Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey, the youngest of five children, was born on December 10, 1851 to a poor family living in a small town in northern New York. As a child, he felt drawn to mathmatics and enjoyed playing around with classification systems at a young age. Being from an impovrished household, Melville's family could not afford to mold his intelligence and send him to college. He waited until he was nineteen to attend Amherst College. Like many college students today, Melville worked in the college library to help fund his education. His affinity to the job enabled him to remain as a librarian upon graduation in 1874. Following graduation, Melville worked towards improving library classificaiton systems.

While working as a librarian at Amherst College, Melvil Dewey developed a system of book classification using numbers from 000-999, dividing nonfiction books into 10 broad categories. By the time of his death, the system was being used in over 96% of all American libraries. Dewey helped found the American Library Association and is credited with creating the world's first library science curriculum.

Dewey also founded the Spelling Reform Association and preferred to spell his name Melvil Dui.

*This information was pulled from a number sources by Megan Lotts