An Illuminated Life: Belle Da Costa Greene's Journey from Prejudice to Privilege

Serious bibliophiles know that J.P. Morgan's Library (The Morgan Library & Museum is its current name) is the holy shrine of book collecting - the greatest archive of rare books, historical and literary original manuscripts, exquisite medieval illuminated manuscripts, music manuscripts, fine art drawings, ancient seals, etc... in the Western Hemisphere - and perhaps the world. Belle da Costa Greene, as one of the primary forces in molding the collection, and the institution's first director, would be worthy of note for that role alone. But Belle is far more. She was a brilliant art historian, whose tastes and scholarship made a real impact on bibliography and art criticism. She was also a coquettish beauty and epic flirt, whose long and literary infatuations (particularly the torrid one with the titanic art critic Bernard Berenson) are worthy of note. She's also worthy of note as a pioneering independent woman in a field dominated by men. Ultimately, however, it's her ambiguous and troubling racial identity for which she is best known. The fact is that Belle Greene's father, Richard Greener, was the first African American graduate of Harvard University. Greener had a distinguished but troubled career as a civil rights leader - ending up estranged from his family and serving as a diplomat in Vladivostok. Belle's mother took the family across the racial line in Belle's late childhood and they all passed as white. So Belle was raised as a black in her early childhood and as a white in her late childhood. She attended Amherst and Princeton as a white (obviously, since Princeton wouldn't have a black graduate until 1951). She worked very closely with J.P. Morgan and Jack Morgan, his son, - men of very traditional racial and ethnic biases. (Jack Morgan famously wouldn't meet with Joe Kennedy (JFK's father, and director of the NY Stock Exchange at the time) because he was Irish). Jack Morgan - CEO of the Morgan empire through its period of greatest power - had even more conservative views than his father. Belle traversed the world of high society, constantly attending the cultural events, parties, and dinners of the NY elite 400. How she reconciled race, power, prestige, and her own identity is a fascinating subject. Heidi Ardizzone treats the subject with admirable finesse - particularly her lovely postmodern racial sensibility that the label of "blackness" was prejudicial and punitive - that the notion of "passing" is limited and obsolete. No one should be quick to judge Belle for her actions, given that the question of which of her roughly equal mix of white and black ancestries should take precedence is a racist question to begin with. The issue of dishonor in not acknowledging race is complicated by the amoral quality of wrongful discrimination in the categorizing of race to begin with. Belle is a tough subject for a biography because she burned all her papers near the end of her life - a romantic and extravagant gesture for

In 1911 one Bella da Costa Greene made New York newspaper headlines by buying a book from one of Britain's finest printers, succeeding at a high-profile auction which allowed her to walk away with the book for half of what her employer had authorized her to pay, despite aggressive bidding. She would spend some forty years at her employer's resulting library and become its first director - but the real story of her achievement, which includes her African-American heritage, lack of formal art education, and bohemian lifestyle, remained hidden until now. AN ILLUMINATED LIFE charts her rise to culture and prosperity and provides an extraordinary, gripping memoir of an amazing woman which is perfect for any general interest library strong in biographical memoirs, art history, or even Afro-American notable figures. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch