In the Archives: the 1853 Conference

Mr. George Burwell Utley, (ALA Secretary 1911-1920; ALA President 1922-23), was concerned that professional librarians were not aware of their history. Thus, he became central in collecting and writing what is known about the 1853 Conference today. He wrote both the book on the 1853 Convention and he arranged for the personal papers of Charles B. Norton and S. Hastings Grant to be deposited at the ALA. In his posthumously published book, The Librarians’ Conference of 1853, the author states his motivation for writing this non-ALA conference’s history:

This first convention began a new era in American librarianship and the effects and impetus had not been entirely dissipated when librarians met in Philadelphia in 1876, nearly a quarter century later, and formed the permanent organization, the American Library Association. But the influence exerted by the 1853 meeting was so indirect that succeeding generations of librarians have been more or less unaware and unconscious of it. References to it are to be found scattered through the library literature of the thirty or forty years following the event, but over the past fifty years mention of it has been rare; and doubtless many of the forty-odd thousand men and women now engaged in library work know little or nothing about that first gathering of their craft on those September days in 1853.

Mr. Utley’s early librarian experiences may have been formative on his interest in preserving the early history of the profession. During his first library position at the Maryland Diocesan library, Mr. Utley regularly wrote about local collections which included incunabula, local history, and theology. Later, as the second Secretary of the ALA, from 1911 until 1920, Mr. Utley again wrote and spoke about the history and role of the ALA in librarianship. Extant drafts of his ALA speeches begin with histories of either the ALA or the library profession.

Today, via Mr. Utley’s research and role as ALA President, the ALA acquired S. Hastings Grant’s correspondence and scrapbook for the 1853 Convention from Mr. Grant’s children. The ALA Archives acquired these papers at the time of its opening in 1973. The scrapbook includes the Call for a Conference, Conference correspondence, an invitation for a Conference reception, contemporary newspaper conference reviews, and a copy of the 1853 New York State Laws Chapter 395 (regarding an Act for the formation of library companies).

Record Series 91/1/21, “Charles B. Norton and S. Hasting Grant Papers, 1850-1866, 1884, 1915” contain correspondence and statistical forms concerning periodical subscriptions, gifts of the Literary Register, library statistics and information, and arrangements for and proceedings of the 1853 Librarians’ Convention.

 

The 1876 Conference