Arturo Schomburg & Jean Blackwell Hutson—They Started off on the Wrong Foot. Their Legacies Put Them in Lockstep

Future Schomburg Center founder Arturo Schomburg and future Schomburg Center Chief Librarian Jean Blackwell Hutson both worked at the 135th Library in Harlem in the 1930s.
As we mark the 151st birthday of Arturo Schomburg (1874–1938) on January 24, learn more about him through materials in the collection of another monumental Schomburg Center figure, Jean Blackwell Hutson (1914–1998). Mr. Schomburg and Mrs. Hutson worked at the 135th Street Branch Library in the 1930s—the predecessor to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Mr. Schomburg served as the Curator of the Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints. Mrs. Hutson worked in the division for a portion of her 40-year career at The New York Public Library.
Their legacies shaped what is today’s Schomburg Center. With so much that they would go on to have in common professionally, it is surprising to learn through Mrs. Hutson’s collection that their relationship got off on the wrong foot.
What Happened?
Mrs. Hutson (then Blackwell) said she was at fault. She told the story as part of a 1978 oral history interview with Barbara Kline at Columbia University’s Oral History Research Office. Hutson’s collection in the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division holds the transcript.
“I was quite an eager beaver, and I must say that I was a bright kid intellectually, but I was kind of dumb socially,” she said. Mrs. Hutson graduated from Columbia University’s Library School earlier in the year. The 135th Street Library was her first library job.
Sometime during her first year, Mrs. Hutson stayed late one evening and rearranged Mr. Schomburg’s rare bookcase by the Dewey Decimal System. Mr. Schomburg, who arranged materials by the colors of the bindings and by height, could not find anything the following morning. He was not pleased. He asked Ernestine Rose, the branch’s supervising librarian, to reassign her to another area.
Their relationship improved over the years because of their mutual friendships. Poet Langston Hughes was a family friend. Yolande Du Bois—daughter of historian and activist W. E. B. Du Bois and wife to poet Countee Cullen—who was once her schoolteacher also knew both.
“I was continually brought to his attention by people who had taken an interest in me as a youngster,” states the transcript. “Mr. Schomburg did finally become friendly with me on a social basis. I remember going to lunch with him a few times.”
The Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints and the 135th Street Library in Harlem was the precursor to today’s Schomburg Center.
NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 1252984
Similar Acclaim & Legacies Linked Together
Mr. Schomburg and Mrs. Hutson received acclaim for work as curators outside of their work at NYPL. He served as a visiting curator of the Negro Collection at Fisk University in Nashville from 1931 through 1932 before NYPL hired him in 1932. In 1964, Hutson took a leave of absence from her position as curator at the 135th Street Branch Library to curate the Africana collection at University of Ghana in Accra.
Mr. Schomburg’s collection of books, artworks, manuscripts, and additional materials, which The New York Public Library purchased in 1926, became the foundational collection of the Library’s Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints. The Division was later renamed the Schomburg Collection of Negro History and Literature in 1940, after Arturo Schomburg’s death in 1938.
The sale was a landmark moment in preserving the documented history across the African Diaspora. A 1926 handwritten letter from Black feminist educator and activist Anna Julia Cooper congratulated Mr. Schomburg on the sale and thanked him for his “splendid service to the Negro Race and to America.”
Mrs. Hutson expanded Mr. Schomburg’s legacy when she became Curator of the division in 1948. She developed the Schomburg Dictionary Catalog plus added materials such as the Negro Writers Project, author Richard Wright’s papers, and a portion of Langston Hughes’s collection. Mrs. Hutson continued promoting the library amongst the community.
She was named Chief Librarian when the Schomburg Collection within the 135th Street Branch Library became a research library of The New York Public Library system in 1972. The new research library was named the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in honor of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. As Chief Librarian, Hutson championed the Center expanding its collection into a new building with more space and better facilities to house materials, as well as additional staffing. Her vision came to fruition in the form of the current Schomburg Center building and entrance located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard. She lobbied New York state lawmakers to secure the funding and co-founded the Schomburg Corporation, a nonprofit organization that provides support to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, to raise additional money. Under her leadership, the library expanded from 15,000 to 75,000 volumes of materials.
The present-day Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture opened its new building in 1981 and the collection has grown to over 11 million items. The research and reference division was renamed the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division in 2007 to honor the fierce and tireless advocacy of Jean Blackwell Hutson.
More blog posts from Lisa Herndon:
- 1924: A Year in the Life of Future Schomburg Center Founder Arturo Schomburg
- 1964: When Future Schomburg Center Chief Librarian Jean Blackwell Hutson Curated the Africana Collection in Ghana
- Schomburg Center & Fisk University Awarded Planning Grant for Digital Edition of Arturo Schomburg's Papers
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