Becoming Belle da Costa Greene: A Visionary Librarian Through Her Letters

by Deborah Parker

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

Published October 8, 2024

About the author

Deborah Parker is Professor of Italian at the University of Virginia. She is the General Editor of The World of Dante (www.worldofdante.org) and editor of the blog, A Hymn to Intellectual Beauty: Creative Minds and Fashion (http://creativemindsandfashion.com/). She and Mark Parker have a blog on Sucking Up: Sycophancy in life and workplace on Psychology Today (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...)

Reviews

[Opritsa A. Popa · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Behind the curtain of my mind!”: on Deborah Parker’s “Becoming Belle da Costa Greene: A Visionary Librarian through her Letters”, Florence: I Tatti, 2024

The Library World knows Belle da Costa Greene, (1879-1950) as the “First Lady of American Librarianship”.
In 1905, the twenty-six-year-old Belle was appointed as J. P. Morgan’s librarian. At that time, she had minimal special training: a summer cataloging class at Amherst, and three years of cataloging work at the Princeton Library. It is there that she met Junius, J.P. Morgan’s nephew, who recommended her to his uncle. Painfully conscious of her lack of academic background in a world brimming with distinguished scholars, Belle used every opportunity to acquire knowledge. She organized Morgan’s large, unsystematic collections, embarked on disciplined collection building expeditions throughout Europe, and, in time, created one of the richest and most celebrated educational institutions in the world: today’s Morgan Library & Museum.
In a male dominated society, where a woman, let alone a young woman of mixed race, could hardly aspire to achieve any leadership role, Belle did not only excel, but was recognized as an authority, an admired and venerated specialist.

Much has been written about her organizational skills and collection development achievements. Now, through her letters to Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), Renaissance art historian and scholar, and consultant to American collectors, Professor Deborah Parker allows us a unique and fascinating insight into Belle’s emotions, her love of learning and zest for life: we get to know and admire Belle’s vibrant passion for literature, art and rare books, we read about her travels. Alas, we only have Belle’s letters, kept by Berenson, for she destroyed her entire archive before her death in 1950.

“I will write you of what is behind the curtain of my mind”, she confesses to Berenson, (April 19, 1909: see D. Parker, “Becoming Belle (…), p. 13).
Professor Parker’s excellent study introduces us to Belle’s private and professional life with scholarly knowledge, with elegance, talent and ease: the first four chapters of the book focus on Belle’s “voice and style’; we then get to know Belle, the Librarian, her becoming Morgen’s right hand, her romance with books and art, as we admire her love of life at work.
Her passion is oftentimes expressed in literary terms, citing Dante, Rossetti, Boccacio. Traveling through Europe, she is forever eager to expend her knowledge: she studies Italian, French, German, Latin and Greek, admires Chinese landscape paintings, and explores not only the impressionists and post-impressionists, but also modernists, such as Brancusi or Kandinsky,
Her epistolary style is vibrant, charged with emotion. Belle, as Professor Parker points out, expresses her feelings not only in descriptive and tender words but also through her unique use of punctuation and long pauses. Thanks to this marvelous study, the reader cannot but fall in love with Belle, adoring her sincerity, learning and admiring her vast erudition and her zest for life.
The Appendix offers full transcripts of all cited letters.

The physical book itself is a gem: the design is exquisite, the illustrations well-chosen and clear, the quality of the paper - excellent.
I highly recommend this marvelous work to libraries and book lovers everywhere.
Opritsa D. Popa, Distinguished Librarian Emerita, UC Davis
“Behind the curtain of my mind!”: on Deborah Parker’s “Becoming Belle da Costa Greene: A Visionary Librarian through her Letters”, Florence: I Tatti, 2024

The Library World knows Belle da Costa Greene, (1879-1950) as the “First Lady of American Librarianship”.
In 1905, the twenty-six-year-old Belle was appointed as J. P. Morgan’s librarian. At that time, she had minimal special training: a summer cataloging class at Amherst, and three years of cataloging work at the Princeton Library. It is there that she met Junius, J.P. Morgan’s nephew, who recommended her to his uncle. Painfully conscious of her lack of academic background in a world brimming with distinguished scholars, Belle used every opportunity to acquire knowledge. She organized Morgan’s large, unsystematic collections, embarked on disciplined collection building expeditions throughout Europe, and, in time, created one of the richest and most celebrated educational institutions in the world: today’s Morgan Library & Museum.
In a male dominated society, where a woman, let alone a young woman of mixed race, could hardly aspire to achieve any leadership role, Belle did not only excel, but was recognized as an authority, an admired and venerated specialist.

Much has been written about her organizational skills and collection development achievements. Now, through her letters to Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), Renaissance art historian and scholar, and consultant to American collectors, Professor Deborah Parker allows us a unique and fascinating insight into Belle’s emotions, her love of learning and zest for life: we get to know and admire Belle’s vibrant passion for literature, art and rare books, we read about her travels. Alas, we only have Belle’s letters, kept by Berenson, for she destroyed her entire archive before her death in 1950.

