NYPL Librarians

LILLIAN QUINCEY TOBEY (1873-1962)

2012-01-29T19:56:00.000-05:00

Lillian Q. Tobey came from a family of sister who were librarians. She spent much of her life living with her sisters Ellen (who was also an NYPL librarian) and Grace (who worked at the Brooklyn Public Library).

Lillian Tobey was born in Portland, Maine, but her family had moved to New York City by the 1890s. So far, I have been unable to find any information on Lillian Tobey’s educational background.

In 1897 both Lillian and Ellen Tobey were assistants in the New York Free Circulating Library and continued to serve there until the NYFCL joined NYPL in 1901.

In 1905 Ellen became Branch Librarian at Bloomingdale, and Lillian transferred to serve as her First Assistant. When Ellen Tobey was transferred in 1907, Lillian was promoted to replace her as Branch Librarian.

In 1910 Lillian was transferred to be Branch Librarian at Washington Heights and after three years transferred again to head the Bond Street Branch. The Bond Street building (the original headquarters of the NYFCL) was closed in 1918 and Tobey left NYPL.

From 1919-1929 Lillian Tobey worked in the library of the Brooklyn Museum, and it is not known why she left that position.

Tobey died in Ocean Grove NJ in 1962, and her death certificate indicates she had lived in the area since at least 1948.

GABRIELLA JOSEPHINE DUPONT ACKLEY (1868-1941)

2012-01-18T21:43:00.000-05:00

Gabriella J.D. Ackley received her education at St. Mary’s School in Knoxville Illinois. 1884-1886. It was an Episcopal girls school, but she is not listed as a graduate. Ackley’s library training consisted of three courses in the Wisconsin summer school, in 1900 and 1901.

Her first known library job was in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, in 1902-1905. She then became an organizer for the Wisconsin Library Commission and later served as head librarian in Watertown (WI), 1908-1912. Ackley left Wisconsin to head a branch of the Chicago Public Library, 1912-1913.

In February 1914, Ackley wrote to Edwin Anderson asking for a job at NYPL. She preferred one working with the public, explaining, “Of the little I know, I think I know and like best, books and humanity.” Based on good recommendations from the Chicago Public Library, Ackley was hired the following month to be the First Assistant at the Fort Washington Branch. She then served as Branch Librarian at the Yorkville (1916-1921), Aguilar (1922), and Bloomingdale branches. Although she was 73 years old, Gabriella Ackley was still working when she died in 1941.

HAROLD LESLIE WHEELER (1889-1928)

2012-01-17T23:42:00.000-05:00

Harold Wheeler graduated from the Classical High School in Providence RI in 1906 and then entered Brown University. While in college he worked in various positions at the Providence (RI) Public Library. After graduating with honors from Brown in 1910, Wheeler became a reading room assistant at the Library of Congress. He quit LC in 1912 to attend the New York State Library School and finished the two-year degree program in a single year.

Harold Wheeler was immediately hired as one of the three men who were hired to head NYPL branches in the 1913-1917 period. Wheeler started as the First Assistant at the Hamilton Fish Park Branch (serving under another of the three men, Frederick Goodell) and within six weeks Wheeler was promoted to take over the branch.

In March 1916, Wheeler resigned from NYPL to become the head of the School of Mines and Metallurgy Library at the University of Missouri at Rolla. He left academia in 1921 to head the Hackley Public Library in Muskegon, Michigan. At Muskegon, he was credited with more than doubling circulation in his first 5 years there. Wheeler died suddenly in 1928.

Harold L. Wheeler was the younger brother of Joseph L. Wheeler (1884-1970) who was Director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 1926-1945.

MARGARETHE KORTENBEUTEL (1912-1971)

2012-01-04T23:24:00.000-05:00

Margarethe (also called Marga) Kortenbeutel received her BA from the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College) in 1933 and already knew that she wanted to be a librarian. She began as an NYPL substitute in 1934 during the midst of the Great Depression. Ten years later she was still in an entry-level position when she was asked to be a witness at the US Senate Committee on Education and Labor hearings on the financial plight of white collar workers. Kortenbeutel, who had created a monthly list of her itemized expenses, was asked to explain how she lived on her limited budget, and the New York Times noted that her “case history” captured the committee’s attention.

Kortenbeutel testified that she had no extra money at the end of the month although she sewed her own clothes and got “one good cheap meal a day at the library”. That meal was a shared one cooked by the branch staff (on Library time) at a cost of 25¢ each, and she noted that for “about everyone this dinner is the main meal of the day.” Before she left the witness table, Kortenbeutel was asked why she stayed at the Library given her financial hardships. “I am quite willing to stay,” she replied. “I happen to be very interested in my work, and I like working with all kinds of people.” She then added, “I am really not interested in just making money, but I would like not to starve to death.”

Kortenbeutel’s financial situation improved somewhat the following year when she was promoted to be the First Assistant at the Ottendorfer Branch. In 1947 she was promoted to Branch Librarian at the 67^th Street Branch and retired in 1970.

Today would be Margarethe Kortenbeutel’s 99^th birthday.

ANNE SHUCK HUTCHINS (1887-1968)

2012-01-03T22:47:00.000-05:00

Anne (or Annie) Shuck was born in Texas and graduated from Kansas City (M0) High School in 1905. In 1909 she received her AB in Greek from Wellesley College, and afterwards she taught mathematics at Central High School in Fort Worth, 1909-1913.

Shuck married George Howard Hutchins, probably in 1913.

By 1917 she was in the New York City area working as the Assistant Director for the US War Camp Community Service.

Anne Hutchins attended the US Secretarial School in 1920 and worked as a stenographer in the NYPL Library School, 1921-1923. During this same period she also was a student in the Library School and earned her one-year certificate in 1923. She took additional courses in 1925-1926 but never finished the two-year program.

After graduation Hutchins became the stenographer for the Chief of the Circulation Department. In 1925 she was transferred to be the First Assistant at the Hamilton Fish Park Branch. In 1926 she was promoted to Branch Librarian at the High Bridge Branch and served there until 1943 when she was promoted to be Superintendent of the Extension Division. Hutchins retired from NYPL in 1952.

Anne Hutchins is believed to be the only member of the Christian Scientist church among the Branch Librarians.

Today would be the 124^th birthday of Anne S. Hutchins.

MARY JANE DUSTIN BOWLES (1900-1991)

2011-12-19T23:55:00.000-05:00

Mary Jane Dustin grew up in rural Oregon. Her daughter told me that as a young girl her mother was sent to live with distant cousins and was lonely. The local librarian, however, was kind to her and “inspired her from an early age to aspire to be a librarian.”

After teaching in a one-room school, Bowles attended the University of Oregon and earned a BA in Journalism in 1925. She worked in the university library as a student assistant and after graduation became a school librarian in the Bend (OR) High School.

Dustin moved to New York City to attend Columbia’s School of Library Service and earned her degree in 1929. That same year she married Chessor O. Bowles (1901-1991), who was a social worker for the YMCA.

Bowles also entered NYPL in 1929 and initially worked in the Extension Division. She became a Branch Librarian in 1938 and headed branches on Staten Island for the next 21 years. She ended her career at NYPL heading the Inwood Branch for three years before retiring in 1962.

Mary Jane Bowles was active in community affairs on Staten Island and helped create the day care center at the Edwin Markham Houses. She and her husband retired to North Carolina where they founded North Carolina Self Help for Hard of Hearing People.

Today would be Mary Jane Bowles 111^th birthday.

GERTRUDE COHEN (1858-1939)

2011-12-18T10:38:00.000-05:00

Not much is known about Cohen’s early life except that she joined the Aguilar Free Library in 1896 and worked there until 1903 when the AFL consolidated with NYPL. At the time of consolidation, Cohen was in charge of Aguilar’s Traveling Library Department.

At NYPL, Cohen organized the new Carnegie Branch at Port Richmond, Staten Island, 1904-1905, and then became the Branch Librarian at the 135^th Street Branch. In 1920 she transferred to head the 125^th Street Branch and retired from that position in 1931.

Cohen was transferred out of 135^th Street so that Ernestine Rose could develop the Library’s services to the growing African-American community around the branch. While Rose is justly credited with having great success in that effort, some of those activities did begin under Cohen.

In 1914, Cohen hosted a Negro Civic Improvement League meeting which was attended by over 100 community residents. A year later, Cohen also had an impact on Hubert Harrison (1883-1927) who was soon to become Harlem’s foremost radical and orator. His biographer credits Cohen and James Weldon Johnson, writer and civil rights activist, with encouraging Harrison to concentrate on working with the “Negro masses” in Harlem.

December 17^th would have been Gertrude Cohen’s 153^rd birthday.

IRMA HORAK ERATH (1890-1953)

2011-12-10T10:32:00.000-05:00

Irma Horak was born in the United States of parents from Germany, and she married William Erath, a German-born chemist, in 1923. She maintained the connection to Germany by making at least six trips to that country with either her mother or her husband between the two world wars.

Horak joined the NYPL Training Class in 1903 when she was 18. By 1911 she was promoted to be a Branch Librarian and over the next 35 years headed five branches. She worked primarily at Staten Island branches, where she lived. Erath retired in 1946 as head of the St. George Branch, the most important library center on the island.

The Branch Librarians were given a fair amount of autonomy and that may account for the fact that in the late 1920s and early 1930s Irma Erath negotiated directly with the Staten Island Borough President on the location, design and funding of the proposed West New Brighton Branch. Her authority to deal directly with a political leader was probably reinforced by that fact that Erath was not just a librarian but was also a resident of the borough who was active in at least seven Staten Island civic organizations.

MINERVA ETHEL GRIMM (1870-1963)

2011-12-07T13:07:00.000-05:00

Today would be the 131^st birthday of Minerva (or Minnie) Grimm.

Her father was a German-born cigar maker and her mother was born in NY.

Minerva Grimm began working at the New York Free Circulating Library in 1897 at the Bond Street Branch. In 1898 she took the Harvard University summer course in English, a program aimed at teachers that was open to women. Grimm transferred to the Yorkville Branch in 1900 and the following year was promoted to head that branch.

After consolidation, Grimm continued to head Yorkville until 1905 when she became Branch Librarian at the newly opened Tremont Branch in the Bronx. In 1907 she took a leave of absence for unknown reasons. She returned in 1908 as head of the newly opened Morrisania Branch and worked there until she resigned in 1929.

When the NYPL Library School opened in 1911 Grimm became a part-time student while she headed Morrisania. She received her certificate for completing the one-year course in 1913 and her degree for the two-year course in 1914.

There are only a few clues about Grimm’s life after she left NYPL. The 1930 census shows her working for the Los Angles (CA) Public Library while the LAPL report for 1932 announced her resignation. A 1936 voter registration list (she registered as a Republican) shows her living at the Rosicrucian Fellowship in San Diego and working as a librarian. Another voter registration record for 1942 lists her as retired and living again in the Los Angeles area.

Minerva Grimm died in Los Angeles in 1963.

LUCIE BARBARA BOHMERT (1866-1941)

2011-12-06T20:19:00.001-05:00

Lucie (also spelled Lucy) Bohmert is an example of the paternalism of the NYPL administration which was reluctant to force out those “undependable and erratic” librarians who lacked a pension plan to provide support in their old age.

Bohmert’s father was born in Germany, and Lucie Bohmert’s library career started in 1891 at the Ottendorfer Branch, which served a German neighborhood, of the New York Free Circulating Library. In 1899 Bohmert became head of the NYFCL 34^th Street Branch. After the 1901 consolidation of the NYFCL into NYPL, Bohmert remained in place until 1908 when she became head of the St. Gabriel’s Park Branch, the new Carnegie building that replaced the 34^th Street site. In 1918 she returned to the Ottendorfer Branch and served as Branch Librarian for 16 years.

In 1934, Franklin Hopper, Chief of the Circulation Department, reported that Bohmert “never has been equal to the position of branch librarian and for the past few years she has been becoming more and more undependable and erratic.” This is a remarkable assessment of someone who had been serving as a Branch Librarian for 35 years.

Later that year the financial hardships caused by the Great Depression forced the Library “to release Miss Bohmert of her responsibility.” In fact, she was one of only a dozen staff members who were put on furlough during the Depression. Even then the Library found private funds to create a small allowance equal to about one-third of Bohmert’s former salary.

It is notable that it took the exigencies of the Great Depression to remove an aging librarian who was regarded as ineffective. It would be three more years before the New York City librarians won a pension plan that provided them with a safety net.

HARRIET ELIZABETH KEMP (1911-1962)

2011-12-06T17:13:00.007-05:00

Harriet E. Kemp was someone who sought out a variety of administrative experience during her career, and she took three leaves of absence to gain broader knowledge of librarianship outside of NYPL. Kemp only served for five years as a Branch Librarian before becoming an administrator in the Circulation Department.

Kemp received a BA in Classics from Mt. Holyoke in 1932 and immediately began working at NYPL.

She received her BS from Columbia’s School of Library Service in 1936 and took her first leave to spend a year as an exchange librarian at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

In 1942 Kemp took a leave of absence to become the head of Open Shelf Collection at the Portland (Maine) Public Library. Upon her return to NYPL she served as Branch Librarian at two branches. Kemp took her third leave in 1950-1952 to become the head of the Western Massachusetts Library Federation, an experimental library consortium in her home state. When she returned to NYPL, Kemp served as the Assistant to the Chief of the Circulation Department and was promoted to Assistant Chief of the CD in 1956.

Harriet Kemp is also an example of a former union activist (she was Secretary of the Library Employees Union in the 1940s) who rose to the administrative ranks of the Circulation Department.

Today would be the 100^th birthday of Harriet Kemp.

GERTRUDE FOSTER HAMILTON (1874-1963)

2011-12-05T22:20:00.000-05:00

Gertrude Foster came from a Southern family that valued education and books. Her grand niece told me that there was a long tradition of educated women on both sides of her family, and she described the Fosters as “book crazy.” Gertrude Foster’s father was a surgeon and her mother was a teacher.

Gertrude Foster probably attended the Alabama Central Female College although it is not known if she graduated.

The 1900 census lists Foster as a Transcript Clerk in the Tuscaloosa Probate Court. Later that year, she left that position to move to New York City and join the Aguilar Free Library. She received her library training in 1901 at the Amherst Summer Institute.

Foster became an NYPL staff member when the Aguilar Free Library consolidated with NYPL in 1903. In 1908 she was promoted to be Branch Librarian of the Stapleton Branch. Three years later, she transferred to head the Jackson Square Branch in Greenwich Village and served there for the next 18 years.

In 1915 Forster married William Frederick Hamilton who had been born in Great Britain. In 1920 she took a six-month leave of absence due to her own poor health and to care for her husband, who had contracted tuberculosis while serving in World War One. He died in Montreal in October 1920.

In 1929 Gertrude Hamilton was forced to resign her position at NYPL due to poor health. She moved to Sewanee TN and served as an assistant librarian in the university library 1929-1931. She later returned to Alabama and lived with the family of her great niece.

GLADYS YOUNG LESLIE (1890-1977)

2011-11-01T22:26:00.000-04:00

Gladys Young was born in Iowa. After graduation from Cedar Rapids High School, she worked as an Assistant Cataloger at the Cedar Rapids Public Library, 1908-1912. She resigned that position to enter the NYPL Library School and finished the two-year program in 1914.

Young started working at NYPL in 1912 and was named First Assistant in Central Circulation even before she received her library degree.

In 1915 Young married Noel Leslie (1888-1974) an English-born actor. It seems likely that they separated since she is not listed as a survivor in his obituary.

Gladys Leslie served as Branch Librarian at Seward Park, 1925-1927. After the NYPL Library School closed in 1926, NYPL re-established its Training Class, and Leslie was named Supervisor of Training. She was credited with attracting good trainees, some of whom later went on to get library degrees.

