Apostles of Culture: The Public Librarian and American Society, 1876-1920

In her Foreword, Christine Pawley sums up the importance of Dee Garrison s book as follows: Nearly a quarter-century has passed since the first edition of Apostles of Culture appeared. Since no book-length study of the formation of the American public library has yet challenged Dee Garrison s 1979 analysis, it remains the most recent---and most-cited--- interpretation of the public library s past, a landmark in the history, and the historiography, of libraries and librarianship...For students and researchers who want to understand the development of a field that still suffers the status of the taken-for-granted, Apostles of Culture stands as a historical document. Its reissue allows its historiographical and political---as well as its historical---significance to be more fully appreciated.