Belle da Costa Greene, the first director of the Morgan Library

Belle da Costa Greene, the first director of the Morgan Library, was a trailblazing female Black special collections librarian whose power in the field, then male-dominated, was extraordinary, and in a world where the only way for that to be possible was by pretending to not be Black.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-trailblazing-black-librarian-who-rewrote-the-rules-of-power-gender-and-racial-passing-180986074/

Diversity, little equity, but much-needed inclusion in the War for Independence

When the 13 English colonies in America fought and won their independence and formed the United States, Connecticut had at least 820 Black soldiers in its ranks – roughly 20% of the Black population of Connecticut (~4300).

Enslavement of Black persons was legal in Connecticut, yet the same percentage of Black persons filled the State’s ranks in the Revolution as White persons.

https://libertyfunddc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/HARTFORD-COUNTY-BACKGROUND-AFRICAN-AMERICAN-REVOLUTIONARY-WAR-RESOLUTION.pdf

The National Battlefield trust wrote in 2021:

“The main military force, which coalesced under General George Washington as the Continental Army, was not an integrated army until 1776. In November of 1775, Washington barred the enlistment of free Blacks and slaves. Within two months, however, Washington reversed this decision, and despite many attempts to block Blacks from serving their country, hundreds of Blacks enlisted nonetheless. Many Blacks who fought and were enslaved fought for their freedom and independence as a person of color. After the war, many Blacks gave their pensions and enlistment bounties to their former masters as a payment for their freedom. Cuffee Wells is just one example. Wells was a surgeon in the Continental Army and after his service in the Revolution, he paid his enlistment bounty to his former master and lived the rest of his life as a free man in Lebanon, Connecticut.”

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/george-washingtons-integrated-army

U.S. Government Data

Many of the Federal resources that were commonly available are no longer viewable online, and permanent URLs in library records may not resolve.

The Internet Archive has copies of many Government documents, sites, and data sets, but they do not have all the public data that had been previously freely available.  Visit: https://web.archive.org/ (Internet Archive) if you are looking for a particular resource. The whitehouse.gov site as it appeared during the previous administration has been archived.  You can find it here: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/

Doris Ann Rourke – WestConn’s first archivist

In 1977, Doris Ann Rourke (nee Hagelin) published the first inventory of archival materials at WestConn – the first step in formalizing the archival operation in the library.

Doris was born in Touhy, Nebraska in 1917 and was a graduate of the  University of Nebraska.  During World War II, in 1943, she married Private Edward Rourke of Beacon Falls, CT.  She worked as a teacher much of her career before coming to WestConn in 1970 as a librarian.

She received her Master’s degree in library science from Southern while at WestConn where she worked until 1982. Doris passed away in California in the same year that WestConn celebrated its centennial, 2003.

CT Room in the 1970s
Students in the CT Room circa 1975

Prior to Doris Rourke, Marie A. Green, whose title was “Head of Technical Processing,” listed “Archivist” as a responsibility, but the facility at that time was less of a functioning archive and more of an area in the library.  They called it the Connecticut Room in the “new” Haas Library in 1970 and was located on the third floor.  There is still a Connecticut Room in the basement of the Haas Library.

WestConn’s first librarian, Ella Mead Brush

WestConn was founded in 1903 and its first graduating class was in 1906.  From its founding, WestConn had a library and its first librarian was a graduate of Smith College in Amherst, MA, who held the position for more than eight years.

The original library in Old Main now is home to the Department of Admissions, but for sixty years it was the college’s only library.

Ella Mead Brush from the class of 1906 picture next to Katherine Butler: (https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka/items/show/2091)

Ella from her Smith College yearbook…

https://archive.org/details/class1904smit/page/n23/mode/2up?q=brush

  • Birth: 20 Sep 1876, in either Greenwich or New Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA
  • Her parents were Alexander B. Brush, a prosperous farmer, and Mary Louisa Mead, both of New Fairfield
  • Death: 25 Oct 1931 (aged 55), Greenwich, Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA
  • Graduated from Smith College class of 1904
  • Librarian at WestConn until 1912. 
  • Went on to be a librarian in Greenwich, CT.
  • Died of a cerebral embolism while living with her sister Emma in Asheville, NC
  • She had 3 sisters