“The Spirit of the Builder”: The Library Career of Julia Carson Stockett

The personal history of Julia Carson Stockett contributes to and interweaves with the larger story of American women professional librarians in the early twentieth century. Stockett’s experiences illuminate the achievements made by professional women in support and encouragement of one another. Throughout her career, Stockett sustained a commitment to her professional status and responsibilities and her vision of librarianship. The diversity of libraries and populations she served, notably in the West and Midwest, mark her work as exceptional. At the heart of her vocational choices were her facility for organization and her desire to bring books and reading to those lacking access. An examination of her correspondence, her published articles, contemporary newspaper accounts, and other sources expands the historical scholarship on the central and diverse roles of early professional women librarians as they carried forward the work of developing libraries and shaping a profession.