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  “We were spit on, sworn at, once a guy threw rotten fast food at us out of his truck.”

  Jean Dickson

  Associate Librarian

By JULIE WESOLOWSKI

Published: February 18, 2009

Forget about any of the preconceived notions you have about librarians. Jean Dickson proves them all wrong. As associate librarian of the reference and collection department at UB, Dickson has lived her life to the beat of a different drummer.

Dickson graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1973 and moved to Chicago shortly after. An admitted radical at the time, she wanted to be a part of what she believed would be a revolution by the working class. Initially, she found work at a Schwinn bicycle factory but was laid off. Saddled with the responsibilities of a young mother, Dickson applied for a job at U.S. Steel. “I was hired as the token white female,” she explains. As one of only three women in a maintenance crew at the steel plant, Dickson worked as an apprentice pipefitter—a truly groundbreaking role for a woman during that era.

Her pipefitter apprenticeship wasn’t without the issues that many women in traditionally male-dominated workplaces faced during the 1960s and 1970s. Dickson was harassed and assigned the dirtiest, most difficult jobs by her boss. “I really wanted to quit, but at that point I had a husband who was unemployed and a baby to take care of, so I had to stay.” Dickson left her apprenticeship for a position in the labor gang at the steel plant. She was assigned to work in a group considered “troublemakers” and “militants.” She worked with several ex-convicts, yet she reminisces that these coworkers treated her with more respect than anybody else in the plant.

It was during this time that Dickson became involved in the women’s committee of the union. “If it hadn’t been for the union, I would have been fired,” she says. Her union, Local 65 of the United Steelworkers of America, was well known for being led by Alice Peurala, the only woman to ever head a basic-steel local in the nation.

After getting laid off from the steel plant, Dickson went back to school to get her master’s degree in library science from the University of Chicago. Afterward, she worked as a cataloger for three years at Northwestern University. One of the most memorable things about her job at Northwestern was that Stephen Colbert was a student worker in the library. The comedian/actor became one of her friends and he based the name of his improv group on a funny character from a dream of Dickson’s son.

A Western New York native, Dickson returned to the area in 1986 when she accepted a position as a cataloger of foreign language books—particularly French and German—at UB. She took two years of Polish classes at the university and now curates the library’s Polish Collection.

Her most recent project is an article about "italiano mexicanizado" composer, musician and director Carlos Curti, which is being published this spring in Spanish in the quarterly Mexico City journal Heterofonía.

Staying true to her union background, Dickson has served as a grievance officer, vice president and president of the Buffalo Center Chapter of United University Professions, the union representing UB faculty and professional staff.

An ardent musician, Dickson is a regular performer on the coffeehouse circuit, including a monthly gig at Café Allegro in North Buffalo. She plays bluegrass, folk, country, swing music and international music on her mandolin and guitar, and hosts a weekly jam session for fellow musicians at her house. She is also a member of Raging Grannies, a group of women who write their own lyrics to popular music for protest rallies. “We sang when we ‘welcomed’ Cheney,” she says with a smile.

Since October 2001, Dickson has also been a member of Women in Black, a group of women who silently protest for peace every Saturday at the intersection of Bidwell Parkway and Elmwood Avenue. Initially the group was met with disdain. “We were spit on, sworn at, once a guy threw rotten fast food at us out of his truck,” she says. But as the war in Iraq became more unpopular, people have become much more supportive of her group.

As if Dickson isn’t busy enough, she also is an avid gardener. But her lawn also became the subject of a very public battle against Buffalo City Hall when a neighbor waged a campaign against her garden. Never one to back down, Dickson became a local gardener’s hero, fighting back against unfair and unjust codes, and ultimately had the last laugh. The mayor of Buffalo visited her house, praised her garden and put an end to the issue.