Fanny Goldstein (librarian)

{{Short description|American librarian, bibliographer and editor}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Fanny Goldstein

|image = Fanny_Goldstein_(1895-1961).jpg

|image_upright = 0.65

|birth_name =

|birth_date = {{birth date |1895|5|15}}

|birth_place = Kamenets-Podolsk, Russian Empire (now Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine)

|death_date = {{death date and age |1961|12|26 |1895|5|15}}

|death_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

|resting_place=

|other_names =

|known_for = Founding Jewish Book Week

|occupation = Librarian

|nationality = American

|spouse =

|children =

|alma_mater =

}}

Fanny Goldstein (1895–1961) was an American librarian, bibliographer, and editor who founded Jewish Book Week. As head of the West End branch of the Boston Public Library (BPL), she was the first Jew to direct a public library branch in Massachusetts. During her tenure Goldstein made a point of recognizing the literature of the various ethnic communities of Boston, and curated a unique collection of Judaica. She also published literary articles and bibliographies and gave lectures on Jewish literature. After retiring in 1958 she became the literary editor of the Jewish Advocate.

Early life and education

Goldstein was born on May 15, 1895,Some sources give her birth year as 1888. in Kamenets-Podolsk, Russia, to Philip and Bella Spillberg Goldstein. She moved to the United States with her family in 1900, settling in the North End of Boston, where she attended the Hancock Grammar School.{{cite web|last=Smith|first=Ellen|website=Jewish Women's Archive|title=Fanny Goldstein|url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/goldstein-fanny|date=27 February 2009|access-date=9 August 2024}} As a child she dreamed of becoming a doctor. Her father died when she was 13, however, and Fanny was forced to leave school to help support her mother and four siblings.{{cite encyclopedia|last=Kingsolver|first=Joy|encyclopedia=American National Biography|title=Goldstein, Fanny (1888-1961), librarian and bibliographer |year=2000 |doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0900897 |isbn=978-0-19-860669-7}}{{cite journal |last=Larson |first=Kate Clifford |author-link=Kate Larson (historian) |title=The Saturday Evening Girls: A Progressive Era Library Club and the Intellectual Life of Working Class and Immigrant Girls in Turn-of-the-Century Boston |journal=The Library Quarterly |volume=71 |issue=2 |date=April 2001 |pages=195–230 |location=Chicago |publisher=University of Chicago Press |doi=10.1086/603261 |jstor=4309506|s2cid=141250519 }}

Around that time she joined the Saturday Evening Girls club, a reading group for young immigrant women in the North End. From 1912 to 1917 Goldstein served as editor-in-chief of the S. E. G. News, the club's newspaper. Through the club's founder, librarian Edith Guerrier, Goldstein became an assistant at the North End Branch of the BPL in 1913.{{cite journal |last1=Norden |first1=Margaret Kanof |title=Fanny Goldstein (1888-1961) |journal=American Jewish Historical Quarterly |volume=52 |issue=1 |date=September 1962 |pages=68–73 |jstor=23874352}} While working at the library she took several classes at Simmons College, Boston University, and Harvard University.

Career

Goldstein became librarian of the Tyler Street reading room in 1919. The branch served an extremely diverse immigrant population and provided reading material in several languages as well as citizenship coaching and recreational activities.{{cite web |last1=Mehta |first1=Aditi |website=CoLab Radio |title=Boston's Missing Chinatown Branch Library |date=16 November 2022 |url=http://colabradio.mit.edu/bostons-missing-chinatown-branch-library/}}

In 1922 she was appointed head of the West End branch of the BPL, the largest branch in the city. She was the first Jew to direct a branch library in Massachusetts.{{cite thesis|last=Glick |first=Silvia P. |title=With All Due Modesty: The Selected Letters of Fanny Goldstein|institution=Boston University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences|year=2018|degree=PhD|hdl=2144/33238|url=https://open.bu.edu/handle/2144/33238|access-date=9 August 2024}} At the time, the West End was populated by many different immigrant groups as well as African Americans. Goldstein set up book displays and exhibitions relevant to various groups to encourage people to learn about their own and other cultures. In 1925 she started Jewish Book Week; the idea was adopted by Jewish communities across the country and led to the formation of the Jewish Book Council, which named her honorary president for life. As a believer in "the common heritage of man," she organized annual Christmas-Hanukkah parties at which both holidays were celebrated.

Over the years, Goldstein compiled the state's second-largest collection of Judaica (the largest belonging to Harvard University); in 1954 she was named curator of Judaica for the BPL. She published articles in journals such as the Jewish Criterion and lectured widely on Jewish literature, library administration, and inter-ethnic understanding, making a lecture tour of the Midwestern United States in 1936.

Her friends included "judges, priests, ministers, rabbis, Nobel Prize winners, scientists, business and professional leaders." Among the many young people Goldstein helped and encouraged were authors Charles Angoff and Reba Paeff Mirsky. Her correspondents included Mary Antin, Isaac Asimov, Alice Stone Blackwell, Felix Frankfurter, Molly Picon, Ellery Sedgwick, Friderike Zweig, and others. Civil rights activist George W. Forbes was her co-worker at the library in the 1920s.{{cite journal |last1=Goldstein |first1=Fanny |title=A Loss to the Library Cause |journal=Libraries: A Monthly Review of Library Matters and Methods |date=May 1927 |url=http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/pageturn/mums312-b175-i673/#page/1/mode/1up}}

Goldstein was a member of the American Library Association, the Massachusetts Library Association, the Boston Business and Professional Group, and the Boston Public Library Professional Association. In 1957 she received a citation of honor from the Jewish Book Council. Upon her retirement in 1958 the library trustees awarded her the title of Branch Librarian Emeritus. She later served as literary editor of the Jewish Advocate, an English-language newspaper for Boston's Jewish community.

Death and legacy

After a year-long illness, Goldstein died at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Forest Hills, Boston, on December 26, 1961.{{cite news |newspaper=The Boston Globe |date=December 26, 1961 |title=Fanny Goldstein: West End Branch Librarian Aided Many |page=27 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/433731156/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=subscription }} The Fanny Goldstein Merit Award of the Association of Jewish Libraries is named for her.{{cite web |website=Association of Jewish Libraries |title=Fanny Goldstein Merit Award |url=https://jewishlibraries.org/Fanny_Goldstein_Merit_Award}} She is remembered on the North End Walk of the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.{{cite book |last1=Kaufman |first1=Polly Welts |display-authors=etal |title=Boston Women's Heritage Trail: Seven Self-guided Walking Tours Through Four Centuries of Boston Women's History |publisher=Applewood Books |date=2006 |isbn=9781933212401 |chapter=N12: Paul Revere Pottery and Library Clubhouse |page=[https://archive.org/details/bostonwomensheri00poll/page/30 30] |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KcCMtprTrv4C&pg=PA30 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/bostonwomensheri00poll/page/30 }}

Fanny Goldstein (librarian)

Early life and education

Career

Death and legacy

Notes

References

Further reading