September, 2021
Lincoln — Enough, Vermont librarians. Enough!
Librarians in Vermont have removed the name of author Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879-1958) from an eponymous book award. Why? She may have held eugenicist views, they say.
Not that there is much, if any, evidence for it. She did write some Vermont promotional materials about the state's proud Yankee stock. The promotional organization for which she wrote was led by a person who was once in another organization that....you get the picture. She did write a few lines over a long career that depicted flaws in a Native American character and in a French Canadian character. But readers of her works in their entirety understand that Fisher was all about tolerance and equality.
Even her defenders in Vermont, who weakly say she should be judged by the standards of her day, should actually read what she wrote. If anything, Dorothy Canfield Fisher was well ahead of her time.
No one who reads "An American Citizen," about a Black American who is finally treated with dignity when he moves to a Basque village in Europe, can say that Fisher is some kind of eugenicist.
No one who reads "Through Pity and Terror," about an upper-class woman who looks down on lower class children and won't let her own children play with them, but then loses all in war and has to accept food from the same poor families, can possibly imagine that Fisher has the slightest eugenicist leanings.
If Vermont librarians want to go after a eugenicist, may I suggest one who was not a Vermonter but occasionally practiced law there. He believed in chloroforming disabled children and was a philandering husband; he was a Social Darwinist and in another state defended a teacher who used a textbook that described African Americans as an inferior race. That would be Clarance Darrow. You can look it up.
Nebraskans know Dorothy Canfield from her days in Lincoln at the university. She was the daughter of Chancellor James Canfield, perhaps the best chancellor in the history of the institution, after whom the UNL administration building is named. She was a friend of Willa Cather and collaborated with her on publications. Their correspondence over decades is the subject of much scholarship.
The next time Nebraskans are looking to honor an author through an award, let them name it after Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
