Marian M. Hadley was Nashville, Tennessee's first African American librarian, serving as the first librarian of the Nashville Negro Public Library, a branch of the Nashville Public Library for African American patrons.[1] She went on to work at the Chicago Public Library for almost twenty years, building and promoting the library's collection of African American history and culture.
Marian M. Hadley | |
---|---|
Born | 1886 |
Died | 1974 (aged 87–88) |
Nationality | American |
Education | |
Occupation | Librarian |
Marian M. Hadley was born in Nashville, Tennessee and was an alumna of Fisk University.[2][3]
Andrew Carnegie gave $50,000 to the city of Nashville in 1913 to fund the building of two libraries with the stipulation that funds were to be split equally between a branch for white patrons and another as the first branch in Nashville for African American patrons.[4] At the time, Nashville's library only allowed African Americans to check out books via a bookmobile.[1]
Thirty-five people applied for the librarian and assistant librarian positions; the Carnegie Public Library hired Hadley, a twenty-nine-year-old Nashville resident.[5][6] After accepting the position in the fall of 1915, Hadley moved temporarily to Louisville, Kentucky to take part in a two-month apprenticeship at the Western Colored Branch of the Louisville Public Library under Thomas Fountain Blue.[5] The all-white library board of trustees required that she pay her own train fare and board to attend the training.[7] The Nashville Negro Public Library was opened on February 10, 1916.[4][8] Nashville Public Library's head librarian, Margaret Kercheval, also provided guidance in running a library to Hadley and Negro branch assistant librarian Hattie Watkins.[9]
In her role as librarian, Hadley became "a driving force in the Nashville African American community."[8] She was highly respected, with a library administrator writing "her work was of the highest order, and in all respects she manifested commendable zeal and interest in whatever she undertook."[10] Hadley served as librarian of the branch for three years before resigning in 1919.[5][11][10] After resigning from the library, she became the first executive secretary of the Young Women's Christian Association chapter in Nashville in 1919, helping to establish a local YWCA for African Americans, the Blue Triangle chapter.[6] She returned to the library in the spring of 1921, this time at a salary of $70 per month instead of her previous $60 per month; she worked another two years as the librarian of the Negro Public Library before resigning again.[5]
In the 1920s, Hadley moved to Chicago to work for the Chicago Public Library.[12] She was one of a talented group of black women professionals brought to the library by Vivian G. Harsh (CPL's first African American librarian), including Charlemae Hill Rollins and Doris E. Saunders.[13] Hadley worked with Harsh to build the library's Special Negro Collection and promote its use through programming; frequent visitors to that collection included Richard Wright and Langston Hughes.[3] She exchanged a number of letters with W. E. B. Du Bois, who was also a visitor to the collection.[2][3]
Beginning with her time at Fisk University, Hadley had a strong interest in African American history and culture and collected over 1,000 images of African American people and topics.[14] By the 1950s her slide collection was one of the largest in the country on the subject, and she gave talks featuring these images at clubs and churches throughout Chicago.[3][14]
She worked at the Chicago Public Library for almost twenty years, retiring in 1959.[6]
After her retirement, Hadley was a founding member of Chicago's Ebony Museum of Negro History and Art, which would later become the DuSable Museum of African American History.[15] Hadley died around 1974.[16]