Final photograph of Belle Greene, from the collection at I Tatti
Erica Cialella, 2020–2022 Belle da Costa Greene Fellow: Belle da Costa Greene began working for Morgan in the summer of 1905. Her early responsibilities involved cataloging the growing collection, then housed at the Lenox Library on Fifth Avenue, at the site of what is now the Frick Collection. Morgan stored his books and objects there temporarily while his own library—a Neo-Renaissance architectural masterpiece designed by the firm McKim, Mead, and White—was under construction at 36th and Madison. A letter from Junius Spencer Morgan to his wife Josephine in the summer of 1905 documents Greene’s early work on Morgan’s collection. As Junius writes, “Miss Greene telephoned me the other day about her work at the Lenox & said she was having the time of her life! She is putting in book plates dusting the books & packing them.”
After the McKim, Mead, and White building was constructed and the collections were moved to Madison Avenue, Belle Greene hired Ada Thurston, a librarian and Vassar College graduate, to assist her with the work of establishing the library. Over the next few years Greene quickly became an authority on Morgan’s collections and helped oversee their growth and stewardship.
During the final months before her retirement in 1948, Greene would occasionally use this room, sitting at Morgan’s desk to review recently acquired treasures.