their own commitment to intellectual freedom.

Planning began in 1946 in the immediate postwar period. Following the bicentennials of Princeton and Penn and the tercentenary of Harvard, (1) Columbia sought to put its own mark on the ritual occasion. Its location in New York, world publishing capital and headquarters of the United Nations, gave Columbia its unique identity. Arthur Sulzberger, Columbia graduate and publisher of the New York Times, suggested to his fellow university trustees that Columbia build its bicentennial around a universal theme, "Man's Right to Knowledge and the Free Use Thereof" (Black, 1954). The basic outline of the celebration was sketched by a committee of faculty and alumni (on which neither the university library nor Columbia's School of Library Service was represented). In the bleak aftermath of World War II, the committee preferred a somber, reflective observance to an unabashedly celebratory one. It proposed a full year of events, scholarly convocations that promoted dialogue, the involvement of institutions worldwide, and the use of radio and television to expand the reach of the bicentennial. Like Sulzberger, they favored an overarching idea to connect all the varied activities. Unaware of his suggestion, they proposed the theme "The Education of Free Men in the Service of Man."

Named president of Columbia University in 1947, Dwight D. Eisenhower did not alter this broad outline. On the advice of a committee of trustees, he appointed Arthur Sulzberger to chair the Bicentennial Central Committee and in late 1949 approved the adoption of Sulzberger's original theme, "Man's Right to Knowledge and the Free Use Thereof," thus extending the focus beyond academic freedom. Soon to take leave from Columbia for a NATO assignment in Europe, in May 1950 Eisenhower issued an invitation to 1,080 universities, museums, and libraries around the world to join the observance of Columbia's bicentennial, in whatever way they felt appropriate, and to reaffirm their faith in the freedom of inquiry and expression (Columbia's bicentennial, 1956, p. 6). To dramatize the theme, he asked universities in the Soviet Union and others behind the Iron Curtain to participate.

COLUMBIA ON COMMUNISM

As the Columbia Bicentennial Committee and public relations staff developed the celebration's theme, planned events, and invited speakers, university officials grappled with the possible presence of communists in their academic ranks. Conceived in the early days of the Cold War, the bicentennial theme initially distinguished between freedom in the Western democracies and suppression and thought control in the Soviet Bloc. As the House Un-American Activities Committee investigated subversion at home, the theme took on domestic significance. Columbia officials sought to articulate whether communist professors were entitled to academic freedom. After Eisenhower was elected president of the United States in 1952, Grayson Kirk, his successor at Columbia, made clear that adherence to communist dogma was incompatible with the spirit of inquiry and open-mindedness required by the academic community. At the same time, Kirk believed that universities should protect "the 'honest scholar' whose ideas did not coincide with those dominating public opinion at the moment." (2) Kirk thus assumed the position taken by many universities, defining communists in terms of behavior and attitude that excluded them from the protection of the First Amendment. According to Ellen Schrecker, Columbia's "relatively liberal administration" generally avoided virulent anticommunism, engaging in rather sophisticated subterfuge to rid itself of one left-leaning lecturer and tolerating former communists who were tenured (Schrecker, 1986, pp. 255-58). (3) On February 15, 1953, the same day Columbia formally announced its bicentennial plans, (4) Arthur Sulzberger wrote an article in the New York Times Magazine asking, "Have we the courage to be free?" He stated that he would not knowingly hire communists at the Times, but, in contrast to Senator Joseph McCarthy, would not seek to expose them. (5)

Indeed, the bicentennial celebration reflected a distinctly corporate capitalism. Board member Thomas Watson, president of IBM, had actively recruited Eisenhower for the Columbia presidency. In 1949 Douglas Black, president of Doubleday, Columbia trustee, and publisher of Dwight Eisenhower's bestseller, Crusade in Europe, joined the Bicentennial Central Committee. Frederick E. Hasler, a director of the Chemical Bank and Trust and former president of the New York State Chamber of Commerce, was hired to direct the fundraising associated with the campaign. (6) With businessmen and PR staff aboard and Sulzberger at the helm, the bicentennial ship sailed from the sheltered cove of academia onto the high seas of marketing and mass communication. Named executive director of Columbia's new Office of Development in 1950, Charles Anger, a former advertising agency vice president, brought a Madison Avenue perspective to the bicentennial effort. As he later told Tide, a magazine of sales and advertising trends:

   We had a four-fold job to do as we saw it.... First, we had an idea
   to sell. Second, we had certain vehicles to use. Third, we had
   definite audiences to reach and fourth, we had the standard
   communications media through which to reach them. Then, too,
   as a practical matter, we had four fronts on which to operate:
   the university, the 200,000 living alumni (technically, to the
   University what stockholders are to a business), the world of
   scholarship and finally, the world of public opinion. (7)

Thus the bicentennial wedded the idea of free information to the mechanism of free market capitalism in a campaign to sell "Man's Right to Knowledge."

