Yeats and quinn at the pierpont morgan library
Note: We continue to be fascinated by the exploits of Irish poet/playwright/politician William Butler Yeats during his 1920 stay in NYC. We previously reported on him for our February 20 and 22 posts.
One hundred years ago today … W.B. Yeats and his patron/attorney John Quinn visited the Pierpont Morgan Library.
Visitor’s Book, Pierpont Morgan Library. The Morgan Library and Museum.
The moment is not recorded in any of the many Yeats biographies, but some sleuthing by Declan Kiely, the Morgan’s Director of Special Collections, turned up the story. Kiely writes:
We know that after an extensive lecture tour of the United States and Canada he returned to New York on May 10. Yeats and his wife stayed at the apartment of their friend, the lawyer and art collector John Quinn, during the final weeks of their trip. He and Quinn met with Éamon de Valera on the evening of May 17. Yeats found the future president of the Republic of Ireland disappointing, “a living argument rather than a living man, all propaganda, no human life, but not bitter or hysterical or unjust.” The next day, he told his friend Lady Gregory, he was “to have a record taken of myself for a new kind of moving picture—a picture that talks as well as moves.” (This film has never been traced.) … On May 24, 1920, Yeats and Quinn would have been met by Belle da Costa Greene, hired by Pierpont Morgan in 1905 to be his librarian.
Kiely, “W. B. Yeats visits Mr. Morgan’s Library.”
Here’s a street view of the Morgan in 1920.
Madison Avenue, looking north from 35th Street, Morgan Library at right, 1920. Museum of the City of New York.
The Morgan Library was founded in 1907 to hold J. Pierpont Morgan’s private collections. It did not open its door to the public until 1924, though, clearly, noteworthy figures such as Yeats had always been welcome.
Librarian Belle da Costa Greene herself is a noteworthy figure, largely credited with organizing and expanding the Mrgan collection during the library’s early years.
Belle da Costa Greene, 1913. "The American Club Woman Magazine", Interviews with Clever People, by Blanche Mac Donald, July 1914, page 11. Wikicommons.
Belle da Costa Greene was born in 1883 into a prominent African American family in Washington, D.C. She spent at least part of her young adult life passing for white. Her first library job was at Princeton University, where her work brought her to Morgan’s attention. She started working for him in 1906, and remained in charge of the Morgan until 1947 (Encyclopedia Britannica).
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, MAY 24, 2020.
TAGS: Yeats, Quinn, Morgan Library, Belle da Costa Greene, passing, Declan Kiely