Mary Elizabeth Downey ( – May 25, 1949) was a librarian and activist who created and promoted library science education courses across the Midwestern and Western United States. She is regarded as a pioneer of the modern library movement.
Early life and education
Mary Elizabeth Downey was born in Sarahsville, Ohio, to Dr. Hiram James and Martha Ball Downey. She was raised in a middle-class, Protestant family, and taught in her local public schools. In 1899, she earned a B.A. in classics from Denison University. She then studied library science from 1899 to 1901 through the University of Chicago Extension Division and was one of only seventeen students to graduate.
Career
After graduating from the University of Chicago Extension Division, she took a position as first assistant librarian with the Field Museum in Chicago and worked there until 1902. Records show that she also worked as a faculty member of the University of Chicago Extension Division's library school around the same time and wrote a letter to the university's president in defense of the program after it was criticized by the ALA. In 1903, the decision was made to close the library school. Downey, acting as President of the University of Chicago Library Students Club, wrote another letter to the dean of the university, requesting that the school show loyalty to its students by keeping the program open and continuing its work. Neither her letter nor the many other letters of protest the university received dissuaded President William Rainey Harper from closing the school.
Downey moved on to Ottumwa, Iowa, where she became the town's first public librarian, receiving recommendations from her former instructor and University of Chicago librarian Zella Allen Dixson, the dean of women of Shephardson College, the pastor of the local Baptist church, a teacher at the local high school, the librarian of the Art Institute of Chicago, and President Harper of the University of Chicago.
Dr. Suzanne M. Stauffer writes in her article, "'She Speaks as One Having Authority': Mary E. Downey's Use of Libraries as a Means to Public Power":
During her time in Ottumwa Downey began a story hour in the library, invited Friends of the Library to give presentations on books, and gave talks on the history of the book and the library at the high school. She also established the Children's Library League, which met weekly to read and discuss books, with the motto 'Clean hearts, clean hands, and clean books.'
Downey was elected secretary of the Iowa Library Association for the 1904 to 1905 term. Around this time, she and several other female librarians accused Melvil Dewey of sexual harassment, which ultimately led to him being expelled from both the ALA and the New York Library Association. In 1906, Downey became the director of the Chautauqua School for Librarians, a short-course summer school which Downey would expand in 1918 into a professional certificate program. She acted as the school's director every summer for thirty years.
In 1908, Downey became Ohio's state library organizer. Stauffer writes that Downey's main duties were to "encourage tax support for libraries, assist with the organization and cataloging of collections and the standardization of library procedures, increase the use of libraries, develop library extension, and encourage formal library training. In 1910 alone she made 216 visits to 116 towns; gave twenty-six addresses in support of the library movement to mass meetings, women's clubs, teachers' institutes, and other groups; and presided over district library meetings in six cities." In her addresses to the teachers' institutes, she called for teachers to utilize public libraries in education, promote the reading of "good books" (i.e. books that encouraged good morals), and provide education for librarians. She also represented the state of Ohio in the meetings of the Ohio Library Association, the American Library Association, the League of Library Commissions, the Ohio Federation of Women's Clubs, and the General Federation of Women's Clubs.