{"id":61127,"date":"2021-07-20T02:20:05","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T02:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=61127"},"modified":"2021-07-20T02:20:06","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T02:20:06","slug":"j-p-morgans-personal-librarian-had-two-identities-it-took-two-authors-to-tell-her-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=61127","title":{"rendered":"J.P. Morgan\u2019s personal librarian had two identities. It took two authors to tell her story."},"content":{"rendered":"

J.P. Morgan\u2019s personal librarian had two identities. It took two authors to tell her story.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a>
\n2021-06-28<\/p>\n

Natachi Onwuamaegbu<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\n\u201cThe Personal Librarian<\/a>\u201d co-authors Heather Terrell<\/a>, writing as Marie Benedict<\/a>, and Victoria Christopher Murray<\/a>. (Phil Atkins)<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Historical fiction writer Heather Terrell<\/a> (who also writes under the name Marie Benedict<\/a>) was introduced to Belle da Costa Greene<\/a> between bookshelves at New York\u2019s Morgan Library<\/a> over 20 years ago. The docent \u2014 whom she has tried to find since \u2014 told her about a Black woman who passed as White<\/a> and worked as J.P. Morgan\u2019s<\/a> personal librarian in the early 1900s. Terrell wasn\u2019t yet writing historical fiction<\/a> about women \u2014 she was a lawyer \u2014 but the story lingered in the back of her head.<\/p>\n

Once she read Black author Victoria Christopher Murray\u2019s<\/a> work two years ago, she knew she found the partner she was waiting for to tackle da Costa Greene\u2019s story. To write about a Black woman who passed as non-Black with an author she had never met was a process, especially when the editing coincided with the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer<\/a> and a pandemic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/em> talked to Terrell and Murray about what it was like to work on \u201cThe Personal Librarian<\/a>\u201d when so much of the world was falling apart…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post talked to Terrell and Murray about what it was like to work on \u201cThe Personal Librarian\u201d when so much of the world was falling apart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,13743,8,6462,20,25],"tags":[1428,31643,31641,31650,1429,31642,31646,31649,596,31647],"class_list":["post-61127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","category-women","tag-belle-da-costa-greene","tag-belle-marion-greener","tag-berkley","tag-heather-terrell","tag-j-p-morgan","tag-john-pierpont-morgan","tag-morgan-library","tag-natachi-onwuamaegbu","tag-new-york-city","tag-pierpont-morgan-library"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61130,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61127\/revisions\/61130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}