Elizabeth B. Drewry

Elizabeth Belle Drewry (1907 – January 5, 2000) was an American archivist, recognized for her long career at the National Archives and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. The first woman to become the head of a Presidential library, she was an expert in American World War I history and published Historical Units of the First World War. and then Cornell University, where she earned her doctorate.

Career

Drewry began her career as the head of the history department at Penn Hall Junior College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

In 1936, she joined the National Archives as a reference supervisor. She spent a quarter of a century with the agency, ending her federal career as chief of the records retirement branch of the Office of Records Management. During the 1950s, she spearheaded an effort to introduce a uniform records retention and disposal system.

Drewry was a specialist in World War I history. Her book, Historical Units of the First World War, was published in 1942 by the Government Printing Office. She was the first woman to head a Presidential Library, and served there from 1961 to 1969. She was one of only fourteen women to hold an elected office in the SAA before 1972, when the committee on the Status of Women in the Archival Profession was formed. Drewry was instrumental in the effort to raise funds to expand the Library to house Eleanor Roosevelt's papers; construction was completed in 1972. Fellow, Society of American Archivists