Lutie Eugenia Stearns--Intrepid Woman

Quite by accident I tripped over this lady and was immediately intrigued. No, unlike my other Intrepid Women, she didn’t save people from death or become the first at something on the national level. She didn’t travel around the world or risk her life. Or unravel and right a social wrong. Oh, she did speak out on issues, but that’s not what makes her my most recent Intrepid Woman.

Lutie Euegenia Stearns enriched peoples’ brains. She’s been called the Johnny Appleseed of books. She built community pride and a common goal of creating free and numerous public libraries. She envisioned traveling libraries before there were book mobiles.

I would posit her actions were as important and influential, albeit in a different realm, as those of other women I’ve spotlighted in this blog.

You may have heard of another literacy initiative, pack horse librarians, who brought a horse version of the bookmobile to the residents of the hills of Kentucky from 1935-1943. I’ve wondered if they knew of and were inspired by Lutie’s actions in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Born in 1866 in Stoughton, Massachusetts, Lutie’s family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin when she was five years old. She became a teacher at age 20 in the Milwaukee Public Schools. Lutie became known for her innovative gathering of books for her students to supplement the meager school district offerings.

Through her efforts, she came to the attention of Milwaukee Public Library System and took over from the head of that institution, Minnie Oakley, when she died. Some of my sources indicate she helped found that institution in 1891.

Despite her stuttering condition, Lutie became a speaker on women’s rights issues, the League of Nations, industrial reform, peace, education, and providing free libraries for all. She wrote a newspaper column titled, “As a Woman Sees It” from 1932-1935 as she continued focusing on issues.

One of her ideas, not implemented in Wisconsin but later picked up in Maryland, was traveling libraries on wagons. Here’s what The Machinists’ Monthly Journal (July, 1904) reported:

"These crazy Socialists in Wisconsin are going too far. A book wagon, the first public library on wheels to be sent out in the United States, is contemplated in a plan just completed by the Wisconsin Free Library Commission. It will invade the State next October. As the wagon passes through the counties the farmers will be invited to select their winter's reading. There will be books for the old and young, and each family will be allowed to make as large a selection as is desired. The following Spring the wagon will make another trip through the same territory to gather up the books and return them to the central library."

Why the opposition? Who knows?

From 1895 to 1914, Luties worked tirelessly with the Wisconsin Free Library Commission to provide books in 1500 locations in Wisconsin through a different kind of traveling library. A town would agree to provide space, and book boxes to fill the shelves would be delivered and then swapped out for new ones.

She helped organize a cooperative library serving 30 counties and helped in the creation of 150 permanent buildings for local libraries.

Here is a map of Wisconsin showing her impact.

In 1951, she was included in a “Library Hall of Fame”, and in 2008 (why so long?) she was inducted into the Wisconsin Library Hall of Fame.

Lutie died on Christmas Day in 1943, but she left the state of Wisconsin much richer for her presence. And her ideas spread to other states affecting them as well.

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