Post Labor, LSA Legislation and an Amazing Librarian -Elizabeth Myer

Roots of the LSA: Elizabeth Myer, Rhode Island State Librarian and John E. Fogerty, the Congressman who began his political career as president of the Bricklayers and Masons, Local 1, Rhode Island.

Myer is credited in James Healey's volume,  John E. Fogarty: Political Leadership for Library Development(pp.78-81) as playing a crucial role in Fogarty’s library interest. Healey quotes John Humphry,

“I have little doubt but what he [Fogarty] was greatly impressed with the pioneer work that Betty Myer did in reaching people through bookmobile and other local outlets; her active and aggressive public relations programs; and her ability to relate effectively to legislators, government officials, librarians and the people who benefitted from library services…”(p. 81).

Elizabeth Gallup Myer died at 81 July 8, 1993. It was noted in American Libraries that she became the first woman to serve in Rhode Island’s governor’s cabinet during her 1964-1975 tenure as director of the Rhode Island Department of State Library Services.
Source: American Libraries v. 24 (October 1993) p. 872
Subject(s): Myer, Elizabeth Gallup, d. 1993

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Additional background on the Library Services Act.

Fry, James W. “LSCA and LSCA, 1956-1973: A Legislative History,” Library Trends 24 (July 1975): 7-26.

Healey, James S. John E. Fogarty: Political Leadership for Library Development, Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974.

Lipscomb, C. E. Lister Hill and his influence. Journal of the Medical Library Association v. 90 no. 1 (January 2002),p. 109-10.

McCook, Kathleen de la Pena, Introduction to Public Librarianship. New York, Neal-Schuman, pp. 65-70.

Molz, Redmond Kathleen. Federal Policy and Library Support.
MIT Press, Cambridge, 1976.

Raber, Douglas. “Ideological Opposition to Federal Library Legislation: The Case of the Library Services Act of 1956.” Public Libraries (May/June 1995): 162-169.