In keeping with tradition, many bicentennial events involved a limited scholarly audience. Twenty conferences were held on campus, organized by the schools making up the university and leading to a variety of publications by Columbia University Press. During the bicentennial year the press issued a special list of thirty-two volumes, including a history of Columbia's School of Library Service by Professor Ray Trautman (Trautman, 1954). (8) But in order to reach a broader audience, the Bicentennial Central Committee undertook a series of efforts that combined scholarly expertise and mass media. In 1951 William Paley, chairman of the Columbia Broadcasting System, another New York media executive on the Columbia University Board of Trustees, proposed a series of radio lectures on CBS (Columbia's bicentennial, 1956, p. 26). The weekly half-hour talks would feature world-renowned scholars in every field giving their own perspectives on an assigned topic. Recording their lectures in homes or offices around the world, they would bring an international perspective to issues facing mankind. Beginning in January 1954 with Arnold Toynbee speaking on "The Idea of Man: The Ancient Mediterranean View," the series would conclude in December with atomic physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer speaking on "Prospects in the Arts and Sciences."

PANEL EXHIBIT

In February 1950 Richard Logsdon, Columbia's associate university librarian, reported that librarians everywhere were strongly interested in the theme of "Man's Right to Knowledge." He had already begun work on an exhibit of library materials and quotations related to the theme. In December 1951 the Bicentennial Central Committee formally adopted an exhibit as a bicentennial project. An Exhibit Committee including Columbia historians Henry Steele Commager and Allan Nevins gathered additional suggestions from the entire faculty. Quotations and illustrations on the theme of "Man's Right to Knowledge" were chosen from the world's literature, across cultures and centuries, and organized around five subthemes: "The Inclusiveness of Man," "The Value of Knowledge," "The Aspects of Man's Right to Knowledge," "Man's Right to the Free Use of Knowledge," and "The Responsibilities of Knowledge." Contemporary references to totalitarianism, illiteracy, racial segregation, women's rights, low voter participation, compulsory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, and textbook censorship joined a historical cavalcade of controversies.

Built around primary sources, the exhibit reflected Columbia's own Great Books tradition. (9) Panels featuring quotations from Aristotle, Shakespeare, John Milton, Francis Bacon, John Dewey, and Oliver Wendell Holmes were among the many affirmations of intellectual freedom selected. Illustrations ranged from a fifteenth-century drawing of Joan of Arc to a sculpture by Alexander Calder and photographs by Margaret Bourke-White. Libraries were represented by a photograph of Butler Library at Columbia, the text of the American Library Association Library (ALA) Bill of Rights, a letter from David Berninghausen, chair of ALA's Intellectual Freedom Committee during this period, and a table showing how, in 1952, the percentage of the population served by libraries varied from state to state. Using the rotunda of Low Memorial Library as the prototypical site, a professional design firm produced a series of panels measuring 20" x 20" combining themes, texts, and illustrations. These were reproduced in complete sets of 60 panels and smaller sets of 25 panels to be loaned to museums, libraries, and other organizations in the United States and Canada (Columbia's bicentennial, 1956, p. 136). (10)

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

In a paperback guide accompanying the exhibit, Columbia professor and poet Mark Van Doren interpreted the panels' multifaceted understanding of free expression (Van Doren, 1953). Van Doren had had his own brush with anticommunist censors. In 1951 the Jersey city Junior College had removed four of his books from library shelves because of his alleged connection with communist-front organizations. Van Doren responded at a rally sponsored by the Hudson County Chapter of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) where he reported that only the previous week he had received a copy of ALA's Library Bill of Rights. It was, he said, a welcome sign that groups of Americans were taking steps to safeguard the spirit of freedom and the right to criticize (Van Doren, 1951b). (11) He quoted its third paragraph declaring that libraries must challenge censorship as part their responsibility to provide public information and enlightenment through the printed word. In the accompanying text he wrote: "Man's right to the free use of knowledge is a matter which naturally interests librarians, whose function presumably does not include the making of decisions as to what should or should not be available to their readers, although it is their duty to distinguish between well and badly written books, or between accurate and inaccurate ones" (Van Doren, 1953, p. 34).

