Cornelia Marvin was born in Monticello, IA, on December 26, 1873. Her parents, Charles Elwell Marvin and Cornelia Moody Marvin had five children, of which Cornelia was the second. The family moved to Minnesota, where Cornelia attended high school. They relocated to Tacoma, WA around 1890, in part due to Cornelia Moody Marvin’s Tuberculosis. The children lived with different relatives during this time—Cornelia herself stayed with her parents to recover from an illness. Her mother died in 1892, in Tacoma. Cornelia moved to Chicago in the fall of 1893 to live with a Mrs. Porter. She had a position as a “mother’s helper” and took courses at the University of Chicago in her spare time.

On September 20, 1894 Cornelia entered the library school at the Armour Institute in Chicago. Her classes included: book selection, cataloging, loan systems, elementary reference, shelf listing and library handwriting. Cornelia earned her library certificate in 1895, and was appointed reference librarian and instructor in reference and bibliography at the Armour Institute in 1896. She gave a series of 12 lectures in January, 1897 which covered all aspects of librarianship. She also taught one of the first library courses in the care and handling of U.S. documents.

She arrived in Oregon in 1905, serving as the Secretary of the Oregon Library Commission, and eventually becoming the first Oregon State Librarian. During her tenure, she encouraged library outreach to rural areas of the state, expanding the number of libraries in Oregon from 3 to over 100. She also initiated the first free books by mail program in the United States, and expanded the library’s holdings from 2,500 volumes in 1905 to more than 250,000 at the time of her retirement in 1928.

She married former Oregon Governor Walter M. Pierce in 1928. When he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1932, she accompanied him to Washington, D.C. as his secretary. It was a well-known fact that the two were a team—she wrote most of his speeches and enthusiastically supported him in advancing many New Deal Programs.

They returned to Oregon in 1943. Walter M. Pierce died in 1953. Cornelia MarvinPierce died on February 12, 1957.