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Margaret Cross Norton (July 7, 1891 – May 21, 1984) served as the first State Archivist of Illinois from 1922 to 1957 and co-founded the Society of American Archivists in 1936, where she served as the first vice president from 1936-1937 and president from 1943-1945. She also served as editor of the American Archivist from 1946-1949. Norton was recently recognized in the December, 1999 American Libraries article naming "100 of the most important leaders we had in the 20th century" for her influence and forward-thinking for the future direction and scope of the archival industry.

Norton promoted the establishment of archives as a profession separate from history or library science and developed the American archival tradition to emphasize an administrator/archivist rather than an historian/archivist. She encouraged learning through experimentation, practical usage, and community discussion. While editor of "The American Archivist" she emphasized technical rather than scholarly issues, believing that these issues were more pertinent to the daily issues an archivist faced.

By stressing the legal authority of government records, Norton believed archives could gain funding and government support through educating potential users about the legal protection records could provide them. Her influence and writings within the field of archives remain, for the large part, unchallenged.

Early life
Margaret Cross Norton was born into a household where civil service and record keeping were of the utmost importance. At the time of their marriage Norton's mother was the Deputy County Treasurer for Winnebago County, Illinois and her father held the position of Deputy County Clerk. Her parents' work impressed upon her the necessity of record keeping in the public sphere. Her parents frequently discussed their work with her and her father brought her into work with him often. Between both of her parents' professions, the use and preservation of official governmental records became common everyday notions, which undoubtedly influenced Margaret greatly at a very young age.

After graduating from high school, Norton obtained her bachelor's degree in History from the University of Chicago in 1913 and continued on at the University of Chicago to graduate in 1914 with a master's degree in the same discipline. Limited to the professional careers that were acceptable for women at the time, Norton saw librarianship as her only suitable option and subsequently enrolled in the University at Albany, SUNY in Albany, New York. She graduated in 1915 with a Bachelor of Library Science degree. She then began her first professional position at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. However, Norton soon developed doubts regarding her current profession, finding it too dry and rigid for her own taste and quickly began to seek refuge in the field of historical librarianship.



During this pivotal point of flux within her professional life Norton attended an American Historical Association lecture presented by Waldo Gifford Leland. In his lecture Leland distinguished between historical manuscripts and archives; highlighting the importance of and the need for a government archive center. Greatly inspired by this lecture, Norton quickly and immediately resolved to become an archivist.

With her newfound resolve and professional goal in mind, Norton left her work in the library and began work calendaring manuscript collections at the Indiana State Library Department of Archives and History. From there she went into a two-year fellowship at the University of Chicago. The completion of her fellowship led her into a cataloguer position at the Missouri State Historical Society in Columbia. While working as a cataloguer, Norton was asked to become the first head archivist at the new Illinois State Archives in Springfield, Illinois. Hesitant at first, Norton finally accepted the position in January, 1922 and subsequently began in April, 1922. At the time she was just 30 years old.

Professional Impact
When Norton began as the Illinois State Archivist, the archive center was minute in comparison to the large and vast historical center that the state of Illinois had in place. Because of this it was extremely difficult for her to gain the funding necessary to run the archive center productively. In order to gain funding Norton felt that she needed to provide evidence that proved to the state policy makers the importance of public archives and their legal implications; she found that in order to gain funding, she would have to show how archives could benefit the state on a social and legal level. Rather than speaking of their intrinsic value, Norton avidly promoted the instrumental value of archives. It was this pragmatic approach and developing theory of practicality that allowed Norton to gain funding and to distinguish the archival center from both the library and the historical society.

Through years of persistence, written correspondence, and publicity Norton finally gained the funding necessary to build a new state archives center for Illinois. Its doors opened in 1938. At this time the Illinois State Archive building was only the third public archives building in the United States. Through her advocacy and theory the Illinois State Archives has become one of the premier archival institution models.

In addition to giving the field of archives its distinct role separate from that of historical manuscripts and librarianship, Norton was also a pioneer woman of her time. She believed in and upheld the solidarity of her own thought and practices and in turn, was one of the first females to hold many of her professional titles.

Death and afterward
Norton's memory is carried on every two years at the Midwest Archives Conference when an author is awarded the 'Margaret Cross Norton Award' for the article which is judged to be the best article from the previous two years in the "Archival Issues"

She is also remembered through the Margaret Cross Norton Fund organized by the Society of American Archivists which was originally established from the estate left to the Society of American Archivists by Margaret Cross Norton; this is an unrestricted fund is generally used to further the educational activities of the Society.



Published works

 * Norton, Margaret Cross. Catalog Rules: Series for Archives Material Springfield, Illinois, 1938.
 * Norton, Margaret Cross. Illinois Census Returns, 1820 Clearfield, 1996.
 * Norton, Margaret Cross. “The Margaret Cross Norton Working Papers”, 1924-1973, mi-crofilm edition (Springfield: Illinois State Archives, 1993).