whatilearned
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvil_Dewey
TIL that the library career of the creator of the Dewey Decimal system, Melvil Dewey ended in disgrace, because of his groping of female librarians. Dewey also insisted on seeing photographs of the women before he would hire them, to determine if they were attractive or not.
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The most interesting thing about this isn’t that Dewey was a pervert. It was that he was such a pervert that he was kicked out of the club.
You have to think of the librarian association back then as more akin to police unions, than anything else.
They had an immense amount of power (this was a time when Andrew Carnegie who knocked Rockefeller from the richest spot at times, was making public libraries into his personal legacy).
I feel like you had to go pretty fucking off-road to get MeTooed in 1905.
Binders Full of Women you might say.
Old timey smart man who had bad attitude around women. Colour me shocked.
Also, the System itself is bigoted, with issues like “homosexuality” listed between “Sex trafficking” and “BDSM”, and African Poetry listed in ‘Colonialism”
https://www.careharder.com/blog/systemic-injustice-in-the-dewey-decimal-system
They’re about to cancel the Dewey Decimal.
Nowadays, if he’d been groping guys instead, he’d have some defense…. Oh well.