ALA ON INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

Although the bicentennial logo featured the statue of Columbia's alma mater seated with an open book on her lap, planning was well advanced before libraries joined the observance. When Sulzberger proposed the theme in 1946, he probably did not have libraries in mind. Nevertheless, while Columbia University designed and expanded its bicentennial plan, the American Library Association was elaborating and strengthening its commitment to intellectual freedom. As Louise Robbins has shown, in the late 1930s and 1940s librarians began to recognize their central role as information providers rather than cultural arbiters (Robbins, 1996). In 1939 they had adopted a Library Bill of Rights that only briefly considered censorship but had followed this in 1940 by creating a Committee on Intellectual Freedom to Safeguard the Rights of Library Users to Freedom of Inquiry. As the House Un-American Affairs Committee ramped up its activities, librarians made this committee permanent and changed its name to the Committee on Intellectual Freedom.

In 1948 the ALA adopted a stronger version of the Library Bill of Rights (Robbins, 1996, p. 35). Drafted by Helen Haines, it strengthened the profession's commitment to fighting "censorship by volunteer arbiters of morals or political opinion by organizations that would establish a coercive concept of Americanism" and to joining with other organizations to resist "all abridgment of the free access to ideas and full freedom of expression that are the tradition and heritage of Americans." (12) In the late 1940s the American Library Association undertook a Great Issues program to make available diverse points of view on the central issues of the day. The ALA published booklists on current topics, including civil rights, world government, and U.S.--Russian relations; provided posters and other PR materials; and urged librarians to organize discussion groups and promote the library as a site for civic debate. (13) Despite these measures, however, many librarians still had to be convinced of their professional obligation to safeguard access to information in contrast to their traditional cultural role of selecting the best books and making them available to the most people at the least cost.

As the Cold War intensified, librarians felt the pressure of Truman's federal security program, the imposition of loyalty oaths for government employment, and the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy's toxic patriotism pursuing communists in the State Department and subversive literature in overseas libraries. In 1950 Columbia University Press issued the second edition of Living with Books, the classic work on book selection by Helen Haines who had taught during summer sessions in Columbia's School of Library Service (Haines, 1950; Trautman, 1954, pp. 40-41, 71). (14) In 1952 Oliver Carlson accused Haines of communist leanings for recommending that public libraries collect books on Marxism (Carlson, 1952). The school organized an informal inquiry and found no basis to the charges (Crawford, 1997, pp. 159-60).

FREEDOM TO READ

As the bicentennial year approached the ALA's increasing commitment to intellectual freedom coalesced with growing concerns among publishers about censorship attacks. In particular, both were alarmed by efforts to remove allegedly subversive materials from U.S. government-supported libraries abroad (Robbins, 2001). Thus, in May 1953 Douglas Black, president of the American Book Publishers Council, and Robert Downs, president of the American Library Association, helped draft the Freedom to Read Statement with a group of thirty other publishers and librarians at a conference in Rye, New York (American Library Association, 1954). A powerful manifesto affirming the centrality of free information to the democratic process, the statement was unanimously endorsed by its drafters, led by Luther Evans, Librarian of Congress. Shortly thereafter, Dwight Eisenhower, having supported the bicentennial theme as president of Columbia, now proclaimed its message as president of the United States. Speaking informally at the Dartmouth College commencement in June 1953, he declared, "Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in to your library and read every book as long as any document does not affect our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship. How will we defeat communism unless we know what it is?" (15)

His remarks were widely quoted. Addressing the ALA meeting in Los Angeles later that month, Robert Downs told librarians to take renewed hope and courage from the magnificent defense of books made by President Eisenhower at Dartmouth, then read a letter to the ALA in which Eisenhower reiterated his position. "Our librarians" wrote Eisenhower, "serve the precious liberties of our nation: freedom of inquiry, freedom of the spoken and the written word, freedom of exchange of ideas." Echoing the bicentennial theme, Eisenhower declared that democracy depended on these principles for its very life and criticized those who would deny others the opportunity to study communism in its entirety: "its plausibilities, its falsities, its weaknesses." (16) On June 25, 1953, the American Book Publishers Council and the ALA Council both endorsed the Freedom to Read Statement. (17)