Leslie resigned from NYPL in 1930 and the following year was selected to organize the library for the newly founded Bennington College. On her retirement as head of the college library in 1956, a notice in College & Research Libraries (Vol. 17, p. 441) recognized her as “entirely responsible for building a well balanced and mature book collection and for the efficient and friendly operation of the library.”

Today would be the 121^st birthday of Gladys Y. Leslie.

ELIZA BUCKNER MARQUESS (1896-1980)

2011-10-24T11:09:00.001-04:00

Eliza B. Marquess was born in Crescent Hill, Kentucky. Her father was a minister and college professor, who died in New York City in 1921.

Eliza Marquess graduated from the Wadleigh High School for Girls, the first public girls’ school in New York City. She then entered Barnard College and in 1917 received her BA in French. After graduation, Marquess became an editorial assistant at the publishing house of Longman's Green & Co.

Marquess started at NYPL in 1918 as a substitute, and later did both children’s work and school and reference work. She entered the NYPL Library School in 1926, but it does not appear that she finished the studies required to receive a certificate.

In 1933 she was promoted to Superintendent of the Book Order Office (BOO) and served there until 1944. A 1938 profile in the New York Times called Marquess one of the largest book buyers in the world and noted that she had purchased one million books for NYPL in her first five years in BOO--despite the fact that New York City had cut the allocation for book purchases in 1933 due to the Depression.

In her book, An Ample Field (Chicago: ALA, 1950), Amelia Munson (a colleague at NYPL) quoted Eliza Marquess’ definition of book selection as “‘the practice of supplying people with the books they want, and of setting before them the books they don’t know that they want.’”

In 1944, Marquess left BOO and returned to branch work as head of the Harlem Branch. She retired from NYPL in 1962.

KATHERINE LORD O’BRIEN (1907-1998)

2011-10-22T11:07:00.001-04:00

Katherine L. O’Brien was born in upstate New York, 104 years ago today.

In 1928 she graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Classics from Wells College. After graduation, Katherine O’Brien became an assistant in the Albany (NY) Public Library, 1929-1930. She then entered the Columbia University School of Library Service and earned a BLS in 1931.

O’Brien entered NYPL in 1931 and worked in the Central Circulation Branch until 1942. In that year she was promoted to be Branch Librarian at the Riverside Branch and later held the same position at the St. George Branch on Staten Island.

In 1950 Kay O’Brien, as she was known, drew up a plan to implement what was called regionalization. She proposed creating the position of Staten Island Coordinator who would supervise all the branches in that borough. The plan was adopted, and O’Brien was named to the position. Regionalization was later extended to the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx.

In 1955 O’Brien was promoted to Coordinator of the Donnell Branch. This new building in midtown Manhattan housed a general collection plus Young Adult Services and the Central Children’s Room in addition to special units for Education, Foreign Language and Film. In 1957 O’Brien was promoted to be the head of the Office of Adult Services.

In 1967 O’Brien was chosen to develop and head the new Mid-Manhattan Branch which was to be the new central circulating library diagonally across Fifth Avenue from the Central Building. It officially opened in 1970.

After serving as a Branch Librarian and having developed two new library centers in midtown Manhattan, O’Brien retired in 1976. Her career at NYPL, however, was not over. A year after she retired, O’Brien was asked to return to NYPL to become the Personnel Officer.

RACHEL CRAIG PERRY (1852-1930)

2011-10-20T09:56:00.000-04:00

Rachel C. Perry was born in NJ and was a graduate of the New Jersey Normal School in the early 1880s. She held a NJ teaching certificate in 1882. She probably had no formal library training.

Perry worked as an Assistant in the Aguilar Free Library 1900-1903, at the East Broadway and 110^th Street branches.

After consolidation Rachel Perry continued to work at the 110^th Street Branch. The new Aguilar Branch replaced the old 110^th Street Branch in 1905, and Perry was named First Assistant. In 1907 she was promoted to Branch Librarian at the Aguilar Branch. The following year, Perry took a leave of absence (probably for health reasons) and it was reported that she found the work was “too hard for her”.

Perry returned to NYPL in 1910 to work in the Traveling Library Department but in a lower level position. She resigned at the end of 1915 after another prolonged illness. At that time she moved to Wallingford CT.

Today would be the 159^th birthday of Rachel Perry.

LOUISE PATTERSON BERRY BULL (1883-1969)

2011-10-18T08:13:00.004-04:00

Louise P. Berry was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky and attended Hamilton College in Lexington KY, 1899-1900.

In 1907 she married George P. Bull (1876-1915), a farmer in Florida. She apparently returned home to Kentucky after his death and moved to NYC a year later.

Louise P. Bull, as she was known at NYPL, entered the NYPL Library School in 1916 and completed the two-year degree program in 1918. Bull received a regular appointment to NYPL in 1917 and after 1919 spent her entire career at the Mott Haven Branch in the Bronx. She served as Branch Librarian at Mott Haven from 1923 until her retirement in 1948.

Tight city budgets in the 1920s made operations difficult for NYPL. Bull’s annual reports at Mott Haven often commented on the impact of low salaries and high turnover on library efficiency. She complained that the low pay attracted unqualified employees and that good staff members often left. In her 1925 report she cited one librarian who after receiving six months of training left for a Long Island library with a one-third increase in salary. A year later Bull reported that the branch had had 31 different staff members during the year, but only seven of them had worked in the branch the previous year.

Today would be the 128^th birthday of Louise Bull.

CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH WALLACE (1873-????)

2011-10-16T07:59:00.007-04:00

Charlotte E. Wallace was born in Wallingford CT.

She received a certificate from the Pratt Institute Library School in 1897 and took the children’s librarians course at Pratt in 1900.

Wallace began working as a librarian in 1900 at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburg and headed two branches there. In 1910 she moved to the Seattle Public Library, where she was Superintendent of Circulation. She resigned in 1912 to travel abroad with her mother. They returned from Europe in 1914, and that year Charlotte Wallace was appointed Branch Librarian at the Yorkville Branch.

Wallace resigned from NYPL in 1916 to marry Dwight Clark (ca. 1869-1935), an industrialist and director of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation. After her marriage she used the name Elizabeth W. Clark. They lived in Pittsburgh, 1916-1920, and then moved to Washington DC., where they lived until at least 1930.

Today would be Charlotte Wallace’s 138^th birthday.

ESTHER K. JOHNSTON (1886-1986)

2011-10-12T23:10:00.000-04:00

Esther Johnston was born on this day 125 years ago. As a child she knew that she wanted to be a librarian, and as an adult she became the first woman to head NYPL’s Circulation Department.

Johnston had no college education and her library training consisted of earning a certificate from the Wisconsin Library School in 1908. Her first professional position was at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (1908-1909). She then returned to Wisconsin to head the Marshfield Free Library (1909-1910) and then served as head of the Lake Forest (IL) Public Library (1910-1916).

Johnston was hired to be the First Assistant at the Seward Park Branch in 1916, for what she later called a “trial run” that she would undertake for a year. At the end of that year she was made the Acting Branch Librarian and then served as head of Seward Park, 1917-1923. She took a leave of absence in 1919 to spend eight months working for the ALA Overseas War Service to aid France’s recovery after World War I.

In 1923 Johnston was given an important assignment to organize work at the new Fordham Branch in the Bronx. Then from 1924-1941 Johnston was the head of NYPL’s Central Circulation Branch, the busiest branch in the system. In 1941 she became Supervisor of Branches—the second highest position in the Circulation Department.

Johnston was the Acting Chief of the Circulation Department 1943-1945 while the Chief, Francis R. St. John, served in the Navy. She resumed her old position upon his return from the war. St. John left NYPL at the end of 1946. Johnston was promoted to Chief in 1947 and headed the system until her retirement in 1951. In this position she oversaw a staff or more than a 1,000 employees.

While this promotion was a breakthrough for women administrators at NYPL, even Johnston still faced day-to-day obstacles. For instance, Johnston, as Chief, presented a report at the monthly meetings of the Committee on Circulation. This NYPL committee sometimes met at a private club which admitted only men as members. Therefore, Esther Johnston was forced to use the service elevator, in the rear of the building, to reach to meeting room where the all-male Committee on Circulation was meeting.

30	1936-9	873-78
54	1929	888-90
71	1946-Mar 15	400

LOUISE ELIZABETH JONES (1879-1955)

2011-10-11T22:26:00.000-04:00

Louise E. Jones was born in Wisconsin 132 years ago today.

Prior to becoming a librarian, Jones was interested in both teaching and art. She earned a diploma in Latin from the Oshkosh Normal School in 1900 and then became a teacher. She left teaching to come to New York City and earned a degree in Manual Art from Pratt Institute in 1906.

In 1910 she entered NYPL and began studying at Teachers College (earning a BS in 1911). She later earned a two-year degree from the NYPL Library School in 1916.

Louise Jones was promoted to Branch Librarian at the Rivington Street Branch in 1917. She was transferred to the Aguilar Branch in 1920 and was credited with turning around a troubled branch. In 1921 she was transferred to the Tremont Branch in the Bronx. This was regarded as a very important assignment, and at the time Jones was described as “unquestionably one of the most able graduates" of the NYPL Library School.

Louise Jones resigned from NYPL in 1923, shortly after her mother’s death. She subsequently moved to Denver where she served as Supervisor of Libraries for the public schools, 1923-1924. She then moved to Los Angeles to work at the LA Public Library, eventually becoming head of the Philosophy and Religion Department.

ELLA M. SAUER (1864-1937)

2011-10-08T15:02:00.002-04:00

Today would be Ella Sauer’s 147^th birthday.

Ella Sauer started work at the New York Free Circulating Library in 1886 and eventually headed three NYFCL branches. She was serving as the Treasurer’s Assistant in 1901 when the NYFCL consolidated with NYPL. Sauer continued to do administrative work in NYPL’s Circulation Department until being named as Branch Librarian for the Bond Street Branch. After that she also headed the St. Agnes and Washington Heights branches.

Sauer was regarded as one of the finest librarians in the Circulation Department although her work suffered as her health began to decline in the 1920s. In 1927 the Director reported that “Her 41 years of excellent service seem to have exhausted her capacity for work.” Sauer, however, did not have the funds to support herself in retirement. After her death, the minutes of the Trustees’ Committee on Circulation noted that “she stayed on year after year in the hope for a pension. It is tragic that just at the time the pension seems definitely in sight Miss Sauer should die.” Sauer died on March 30, 1937, and the pension plan became effective on July 1^st of that year

DOROTHEA HOWSON WAPLES LISSIM (1907-1994)

2011-10-08T09:57:00.005-04:00

Dorothea H. Waples was one of the few NYPL librarians whose mother was a college graduate. Her mother, Agnes Howson Waples, graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1897 and worked as a teacher.

Dorothea Waples attended Wellesley College and received an AB in 1929. In 1931 she earned her library degree from Columbia’s School of Library Service. For eight years after getting her library degree, she worked as an Assistant Librarian in Columbia University’s Business School Library 1931-1939

Waples left Columbia to join NYPL’s Readers Advisor Office in 1939. In 1943 she transferred to the Yorkville Branch as the Assistant Branch Librarian. In 1945 she was promoted to be the Branch Librarian at Yorkville.

Waples resigned from NYPL in 1946 just months after she married Simon Lissim (1900-1981). Lissim was a Russian born artist, who emigrated to the United States in 1941 and the following year received a grant from the Emergency Committee to Aid Displaced Foreign Scholars to teach art classes in several NYPL branches.

Today would be Dorothy Waples Lissim’s 104^th birthday.

MARJORIE LOUISE WHITE FRIEDERICH (1897-1982)

2011-10-06T10:09:00.004-04:00

Marjorie L. White was born and died in Bennington VT. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1920 with a BA in History and afterwards moved to New York City to work in the Teachers College Library.

White entered NYPL in 1923 and was promoted to Branch Librarian at the Hamilton Fish Park Branch in 1939. She then headed the Wakefield Branch, 1941-1948. In 1948 she resigned from NYPL shortly after she married Hans Ernst Friederich (1884-1967), a German-born insurance adjustor. White returned to NYPL in 1949 and was re-appointed to her former position at Wakefield. She headed that branch until her retirement in 1953.

In her first annual report at the Wakefield Branch in 1941, Marjorie White reflected the optimism of NYPL librarians and their faith in humanity, even as World War II began. White wrote: “the hope that America may lead the way in solving world problems seems suddenly quite possible. We see moving about the room without friction or ill-will the descendants of those nations on both sides of the world’s most devastating conflict.” For White, the ethnic coexistence reflected in her small branch library in the Bronx had a positive meaning that gave her hope even as this new “devastating conflict” erupted around the world.

Today would be the 114^th birthday of Marjorie White.

ISABELLA MITCHELL COOPER (1874-1962)

2011-10-01T10:20:00.003-04:00

Isabella M. Cooper had one of the most varied careers among the NYPL Branch Librarians. She was a librarian, bibliographer, and library educator who worked in public, special, academic and federal libraries. She was also unusually well-educated for her time.

Cooper graduated from the Emma Willard School in Troy NY in 1894. She then entered what is now Teachers College to study elementary education. She received a BA from Barnard College in 1901. Cooper entered the NYPL Training Class in 1904 and later got her BLS from the New York State Library School in 1908. She later returned to Teachers College and got an MA in 1912-- making her the first librarian in this study to earn a Master’s degree.

Isabella Cooper worked at NYPL in 1904-1907, 1908-1909, 1916-1920, and 1921-1924. During the last two of these periods she served as head of the Central Circulation branch.

In between these stints at NYPL, Cooper worked at the Newark Public Library (1909-1910), taught at the Simmons College library school ((1910-1913), and worked for the Brooklyn Public Library (1913-1915) and the American Committee for Devastated France (1920-1921). She later worked for the Queens Borough Public Library, McGraw-Hill, the Works Progress Administration, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the New-York Historical Society. As a freelancer, Cooper produced bibliographies on References to Beer and Ale (1937) and Educational Broadcasting (1942).

When Cooper left NYPL for the last time in 1924, she became the editor of the A.L.A. Catalog, the second update of ALA’s original 1904 annotated list used by librarians to select the best books. Cooper’s 1926 edition included 10,000 titles that would be of interest to public library users looking for current fiction and non-fiction. The ALA Catalog was probably the most significant of Cooper’s contributions to the library profession.

Today would be Isabella M. Cooper’s 137^th birthday.

EMILY FLEMING McCORMICK (1899-1964)

2011-09-25T10:52:00.003-04:00

Emily F. McCormick was born in Pennsylvania where her father was a lumber merchant. After high school she entered Vassar College and received her AB in 1922.

Shortly after graduating from college, McCormick started working as a substitute at NYPL. After a year of substituting McCormick took a leave of absence to attend the NYPL Library School and completed the one-year certificate course in 1924. She then received a regular appointment at the Fordham Branch.

McCormick worked in the Extension Division, 1926-1936, and for a short period in 1936 she was the Acting Superintendent of the Book Order Office. McCormick was promoted to Branch Librarian in 1937 at the Epiphany Branch. She later served two years as head of the Aguilar Branch and finally headed the Bloomingdale Branch for 20 years, 1941-1961, before retiring.

I was once told by a librarian at the Bloomingdale Branch that Emily McCormick was known for taking staff members of the branch with her on trips to Europe. This would certainly be an interesting fact, if true. While her father was a successful businessman, it is not clear that McCormick would have had enough money to pay for the vacations of staff members. In fact the ship passenger lists available through Ancestry.com do not support this story. While McCormick did travel to Europe, as did other Branch Librarians, I found that there was no evidence that any NYPL staff members accompanied her on these trips. This story is apparently an oral tradition that got mangled over the years.

CATHERINE A. FAY (1880-1953)

2011-09-23T10:15:00.003-04:00

Catherine Fay was born in Northern Ireland on this day 131 years ago.

I know nothing of her schooling but do know that she had no formal library training.

