Background
Mary Elizabeth Wood was born on August 22, 1861, in Elba, New York, United States. She was the daughter of Edward Farmer Wood and Mary Jane (Humphrey) Wood. Mary was the only daughter among seven brothers.
300 Fenway, Boston, MA 02115, United States
Mary received a year of library training at Simmons College (present-day Simmons University).
260 State Street, Batavia, (Genesee County), New York 14020, United States
In her early years, Mary studied at Batavia High School.
Mary Elizabeth Wood was born on August 22, 1861, in Elba, New York, United States. She was the daughter of Edward Farmer Wood and Mary Jane (Humphrey) Wood. Mary was the only daughter among seven brothers.
Shortly after Wood's birth in 1861, her family moved from Elba, New York, to Batavia, New York, where she attended private and public schools. She also graduated from Batavia High School.
In her later years, Mary attended library school at Pratt Institute in New York City, as well as Simmons College (present-day Simmons University) in 1918.
At the beginning of her career, in 1889-1899, Wood worked as a librarian of the newly founded Richmond Memorial Library in Batavia. Later, a visit to China in 1899 to see her brother Robert Wood, an Episcopal missionary in Wuchang, turned into a lifelong educational and religious mission for Mary. She learned to speak Chinese (although she did not learn to read it) and decided to stay to teach at her brother's Boone School.
In 1904, Wood was made a lay missionary by the Episcopal Church. That year, the reigning Manchu government of China abolished the traditional Chinese education system in favor of Western-style learning. Chinese schools and colleges needed libraries to support the new learning, and Wood saw an opportunity to combine library science with her missionary work. She returned to the United States in 1906 to solicit private funding for a library building for the Boone School. Her benefactors included philanthropist Olivia Phelps Stokes and a former Columbia University president, Seth Low. Construction began on June 1, 1909, and was completed with the library's opening in 1910. The library collection initially consisted of a mixture of secular and religious works, as well as photographs, with 3,000 volumes total in Chinese and English. Under Wood's leadership, the library rapidly developed, and within several years, the collection had grown to 12,000 volumes total, with 5,000 in English and 7,000 in Chinese, as well as approximately 60 serial publications.
In succeeding years, Wood made other trips back to the United States, studying library science at the Pratt Institute and Simmons College, while seeking additional patrons for her Chinese library campaigns. These campaigns included establishing a series of branch libraries at state and private colleges in Wuchang and Hankow, and arranging for "traveling libraries" to tour schools and factories so that workers could benefit from the Chinese and English books as well.
A tireless fund raiser, Wood also funded scholarships for two Chinese students to study library science in the United States. They returned to China to assist her in founding a school for library science at Boone College in 1920 - the Boone Library School. The school had trained nearly 500 Chinese librarians before its closure after the Communist revolution of 1949. It was subsequently reopened as an affiliate of National Wuhan University.
As part of her ongoing effort to secure funding for a true national library system, in 1923, Wood had a petition, signed by Chinese leaders, asking the United States Congress to allot a part of the $6 million, paid by China to the United States after the Boxer Rebellion of 1899 for public library development. She took the signed petition to Washington, D.C., where she made her case in personal interviews with hundreds of members of Congress, including Senator William Cabell Bruce. Her appeal was successful, and Congress passed a bill, establishing a fund for educational activities in China, which later totaled $12 million.
The fund, established by the United States, allowed Wood to return to China and found the National Library of Peking (Beijing), as well as scholarships at the Boone Library School. She was also influential in the establishment of the Library Association of China in 1926 and of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in 1927.
After Mary withdrew the Boone Library School from its affiliation with the missionary Huachung University, she devoted her last few years to raising funds to endow the Boone Library School under an American-controlled board (later called the Mary Elizabeth Wood Foundation).
Wood continued to campaign for the cause of libraries and librarianship in China for the remainder of her life.
Wood was a particularly outspoken champion of Chinese social and political causes in Washington. In 1927, she worked towards the cancellation of China's "unequal treaties" and was continuously involved in other programs, such as providing shelters for rickshaw drivers and securing books for soldiers.
In her childhood, Mary was described as "a great reader".
Mary was never married.