Ida Jane Dacus

Ida Jane Dacus was born in Williamston, Anderson, South Carolina, to father John Arving Dacus and mother Sara Elizabeth Hogg.^[2] She was the oldest of four children.^[3]

She attended Williamston Female Academy, which is now Lander University.^[4] In 1896, the Winthrop Normal and Industrial College^[2] opened in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and Dacus continued her education there.^[2] At the time of the school's founding, the library consisted of a study hall and a small collection of two hundred books.^[5] Dacus was one of three girls who received a scholarship to maintain the school's library.^[5] Following her junior year, Dacus was asked by Winthrop President David Bancroft Johnson^[6] to head the school's library.^[1] Her salary was $20 per month including housing.^[3]

In 1901, Dacus attended the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia after competing in a nationwide exam in which she won a scholarship to study library science.^[7] The following year, she and fifteen others became the first trained librarians in the entire Southern United States.^[5]

When Ida Jane Dacus began as head librarian at Winthrop University, the library only had 5,184 books and 5,000 volumes of government publications. In 1905, construction started on a new library after the Carnegie Foundation donated $20,000 to Winthrop.^[8] The next year, the foundation increased their donation to $30,000 and added 500 books, contingent on the new library offering library methods courses and serving as a training school.^[3] In 1907, Dacus inaugurated two classes in library science: one in reference and the other in elementary library methods for schoolteachers.^[5] Library methods instructors in other parts of York County highly respected Dacus and used her courses at their own institutions. ^[2] Due to Dacus' impact, library methods courses were common by the late 1920s.^[5]

Dacus was an active member of the South Carolina Teachers’ Association, the National Education Association, and the American Library Association. Known as “Miss Ida" to her students, Dacus had a love of gardening and created the “Miss Dacus Garden” on the campus of Winthrop University.^[2]

Dacus retired in 1945 after working at the Winthrop library for 43 years. In 1959, she received the Mary Mildred Sullivan Medallion, the highest alumna award offered by Winthrop University.^[2] In her retirement, Dacus enjoyed gardening, making aprons, quilt collecting, and maintaining her home, a three-hundred-acre cotton farm.^[2] Dacus was buried in the Williamston Cemetery after her death due to illness.^[3]

In 1969, the Ida Jane Dacus Library was built to replace the Carnegie Library, which is now known as Rutledge Hall.^[9] The library was dedicated to Dacus, who had died five years prior. ^[2]