Magill takes a look back in time
Esther Ralph and family accompany Magill staff around Library
On February 26, Magill welcomed a special visitor who took staff on a “tour” of the Library’s past. Esther Ralph joined the all-female Library staff just after graduating from Drexel University in 1941 (when all Haverford students were men).
In her 40-year career at Haverford, she witnessed many changes to the Library’s building, collections, and services. When she arrived, she and other staff returned books to the stacks by means of a dumb waiter operated by rope and pulley. She saw U. S. Army units exercise on the College green during World War II; she heard Eleanor Roosevelt speak to students and faculty. She worked at Haverford through the massive Library expansion project in the mid-1960s that gave Magill its unique (occasionally befuddling) layout.
Click here for more from Esther Ralph and a look at some of the old photographs she is sharing with the campus community.
