e generally not likely to be allowed access to such public libraries as did exist.
The earliest public libraries were established in urban centers and major cities such as Boston and New York by philanthropists (like Andrew Carnegie) and educators whose goal it was to provide access to reading materials to the middle and lower classes in America. Though many of these libraries were based on the principle that equal rights would be secured only on the basis of intelligence and virtue, the vast majority of public libraries served a predominantly Caucasian clientele throughout the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century.
During the Civil War and throughout Reconstruction, public libraries made little or no effort to serve African-Americans. Where libraries existed in rural areas of the American South, they were segregated institutions governed by Jim Crow laws. Graham has stated that "it was the efforts of Black activists rather than librarians acting on their ethical impulses that ended library segregation. Librarians were constrained by local racial customs, Jim Crow laws, and, often, by their own racial attitudes."
The ALA, in 1889, first confronted the question of segregation as it was preparing for a conference in Atlanta. It was then proposed that a session on the library's role in the education of African-Americans should be included in the conference. Then ALA president William Coolidge Lane was not particularly enthusiastic about such a topic and this ALA conference did not address the issue of African-American education or the relationship of this minority group to public libraries.
Because of Jim Crow laws and segregation, most libraries denied Southern African-Americans library services in the early decades of the twentieth century. Though immigrant children in urban areas were encouraged to use public libraries, African-American children were educated separately and were not permitte...