BICENTENNIAL YEAR

Thus, Columbia's plan to spread the message of "Man's Right to Knowledge" to the broadest possible audience coincided with the ALA's strengthening commitment to intellectual freedom. By the start of the bicentennial, libraries had become a symbol of the celebration theme and by hosting the panel exhibit would provide a means to reach an expanded audience. To begin the year, on January 4, 1954, Post Office officials unveiled a new bicentennial stamp featuring Columbia's Low Memorial Library in a ceremony in the library's rotunda. Governor Thomas Dewey of New York, another Columbia man, used the occasion to draw a line between free expression and the communist threat, (18) while the Bicentennial Committee saw the stamp as 110,000,000 little advertisements for Columbia University. Later in the week, alumni of the Columbia School of Library Service, distinguished descendent of Melvil Dewey's School of Library Economy, gathered for its bicentennial celebration dinner to hear Douglas Black speak on the topic "Your Right to Read" (Black, 1954).

On January 1 the panel exhibit began its tour in locations up and down the East Coast and through the Midwest. Notices in library journals had urged librarians interested in hosting the exhibit to contact Richard Powell, Columbia University law professor and director of the bicentennial. (19) Libraries of all sorts had volunteered. The Bicentennial Calendar recorded:

   1954
     January
     1--Bicentennial panel exhibit opens at Amherst College, New York
   City Bar Association, Bates College, Boston Public Library, Chicago
   Public Library, Colgate University, Elizabeth (N.J.) Free Library,
   Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Evansville College, East
   Orange (N.J.) Free Public Library, Iowa State University, Marygrove
   College, Newark Public Library, New York City Board of Education,
   Roosevelt College, Toledo Public Library, Virginia State Library,
   Whitworth College, Worcester (Mass.) Public Library, University of
   Pittsburgh.

Designed to travel, the exhibit was displayed at an array of venues both at home and abroad throughout the year, staying about two weeks in each location before moving to another.

The diversity of institutions, the partnerships involved in each event, and the attendant publicity represented a public relations triumph for both Columbia University and local participants. Columbia had sought active alumni participation in the bicentennial through regional committees in each area of the country. The Bicentennial Committee had approached learned societies and professional organizations, including the American Library Association, about their interest in the exhibit, but many librarians and faculty members had contacted the Bicentennial Office on their own initiative, asking to display the exhibit in public libraries and on campuses. Libraries and civic groups wishing to participate in the bicentennial were put in touch with local alumni who helped raise funds and coordinate and publicize events. To facilitate their work, regional alumni chairs spent two days at Columbia, in fall 1953, and received press kits to facilitate promotional efforts.

For Columbia University, which had subsumed its own celebration in the interests of promoting the theme of "Man's Right to Knowledge," the benefits of the panel exhibit were long term and intangible. For participating libraries, they were immediate and measurable. The exhibit, on a topic crucially important to libraries, came with the authority and cachet of Columbia University. For librarians still new to advocacy for intellectual freedom, it also provided some distance and protection. The exhibit attracted widespread interest, but if it proved controversial, it was Columbia's interpretation, not that of the host library. Libraries with and without the panel exhibit used the bicentennial theme as a backdrop to displays of works from their own collections.

At a time when librarians were seeking support for federal funding of public library service, work on the exhibit helped develop relationships with influential community members and civic organizations. Speaking at the New Haven State Teachers College, ALA executive secretary David Clift expressed the hope "that the attention being called to the services performed by libraries in these ceremonies will lead to increased financial support for libraries" (Clift, 1954; Logsdon, 1954). Librarians often turned to other community groups as co-sponsors of the exhibit, both to enhance local interest and to secure the sheltering protection of strength in numbers. The public library in Greenwich, Connecticut, for example, listed the League of Women Voters, the Council of Churches, the Woman's Club, the Town of Greenwich United Nations Council, the YMCA, the PTA Council, and the College Club as co-sponsors of the exhibit. (20)

The panel exhibit and related events provided multiple opportunities to publicize the library. Drawn from the press kit provided by Columbia, the same basic copy appeared in news stories across the country. Articles in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on March 7 and in the Linden [NJ] Observer on April 1 were nearly identical, announcing the exhibit to be held at the library, outlining the five exhibit themes, describing a typical panel that showed an elderly citizen at a New England Town Meeting, quoting from James Madison, and adding a comment by Richard Powell on behalf of the bicentennial. Local news outlets could also insert information appropriate to their communities. Many articles featured interviews with library directors. Advance publicity varied greatly, however. The Atlanta Public Library seems to have mounted the exhibit with no publicity. (21) The exhibit in Detroit was announced in a barebones paragraph in the Detroit News sandwiched between "Tax Book on Sale" and "New Parking Law." (22) Host libraries may have sought to avoid controversy by letting the exhibit speak for itself.

