Timeline of women in library science

This is a timeline of women in library science throughout the world.

1796: Cecilia Cleve became the first female librarian in Sweden.[1]

1852: The first female clerk was hired for the Boston Public Library.[2]

1890: Elizabeth Putnam Sohier and Anna Eliot Ticknor became the first women appointed to a United States state library agency—specifically, the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

1911: Theresa Elmendorf became the first female president of the American Library Association.[3]

1912: Lillian Helena Smith became the first trained children's librarian in Canada.[4]

1921: Pura Belpré became the first Puerto Rican librarian to be hired by the New York Public Library System.[5]

1923: Virginia Proctor Powell Florence became the first black woman in the United States to earn a degree in library science.[6] She earned the degree (Bachelor of Library Science) from what is now part of the University of Pittsburgh.[7][8][9]

1940: Eliza Atkins Gleason became the first black American to earn a doctorate in library science, which she did at the University of Chicago.[10]

1947: Freda Farrell Waldon became the first president of the Canadian Library Association, and thus, as she was female, its first female president.[11][12]

1970: Clara Stanton Jones became the first woman (and the first African American) to serve as director of a major library system in America, as director of the Detroit Public Library.[13]

1970: The American Library Association's Social Responsibilities Round Table Feminist Task Force (FTF) was founded in 1970 by women who wished to address sexism in libraries and librarianship.[14]

1971: Effie Lee Morris became the first woman and black person to serve as president of the Public Library Association.[10]

1972: Zoia Horn, born in Ukraine, became the first United States librarian to be jailed for refusing to share information as a matter of conscience (and, as she was female, the first female United States librarian to do so.)[15]

1973: Page Ackerman became University Librarian for the University of California, Los Angeles, and thus became the United States's first female librarian of a system as large and complex as UCLA's.[16]

1976: The Council of the American Library Association passed a "Resolution on Racism and Sexism Awareness" during the ALA's Centennial Conference in Chicago, July 18–24, 1976.[17]

1976: The Committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship (COSWL) of the American Library Association[18] was founded in 1976.[19]

1985: Susan Luévano-Molina became the first female president of REFORMA.[20]

1993: Jennifer Tanfield became the first female Librarian of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.[21]

1999: Elisabeth Niggemann became the first female director general of the German National Library.[22]

2000: Lynne Brindley was appointed as the first female chief executive of the British Library.[23]

2002: Inez Lynn was appointed as the first female librarian in the London Library's history.[24]

2004: Anjana Chattopadhyay became the first Director of the National Medical Library in India.

2009: Anne Jarvis became the first female librarian in Cambridge University’s 650-year history.[25]

2012: Sonia L'Heureux became the first female Parliamentary Librarian of Canada.[26]

2016: Laurence Engel became the first female head of the French National Library.[27]

2016: Carla Hayden became the first female Librarian of Congress.[28]