Alice S Tyler

Personal life

Tyler was born in Decatur, Illinois, to John W. and Sarah Roney Tyler and was a descendent of President James Monroe and John Tyler. She never married and shared an apartment with her friend and colleague Bessie Sargeant-Smith until her death in 1944.

Career

Alice S. Tyler graduated from the Armour Institute of Technology (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) in Chicago in 1894. In 1895 she became the first library school graduate on staff at the Cleveland Public Library, where she worked as head of the Catalog Division. From 1900-1913 she served as secretary of the Iowa State Library Commission where she improved existing libraries and established new ones. According to Stuart (2013), “Under Tyler’s leadership, public libraries in Iowa flourished as she oversaw the education of librarians, the expansion of the traveling library system, and the increase of libraries from 41 to 113"(p. 91). She started a summer school at the Iowa State University and served as director from 1901-1912. In reflecting on Tyler’s period in Iowa, Stuart (2013) maintains that “Alice S. Tyler’s thirteen-year tenure in Iowa left a state that had a stronger, more fully developed library system, with more trained librarians, more libraries, and more library buildings. The new library buildings, the vast majority of which were funded by Carnegie grants, were the most visible aspect of the state’s library growth. The documentation indicates that as secretary of the ILC, Tyler did not specifically support or promote that funding. Instead, it is evident that Tyler quickly believed that the Carnegie-funded buildings represented two potential liabilities for Iowa’s communities: the buildings were often designed with poor functionality, and Carnegie’s stipulation of 10 percent support meant that the libraries were essentially underfunded for further growth and development. As it was never politically expedient for Tyler to criticize the potential of Carnegie funding, she attempted in her various writings to mitigate these potentially negative consequences. Unfortunately, her writings also reveal how little influence she had, as Iowa’s communities ultimately received the fourth highest number of Carnegie-funded buildings in the country. Ironically, the development of Iowa’s libraries occurred despite Tyler’s unrelieved misgivings regarding the benefits of Carnegie’s largesse” (p. 106).” From 1913-1929 she served as Director of the School of Library Science at Western Reserve University. She became the third woman President of the American Library Association in 1920-1921. From 1925-1929 she served as Dean of the School of Library Science at Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University). Tyler was appointed Dean Emeritus after her retirement from the University on 13 June 1929.

Publications

Other accomplishments

Additional readings

AALS: The Lost Years 1925-1928 by Donald G. Davis, Jr. and Florence R. Curtis

American Librarianship: Some Women by William J. Hamilton