In contrast, the Greenwich Public Library provided sufficient copy to the Greenwich Time for multiple articles about the exhibit, featured a speech at its opening by Columbia history professor Henry Graft, and showed a new full-length United Nations film presenting "the first overall look at the efforts of the United Nations to better the life of peoples everywhere." (23) Graft, whose remarks were reprinted in the paper, argued that society had retrogressed in terms of freedom since the eighteenth century and concluded that intellectual freedom was necessary to political freedom. A local columnist observed that although Greenwich had not developed a climate of suspicion and hysterical pressures as had other communities, organizations there had experienced pressure to change their views. He concluded, "Both those who operate in this manner and those who yield to it might find some stimulating ideology--pure, democratic, American ideology--in this library exhibit." (24)

The exhibit was displayed in some communities that were grappling with issues highlighted in its panels. An enthusiastic description of the exhibit in the Birmingham, Alabama, Post Herald noted that "One of the panels ... illustrates the principle of 'uniform and equal education' for children and adults." (25) The Milwaukee Journal article observed that "The exhibit was timely--and possibly all the more controversial--because it was set up at a time when the library board itself was striving to develop a workable rule with regard to the freedom of access to books which some persons have attacked as objectionable." (26) In Indiana, where a community had banned Robin Hood for its alleged communist sympathies, the exhibit was shown at the Indiana State Library, the Indianapolis Public Library, and a total of fourteen sites across the state (Logsdon, 1954, p. 1007). (27) In Toledo, Ohio, where the news account noted that the exhibit featured "outstanding book-burning ceremonies of history," the Toledo Blade published a strong editorial on the meaning of the panels (Logsdon, 1954, p. 1006). (28)

Tallying the results, the Bicentennial Committee estimated that 900,000 people had seen the exhibit in more than 400 sites in the United States and Canada and another 700,000 people in nearly 300 places abroad (Columbia's bicentennial, 1956, p. 164). At the Henry E. Huntington Library in San Marino, California, approximately 100,000 people had viewed the panel exhibit and a special display of related items from the library's rare book collection. (29)

Libraries followed the multimedia lead of the Bicentennial Committee and built on their own interest in radio and film discussion groups. In Milwaukee a special episode of "Woman's World" on station WTMJ-TV featured a visual book talk" in which city librarian Richard Krug and a local college president discussed "Books That Have Shaped America." (30) Some libraries used the CBS radio lecture series as the basis for library discussion groups. Others made use of a bicentennial film and record album produced by Columbia's Center for Mass Communication with a $45,000 grant from the Fund for the Republic. Set in a public library, the fourteen-minute film, "Freedom to Read," featured a father who wanted to protect his son by banning books by Voltaire, "an exposed Communist," and John Milton "a well-known fellow traveler." The town librarian, who sought to protect America's heritage of freedom, quoted Eisenhower's statement to the ALA. With the issue placed before the library board, the film concluded by asking, "How can a library best serve our freedom?" (31) The bicentennial album included four Long Playing records with dramatized stories of Socrates, Galileo, abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy, and Gandhi as they fought to overcome ignorance and prejudice. Originally broadcast over NBC radio, and featuring such actors as Frederic March, they were reproduced for use by schools and civic groups with background notes for teachers and discussion leaders. (32)

In their selection of topics, images, and speakers, the bicentennial planners had not shied away from serious issues or controversial speakers. Nor had they overestimated the interest of a broad public in such fare. The choice of atomic physicist Robert Oppenheimer as the final radio lecturer of the year provided a model of the bicentennial message. Since being invited to speak two years earlier, Oppenheimer had become the target of an effort to remove his government security clearance, and over the summer of 1953 he had undergone grueling questioning by a panel of the Atomic Energy Commission. Columbia stuck by him, and his lecture, along with twelve others in the series on "Present Knowledge and New Directions," were subsequently published by Columbia University Press (Man's right, First series, 1954; Man's right, Second series, 1954). (33) The university's official history of the bicentennial notes that "Experienced broadcasters shook their heads; there was no mass audience in America for such erudition" (Columbia's bicentennial, 1956, pp. 40-41). Nonetheless, the first volume of lectures on the theme "Tradition and Change" sold more than 23,000 copies; the radio series itself earned a Peabody Award for broadcast excellence in radio education (Columbia's bicentennial, 1956, p. 166). (34)

