Sharlee Glenn - Library on Wheels: Mary Lemist Titcomb and Americas First Bookmobile

MARY LEMIST TITCOMB AND

AMERICAS FIRST BOOKMOBILE

Sharlee Glenn

Abrams Books for Young Readers

New York

Note from the designer: The period paper elements and

postage stamps incorporated into this books

design came from my personal collection. Many of the

items belonged to my great-grandparents and date back to

the early 1900s. The text font, Goudy Old Style, was

designed by Frederic W. Goudy in 1915, and the display

font, Smythe, is a contemporary take on Victorian-era

typefaces designed by Vernon Adams.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and
may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4197-2875-4
eISBN 978-1-68335-292-1
Text copyright 2018 Sharlee Glenn
Owing to limitations of space, all illustration credits
can be found on .
Cover and book design by Melissa J. Barrett
Front cover art the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
Back cover art the Washington County Free Library
Front cover: Bookmobile in North Carolina inspired by
Mary Lemist Titcombs original
Back cover: The motorized version of Marys bookmobile in
Washington County, Maryland
Published in 2018 by Abrams Books for Young Readers,
an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of
this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical,
electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
written permission from the publisher.
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For Mary and

all the other unsung

heroines of history

Mary Lemist Titcomb, 1925

The happy person is the

person who does something.

M

ary Lemist Titcomb

grew up wanting to do things. The prob-

lem was, people were always telling her

that she couldnt. She couldnt do this,

because she was too young. She couldnt

do that, because she was a girl, or because

her family didnt have enough money, or

because it just wasnt practical. But Mary

never gave up.

There are no existing photos of Mary as a young girl,

but she may have looked something like this 1850s

New England farm girl.

Titcomb family home in Farmington, New Hampshire

Map of Farmington, New Hampshire, 1877

a poor family and in a day when academic

opportunities for women were scarce,

Mary was intent on getting a good educa-

Mary was born on May

16, 1852, in Farmington,

New Hampshire.

Though from

Robinson Female Seminary in Exeter, New Hampshire, where Mary attended school

tion. When her family moved to Exeter,

New Hampshire, so that Marys brothers

could attend the respected Phillips Exeter

Academy, Mary begged for a chance to

continue her schooling, too. Although it

was unusual for farm girls to attend school

beyond the eighth grade, Marys parents

supported the idea, and they enrolled

Mary and her sister, Lydia, in the newly

established Robinson Female Seminary

in Exetera school that was meant to be

the academic equivalent for girls of the

Phillips Exeter Academy.

Mary loved her time at the seminary.

She graduated in 1873, but continued

Marys mother, Mary Lemist Lancaster Titcomb

Marys father, George Alfred Titcomb

to study French and German there as an

unmatriculated student for several more

years.

As Marys brothers began leaving home

to start their careers, Mary wanted to do

something, too.

Robinson Female Seminary catalogue. Graduating class of 1873

Nursing and teaching were two of the few careers available to women at this time.

Unfortunately, aside

from teaching and

nursing, not many

careers were open to

women in the

mid-nineteenth

for a bookworm like her. But no formal

training schools for librarians existed yet;

she would have to learn the profession as

an apprentice.

Moving to Concord, Massachusetts, where

her brother George lived, Mary began

working in the library there as an unpaid

assistant. She learned everything she could

about librarianshipbook acquisitions,

Marys brother Dr. George Eugene Titcomb

century. Her brother George became a

doctor, so Mary thought she might try

nursing. But she grew queasy at the mere

sight of blood. And, because she felt she

lacked patience, she did not think she was

well suited for teaching.

One day, Mary read an article in a church

bulletin about an emerging new fi

eld of

worklibrarianship. Mary had always loved

reading. She couldnt imagine anything bet-

ter than being a librarianworking all day