Personal Librarian: GMA Book Club Pick

And at what price did she build it?

By choosing to heed her mother’s advice, Belle chose to risk identifying as being a white woman in public, during post the Reconstruction era. To any non-black person, Belle’s light skin, anglicized name, and her love of art history played into the elite white psyche. They blindly decided that she is one of their own.
During the time capture in this novel (1905 to 1924), and after the Dyer Bill was filibustered in 1877, blacks who tried to have agency were deemed disrespectful, out of their place and only worthy of being lynched. In particular, the filibuster argument was that they needed to be able to lynch the freed blacks to protect their white women from being raped.

So, when Belle’s mother insisted that they all change their name, and identify in every way to the public as having a Portuguese heritage, Belle’s fate was chosen for her.
And because a daughter’s first mirror is her mother, Belle studied who she needed to be, how she needed to maintain decorum, and how to talk in a way that black women weren’t and aren’t free to talk amongst wealthy businessmen.

She studied how to be coquettish, how to think on her feet, and to deflect whenever necessary. Each successful business transaction and interaction became a cause set in motion towards her simultaneously being more visible to society and more at risk for getting caught. The price of which would impact not only her livelihood, but also that of her mother and siblings.

It was interesting to “watch” the struggles that she went through over her question of whether she should have followed her mother’s path, or that of her father, which was the antithesis of her mother’s focus. Her father fought for civil rights, because he believed that some day black folks would be judge by their character. Yet, her mom, based upon witnessing every day blacks being lynched to death for their desire to be integrated socially, politically and economically, in her mind, it was only possible to be successful and free if their entire family takes advantage of looking white by choosing to be white.

While reading this book, at first, I wanted to side with Belle’s dad, because to me, owning your voice, being your authentic self gives you peace of mind. Identifying as someone who you are not has always meant to me as lying to myself and destroying the chance of align your personality with your soul. I also saw the pressure Belle lived with when her father left the family because he could no longer live in the dichotomy of “Choose to be white to be successful”, or “Choose to be black to own our right to matter” that existed.

Of course, my mindset was based upon living in a freeing society that 1877 to 1924 did not know. Also, we have the benefit born out of the Belle’s in our history, to speak up and be heard. Yet, one hundred years later, June 2024, black women, or any person of color, much modulate their approach to success according to societal unspoken rules.

Yes. Belle built the J.P. Morgan wealth by choosing to be white, at the price of her own peace of mind. As a white woman, she could name a price of art, negotiate with old cronies, and close the deal as if she just bent her arm. That wouldn’t have happened had she identified as a black woman, back then. The wealth that she amassed for the Piermont Librarian counted upon her ability to not only study art, network with the best in the business, but also study what it meant to be an influential white woman. If she was going to have to abandon her ethnicity for the sake of her immediate family, she was going have to perpetually study being who she needed to be, and who, as a white woman, she would have licensed to be. She wasn’t free to look a black servant in the eye, for fear that they would report her to the public as being one of them. The only way she saw her biological family was through carefully planned trips that were out of the view of the socially elite.

Ultimately, she mastered the public persona, though she struggled with the lie she had to continually nourish and preserve.

Like “The First Ladies”, this was an excellently written book that truly helped me to be part of U.S. History.
One hilarious moment that reading this book in public was: after waiting a bit for my banker to be available, seeing me reading this book in my hand, she asked, “What are you reading?” My enthusiastic response was, “Oh this is a great historical novel about how a black woman 100 years ago made J.P. Morgan’s wealth.”

The look on her face was priceless.

However the book was not badly written, it feels as if the authors couldn’t decide what to put in the book and where to put emphasis on.
Is it the pieces of art/the manuscripts? Or is it the segregation? Or is it the love affair? It was a bit too much of everything, therefore a bit messy.
So, I finished the book because I obliged myself and it wasn’t bad. But certainly not a favorite.
Since I can’t rate 3,5 stars, I’m giving 3.

This was a chosen book from participation in a book club. I was immediately
drawn into the story, which kept my attention until the end. I loved the format, with
short chapters, each headed with a date, which made the time line easier to follow.

I thought the description of the effects of rascism on coloured people was well presented. It gave me an insight into this subject

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray is a thought-provoking work of historical fiction. Belle da Costa Greene was an intelligent, ambitious, capable, determined woman, hired as the personal librarian of J.P. Morgan, one of the most wealthy, powerful, and ruthless men in the financial sector. Belle was a shrewd negotiator and skillfully curated collections of rare manuscripts, books and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library, and this alone, a woman in a position of power during the time period, would be an incredible story, but Belle was black, passing as white, and the sacrifices she made, pressures she endured, and the struggles she encountered to secret her identity in order to protect her family, their safety, their financial security, and their dreams, elevated the story and the importance that it gets told.

Belle’s father was the first person of color to have graduated from Harvard; he was a civil rights activist who for a brief period experienced the hope of equality, but shortly thereafter had it all taken away. Belle’s mother, finding no other satisfactory alternative, decided to have her family pass as white in order to achieve the success and financial security she knew they deserved; her decision will fracture the family. At times, her mother infuriated me; at others, I felt compassion for her.

Belle carried the burden for the family. She held the most public position and she was the most successful. Her family depended upon her salary. Belle had to watch her every word and movement. She could not marry or have a child. She was living a dangerous lie. If ever discovered, she and her family could be imprisoned or killed.

It is truly amazing what Belle was able to accomplish. With the creation of the internet, “passing” is almost an impossibility today. Although there has been progress, more than a century later many of the same injustices, discrimination, and prejudices continue to exist.