Jennie Maas Flexner

Jennie M. Flexner
Born November 6, 1882
Louisville, Kentucky
Died November 17, 1944 (aged 62)
New York City
Nationality American
Occupation Librarian

Jennie Maas Flexner (November 6, 1882 – November 17, 1944) was a librarian and author.

Life

She was born in Louisville, Kentucky to Jacob Aaron Flexner and Rosa Maas. As a child she attended the local public school. Although Ms. Flexner did not finish college she began her career at the Free Public Library of Louisville in 1903 as a secretary which was her first formal paying job. In 1908, she was able to study at the School of Library Service at the Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

She returned to the Louisville Library and served as head of the circulation department, from 1912 to 1928. Flexner was a strong advocate and leading authority of the newly developing library concept of a reader-centered philosophy. In Louisville, she was an advocate of service to the black community and the training of black and white librarians. In 1926, she served on the curriculum staff of the American Library Association. As a result of her involvement in the professional education of librarians through expanding criteria and developing appropriate materials she wrote a book, "Circulation Work in Public Libraries," 1927, which became a standard text in library schools. In 1928, she was chosen to initiate a special counseling service for adult readers at the New York Public Library from which they opened the Readers' Advisers Service Office, in 1929. When the European refugees came to New York in the 1930s, she actively played a role at the library by helping people find new resources for their professional and intellectual lives. Also during World War II, she chaired a committee that selected books for the Armed Services and advised the council on books in wartime. From 1924, until her death she was the readers' adviser at the New York City Public Library and author of several books on the library and librarians.

On November 17, 1944, she died in New York City. She was buried in Adath Israel Cemetery in Louisville.

Family

Jennie did not marry but was part of a distinguished family, including uncles Abraham Flexner, founder of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, known for his studies and surveys of medical colleges, and Simon Flexner, known as a scientific director of the Rockefeller Foundation and eminent bacteriologist. A cousin, Abraham's daughter, the feminist writer Eleanor Flexner. Jennie's sisters were Hortense Flexner King, a poet and a teacher that published seven volumes at Bryn Mawr and Sarah Lawrence Colleges, and Caroline Flexner who became the aide to New York governor and senator Herbert H. Lehman, and held important positions in the Joint Distribution Committee and was with UNRRA in Washington, D.C. Her father, who helped finance his brothers' education, eventually was able to attain his own medical degree as a pharmacist and then a physician.[1]

Publications

References

  1. ↑ Brody, Seymour (2004). Jewish Heroes & Heroines of America. Frederick Fell Publishers. ISBN 9780883910269.

Sources