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Markers of Distinction

Vivian Harsh
1890–1960
Librarian

Described as “the historian who never wrote,”
Vivian Gordon Harsh devoted her life to building
one of the most important research collections
on African-American history and literature in the
country. The first black librarian in the Chicago
Public Library system, she was appointed head
librarian of the George Cleveland Hall Branch
when it opened here in 1932. It was Chicago’s
first library built for an African-American
community.


Harsh constructed a formidable black history
collection here, despitecriticism from central
library administrators. She traveled throughout
the country studying other collections and
gathering material for HallBranch. Her travel
and acquisition budgets were augmented by the
Rosenwald Foundation and her own savings.

Harsh created a resource center and an environment that nurtured the
work of black artists and scholars, who used the library as a meeting
place. During the Depression, it became the unofficial center for the
Works Progress Administration’s “The Negro in Illinois” study.

In 1934, Harsh began a lecture series featuring such prominent writers
as Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and
Gwendolyn Brooks. From them the library acquired more books,
manuscripts and original research.

In 1970, the Special Negro Collection was renamed the Vivian G. Harsh
Collection of Afro-American History and Literature. In 1975, it was
moved from here to the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library at 95th
and Halsted.