#community activists
This post was written by Polly Thistlethwaite, Chief Librarian, The Graduate Center, City University of New York. The photo above, taken by Liz Snyder in 2013, shows BC Sellen and Polly Thistlethwaite in New Orleans.
Betty-Carol “BC” Sellen was born 1934 in Seattle, WA. She is a librarian and a collector of American folk and outsider art and author of several resource books on the subject. She attended the University of Washington for both her Bachelor’s (1956) and Master’s (1959) degrees, and she earned a second Master’s from New York University in 1974. She held positions of increasing responsibility in the profession, starting at the Brooklyn Public Library (1959-60), then with the University of Washington Law Library (1960-63), and finally at the City University of New York Brooklyn College Library from 1964 until her retirement in 1990 as Associate Librarian for Public Services. She resides in Santa Fe, NM, and also spends time in New Orleans, LA.
As a library school student at the University of Washington, Sellen engaged with student government to pressure the university to concern itself with housing for students of color, with particular focus on students from Africa who struggled to find places to live. A media campaign called attention to discriminatory city housing practices and forced the university to support students impacted by them.
Sellen’s librarianship provided a platform for wide-ranging activism, gaining particular notoriety for her work on feminist issues in the profession. Sellen was active in the founding of the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table, a co-founder and 1982-3 chair of the ALA Feminist Task Force, and chair of the Committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship following that.
With a cohort of librarian feminists, she organized an American Library Association Preconference on the Status of Women in Librarianship sponsored by the Social Responsibilities Round Table Task Force on the Status of Women in 1974 at Douglass College, Rutgers University. In the Introduction to the proceedings from that Preconference [1], Sellen describes initial meetings of the group with the incisive directness characteristic of her commentary:
Most of this first meeting was consumed by men telling the women how to improve themselves, and furthermore that what the profession really needed was more men to improve the image. In spite of these helpful suggestions and the scornful attitude of many male SRRT members, who fancied themselves a part of the macho left, where women’s issues were considered frivolous, the women were able to organize together and to become an active and notable presence at ALA conference meetings.
Sellen further explains her cohort’s librarian-focused strategies to “utilize talents and abilities already present among women librarians and not call up experts or ‘big names’ outside the profession” to build professional self-reliance in a likely long-term struggle against systemic oppression.
The preconference generated tangible results: a national survey about union types and priorities; a feminist librarian directory and support network S.H.A.R.E. (Sisters Have Resources Everywhere); a library education resolution presented to ALA membership directing the Committee on Accreditation to practice nondiscrimination in hiring and promotion of library school members; a statement to ALA regarding the Ford Foundation-funded Council on Library Resources to examine grant awarding and promotion practices; a variety of watchdog efforts directed at library schools, the library press, and professional journals; and the recommendation that a daily ‘sexist pig’ award be reported in the ALA Conference Cognotes publication with accompanying instruction about how to make nominations for it. The conference also generated resolutions presented to the ALA for deliberation during the 1974 Annual Conference Meeting in New York City involving accreditation, child care services, position evaluation, sexist terminology, support for affirmative action, terms of administrative appointment, and women in ALA Council positions.
Sellen was also active in New York City library politics. She was President of the Library Association of the City University of New York (LACUNY) [2] during the tumultuous years of 1969 – 71 and co-chair of the 1968 LACUNY Conference [3] New Directions for the City University Libraries that laid the groundwork for the CUNY union catalog and growth of the productive coalition of CUNY libraries. Sellen’s engagement with library politics around the country introduced varieties of library organization, policies, and political concerns into CUNY library activism.
Sellen was engaged in efforts to obtain and to maintain faculty status for CUNY librarians, to match the salaries, benefits, and prestige afforded other university faculty colleagues, achieved in 1965 [4]. In her role as president of the LACUNY Sellen encouraged librarians to publish in scholarly and literary journals as appropriate platforms for librarians’ work. She wrote Librarian/author: A Practical Guide on How to Get Published (Neal-Schuman, 1985) to further that concern.
Sellen was also a defender of academic freedom. When Zoia Horn, librarian at Bucknell College in Lewisburg, PA, was jailed for refusing to turn over library borrowing records regarding the Berrigan brothers (who were imprisoned for anti-American activities) [5], Sellen organized NYC fundraising to support Ms. Horn’s legal defense. [More from WoLH on Zoia Horn here–ed.]
