The Role of Libraries in the American Turner Organizations

Much of the library literature pertaining to early American library development ignores or minimizes library development and support for libraries within ethnic groups. The records of such groups are often not in English, frequently handwritten, and not generally accessible. The archives of the AmerIcan Turners and some of its local Turner groups provide a unique opportunity to study primary materials related to an influential and large German-American organization. A close examination of the role of Libraries in the American Turners provided an important case study for the role of libraries and reading in ethnic groups during a period of major immigration to the United States, 1850 to 1918.

Minutes, library catalogs and remnants of collections of Turner organizations were examined, as well as statistical records of the national federation. Comparisons of holdings were made among Turner libraries and against the German-language collections of several major public libraries to ascertain the uniqueness of materials. The establishment of individual American Turner libraries were dependent on many factors such as the early formation of a Turner group, the interaction of the German-speaking community with other groups in a specific locality, and the availability of German-language reading materials from other sources. The Turner-held titles reflected more radical authors than those offered by the public resources. In their early years, the Turner libraries functioned for the German-American community similar to public libraries. As the Turners became more conservative, and the public libraries developed their German-language holdings, the need to maintain separate collections diminished. American Turner libraries did play a unique role in the life of one segment of nineteenth German-American society until that group's role itself altered. This case study, when added to those of other ethnic groups, will form a revised national composite of early American library development.