Alfhild Valfrid Matilda Palmgren, as married Palmgren Munch-Petersen (3 June 1877 – 6 December 1967), was a Swedish educator, linguist, and politician. She reformed Swedish library policy and introduced the public library system in Sweden and Denmark.
Biography
Upbringing and education Valfrid Palmgren was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on 3 June 1877, the second daughter of Karl Edvard A. H. Palmgren (1840–1910) and Ida Teresia Pohl (1853–1937), and was known as "Vava" at home. Her siblings were elder sister Signe Maria Elisabet (born 1875), Sigrid Hildegun Anna (1882–1883) and Gustaf (born 1884). She would have had another brother, but he had died by the time of her birth in 1886. Growing up, Valfrid and her sister Signe were treated as equal to all other children – regardless of gender – in accordance with their parents' educational ideas.
In 1882, Valfrid and Signe were enrolled in their father's school, Palmgrenska samskolan, which was the first school in Europe to offer co-education up to graduation, where they attended together until the twelfth year. Their father said morning prayers and taught Christianity, history and geography. Their aunt Ida taught writing and handicrafts (sloyd). Their mother was assistant headmistress and taught Swedish. The schoolchildren were also taught foreign languages – German, English and French – based on the modern method of starting from the spoken language. In 1895 Palmgren passed her oral and written examinations, with good grades in languages in particular. She was herself active there as a teacher from 1896 to 1907.
She spent summers with her family at Toivo on Norra Lagnö (in the present-day municipality of Värmdö), and later at Ramlösa mineral spa when her father's health began to fail. Palmgren and her siblings also had the opportunity to make short and long educational trips in Europe: in 1893 she spent two months in Germany, and the following year in France and England for three and a half months with her sister. Such trips were made every year and year-and-a-half thereafter.
Palmgren enrolled at Uppsala University in the spring semester of 1896, where she chose to study language. Parallel to her studies, she worked as a teacher at the Palmgrenska samskolan, teaching German, mathematics and geography, and later also French. In 1900, a government grant of SEK 750 enabled her to travel to England and study at Oxford for six months.
In 1901 Palmgren graduated from Uppsala University with a bachelor's degree in German, English, Romance languages, practical philosophy, mathematics and theoretical philosophy. Two years later she received her licentiate of philosophy in Romance languages and theoretical philosophy, followed by her doctorate in 1905. Her doctoral thesis was on the use of the infinitive by the French Calvinist and Baroque poet Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigné () and was dedicated to her parents. In 1905, Palmgren was the third woman in Sweden to receive a doctorate in Romance languages, after Anna Ahlström in 1899 and Gerda Östberg in 1903.
Royal Library In 1903, Palmgren had contacted Carl Snoilsky, head librarian at the Royal Library (), but her request for employment was not granted. He advised her to take her doctorate first. Before she completed her doctoral thesis in May 1905, Palmgren approached Snoilsky's successor, head librarian ; he was significantly more positive and offered her a probationary position from September of that year as the first female librarian. The probationary position was converted on 24 November 1905 into a position as an additional regular librarian assistant in the printing department.
Palmgren remained there until February 1911, when she resigned at her own request to marry and move to Copenhagen.
KB's cafeteria, Kafé Valfrid, is named after her.
Study trip to the United States In her work at the Royal Library, Palmgren often had to inform visitors hungry for knowledge that most of the library's books were not for home loan and refer them to public or workers' libraries. But she soon realized (after visiting the public libraries) that they did not have the literature she was looking for and were not intended for people who wanted to study. She then realized that she needed to travel to the pioneering United States. She applied for and was awarded a travel grant from the (, at that time responsible for education) to "study library science with special reference to seminary, school and public libraries".
She arrived in New York in September 1907, with a letter of introduction in English, German and French from the Ecclesiastical Department, and was received by the famous children's librarian Anne Carroll Moore at the New York Public Library. She and Palmgren became good friends and kept in touch until Moore's death in 1961. They were both passionate about the educational role of libraries and saw themselves as pioneers and drivers in providing quality children's books to all children through good children's libraries. Palmgren referred to Moore as an inspiration.
Palmgren visited some thirty cities in nine states in the northeastern United States during her three-month trip, where she studied public libraries, research libraries, library schools, seminaries and regular public schools. She gave lectures on Swedish libraries, and her visits were frequently covered in the press. Palmgren was even invited to the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt when she visited Washington.
