Danton, J. Periam, 1908-2002

Biographical Information

Joseph Periam Danton was born in Palo Alto, California at the Stanford University hospital on July 5, 1908. His parents were German language educators George Henry and Annina Periam Danton, who had both earned Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. In 1916, the Danton family moved to Peking, China to teach at Tsinghua University (now part of Peking University), where they stayed for nearly ten years. The family also visited Japan during their residence in Asia. Danton enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1924 to study German and spent the 1925-1926 school year studying in Leipzig, Germany where his parents had moved and held teaching positions. He graduated from Oberlin with a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude in 1928. Danton then moved to New York City to ascertain what career path to follow.

Danton's love of books led him to first contemplate applying himself in the world of book publishing. His parents had made several friends who were influential in the New York publishing realm. Upon further investigation and reflection, Danton came to the conclusion that, if he were to enter the publishing field, more time would be spent selling the books than actually reading them. Eventually, he took the advice of his mother to visit her friend Charles C. Williamson, dean of the esteemed School of Library Service at Columbia University, and consider the field of librarianship.

The profession of librarianship, with its intellectual challenges and basis in public service, strongly appealed to Danton. In 1928, he entered the library school at Columbia University, graduating in 1929 with a Bachelor of Science degree in librarianship. While attending Columbia during the day, Danton spent his evenings assisting in the reading room of the New York Public Library.

Upon receiving the Columbia degree, Danton accepted employment as a night shift reference librarian at Williams College in Massachusetts from 1929-1930. The lack of students utilizing the library in the evenings and a deficiency of nighttime activities in the small town allowed Danton plenty of time to engage in scholarly studies while on the job. In 1930, he received a Master of Arts degree in German from Williams College and was soon drafted by the American Library Association (ALA) to take a position at their headquarters in Chicago. Danton was hired as secretary to the executive secretary of the American Library Association, Carl Milam, 1930-1933. At this time, the field of librarianship was overwhelmingly female-oriented and Danton recalled that he was recruited for the position partly in an attempt to balance out the ratio. When he worked at the ALA office, there were only three male employees out of the sixty total employees.

Concluding that he wished to pursue an academic career in the field of librarianship, Danton applied to the Graduate Library School at the University of Chicago. He began the program in 1933 and received his Ph.D. (in philosophy) in 1935. Danton took a position as librarian and associate professor of bibliography at Colby College in Maine from 1935-1936. Then Danton was offered and accepted the same position at Temple University, in Philadelphia. In December 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked and Danton enlisted in the Naval Reserve to help with the war effort. However, he wasn't called to duty until late 1942 and served as visiting professor at the University of Chicago's Graduate Library School in the summer of 1942. Danton served as a Navy intelligence officer 1942-1945 in the South Pacific, earning the rank of Commissioned Lieutenant.

Upon his honorable discharge from the Army in the fall of 1945, Danton began exploring his career options beyond Temple University. As he was returning from the Pacific arena via San Francisco, Danton was contacted by Sydney B. Mitchell, the long-standing dean of the School of Librarianship at the University of California at Berkeley. Mitchell had been a neighbor of the Danton's when they had lived in Palo Alto and had remained friends with the family throughout the years. Mitchell wrote that he was retiring the following year and the school would be looking for a new dean. Danton had considered library education as a profession, but hadn't had much experience to this point. He interviewed and though it was a successful meeting, Berkeley wasn't prepared to make a decision right away.

Danton returned to the East and accepted a visiting professorship at Columbia University's School of Library Service. Not long before the semester's close in late May 1946, Danton was offered a permanent faculty position at Columbia. A day after verbally accepting the position, Danton received a telegram from the University of California at Berkeley offering him the position of dean and associate professor at the School of Librarianship. Danton saw this role as an opportunity to make a significant difference in a relatively new professional field and at an institution with a growing progressive reputation. Danton became Dean and Associate Professor of the school in July 1946, and became a full professor the following year. He served as dean and professor until 1961, when he was forced to relinquish the deanship due to new term limits the university imposed. He then acted in the capacity of professor and library consultant until his retirement in 1976, whereupon he became Professor Emeritus.

Upon retirement, Danton continued to publish and play a significant role in Berkeley's School of Librarianship. He also fought to keep the school open, (along with other troubled library schools - his alma maters at Columbia and Chicago), when budget cuts and a changing economy forced the school to re-evaluate its mission and become the School of Information Management and Systems in 1995. Though officially retired from teaching and administrative duties, Danton continued to write and publish some of his most substantial books through 1999.

Danton was awarded several honors in his lifetime including the Presidential Unit Citation with two stars, for his role in the United States Naval Reserve during World War II, the Berkeley Citation in 1976, upon retirement from the University of California, and the Beta Phi Mu in 1983, the American Library Association's award for service to librarianship. He was extremely active in the literature of his profession, continuously writing in depth studies and serving on the editorial board of the Library Quarterly. Danton was often invited to speak at national and international library events and served on a variety of University of California committees. He was a member of many library professional associations such as the American Library Association, the International Federal of Library Associations and the Association of American Library Schools. Danton was also an honorary member of Vereinigung Osterreichischer Bibliothekare, an Austrian library association, and Vereinigung Deutscher Bibliothekare, a German library association.

Chronology