When the Public Feared That Library Books Could Spread Deadly Diseases

“The great book scare” created a panic that you could catch an infection just by lending from the library

The “great book scare” rose from a combination of new theories about infection and a distaste for the concept of public libraries themselves. Many Americans and Britons feared the library because it provided easy access to what they saw as obscene or subversive books, argues Mann. And while fears of disease were distinct from fears of seditious content, “opponents of the public library system” helped stoke the fires of the book scare, Greenberg writes.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/during-great-book-scare-people-worried-contaminated-books-could-spread-disease-180972967/#39lOfVwGKo6Hd4wX.99
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