The findings of the Public Library Inquiry, also published by Columbia University Press during the years of bicentennial planning, recommended that public libraries serve the nation's communications elite by providing material of long-lasting value on serious and controversial issues (Leigh, 1951, p. 234). (35) Libraries participating in the bicentennial validated this role. But using public relations techniques and multimedia materials provided by the bicentennial, they demonstrated as well that libraries could reach a broader audience on a central issue of the day. If the bicentennial was selling the idea of "Man's Right to Knowledge," then libraries proved to be one of its most effective retailers. As emblem and agent of the bicentennial message, libraries celebrating Columbia's 200th anniversary affirmed their own commitment to intellectual freedom and promoted their own role in a dangerous time, that of providing refuge in which to consider and experience the right to free information.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to acknowledge the support of a grant-in-aid from The Catholic University of America and the research assistance of Freedom Support Act Fellow Sevda Kerimova. Thanks go, as well, to the many librarians who searched their libraries for evidence of participation in the Columbia University Bicentennial.

ARCHIVAL SOURCES

Henry E. Huntington Institutional Archives, Exhibitions, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

REFERENCES

American Library Association and American Book Publishers Council. (1954). The freedom to read. Reprinted in R. B. Downs (Ed.), (1960), The first freedom (pp. 337-339). Chicago: American Library Association.

Black, D. M. (1954). Your right to read. Library Journal, 79(4), 267-268.

Carlson, O. (1952, January 14). A slanted guide to library selections. Freeman, 2, 239-242.

Cliff, D. H. (1954). Enduring rights. Wilson Library Bulletin, 28(10), 851-854, 856.

Columbia's bicentennial: An account of the planning and execution of a world-wide program of observance centering on the theme Man's Right to Knowledge and the Free Use Thereoff (1956). New York: Columbia University Press.

Crawford, H. (1997). Freedom through books: Helen Haines and her role in the library press, library education, and the intellectual freedom movement. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Denby, D. (1996). Great books: My adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and other indestructible writers of the Western world. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Eisenhower, D. D. (1954) Letter on intellectual freedom. In R. B. Downs (Ed.), (1960), The First Freedom (pp. 337-339). Chicago: American Library Association.

Eisenhower, D. D. (1967). At Ease: Stories I tell to friends. New York: Doubleday.

Haines, H. E. (1950). Living with books: The art of book selection. (2nd ed.) New York: Columbia University Press.

Leigh, R. D. (1951). The public library, in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press.

Leigh, R. D. (1954). Our town's mental health: A discussion guide on community problems of free inquiry and expression. New York: Columbia University Office of the Bicentennial.

Library Bill of Rights. (1948). ALA Bulletin, 42(7), 285.

Logsdon, R. H. (1954). Columbia's bicentennial--A rallying point. Library Journal, 79(11), 1006-1009.

McMillan, P.J. (2005). The ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the birth of the modern arms race. New York: Viking.

Man's right to knowledge. First series: Tradition and change. (1954). New York: Columbia University Press.

Man's right to knowledge. Second series: Present knowledge and new directions. (1954). New York: Columbia University Press.

Robbins, L. S. (1996). Censorship and the American library: The American Library Association's response to threats to intellectual freedom, 1939-1969. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Robbins, L. S. (2001). The overseas libraries controversy and the freedom to read: U.S. librarians and publishers confront Joseph McCarthy. Libraries & Culture, 36(1), 27-39.

Schrecker, E. W. (1986). No ivory tower: McCarthyism and the universities. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sulzberger A. S. (1954). Man's right to knowledge and the free use thereof Occasional Paper 61. Honolulu: University of Hawaii.

Trainman, R. (1954). A history of the School of Library Service. New York: Columbia University Press.

Van Doren, M. (1951a). I found myself in a library. Columbia Literary Columns, I, 2-4.

Van Doren, M. (1951b). If anybody wants to know. American Scholar, 20(4), 397.

Van Doren, M. (1953). Man's right to knowledge and the free use thereof New York: Columbia University.

