In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, book culture was at the very center of developing urban life in New York City. Debates abounded about the dangers of reading, as fears about shifting ideas about gender, class and race were mapped onto a battle over books. Anthony Comstock, head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, sought to root out the “illicit” literature from society and boasted about burning tons of books over his career. As “illicit literature” included books with unconventional female protagonists and information about women’s reproductive health, some early forms of feminist work became implicitly anti-censorship. The New York Public Library was founded in this era of fierce debates over literature, and librarians infused a myriad of missions into the foundation of this New York City institution. Certain elite women saw the expansion of literature as a “civilizing mission” for incoming immigrant populations; the city’s first Black libraries saw the NYPL as an opportunity to create a space and resource center for Black voices and art. Libraries, as spaces that preserve information and ensure its open access have historically become institutions that advocate for the freedom to read whilst actively battling censorship. Overall, tensions around gender, race, class, and national identity all played out in debates over print culture. The pioneering women who became librarians in this period, from Belle da Costa Greene at the Morgan Library to NYPL librarians like Regina Andrews, were central, if sometimes historically overlooked, voices in this era.

As debates over literature and reading have once again become sites of broader cultural debates, New York City institutions have been exploring the ways that book culture shaped New York. This roundtable will feature scholars from the New York Public Library, New York Historical, and the Center for Brooklyn History who have worked on recent or upcoming exhibitions, programming, and research pertaining to book culture and New York City. The roundtable speakers will engage with the insights of their respective projects and work and consider their methodologies and findings as public historians.