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Melvil Dewey was born in Adams Center, New York, the fifth and last child of Joel and Eliza Greene Dewey. He attended rural schools and determined early that his destiny was to reform education of the masses. He briefly attended Alfred University (1870), then Amherst College, where he belonged to Delta Kappa Epsilon, and from which he earned a bachelor's degree in 1874 and a master's in 1877. While still a student, he founded the Library Bureau, which sold high-quality index-cards and filing-cabinets, and established the standard dimensions for catalog cards. As a young adult he advocated spelling reform; he changed his name from the usual "Melville" to "Melvil", without redundant letters, and for a time changed his surname to "Dui". From 1883 to 1888 he was chief librarian at Columbia University. During his time as director of the New York State Library (1888–1906) Dewey established a program of traveling libraries. From 1888 to 1900 Dewey served as secretary and executive officer of the University of the
State of New York. In 1895 Dewey founded the Lake Placid Club with his wife Annie. He and his son Godfrey had been active in arranging the Winter Olympics which took place at Lake Placid—he chaired the New York State Winter Olympics Committee. In 1926 he went to Florida to establish a new branch of the Lake Placid Club. He died in Lake Placid, Florida. Even Dewey's friends found his personality difficult, and he early in life established a pattern of making powerful enemies. As one biographer put it, "Although he did not lack friends, they were weary of coming to his defense, so endless a process it had become." Another biography refers to Dewey's "old nemesis—a persistent inability to control himself around women" as an ongoing cause of trouble on the job. In 1904 the New York State Board of Regents received a petition demanding Dewey's removal as State Librarian because of his personal involvement in the Lake Placid Club's policy of excluding Jews and other religious and ethnic groups. While the Regents
declined to remove Dewey, they did issue a public rebuke, and in the summer of 1905 he resigned as a result. Dewey married twice, first to Annie R. Godfrey, and then to Emily McKay Beal. He became a member of the American Library Association's Hall of Fame in 1951. Dewey was a pioneer of American librarianship and an influential factor in the development of libraries in America in the beginning of the 20th century. He is best known for the decimal classification system that is used in most public and school libraries. But the decimal system was just one of a long list of innovations. Among them was the idea of the state library as controller of school and public library services within a state. Dewey is also known for the creation of hanging vertical files, which were first introduced at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. In Boston, Massachusetts, he founded the Library Bureau, a private company "for the definite purpose of furnishing libraries with equipment and supplies of unvarying correctness and reliability. Major works are: Dewey Decimal Classification, American Library Association, School of Library Economy, Metric system advocacy and Lake Placid Club and conference.
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