Mary Heath Lee

In 1921, Mary Heath Lee became the first library-schooled librarian at the Fairhope Free Public Library, and the first to be paid regularly. She would serve for nine years alongside her daughter Mildred Lee who was assistant librarian. The elder Lee provided multiple updates to the collection, including a new shelving system, a vast improvement from Howland's by size and subject system that only Ms. Comings understood. She also coordinated and led the Alabama Library Association's annual conference in 1925, which also coincided with the Fairhope Library's 25th anniversary. Lee left behind a diary of her years as librarian and several hundred pages of correspondence, which we are scanning as part of our archive digitization project.