Fay had been a volunteer at the Cathedral Free Library before she joined NYPL in 1908. She spent most of her career at the Cathedral Branch, serving as a children’s librarian and then as head of the branch. She retired in 1946.

It isn’t certain, but it is likely, that Catherine Fay was one of 16 Catholics who served as head of an NYPL branch, prior to 1950. The Cathedral Branch was originally the headquarters of the Cathedral Free Library, which was absorbed by NYPL in 1905. It was housed in space provided by the Archdiocese of New York, and Fay’s predecessor at the Cathedral Branch had been a Catholic. Thus, it is very probable that Catherine Fay was herself Catholic, but I have not been able to prove this as yet.

HATTIE ESTELLE OLMSTED (1863-1929)

2011-09-22T08:38:00.003-04:00

Until the late 1930s, New York City librarians did not have pensions, and H. Estelle Olmsted (as she was known at NYPL) is a good example of how the lack of retirement allowances impacted library services. As the librarians aged, they could not afford to quit, and the Library kept them on payroll despite their infirmities.

Olmsted graduated from Auburn (NY) High School in 1882 and taught in the town’s public schools for at least three years, maybe more. She entered the NYPL Training Class in 1902 and earned a regular position in 1903. Olmsted was promoted to Branch Librarian at the Tottenville Branch in 1908 and remained there until 1917. She then transferred to be the Branch Librarian at the Stapleton Branch and served there until 1929, when she died suddenly.

In 1927, Edwin H. Anderson, the Director of NYPL, wrote that Olmsted (who was then 64 years old) was "a mere shadow of herself ... stooped and shriveled and hardly able to get about". Although she could barely walk around the branch to serve users, Olmsted kept working the best she could since she would be unable to support herself if she retired.

Anderson’s memo also listed five other librarians, with between 25-41 years of service at NYPL, who were described as “feeble”, “practically blind”, or “exhausted”. All were single women with no other means of support, and NYPL kept all of them on payroll. Another decade would pass before a pension plan was finally enacted for all NYPL librarians and retirement at a reasonable age became the norm.

IDA BUCHANAN LOWTHER MOLNAR (1872-1956)

2011-09-20T10:46:00.008-04:00

Ida Buchanan Lowther was born in Northern Ireland and came to the United States at the age of three.

She had no college and probably no library training either.

She started working in the New York Free Circulating Library in 1898 and worked at two branches prior to the NYFCL’s consolidated with NYPL in 1901.

Ida Lowther was appointed Branch Librarian at the 96^th Street Branch in 1905 and transferred to the new Carnegie-funded Melrose Branch in 1913 and served there until her retirement in 1939.

In 1913, Lowther married Arthur Molnar who worked for the YMCA and later became a real estate agent. Thus, Ida Lowther Molnar became the first Branch Librarian to be married and remain in her position as Branch Librarian.

Today would be Ida molnar's 139th birthday.

DOROTHY HILL ROBINSON HOMER (1897-1978)

2011-09-20T10:17:00.003-04:00

Dorothy H. Robinson was born and grew up in Washington DC. In 1919 she received a BA from the Howard University Teachers College. It seems likely that she began teaching at that point, but I have not been able to confirm that possibility

In 1931 she came to New York City to attend the School of Library Service at Columbia University and received her degree in October 1932.

Homer worked at NYPL, 1932-1935, but then returned to her hometown to be a librarian at Miners Teachers College. In December 1935 Dorothy Robinson married Theodore H. Homer, Jr., who was a pharmacist.

She returned to NYPL in 1938 to be the Acting First Assistant at the 135^th Street Branch, serving under Ernestine Rose. Homer who was described as "a southern lady" who was "soft-spoken, very quiet" was clearly being groomed as Rose’s successor. As First Assistant, she helped Rose bring artists, writers, and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance into the 135^th Street Branch.

When Rose retired in 1942, the Harlem community wanted an African-American appointed as her replacement. The NYPL administration, however, thought that Homer needed an additional one or two years experience before being promoted. In the end, NYPL acceded to community pressure and named Homer as Acting Branch Librarian and later appointed her to the position permanently. Thus Dorothy Homer became the first African-American to head the 135^th Street Branch which was the center of NYPL’s efforts to serve the Harlem community. Homer was also one of the three African-Americans who headed a neighborhood branch of NYPL before 1950. (See Regina Andrews and Jean Blackwell for the the others).

In 1962 Homer was promoted to work in the Office of Branch Librarians and she retired in 1964.

Today would be Dorothy Homer’s 114th birthday.

FLORENCE NORMILE (1892-1984)

2011-09-14T05:30:00.003-04:00

Florence Normile graduated from Wadleigh High School for Girls in Harlem in 1910 and began work as a clerk for a publisher.

She joined the NYPL Probationary Class in 1911 and became a children’s librarian in 1912. That year Normile also started classes at the NYU School of Commerce but never graduated. She also took some classes in the NYPL Library School.

Between 1912 and 1928 Normile worked at 11 different branches in all three boroughs served by NYPL—Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. During that time she lived in Manhattan with her mother.

Normile was appointed Branch Librarian at the Port Richmond Branch on Staten Island in 1928 and the following year became head of the Hunt’s Point Branch in the Bronx. In 1933 she took a leave of absence due to illness, and she never returned to NYPL. I have no information on her life after that point except that she was receiving Social Security benefits in Central Islip NY when she died in 1984.

Today would be Florence Normile’s 119^th birthday.

FREDERICK T. GOODELL (1885-1967)

2011-09-11T08:32:00.005-04:00

Frederick Goodell started working as a page in the Detroit Public Library in 1902. In 1906 he was head of reference but left to attend the University of Michigan. He dropped out of college during his first year due to health issues. Goodell returned to DPL in 1907 but resigned in 1912 to attend the NYPL Library School.

In 1913, as Goodell entered his second year of library school, he was appointed to be the First Assistant at the Hamilton Fish Park Branch and was soon promoted to Branch Librarian. He later headed the Seward Park and Epiphany Branches. He resigned in 1916 to return to Detroit.

Goodell’s short tenure at NYPL illustrates some of the gender tensions faced by the library profession and NYPL in the early twentieth century.

When Goodell applied for admission to the NYPL Library School, two of his reference letters were from administrators at the Detroit Public Library and both commented on gender issues. One, by a woman, pointedly described Goodell as “manly” while a second from the male Assistant Librarian recommended him to NYPL because he “would profit considerably from some hard professional training and at least temporary removal from the feminine friendliness of our staff.”

Indeed, Goodell did “profit” from working at NYPL. He was promoted quicker and was paid more than most of the female Branch Librarians. At the start of the his second year in library school he was hired at the First Assistant level and the following month was promoted to Branch Librarian. His rise was exceptionally rapid as was the increase in his salary—in a short period of time it went from $75 to $110/month, higher than 80% of the women Branch Librarians. Keyes D. Metcalf’s memoir Random Recollections of an Anachronism (Readex, 1980; page 130) cited this as an example of how women were discriminated against in the NYPL Circulation Department.

After leaving NYPL Goodell worked for the ALA Library War Service, 1917-1920. He then enrolled in the University of Detroit Law School and graduated in 1924. Goodell practiced law in Detroit for the next 38 years. In 1962-1965 he served as Librarian/Administrator of the Detroit Bar Association and wrote a column about the library’s holdings for the Association’s newsletter.

Today would be Frederick Goodell’s 126^th birthday.

ELIZABETH L. KING ABOLIN (1904-1985)

2011-09-10T16:00:00.002-04:00

Elizabeth King was born in Michigan 107 years ago. She attended the University of Michigan and received an AB in liberal arts in 1926. During her college years she worked as a substitute and then a reference librarian at the Hackley Public Library in Muskegon MI.

Upon her graduation from college, King moved to New York City and began substituting at NYPL. She entered the NYPL Training Class in 1927 and worked as both a children’s librarian and as a school and reference librarian. She received her certificate from Pratt Institute’s Library School in 1930.

In 1936 King studied British library methods as an exchange librarian at the Bury-Knowle Branch of the Oxford (England) Public Library. A year after her return, she was promoted to Branch Librarian at the Washington Heights Branch, 1937-1939, and also headed the Hudson Park Branch, 1939-1943.

Upon her return from England In 1936, King married Louis Charles M. Abolin (1886-1968) who worked for the US Labor Department. Elizabeth King Abolin resigned from NYPL in 1943 when her husband was transferred to Washington DC. Between 1949-1954 she worked in several federal and special libraries in the Washington DC area. She was later Coordinator of Adult Services at the Prince George’s County Memorial Library in Maryland.

ANNE JUNGERMANN RYMER (1893-????)

2011-09-10T09:10:00.005-04:00

Annie Jungermann was born in Georgia and earned a certificate in librarianship from the Carnegie Library School of Atlanta in 1914. Her first professional position was as an Assistant Librarian at the University of North Carolina. Also working in the UNC library was William Cecil Rymer, a student assistant from Hendersonville NC who would graduate in 1916.

In 1916, Jungermann took a job at the Birmingham (AL) Public Library and two years later moved to the Montgomery (AL) Public Library.

In 1918, she married William C. Rymer who was then a Second Lieutenant in the US Army. The marriage was short-lived since the Army later reported him to be lost in action.

Anne J. Rymer moved to New York City and entered NYPL in 1920. She served as a First Assistant at three busy branches in New York’s Lower East Side. In an undated note, an NYPL administrator recalled that Rymer worked “in the midst of the thickly populated east side, in the centre of Manhattan Jewry. It was severe in its demands on the technical skill, nervous and physical strength of its staff, to say nothing about their professional attainments and their stock of common sense.” In 1923 she was transferred to the newly opened Fordham Branch and served there as Branch Librarian, 1924-1928. In the latter year she resigned to become head of the new Scarsdale (NY) Public Library. It was reported that she sought this suburban position in order “to be relieved of tension” of urban library services.

Rymer worked in Scarsdale until 1948 when she retired to Hendersonville NC, her deceased husband’s home town.

Today would be Annie Rymer’s 118^th birthday.

EUNICE COMSTOCK WILSON (1873-????)

2011-09-07T21:10:00.006-04:00

Eunice C. Wilson was educated in private schools but had no formal college or library school training.

Wilson joined NYPL in 1904 and became a Branch Librarian when the new Carnegie building for the Fort Washington Branch opened in 1914. In 1918 she was transferred to be the second librarian to head the 58^th Street Branch a position Wilson held until her retirement in 1941.

Shortly after going to 58^th Street, Eunice Wilson began the development of a special Music Library at the branch.

Wilson’s predecessor at 58^th Street was Pauline Leipziger, a singer who had added Beethoven scores to the branch’s collection. Wilson continued that effort and in 1920 the Library officially created the Music Library as a special unit at the 58^th Street Branch. Dorothy Lawton was hired to head the Music Library. Under Wilson’s and Lawton’s leadership, the branch continued to add scores and also purchased books on music and dance. They also starting collecting phonodiscs in 1928 and in 1930 installed a phonograph booth so users could listen to music. The branch also frequently sponsored concerts.

September 6^th would have been Eunice Wilson’s 138^th birthday.

JEAN FRANCES BLACKWELL HUTSON (1914-1998)

2011-09-04T09:19:00.001-04:00

Jean F. Blackwell grew up in Baltimore and became one of the most influential African-American librarians in the United States. Her career at NYPL encapsulated the problems African-Americans faced as the Library integrated its staff.

Jean Blackwell started college at the University of Michigan but quit when she was denied the right to live in an integrated dormitory. She transferred to Barnard College and earned her BA in 1935.

Following Barnard she entered Columbia’s School of Library Service. Upon her graduation in 1936, Blackwell applied for a job at NYPL, but she was told that NYPL did not need more Negro assistants.

The initial rejection of Blackwell’s application was the result of a de facto quota system. Since 1920 the Library had been committed to having an integrated staff at the 135^th Street Branch, which served Manhattan’s rapidly growing Black community. NYPL’s well-intentioned integration policy, however, imposed a quota since the 135^th Street Branch was the only branch that accepted new African-American librarians.

Fortunately for Blackwell, the National Urban League intervened, and she was soon hired as a substitute at 135^th Street. Once hired, Ernestine Rose, her Branch Librarian, became her mentor, and with Rose’s encouragement Blackwell began to rise through NYPL’s ranks.

Even with Rose’s support, Blackwell continued to run into obstacles. Generally a Branch Librarian could select her own staff members, and this was another factor hindering integration. In 1938 Blackwell was transferred to the Harlem Branch, in an area experiencing an influx of African-Americans, without the approval of the white Branch Librarian. Blackwell recalled that this librarian refused to speak to her directly due to this breach of NYPL protocol.

In 1947 Blackwell was promoted to Branch Librarian at the Washington Heights Branch. She only served as Branch Librarian a short time before being made Acting Curator of the Schomburg Collection, a special collection at the 135^th Street Branch which documenting the African Diaspora. She was eventually made full-time curator and served there until her retirement in 1980.

Despite her short tenure as Branch Librarian, Jean Blackwell Hutson’s major contribution to NYPL was building the Schomburg Collection into one of the worlds best repositories on the history and culture of people of African descent. That collection is now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

ISABEL DE TREVILLE (1863-1929)

2011-09-02T08:54:00.003-04:00

One of the issues I am studying focuses on the autonomy the Branch Librarians had to run their branch and how that autonomy began to erode in the 1920s. Isabel de Treville’s career illustrates that autonomy.

Isabel De Treville, as she was generally known at NYPL, was actually named Sarah Isabelle de Treville at birth. She was part of a prominent South Carolina family but moved to NYC in the mid-1880s. She joined the New York Free Circulating Library in 1891 and was promoted to head the NYFCL’s George Bruce Branch in 1898

De Treville continued to head the George Bruce Branch from consolidation with NYPL in 1901 until 1913. At that point she transferred to be the first Branch Librarian of the new Carnegie building for the West 40^th Street Branch. In 1915 she transferred back to George Bruce and headed it until her death in 1929.

Fourteen years after her death the Library uncovered a practice that illustrated the autonomy the Branch Librarians could exercise over the operation of their branches. The Circulation Department discovered that the George Bruce Branch had never stamped its books “Property of the City of New York” as was required by the 1901 contract between NYPL and NYC which established the Circulation Department. Every other branch followed the contract provision. In a 1943 memo about the contract violation, the Director wrote: “My guess … is that it goes back to Miss de Treville, who was for many years librarian of the old Bruce Library and then the George Bruce Branch. She was a very independent person and operated the George Bruce Branch as independently from the system as a whole as possible.”

Today would be the 148^th birthday of this autonomy-seeking librarian.

ANNA MARGARET WALLACE (1858-1920)

2011-08-29T06:45:00.002-04:00

Anna M. Wallace was one of a dozen Catholics who headed an NYPL branch, 1901-1950.

Anna Wallace had no higher education and no formal library training, but she and her sister Agnes were among a small group of volunteers who helped organize the Cathedral Free Library in 1887-1888. Agnes became head librarian for the CFL, which eventually grew to have five branches. Anna was promoted to head the Amsterdam Avenue Branch in 1902. The CFL consolidated with NYPL as of January 1, 1905.

Upon consolidation, Agnes left to become a public school teacher. Anna continued to head the Amsterdam Avenue Branch until 1907 when it was replaced by a new Carnegie building and renamed Hamilton Grange. Anna headed the Hamilton Grange Branch until her death in 1920.

Mary L. Wallace, niece of Anna and Agnes, joined NYPL in 1909 and initially worked under Anna Wallace at Hamilton Grange. She was promoted to Branch Librarian in 1941.

Today would be Anna Wallace’s 153^rd birthday.

ELIZABETH LOUISA FOOTE (1866-1936)

2011-08-23T11:12:00.001-04:00

Elizabeth Foote received a BA in 1888 from Syracuse University and was the only NYPL Branch Librarian to earn a college degree prior to 1900. She received her library degree in 1892 from the NY State Library School. Beginning in 1891, she worked as a cataloger or organizer at seven public libraries in upstate New York and one academic library (Colgate University).

