Bertha Mahony Miller

Bertha Mahony (1882–1969), also known as Bertha Mahony Miller, is considered a figurehead of the children’s literature movement. She created one of the first children’s bookstores in Boston, Massachusetts. Mahony was also the founder of the Horn Book Magazine. Besides being the oldest magazine of its kind in America, Horn Book remains one of the most well-known arbiters of excellence in children’s publishing. Mahony was also responsible for the creation of the Horn Book, Inc. publishing company.

Mahony was born on March 13, 1882, in Rockport, Massachusettsin. Mahony attended Simmons College in 1902. She participated in an advanced one-year program in the School of Secretarial Studies. During this time, she also joined the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union.

Upon completion of her courses, she got a job in the New Library, a lending library. Shortly after, Mahony was employed as Assistant Secretary in Boston's Women's Educational and Industrial Union. She started off as assistant secretary, then was put in charge of promotional materials. Later she became the Associate Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Unions' little theatre company, The Children’s Players, which involved her in a four-year series of children's plays. The theatre company was disbanded in 1917.

In August 1915, Mahony read an Atlantic Monthly article titled “A New Profession for Women” by Earl Barnes, that gloriously painted bookselling as a profession for women. This article, combined with her work with children’s plays, prompted Mahony to create a bookstore for children.

Mahony enlisted the support of experts in children’s literature to fill in her information gaps. She talked to the Boston Public Library’s Alice Jordan as well as Frederic Melcher. She visited the Central Children’s Room in New York and met Anne Carroll Moore. Other icons in children’s literature whom she visited included Clara Hunt and Caroline Hewins. Mahony also gathered financial support from banks and the Women's Educational and Industrial Union.

It does not seem possible that there can be any profession with greater satisfactions, a higher daily excitement or a more vital sense of the surging tides of life than that of a bookman in a bookshop.

The Bookshop for Boys & Girls opened in the beginning of October, 1916. It originally displayed only children’s literature of various kinds. The bookshop held all kinds of children's programs, including reading contests. In 1917, Mahony published Books for boys and girls: suggestive purchase list, another first of its kind. In the summer of 1920, Mahony reached out to the community and started the first-ever traveling bookshop. The Book Caravan was a branch of The Bookshop for Boys & Girls, which traveled all around New England. However, it was not able to turn a profit and was disbanded shortly thereafter, despite Mahony’s pleas to her backers.

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