27 Facts About Adelaide Hasse

Adelaide Rosalie Hasse was an American librarian.

Adelaide Hasse is listed as one of the "100 most important leaders we had in the 20th century" in the December 1999 edition of American Libraries.

Adelaide Hasse is credited with having developed the Superintendent of Documents Classification system used by the Government Printing Office and Federal Depository Library Program.

From 1889 to 1895, Adelaide Hasse worked under the resolute tutelage of Tessa Kelso, the Head Librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library.

At the age of 20, Adelaide Hasse was hired on at the LAPL for $40 a month.

Adelaide Hasse honed her craft through practical experience, diving into her work with a passion and eagerness that she managed to retain for the remainder of career.

Adelaide Hasse needed a more specific system, and one not classified by author as government documents frequently do not have an author listed beyond the department.

Adelaide Hasse's assigned task was to collect, organize, and classify government documents from its various departments, divisions, and bureaus.

Adelaide Hasse set to work immediately, uncovering documents from all over Washington, DC, even going so far as to look in ceilings and behind walls.

Once again, Adelaide Hasse left an unpleasant situation only to land in the beginnings of an organization.

Adelaide Hasse had known John Shaw Billings, Director of the recently reorganized New York Public Library, for several years and was thrilled to take a position in NYPL's newly created Astor Library.

Adelaide Hasse's work developing and classifying this special collection garnered her praise from the top periodicals in the field, most especially from Library Journal, for which she was a regular contributor.

Billings, like Kelso at the LAPL, was a warm, nurturing supervisor to Adelaide Hasse, giving her free rein to work as she pleased.

Adelaide Hasse even assisted Oregon employment lawyers in compiling information and documentation to support their cases against the state, as in Muller v Oregon and Bunting v Oregon.

In 1911, Adelaide Hasse was moved to the Documents Division of the NYPL where she was given the additional task of providing reference services, which greatly diminished the time she had available for working on NYPL's massive collection of government and municipal documents.

Anderson began keeping a file on Adelaide Hasse, documenting every questionable move she made, even misconstruing legitimate inquiries to suit his needs.

Adelaide Hasse reported her to the United States Secret Service in 1917 for "suspicious activity," which was largely due in part to her seeking other employment with President Wilson's Inquiry group.

The Inquiry was formed by President Woodrow Wilson to "collect and organize information for the eventual peace conference" that would occur at the conclusion of World War I Hasse inquired about work with the group only to find that Lydenberg and Anderson were already heading it up in the basement of the NYPL.

Adelaide Hasse was denied permission to go to Mexico, but while she was in California, her house was searched by the Secret Service no fewer than four times over the course of six weeks.

The Anderson file contained accusations that Adelaide Hasse was a lesbian and was involved in a relationship with Tilloah Squire, an assistant Adelaide Hasse hired in 1918 to work on the Foreign Relations Index.

Adelaide Hasse went on to found the School for Business Librarians within the Washington School for Secretaries and became editor of Special Libraries.

Adelaide Hasse wrote an autobiography entitled Compensations of Librarianship, in which she finally had her say against Anderson, Crandall, Clarke, and Lydenberg.

Adelaide Hasse finally obtained employment as an instructor at George Washington University and as a research consultant for what would later become the Works Progress Administration, publishing bibliographies of Social Security information.

Adelaide Hasse died on July 28,1953, with a fifty-four year career in library and information science.

In those fifty-four years, Adelaide Hasse made a significant mark on the field as a library assistant, indexer, cataloguer, classifier, bibliographer, editorial analyst, and author.

Adelaide Hasse was an advocate of "efficient and effective" library service, public access to government materials, and the women's movement.

Adelaide Hasse overcame great obstacles in her quest for providing quick, easy access to materials.