Dawson, Giles E., 1903-1994

Giles E. Dawson was a 20th-century Shakespearean scholar, paleographer, and librarian. He spent almost his entire career at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC.

Dawson graduated from Oberlin College in 1925 and went on to earn an MA and PhD from Cornell University. He served on the faculty of the University of North Dakota and the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland before joining the Folger Shakespeare Library as a reference librarian in 1932. Dawson served in the U. S. Navy in World War II. From 1946 until his retirement in 1967, he was the curator of books and manuscripts for the Folger. He was a member of the Catholic University faculty from 1935 to 1972, lecturing to graduate students until 1967. He also taught at Howard University from 1975 to 1977. From 1984 until May 1994, he volunteered as the rare-book librarian for the Washington National Cathedral.

He was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of William Leon Dawson and Frances Etta Akerman. Dawson married Margaret Williams in 1926. They had two children. She died in 1957. Two years later he married Margaret White, with whom he had three children. He died in 1994.