American bookwomen in Paris during the 1920s.

Using the lens of gender, this essay examines the lives and collective contributions of American women who participated in the book world of Paris during the 1920s. The focus is on the American Library in Paris, which inherited the American Library Association (ALA) Library War Service reference collection and the Paris Library School operated by ALA from 1923 to 1929. Working in each of these settings, women found innovative ways to make American books and print culture more widely known in France.

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"Not bad at all, the life of a librarian in Paris!" (1) This blithe assessment was offered by the authors of a 1929 guidebook entitled Paris Is a Woman's Town. Librarians and booksellers were part of a small but enthusiastic group of expatriates who promoted the dissemination of American books and print culture in Paris during the twenties. Most studies of this fascinating decade focus on writers and small presses that were able to enjoy greater freedom of expression in France at a time when works with overtly sexual content were banned in the United States and Britain.

However, Americans who participated in the book world of Paris were much more diverse than the bohemian circle of writers who lived on the Left Bank and frequented Sylvia Beach's English-language bookshop, Shakespeare & Company. In fact, the book world in Paris can be thought of as a number of overlapping circles whose members included philanthropists and librarians as well as readers, writers, editors, translators, journalists, reviewers, booksellers, small presses, and mainstream publishers. American women were involved in almost all these roles, but in most cases their work was invisible if not silent. They were often intermediaries between readers and books, mediators between two cultures, and facilitators of professional and literary exchange.

The Right Bank: The American Library in Paris

One scholar writing about Paris during the 1920s characterized the literary geography of the city as being divided by the Seine: "The Left Bank, aristocratic and rustic, studious and bohemian,... was the elected domain of poets and writers with a small audience.... It was contrasted then, more than today, to the Right Bank, seat of elegance and of pleasure, of luxury and of success literature." (2) The Right Bank was also home to many of the wealthy, established members of the American Colony, and at the end of World War I it became the site of the largest collection of American books ever assembled on the continent.

By the time of the armistice the Library War Service of the American Library Association (ALA), whose mission was to provide reading for U.S. troops, had shipped more than 1.3 million books for the use of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. (3) This massive operation was directed by Burton Stevenson, a librarian and novelist from Chillicothe, Ohio, who was in charge of the ALA Library War Service work in Europe. After the fighting ended books from the American camps in Europe were shipped to a warehouse, but three copies of each significant book were sent to a central reference library in Paris. When this collection was opened to the public, it quickly began to attract the interest of Americans living in Paris.

After talking with American business leaders and representatives of local organizations, Burton Stevenson found strong interest in keeping the library in the city. At that time American residents in Paris were different from most other immigrant groups because they were generally well off, had above average educational attainment, and did not come seeking work. (4) Although certain avant-garde writers and artists thought of themselves as exiles from a more repressive society in the United States, they were not political refugees and generally did not become assimilated into the French population; in fact, most Americans, rich, poor, or middle class, kept their nationality, their language, and their passports. Even Gertrude Stein, who lived in France most of her adult life, declared, in her inimitable fashion, that her country was America, but Paris was her home.

Nicole Fouche, a French historian, notes that expatriates from the United States had a long history establishing "an American civil society" that was "highly organized and sufficiently oriented toward the future to create its churches, its banks, its hospital, its clubs, its business offices, its associations, its lobbies, its networks.... It is a city within a city." (5) American women also created their own organizations, and in the late 1920s the most important were the American University Woman's Club, with 450 members, and the American Women's Club, whose 1,200 members organized many social activities such as lectures, dances, and Tuesday teas. (6) Women tourists could also join in some of these activities, and a 1929 travel guide for women noted that Paris contained "an American Village of some 10,000 inhabitants ... [where] it is possible to find the comforts, sociability and protection of any Middle Western town." (7)

The exact number of Americans resident in France during the 1920s is not known, but once the ALA reference library was opened to the public this very diverse expatriate community made use of its service, soon claiming it as their surrogate public library. However, Burton Stevenson declared that ALA had no obligation whatsoever to present these residents with a library; in fact, he strongly felt that "every library should be supported by the community which it serves." (8) After several preliminary committee meetings Stevenson called a public gathering in November 1919 to discuss the future of the library and test the level of local financial support. Among the first donors was Charles Seeger, father of the poet Alan Seeger, who had died in action. After Seeger donated 50,000 francs from the royalties of his son's poetry, many others came forward with large and small donations.

As a result of this fundraising effort, the American Library in Paris became incorporated as a private, nonprofit corporation under the laws of the state of Delaware on 20 May 1920. Under the leadership of Seeger and Stevenson the Paris organizing committee decided that the library would have three goals: "(1) to memorialize the American Expeditionary Force, (2) to promote understanding and knowledge of America, and (3) to provide an example of American Library methods to the librarians of Europe." (9) ALA leaders, who were eager to promote American librarianship abroad, expressed the hope that the library would become "an ALA outpost in Europe" as well as serving as "a first class public library" that provided "a free, expert information service for statesmen, publicists, journalists and general readers…