NOTES

(1.) The New York Times covered each of these celebrations. See, for example, "Harvard to Honor World Scholars; Will Confer Degrees on 66 at Climax of Celebration of its 300th Anniversary," New York Times, May 27, 1936, p. 18; "Ben Franklin Hero of 'High as a Kite'; 200th Year of University of Pennsylvania Is Marked by a Frolic about Founder," New York Times, December 15, 1940, p. 58; "Princeton Fete Begins Next Month; 2,500 Scholars and Figures of World Prominence to Help Celebrate 200th Year," New York Times, August 6, 1946, p. 35.

(2.) D. M. Stetson, "Academic Liberty Vital Kirk Warns," New York Times, June 3, 1953, p. 34.

(3.) During 1948 hearings on subversive activities at the University of Washington, one witness accused Eisenhower of harboring communists at Columbia and Sulzberger of being a party member (Schrecker, 1986, p. 96).

(4.) "Announcing the Bicentennial Anniversary of Columbia University in the City of New York 1754-1954," news release, Columbia University News Office, February 9, 1953.

(5.) A. H. Sulzberger, "Have We the Courage to Be Free?" New York Times Magazine, February 15, 1953, pp. 12, 45-46. The subtitle of Sulzberger's article read: "A plea that we not allow the fear of totalitarianism, from the left or from the right, to stifle our freedom of expression." See also his Charter Day address at the University of Hawaii, February 16, 1954 (Sulzberger 1954).

(6.) "Business Leader Heads Columbia Birthday Fund," New York Times, May 15, 1953, p. 21.

(7.) "The Columbia Bicentennial: A New Field for PR Operations," Tide: The Magazine of Sales and Advertising Trends, January 15, 1955; reprint from Columbia University Office of the Bicentennial.

(8.) "32 Bicentennial Books: Columbia Press Will Publish Special List This Year," New York Times, January 4, 1954, p. 16. For a list of titles see Columbia's Bicentennial (1956, pp. 194-96). Trautman's book was dedicated to alumni "who, in their communities throughout the world, bring home to millions the meaning of Columbia's bicentennial theme."

(9.) Introduced in 1919, Columbia's undergraduate core curriculum engaged students in reading and discussing works from the canon of Western literature, philosophy, and political thought. For a contemporary view see D. Denby, "Does Homer Have Legs?" New Yorker, September 6, 1993, pp. 52-57, 60-69, and Denby (1996).

(10.) The U.S. Information Agency paid to have the exhibit mounted for display abroad but did not modify its contents. The exhibit was shown in countries around the world including Argentina, Belgium, Burma, Ceylon, Cuba, Ireland, England, Germany, Guatemala, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Scotland, Spain, and Venezuela.

(11.) For brief accounts of the controversy see "Van Doren Plea Ignored; Author Vainly Asks Hearing on Jersey College's Book Ban," New York Times, January 26, 1951, p. 15; "Author Defends His Work; M. Van Doren Speaks in Jersey city against Ban on His Books," New York Times, February 21, 1951, p. 16. See also, "Mark Van Doren replies to 'Communist' charge," Publisher's Weekly 159, no. 31 (1951): 1129. In May 1951 Van Doren was principal speaker at the first meeting of Friends of Columbia Libraries (Van Doren, 1951a). The books were restored to library shelves in November 1951 ("Van Doren book ban lifted in Jersey City," New York Times, November 17, 1951, p. 15).

(12.) Library Bill of Rights (1948). For a discussion of the role of Helen Haines in the revision of the Library Bill of Rights, see Crawford (1997, pp. 135-39).

(13.) "The great issues: Part 2," Booklist 44, no. 23 (1948): 397-422.

(14.) According to Trautman's (1954) history of the School of Library Service, Haines taught Book Selection at Columbia during the summers from 1937 to 1945, except during the summer of 1943.

(15.) D. D. Eisenhower, "The Texts of Eisenhower Speeches at Dartmouth and Oyster Bay," New York Times, June 15, 1953, p. 10. Eisenhower claimed friendship with all the trustees of Columbia but in his memoir described an especially close relationship with Douglas Black, who had arranged the publication of Crusade in Europe in 1948 (Eisenhower, 1967, pp. 309-12, 329).

(16.) Eisenhower, "The Texts of Eisenhower Speeches"; A. Leviero, "Book Burners Are Assailed by President at Dartmouth; He Asks Courage to End Bias," New York Times, June 15, 1953, pp. 1, 10.

