Consider This from NPR - The Morgan Library's quest to honor a matriarch in archiving

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

Referred to as one of the most fascinating librarians in American history, Belle da Costa Greene is the figure who is responsible for the depth and legacy of the Morgan Library's collection, to this day.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In Gilded Age, New York, a glamorous, self-possessed young woman becomes an influential figure in wealthy social circles. Known throughout the city, photographed by the press, she works with one of the richest men in the country, collecting some of the world's rarest books and manuscripts for his personal collection. Sounds kind of like the plot for a movie, right? But this story is true. Velda Costa Green is a singularity. Belle Green is the most fascinating librarian in American history. Belle Green and her story can teach us so much. She really has an important legacy within the history of librarianship because she was one of the few women in this field. She's really someone who, in every sense of the word, was a trailblazer.

You might not know that name, Belle da Costa Green, but the Morgan Library and Museum in New York is trying to change that. The library was originally built by J. Pierpont Morgan, one of the richest and most powerful bankers in the early 20th century. It was originally intended to house J.P. Morgan's personal collection. Today, it houses a one-of-a-kind collection of medieval writings, rare books, and illuminated manuscripts. That's thanks, in large part, to Belle da Costa Green. She became the librarian for the collection in 1905, and in 1924 was appointed director of the

Morgan Library. Oh, influential. I mean, we could go on forever with, I mean, everything she touched and created. Erica Chalella is a curator for A Librarian's Legacy, a new exhibit that's part of the Morgan's 100th anniversary celebrations. It traces Belle da Costa Green's life and her lasting impact on the role of libraries as public spaces for everyone, not just the educated elite. Our exhibition programs, our lecture programs, our collections that we do today, we can trace it all back to her becoming director and believing that this institution could be one of a kind in the world and a place for scholars everywhere to come and look at these amazing materials. And she really was looking for one of a kind items, which is what sets our collection apart, because she really was like, I want the

best of the best. And that sometimes meant looking outside of what was popular. And she knew exactly what would make this collection and this building become a site. Consider this. Heading a library was an unusually prominent role for a woman at the turn of the last century, and it would have been unheard of for a Black woman. But this woman chose to pass as white to survive in a highly segregated America. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang.

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Want to know what's happening as the presidential transition is underway? The NPR Politics Podcast has you covered with the latest news and analysis. Listen to the NPR Politics Podcast. It's Consider This from NPR. New York's Morgan Library and Museum turns 100 years old this year. Part of the celebration is an exhibit that focuses on the life of the Morgan's first librarian and first director, Belle da Costa Green. In the early 1900s, it was unusual for a woman to lead one of the city's most prominent cultural institutions. And what makes her story even more interesting, Belle da Costa Green was a Black woman who passed as white her entire professional career. Erica Chalella is an exhibit curator for A Librarian's Legacy at the Morgan Library, and she joins us now. Welcome.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk about Belle Green. Oh, well, we're so excited to have you. So just explain, first of all, like how did Belle DaCosta Green come to be associated with the Morgan Library in the first place? Yeah, so she just was working as a librarian at Princeton University and really caught the attention of a gentleman by the name of Junius Morgan, who was an associate librarian there and just happened to be the nephew of Pierpont Morgan, who was at this time in the city wondering what to do with his amazing collection he had already start to collect and was unfortunately just kind of everywhere in his home. And he decided to build

a library next door to his townhouse on Madison, and he needed a librarian to run it. And Junius said, I think I have the perfect person for you, and brought Belle Green up from Princeton back to New York, where she had been living and gone to school and everything. And the interview went amazingly, as we can all imagine. And in 1905, she began working for Pierpont Morgan as his librarian, cataloging his collection, and eventually stewarding this amazing building that we have and are celebrating still today. I love that. I want to talk a little bit about her personal story because Greene, I mean, she was a black woman, but she didn't live her life publicly as a black woman. She chose to pass as white. Can you talk about that? Like,

why she felt she had to do that? How did she do that? Please tell me more. Yes, of course. I mean, the decision to pass was actually a family choice, and it was really spearheaded by her mother, Genevieve, who not only made the decision for all of Green and her siblings to pass, but did it fairly early on when Green was still in school. She had lived in Washington, D.C. She had lived previously in South Carolina and really saw the struggles of what it meant to be African-American in this country, what it was like during Reconstruction in the South. And so she really kind of knew that in order to move forward, sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

Did anyone ever suspect that she was not white? Do you know of any incident, any confrontation? We do know that, like, newspaper reporters always wouldn't notice her complexion. They would always point out her dark hair or her wild hair or the darker skin color. Her wild hair. Wow. She had a 10 volume set of diaries and she does burn these before she passes away. But we do have a letter she wrote to the art historian Bernard Berenson where she said that she, that is where she wrote things down that she dare not even think to

herself um so what that means unfortunately we're never gonna know um but i mean it's gotta have been a struggle and i mean it's actually incredible that she was made director as a woman yeah i mean most directors of these kinds of institutions were not women at this time either so she had you know there's not only the racial issues she was up against, but the gender ones as well. I mean, she becomes director very shortly after women gain the right to vote. So I mean, this is really an important time in American history to think of what women's rights in general were at this time, and how much she was saying, I'm not going to conform to these ideals. I'm going to be my own person.

That's so cool. How would you characterize her larger legacy outside of the Morgan Library, looking back on all of this? She really believed in accessing a collection, being able to use a collection, that it shouldn't just sit on a shelf, that she really wanted people to interact with that. And that's something that librarians today hold dear, but it wasn't the trend back then. And she really was a trailblazer for a special collection being used and not just something pretty you look at, but what can we learn from it? How do we access it? And that everyone, she really believed that everyone should have access to these materials, not just the super wealthy. And I think that is really a testament

to her and the legacy she leaves behind to a much more larger library community. I can't wait to check this out. Erica Chalella, an exhibit curator for A Librarian's Legacy, the Morgan Library's exhibit on its first ever director and librarian, Belle da Costa Green. Thank you so much for speaking with us, Erica. Thank you for having me. This episode was produced by Jordan Marie Smith and Catherine Fink. It was edited by Jeanette Woods. Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan. And thanks to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong.

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