In 1897 Melvil Dewey recommended Foote to Dr. John Shaw Billings, NYPL’s first Director, and she was hired as a Cataloger. When the Circulation Department was formed in 1901 she became head of the Library’s Training Class. Foote’s position at NYPL changed when Edwin Anderson became Assistant Director in 1908. He was known for building strong library staffs and advised Billings that Foote was not the best person to attract good candidates to the Training Class. She was finally moved out of that position in 1911 when the NYPL opened its own Library School. At that time she was appointed Branch Librarian at the 125^th Street Branch.

Foote liked working with foreign populations and was interested in the issue of Americanization of immigrants. Nonetheless, she rejected a transfer to the Seward Park Branch, which served a largely Jewish population, since she felt that she could not “understand the foreign language or the foreign character” of that community.

This lack of understanding perhaps had its roots in her religious beliefs. Foote, whose father was a Methodist minister, was active in summer evangelical campaigns in NYC. She also wrote three pamphlets on church libraries: The Librarian of the Sunday School (1897), Strengthening the Sunday School Library (1903), and The Church Library (1931).

In 1916 Foote was put in charge of the Aguilar branch which ironically had been the headquarters of the Aguilar Free Library, a Jewish-run library until it consolidated with NYPL in 1903. In 1920 she was transferred out of Aguilar on the grounds that the conditions in the branch “have been exceedingly unsatisfactory.”

A few months later E.L. Foote resigned from NYPL and became the head librarian at the Drew Theological Seminary in New Jersey. That lasted only two years until she resigned in the midst of a dispute over her authority to run the library.

Foote returned to the Syracuse area and received an MA from Syracuse University in 1924. She continued to live in Syracuse and remained be active in religious undertakings.

Today would be the 145^th birthday of Elizabeth L. Foote.

FRANCES LOUISE WESTOVER (1882-1973)

2011-08-20T08:56:00.006-04:00

Frances L. Westover (also known as Helen Westover) graduated from the Lewis Institute in 1903. This Chicago school was regarded as one of the first junior colleges in the US, and it merged with the Armour Institute in 1940 to create today’s Illinois Institute of Technology.

It’s not clear what she did during the next few years, but she was working for the Chatham (NY) Public Library in 1909-1910.

Frances Westover entered NYPL in 1910 and was quickly promoted to First Assistant the following year. In 1919 she was promoted to Branch Librarian at Staten Island’s Tottenville Branch, which was regarded as a minor branch in the NYPL system. Starting in 1924, Westover spent her time working with the ethnic populations on Manhattan’s Lower East Side as the Branch Librarian of the Tompkins Square (1924-1927) and Seward Park branches (1927-1946).

After her retirement in 1946 she moved upstate to Spencertown NY where she lived for the rest of her life.

DOROTHY LOUISE HULL (1889-1966)

2011-08-16T23:04:00.001-04:00

Dorothy L. Hull is another Branch Librarian whose career combined both teaching and librarianship.

In 1914 she received an AB in English and Music from Mount Holyoke College, following in the footsteps of her mother who had graduated from there in 1880.

After graduation, Hull moved to Baltimore to take special classes at the Peabody Conservatory of Music while also teaching piano at the Hannah More Academy in Reistertown MD. Afterwards, she did a short teaching stint in Cuba and then became a piano teacher at the Lakewood School for Girls.

Dorothy Hull entered NYPL in 1922 and earned her certificate in librarianship from Pratt Institute in 1925. In 1927 Hull left NYPL to become the librarian at the Horace Mann School for Girls (a private school in the Bronx). She returned to NYPL in 1929 and was promoted to Branch Librarian in 1932. She was the head of four branches prior to her retirement in 1954.

In her early years at NYPL Hull was twice able to incorporate her teaching experience directly into her NYPL work. First, her specialty before becoming a Branch Librarian was in Reference and School Work. Second, in 1930-1932 she was detached from the Stapleton Branch to serve as the head of NYPL’s Training Class.

Today would be Dorothy Hull’s 122^nd birthday.

REGINA STEPHANIE SLUDOCK (1921-????)

2011-08-15T11:18:00.001-04:00

Regina S. Sludock received a BA from Queens College in 1942. She immediately began work at NYPL and also entered Columbia’s School of Library Service. She received her MLS from Columbia in 1945 and the following year was named as the Acting Branch Librarian of the Cathedral Branch. This branch was originally part of the Catholic-run Cathedral Library Association which consolidated with NYPL in 1905. Today the branch is known as the Terence Cardinal Cooke-Cathedral Branch.

Sludock was promoted to Branch Librarian at Cathedral in 1948 and headed that branch until 1956. Over the next 22 years she also headed the Library for the Blind and the Epiphany, Fordham and Kips Bay branches until her retirement in 1978.

In her 1948/49 annual report for the Cathedral Branch, Sludock wrote about a young woman who “asked for material on Communism,” after confessing “that she thought she might be one and not know it, there was so much to-do about Communism in the papers, on the radio, etc.” The young woman wanted to learn about Communism, not just read something “for or against” it. The Cathedral staff gave her a copy of Marx’ Communist Manifesto, and Sludock wrote that the woman “went off quite satisfied.” After initially being pleased with this reference transaction, the NYPL librarians had second thoughts about it. Sludock worried that “having unconsciously been a Communist in the past, our young woman became one consciously, stirred to action by the call of the Manifesto, all with the connivance of the Cathedral Branch, of all places.”

In 2010 Regina Sludock was receiving her pension from NYPL and today would be her 90^th birthday.

LOUISE POHLMAN FRITZ (1869-1945)

2011-08-11T09:47:00.001-04:00

Louise P. Fritz, whose mother was a school teacher, started her career as a teacher, then became a librarian, and finally found a position that combined the two professions.

Louise Fritz attended the New York College for the Training of Teachers (now Teachers College) in 1889-1890 and then joined the College’s faculty as an Instructor in the Model School.

She left teaching in 1903 to enter the Pratt Institute library school and received her certificate from Pratt in 1904.

In 1905, Fritz entered NYPL as an assistant and within four months was promoted to be First Assistant at the Harlem Branch. In 1906 she was promoted to be Branch Librarian at the Stapleton Branch. It is likely that these two rapid promotions were due to her educational credentials, which were rare for NYPL librarians at the time.

Fritz took a leave of absence from NYPL in 1908 and never returned. She went to Washington Irving High School where she became the Instructor of Library Practice. She held that position until 1936. At least one of her high school students, Margaret Markovics, went on to become a Branch Librarian at NYPL.

Today would be the 142^nd birthday of Louise P. Fritz.

WINIFRED GAMBRILL CARRUTHERS (1905-1993)

2011-08-02T21:50:00.000-04:00

Winifred Gambrill earned her library degree in 1927 from Columbia’s School of Library Service and she entered NYPL that Fall. Within two years she became an Acting First Assistant and in 1930 was promoted to that level permanently. Nevertheless, the Depression slowed her rise to Branch Librarian.

Gambrill served as the Acting Branch Librarian at the Morrisania Branch in 1941-1946 before finally being promoted to be Branch Librarian at the Fort Washington Branch. At Fort Washington, she was praised for building a wide-ranging book collection. Her approach to librarianship was to promote reading more than group or community work. Her annual report for 1948/49 noted that Fort Washington circulation had risen for the second year in a row and argued that “the emphasis here must be on keeping the wheels turning smoothly rather than on programs and ‘activities’.”

Gambrill married Ralph Carruthers, the long time head of the Photographic Services Division of the NYPL Reference Department, who had been her classmate at Columbia in 1927.

Winiftred Gamrill retired from NYPL in 1966.

MARY AGNES SALESKI (1878-????)

2011-07-31T11:22:00.000-04:00

Mary A. Saleski worked as a librarian for 21 years and as a college professor for 27 years.

Saleski was born in Germany and came to the US in 1881. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 1900 with a BA in Classics and earned an MA from Columbia University in 1918. In addition, Saleski received a doctorate from Leipzig University (in Germany) in 1929.

After her graduation from Wesleyan University, Mary Saleski joined the New York Free Circulating Library in 1900. She became an NYPL staff member in 1901 with the consolidation of the NYFCL. Saleski took a leave of absence in 1902 to attend New York State Library School. She returned to NYPL in 1904 as BL at the Tottenville Branch, and then headed the Aguilar, 125^th Street, and Epiphany Branches.

Saleski resigned from NYPL in 1921 and worked as a college professor at St. Lawrence University in New York and Bethany College in West Virginia.

Today would be Mark Saleski’s 133^rd birthday.

RUTH ARNOLD HILL HARTENAU (1907-????)

2011-07-29T15:16:00.001-04:00

Ruth A. Hill earned both a BA in Literature in 1928 and an MA in English in 1929 from Pembroke College (now part of Brown University).

Hill became a high school teacher for a year after graduation and then worked for two years at St. Dunstan’s College of Sacred Music. In 1934 she joined the Providence (RI) Public Library Training Class and worked there until 1937.

At some point in the 1930s Ruth Hill married Oscar Helmut Hartenau (1905-1986) a banker who graduated from Brown University the same year that she graduated from Pembroke.

She entered NYPL in 1937 and received her library degree from Columbia University in 1940. In 1946 Ruth Hartenau was promoted to be the Branch Librarian at NYPL’s 58^th Street Branch. Hartenau resigned from NYPL in 1947 and I know little about her life after that point.

Today would be Ruth H. Hartenau’s 104^th birthday.

AUGUSTA MARKOWITZ (1881-1963)

2011-07-28T11:28:00.000-04:00

Augusta Markowitz was born in Hungary 130 years ago today and came to the US in 1885. She became a naturalized citizen in 1891.

Markowitz started library work in 1897 as a substitute in the Aguilar Free Library Society and became an NYPL staff member in 1903 when the AFLS merged with NYPL. At NYPL she served as First Assistant at Avenue C (which had been one of the four AFLS branches) and Tompkins Square (the name of the new Carnegie building which replaced the Avenue C Branch).

Markowitz was promoted to Branch Librarian in 1908 and headed the Hamilton Fish Park Branch (1908-1913) and the Woodstock Branch (1913-1944). The latter served a Hungarian community during most of Markowitz’s tenure.

Augusta Markowitz was noted for building up the Hungarian collections at NYPL and also operated the non-commercial Hungarian Book Service, 1928-1948, which represented Hungarian publishers and produced annotated lists of new Hungarian books to help US libraries serve their Hungarian users.

In 1934 the Hungarian government gave Markowitz its Red Cross Award of Merit for her work promoting Hungarian literature.

HOWARD FRANCIS (JACK) RICKERT (1908-1991)

2011-07-28T01:35:00.001-04:00

In 1948, Ralph A. Beals, NYPL Director, sought to end the tradition that all NYPL children’s librarians were women, and he asked the Dean of the Pratt library school to recommend a man to work in that specialty. The Dean thought of Howard F. Rickert, who had been employed at NYPL since graduating from Pratt in 1939. The Dean wrote to Beals that Rickert “was not much of a student, but he has a marvelous manner in dealing with people. Also he is devoted to NYPL, and I believe he would respond to the challenge this particular job would present.”

At the time Rickert was a First Assistant, and his previous work had been in adult services. For whatever reason he did not become a children’s librarian.

In May 1950 Howard Rickert was promoted to Branch Librarian. This made him only the second man to head an NYPL branch since 1916. Robert S. Ake had been the first in 1948. Rickert went on to head three branches before he retired from NYPL in 1969.

AMY VALENTINE (1873-1963)

2011-07-26T20:21:00.000-04:00

The 1900 US Census lists Amy Valentine’s mother and father as farmers in Dutchess County, NY. It did not list any employment for Amy, who at the time was 27 years old.

In 1902 Valentine’s father died and four months afterward she entered the NYPL Training Class and began working at NYPL. Although she passed the exam to become a Branch Librarian in 1905, there was a long delay before she achieved that rank. Valentine spent 25 years as a First Assistant at the Harlem and George Bruce Branches. She was finally appointed to Branch Librarian at the Jackson Square Branch in 1930 and served there until she retired in 1941.

Today would be Amy Valentine’s 138^th birthday.

MARY DENSON PRETLOW (1878-1959)

2011-07-25T08:43:00.005-04:00

On this day, 13 years after the end of the Civil War, Mary D. Pretlow was born on a Virginia plantation that had been owned by her family for more than 200 years. When she died 81 years later, Pretlow was credited with many accomplishments including the desegregation of the public libraries in Norfolk, Virginia.

Pretlow left Virginia in the 1890s and joined the Riverside Branch of the New York Free Circulating Library in 1898. She became an NYPL staff member when the NYFCL consolidated with NYPL in 1901. In 1903 she was promoted to Branch Librarian and headed the Bond Street and Hudson Park Branches. Pretlow went to the St. Louis Public Library in 1910 and for seven years headed two of its branches.

In 1917 Pretlow returned to Virginia as head of the Norfolk Public Library. Over the next 30 years she supervised the opening of six new branches in the city. One of them was the Blyden Branch (1921) which was the first municipally-supported library in Virginia to serve African-Americans. Pretlow continued to promote service to African-American users and by the time of her retirement in 1947 all of the Norfolk Public Library buildings were open to users of all races.

In 1961 Norfolk re-named one of its branches in honor of Mary Pretlow.

MARGARET WEHLER (1898-1988)

2011-07-25T07:32:00.001-04:00

Margaret Wehler was one of the few NYPL Branch Librarians to be awarded a honorary degree by her college.

Wehler, an English major, was the valedictorian of the Class of 1918 at Hood College in Maryland. After graduation she worked as a high school teacher in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

In 1922 Wehler went to France and earned a “diplome d'etudes” from the Sorbonne in 1923. On her return to the US, she served as the head of the French Department at Sullins College in Bristol VA, 1923-1926.

In 1929 Wehler entered Columbia’s School of Library Service and began working at NYPL. She spent most of her career in the Central Circulation Branch, serving as its head 1941-1943 and again 1945-1947. In 1943-1945 and 1947-1949 Wehler served as Acting Supervisor of Branches. In 1949 her position was made permanent, and in 1954 it was renamed as Assistant Chief of the Circulation Department. Wehler retired in 1956.

In 1954 Hood College awarded Wehler an honorary Doctor of Letters degree for her work as a noted library administrator and distinguished alumna.

Today would be Margaret Wehler’s 113^th birthday.

DOROTHY ALLEN GOODRICH (1884-1953)

2011-07-12T20:46:00.000-04:00

While there were some librarians who headed an NYPL branch and later served in the administrative offices of the Circulation Department (CD), Dorothy Goodrich did the reverse. She worked in CD Administration for 18 years before being assigned to head a branch.

Dorothy Goodrich was born in Brantford Canada but grew up in Massachusetts, where her father was a professor of German at Williams College. She was partially educated in Germany while her father studied there, 1901-1903. She graduated from Williamstown (MA) High School upon her return and apparently did not attend college.

Goodrich took the one-year course at the NYPL Library School in 1912-1913 and then took a position at the Ferguson Library in Stamford CT.

In 1915 Goodrich returned to NYPL as an assistant and finished the second year of the NYPL Library School in 1916. For one year she served as First Assistant at the Yorkville Branch and then transferred to become Secretary to the Chief of the Circulation Department. In 1928 she was promoted to Executive Assistant for the CD, a position she held until 1935. After 18 years working in CD administration, Goodrich was promoted to head the George Bruce Branch, a position she held until her retirement in 1944.

Today would be the 127^th birthday of Dorothy A. Goodrich.

ZAIDEE C. GRIFFIN (1866-1948)

2011-07-06T22:59:00.000-04:00

Zaidee Griffin was the long-time head of NYPL’s Webster Branch during the period that the branch flourished as a community center for the Czech and Slovak population in its Upper East Side neighborhood. In fact, Webster was often referred to as the “Bohemian Branch.”