“I will write you of what is behind the curtain of my mind”, she confesses to Berenson, (April 19, 1909: see D. Parker, “Becoming Belle (…), p. 13).
Professor Parker’s excellent study introduces us to Belle’s private and professional life with scholarly knowledge, with elegance, talent and ease: the first four chapters of the book focus on Belle’s “voice and style’; we then get to know Belle, the Librarian, her becoming Morgen’s right hand, her romance with books and art, as we admire her love of life at work.
Her passion is oftentimes expressed in literary terms, citing Dante, Rossetti, Boccacio. Traveling through Europe, she is forever eager to expend her knowledge: she studies Italian, French, German, Latin and Greek, admires Chinese landscape paintings, and explores not only the impressionists and post-impressionists, but also modernists, such as Brancusi or Kandinsky,
Her epistolary style is vibrant, charged with emotion. Belle, as Professor Parker points out, expresses her feelings not only in descriptive and tender words but also through her unique use of punctuation and long pauses. Thanks to this marvelous study, the reader cannot but fall in love with Belle, adoring her sincerity, learning and admiring her vast erudition and her zest for life.
The Appendix offers full transcripts of all cited letters.

The physical book itself is a gem: the design is exquisite, the illustrations well-chosen and clear, the quality of the paper - excellent.
I highly recommend this marvelous work to libraries and book lovers everywhere.
Opritsa D. Popa, Distinguished Librarian Emerita, UC Davis

[Jwt Jan50 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite. Please read the reviews here. They are each masterpieces in the art of the review. Not only is the book a work of art in itself, but also about a life that was a work of art. Not going to be for every reader. Not going to answer some of 'those' questions - why does her Mom walk away from the marriage? Belgium? How does she get to Amherst and why librarian? Her household with her family during the Morgan years and what becomes of her family? Please read the Introduction and Acknowledgements before the essays, they will guide you. And, take the time to read the letters in the Appendix - yes, they are somewhat repetitive, but you will miss Belle's own 'voice' if you skip them.

[Raymond · Rating 5 out of 5]

This bravura examination of the life of Belle da Costa Greene focuses on her epistolary correspondence, particularly that with the eminent collector and art historian Bernard Berenson. Through Greene' own words, it becomes possible to see her deft art of self transformation to meet the needs of her profession and social environment. Deborah Parker offers a convincing case that Greene's "was a life lived large, but it was also writ large."

The first chapter begins with close attention Greene's "epistolary idiolect," showing how her extraordinary letters empowered Greene to sustain her rapport with the famed art historian and collector, Bernard Berenson. The second chapter reveals how Greene crafted her selfhood through sensitive attunement to period attitudes to race, gender, and identity. The third chapter tracks Greene's artistic and literary interests with profound depth, revealing the global, transhistorical scope of her considerations that spanned Dante's Vita Nuova, The Thousand and One Night, Chinese painting and sculpture, and modernist art exhibited in the galleries of Alfred Stieglitz. The final chapter puts Greene's relationship with Berenson in dialogue with that of other powerful men, including Sydney Cockerell (Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum) and her employer, Pierpont Morgan. Greene's ascent to the highest rung of her multipartite profession and of New York society is both astonishing and entirely aligned with her brilliance.

Written in flowing, deliberate prose that complements — and clarifies — Greene's own soaring rhetoric, this book is a delight for its readers. Reasonably priced with high production value, beautiful images, and a judiciously selected appendix of Greene's transcribed letters, this book belongs on home bookshelves and in institutional libraries alike!

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a scholarly book written as if readers matter. It tells a compelling story of a remarkable woman born in 1879, the daughter of two mixed-raced Black Americans. Belle da Costa Greene passed as white. Although the experience of passing is an important aspect of her biography, Parker resists the temptation to treat this as the sole key to her personality. Greene was a truly exceptional woman, in many ways an autodidact, who used her intellect and charm to overcome the barriers of class. Greene became the librarian of one of the world’s richest men—Pierpont Morgan--and in this capacity she identified important purchases for Morgan's collection, expanded its holdings in early manuscripts, and in short helped transform a private library into the splendid cultural institution it is today. Parker focuses on Greene’s correspondence with the art historian Bernard Berenson, with whom she enjoyed along epistolary romance. These are love letters to a man who was a friend, mentor, and intellectual soul-mate, letters in which she shared the exhilaration of a life filled with books and art.

[JessIsReadingAgain Veni Vidi Amavi Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Dr. Parker does a wonderful job on this work. It was as enjoyable as it was informative. Further review to be published for The Caxton Club, March 2025.

[MJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Deborah Parker’s book, Becoming Belle explores the transformation of Belle Da Costa Greene - a black librarian passing as white who managed an art collection for finance mogul JP Morgan. The text examines several letters including those chronicling the relationship between Belle and her peer/lover Bernard Bereson. Through personal letters, we are provided a look into her extraordinary life through intimate correspondence.

Encompassing Renaissance, Medieval, and modern art, Belle spearheaded a collection valued at millions. Dr. Parker’s book includes images of personal letters and artwork, which provides a rich story of her life divided into three sections. The text examines her role as librarian in chief, cataloging, negotiating, and maintaining a vast and unique collection. Belle was not all business all the time. We also observe her spirited personality through playful prose and lively banter. Her personal life was often interwoven into her career as Belle's work necessitated socializing with New York’s elite. Belle was an anomaly in her profession - which was (and still is) predominantly white. Even today, only about 5 percent of librarians identify as Black or African American descent, despite making up 13 percent of the U.S. population.

Although Belle’s full identity was not able to come to light until decades later - she burned several personal letters, her accomplishments have come to the forefront thanks to an exhibition in New York and recent publications. Becoming Belle highlights both the personal and professional metamorphosis of an extraordinary woman who shepherded a priceless collection.