Adelaide Underhill
{{short description|American librarian}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Adelaide Underhill
| image = Adelaide Underhill (cropped).jpg
| caption = Underhill in 1888
| birth_date = {{Birth year|1860}}
| birth_place = New York City, U.S.
| death_date = April 24, 1936
| death_place = Poughkeepsie, New York, U.S.
| alma_mater = Vassar College
Columbia University
| occupation = Librarian
}}
Adelaide Underhill (1860 – April 24, 1936) was an American librarian. She was hired to catalog and update the organization of volumes in the Vassar College library. She used the Dewey Decimal System and, along with help from her lifelong companion, Lucy Maynard Salmon, built Vassar's into one of the most impressive collections for a liberal arts college at the time.
Biography
Underhill was born in 1860 in Brooklyn and later lived in Skaneateles, New York.{{Cite news|date=1936-04-24|title=Adelaide Underhill Dies at Home Here|pages=14|work=Poughkeepsie Eagle-News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/53105483/obituary-for-adelaide-underhill/|access-date=2020-06-09|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite web|title=Introduction|url=https://omeka.hrvh.org/exhibits/show/women-of-the-hudson-valley/partnership/introduction|access-date=2020-06-09|website=Women of the Hudson Valley}} Underhill graduated from Vassar College in 1888.{{Cite news|date=1935-11-25|title=Adelaide Underhill, Ex-Librarian, Is Dead|pages=13|work=The San Bernardino County Sun|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/52334829/the-san-bernardino-county-sun/|access-date=2020-06-09|via=Newspapers.com}} At Vassar, she was a student of Lucy Maynard Salmon and had been very impressed with her teacher.{{Sfn|Bohan|2004|p=52}} Salmon would become her "lifelong companion."{{Cite journal|last1=Gunselman|first1=Cheryl|last2=Blakesley|first2=Elizabeth|s2cid=145434458|date=2012|title=Enduring Visions of Instruction in Academic Libraries: A Review of a Spirited Early Twentieth-Century Discussion|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/content/crossref/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/v012/12.3.gunselman.html|journal=Libraries and the Academy|language=en|volume=12|issue=3|pages=267|doi=10.1353/pla.2012.0027|issn=1530-7131|via=Project MUSE|url-access=subscription}}
Underhill earned her master's degree from Columbia University in where she studied library science and graduated in 1890.{{Cite web|title=Lucy Maynard Salmon and Adelaide Underhill Collection|url=https://nyheritage.org/collections/lucy-maynard-salmon-and-adelaide-underhill-collection|access-date=2020-06-09|website=New York Heritage}}{{Cite news|date=1892-06-09|title=The Library|pages=8|work=Poughkeepsie Eagle-News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/52334985/poughkeepsie-eagle-news/|access-date=2020-06-09|via=Newspapers.com}} In 1892, Vassar librarian, Frances A. Wood, hired Underhill to create a "modern library system" for the college.{{Cite web|last=Ellery|first=Eloise|title=Underhill, Adelaide, 1860-1936 -- Memorial Minute|url=https://digitallibrary.vassar.edu/islandora/object/vassar:31886#page/1/mode/1up|access-date=2020-06-09|website=Vassar College Digital Library}} Underhill cataloged the 15,000 volume collection mostly on her own, using the Dewey Decimal System. With help from Salmon and with Underhill's work, the Vassar library became "one of the most impressive among liberal arts colleges."{{Sfn|Faderman|1999|p=185}} By 1910, she was the Associate Librarian for Vassar Library and also attended the International Congress of Librarians in Brussels in August of that year.{{Cite news|date=14 June 1910|title=Miss Adelaide Underhill has sailed|work=The Evening Enterprise|url=http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn90066261/1910-06-14/ed-1/seq-8/|access-date=9 June 2020|via=NYS Historic Newspapers}} In 1922, Underhill became the chief librarian and retired from Vassar in 1928.