Mention Mary Emily Foy and most residents, including administrators at the Los Angeles City Library, will ask idly who she might be?
Foy was the third city librarian for the City of Los Angeles, serving in that capacity from 1880 to 1884, and later taught at the old Alameda School in Downey.
She was one of the first women administrators ever in the West, and the fact her name is relatively unknown by the very library she helped to pioneer does it no credit.
A strong-willed woman who died at the age of 99 in 1962 Foy directed the old one-room library at Main and Temple streets in downtown Los Angeles.
Later, she taught in Downey, campaigned for Woodrow Wilson during his national political career and fought for decades for the California Progressive Movement and Women’s Rights. It is sad that Foy’s name has been omitted from many histories of California, which often include the names of men far less influential in the development of old Los Angeles.
Even sadder to note that Foy, who had a room named after her in the old Los Angeles Public Library, has not been included in the plans for the new library erected after the old edifice burned down.
So quickly they forget.
A spokeswoman for the library idly asked who Mary Foy was when questioned on the omission of her name from the new library recently. Apparently there are no plans to remedy this.
Just as sad was the response by a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission, who, when asked if the old home Mary Foy was born in at 631 S. Witmer St. (and officially designated Los Angeles Historical Cultural Monument No. 8), was still standing, replied she wasn’t sure. She suggested the Time Traveler drive by and see.
Perhaps a reminder to the library and heritage commission that those who forget history are often forgotten themselves is in order.
Mary Foy, daughter of a prominent Los Angeles family, who distinguished herself in many ways as a fighter for Women’s Rights and the Progressive Movement, should be remembered. Thus, this column.