Knowles, Mary, 1910-

Mary (Ruth Gardner) Knowles was born in 1910 in Watertown, Massachusetts. Mary Knowles worked for the Samuel Adams School for Social Studies, Boston, as an office secretary 1945-1948, and was certified as a librarian by the State of Massachusetts. In 1953, she appeared before the Jenner Committee, a Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Mary Knowles was hired by the Jeanes Memorial Library in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, in 1953, and became the focus of a McCarthy-era controversy. She was convicted of contempt of Congress in 1957 for refusing to answer questions arising out of the Senate subcommittee and successfully appealed the conviction in 1960. Mary Knowles died in 1998.