In 1950, the Intellectual Freedom Committee, the forerunner of the OIF, investigated the termination of Ruth W. Brown as librarian of the Bartlesville Public Library, a position she held in the Oklahoma town for 30 years. Brown's termination was based on the false allegation that she was a communist and that she had as part of the library's serials collection two left wing publications, "The New Republic" and "The Nation". The ALA support for her and the subsequent legal case was the first such investigation undertaken by the ALA or one of its state chapters.