Nannie Herndon Rice (November 30, 1886 – March 6, 1963) was an American suffragist, writer, and college librarian, based in Mississippi. She worked at the Mississippi State University library from 1916 to 1957, and was president of the Mississippi Library Association.
Rice was an assistant at the Industrial Institute & College after she graduated. She taught English at St. Mary's College in Dallas, Texas. She spent most of her career as a librarian at the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Mississippi State University), from 1916 until her retirement in 1957.[3]
Rice wrote poetry, book reviews, and essays. She was president of the Mississippi Library Association in the 1930s.[4] She was a speaker at the MIssissippi Library Association's general meeting in 1938.[5]
After H. L. Mencken wrote a series of articles describing the American South as a cultural desert, Rice wrote an essay in defense of Mississippi, which Mencken published in The American Mercury, in January 1926. She also wrote book reviews and poetry, published under the names "Anne Coke"[6] and "Ann Cook".[7] After her death, an anthology of her writings was published by her nephew, Frederic F. Mellen.[8]
Rice lived most of her life in Meadow Woods, her family's historic plantation home in Oktibbeha County.[12] She died there in 1963, at the age of 76. Her family donated a large collection of her papers to Mississippi State University.[1][13] An oil portrait of Rice was displayed at Mississippi State University's Mitchell Memorial Library.[14] A residence hall at Mississippi State is named Rice Hall in her memory.[15]
