Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950) is renowned today as the founding director of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, where over a 40-year period she built a collection of unparalleled quality and a reputation for audacity and acumen. Not until 50 years after her death was it publicly known that Greene was African American and had lived as white throughout her career. Key to preparing this young, then-unknown scholar for her exceptional success in the exclusive world of rare books was her position at Princeton University Library, where between 1901 and 1905 she built the professional skills and network that launched her career.

Greene’s interest in library work began early: her 1896 admission record at Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies states that she wanted “to fit for librarian” and had studied both French and Latin, to which she later added German. Greene attended the Amherst College Summer School of Library Economy in 1900 and by July 1901 had joined the staff of Princeton University Library. Traces of her hand in accession records suggest that she worked mainly in Purchasing, but she also pursued other aspects of librarianship, for which she later credited two Princeton mentors: University Librarian Ernest Cushing Richardson and Charlotte Martins, Head of Purchasing. Another supporter was Junius S. Morgan II, nephew of John Pierpont Morgan and Associate Librarian at Princeton during Greene’s employment, who in 1905 proposed Greene for the role of librarian in his uncle’s new Madison Avenue library. By August that year, she was working with Pierpont Morgan’s books. Once in New York, Greene remembered Princeton fondly, maintaining friendships with her former colleagues and serving as an advisor to Princeton’s Art & Archaeology department and the Index of Christian Art. Greene retired from the Morgan Library in 1948 as one of the most important American librarians of the 20th century.

This exhibition is made possible in part by the Princeton Histories Fund.

Eric White, Scheide Librarian and Assistant University Librarian for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Mireille Djenno, Global Special Collections Librarian