DOROTHEA HOWSON WAPLES LISSIM (1907-1994)

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.