The prodigy who built J. P. Morgan's private library into a cultural landmark was not only female but also Black. Belle da Costa Greene's success in the male world of rare book dealers was extraordinary, as was her ability to guard her racial identity.
Passing as white is the theme around which coauthors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher unfold Belle's story in The Personal Librarian. Passing is the imperative of Belle's professional and personal life. Disclosure might destroy her career and take away the income on which her family relied.
Belle's father, Richard Greener, was the first Black graduate of Harvard and a civil rights crusader. His five children with his wife, Genevieve, were light-skinned. When the family moved from Washington, DC, to New York, Mrs. Greener insisted that passing as white was the only way the children would rise in the world. The deception violated what Greener stood for, and he left. Her mother changed the family name to Greene and gave Belle the middle name of an invented Portuguese grandmother to account for Belle's olive skin.
Belle was working in the rare books library at Princeton University when she was recommended to Morgan in 1905 to organize his growing collection of rare books and artworks. She became renowned for her knowledge and negotiating skill in acquiring additions to fill in the collection. She worked for Morgan and then his son Jack for a total of 43 years and brought about the Pierpont Morgan Library's opening to the public.
Belle burned her papers before she died, so Benedict and Christopher indulged educated guesses to flesh out details of her relationships. With the overbearing Morgan, many years Belle's senior, they portray a relationship of trust and occasional sexual sparks. With married art historian Bernard Berenson, they depict an on-and-off affair that includes an abortion.
It wasn't until 1999, when a New Yorker reporter found her birth certificate 49 years after her death, that Greene's Black identity was discovered.
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