Evelyn de Mille

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Evelyn de Mille (born 1919) is a Canadian known for being the first woman in Calgary, Alberta to own her own stand-alone bookstore in the city.^[1] She opened her first bookstore in 1956.^[2] In 1974 she became the first woman in Canada to found a bookstore chain.^[1]

In 1972, she was the first female president of the Canadian Booksellers Association.^[1]^[3] In this role, she helped found the Bookseller of the Year Awards.^[1] In 1974 she sold her business to W H Smith, with whom she was involved in a legal dispute with.^[1] Evelyn de Mille bought the Owl's Nest bookstore in 1979 and operated it until she sold it 1996.^[1] ^[4] In 1999, she announced she was retiring permanently from the trade and would sell her last remaining book store, DeMille Technical Books.^[2] It was later sold to McNally Robinson bookstore chain.^[5]

In 1998, she was awarded an honorary degree as a Doctor of Laws by the University of Calgary.^[1]

[edit] Further reading

The following list is from Library and Archives Canada:^[1]

Crawford, Anne, "De Mille savors 40 years as a bookselling pioneer", Calgary Herald, October 7, 1996. p. C1.
Cusipag, Marjo, "Evelyn deMille : Calgary's first female bookseller", Canadian bookseller, Vol. 20, no. 5, June/July 1998. p. 61.
De Mille, Evelyn, "The bookseller's dilemma", Library Association of Alberta bulletin, Vol. 4, no. 2, April 1973. p. 38-41.
"The Evelyn de Mille Collection on the Book and the Book Arts.", Calgary : Special Collections Division, University of Calgary Libraries, 1991. -- 28 p. -- (Occasional paper no. 9)
"WHS settles with De Mille", Quill & quire, Vol. 46, no. 1, January 1980. p. 16-17.

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Evelyn de Mille, Library and Archives Canada; URL accessed May 19, 2006.
^ ^a ^b Brennan, Brian, "Evelyn de Mille: Book seller extraordinaire: After 43 years in the trade, retailer is ready to turn the page on an illustrious career Series: International Year of Older Persons",, Calgary Herald. Calgary Herald. Calgary, Alta.: Jun 27, 1999. pg. E.1.FRO
^ CBA Presidents. 1952-2006 (PDF), Canadian Booksellers Association; URL accessed May 19, 2006.
^ Toneguzzi, Mario, "Owl's Nest has an eye for customer service: Bookstore survives arrival of chain stores". Calgary Herald, August 8, 2005. pg. E.2.
^ Parker, David, "Paperwork completed on bookstore", Calgary Herald, January 2, 2002, p. E.3