Yes, really. However, it was back in 1972.
I was looking a bit further into my being A “Problem Patron” and came across this story in the February issue of American Libraries:
What’s in a sign? Joan Ford, director of the East Hampton Free Library, was notified November 7 that she had been fired from her position. According to Mrs. Ford in a Newsday account, disagreement resulted with the board over the presence of a number of signs in the library and Mrs. Ford’s lack of cooperation in erecting a sign warning “no bare feet.” Newsday also reported that the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the New York Library Association is currently conducting an investigation into the situation.
So, I guess that pushes back the date of the earliest library shoe rule to at least 1971, and again associates it with hippies (I’m still pretty sure that they didn’t become common until the 1990s, though).
American Libraries had a really good follow-up story, “The Great East Hampton Library Mess,” in their September 1972 issue. Keep in mind that the author [updated: the author of the follow-up story is a Mr. Dwight MacDonald—sorry about any confusion] is being pretty sardonic, and even compares the library board to the corrupt town of Hadleyburg (from Mark Twain’s The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg).
It’s very long, so here are a few excerpts (and even the excerpts are long!).
It all began (privately) with a longhand note Mrs. Ford received on Oct. 20 from Mrs. Mary (Russell) Hopkinson, president of the board of managers of the East Hampton Free Library (“free” I now take in a Pickwickian sense re. our library, likewise “public”). It read:
In March 1969 three members of the board met with you to discuss the relationship of the librarian and the board. The meeting was called because even at that time there had been considerable friction between you and the board concerning the policies by which the board chose [a Louis XIV word! DM] to have the library operate. This friction has increased to the point that the board feels you would be much happier to resign and find a position where you and your board can be more in accord. We therefore request that you send in your letter of resignation subject to our contractual rights.
The board’s legal right to dismiss their librarian without a hearing is clear, by the way; two months’ notice, with pay, is all that is stipulated in the agreement. It’s their moral right—by standards generally accepted in U.S.A. 1971 (though not U.S.A. 1897 when the library was founded) as to firing professionals like teachers and librarian—it’s that we question.
After some discussion about the exchange of letters between Mrs. Ford and the board president, the author, Dwight Macdonald, gets down to why she was fired:
Was Mrs. F. incompetent? we asked. Heavens no, what an idea? nobody could question her professional ability. (We felt a bit guilty for being so suspicious.) Did the board object to her selection of new books and magazines, then? Not at all. Maybe there had been complaints from library users—discourtesy, slackness?
Well, a couple about allegedly late openings, but nothing substantial, really. Toward the end a few life-style issues loomed vaguely through the fog: the no-bare feet notice Mrs. Ford wouldn’t put up and the posters she did put up; also a running obbligato of pianissimo murmurs about her “attitude.” But when we pressed them—”Is that it, then?”—the ladies were amused by our masculine simplicity: “You couldn’t think those were our reasons, much more serious issues were involved.”
But the board couldn’t come up with anything else.
In the end, Macdonald attributed it to “kulturkampf”.
Kulturkampf, too—a clash of life styles, social values, generational cultures that was probably the chief frictional element. The one official directive which, both sides agree, Mrs. F ever refused to carry out, flatly, was their order last summer that she post a sign: “No Bare Feet.” Both parties intransigent on this trivial point of etiquette—no surrender!
Absurd—but kulturkampf, hence not absurd. It was this trivial-deep issue, for instance, that finally broke up the Nov. 1 meeting at Mrs. Hopkinson’s in disorder, blowing away the polite fog and revealing the bleak confrontation.
And here he goes into so many of the arguments we so often make ourselves:
Our argument was that bare feet are not per se repulsive, that they can’t infect the books, and that children, hippies and adult bathers who drop in from the beach shouldn’t be discouraged; in sum, that use should precede decorum in library priorities.
Theirs was that bare feet lower the tone (I guess they do, really), that they are “dirty” (are shoes cleaner? Moslems and Japanese wouldn’t agree), and that if Bohack’s and the A. & P. have outlawed bare feet, can the East Hampton Free Library lag behind in hygienic good taste? Maybe I didn’t get their full argument—we were all suddenly talking at once. Or maybe I did.