Griffin studied librarianship at the 1901 Amherst Summer School of Library Economy. In the Fall she entered the NYPL Training Class and joined the Webster Free Library Society in 1902 where she worked with teachers in the neighborhood. Griffin became an NYPL staff member in 1904 when the Webster Free Library consolidated with NYPL. Soon thereafter, Griffin took a leave of absence to attend Pratt Institute and returned to NYPL in 1905 after getting her library degree. In 1906 she was appointed as Branch Librarian of the Webster Branch and served there until be retirement in 1939. She lived in the Webster neighborhood on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and worked closely with the Czech community.

Griffin’s appointment to head Webster came just a week after the branch’s new Carnegie-funded building opened. The third floor contained the Czechoslovak Department which started with a collection of 1500 volumes, half of them donated by cultural organizations in the neighborhood. The library, under Griffin’s leadership, often hosted meetings by Bohemian clubs and English-language classes provided by the YMCA. Aside from its book collection, the branch also sponsored lectures, concerts, and exhibits and other services for the Czech population throughout New York City.

DOROTHY LAURA COBB (1901-2001)

2011-07-06T09:18:00.000-04:00

Dorothy L. Cobb worked at NYPL for 44 years but twice her career at the Library languished.

Cobb graduated from the Savage School for Physical Education in 1921, apparently with the intention of becoming a physical education teacher. While she studied at the Savage School, she started working for NYPL as a part-time substitute and then accepted a Grade 1 (entry level) position at the Library upon her graduation. She remained in this entry level position for six years until she earned her library degree from Pratt Institute and was appointed to be head of the Columbia Sub-Branch. In 1928, Cobb became the first head of the Bronx Bookmobile. In 1930 she was promoted to be the First Assistant at the George Bruce Branch, but her career languished for the second time due to the limited promotional opportunities resulting from City budget cuts during the Depression.

Cobb was finally promoted to Branch Librarian at the 125^th Street Branch in 1941—she had been acting head since 1938. She transferred to High Bridge in 1943 and then to St. Agnes in 1946. She retired from the latter branch in 1965.

While the typical NYPL librarian changed apartments frequently, Dorothy Cobb lived at 110 Morningside Drive for at least 74 years, 1920-1994.

CHARLOTTE HUSTLER MEADE (1876-1967)

2011-07-02T10:08:00.002-04:00

While June had the birthdays of three women who were active unionists and also served as Branch Librarians, July’s first birthday has a different distinction. July 2^nd would be the 135^th birthday of Charlotte H. Meade who was listed in the New York City Social Register during her entire 43 year career as a librarian. Both Meade’s father and her mother’s father were Rear Admirals in the US Navy and the 1910 US census listed her mother (a widow) as having “her own income” but no occupation.

Late in 1898, a year after her father Richard Worsam Meade III had died, Meade wrote to John Shaw Billings, Director of NYPL, and asked for a position in the Reference Department but was told there were no openings. Instead she joined the New York Free Circulating Library in 1899 and was there in 1901 when it consolidated with NYPL.

Charlotte Meade was First Assistant at the George Bruce and St. Agnes branches before being promoted to Branch Librarian at the Aguilar Branch. After two years at Aguilar she took a leave of absence for unknown reasons. She returned to NYPL in 1911 and served as First Assistant at the St. George and 96^th Street branches. She was then promoted again to be Branch Librarian at St. George, 1912-1917, and then transferred as Branch Librarian at St. Agnes where she served until her retirement in 1941.

Meade was one of the half dozen early NYPL librarians who had articles published in the professional literature. In September 1904 Library Journal published an extract from Meade’s promotion thesis which focused the reading choices of children of different ethnic groups.

MARY HUNT DANA (1913-1984)

2011-06-30T21:55:00.000-04:00

So far in June, I have profiled two librarians (Edith Rees and Adele C. Martin who were active in the Library Employees Union and also served as head of an NYPL branch. Mary H. Dana not only followed that pattern (she was Treasurer of the LEU, 1947-1948, and headed three branches) but she also became an important administrator in the NYPL Circulation Department.

Mary Dana was born in Maine and graduated from the Westbrook Junior College in Portland, in 1936. She worked at the Portland Public Library, 1939-1941. She then moved south to attend the New Jersey College of Women (now Douglass College) where she received her library degree in 1942.

Dana joined NYPL in 1942 and served as head of the Mott Haven (1948-1953), West Farms (1953-1958), and Grand Concourse (1958-1961) branches. She then became an administrator heading up the Book Order and Processing Office, 1962-1963, and was promoted to Assistant Chief of the Circulation Department in 1963, a position she held until her retirement at the end of 1975. Dana then returned to Maine.

Dana’s name lives on in the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series at Douglass College. In 1987 Nelle Smither (1909-????) a professor of English at Douglass endowed the lecture series in honor of her friend. Dana and Smither were roommates in New York City 1948-1954 and twice travelled to Europe together during that time period.

MYRTLE LOUISE REYNOLDS (1906-1991)

2011-06-24T09:52:00.002-04:00

Myrtle L. Reynolds earned her BA from Barnard College in 1927 and began substituting at NYPL. In 1929 she received her library degree from the School of Library Service at Columbia and obtained a regular appointment at NYPL soon thereafter.

Reynolds was promoted to be Branch Librarian of the Hunt’s Point Branch in 1939 and served there until 1947.

Like most of the librarians at NYPL, Myrtle Reynolds was concerned about the impact of World War II on the Library and on the community. Even before America entered the war, the events in Europe loomed in the minds of staff and patrons alike. In her 1940 annual report for Hunt’s Point, Reynolds recorded typical scenes in the branch and concluded that a “warm consolation was afforded that bears comparison with ‘a port in a storm.’” A year later, writing just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Reynolds wrote that “freedom is challenged” and concluded that the Library also “must turn militant.” She noted the fact that users were switching from recreational reading to technical books and warned that librarians must “be consciously vigilant lest the creative literary aspects fade too far from the picture.”

In 1946 Reynolds happily reported that for the returning veterans “the library card appears to be a mark of citizenship.” Yet she was also aware that difficult times were not over, cautioning that : “The problems of post war adjustment, racial tensions and general living uncertainties make for an unsettled, feeling-the-way neighborhood situation.”

In 1947-1948 Reynolds headed the Veteran’s Center, a special office suggested by Mayor LaGuardia to meet the needs of returning service men and women.

Reynolds transferred to be Branch Librarian at the Riverside Branch in 1948 and served there until she retired in 1966.

Today would have been Myrtle Reynolds 105^th birthday.

EDITH REES (1905-2003)

2011-06-21T11:42:00.001-04:00

Edith Rees had a 35 year career at NYPL and was another of the active unionists who also served as the head of a branch of the Library.

Rees earned a BA from Wellesley College in 1925. She entered NYPL as a substitute right out of college and specialized as a children’s librarian. Rees received her BS in librarianship from Columbia University in 1933.

Edith Rees served as Branch Librarian at the Washington Heights (1943-1948), George Bruce (1948-1951), Inwood (1951-1959), and Donnell (1959-1960) branches. She retired in 1960.

Shortly before being promoted to Branch Librarian, Rees served as President of the Library Employees Union, Local 251 of the State, County and Municipal Workers. During her time as president of Local 251, NYPL struggled to secure adequate budget funds from the City of New York. The Union was supportive of the Library’s budget requests but also asked for additions to that request.

The Local had been founded in 1940 but in 1942 it had to merge into a larger Citywide Local 111 since so many union members had left for military service. Local 251 was the progenitor of today’s Local 1930, AFSCME, which represents the NYPL staff.

In 2006, the Public Employees Press published by District Council 37, representing AFSCME locals in New York City, ran a profile on Rees’ contributions to library unionization.

Today would have been Edith Rees 106^th birthday.

MARJORIE CHURCH BURBANK (1893-1989)

2011-06-17T10:18:00.000-04:00

Marjorie C. Burbank graduated from Rye Seminary in 1912. She entered the NYPL Library School in 1914 and received her certificate in 1915. She then started work as a Cataloger at NYPL. She continued to take the advanced courses in the Library School and earned her two-year degree in 1917.

In the 1920s Burbank worked as a children’s librarian in the branches and for most of the 1930s she served as Anne Carroll Moore’s assistant in the Office of Work with Children. Burbank was promoted to Branch Librarian at the Melrose Branch, 1939-1946, and then held the same position at the High Bridge Branch, 1946-1954. She retired in 1954.

In the 1930s when she worked closely with Anne Carroll Moore, another children’s librarian in the office was Margaret McElderry (1912-2011), who later became a famous children’s book editor. Apparently there was both a “sisterly” and a competitive relationship between Burbank and McElderry. McElderry described Marjorie Burbank as “a very good and caring librarian and reader, but she also had this wonderful nuttiness.” One example of that “nuttiness” was that Burbank brought jelly beans to the office every Easter and could hold a jelly bean on her finger tips, slap the heel of that palm with her other hand, and flip the jelly bean into her mouth. Margaret McElderry tried but had difficulty replicating Burbank’s trick. For the relationship between Burbank and McElderry see Betsy Hearne, “Margaret K. McElderry and theProfessional Matriarchy of Children’s Books.”

June 17^th would be Marjorie Burbank’s 118^th birthday,

PHYLLIS LOUISE OSTEEN (1904-1998)

2011-06-16T21:41:00.000-04:00

Phyllis Osteen was born in Missouri on June 16, 1904.

She earned a BA from the University of Arkansas in 1926 and then became a teacher at Highland Manor in Tarrytown NY, 1927-1928.

Osteen entered the NYPL Training Class in 1928 and was soon given a full-time position at the Library. She went on to get her formal library training from Columbia’s School of Library Service in 1932.

Osteen worked in the branch system for 19 years. Between 1928 and 1933 she worked at Central Circulation and two other branches and then transferred to the Extension Division to take charge of the Bronx Bookmobile. Following that she served as the Assistant Branch Librarian at several branches before being promoted to Branch Librarian at the Woodstock Branch 1946-1947.

Osteen’s most important contribution at NYPL came in 1947 when she joined the Library’s newly created Personnel Office which handled personnel issues for both the Circulation and Reference Departments of NYPL. Between 1945 and 1954 she published five articles in professional journals on personnel issues, several of the articles were frequently cited in bibliographies.

n 1953 Osteen resigned from NYPL and moved to Colorado where she finished her career in the Jefferson County and Greeley Public Libraries.

MARY COTTAM HATCH (1910-1970)

2011-06-16T21:21:00.001-04:00

Mary C. Hatch was a children’s librarian and author who recalled that she got her start by telling stories to her five younger sisters. Hatch is also the only Mormon, as far as I can determine, among those who became Branch Librarians, 1901-1950.

Mary Hatch received her BA from the University of Utah in 1937. The following year she got her library degree from Columbia University, and in 1940 she earned an MA in English, also from Columbia.

Hatch entered NYPL in 1938 after getting her library degree. She was promoted to Branch Librarian in 1945 and headed the Epiphany Branch (1945-1947) and the 58^th Street Branch (1947-1955). She subsequently headed the Readers’ Adviser’s Office (1956-1962) and then the Central Circulation Branch (1962-1967). Her final position was as Coordinator of the Mid-Manhattan Branch. Mid-Manhattan was a replacement for Central Circulation and was located in a former department store building, across Fifth Avenue from NYPL’s Central Building. Hatch held that position until her death in 1970.

Hatch was also an author and editor. She edited NYPL’s Branch Library Book News for five years and published several short plays, two books of Danish folk tales, and Rosamunda (Warne, 1946), a children’s picture book illustrated by her husband, Edgun Valdemar Wulff (1913-2000).

Today would have been Hatch’s 101^st birthday.

EDWIN WHITE GAILLARD (1872-1928)

2011-06-14T22:43:00.000-04:00

Edwin W. Gaillard was the first man to head an NYPL branch and the first head of the Library’s work with schools. He was also, most likely, the only person to serve as NYPL’s Special Investigator after having been arrested for attempted burglary

In 1896, at the age of 24, Gaillard was arrested for attempted burglary. The story in the New York Herald (June 2, 1896, page 5) described him as “intelligent, fairly good looking, well dressed and evidently of a respectable family.” The newspaper reported Gaillard’s claim that he “was only playing burglar” after having bragged to his brothers that “it could be done in a walk”.

Although he had no training as a librarian, a year after his arrest Edwin Gaillard became head librarian of the Webster Free Library Society, which served the Czech émigré community on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. As librarian, Gaillard worked with that community and also developed programs in conjunction with neighborhood schools. Late in his life Gaillard was awarded the Order of the White Lion by the Czechoslovak government in recognition of his public service at the Webster Library.

Once Webster consolidated with NYPL in 1904, Gaillard remained as head of the Webster Branch and thus became the first man to head an NYPL branch. He gave up that position in 1906 to develop NYPL’s work with schools program, which Phyllis Dain has called the first such department in the nation. In that position, he clashed with Anne Carroll Moore, NYPL’s famous children’s librarian, and in 1913 Gaillard was moved to a newly created position as Special Investigator for the Library. In this role, he was regarded “as conspicuously successful” for aggressively investigating thefts and mutilations of books. This was an unusual success story for someone once arrested for attempted burglary.

Gaillard died at the age of 56 of a kidney disorder.

ISABEL JACKSON (1902-1977)

2011-06-13T10:28:00.002-04:00

Isabel Jackson was born on June 13, 1902 in New York City

At age 20 she became a General Assistant at the Brooklyn Public Library.

She received her certificate from the Pratt Institute Library School in 1925.

After graduating from Pratt, Jackson entered NYPL as the Acting First Assistant at the Tompkins Square Branch, a position that was made permanent in 1926. For two years, 1927-1929, she served as First Assistant at Seward Park.

Jackson then served as Branch Librarian at three busy branches: Morrisania, 1929-1941; St. Agnes, 1941-1946; and Fordham, 1946-1953. In 1954 she was named to be the first Borough Coordinator overseeing all the branches in the Bronx. She held this position until 1961 when she retired from NYPL after 36 years.

At her retirement from NYPL she was hailed as “a remarkable and utterly devoted librarian, a book lady and a leader.”

Isabel Jackson retired to Vermont, where she had a farm, and died there in 1977.

BEULAH TAYLOR SHEETZ (1900-1993)

2011-06-12T16:23:00.004-04:00

Beulah Taylor was born 111 years ago on June 12^th in Charleston SC.

Beulah Taylor graduated from Hollins College with a degree in English in 1924. She then became a volunteer at the Charleston (SC) Library Society and was soon hired as an Assistant. She left the public library to become an Assistant Librarian at the College of Charleston, 1927-1935.

While at the College, she took a leave of absence to get her BS from Columbia’s School of Library Service in 1932.

In 1936, Beulah (also known as Bee) Taylor married George Edward Sheetz and entered NYPL as Grade 3 assistant at the Seward Park Branch on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Beulah T. Sheetz was promoted to be Branch Librarian at Epiphany in 1948-1949, then went back to Seward Park as Branch Librarian 1950-1954, and then returned to Epiphany until she retired in 1959.

After her retirement, she moved back to Charleston and once again worked at the Charleston Library Society until 1975.

ADELE CRAWFORD MARTIN (1893-1964)

2011-06-12T10:15:00.002-04:00

Adele C. Martin was one of several NYPL librarians who were active in union activities and also served as a Branch Librarian.

Martin took the High School Teacher Course at the New Jersey State Normal School and then entered Wellesley College. She received her BA from Wellesley in 1915.

Her career in librarianship began in 1920 when she started as a substitute at NYPL and also became a part-time student in the NYPL Library School. She received her certificate in 1923 and was named First Assistant in the Extension Division.

Adele C. Martin remained in Extension for only a few months before she resigned to become an Assistant Librarian at the Hampton Institute Library, 1923-1924. Martin then moved to the Westerly (RI) Public Library and gained more administrative experience working there until 1929.

Martin was re-instated at NYPL in 1929 and became the Acting Branch Librarian at the now defunct Jackson Square Branch.

