Locke’s outlook in library work was guided by his Methodist upbringing, his association with John Dewey’s contribution to American progressive education, and the Anglo-Canadian academic tradition of British Idealism in the late nineteenth century. These religious and intellectual strands encouraged personal action to seek solutions to improve social conditions. As director of Toronto’s library system, he brought his ambitious ideas to bear in many ways most notably the building of neighbourhood branches, library service for children and young adults, formal education for librarians, and the idea of the public library as a municipal partner in the lifelong self-education of Canadians. By the end of the 1920s, Toronto’s public library system was recognized as one of the best in North America and George Locke’s reputation as a progressive leader had vaulted him to the Presidency of the American Library Association in 1926-27.
Although he had created a large organization that might have succumbed to bureaucratic practices and formalized centralization, he remained faithful to his moral, intellectual, and humanistic values acquired during his schooling and university career. For Locke, libraries and librarianship served the public interest by delivering lifelong knowledge and by guiding individual self-development through experiential learning and transcendent ideals. He promoted adult learning in the early part of the twentieth century when adult education became a field of study in North America.
Many services Locke introduced at Toronto Public Library and national projects he undertook influenced Canadian developments in library work. After the Carnegie Corporation of New York agreed to fund a study of the conditions of Canadian libraries, Locke, along with Mary J. L. Black (Fort William) and John Ridington (University of British Columbia), became commissioners in a national inquiry that was conducted at the onset of the Great Depression. Their 1933 publication, Libraries in Canada: A Study of Library Conditions and Needs, was the first in-depth report on Canadian libraries in the 20th century. Because his impact extended well beyond Toronto, the Canadian government erected a bronze plaque in his honour in 1948 in the town of his birth, Beamsville, Ontario. It reads:
Born at Beamsville and educated at Victoria College and the University of Toronto, Locke taught at Toronto, Chicago and Harvard Universities and was Dean of Education at Chicago and at MacDonald College before becoming Chief Librarian of the Toronto Public Libraries. In that position, he transformed a small institution into one of the most respected library systems on the continent. Sometime President of the American Library Association, one of the founders of the Arts & Letters Club, he was a gifted speaker and the author of books and articles on literary, historical and professional themes. He died in Toronto.
Today, the George H. Locke Memorial Branch, the first major library building in Canada constructed after the Second World War in 1949, continues to be a testament to his career and his faith in the idea of the public library as a necessary educational service to society.
George Locke's family upbringing and academic years in Toronto, Chicago, and Boston shaped many of his ideas that he applied to libraries and librarianship. Read about these viewpoints in my illustrated book, “George H. Locke and the Transformation of Toronto Public Library, 1908-1937” available at the Internet Archive of books. Requires Adobe Acrobat PDF software.
A review of Libraries in Canada is at my earlier post.
