HAROLD LESLIE WHEELER (1889-1928)

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.