Adele Martin headed the Muhlenberg Branch, 1930-1946. This branch was just south of NYC’s garment district, and Martin worked closely with the nearby Needle Trades High School and with several textile unions. Martin was a member of the NYPL Library Workers Union, Local 111, and wrote a report in 1943 suggesting opportunities for NYPL to work with trade unions. Martin was also active in the Library Union Round Table of ALA.

Martin also served as Chairman of the Metropolitan Library Council. As she wrote in a 1941 issue of News and Views (a MLC newsletter) the group’s purpose was to unite library staff and users to “face the questions of the day which have a direct bearing upon library services, e.g., censorship, state and federal aid for libraries, tenure, unionization, etc.”

During the same period, Martin was also a member of the Progressive Librarians Council, a national group that was active during 1939-1944. The PLC was alleged to be a Communist Party (USA) front group by the US government.

In 1947 Martin became the Branch Librarian at the busy Tremont Branch in the Bronx, and she retired in 1953.

Today would be Adele C. Martin’s 118^th birthday.

MILDRED ESTHER VAN DEUSEN MATHEWS (1898-1996)

2011-06-02T22:41:00.000-04:00

Mildred E. Van Deusen studied Economics, Sociology and History at Mt. Holyoke College and received her BA in 1920. She married Carl E. Mathews (1896-195?) in 1922 and entered library work in 1926 at the South Manchester (CT) Public Library.

Mildred E. Mathews entered the NYPL Training Class in 1929 and soon was appointed to an entry-level position in NYPL’s Circulation Department. She also graduated from Columbia University’s School of Library Service in 1931.

Mildred Mathews early work at NYPL was as a Reference & School specialist. In 1933 her supervisor at the Hunt’s Point Branch praised Mathews’ reference work as “a rare combination of personal poise and charm with professional competency.” Mathews importance at NYPL, however, was not as a reference specialist, but instead she made her mark in adult education and adult services.

Mildred V.D. Mathews was promoted to Branch Librarian at the Hamilton Grange Branch in 1936 and later headed the Yorkville Branch, 1944-1945. In 1945-1946, Mathews served as head of the Reader’s Advisers Office.

In 1946 Mathews became the first head of NYPL’s newly organized Office of Adult Services. This was a significant new approach at NYPL. Work with children and with schools had been systematized since 1906, but NYPL had never had a specialty focused on adults. In 1945, the Chief of the Circulation Department reported that adult services “has always been an obvious weak spot in our organization”. Mathews was chosen to organize the Adult Services unit in 1946 and held that position until her retirement in 1953.

Soon after her retirement, Mathews and her husband took a freighter trip around the world. When they returned they retired to Maine. Mathews did resume library work at the School of Nursing Library at the Maine Medical Center, 1958-1970.

Today would be the 113^th birthday of Mildred Mathews.

ALICE KEATS O’CONNOR (1886-1928)

2011-05-29T10:20:00.004-04:00

Alice O’Connor was a much beloved children’s librarian at NYPL and her connections to the profession originated in childhood. She grew up in Hartford CT and as a child was a member of the Agassiz Club, a children’s book group organized by Caroline Hewins, one of the pioneering children’s librarians in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

O’Connor was a member of the first class of the NYPL Library School and received her two-year degree in 1913. She worked as a children’s librarian in four NYPL branches, 1913-1923.

O’Connor took a leave of absence in 1920-1921 to work with the American Committee for Devastated France. There she organized and directed a new children’s library in Soissons, France.

Two years after her return to NYPL Alice O’Connor was appointed Branch Librarian at the Seward Park Branch but had to resign the following year to return to Hartford to care for her ailing mother. She did resume her career by becoming the head librarian of the Farmington (CT) Public Library, 1924-1928.

Alice K. O’Connor died in Hartford at the age of 42 after a serious illness.

CHARLOTTE J. HUBACH (1892-1966)

2011-05-29T10:15:00.000-04:00

Today would be Charlotte Hubach’s 119^th birthday. Charlotte Hubach was born in Brooklyn NY of German parents. She graduated from Girls High School in Brooklyn but had no college education.

Hubach received her library training in the Brooklyn Public Library Training Class in 1911 and worked at BPL until 1919. Hubach spent the following eight years working in special libraries.

Hubach entered NYPL in 1928 as First Assistant at the St. George Branch, 1928-1933, but she spent the rest of her career at two branches—Yorkville and Ottendorfer--in German neighborhoods. She was Acting Branch Librarian at Ottendorfer, 1933-1948 and Branch Librarian there until her retirement in 1957.

Given her German background, the outbreak of war in Europe caused Hubach a range of emotions between optimism and despair. In 1939 she was optimistic that the refugees from Europe provided “a wonderful opportunity here as librarians to sell America and the idea of a democratic state to these bewildered people.” In her 1941 annual report, written the day that Germany declared war on the US, she described the war as “a bitter personal blow”. Yet at war’s end, she rejoiced at the interaction with one former user who returned to the branch after serving in the Army. He “paid us a high tribute when he said, ‘while I froze in my foxhole in Germany I often thought of the three nicest, friendliest places I knew—Home, Nick’s Poolroom, and the Library!’”

The young veteran had brought Hubach’s optimism to the fore again.

PAULINE LEIPZIGER (1858-1937)

2011-05-28T10:08:00.001-04:00

Pauline Leipziger started working as a librarian at the Aguilar Free Library Society in 1889 and became head librarian of the AFLS in 1892. She held that position until NYPL absorbed the AFLS in 1903.

Pauline Leipziger’s position within NYPL was a subject of negotiation in 1903 upon consolidation and again upon her retirement in 1917.

The Leipziger family had been heavily involved in the AFLS, and its loss of independence was difficult for them, especially for Pauline’s brother, Henry M. Leipziger, who had been an officer of the AFLS since 1886. Commenting on the consolidation, Jacob Schiff wrote to Henry Leipziger, “I can well imagine with how much of a pang you are surrendering your cherished child, the Aguilar Free Library, to the care of others.” Henry Leipziger also sought to assure the proper care of his sister by NYPL. He sought to solidify his sister’s position.

Usually upon consolidation, the heads of the free library branches became the head librarian of the corresponding NYPL branch. The AFLS insisted that Pauline Leipziger remain in charge of all four AFLS branches, and this was accommodated by giving her the title of Inspector of the Aguilar branches. The Library’s Director, John Shaw Billings, however, ended the arrangement within months. In 1904 she was named Branch Librarian at the 58^th Street Branch and served there until her retirement in 1917.

Pauline Leipziger’s retirement from the Library also had to be negotiated. Starting in 1912, Leipziger missed significant time due to illness and the Library’s Medical Officer described her as suffering “general debility and weariness” in 1914. As her condition worsened, and as she cared for a dying brother, it became a difficult situation for both Leipziger and the Library. Finally in 1917, after some negotiation, NYPL offered her a retirement allowance and she agreed to resign her position.

Today would have been Pauline Leipziger’s 153^rd birthday.

SARAH MARY MILLER GALVAN (1911-1996)

2011-05-25T10:26:00.001-04:00

Sarah M. Miller graduated from Elmira College in 1932 and got her BS in library science from Columbia University in 1933. In 1940, Galvan married Fernando F. Galvan (ca. 1915-1983), who was a journalist.

Sarah Miller started at NYPL in 1934 and worked as a substitute until 1936. At NYPL she worked primarily as a School & Reference Librarian with a specialty in Latin American literature. Drawing upon these two specialties, she authored a 1942 bibliography, Background Readings on Latin America: A Reading List for High School Students. Sarah M. Galvan served as head of the Kingsbridge Branch, 1944-1947. She resigned in 1947 when her husband became a Latin American correspondent for the Voice of America.

Sarah M. Galvan died in Alexandria VA in 1996.

RAE STOCKHAM (1883-1971)

2011-05-25T09:00:00.001-04:00

Rae Stockham was one of the NYPL librarians who had an important career in an academic library prior to coming to NYPL. See my previous post on NYPL librarians who also worked in academic libraries.

Stockham was born in Iowa and graduated from Drake University in 1907. After teaching high school for a year she became an assistant in the Drake University Library in 1908. She left Iowa to get a certificate from the New York State Library School. She returned to Drake to be head librarian in 1910 and left again in 1920 to finish her BLS at the NY State Library School.

Stockham started at NYPL in 1921. She served as branch Librarian of the Tremont Branch, 1924-1944, and George Bruce Branch, 1944-1948. After her retirement in 1948 she also worked as a cataloger at the Latin American Institute and as a librarian at the New York Society Library and returned to Iowa in 1957.

May 25^th would be the 128^th birthday of Rae Stockham.

ELLEN M. FITZSIMONS (1900-1965)

2011-05-22T10:00:00.002-04:00

Ellen FitzSimons was perhaps destined to be a successful librarian. She was named after and inspired by her aunt, Ellen Milliken FitzSimons (1867-1953), who was the first female librarian in South Carolina.

Before coming to New York, FitzSimons worked for two years at the Kennedy Free Library in Spartanburg SC. She did not have a college degree but received her BA from New York University while working at NYPL. Likewise, her certificate from Columbia’s School of Library Service came while FitzSimons was working at NYPL.

Ellen FitzSimons was unusual in that she spent her entire NYPL career working at a single branch--Central Circulation. This unit was not in a residential neighborhood but was located in the Library’s landmark Central Building on Fifth Avenue. It was the largest branch and served users from all parts of the City as well as the many office workers and businesses located in midtown Manhattan. Central Circulation was also noted for its service to the many authors who used its collections.

Ellen FitzSimons started working in Central Circulation in 1932 as a substitute. She became the head librarian in 1949 and held that position until she retired in 1962. Perhaps due to her Southern roots, FitzSimons was described as “folksy” and was said to have a small town manner. Indeed, her retirement plan was to sit on the porch of her family farm in Hendersonville NC.

REGINA M. ANDERSON ANDREWS (1901-1993)

2011-05-21T11:50:00.001-04:00

Regina Anderson Andrews was the first of three African-American women who headed an NYPL branch before 1950.
Regina Anderson was born in Chicago and attended both the University of Illinois and Wilberforce University. She obtained library experience at the Hyde Park High School, the Chicago Public Library, Wilberforce University, and the Zenia (OH) Public Library.

She came to NYC in 1923 and was soon hired to be a substitute at the 135^th Street Branch in Harlem. By 1920 the neighborhood around 135^th Street had become predominantly African-American, and NYPL installed Ernestine Rose, who was white, to head the 135^th Street Branch. Rose’s mandate was to create an inter-racial staff and serve the growing African-American community. Andrews was probably the fifth librarian of color hired by Rose. Until 1924, this was also the only branch were librarians of color were allowed to work.

In 1926, Regina Anderson married William T. Andrews, Jr., a Harlem lawyer and political leader.

Regina Andrews became NYPL’s first African-American to be promoted to First Assistant in 1930, at the Rivington Street Branch. She was finally appointed Branch Librarian at the 115^th Street Branch in 1938 after W.E.B. DuBois interceded on her behalf with Library administrators.

Andrews also served as Branch Librarian at the Washington Heights Branch, 1948-1966. There she was noted for developing Family Night, a program which encouraged family groups to attend discussions at the Library. As Andrews wrote in ALA’s Top of the News (Vol. 10, pages 31-33) “It is our way in the Library of saying, ‘Come, meet your neighbor, and talk over with him those problems of living, working and playing together which, when frankly approached, will help to establish a well integrated community.’”

Regina Andrews is also remembered for her connection to the Harlem Renaissance. She opened her home to artists, writers and intellectuals. She also had her own role in the intellectual ferment as a playwright, actor, and supporter of the Harlem theater movement.

Prof. Ethelene Whitmire is writing a full biography of Regina Andrews, and I recommend her blog on Andrews.

Today would be Regina Andrews 110^th birthday.

EMMA CORINNE DOUGHTY (1859-1933)

2011-05-21T10:00:00.001-04:00

Corinne Doughty (also listed as E. Corinne) was one a small group of volunteers who began working in November 1887 to create the Cathedral Free Circulating Library. The group also included her cousin, Leonora Hinsdale, Anna Wallace, and Mary O’Meara all of whom eventually became NYPL Branch Librarians. Except for a stint at the Aguilar Free Library Society, 1897-1900, Corinne Doughty volunteered or worked for the Cathedral Free Library from its opening in 1888 until it consolidated with NYPL in 1905.

Between 1907 and her death in 1933, she headed the Epiphany, West 40^th Street and Columbus Branches of NYPL.

For much of her adult life Douyghty lived with Leonora Hinsdale, her cousin, and for several decades Mary Griffin, also a librarian at NYPL, was part of the household.

IRENE JOHNSON PATJENS (1906-1997)

2011-05-18T10:00:00.003-04:00

Irene Patjens was born Irene L. Johnson on May15th in Michigan, and her name was changed when her mother married her second husband, Henry (or Heinrich) Patjens.

Patjens received her BS in Library Science from the University of Washington in 1928. For the next three years she worked as a children’s librarian at the Deschutes County Public Library in Bend, Oregon.

In 1931, Irene Patjens came to NYPL as a substitute in the Central Children’s Room. By 1940 she has risen to be the First Assistant at the Mott Haven Branch. Starting in 1944, she served as the Branch Librarian at Woodstock, 125^th Street and 96^th Street branches. She retired in 1963.

In 1932, Irene L. Patjens married T.E.R. Singer (1902-1966) who was also a librarian. Over the next 31 years at NYPL she used both her maiden and her married name, although Patjens was most commonly used.

Today would be Irene Patjens 105^th birthday.

MARITAL STATUS, 1911-1920

2011-05-16T10:00:00.002-04:00

In a previous post on marital status, I identified three patterns in the first decade of the NYPL Circulation Department (CD): the one married man stayed employed, single women quit NYPL to be married, and the only married women to head branches were widows.

The second decade saw a continuation of these patterns but also one significant change regarding marital status.

Starting in 1913, NYPL wanted to install men as Branch Librarians and three were hired. All three were married while working for NYPL. Although this experiment was regarded as a failure and the three men had left NYPL by 1917, the initial pattern of married male librarians was confirmed.

Likewise, at least two women, and probably three, resigned as branch heads at the time they got married.

But, 1913 also saw one significant change. Ida Lowther Molnar, who had been a Branch Librarian for eight years, was married that year. She not only remained employed but NYPL selected her to be the first Branch Librarian at the newly opened Melrose Branch. Two years later Gertrude Foster Hamilton also married and remained as a Branch Librarian. Alison Baigrie Alessios, who had been a Branch Librarian since 1911, married in 1916 and stayed employed.

Given the few married women librarians, one must ask whether the Library discouraged married women from being the head of a branch. Little direct evidence has been found so far. Alison Alessios, however, was concerned enough about this being the case that she had asked the Chief of the CD about it before she was married and even after being reassured had an intermediary inquire again on her behalf. The Library’s reply in both instances was that it did not discriminate against married librarians.

t also is possible that the Branch Librarians themselves preferred other single women in the role. The Branch Librarians were at the apex of their autonomy in terms of choosing which librarians would be hired or promoted. More analysis will be required to determine if this was a factor.

We can say that through 1920, of the 70 women librarians who had headed a branch only the three mentioned above were married while in NYPL’s employ, but all four of the male Branch Librarians in that period were married.

ANITA MAE ALLEN IRWIN (1893-1979)

2011-05-15T10:00:00.001-04:00

Anita M. Allen received her BS in Library Science from Simmons College in 1915. She then worked in the Simmons College Library, 1915-1918. At some point during this period, she also was a library organizer in Maine.

Anita Allen joined NYPL in 1918 as an Assistant Branch Librarian in the Extension Division on Staten Island and the following year was promoted to Branch Librarian of the St. George Branch. In 1925 she resigned this position to marry Clarence Russell Irwin (1893-1963) and they had a son, Fred Allen Irwin, in 1929. At this point I lose track of the family.

