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Previous decade: 1930s

1940s

1940 - Chester Carlson takes out patent on his electro-photography machine

1941 - Franklin D Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum

1943 - The Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America

1944 – The Serviceman's Readjustment Act

1944 - Author Richard Wright's autobiography Black Boy (American Hunger) censored

1946 — The first computer - ENIAC is unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania

1947 - Verner Clapp becomes Chief Assistant Librarian at the Library of Congress.

1948 - The American Library Association adopts the Library Bill of Rights.

1948 - The Nation magazine is stricken from the public list of New York City public school libraries

1949 - The Public Library Inquiry first published

1949 - Lamont Library, the first library specifically designed for use by undergraduates, opens

Next decade: 1950s