(17.) G. Hill, "Librarians Hit Book Purge; U.S. Bans 300 Titles Abroad. State Department Scored--Publishers Council Joins in Manifesto," New York Times, June 26, 1953, pp. 1, 8.

(18.) W. R. Conklin, "Columbia Hailed on Its 200th Year," New York Times, January 5, 1954, pp. 1, 20. A front-page photo shows Dewey holding a sheet of Bicentennial postage stamps.

(19.) "Bicentennial of Columbia University," Between Librarians 20 (Winter, 1953-54): 20.

(20.) "Exhibit on 'Man's Right to Knowledge' Opens at Greenwich Library on Feb. 15.," Greenwich Time, February 11, 1954.

(21.) William Montgomery, Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library, to the author, March 30, 2000.

(22.) "Columbia U. Exhibit," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 10, 1954; "Columbia Exhibit at City Library," Linden [NJ] Observer, April 1, 1954, p. 4; "Town Talk and Brevities," Detroit News, January 21, 1954, p. 47.

(23.) "Library to Show Panels Prepared by Columbia Univ.," Greenwich Time, January 28, 1954; "Dr. Graft Explains Political Freedom Is Result of Free Access to Knowledge," Greenwich Time, February 19, 1954; "Library to Show UNESCO's Feature Film on Thursday," undated clipping in the collection of the Greenwich Public Library.

(24.) B. Yudain, "Right to Knowledge," Greenwich Time, February 17, 1954.

(25.) "'Road Show' on Exhibit at Library," Birmingham Post Herald, May 14, 1954.

(26.) "'Right to Know' Exhibit Stirs up Deep Interest: Library Display on Columbia University Theme Speaks out on a Timely Issue," Milwaukee Journal, April 30, 1954, p. 12.

(27.) The Bicentennial Calendar provided dates of exhibit locations throughout the year. Columbia's bicentennial (1956, pp. 169-93).

(28.) "'Man's Right to Knowledge' Is Theme of Library Display," Toledo Blade, January 2, 1954, p. 7.

(29.) James L. Malfetti, Assistant Director of the Bicentennial, to Dr. French Fogle, April 25, 1955, Henry E. Huntington Institutional Archives, Exhibitions/Columbia Bicentennial Exhibit-"Man's Right to Knowledge" 22.2.1.1.20.

(30.) "The Library at Large," Milwaukee Reader: News of the Milwaukee Public Library System, March 12, 1954, p. 2

(31.) "Columbia Gets Funds for Freedom Theme," New York Times, September 17, 1953, p. 83; "Columbia Points up Issue of Book Banning in Film Short Entitled 'Freedom to Read,'" New York Times, May 19, 1954, p. 34.

(32.) J. Briggs, "University Release: Dramatizations Express Columbia Bicentennial, New York Times, September 26, 1954, p. X10. Briggs criticized the way in which southerners were portrayed in the drama of Elijah Lovejoy, one of the few critical words on the bicentennial to appear in the Times.

(33.) R. Oppenheimer, "Text of Oppenheimer Lecture Ending the Columbia Bicentenary," New York Times, December 27, 1954, p. 10; "Oppenheimer Sets Path for Mankind; Winding up Columbia Hete, He Asks World Strugglers to 'Love one another,'" New York Times, December 27, 1954, pp. 1, 10. For a recent study of the attack on Oppeuheimer, see McMillan (2005).

(34.) "Peabody Awards listed by [University of] Georgia; Radio and Television Shows and Performers Cited for Meritorious Service," New York Times, April 11, 1955, p. 34.

(35.) Robert D. Leigh (1954), who oversaw the Public Library Inquiry, authored one of the bicentennial discussion guides.

Jean L. Preer is associate professor at the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science-Indianapolis. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she earned her M.L.S. degree at the University of California-Berkeley. Dr. Preer completed a law degree and a Ph.D. in American civilization at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Before .joining the Indiana University faculty in 2002, she taught at the library school at The Catholic University of America where she also served as associate dean. Her articles have appeared in various publications including Libraries & Culture, Special Libraries, American Libraries, and Prologue, the Journal of the National Archives. In 2004-2005, she served as chair of the American Library Association Library History Round Table. She is the recipient of the 2005 Indiana University Trustees Teaching Award and the 2006 ALISE award for excellence in library and information science education.