There’s something explosive about the issue I don’t understand. It arouses intense passions—especially among the no-bare-feet partisans—as inexplicable to me as was to Gulliver the deadly political strife in Lilliput over whether to break the big or the small end of a breakfast egg. Maybe some sexual nuance that escapes me?
The great bare-feet showdown (for once Mrs. F was on the conservative side: from time immemorial, or 1897, no anti-bare-feet sign has disfigured the library and she didn’t propose, at her age, to buck tradition) was one of many, misty flaks.
Oh, and Mrs. Ford was also quite a bit younger than the fuddy-duddy board members.
Kulturkampf. She’s in her early 40s, they’re in their 60s, average age 65, or so I’m told. No objection to that—it happens to be precisely my age—but they shouldn’t hold her youth, and the style and values proceeding therefrom, against her. It’s none of their business as a library board.
And here’s his (parodic) explanation for the board’s decision:
The board ladies fired Mrs. Ford like a housemaid because that’s how they thought of her—or perhaps, to be fair, an upper servant, a housekeeper. Not a lazy or sloppy housekeeper—they don’t question her professional abilities—but still a servant who “didn’t know her place.”
They seem to think of the library as an extension of their living rooms—a restful, tasteful retreat that was being “ruined” by their librarian housekeeper. “All those tacky posters . . . and ‘NO SILENCE’ if you please … and now bare feet, really! … If I’ve told that girl once . . .” These aren’t real quotes nor is there any hard evidence that the board ladies confuse their library with their living rooms or their librarian with a housekeeper, in fact I’m sure they’ll be sincerely shocked and surprised at such an accusation—so many shocks and surprises lately!
But it’s a reasonable inference from their behavior. Parodic license: inventions that are true to life.
The housekeeper assumption was reinforced by a private-property syndrome: “We do as we choose with our own.” The board feels no obligation to defend, or even explain, their policies to outsiders.
That sure sounds familiar. The board members consider it their library, and they’ll run it as they damn well please.
And, by those standards, I’m a patron who “doesn’t know my place.”
Ten years before I was born, and they already had these stupid “No Bare Feet” rules. Outragious! Why do they love cracking down on our personal freedoms so much? I can’t imagine fireing someone for not wanting to discriminate against others. What are we coming to?
The original “no bare feet” signs were technically political signs, of course, not regulatory signs. By being against the Vietnam War, hippies were considered un-american and un-patriotic. And that generation was rebelling against every single social rule, style of clothing, hair, and all that was considered appropriate and unappropriate with every ounce of energy they had. The clash between the generations was quite extreme in many places in the US.
But here, June 1965, Arcadia California, a bit before the actual hippie era:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=nUwmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Mv4FAAAAIBAJ&pg=3048,771009&dq=arcadia+bare+feet&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DAkrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tJkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4241,3114196&dq=arcadia+bare+feet&hl=en
Who were these people who were going barefoot in public buildings? You can pretty much figure out that at least some were the ‘surfer dude’ types, and early skateboarders, since most skateboarders during the 1960s skateboarded barefoot, and would wind up almost anywhere in town with no shoes with them.
Beach Bum: Great articles! And I love (as in, they were just as ignorant back then) the comments from the physicians about bad for the sole, plantar warts, and athlete’s foot. Where do these folks get their training?
Yes, ignorance is timeless….it’s traditional, you know. LOL
I liked this vintage article. The comparison of the “no bare feet” issue with Big-Endians vs Little-Endians is priceless.
“the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the New York Library Association is currently conducting an investigation into the situation.”
Any findings on their conclusion?
Originally the anti-barefoot signs were a sign of political conservatism, but they eventually became a response to the culture of litigation that pervaded the country starting in the 80’s when lawyers began to advertise in the media and petty lawsuits began to multiply. Retail institutions, etc. were advised by their legal consultants to ban bare feet in response to supposed instances of patrons injuring themselves, either accidently or “on purpose” and then suing the store for physical damages due to unsafe conditions. This was also when the “by order of the board of health” signs started going up in restaurants and grocery stores, even though there was never any such order. Whether or not these cases were real or urban legends, the signs became ubiquitous along with rediculous admonishments such as “it’s illegal to be in here barefoot” or “what if you step on something?”. Really, it became an excuse for lazy clerks and managers to get rid of a customer instead of having to serve them and possibly have to do actual work.