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Herbert Putnam ( September 20 1861- August 14 1955) was an American librarian. He was born in New York City, where his father George Palmer Putnam was a noted publisher. He graduated from Harvard in 1883, studied law at Columbia, and was admitted to the bar in 1886. He was librarian at the Minneapolis Athenaeum , 1884- 1887, and the Minneapolis Public Library, 1887- 1891. He practised law in Boston, 1892Events January 1 Ellis Island begins accepting immigrants to the United States. January 14 Death of Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, second in line heir to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Next in line is his younger b- 1895Events January events January 5 Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. February events February 14 First showing of Oscar Wilde's last play The Importance of Being Earnes, and was librarian of the Boston Public LibraryPublic libraries The Boston Public Library was established in 1848. It was the first publicly supported municipal library in America. It was also the first public library to allow people to borrow books and other materials. The Boston Public Library is al, 1895Events January events January 5 Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. February events February 14 First showing of Oscar Wilde's last play The Importance of Being Earnes- 1899Events January events January 1 End of Spanish rule in Cuba. January 1 Queens and Staten Island merge with New York City. January 3 The first known use of the word " automobile", in an editorial in the New York Times''. January 6 Lord Curzon becomes a vic where he did much to improve that library's collection of photographs. He was appointed elected president of the American Library AssociationThe American Library Association represents librarians in the United States. It has approximately 64,000 members. It was founded in 1876 in Philadelphia and chartered in 1879 in Massachusetts. Its head office is in Chicago. Its mission is "to provide lead in 1898Events January 1 New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. January 13 Emile Zola's J'accus and again in 19041904 is a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). Events January 7 The distress signal " CQD" is established only to be replaced two years later by " SOS. February 7 A fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30, and was appointed Librarian of Congress in 1899 by President William McKinley. He was the first experienced librarian to hold the post. He held the post until 1939 when he retired with the title of librarian emeritus to be succeeded by the poet Archibald MacLeish. Early during his administration, Putnam introduced a new system of classifying books, that continues to this day as the Library of Congress classification. He also established an interlibrary loan system, and expanded the Library of Congress's role and relationships with other libraries, through the provision of centralized services.He became an overseer of Harvard in 1902. He died in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Adapted from The Americana.
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