22 Facts About Gratia Countryman

Gratia Alta Countryman was a nationally-known librarian who led the Minneapolis Public Library from 1904 to 1936.

Gratia Countryman was the daughter of immigrant farmers Alta and Levi Countryman.

Gratia Countryman pioneered many ways to make the library more accessible and user-friendly to all of the city's residents, regardless of age or economic position.

Gratia Countryman was born on November 29,1866 to Levi and Alta Chamberlain Countryman.

Gratia Countryman's father was a Latin scholar and Civil War veteran who had studied at Hamline University, and named her after the Latin root of thanks.

Gratia Countryman had two older brothers and a younger sister.

Gratia Countryman graduated from Hastings High School in 1882, and her father moved the family to Minneapolis so that both she and her sister could attend college.

Gratia Countryman graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Science degree and Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1889.

Gratia Countryman was recommended by university president Cyrus Northrop to Herbert Putnam for a job at the Minneapolis Public Library, where she started in 1889 under James Kendall Hosmer.

Gratia Countryman was the nation's first female head librarian at the Minneapolis Public Library from 1904 to 1936.

Gratia Countryman was a capable leader who, over her 32 years as head librarian, helped increase the library's scope and reach exponentially.

Gratia Countryman oversaw the building of 12 branches and a mobile library truck, and she and her staff added over 500,000 volumes to the already substantial catalog.

Gratia Countryman was very active in the Minnesota Library Association and served as MLA president in 1904 and 1905.

Gratia Countryman established The Minnesota Library Commission and remained recording secretary of that group until 1918.

From 1912 to 1914, Gratia Countryman organized and was president of the Foreign Policy Association Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Gratia Countryman served on the National Liberty and War Service Committee and the Woman's Warfare League.

In 1934, Gratia Countryman served as president of the American Library Association.

Gratia Countryman was forced into retirement by the city's pension law at age 70 in 1936.

Gratia Countryman never married but lived with her longtime partner, Marie Todd, for thirty eight years.

In May 1917, they took in a homeless boy named Wellington Wilson, and Gratia Countryman later was awarded guardianship of him.

Gratia Countryman eventually married and had a daughter whom he named Alta Countryman after his adoptive mother.

Gratia Countryman's crusading zeal carried the book to every part of her city and county, to the little child, the factory worker, the farmer, the businessman, the hospital patient, the blind and the old.