Anne Thaxter Eaton

{{Short description| American author, book reviewer and children's librarian (1881–1971)}}

File: Anne Thaxter Eaton Smith College Class Book 1903 page 22 (cropped).png

Anne Thaxter Eaton (May 8, 1881 – May 5, 1971) was an American author, book reviewer and children's librarian.{{cite book |last= Miller | first= Marilyn Lea |year= 2003|title= Pioneers and Leaders in Library Services to Youth: A Biographical Dictionary| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=JMH7RkYRh0gC|access-date= October 21, 2022|location= Santa Barbara, California| publisher= Libraries Unlimited| page=52| isbn=978-1-591-58028-7}}{{cite book |last= Kinane | first= Ian |date= September 30, 2019|title= Didactics and the Modern Robinsonade: New Paradigms for Young Readers|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=hmOtDwAAQBAJ|access-date= October 21, 2022|location= Oxford | publisher= Oxford University Press | page= 125| isbn=978-1-789-62004-7}} She served as a children's book reviewer at The New York Times.{{cite book |last= Shores | first= Elizabeth Findley |date= February 26, 2021|title= Shared Secrets: The Queer World of Newbery Medalist Charles J. Finger|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=qKgKEAAAQBAJ|access-date= October 21, 2022|location= Fayetteville, Arkansas | publisher= University of Arkansas Press| page= 142| isbn=978-1-682-26155-2}}

==Biography==

Born on May 8, 1881, in Beverly, Massachusetts, Anne Thaxter Eaton was the daughter of Charles Henry and his wife Jane M. Eaton. She grew up in New York. She received a B.A. from Smith College in Massachusetts in the early 1900s. In 1906 she graduated with a bachelor's degree in library science from New York State Library School at Albany. After twenty years, in 1926, she also obtained a master's degree from the same school.

After graduation, in 1906, she started her professional career as a librarian at the Pruyn Library in Albany. Between 1910 and 1917, she served as an assistant librarian at the library of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Tennessee. She later returned to New York to become the librarian of the newly founded Lincoln School of the Teachers' College at New York's Columbia University, and continued until her retirement in 1946.{{cite web |title=Anne Thaxter Eaton |url=https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Anne-Thaxter-Eaton/322130 |website=kids.britannica.com |publisher=Britannica Kids |access-date= October 21, 2022}}

In 1932 Eaton became a children's book reviewer at The New York Times, where a children's book review page was fortnightly published since 1930. From 1935 to 1946, she served as the co-editor of the children's department of The New York Times along with its own staff Ellen Lewis Buell.{{cite book |last= Wolf | first= Shelby |date= April 27, 2011|title= Handbook of Research on Children's and Young Adult Literature|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=lxDJBQAAQBAJ|access-date= October 21, 2022|location= Oxon | publisher= Routledge | page= NA| isbn=978-1-136-91356-3}}{{sfn| Miller |2003|p=53}}

She also served as a volunteer in St. Luke's School Library for a period of more than two decades.{{sfn| Miller |2003|p=53}} In 1946, she retired from The New York Times.

She died on May 5, 1971, in New York.