The Awakening of the Social Conscience: Jane Maud Campbell, 1869-1947

Jane Maud Campbell’s career demonstrated her commitment and passion for library services with immigrants and minorities as one of the first advocates for multiculturalism in librarianship. She began her career working in the Newark Public Library and soon was employed as the librarian of the Passaic Public Library. She was the first woman employed by a state library commission to serve the needs of immigrants in Massachusetts. A prolific writer and champion of immigrants’ rights within the American Library Association, she served for a brief time on the ALA Committee on Work with the Foreign Born in its initial years. She spent the later years of her career as a public librarian in Lynchburg, Virginia, during a period of segregation in the South. She worked around the edges of the law to make library service available to the African American community of Lynchburg.