Winner: Louise Robbins
Winner: Louise Robbins
Designer and Assembler: Christie Brokish
Proceeds from this quilt will be donated to memorials in honor of Maria Bode and
Prof. Margaret Monroe
Quilt Coordinator: Kathy Rohde
Photos of Individual Squares:
Maria Bode, a founding member of Wisconsin Women Library Workers, died February 5, 2005, after living bravely and resiliently for many years with several serious health problems. Born October 30, 1940 in California, she spent her formative years abroad where her father worked at reconstructing postwar Germany. An activist even then, her older brother recounted at her memorial service that Maria was the boldest of the three siblings--always wanting to do something to change what she saw as an unjust situation.
Maria was active with WWLW from the beginning--helping with fundraising, laying out the newsletter, going on retreats, presenting programs at Wisconsin Library Association conferences. She worked for Madison Public Library, participating in the formation of the union for paraprofessionals and clerks, planning programs that highlighted information and services for working parents and their kids, as well as creating multi-media presentations on the lives of Wisconsin women such as Belle Case LaFollette and Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
A woman with many interests, Maria also took an active role in organizations concerned with the environment such as the Audubon Society and Nature Conservancy. She didn't just join these organizations but volunteered her time and strength to them and their causes. With her husband Kurt she built a passive solar home on forty acres of wooded land in Columbia County where they raised as much of their own food as possible and cut their own firewood. While living in this home perfectly tailored to their lives, Maria also worked for several years for the Poynette Public Library.
Margaret E. Monroe was without doubt a woman pioneer in librarianship and library education and in adult education, a field in which women were not so prominent in number. She watched and supported the development of WWLW with interest. She was not an active feminist but she was deeply committed to gender equality and had suffered from individual and institutional sexism in her long career in libraries. She didn't talk about this much but would allude to incidents from time to time always in a most professional manner. The first University of Wisconsin-Madison Library School Women's Group potluck was held at her apartment on February 28, 1975.
Her endorsement of us was an important factor in our initial organizing efforts. She continued to periodically come to Women's Group events throughout the life of the group.
Margaret Monroe participated in the Women's Group oral history projects including a spectacular evening discussion of adult education projects in libraries with Ruth Warnecke, Miriam Shapiro and Helen Lyman. The transcript and tape are at the Historical Society.
Margaret Monroe continued to support us when the Women's Group evolved into Wisconsin Women Library Workers--most notably by participating in our Famous Women Librarian post card series.
Monroe was known for her mentoring as well as for her rigorous scholarship. She began her career at the New York Public Library, spending 13 years there before serving as director of the American Heritage Project of the American Library Association (ALA) from 1951 to 1954. After eight years on the faculty of the Graduate School of Library Service, Rutgers University, NJ (1954-63), Monroe joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's library school. She served as professor from 1963 to her retirement in 1981. She was director of the library school from 1963 to 1970 and established its doctoral program.
Monroe was president of the American Association of Library Schools and of ALA's Adult Services Division, served twice on ALA Council, and chaired the ALA Committee on Accreditation. After her retirement, she coauthored The Challenge of Aging: A Bibliography (1983), with Rhea Rubin. In 1985, the ALA Reference and Adult Services Division established the annual Margaret Monroe Library Adult Services Award in honor of her contributions to teaching, research, and service in the field of library services to adults. She died at the age of 90 on December 17, 2004.
