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Asa Don Dickinson (May 15, 1876-November 14, 1960)[1] was an American librarian, author, and editor.
Early life and education
[edit]Dickinson was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Asa DeZeng and Harriet Hyde Dickinson. He studied at the Brooklyn Latin School and then Columbia Law School beginning in 1894, but left after two years due to illness. After recuperation and travel in Europe, he became a chicken farmer in Westwood, New Jersey.[1]
After reading about Andrew Carnegie's library building program, he decided to become a librarian. He prepared for the entrance exam into the New York State Library School by compiling lists of critically acclaimed literature, which prompted a "lifetime bibliographic hobby" that was the basis for some of his later books. Dickinson attended the school for the 1902-1903 academic year.[1]
Brooklyn Public Library
[edit]Following his graduation in 1903, he worked at the Brooklyn Public Library. While there, he set up a library for the blind and chaired the American Library Association's Committee on Service to the Blind.[1]
In 1905, while at the Brooklyn Public Library, he was involved in a case of censorship directed at the books Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Dickinson was the dissenter at a meeting of children's librarians who wished to remove the novels from the children's collection. According to Dickinson, "The good ladies assured me in effect that Huck was a deceitful boy; that he not only itched but scratched; and that he said sweat when he should have said perspiration." They agreed to temporarily postpone the decision and Dickinson took the time to write Twain about the matter. Twain wrote back:[2][3][4]
21 Fifth Ave.
Nov. 21, 1905.Dear Sir:
I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn for adults exclusively, and it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean; I know this by my own experience, and to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave. Ask that young lady - she will tell you so.
Most honestly do I wish I could say a softening word or two in defence of Huck's character, since you wish it, but really in my opinion it is no better than those of Solomon, David, Satan, and the rest of the sacred brotherhood.
If there is an Unexpurgated in the Children's Department, won't you please help that young woman remove Tom & Huck from that questionable companionship?
Sincerely yours-
S.L. Clemens.I shall not show your letter to any one - it is safe with me.[3]
Dickinson read Twain's letter at a second meeting, though the librarians did not relent and the novels were removed from the children's shelves, they were placed on shelves that both children and adults could access. Both Twain and Dickinson kept the letters confidential, even after reporters learned of the controversy four months later and the Library was excoriated in the press for "literary prudery." Twain biographer Albert Bigelow Paine published excerpts from the letters in 1924, and the contents were released to the public by Dickinson in 1935.[2][3][4]
Following Brooklyn, he was librarian at Union College in Schenectady, New York from 1906 to 1907, at the Leavenworth Public Library in Leavenworth, Kansas from 1907 to 1909, and at Washington State College in Pullman, Washington from 1909 to 1912.[1]
Doubleday
[edit]In 1912, his friend Russell Doubleday recruited him to join Doubleday, Page & Company as an editor. He held that position until 1918 and continued to work on projects for the publishing company afterwards. He edited numerous popular works of history and biography, anthologies such as Children's Book of Thanksgiving Stories (1916) and Children's Book of Patriotic Stories (1917) with his wife Helen, and the short story collection Waifs and Strays (1917) by O. Henry. One unsuccessful project was the College Presidents' Library, a series in the mode of the Harvard Classics. It was never published, but the list compiled for the project became the genesis for Dickinson's book One Thousand Best Books (1924). He would go on to publish four other books in the series: Best Books of Our Time, 1901-1925 (1928), Best Books of the Decade, 1926-1935 (1937), Best Books of the Decade, 1936-1945 (1948), and The World's Best Books: Homer to Hemingway; 3000 books of 3000 years, 1050 B.C. to 1950 A.D. (1953). He was also managing editor of the 10 volume Doubleday Encyclopedia (1930).[1][5][6]
University of the Punjab
[edit]
From 1915 to 1916, Dickinson took a leave from Doubleday to [1]
ALA War service 1918
University of Pennsylvania
[edit]
In 1919, Dickinson returned to librarianship and became the fourth person and the first person trained as a librarian to head the University of Pennsylvania Library.[6] During Dickinson's tenure he presided over two important additions to the library. The most important was the 1925 bequest of the personal research library of historian Henry Charles Lea, which included over 7000 volumes. The gift also included the room containing the library and the furnishings. Lea's library was reconstructed in a new wing built onto the University of Pennsylvania Library building, which is now the Fisher Fine Arts Library.[7] In 1927, the Lippincott Library of the Wharton School of Business was founded, thanks to a bequest from Joanna Wharton Lippincott, daughter of Joseph Wharton, founder of the Wharton School, and wife of Joshua Bertram Lippincott, chair of J. B. Lippincott & Co..[8] Both the Lippincott Library and the Lea Library are currently housed within the Van Pelt Library.
Brooklyn College
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In 1931, Dickinson became librarian of Brooklyn College, an institution formed the year before from the merger of the Brooklyn branches of two different schools. While the library started with a collection numbering in the hundreds, in 1937 a new building designed by Dickinson opened with a capacity of 88,000 volumes. By his retirement in 1944, the collection numbered 90,000 volumes and circulation was at 600,000 volumes annually.[1][6]
Dickinson retired to Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, where he compiled the last two volumes of his Best Books series. He died there at the age of 84.[1]
Personal life
[edit]Dickinson married Helen Winslow in Brooklyn in 1908. The couple had three children: Asa, Elizabeth, and Helen. Asa Dickinson (1909-1977) became a notable architect in Pennsylvania.[9]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i Gambee, Budd L. (1978). "Asa Don Dickinson". In Wynar, Bohdan S. (ed.). Dictionary of American Library Biography. Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited. pp. 134–5. ISBN 0872871800.
- ^ a b Dickinson, Asa Don (1935). "Huckleberry Finn is Fifty Years Old - Yes; But is He Respectable?". Wilson Bulletin for Librarians. 10: 180–85.
- ^ a b c Mark Twain (5 October 2013). Griffin, Benjamin and Smith, Harriet (ed.). Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2: The Complete and Authoritative Edition. University of California Press. pp. 29–33. ISBN 978-0-520-95651-3.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) - ^ a b "New Mark Twain Letters Reveal He Poked Fun at Huck Finn Ban". New York Times. 2 Nov. 1935. p. 17.
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Asa D. Dickinson, a Librarian, 84: Ex-U. of P. and Brooklyn College Aide Dies - Author of 'World's Best Books'". New York Times. 15 Nov 1960. p. 39.
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ^ a b c "Asa Don Dickinson". College & Research Libraries. 5 (4): 357–367. 1944.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Mosher, Paul H. (January 2001). "University of Pennsylvania Libraries". In David H. Stam (ed.). International Dictionary of Library Histories. Vol. 1. Taylor & Francis. p. 886. ISBN 978-1-57958-244-9.
- ^ Lightwood, Martha B. (1984). "Resources in Banking and Finance in the Lippincott Library of the Wharton School University of Pennsylvania". Special Collections. 2 (3): 73–85. doi:10.1300/J300v02n03_09.
- ^ "Dickinson, Asa (1909 - 1977)". Philadelphia Architects and Buildings. The Athenaeum of Philadelphia. Retrieved 9 June 2014.