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Bessie Dwyer
Born1866 Edit this on Wikidata
Nueces County Edit this on Wikidata
Died28 March 1944 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 77–78)
Santo Tomas Internment Camp Edit this on Wikidata
OccupationJournalist, writer, librarian Edit this on Wikidata

Elizabeth A. Dwyer (1866–1944) was the first woman to be appointed to the staff of the United States Library of Congress in 1893.[1]

Biography

Elizabeth Agnes Dwyer was born on September 29, 1866, in Bonita, Texas, to Judge Thomas A. and Annie (Croker) Dwyer. In 1882, she worked for the post office and for G. W. Baldwin and Company.[2]

In 1890, she graduated from a San Antonio business college and in 1891 moved east to become a "congressional reporter" for the National Economist.[2]

In 1893, Dwyer was appointed to the Library of Congress[2] with the support of congressmen Roger Quarles Mills and James Slayden, who sent letters to the librarian John Russell Young requesting her promotion and transfer.[3] Dwyer was making $900 annually by 1897, which was a lower pay for the staff at the Library of Congress. Her job title was simply "assistant."[4] Dwyer worked in the Copyright Office, though in 1898 she wrote to John Young, reminding him of her trailblazing as the first prominent woman employee there, and requesting a transfer.[5] Young asked David Hutcheson, the library superintendent, to transfer her to the Reading Room. Though Hutcheson claimed she was not strong enough to work there, Young transferred her, likely due to political pressure.[6][4]

Bessie Dwyer (1919)

In 1903, Dwyer resigned from the Library of Congress and moved to the Philippines for a new library position.[7] Her sister, Marie U. Nordstrom, took her place at the Library of Congress until the mid-1920s.[4]

References

  1. ^ U.S. Civil Service Commission, Women in the Federal Service (Washington, D.C.: Civil Service Commission, 1938), 3–6, 9.
  2. ^ a b c WIEDENFELD, MELISSA G. (June 1, 2010). "DWYER, ELIZABETH AGNES". tshaonline.org. Retrieved October 21, 2019.
  3. ^ R. Q. Mills to John Russell Young, September 10, 1897; James Slayden to Young, October 13, 1898, John Russell Young Papers, Library of Congress Archives, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
  4. ^ a b c Danky, James Philip (2006). Women in Print : Essays on the Print Culture of American Women From the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299217846.
  5. ^ Bessie A. Dwyer to John Russell Young, June 10, 1898; David Hutcheson to Young, September 20, 1898, Young Papers, Library of Congress Archives.
  6. ^ John Russell Young to Hon. C. W. Fairbanks, September 17, 1898, Librarian's Letterbooks, vol. 27, p. 444–46, Library of Congress Archives.
  7. ^ Chief Clerk's Letterbook, November 9, 1898, p. 1, Library of Congress Archives


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