Mary Cutler Fairchild

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Mary Salome Cutler Fairchild (1855-1921) was a pioneering American librarian and library educator.

Mary Cutler was born in Dalton, Massachusetts. She attended Mount Holyoke College (then Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) and graduated in 1875. She later taught at the college from 1876 to 1878. In 1884, she was hired by Melvil Dewey, the librarian of Columbia College, as a cataloger. When Dewey opened the first library school, Fairchild taught cataloging. She moved with it when the school moved to Albany. The school was reorganized and named the New York State Library School. She served as vice-director in addition to teaching. Because of Dewey's frequent absences she conducted much of the administration of the school. She served the school for 16 years. The University of the State of New York awarded Cutler a bachelor's degree in library science in 1891. In 1897, Fairchild married Edwin M. Fairchild, a Unitarian Minister. She pioneered library services for the blind and organized the New York state library for the blind in 1899 also serving there as a librarian. For the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, she chaired a committee that established a 5,000-volume library and created a catalog for it. She was active in the American Library Association serving as president twice (1894-1895 and 1900-1901). In 1905, she became ill and had to retire from the library for the blind and the school, but she continued to contribute to the field through articles she wrote and submitted to journals. Mary Salome Cutler Fairchild died December 20, 1921 in Takoma Park, Maryland. She has been inducted as a member of the Library Hall of Fame.

[edit] See also

List of librarians

[edit] References

"Fairchild, Salome Cutler." The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. 10:263264. 1929.
"Fairchild, Mary Salome Cutler." American National Biography. 7:684-685. 1999.
"Fairchild, Mary Salome Cutler (1855-1821)." Dictionary of American Library Biography. Pages 167-170. 1978.
"Digging up Dewey." School Library Journal. 43.
"Mary Salome Cutler Fairchild." Britannica Biography Collection - Online School Edition.