Sellen valued collaboration and often co-authored her academic and professional work on library salaries, alternative careers, and feminist library matters. She was a prodigious author of letters-to-the-editor of library professional publications. She wrote brief, widely-read letters for American Librarians and Library Journal on topics such as librarian faculty status, the sexist underpinnings of the librarian image problem, intellectual freedom in Cuba, sexism and salary discrimination in the library profession, suppression of gay literary identities, and on unacknowledged incidents of censorship. In 1989 she criticized appointment of Fr. Timothy Healey to head the New York Public Library on the grounds that as a CUNY administrator, prior to his NYPL appointment, Healey had systematically undermined librarians and libraries. Sellen remembered publicly that Healey, in a CUNY meeting she attended, announced that “college librarians were about as deserving of faculty status as were campus elevator operators” [6], exposing a cluster of problematic biases held by a man appointed a leading NYC cultural administrator.
In the 1970s, Sellen convinced several other librarians, including Susan Vaughn, Betty Seifert, Joan Marshall, Kay Castle, to take up residence on E. 7th Street in New York City’s East Village. She resided at 248-252 East 7th St. Sellen joined with a multi-ethnic group of residents to rehab neighborhood buildings and establish them as self-governed cooperatives. Sellen was active in the same block association that battled the drug trade that flourished in the neighborhood as early as the 1970s and continued into the 1990s [7].
In 1990 Sellen received the ALA Equality Award, commending her “outstanding contributions toward promoting equality between men and women in the library profession.” The commendation recognizes her tireless labor and sustained coalition building as a leader in several landmark conferences on sex and racial equality, and her “inspiration to several generations of activist librarians.”
Sellen’s eclectic expertise was reflected in her published works. She assembled and edited The Librarian’s Cookbook (1990). She co-authored The Bottom Line Reader: A Financial Handbook for Librarians(1990);The Collection Building Reader (1992) and What Else You Can Do with a Library Degree(1997).
In her retirement, Sellen became an accomplished collector of American folk art. She authored and co-authored several reference books on the topic, including 20th Century American Folk, Self-Taught, and Outsider Art (1993) and Outsider, Self-taught, and Folk Art: Annotated Bibliography (2002) with Cynthia Johanson; Art Centers: American Studios and Galleries for Artists with Developmental or Mental Disabilities (2008); and Self-taught, Outsider and Folk Art: A Guide to American Artists, Locations, and Resources(2016).
Footnotes
1. Marshall, Joan; Sellen, Betty-Carol (1975). Women in a women’s profession: strategies: proceedings of the pre-conference on the status of women in librarianship. American Library Association.
2. Schuman, Patricia; Sellen, Betty-Carol (1970). Libraries for the 70s. Queens College, City University of New York.
3. Sellen, Betty-Carol; Karkhanis, Sharad (1968). New Directions for the City University of New York: Papers Presented at an Institute. Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York.
4. Drobnicki, John A. (2014). CUNY Librarians and Faculty Status: Past, Present, and Future. Urban Library Journal 20(1).
5. Horn, Zoia. (1995). Zoia! Memoirs of Zoia Horn, Battler for People’s Right to Know. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
6. Sellen, Betty-Carol. (June, 1989). Healy: Unequivocal Dismay. Library Journal, p. 6.
7. Pais, Josh et al. 7th Street. (2005). Video. Paradise Acres Productions.
Today’s post comes from Angie Neely-Sardon, who is the Reference Librarian/Instructor for the Mueller Campus of Indian River State College and former Computer Services Librarian for Bruton Memorial Library in Plant City, FL.
Above: Quintilla Geer Bruton (L) holds the State Library Award for 1963. Image used with permission from Plant City Photo Archives.
Quintilla Geer Bruton was born in 1907 in Walton, Kentucky. She moved to Plant City, FL, with her parents and sister on Thanksgiving Day, 1923. She was the valedictorian at Plant City High School for the Class of 1926. She attended Tampa Business College and Brewster Vocational School, both in Tampa, FL. She married her high school classmate, James D. Bruton, Jr. in 1932. The couple made their home in Plant City where they accomplished much for the community. Quintilla’s pioneering role in creating a public library for Plant City led her to be affectionately known as “The Library Lady.”
Quintilla Geer Bruton’s contributions to libraries, archives, and local history are still felt and appreciated in Plant City, Hillsborough County, and throughout Florida today. Bruton was instrumental in founding the community’s public library. The Plant City Woman’s Club held their meetings in the Miller House in Plant City. From 1927 to 1959, the volunteers gathered books and ran a community library from their meeting space where residents could check out items for a fee. The city government contributed $25 per month beginning in 1940. In 1959, the library space in the Plant City Woman’s Club facility became infested by termites and needed to be destroyed. The Plant City Woman’s Club, and Quintilla Geer Bruton in particular, were not satisfied with the space, collections, and services currently being provided to the residents in lieu of a proper, municipal library. Bruton launched a movement within the community for a government-funded, public library. In response, the city commission held an election to determine if the residents of Plant City supported a new tax to fund the creation of a municipal library. The residents voted to tax themselves in exchange for a public library, those in favor winning nearly 75% of the votes with 551 votes for and 190 votes against.