The NYPL Archives, however, does have one more trace of Anita A. Irwin as a librarian. In 1946, the ALA Personnel Department circulated a list of registered job seekers looking for work in the New York City area. That list was sent to NYPL, and Anita Irwin is among the job seekers. At that time she was working at the US Naval Hospital Library in St. Albans, Queens, NY.

Today would be Anita Allen Irwin’s 108^th birthday.

EDITH FIELD VERMEULE

2011-05-14T16:25:00.000-04:00

Edith Vermeule joined NYPL in 1905, one year out of high school, and worked her way up to be First Assistant at the Seward Park Branch. She resigned in 1917 to attend the Pratt Institute library school. Upon her graduation in 1918, she took a series of positions around the US: Field Secretary for Maryland Public Library Commission, 1918-1919; head of reference for the Rosenberg Library in Galveston, Texas, 1919-1921; and head of the Yesler Branch of the Seattle Public Library, 1921-1923.

Vermeule returned to NYPL in 1923 and was promoted in 1928 to head the Fordham Branch, a position she held until her retirement in 1946.

Vermeule’s well-written annual reports at Fordham often reflected on the relationship between the library and the public. In 1941, amid what she characterized as “plunging circulation”, she worried that “our future is problematical.” Vermeule lamented that “libraries have made no vital connection with John Public’s daily life. One reason might be the prevailing feminine influence in the choice of books.” She speculated that an unmarried woman, such as herself, might not be able to select books that men would find interesting. Vermeule predicted that changes were coming to librarianship.

Although the transition would be slow, gender changes were coming to NYPL. For the first time since 1917, the Library had started hiring male librarians, although none of them would become head of a branch until 1949.

Today would be the 125^th birthday of Edith F. Vermeule.

JULIA ELIZABETH TRUE DURNETT (1848-1929)

2011-05-09T12:10:00.000-04:00

Julia Elizabeth True was born in Maine on May 8, 1849 and married William Augustus Durnett in 1865. Her husband died sometime between 1870 when their daughter was born and 1880 when the census lists her as a widow. Julia Durnett then supported herself and her daughter by working as a music teacher.

In 1894 Durnett began a cataloger at the Aguilar Free Library Society (AFLS) the same year her daughter, Elizabeth (Bessie) Durnett Shumway, was married.

Julia E. Durnett joined NYPL in 1903 when the AFLS was absorbed into the system. Two years later she was promoted to head the Port Richmond Branch on Staten Island and worked there until her retirement in 1917 at the age of 69.

Elizabeth D. Shumway, who became a widow in 1899, became an NYPL librarian in 1906 and for a short time followed her mother as head of the Port Richmond Branch. She resigned to become a librarian in Pelham and later Buffalo, NY. Julia Durnett lived with her daughter in retirement and died Buffalo in 1929.

MARGARET MARKOVICS MARKS (1898-1980)

2011-05-07T08:19:00.000-04:00

Margaret Markovics came to the United States from Hungary with her mother at the age of six.

She first studied librarianship at Washington Irving High School, where the instructor was Louise P. Fritz, a former NYPL Branch Librarian. Markovics was appointed to Grade D, an entry level position, at NYPL upon her high school graduation in 1917. She later took extension classes at Hunter College and received her certificate from the NYPL Library School in 1922.

Although she was described as one of the “best Senior Assistants” in 1922, she had a slow rise to become the head of a branch. That delay was the result of limits that the City of New York imposed on promotions during the difficult budget years of the Great Depression and then World War Two.

Markovics changed her name to Margaret Marks in 1941.

Margaret Marks served as acting head of the Westchester Square Branch, 1942-1948. She was finally promoted to full Branch Librarian in 1949 at the Tompkins Square Branch and retired in 1954.

In her annual reports at Westchester Square, Marks recorded the ethos of many public librarians. As she described it in 1943: “we never turn a reader away without putting him on the trail of his book or questions.” Two years later she rephrased it, adding the financial consequences of the approach: “Our rule is never to allow a reader to leave without an answer to his question. Our telephone bill tells the tale.”

May 7^th would be the 113^th birthday of Margaret Markovics Marks.

IDA MALAMUD (1898-1992)

2011-05-05T21:20:00.000-04:00

Ida Malamud was the second Jewish librarian to be hired by NYPL and promoted to Branch Librarian.

It is somewhat difficult to trace her early years. On her naturalization petition, she stated that she was born in Kishinev, Russia, and entered the United States in 1903 under the name of Lisa Klein. There is a ship passenger list that seems to confirm this. It is likely that both her emigration to the US in August 1903 and her use of a different name were tied to the notorious April 1903 pogrom in Kishinev.

Ida Malamud started at NYPL in 1926 and joined the NYPL Training Class a year later. In 1931-1932 she took a leave of absence to work at the American Library in Paris and then returned to NYPL. In 1934, Malamud began working part-time in order to attend the Pratt Institute library school and graduated from Pratt in 1935. In 1950 she was finally promoted to be a Branch Librarian. She retired from NYPL in 1963.

Like other NYPL librarians, Malamud went to an academic library after leaving NYPL. See my earlier post on this general topic . Malamud ended her career as a reference librarian at Yeshiva University. A co-worker at YU recalled Malamud: "I remember her fondly as a very stately and fine woman who was very helpful to the students and faculty."

Today would be the 113^th birthday of Ida Malamud.

HEDWIG MARTA GOEKS (1865-1942)

2011-05-05T19:49:00.000-04:00

Hedwig M. Goeks was born in Germany, came to US in 1888, entered the New York Free Circulating Library in 1890 and eventually headed the Muhlenberg and Ottendorfer branches of the NYFCL. After the NYFCL consolidated with NYPL in 1901, Goeks remained in charge of the Ottendorfer Branch (which served Manhattan’s German community). In 1905 she was transferred to the Mott Haven Branch in the Bronx and headed that branch until 1919. She then transferred to be Branch Librarian at the Epiphany Branch and retired in 1920.

These job details obscure the fact that Goeks career was an example of how the Library dealt with (or avoided dealing with) difficult staff members.

In January 1919 Franklin F. Hopper became the third Chief of NYPL’s Circulation Department. He immediately was faced with complaints from two staff members at Mott Haven who reported that Goeks “rules by a kind of arbitrary Germanic force”. Hopper found that many assistants refused to work under her and also that Goeks had alienated many users in the neighborhood. Hopper considered demoting her but recognized that no Branch Librarian would accept her on their staff. Instead Goeks was transferred to be Branch Librarian at the Epiphany Branch, in a less busy neighborhood. Within months, Hopper received a letter from six users of Epiphany complaining about Goeks and labeling her a “persona non grata”. After some negotiation, Goeks agreed to retire with an allowance of $85 per month, reported to be the largest ever given by the Library.

Unfortunately for Goeks that was not the end of the story. In 1932, the foundation that annually donated money to NYPL to pay for retirement allowances was forced to reduce its gift. NYPL in turn cut Goeks allowance. Two years later, when another Branch Librarian was becoming “more and more undependable and erratic”, NYPL cut the allowance of four retirees (including Goeks) to free up money to support this new retiree.

Goeks’ career illustrates the degree to which NYPL felt an obligation to retain difficult or enfeebled librarians in the period before NYC librarians obtained guaranteed pensions. It also illustrates the strains this paternalistic policy imposed on the Library, other staff members, and users.

FORREST BRISBINE SPAULDING (1892-1965)

2011-05-04T22:26:00.000-04:00

Forrest B. Spaulding was one of the three men brought into the Circulation Department shortly before World War I to end the monopoly of women on the branch staff.

Keyes Metcalf in his memoir Random Recollections of an Anachronism noted that Spaulding (a co-worker) had been expelled from several preparatory schools and had no college education. Nonetheless, Spaulding started his library career working at the Newark Public Library, 1911-1912. In 1912, he enrolled in the two-year program of the NYPL Library School and earned both a certificate (1913) and diploma (1914).

Forrest Spaulding joined the NYPL staff as a First Assistant at Jackson Square in 1913 and was promoted to Branch Librarian in 1914. In 1916-1917 he headed the NYPL Traveling Library Department. He then resigned and spent most of his career as head of the Des Moines (Iowa) Public Library.

Among his accomplishments after leaving NYPL, Spaulding created the first Library Bill of Rights for the Des Moines Public Library (a year before ALA promulgated its own similar statement), and in 1939 he was mentioned as one of the candidates for the Librarian of Congress vacancy.

Spaulding is one of several prolific authors in my study. I have identified 26 articles he wrote for the professional literature, 1920-1948. Many of his articles focused on the library profession, administration, federal libraries and federal aid to libraries. In addition, he edited Library Logic a publication of Gaylord Brothers, 1924-1926.

On reflection, Keyes Metcalf concluded that Spaulding “was an unusually good example of how a man interested in books but with comparatively little formal education could become a very useful librarian.”

Today would be Spaulding’s 119^th birthday.

HANNAH CARVER ELLIS (1871-1962)

2011-05-04T19:41:00.000-04:00

Hannah Ellis was a pioneering children’s librarian before coming to NYPL. She began her career in Wisconsin in 1900 and twice enrolled in summer courses at the University of Wisconsin library school. In 1907 she moved to the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh as a children’s librarian and then became head of a branch which served users from 25 nations. She also enrolled as a special student in Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Library School, a pioneering school for the training of children’s librarians.

Ellis came to NYPL in 1917 and almost immediately was appointed to head the Hamilton Fish Park Branch, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She continued to work with children and young people but also focused on service to the foreign born. Hannah C. Ellis retired in 1939.

In 1920, Hannah Ellis spoke on a panel devoted to work with the foreign-born at the annual meeting of the NY Library Association. Her words expressed the intense belief of many librarians in the importance of books, reading and libraries in American life.

“Working in a library always swarming with young people, realizing that in a few years they will be the controlling influence in politics and industry makes us very serious in the matter; and the faith we have that in books may be found the wisdom and inspiration for solving many of the problems that this younger generation faces, gives us a feeling of great responsibility in our work of making the library significant during these years that are the heart of life.”

Today would be the 140^th birthday of Hannah C. Ellis.

ELIZABETH LENA KAMENETZKY (1888-????)

2011-05-01T22:53:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth L. Kamenetzky applied for admission to the NYPL Library School in 1913, and the school’s records described her as being a “Russian Jewess.” Throughout her 43 year career at NYPL, Kamenetzky worked in five different branches, and all of those branches served Jewish neighborhoods in either Manhattan or the Bronx.

Kamenetzky had been born in Vitebsk, Russia; came to the United States in about 1890; and was naturalized as a citizen in 1906. She worked at the Newark (NJ) Public Library, 1907-1908 and received a certificate from the NJ State Normal School in 1910.

Elizabeth Kamenetzky was one of only seven Jewish librarians to head a branch at NYPL, 1901-1950. Five of those seven had entered NYPL in 1903 when it absorbed the Aguilar Free Library Society, a Jewish-run library system with four branches. Kamenetzky was hired by NYPL in 1910, and when she was promoted to Branch Librarian in 1928 she became the first Jewish librarian to be both hired by NYPL and promoted to Branch Librarian.

May 2 would be the 123^rd birthday of Elizabeth L. Kamenetzky.

MARION E. LANG (1902-1981)

2011-04-27T17:20:00.000-04:00

Today would be the 109^th birthday of Marion E. Lang. Marion Lang was born in New Hampshire and moved away from home after graduating from high school.

Lang entered the Springfield (MA) City Library Association Training Class in 1920 but left in 1921 to work for the S. Manchester (CT) Free Library. She moved to NYC in 1922 and started substituting at NYPL. Marion Lang headed the Westchester Square and Chatham Square branches between 1941 and her retirement in 1963.

The Chatham Square Branch kept a historical card file of those who worked in the branch. Lang’s card listed two individuals as emergency contacts. The first was Ruth Shinnamon (1907-1982) who was also a NYPL Branch Librarian. The second was Esther V. Saul (1896-1989), who started at NYPL but left to be a librarian for the NYC Board of Education. The lives of these three librarians were intertwined for more than 50 years.

Lang and Saul are listed in the 1930 Census as rooming with Mildred Mathews (also a NYPL librarian) and her husband. From ship passenger lists, we know that Lang and Esther Saul also travelled to Bermuda together in 1938.

Between 1932-1935 Lang, Shinnamon and Saul lived together on East 89^th Street. Lang and Shinnamon shared apartments in Manhattan in the 1940s.

The three of them all retired to Jamesburg NJ, and the three friends all died there in the 1980s.

ELIZABETH ROBINSON EDWARDS (1907-1990)

2011-04-26T11:17:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth R. Edwards received her BA from Chattanooga University in 1927 and then entered the apprentice program at Chattanooga Public Library (CPL). She came to NYC in 1928 to attend Columbia’s library school and returned to CPL as Head Cataloger 1929-1930. She then came back to New York City and joined the Queens Borough Public Library 1930-1931 and joined to NYPL in 1931. Edwards worked primarily in the NYPL Extension Division before serving as Branch Librarian of the Kingsbridge Branch, 1943-1944.

Elizabeth Edwards’ major impact on librarianship occurred in the two positions she held after she left NYPL.

First, Edwards left NYPL in 1944 because she was tapped by the federal government to organize the library in Oak Ridge TN. The population of Oak Ridge grew from 3,000 in 1942 to about 75,000 in 1945 after the US government chose the town as the secret home of the Manhattan Project. The thousands of newcomers were literate adults who demanded a well-stocked library. Edwards flourished as the first librarian serving “a most unusual and exciting community”.

Second, when Edwards left Oak Ridge at war’s end she returned home to Chattanooga to be the head librarian of the CPL, a position she held for 20 years. Edwards’ obituary noted among her accomplishments that she “presided over the desegregation of the library’s facilities”. Beginning in 1949, African-American high school students and adults were admitted to the Library and children’s services were integrated the following year.

Today would be Elizabeth (Libby) Edwards’ 104^th birthday.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2011-04-20T10:43:00.000-04:00

“Movie-made children and radio-made opinions, streamlined cars and streamlined minds impel the library skipper to chart a new course, as the changing mode of living and thinking is reflected in the library and is affecting its type of service.”

These were the opening lines of the 1937 annual report prepared by Irma Horak Erath, the Branch Librarian at the St. George Branch. The words resonate with today’s information professionals who follow in the tradition of their predecessors by adjusting their services to changing social patterns.

BTW, the nautical metaphor came naturally to Erath since the St. George Branch on Staten Island had a Sea Room and catered to a population living on an island in the NY harbor.

DOROTHY CYNTHIA ROBINSON BUSBY (1903-????)

2011-04-19T21:20:00.000-04:00

Today would be the 108^th birthday of Dorothy Cynthia Robinson. While I can trace her career at NYPL, I have not been able to fill in many gaps for the rest of her life.

Dorothy C. Robinson received a BA from Barnard College in 1925 and a BS from the School of Library Service at Columbia University in 1929.

Dorothy Robinson began substituting at NYPL in 1927 and became full-time in 1929. She focused on school and reference work and had a rapid rise to become the first head of the Bronx Reference Center in 1931.

In 1933-1935 she had a series of illnesses and missed extensive time from work. Probably due to her health, she was transferred from Bronx Reference Center in 1935 and held five different positions over the next 6 years before being promoted to head the 67^th Street Branch in 1941.

After only two years as a Branch Librarian, Robinson announced that she wanted to “go to a library in the Southwest” and resigned from NYPL in 1943. The 1943 ALA Handbook, however, listed her as head of the Hospital Library Bureau of the United Hospital Fund. The 1949 ALA membership list placed her in Milbridge Maine as Mrs. Albert E. Busby. So it appears that she married Albert Early Busby (1896-1964), a Texan, sometime between 1943-1949

Dorothy Busby ended her career by working for the Hartford (CT) Public Library, from 1957 to about 1966. She apparently lived in Hartford until her death in 1985 or 1986.

