An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege (review)

Posted in Articles, Book/Video Reviews, Media Archive, Passing, United States, Women on 2010-08-23 19:15Z by Steven

An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege (review)

Libraries & the Cultural Record
Volume 45, Number 3, 2010
E-ISSN: 1932-9555
Print ISSN: 1932-4855
pages 375-377

Nena Couch, Curator and Professor of Theater
Ohio State University

The life of the librarian seldom is acknowledged beyond the confines of the community in which she or he is active; therefore, Heidi Ardizzone’s biography of Belle da Costa Greene, librarian to J. Pierpont Morgan and first director of the Pierpont Morgan Library, should be a welcome publication. Greene was a widely respected and successful librarian who made significant contributions to the development and refinement of Morgan’s collection until his death and continued her work with his son John “Jack” Pierpont Morgan, Jr. She was actively involved in the establishment of the Morgan Library as a public institution. Her work had national and international impact and as such is worthy of a full-length biography. Enhancing her story is her testing of boundaries: she was a woman in what was a man’s field, and she was of mixed race passing as white. However, Ardizzone’s primary interests are not in Greene’s significant professional accomplishments—although they are touched upon in An Illuminated Life—but in “Belle’s social life and experiences” (10) and in speculation about a woman…

Read the entire review here.

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