Jane Maud Campbell, 1869-1947

Jane Maud Campbell was born on March 13, 1869, in Liverpool, England, the first daughter and one of seven children of George and Jane (Cameron) Campbell. Following the death of her mother several years later, JMC was raised by a nurse and governess. When she was twelve, the family sailed to the United States, where she attended a private school in Richmond, Virginia. Returning to Great Britain the following year, JMC lived with her grandmother in Edinburgh while attending school; she later graduated from the Ladies' College of Edinburgh University and from the Edinburgh School of Cookery and Domestic Economy.

Returning to the United States, JMC worked in Charles Town, West Virginia, as secretary in a family business, before taking a job as an assistant in the reference room at the Free Public Library in Newark, New Jersey. In 1902 she accepted the position of head of public libraries in Passaic, New Jersey, where she became increasingly concerned with the plight of newly arrived immigrants. In addition to furnishing the libraries with foreign language books about American life, JMC was the sole woman on a 1906 commission (and the first woman on any New Jersey commission) appointed "to inquire into and report upon the general condition of the immigrants coming into or residents within this State." This panel was instrumental in persuading the legislature to provide free evening classes for immigrants, among the first such classes in the country.

...