Please join us Tuesday, February 14, Noon–1:00 p.m. in the libraries’ Special Collections for a reception catered by Hattie B’s for the exhibition, The Reinvented Life of Belle da Costa Greene.
One of the most well-known American librarians and experts in illuminated manuscripts in the early-mid twentieth century, Belle da Costa Greene helped build the collections of the renowned Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. Indeed, she was known as “the soul of the Morgan Library.” Born Belle Marion Greener in 1879, the green-eyed Greene was the daughter of the first African American graduate of Harvard College. She also belonged to the colored elite in Washington, DC. She accessed the rarefied worlds of the Morgans and Vanderbilts by “passing” as a white woman. In exploring her reinvented life, this month-long series of events will engage questions of race, color, class, gender, and passing.