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Photo of Maud Durlin Sullivan |
Maud Durlin Sullivan, El Paso librarian, was born
December 7, 1872 in Ripon, Wisconsin, the daughter of
Fayette Durlin and Annie L Root. Her family moved to
Madison, Wisconsin, where her father was a rector in the
Episcopal church, and she was educated at Kemper Hall, a
local Episcopal school. She then studied art and music
at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. She returned to
Madison after graduation and opened an art studio, but
soon accepted a position as assistant librarian with the
Eau Claire Public Library. She returned to the Pratt
Institute to study library science and after graduation
returned to Wisconsin and became librarian with the
Oshkosh Public Library. |
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She moved to El Paso and
succeeded Clara Milliken as librarian in August 1908. In
1912, Maud Durlin resigned her position, married John
Kevin Sullivan, a Harvard-educated mining engineer, and
moved with him to New Mexico's Mogollon Mountains. She
returned to El Paso in April 1917 and resumed her former
position as librarian; her second tenure lasted
twenty-five years and under her leadership, the El Paso
Public Library became one of the best in the nation. In
1919 the library had 17,453 volumes; ten years later,
the it had 36,842 volumes, and by 1940 it had 112,290
books and pamphlets. Sullivan built the library's
excellent mining reference section, which has been used
by engineers from throughout the southwest. Believing
that El Paso needed a strong Spanish-language section as
well, she taught herself Spanish in order to choose the
right books herself, and at the time of her death the
library had more than 2,000 volumes in Spanish. She also
built up the library's widely respected Southwest
Collection, which at the time of her death included
3,481 volumes on southwestern history. Among them was
the original manuscript of J. Frank Dobie's Apache Gold
and Yaqui Silver, donated by the author because of his
admiration for Sullivan. Sullivan served as president of
the Texas Library Association from 1923 to 1925, and
during her tenure as president she founded the
association's bulletin, which she edited from its first
issue in November 1924 until 1927. In the summer of 1927
she spent two months studying the public libraries of
Mexico City, and in May 1928, representing the American
Library Association, she took six Mexican librarians on
a tour of major United States libraries. She then spent
a week at the West Baden Conference, sponsored by the
Carnegie Foundation for International Peace. In 1932 she
went to Puerto Rico to survey the island's libraries,
and in May 1935 the Carnegie Corporation sent her as a
member of its International Relations Committee to the
International Congress of Libraries and Bibliography in
Spain. She was also an honorary member of the El Paso
Woman's Club and a member of the auxiliary of the
American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical
Engineers.
Sullivan never completely forgot her early studies of
art. In 1935, thanks to her efforts, the El Paso Public
Library became one of only two in Texas to receive the
Carnegie Art Reference Set, a collection of 1,400 prints
and 127 books on art. She also served as the unofficial
patroness of a thriving local artistic community, which
included Peter Hurd, Jean Carl Hertzog, Sr., Tom Lea
III, José Cisneros, and Fremont Ellis. Maud Sullivan
died on December 28, 1943, a week after breaking her
ankle in a fall and several months after the death of
her husband. Lea and Hertzog were among her pallbearers,
and after her death Lea wrote that Sullivan "had made
with her mind and energy one of the richest
contributions a good citizen ever brought to West
Texas."
BIBLIOGRAPHY: El Paso Herald, December 28, 1943. El Paso
Public Library Progress Report, 1894-1929 (El Paso:
Ellis Brothers Printing, 1929). El Paso Times, December
29, 1943. Tom Lea, Maud Durlin Sullivan, 1872-1944:
Pioneer Southwestern Librarian (El Paso: Carl Hertzog,
1962). Password, Spring 1963.
Martin Donell Kohout (some editing and additions by
Laurel Indalecio)
Handbook of Texas Online
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/fsu14.html |
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