Anne Carroll Moore

Anne Carroll Moore (see Figures 7 & 8) was born in 1871 in Limerick, Maine and was the youngest of ten children. Moore hoped to become a lawyer like her father Luther and attended two universities in hopes of attaining this goal. However, upon the death of both her parents and her sister-in-law, which took place just a small time apart from one other, her plans were put on hold. Moore spent the next several years raising the children of her widowed brother Harry. Eventually, it was Harry who suggested Moore consider becoming a librarian, an emerging profession at the time. Moore was eventually accepted into a one-year library science program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York (Hildenbrand, 1996).

Figure 7
 (Image from recess.ufl.edu)

It was here at Pratt, upon graduation, that Moore was propositioned to organize a children's room at the institute. Prior to this, children were usually "considered a nuisance in library settings" (Lepore, 2008) and were often not even allowed to patronize libraries until they were teenagers. Moore did what no one before her had done: she visited kindergartens, toured diverse communities in the area, and even conducted informal surveys with children on the street - all to get a sense of what she needed to include in her children's reading room. Moore eventually decided on specific child-sized furniture, reading nooks, puppets, story times, and other welcoming aspects for the Pratt Library's children's room. The children's area was an enormous success; on opening day the line of children waiting for entry circled the block (Lepore, 2008).

Moore remained a librarian at the Pratt library for ten years. In 1906 when she was made head of children's library services for the New York Public Library system where she stayed until 1941. It was during her time at the Pratt Library that Moore published over ten books, including this study's focus, Nicholas: A Manhattan Christmas Story published in 1924 which went on to become a Newberry Honor Book the very next year. Other works by Moore include a second Nicholas story called Nicholas and the Golden Goose, published too in 1924 and an autobiography entitled My Roads to childhood published in 1920 (Hildenbrand, 1996).

Figure 8
Anne Carroll Moore at the New York Public Library, 1914
(Image from missmoorethoughtotherwise.com)

In 1941, Moore officially retired. After her retirement she wrote, taught, and remained active in the library science world for her remaining years until she passed away in 1961 at the age of 90 (Cummins, 1999).