Althea Warren

Althea Hester Warren (December 18, 1886 – December 19, 1958) was the director of the Los Angeles (California) Public Library from 1933 to 1947 and president of the American Library Association in 1943-1944. She was inducted into the California Library Association's Library Hall of Fame in 2013.

Biography and career

Warren was born on December 18, 1886, in Waukegan, Illinois, to Lansing Warren and Emma Blodgett. She attended the University of Chicago from 1904 to 1908. After traveling abroad in Europe, Warren started library school at the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1911. She was a branch manager in a "poor neighborhood" in the Chicago Public Library system, Warren was California Library Association president in 1921 and American Library Association (ALA) president in 1943-1944. She worked on the national level to increase federal aid to libraries and to end discrimination faced by African American librarians at ALA conference hotels. They lived and travelled together for years. After English died, Warren created the American Library Association's Gladys English Memorial Collection, also called the Gladys English Collection.