The Library Vault

Letters to the first two female library directors in honor of Women’s History Month

Dear Laura,

You were the first female director of Russell Library. The first director, George Winchester, resigned after 8 years. The library struggled financially during its first years and Winchester resigned partly because of his disinclination of dealing anymore with the financial difficulties. The second director, Willis Stetson, only remained for 3 years before finding a better paying job. That’s when you appeared.

Willis was your cousin, and it seems that you were a convenient person to step into the position. However, you were only 25 years old and a woman and I am sure many people thought you couldn’t do the job. I suppose that’s why you were called the “acting librarian” for the first year. Being a woman, you were required to prove yourself in a way that the first two directors were not.

And prove yourself you did. It was not long before you convinced the government of Middletown to provide to the library an annual contribution of $1,000 to purchase books for local school children. That was an important step in stabilizing library funding. To make the books available to a wider range of children, you dropped the age restriction on library users from age 14 to age 10. Under your leadership, Russell Library also opened two branch locations: South Farms and Westfield. I suspect that you were what we would call today “a force of nature.”

The new income enabled you to hire an assistant in 1897 so the library could be open mornings for the first time in its history. Prior to that you and the janitor, Mr. Pease, were the only two employees! Even so, you were only earning. $600 per year and your assistant a mere $360 per year. No wonder the only place you could afford to live in was a room in a boarding house across the street from the library.

From the library’s humble beginnings with a collection of only 3,000 books, you grew the collection to over 20,000 items, including books in Polish, Swedish, and Italian to support Middletown’s growing ethnic communities. You even oversaw the library’s first major renovation when the large lecture hall was removed and more space was given to the library collection and workspaces for the staff.

Your very first raise in salary was not approved until 1914. The library board allocated another $150 per year, so that you were making $750 annually, equivalent to a little over $23,000 by today’s standards. it was probably all the library could afford, but it still was not much to live on.

Given that, it wasn’t really surprising that three years later you resigned to accept a higher paying position with Yale Medical Library. You were 45 years old and had been the library director for 20 years. To date, there is only one other director, Nathaly (pronounced Natalie) Newton, who served more years than you did.

But you, Laura, were the first female director. You blazed the trail.

Dear Edna,

You became library director when the world and the library were both going through major changes. You began your tenure during World War I. At that time the library was involved in campaigns to support food aid, the Red Cross, United War Work and Liberty Bonds. You and your assistants collected and donated 3,000 books to Camp Meade in Maryland, which opened in 1917 to train troops before deploying them to the battlefields of Europe. 

You also started just as the Connecticut Public Library Commission conducted a survey of Russell Library and recommended major changes to how the library operated. And you rose to the challenge. You took on all the changes which included instituting a new classification system for adult and children’s books and the first major weeding of old and poor condition books from the collection.

Under your leadership, the library grew and changed along with the changing world. You streamlined an antiquated check-out system. You increased library open hours from 45 hours per week to 60 hours per week. You created a collection of framed art prints that patrons could check out and use to decorate their homes for special events or just because they loved the way those pictures made their homes look and feel. You even added a sheet music collection. Laura might have been a force of nature, but you, I think, worked quietly, tirelessly, and largely unacknowledged.

As if that wasn’t enough, you created Russell Library’s first Children’s Department. Laura may have secured funding for children’s books, but you were the one who carved out space for a collection entirely separate from the adult collection. This was in a portion of the main library but you had even bigger ideas in mind for the children of Middletown.

Your idea was to build a separate room just for children. The room would have books for youngsters and a librarian devoted just to the children’s collection. There would be storytimes in front of a fireplace and tables for drawing and doing schoolwork. It was quite the vision and a novelty in a world that had never really considered the needs of children.

One of the biggest changes during your tenure was in 1921 when the link between the Library and the City of Middletown was forever changed with an amendment to the Charter that provided for City participation in the administration of the Library.  Since Middletown was now giving more money to the library each year, they wanted a say in how the library was managed.

The job of the librarian had become very political. The Russell Library still had control over the library. The City also now had an equal say. Difficulties were rife as both sides tried to settle into their new partnership. You were left stuck between these opposing factions.

Four years later, because of the stresses of your job your mother later insisted, your health began to fail and in December of 1925, you suffered a nervous breakdown. Unable to keep working, you were admitted to the Connecticut State Hospital.

You were 27 years old when you began your career as the librarian of Russell Library. You were only 36 years old on the morning of March 8, 1926 when you took your own life.

You never lived to see your vision for the children of Middletown come to fruition. Only a few years later, Russell Library added the Hubbard Room, a space dedicated solely to children’s books. It had a fireplace, just as you envisioned, and the staff of the library purchased andirons for it in your memory.

You had vision, Edna. If you had lived, just imagine what other innovations would you have given Middletown.

March is Women’s History Month. If you know the story of any woman who led the way, changed their community, or made a difference, large or small, write it down. Share it. There are so many stories waiting to be told.