The Plant City Woman’s Club meeting site was torn down after 2,000 volumes were retained for the new library space. The Plant City Public Library was built on the same site and opened in 1960. Bruton was the 1961 winner of the annual Outstanding City of Plant City Award. The Plant City Public Library flourished. During only its third year in existence, the Library won the award for Florida’s Most Outstanding Public Library from the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award.
Quintilla Geer Bruton made a great contribution to the history of the Plant City area. She co-wrote the book “Plant City: Its Origin and History” with David E. Bailey. The book, published in 1985, details the history of Plant City through to 1976. Bruton was passionate about local history and preservation. She volunteered with the Daughters of the American Revolution, the East Hillsborough Historical Society, and the Community Archives Center, the latter of which is now named in her honor.
Quintilla Geer Bruton died on January 4, 1989. The Plant City Public Library was renamed the Quintilla Geer Bruton Library from 1990-1994. Her husband continued her work after her death and donated funds to support the library. In 1994, the library was renamed the Bruton Memorial Library to honor both Quintilla Geer Bruton and her husband, Judge James D. Bruton, Jr.
Jessamyn West suggested that we repost the Wikipedia article about Jewell Mazique, which she (mostly) wrote. She adds, “Ms. Mazique was notable for her activism regarding racism, labor history and international cooperation. She was also photographed as part of the Office of War Information’s attempt to show Americans how their way of life was “worth fighting for” and there are many photographs taken of her when she was a clerk at the Library of Congress in the 40s.” The photos, which are in the public domain, include images of Mazique at work, speaking at church, giving blood, reading, and spending time with her family.
Jewell R. Mazique (2 October 1913 - 18 September 2007) was an activist who helped found the Capital Transit campaign with United Federal Workers to integrate Washington D.C.’s bus operators.[2] [3] Mazique wrote extensively for The Washington Afro-American newspaper on topics such as the United Nations position on African Nations, and how black children were being educated in DC schools.[4] She served on the National Council for the Southern Negro Youth Congress in 1945, a group claimed to be a Communist front organization. [5]
She was the subject of a U.S. Government Office Of War Information documentary photo series in 1942 while she was a clerk at the Library of Congress.[6] The photos, taken by John Collier, were supposedly depicting a day in the life of a typical black Washingtonian but critics argued the photos were “less picturesque and less a credit to freedom’s national seat” than a typical day of an average black woman in Washington D.C. [7]
Mazique graduated from Spelman College and received a Masters in African Studies from Howard University where she wrote her thesis on the development of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. [8] [4] Mazique argued her own acrimonious divorce case despite the court’s requests to take legal counsel. She kept her children, but lost her case for personal financial support.[9]
Personal life
Mazique was married to Edward Craig Mazique in 1937, separated in 1961, and divorced in 1965.[10] [11] They had two sons, Edward and Jeffrey.[2] Edward was the first black child to attend kindergarten at the Sidwell Friends School in 1956. As a direct result, Senator James Eastland, an anti-integrationist from Mississippi, withdrew his son from the school. [4]:49
Jewell Mazique preferred to be involved with social causes more than having a social life, stating in an interview, “The frills of social life hold no charms for me, I am more concerned for instance with what the political leaders of Paris decided to do about their colonial possessions than what the Paris designers decide about what women will wear. [4]
Divorce
Mazique decided that her marriage to Edward could not continue although she did waver in her decision. Eventually Edward started divorce proceedings on the grounds of desertion. Mazique hired a number of lawyers before she decided that she could do a better job herself. The divorce was very public and at one point Jewell’s friends appeared with placards outside the Park Sheraton Hotel in Washington in support of her divorce case. The location was chosen as Marguerite Belafonte had a fashion show there and she was seeing Edward Mazique. One placard read "Let not justice be rationed to Jewell R. Mazique in the Domestic Relations Court”. Jewell’s friend wrote to the newspapers and they formed a committee to support her.[12] The case was settled in her husband’s favour and it was noted that Jewell had argued her own case despite the court’s advice. She argued, unsuccessfully, that she had worked to put her husband through medical school and that the court had ignored their expensive home.[10] Jewell appealed the case and particularly the finances arguing that the court was biased toward men. She lost the appeal in 1965. Mazique kept her children and Edward agreed to pay maintenance, but she lost her case for personal financial support. The court ruled that her case was a fabrication.[9] Both of her sons went on to be physicians.[12]
References