{{Cite news|date=12 December 1935|title=Ground Broken at Vassar for Additions to Library|work=The Poughkeepsie Eagle-News|url=https://fultonhistory.com/highlighter/highlight-for-xml?altUrl=https%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FNewspaper%25205%2FPoughkeepsie%2520NY%2520Eagle%2520News%2FPoughkeepsie%2520NY%2520Eagle%2520News%25201935%2520Nov-Feb%25201936%2FPoughkeepsie%2520NY%2520Eagle%2520News%25201935%2520Nov-Feb%25201936%252000216_2.pdf%23xml%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FdtSearch%2Fdtisapi6.dll%3Fcmd%3Dgetpdfhits%26u%3Dffffffffa55ae50c%26DocId%3D2784547%26Index%3DZ%253a%255cDISK%2520O%26HitCount%3D4%26hits%3D3b%2B3c%2B92%2B93%2B%26SearchForm%3D%252fFulton%255fform%252ehtml%26.pdf&uri=https%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FNewspaper%25205%2FPoughkeepsie%2520NY%2520Eagle%2520News%2FPoughkeepsie%2520NY%2520Eagle%2520News%25201935%2520Nov-Feb%25201936%2FPoughkeepsie%2520NY%2520Eagle%2520News%25201935%2520Nov-Feb%25201936%252000216_2.pdf&xml=https%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FdtSearch%2Fdtisapi6.dll%3Fcmd%3Dgetpdfhits%26u%3Dffffffffa55ae50c%26DocId%3D2784547%26Index%3DZ%253a%255cDISK%2520O%26HitCount%3D4%26hits%3D3b%2B3c%2B92%2B93%2B%26SearchForm%3D%252fFulton%255fform%252ehtml%26.pdf&openFirstHlPage=false|access-date=9 June 2020}} When the Thompson Memorial Library expanded in 1935, one of the new wings was named after Underhill.
Underhill was also a suffragist and marched in a suffrage parade in New York City in 1913.{{Cite news|date=6 May 1913|title=The Suffrage Parade|work=Poughkeepsie Eagle|url=http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn91066542/1913-05-06/ed-1/seq-3/|access-date=9 June 2020|via=NYS Historic Newspapers}} In 1916, she and Salmon were among the women voters who came to vote on a proposition to improve the water main system in Poughkeepsie, New York.{{Cite news|date=25 May 1916|title=Water Main Question Will Win Says Mayor|work=The Evening Enterprise|url=http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn90066261/1916-05-25/ed-1/seq-1/|access-date=9 June 2020|via=NYS Historic Newspapers}}
Salmon and Underhill lived together off campus for more than thirty years.{{Sfn|Bohan|2004|p=53}} They found a house together in Poughkeepsie in 1901.{{Cite web|title=Return to Poughkeepsie|url=https://omeka.hrvh.org/exhibits/show/women-of-the-hudson-valley/partnership/poughkeepsie|access-date=2020-06-09|website=Women of the Hudson Valley}} After Salmon's death in 1927, Underhill was given her life estate.{{Sfn|Bohan|2004|p=53}} Underhill also helped collect and organize materials for a biography on Salmon that Vassar professor, Louis Fargo Brown, intended to write.
Underhill died on April 24, 1936, in her home in Poughkeepsie.
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
= Sources =
- {{Cite book|last=Bohan|first=Chara Haeussler|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FA0SkA1hv6UC|title=Go to the Sources: Lucy Maynard Salmon and the Teaching of History|publisher=Peter Lang|year=2004|isbn=0820455040|location=New York}}
- {{Cite book|last=Faderman|first=Lillian|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=usIdCy63Y9sC|title=To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done for America - A History|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company|year=1999|isbn=9780547348407|location=Boston}}
External links
- [https://nyheritage.org/collections/lucy-maynard-salmon-and-adelaide-underhill-collection Lucy Maynard Salmon and Adelaide Underhill Collection]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Underhill, Adelaide}}
Category:People from Poughkeepsie, New York
Category:Vassar College alumni
Category:Columbia University School of Library Service alumni
Category:Suffragists from New York (state)