Lydia Marian Gooding (1890-1982)

Lydia Gooding was born on December 27, 1890, the second daughter of William Lambert Gooding, Dickinson class of 1874, and Kathleen Moore Gooding, a native of Wyoming, Delaware. Lydia graduated from Dickinson College in 1910, her father having been employed there as professor of philosophy and education since 1898.

Lydia’s first job after graduation was with the Princeton University Library from 1913 to 1917. She then returned to her alma mater, working as a librarian at Dickinson College from 1918 to 1926. Lydia then pursued her master’s degree at the School of Library Sciences at Columbia University, taking three years to complete the degree while teaching part-time at Columbia. Throughout her career, she worked in academic libraries at Emory University, Syracuse University, Columbia University, and Mt. Holyoke College. She also held various positions at Brown University, spending the last three years of her professional career as head of rare books and manuscripts.

Lydia Gooding embarked on a long retirement, starting with “a two year fling in New York City,” (as she described it in a letter to the Mary Dickinson Club in 1972), three years in Carlisle, and the remainder at a retirement home in Delaware until her death on November 1, 1982.