Ruth W. Brown

Ruth Winifred Brown (1891 - 1975) was a progressive librarian who fought for intellectual freedom and championed civil rights in her hometown of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Ruth brown was born in Hiawatha, Kansas, on July 26, 1891. She attended high school in California and then moved to Oklahoma where she graduated from Northwestern State Normal School in 1910. In 1915 she graduated from the University of Oklahoma. In November 1919 she was hired as the librarian in the Bartlesville Public Library, a Carnegie library which opened in 1913. She held this post until she was relieved of her duties in 1950 on the baseless accusation that she was a communist when, in fact, she was fired because of her desegregation activities.^[1] Brown helped established the Committee on the Practice of Democracy in Bartlesville in 1946. This was the first CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) group south of the Mason–Dixon line. Miss Brown is nationally recognized as the first librarian to receive assistance from the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the American Library Association.^[2][3]

The original Bartlesville Public Library which was built with a Carnegie library grant.Bartlesville Library: Miss Brown

Personal life

Brown was born in Hiawatha, Kansas, in 1891 to Silas and Jennie Brown, two New England transplants. She lived with her parents and brother Merrit in Kansas until the family moved to California where Brown went to high school. She graduated from Northwestern State Normal School in 1910. In 1915 she graduated from the University of Oklahoma. Brown taught in Eufala and Nowata but chose not to continue in the profession. Instead she wanted to move back home to be closer to her parents, especially her mother who was confined to a wheelchair. In 1919 she was hired as the Bartlesville Public Library librarian. Although Brown never married she did attempt to adopt two sisters who were orphaned. The welfare agency was unwilling to place them with Brown who was unmarried. The eldest, Mildred "Holly" Holiday ran away from her abusive foster parents when she was eighteen and went back to live with Brown. Holly's sister Ellen then ran away to live with Brown who was finally able to adopt the youngest girl.^[1]

Professional Life

In 1919, Brown became the director of the Bartlesville Public Library, a position she held until her dismissal in 1950. In 1920, Brown was elected secretary of the Oklahoma Library Association and then served as treasurer in 1926. In 1931 she was elected its president. Brown was a library advocate during the Depression and provided useful materials for the unemployed men in the community as well as their families. She also documented how her materials were used, sometimes in great detail. For example, in 1931, she reported that the library’s collection of 20,062 volumes had been used 13.19 times by every person in her service area. She was also a fervent believer in the principle of “equity of access” with her commitment to racial equality in the use of the public library.^[1]

Library Controversy

The battle between the American Legion and librarian Ruth W. Brown over materials in the Bartlesville Public Library (BPL) revealed the racial tensions in 1950s Oklahoma and the use of McCarthyist tactics to counter the forces of integration. Brown resigned from her job at the BPL following allegations of subversive Communist activity threatening the "American way of life" as it was put by one of her antagonists, the postmaster and library board chairman E. R. Christopher. Bartlesville's elite resorted to censorship and suppression to silence the proponents of racial justice and equality and rid the library of supposedly subversive material. McCarthyism was an effective means to ensure the preservation of Bartlesville's conservative power structure.^[2]

Depiction in Media

The events in Columbia Picture's 1956 movie Storm Center were largely fictional, but the character played by Bette Davis was based on Ruth Brown and her struggle with the county commission over communist literature.^[4]

References

1. 1 2 3 Robbins, L.S.(2000). The dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press.
2. 1 2 Robbins, L. S. (1996). Racism and censorship in Cold War Oklahoma: the case of Ruth W. Brown and the Bartlesville Public Library. Southwestern Historical Quarterly, (1), 18.
3. ↑ See also Bartlesville Library: Miss Brown
4. ↑ American Library Association (N.D.). Storm Center. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/tools/storm-center