The Morgan Library & Museum, to mark its centenary as a public institution, is presenting an exhibition devoted to the life and career of its first director, Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950). The tour, organized for the Bryn Mawr Club of New York City, reveals the remarkable confidence and knowledge Greene brought to her roles as a librarian, scholar, curator, and cultural executive.
The daughter of Genevieve Ida Fleet Greener and Richard T. Greener, Greene was the first Black graduate of Harvard College and at birth was known by a different name: Belle Marion Greener. When her parents separated, in the 1890s, her mother changed the family surname to Greene, and the family began to pass as white in a racist and segregated America.
Greene’s position as the personal librarian for the American financier J. Pierpont Morgan as well as for his son and heir, J. P. Morgan Jr., is well known. What is less well understood are aspects of her education, private collecting, and deep social and professional networks. This exhibition traces the entirety of Greene’s journey, from her roots in a predominantly Black community in Washington, DC, to her distinguished career at the helm of one the world’s greatest research libraries.