When Palmgren returned to Sweden at the end of December, she immediately started giving lectures and courses to disseminate what she had learned during her study trip. She wrote a very brief official travelogue, which she then expanded considerably in her detailed report ('Library and Public Education – Notes from a Study Tour in the United States of America'). This was finally published in 1909. Hugo Hammarskjöld, the Ecclesiastical Department Minister (education minister), had read her account and wanted it to be distributed to all libraries and public schools, so of the 3,000 copies, the Ecclesiastical Department bought 1,200 for that purpose.
Palmgren's report was a detailed and enthusiastic account, intended both as a textbook, to convince readers of the necessity of libraries in a modern society, and to inspire a reorganization of the Swedish library system based on the good examples she had studied in the United States. She pointed out the differences from Swedish libraries, which were usually supported by fees from patrons or voluntary donations from better-off members of society. This made them a kind of charitable institution, whereas in the US municipalities accepted donations in the form of library buildings or book collections; however, the material came from the local population, so that they owned their libraries just as they owned their schools. American libraries – both academic and public – catered to all walks of life and all ages; they were thus intended for all members of society without distinction. The beautiful and well-equipped library rooms with their open shelves were inviting, had generous opening hours and catalogs that were easy to use.
Palmgren pointed out that an important prerequisite for the success of American libraries was the formation of the national American Library Association (ALA) in 1876, regional library associations and the Library Journal. Through association work, meetings and journal articles, librarians had collectively succeeded in arousing the interest of decision-makers and in gaining both organizational and financial support for their activities – and it was precisely these ideas and methods that Palmgren took home with her and put into practice or helped to put into practice in Sweden. This happened through the Stockholm Children's and Youth Library, which was opened in 1911 with financial contributions from wealthy Stockholmers, the formation of the Swedish Public Library Association in 1915 (from 2000 the ) and the launch of in 1916.
Library researcher and election to the city council In 1909, the published Palmgren's "" in its series of small publications. This was a popular version of her travel report "" ('Libraries and Public Education'), and it was aimed at politicians and other decision-makers, association members, teachers and others who needed to be convinced of the benefits of books and libraries. The popular version devoted considerably more space to children's libraries than the original report. Her book was translated into Finnish and Danish and helped to stimulate the establishment of modern public libraries in the other Nordic countries.
At the end of the year, she became a member of the Committee for the Promotion of Good and Affordable Reading, and on behalf of the American Library Association she compiled the "Selected list of Swedish books recommended for public libraries", with a selection of non-fiction and fiction for children and adults in Swedish. In December 1909, Palmgren was appointed sole investigator of the "library question".
In February 1910 she published another publication, 'On Popular Education', in which she described library conditions in Germany after a short study trip to Dortmund in October of the previous year. In it, she emphasized the ambitions of the German public educators and that, unlike in Sweden, there was a great deal of support for public education in broad circles in Germany – even among businessmen and industrialists – as well as a consensus to leave politics and religion out of it.
In the municipal elections of March 1910, Palmgren was elected as the second woman to the Stockholm City Council () – the first was Social Democrat Gertrud Månsson – for the General Electoral League. On 1 April of the same year, she took her seat on the city council, and on 20 June she gave a highly publicized and discussed speech on the "library issue".
She was also a member of the Committee on State Aid to Institutions for Popular Scientific Lectures, which submitted its report in January 1911. She was also a member of the Central Library Committee and of the board of the National Association for Women's Suffrage (, FKPR), while participating in the preparations for the opening of the Stockholm Children's and Youth Library. She attended the board meeting of the Stockholm Children's and Youth Library Association on 27 April 1911, three days before her wedding, after which she moved with her husband (1873–1939) to Copenhagen. However, as she still had several important tasks to complete in Stockholm, she commuted between the cities for the rest of the year and into the following year.
During the Conservative government of Prime Minister Arvid Lindman, she was asked to write a report proposing a new policy on libraries based on her international expertise and on the idea of popular enlightenment. On 28 September 1911, she submitted her library report "" 'Proposals concerning the measures that should be taken by the state to promote the public library system in Sweden' to the Ecclesiastical Department Minister, . The main proposals were that the use of public libraries should be free of charge and that support could be given to all school libraries, to a municipal library or library system in each municipality, and to nationwide associations with at least 20,000 members for library activities in study circles. She worked for reforms in the policy of the Swedish libraries, demanding that public libraries be open to all, that there be a public library accessible in each city, and that the libraries be free from political, commercial and religious censorship.
In October, Palmgren Munch-Petersen conducted a course in library technology for staff working at the future children's and youth library on Drottninggatan, which opened in December of the same year. In November 1911, she was appointed as an expert in the Committee on State Support for Public Libraries.