Mary Eileen Ahern

Mary Eileen Ahern (October 1, 1860-May 22, 1938)^[1] was a librarian and leader of the modern library movement.She has been selected as one of the "100 of the Most Important Leaders We Had in the 20th Century" in the American Libraries list published in 1999.^[2] She was an important influencer and early organizer of libraries in America. Mary Ahern was a crusader for the value of public libraries in educating the public. In the first issue of the journal she edited, Public Libraries,^[3] as reported in the World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services^[4] Mary said, “There is only one solution of all social problems, an increase in intelligence, a gradual education of the people.” The best source of this education, she believed, was potentially the public library. This was a time in history when Andrew Carnegie was building libraries across the nation and Melvil Dewey created the Dewey Decimal System and help found the American Library Association. Mary wrote and spoke about this optimistic vision in the same editorial, the public library “is the broadest of teachers, one may almost say the only free teacher. It is the most liberal of schools; it is the only real people’s college.”^[5] The World Encyclopedia states, “ She saw a librarian as a teacher on all occasions.”^[6] Mary shared this vision with government leaders, teachers and librarians everywhere she went, throughout her long career.

Early life

Mary Ahern was born on October 1, 1860 on a farm in Marion County, Indiana.^[7] Her parents, William and Mary, were Irish immigrants. When Mary was 10 they moved to Spencer, Indiana where Mary went to high school and graduated in 1878. Next she went to Central Normal College in Danville, Indiana. Her first jobs were as a public school teacher in Bloomfield, Spencer and Peru, Indiana. She became the Assistant State Librarian of Indiana in 1889. There she cataloged the state library and then she was elected State Librarian by the Indiana Legislature from 1893-1895. She lost this position when the political party in power changed.^[8] Mary’s response was to fight for change, not for her, but for future librarians-she convinced the politicians to make this position one not tied to politics but instead place it under the State Board of Education.

Journal Editor

Her formal library education began after these political appointments ended. She attended the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago for one year. When she graduated she accepted a position as editor of a new journal, Public Libraries (later Libraries). Through this journal, which she edited for 36 years, Mary Ahern through her writing influenced librarians and library practice throughout the United States. Publicity and promotion of public libraries can be seen in the journal’s tag lines: “The Public Library is an Integral Part of Public Education” and “The best reading for the greatest number, at the least cost.”^[9]

Further contributions

She was also an organizer and avid participant in Library organizations. These include organizing the Indiana Library Association in 1891, serving as President three times of the Illinois Library Association, and being a lifelong member of the American Library Association.^[10] At the 13th annual meeting of the Illinois Library Association Mary Ahern as President gave the annual address. She encouraged her audience with these words, “We are librarians because we feel that in these lines there are greater opportunities for helpfulness, greater vistas of optimistic outlook, greater results in actual returns of the worthwhile, than in any other line of work which we might have chosen.”^[11]

Mary Ahern also continued serving government. She was Secretary of the Library Department of the National Education Association. During WWI she served as publicity agent and distributed books for the US military in France from January to July 1919.^[12]

Mary continued to learn and advocate library policy. She visited France and England in 1927 to study their library systems.^[13] In America she was influential in establishing and strengthening connections between libraries and schools. She was an advocate for the potential of libraries to provide lifelong education for a nation. Her influence was widespread. WC Berwick Sayers described her: “How intensely alive Miss Ahern seemed, how full of ideas, ideals, enthusiasms, how enquiringly humorous!”^[14] In 1931 Mary Ahern gave up her editorship of Libraries when her eyesight became too poor to continue. The publishers decided the journal could not continue without her.^[15] The last issue of the journal was a tribute to her many years of service. Seven years later she died on a train near Atlanta, Georgia as she was traveling back home on May 22, 1938.^[16]

References

1. ↑ Dictionary of American Library Biography. (1978). Bohdan Wynar, ed. "Ahern, Mary Eileen (1860-1938)." Littleton, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited. p. 5-7. ISBN 0-87287-180-0
2. ↑ Kniffel, L:"100 of the Most Important Leaders We Had in the 20th Century", American Libraries, 30(11).
3. ↑ Public Libraries, Volume 1
4. ↑ Wedgeworth, R:(1993)World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services
5. ↑ Public Libraries(1896)1.
6. ↑ Wedgeworth:1993
7. ↑ Dowd, M: Biographical Dictionary of American Educators(1978)1,page 17,18
8. ↑ Wedgeworth 1993
9. ↑ Public Libraries 1909
10. ↑ Wedgeworth,1993
11. ↑ Drury:1909 "Report of East St. Louis meeting, Illinois Library Association", Public Libraries 14, page 386
12. ↑ Dowd 1978, page 17,18
13. ↑ Dowd 1978, page 18
14. ↑ Sayers,W: American Library Essayists, Library Review6(8),(1938)
15. ↑ Dowd, 1978
16. ↑ Obituaries, New York Times, May 25th, 1938