Complementing the opening of the exhibition Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy, this one-day scholarly symposium will bring together experts working on Belle Greene and/or the fields relevant to our understanding of her life and career, including African American history and literature, the history of museums and libraries, Medieval studies, art history, feminist bibliography, and book history.
As Belle Greene herself wrote in 1937, in one of her five-year reports on the Morgan’s activities, “Increased usefulness of the Library to the general public has been fostered through more frequent lectures and addresses by eminent authorities.” This symposium aims to bring together yet another group of “eminent authorities” in four panels/roundtables, following the great tradition of the lecture and conference series that Greene herself inaugurated at the Morgan so many years ago.
Schedule
Historical and Literary Perspectives on Racial Passing (9:15–10:45 AM)
Belle da Costa Greene and the History of Black Librarianship (11 AM–12:30 PM)
New Directions in the Study of Belle da Costa Greene (2:15–3:45 PM)
The Afterlives of Belle da Costa Greene (4–5:30 PM)
This symposium takes place in Gilder Lehrman Hall on the Ground Floor.
Please e-mail public_programs@themorgan.org with questions about accessibility.
Theodore C. Marceau (1859-1922), Belle da Costa Greene, May 1911, Biblioteca Berenson, I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies.