CATHERINE ALLEN Latimer, NYPL’s first african american librarian

One hundred years ago today … Catherine Allen, soon to change her name to Catherine Allen Latimer, was one of four African American women training at the New York Public Library. By October she would become the first African American to be appointed a full-time librarian within the system, working at the 135th Street Branch in Harlem.

The August 7 New York Age saw the four trainees—Allen, Ruth Mosely, Cora Muldrown, and Fannie Tarkington—as worth a front-page article.

Changes in the neighborhood prompted the new hires; African American patronage at the 135th Street library had risen from five percent in 1905 to 45 percent in 1920 (Evans).

The branch would become an important locale, and Latimer an important figure, in 1920s Harlem. Working with head librarian Ernestine Rose and writer Arturo Schomburg, she was instrumental in building an archive devoted to black history that eventually morphed into the Division of Negro History, Literature and Prints. She collaborated with W.E.B. Du Bois, and Langston Hughes reminisces about her in “My Early Days in Harlem” (1963).

That said, Latimer’s job made her a target of racism. Bob Sink writes:

Although the Library administration was committed to an integrated staff, some white librarians opposed that move.  As the pioneering black librarian, Latimer bore the brunt of the prejudice and hostility of those white colleagues who opposed the Library’s progress in this area.  After a decade at NYPL she wrote W.E.B. Du Bois, “I have labored steadily and never complained until now even in the face of studied neglect and patent injustice.”

Sources/further reading:

Evans, Rhonda. “Catherine Latimer: The New York Public Library's First Black Librarian.” Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. 20 March, 2020.

wRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, AUGUST 7, 2020.

TAGS: library, librarians, African American history, black history