Women’s History Month Profile
San Rafael Librarian, May Cooper: A Useful Life
by Pam Klein
On September 21, 1932, the Petaluma Argus-Courier, noted “the death of Miss May Cooper on Wednesday at the age of 80 years brought to an end a useful life.”
When San Rafael’s Carnegie Library was opened on January 9, 1909, 57-year-old May Cooper was the first town librarian. Miss Cooper was a professional teacher who had worked at several schools throughout Marin County (Nicasio, Bolinas, Sausalito, and San Rafael), as well as schools in Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara. She was San Rafael’s librarian from 1907-1924.
May Cooper was born in Baltimore in 1852, to Franklin and Lavinia Steiger Cooper. The Cooper family moved to California when May was a year old, and after a short stay in San Francisco, her mother died. The Coopers relocated to Santa Cruz, where her father became one of the founders of the city’s first bank. Franklin’s nephews owned the Cooper Brothers Mercantile Store, and the family was involved in local government, building the county’s first courthouse, organizing the first Republican Party headquarters, and holding some elected offices. The family bragged that they were related to the famous writer, James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Last of the Mohicans.
May was a spirited child who loved books, music, and art. She attended a “select school for young ladies”. Her teacher was a trained artist who specialized in paintings of Spanish era relicts, and awakened May’s artistic and musical interests. At fifteen, May became the primary grade teacher at a two-room schoolhouse known as “the Beach School (later the Laurel School). She played the piano, sang for various musical groups, and organized a traveling children’s chorus. She earned a “life diploma” for teaching in 1880, attended art classes at the San Francisco Art Institute and won praise and prizes for her paintings and sculptural work.
In 1888, May became a teacher in Sausalito at their new primary school and was rapidly promoted to principal. After resigning from her duties in 1891, May spent two years studying art and music in Paris. When May returned from France, she relocated to East Oakland to care for her younger half-siblings and ailing father. When her father passed away, she found work as a teacher in Bolinas and Nicasio. She often lectured and provided demonstrations of art techniques. At a Teachers Institute in Olema, she created a sketch that was published in the Independent Journal.
In 1904, the City of San Rafael approached industrialist, Andrew Carnegie for funding to build a Public Library. In March of 1906, just prior to the earthquake that devastated San Francisco, the library lot was purchased, but construction was delayed. In 1907, May Cooper was hired as the town librarian and began collecting books for the new Public Library, while providing library services in a room at the High School.
Initially, the library was staffed only by Miss Cooper, a library assistant, Miss Dunbar, and a gardener/janitor. For the next sixteen years, May Cooper, petitioned for improvements to the library such as a typewriter and additional shelving, participated in fundraising for soldiers blinded during World War I, traveled and presented at conferences put on by the fledging California Library Association, and carefully recorded the library’s holdings in a set of ledgers still owned by the library today. After retiring, Miss Cooper started a small private lending library in San Anselmo and continued her life as an artist and supporter of charitable causes- always a “useful woman.”
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