Trip to NYC and the JP Morgan Library and Museum

We are especially interested in seeing the Belle da Costa Greene exhibit. Belle Greene was the inaugural director of the library and the subject of the book, “The Personal Librarian” by Heather Terrell and Victoria Christopher Murray. Her father, Richard Greener, was the first Black graduate of Harvard college. But after her parents separated and a name change the family began to pass as white. Greene (1879-1950) is well known for the instrumental role she played in building the exceptional collection of rare books and manuscripts formed by American financier J. Pierpont Morgan, who hired her as his personal librarian in 1905. The exhibition traces Greene’s storied life, from her roots in a predominantly Black community in Washington, D.C., to her distinguished career at the helm of one of the world’s great research libraries.