Hewins, Caroline Maria (1846–1926)

US children's librarian. During her 50-year tenure as librarian of the Hartford, Connecticut, Public Library she advanced cooperation between the Library and local public schools. She founded the Education Association, a forerunnner of the PTA (Parent-Teacher Association). Hewins was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts. After graduating from the Normal School of Boston (1866), she worked as a librarian at the Young Men's Institute in Hartford and established a small branch library at Hartford's North Street Settlement, where she lived among the poor for 12 years.