Listen to co-curator Philip Palmer summarize Belle Greene’s career at Princeton and actor Andi Bohs read a letter Belle Greene wrote in 1909.
Handwritten accession ledgers document Greene’s work at Princeton. She used these books to track new acquisitions for the library, including the John Shaw Pierson Civil War collection, containing many titles about slavery, abolitionism, and race in America.
Accession Book 37, October 1904–March 1905
Princeton University Archives, Princeton University Library Records; AC123, Box 497
PHILIP: Belle Greene’s library career began at Princeton University, where she worked from 1901–1905. It was at Princeton that she worked with important mentors like librarian Ernest Cushing Richardson and benefactor Junius Spencer Morgan. It was undoubtedly difficult for Greene to pass as white at Princeton, given its racist policies, though we do not have any private writings about her experience there. In her letters to Bernard Berenson, Greene always described Princeton in positive terms, as in the following passage from a letter she wrote while visiting the University in 1909.
ANDI:
Princeton, N. J. Friday March 20 – Such a heavenly day as it is my dear – grey and misty and cold – the sort of day I love when one can snuggle up into one’s thoughts without being distracted by the glory of the Sun and the call of out-of-doors …
I came down here this afternoon as I hoped to spend a quiet weekend and find my dear friends have filled up every second of my time – Tonight we go to one of the students’ dances – tomorrow morning automobiling – in the afternoon to the first baseball game of the year – in the evening to a dinner at President Wilson’s etc etc. and my hopes & visions of a rest are thoroughly dissipated – I have such a weird time with the students. They are all so palpably young & I feel as if I had lived ages & ages before they were born & they can’t seem to realize how tiresomely old I am – It’s rather amusing for a few days – I must stop now and dress for dinner – only twenty minutes to my credit – I will write some more after I come back from the dance tonight