ABSTRACT
Fairchild, Mary Salome Cutler (1855-1921). American librarian. Born in Dalton, Massachusetts, daughter of a papermaker, Mary’s educational background is little known, apart from the fact that she graduated from Mount Holyoke Seminary, 1875. Member of teaching staff there, 1875-8, when she resigned because of ill-health. The American Library Association had been founded in 1876 and Mary was attracted to librarianship. Beginning in a small rural library, she applied in 1884 to Melvil Dewey, librarian of Columbia College, for a post. Dewey appointed her as cataloguer, and she was promoted to head cataloguer, Columbia Library School, 1887. Because of Dewey’s policy of admitting women to his school, he came into conflict with the authorities and resigned, 1889; Mary also resigned. Dewey removed the school to Albany, becoming secretary, New York Board of Regents and State Librarian. Mary became the School’s vice-director, and from 1895 to 1905 was its chief administrator. She set high standards for the training of librarians, regarding it as a graduate course of study. The curriculum included scientific cataloguing, principles of book selection, the history of libraries and visits to other libraries; these innovations were widely emulated. As recognition of her work, the University of the State of New York conferred the degree of BLS, 1891. Librarian, New York State Library for the Blind, 1889-1905. Council member, American Library Association, 1892-8, 1909-14, vice-president, 1894-5, 1900-1. Chairman of the Association’s committee to select a model library of 5,000 books, to assist librarians without formal training in the selection of books, 1893. She married Edwin Milton Fairchild in 1897. Following Dewey’s resignation in 1905, Mary Fairchild had a nervous breakdown and retired from her post. Subsequently, she lectured and wrote on issues connected with libraries. Director, Drexel Institute Library School, Philadelphia, 1909. Fairchild died aged 66 at Takoma Park, Washington in 1921. See her Children’s Home Catalog of the American Libraries Association (1894); ‘The Function of the Library’, Public Libraries, Nov. 1901; ‘American Libraries – A Method of Study and Interpretation’, Library Journal, Feb. 1908.
