Butte County
Biographies
MISS ESSAE M. CULVER
MISS ESSAE M. CULVER.—Leaders among those who have ably helped California forward to her supreme destiny, are the various professional men and women often hailing from other states or even foreign lands, to whom the resourceful Golden state has made an appeal, nor made it in vain, and whom it now recognizes as having brought the experience of years as well as the enterprise and scholarly research of other regions and periods to bear in solving the many problems arising under pioneer conditions; and eminent among this influential and highly esteemed group, which has done so much to develop and improve Butte County, may well be mentioned Miss Essae M. Culver, the progressive and far-seeing Librarian of the Butte County Free Library, now one of the best planned, and the best conducted institutions of its size and scope anywhere along the Pacific. She was born in Emporia, Kans., the daughter of Judge James F. Culver, a native of Carlisle, Pa., who was educated at Dickinson College, Carlisle. Afterwards, he came to Pontiac, Ill., and when the Civil War broke out, he volunteered in the Union Army and was commissioned a captain in the One Hundred Twenty-ninth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, in which he served until the close of the war. Having returned home after the great conflict, he studied law, and in time was duly admitted to the bar and commenced what proved a dignified and very remunerative practice. About 1878 he removed to Emporia, Kans., and there, his high standard of conduct and procedure, and the richness of his legal mind becoming known, he eventually served as Judge. His demise occurred at Emporia, where he had become both prominent and popular as a Mason. Mrs. Culver, who was Miss Mary Murphy before her marriage, and was born at Utica, N. Y., now resides at Royal Oak, Mich.
Essae M., the youngest of her five children, prepared for a collegiate education and then entered Pomona College, at Claremont, Cal., from which institution she was graduated in 1905 with the coveted degree of Bachelor of Letters. At that time she was assistant librarian at Pomona College; and as Pomona is unusually well established, she early profited from an experience that could not be accorded to everyone. Going from there to Albany, N. Y., she took the famous library course at the Empire State capital, and then she accepted the position of librarian of the Public Library at Salem, Ore. This interesting post she held for four years, when she returned to California.
For a short time Miss Culver was reference librarian in the well-stocked Redlands Public Library, and then she became assistant in the State Library at Sacramento. This appointment opened the most important additional fields of acquisition and experience to
the ambitious woman, who had now become thoroughly identified with the State of her adoption, and she lost no opportunity in preparing, in the most expert fashion, for County Library work. In due time she passed all the requisite examinations, and on January, 1, 1914, she assumed charge of the Glenn County Free Library at Willows, where she remained for some time.
Then she accepted her present position, that of public librarian of Butte County, with headquarters in the library at Oroville; and since her advent, in particular, the library has been developed on the broadest and most aggressive lines. This library was established in September, 1913, under the county free library law. Miss Ida Reagan was the first librarian, serving until the spring of 1915, when Miss Gladys Brownson succeeded her, filling the position until July, 1916, when Miss Culver took charge. This library was first located in the basement of the Oroville Public Library, where it remained until the spring of 1916, when it was moved to its present location at the corner of Bird and Huntoon Streets, the most central location obtainable. There it has ample quarters and well-arranged facilities for public library work; and under the excellent direction of the alert and accommodating lady in question, it has grown to proportions that are large as compared with both the population of the district and with the age of the institution. It has more than twenty-one hundred volumes, which serve some nine thousand registered borrowers; and in the year 1917-1918 the equivalent of sixty thousand books was circulated through ninety-four distributing points. The library is therefore filling a much needed want, and is widely appreciated. Aside from books and general literature in the form of magazines, the files include a large selection of pictures and musical records; and since the latter include those especially of an educational nature, they are in constant demand in the sixty-eight schools and in the thirty-six community branches that receive this service.
A most promising factor in the affairs of the Butte County Public Library is that Miss Culver is intensely interested in her arduous and never-ending work, and gives it her first and undivided attention. She is endeavoring to make it a large, well-selected and very valuable library, of which the county may justly be proud; and as she is prominent in the County Library Association, and active and influential in both the State Library Association and the American Library Association, she cannot fail if experience and cooperation are factors necessary to success.
Transcribed
by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of Butte
County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1256-1258,
Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies