RIP: Lillian Moore Bradshaw, Librarian and Trailblazer

The news came in late last night that former Dallas Public Library director Lillian Moore Bradshaw had died at 95. Jerome Weeks, in his blog Art & Seek memorializes the woman who more or less made the downtown library what it is, not just the building but its remarkable collections in first editions and art books, and who also significantly expanded the city’s library system.

And from The Dallas Morning News: According to City Manager Mary Suhm, herself a former librarian, Bradshaw, 95, was the first woman in the United States to direct a major library system. She directed the system from 1962 to 1984. “She was an amazing woman and set an example for all of us in government,” Suhm said this morning. Bradshaw was key to the raising of $40 million for the construction of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library.