MARGARET STRATTON TOLIVER GARNER

2011-04-18T08:14:00.000-04:00

Margaret S. Toliver started work at NYPL in 1938 a year after receiving her BS from the Columbia University School of Library Service. She had previously earned a BA from Transylvania University. She worked in Central Circulation until 1946 when she was promoted to head the 67^th Street Branch. She had married Marvin P. Garner in 1941 and left NYPL in 1947 when her husband began teaching at the State University of New York at Potsdam. Margaret T. Garner then worked as a librarian at SUNY Potsdam, 1954-1972.

I was fortunate to correspond with Margaret Garner three years ago. She and her husband were living in Lincolnville, Maine and running a combined book and pottery shop.

Her letter included two memories which provide an insight into the culture of the NYPL librarians.

First, as she prepared to take charge of her first branch, she was “Warned before I arrived never to clash with a custodian. Good custodians were much Rarer than librarians.” Since 1901, custodians, usually men, reported to the Branch Librarian, usually a woman. Obviously, those gender and employment dynamics could get complicated.

Second, she wrote, “Following the custom in most branches afternoon tea was provided in the staff room. This was literally a cup of tea and cookies or pastry provided by the staff in turn.” This ritual of sharing afternoon tea surfaces in the folklore of the branch system, but despite its long history there is very little documentation on it. The custom died out in the mid-1970s when the New York City fiscal crisis forced substantial layoffs in the branches, and the remaining staff could no longer make time to meet over tea.

Margaret Toliver Garner was born on April 18, 1916.

MARIE C. SAXER (1862-1933)

2011-04-15T22:49:00.000-04:00

Today would be the 149^th birthday of Marie C. Saxer.

Marie Saxer headed the Bond Street Branch of the New York Free Circulating Library (NYFCL), 1891-1901. Although her father had been director of Concordia Seminary, she apparently had neither college nor library training

After NYPL absorbed the NYFCL in 1901, Saxer headed the Bond Street, St. Agnes and St. George Branches until 1911 when she took a leave of absence. So far, I have not been able to determine what she did during the six years she was on leave.

When Saxer returned to NYPL in 1917, she was not reappointed as a Branch Librarian. Instead, she served as a reference librarian at the Hamilton Fish Park & St. Agnes branches until 1933, when she died.

During her last years at NYPL, Saxer was described as “very feeble, and almost unable to walk.” Nonetheless, the Library allowed Saxer to keep her position since there was no pension plan for NYPL staff. This is somewhat ironic, because in 1906 the Library’s Director, Dr. John Shaw Billings, had appointed Saxer to a committee to look into creating a staff pension system. Nothing came of that effort, and Saxer died just four years before a regular pension system was finally implemented for all NYPL librarians

The pension issue was a difficult one for the Library and the librarians and I will be writing more about it in future posts.

EMILY GRIFFITHS DAVIS ROSEBAUGH (1904-1990)

2011-04-13T22:36:00.000-04:00

Emily G. Davis was born in Pennsylvania on this day 107 years ago.

She attended Syracuse University where she earned a BA in Library Science in 1925. At Syracuse she was elected to Pi Lambda Sigma [http://bpm.syr.edu/], the first library science honor society in the United States, which had been founded at Syracuse in 1903.

Davis immediately joined the Marshall City (WVa) Public Library as a substitute and then became a reference assistant at the Hackley (Muskegon MI) Public Library, 1925-1927. She returned to Syracuse as an art reference librarian, 1927-1928. In 1929-1930 she worked as a Research Assistant in the Johns-Manville Corporation library. The latter experience was unusual in that only two other NYPL Branch Librarians worked in a business library prior to joining NYPL.

In 1930 Emily Davis began substituting at NYPL’s Circulation Department and received a regular appointment the following year. She worked as a school and reference specialist in five different branches in the Bronx and Manhattan. Davis was named Branch Librarian at the Yorkville Branch in 1947 and served there until her retirement in 1964.

Emily G. Davis married Newton G. Rosebaugh sometime in the 1920s, and it appears that she was the first woman in this group of Branch Librarians to continue to use her maiden name at NYPL after she married. It doesn’t seem that Davis and Rosebaugh were separated since they were listed as living together in Queens, NY, in the 1930 US Census and appear on ship passenger lists traveling to Europe in 1932 and 1933. She also is listed in the Social Security Death Index as Emily G. Davis.

MARITAL STATUS, 1901-1910

2011-04-06T09:15:00.000-04:00

Marital Status is one of the demographic facts that I have collected about the Branch Librarians. Drawing from census records, NYPL archival material, several editions of Who’s Who in Library Service, family histories, and related sources, I have been able to determine the marital status of all but one librarian in my study.

When NYPL’s Circulation Department was created in 1901, the heads of the 11 branches were all single working women. That changed in 1904 when NYPL absorbed the Webster Free Library and its head librarian, Edwin White Gaillard, became head of NYPL’s Webster Branch. He had been married since 1902. This consolidation also made Gaillard the first man to head a branch of NYPL. When Gaillard was promoted to head the Library’s work with schools in 1904, the branches returned to being headed only by unmarried women.

By the end of the first decade of its work the Circulation Department had grown to 40 branches and 51 librarians (including Gaillard) had headed one of those branches. Of the 50 women, two were widows and 48 were unmarried librarians. At least one of the latter, Alice Slater, resigned her position in order to get married.

Both Gaillard and Slater followed the gender conventions of the time—the male librarian by getting married and continuing to work and the female librarian by giving up her job before getting married.

In terms of marital status, the first decade of the Circulation Department was one of very conventional gender roles. It would also be the last decade when that would be completely true. I will post later on the changes in marital status over the next few decades.

ALICE G. VIELEHR

2011-03-31T22:38:00.000-04:00

Alice Vielehr was born on March 31^st in Constantinople in 1900 or 1901 and worked at the New York Public Library, 1927-1965. I have found very little about her life during the years before she started at NYPL. She came to the US about 1919 and did office work in Buffalo in 1923-1926.

When she started at NYPL in 1927, she was known as Mrs. Alice Van Arnam and was listed under that name in February 1930. Sometime prior to 1932, she married Oscar A. Vielehr.

She was hired by NYPL in 1927 and worked primarily in Cataloging. As she wrote in 1941 “I was never cut out to be a cataloger”, so she took a leave of absence in 1932 to get her library degree from Pratt Institute. At Pratt she discovered work with young people and it was in that specialty that she made her first mark at NYPL working at the Harlem, Hamilton Fish Park, Muhlenberg, and Melrose branches.

Vielehr was promoted to Branch Librarian in 1945 at Hudson Park in Greenwich Village. Over the next 20 years Vielehr made Hudson Park into a center for the cultural life of the Village. The branch sponsored chamber music concerts, film forums, exhibits, poetry readings, theater presentations, and discussion groups. Its small art gallery held exhibits of professional and amateur painters, photographers and sculptors. Vielehr made certain that the programs were accompanied by tables with books relevant to the program so attendees could browse the books. She believed that the programs would open new horizons and also promote more reading.

Alice Vielehr died in New York City in 1994.

HELEN HARRISON MORGAN (1890-1963)

2011-03-29T23:19:00.000-04:00

Today would be the 121^st birthday of Helen H. Morgan who grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was educated in private schools. She worked at NYPL from 1919-1954, and her experience during the 1930s was typical of many NYPL librarians.

Morgan became a librarian in 1914 at the Cincinnati Public Library, but soon left to attend the Pratt Institute Library School. After getting her Pratt degree in 1915, she became a cataloger at the Brooklyn Museum and then returned to CPL in 1916. Morgan came back to NYC in 1918 and worked at the Hispanic Museum and Columbia University before joining NYPL in 1919.

Helen Morgan is an example of the hardships that the branch staff suffered during the Great Depression. The City of New York, which provided the funds for staff salaries in the Circulation Department, put strict controls on any salary increases and also limited promotions as a cost-saving measure. In 1927, Helen Morgan had passed the Grade 4 exam which made her eligible for promotion to Branch Librarian, but it took her 15 years to be promoted to the higher grade. She was appointed Acting Branch Librarian at the 67^th Street Branch in 1938, one of many of her generation that took on a higher job classification without any increase in pay.

In 1942 Morgan was finally promoted to head the Jackson Square Branch and served there until her retirement in 1954.

DISEASED BOOKS

2011-03-26T16:50:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Larry Nix at Library History Buff posted an entry displaying a post card from the 96^th Street Branch asking a reader to return a book since there had been infectious disease in the household. The Library knew this because the NYC Department of Health had alerted it to this fact.

Destroying or fumigating so-called diseased books had been Library practice for some time. I have seen a note that the Webster Free Library (serving the Czech community on the Upper East Side of Manhattan) destroyed a book checked out by a user with diphtheria in 1895.

Dr. John Shaw Billings, a medical doctor who served as the first Director of NYPL, was also concerned about the problem of diseased books. In 1901, just a few months after NYPL had absorbed the NY Free Circulating Library to create the branch library system, Billings informed Melvil Dewey about his experiments on disinfecting books and described the box he had created to accomplish this. [See NYPL Archives, Billings Records, Library Matters Letterbook #21]

Despite Billings experiment, the Library was ambivalent about the reality of diseased books. In May 1913, just two months after Billings died, his successor, Edwin H. Anderson, wrote privately to Mary E. Ahern (editor of Public Libraries) complaining that the NY Telegram “one of the yellowest evening papers” had printed the lie “about blood poisoning from books” and asked her help in refuting these types of stories. [See: NYPL Archives, Billings Records, Box 15]

Nonetheless, even in those years, the NYC Department of Health was sending the Library a list of households with contagious diseases (especially scarlet fever and diphtheria). When books were returned from those households, they were held until picked up by the Department of Health and destroyed. In 1916 that resulted in the loss of about 1500 volumes.

In 1938 a new Health Commissioner finally proposed ending this practice as being unnecessary. Although worried about the public’s reaction, the Library agreed after the Branch Librarians said they did not think the public would object.

For more on the profession’s approach to this topic see Gerald Greenberg “Books as Disease Carriers” in Libraries and Culture 23 (Summer 1988), 281-294.

PUBLIC LIBRARIANS IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

2011-03-25T08:02:00.001-04:00

I taught in library schools for 20 years and found that most students seemed to have a sense that they would take a public library or an academic library track. It was rare that they crossed over the dividing line from one to the other.

As I looked at my database on those who became NYPL Branch Librarians 1901-1950, I discovered an unexpected fact. There was a significant amount of back and forth by the Branch Librarians between NYPL and academic libraries.

Overall, slightly more than 10% of all Branch Librarians worked in an academic library before going to NYPL, 5% took a leave of absence from NYPL to work in an academic library, and 8% worked in an academic library after leaving NYPL.

In addition, five NYPL librarians not only worked in an academic library but made a major contribution in that position. They were:

Rae Stockham was head librarian of Drake University for 10 years before starting at NYPL in 1921.

Gladys Young Leslie started the library at Bennington College in 1930 and headed it until 1956.

Ruth Wellman took a leave of absence from NYPL to organize the New School Library.

Mary K. Dempsey organized the Marquette University Library in 1945.

Loda May Hopkins retired from NYPL to serve as Assistant Director and then Director of the Simmons College Library.

These statistics indicate that for NYPL librarians, at least, the boundary between public and academic libraries was once much more permeable than it is today.

MARION PASTENE WATSON (1889-1964)

2011-03-24T10:15:00.000-04:00

“Gee, you still here?” That was the question that World War II veterans asked Marion P. Watson when they returned to their old neighborhood after the end of the war. Watson had been head of the Tomkins Square Branch since 1927. The veterans’ surprise, Watson told the New York Times, prompted her to think about retiring and “‘Make way for someone else.’”

Marion Watson joined NYPL immediately after receiving her BA from Wellesley College in 1911. She entered the NYPL Library School a year later, took the 2-year course, and received her diploma in 1914.

Watson was born on March 24^th, 122 years ago today.

MARY A. LEONARD (1877-1962) & JULIA C. LEONARD (ca. 1878-1951)

2011-03-24T10:08:00.001-04:00

Mary and Julia Leonard were one of three pairs of sisters who served as heads of neighborhood branches.

They both started in the New York Free Circulating Library in the 1890s and became a librarian of NYPL when it absorbed the NYFCL in 1901. Neither appears to have had any formal library training.

Julia Leonard headed three NYPL branches starting in 1908 and continuing until 1938, when she retired.

Mary Leonard became the head of the Hudson Park Branch in 1911 and served there until she retired in 1939. At Hudson Park she was hailed for her work with the Greenwich Village community, and Leonard continued to work on local housing issues even when she retired.

March 24^th would be the 134^th birthday of Mary Leonard.

ROBERT SCOTT AKE (1913-1985)

2011-03-22T22:21:00.000-04:00

Robert S. Ake, who started at NYPL in 1946, was promoted to Branch Librarian at the 115^th Street Branch in 1948. Not only was this a very rapid rise through the ranks, but it also made him the first man to head a NYPL branch since 1916.

In 1913 (the year of Ake’s birth) Edwin H. Anderson became Acting Director of NYPL and started to name men as Branch Librarians. As a result of Anderson’s efforts, three men were named to head a branch in the years 1913-1916. This experiment was regarded as a failure, and no other man held that position until Ake’s appointment, 32 years later.

Ake resigned from NYPL in 1952 to become a Library Consultant for the State of Connecticut Department of Education, next served as Assistant Director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library (1958-1964) and was Director of the Finkelstein Memorial Library in Spring Valley NY (1964-1972).

March 22nd would be the 98^th birthday of Robert Ake.

ERNESTINE ROSE (1880-1961)

2011-03-19T22:07:00.001-04:00

March 19^th would be the 131^st birthday of Ernestine Rose. Her professional accomplishments could be celebrated by highlighting her 27 years as head of three NYPL branches. Or her involvement with library education at the NYPL Library School, the Carnegie Library School in Pittsburgh, and Columbia’s School of Library Service. Or, her publications could be listed--especially The Public Library in American Life (1954) which was long regarded as an important text on librarianship.

Even more than those accomplishments, however, Rose should be hailed for her efforts to racially integrate the NYPL staff and to bring library services to the growing African-American community in Harlem.

The African-American population of New York City doubled between 1900 and 1920, and by the latter date many had moved to Harlem, particularly around 135^th Street. The Library responded by placing Ernestine Rose (who was white) in charge of the 135^th Street Branch with the mandate to serve the new community in the same way she had earlier worked with the Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side as head of the Chatham Square and Seward Park branches. Rose began to hire African-American staff members and to make connections to the newly-formed black community.

Within five months of taking up the post in 1920, Rose had hired the Library’s first two Black assistants and thus began the process of integrating the Circulation Department staff. The only three African-American women who became Branch Librarians prior to 1950 (Regina Andrews, Dorothy Robinson Homer, and Jean Blackwell Hutson) worked for Rose at 135^th Street, and she provided support as they sought to advance in the NYPL system. Rose was also responsible for integrating the NYPL Library School. She had hired Nella Imes Larsen (soon to become a noted novelist of the Harlem Renaissance) in 1921 and pushed for her admittance to the NYPL Library School, overcoming the reluctance of the administration and objections of some alumni. In 1922, Rose also hired Pure Belpré (the first Puerto Rican to work for NYPL), who became a noted children’s librarian and folklorist.

In addition, Ernestine Rose reached out to the Harlem community and connected the leaders of that community with NYPL and helped make the 135^th Street Branch an important participant in the Harlem Renaissance.

In 1925 Rose created the Division of Negro History and Literature as a special collection at 135^th Street, and this unit eventually grew into the world-renown Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture which collects and promotes the study of the history of people of African descent.

In one sense Rose’s work was not a new direction for NYPL--it continued the Library’s tradition of serving users in the City’s changing communities. In another sense, of course, Rose’s work was pioneering—she positioned the white-run Library as a central element for the growing African-American population of Harlem and beyond.