The American Library Association, 'Bibliotherapy' and the First World War

This chapter examines how the American Library Association’s Library War Service developed and promoted the nascent practice of bibliotherapy during and shortly after the First World War. Drawing on reports and promotional materials from the ALA archives, it complicates the prevalent idea that bibliotherapy was ‘born’ during the conflict. It demonstrates not only that a belief in curative reading predated the war, but also that this notion did not gain serious traction with ALA librarians until 1919. This chapter also provides a more complete account of the emergence of bibliotherapy in American military hospitals by examining the ideological context in which it developed. Crucially, it argues that bibliotherapy was never central to the agenda of the Library War Service. Rather, the ALA’s work during the First World War, in both camps and hospital libraries, was shaped primarily by its political, moral and educational imperatives. Bibliotherapeutic approaches emerged within this context and were frequently intertwined with it. The history of bibliotherapy during the First World War therefore illuminates broader political, intellectual and cultural currents which characterised the Progressive Era in the United States, including attitudes to work, citizenship and national identity.