"A Rale Boost to Lithrachoor": A Humorist Lampoons Libraries

Abstract: The founders of the great libraries of the 19th century were often ambivalent about whether their goal was to disseminate or conserve knowledge. They were also uncertain about the intended audience. John Cotton Dana of the Newark Public Library was atypical in his populist stance that "it is a proper function of a library to amuse." He argued that a "shallow mind" was better than an "empty one." Other librarians preferred to see themselves as cultivators of public taste and their buildings as uplifting houses of culture. The stuffiness and remoteness of late nineteenth-century libraries provoked satires such as this imaginary dialogue between a bartender (Mr. Dooley) and customer (Mr. Hennessy) in an Irish pub. Humorist Peter Finley Dunne published the piece in Dissertations by Mr. Dooley in 1906. Dunne's famous dialogues drew upon prevalent ethnic stereotypes that were a staple of late nineteenth-century humor. Dunne set his exchanges in an Irish bar, but other humorists of this era drew on German, Jewish, and black caricatures.

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