Melvil Dewey (1851–1931), born Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey, was an influential American librarian and educator, inventor of the Dewey Decimal system of library classification, a founding member of the American Library Association, and a chief librarian at Columbia University. His library supply and equipment company, Library Bureau, provided furnishings for many of the public libraries constructed by Andrew Carnegie's bequest at the turn of the 20th century, as well as filing supplies for business and government records management. Dewey was also a founder of the Lake Placid Club and an advocate for spelling reform and adoption of the metric system in the United States.

Although Dewey's contributions to the modern library are widely recognized, his legacy is marred by documented incidents of sexual harassment, racism, and antisemitism, as well as his support for eugenics. Under Dewey's leadership, the Lake Placid Club's official policies barred Black, Jewish, and other people from marginalized groups from membership. Dewey was also forced to step down from participating in the American Library Association following a series of incidents in which he sexually harassed prominent women librarians on an ALA-sponsored trip to Alaska. He corresponded extensively with the Eugenics Committee of the United States of America, and attended the Race Betterment Conference of 1913.