Dorothy B Porter

Updated on Sep 26, 2024

Edit

Comment

Full Name Dorothy Burnett Role Curator Name Dorothy Porter		Ethnicity African-American Nationality American

Born May 25, 1905 ( 1905-05-25 ) Warrenton, Virginia Other names Dorothy Louise Porter Wesley Alma mater Howard University, 1928; Columbia University, B.S. 1931, M.S. in 1932 in library science Occupation LibrarianBibliographerCurator Known for First African American to graduate from Columbia's library school; built Moorland-Spingarn Research Center into a world-class collection Died December 17, 1995, Broward County, Florida, United States Spouse James A. Porter (1929–1970), Charles H. Wesley (1979–1979) Books North American Negro Poets: A Bibliographical Checklist of Their Writings 1760-1944 Education Columbia University, Howard University Employer Moorland–Spingarn Research Center, Howard University

Dorothy b porter life story digital film

Dorothy Louise Porter Wesley (May 25, 1905 – December 17, 1995) was an African-American librarian, bibliographer and curator, who built the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University into a world-class research collection.

Early life

Porter was born Dorothy Burnett in Warrenton, Virginia, the first of four children of Dr and Mrs Hayes J. Burnett.

Porter received a B.A. from Howard University in 1928. She studied at Columbia University, earning B.S. in 1931 and M.S. in 1932 in library science. She was the first African American to graduate from Columbia's library school.

Honors

1994 Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities - given to "Americans who have brought the humanities to a wide public audience"

Personal life

Porter's first husband was the historian and artist James A. Porter, author of Modern Negro Art. Their daughter, Constance "Coni" Uzelac (who was married to Milan Uzelac), served as Executive Director of the Dorothy Porter Wesley Library, and helped create the African American Research Library & Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale.

Porter's second husband was Charles Wesley, an American historian and educator.

She died in Broward County, Florida

Selected publications

Dorothy Porter published numerous bibliographies and one anthology.

Wesley, Dorothy Porter. Afro-American Writings Published Before 1835: With an Alphabetical List (Tentative) of Imprints Written by American Negroes, 1760-1835. [New York]: Columbia University, 1932. Thesis (M. Sc.)--Columbia University, New York, 1932. OCLC 12747472

Porter, Dorothy B. "A Library on the Negro." The American Scholar. Vol. 7, No. 1: pp. 115–117. 1938. ISSN 0003-0937 OCLC 5543366780

Porter, Dorothy B. "A Library on the Negro." The Journal of Negro Education. Vol. 10, No. 2: pp. 264–266. April 1941. ISSN 0022-2984 OCLC 5545408903

Forten, James, John T. Hilton, and William Wells Brown. "Early Manuscript Letters Written by Negroes." The Journal of Negro History. Vol. 24, No. 2: pp. 199–210. 1939. ISSN 0022-2992 OCLC 5545495349

Wesley, Dorothy Porter, and Arthur Alfonso Schomburg. North American Negro Poets, A Bibliographical Checklist of Their Writings, 1760-1944. Hattiesburg, Miss: Book farm, 1945. OCLC 382999

Moorland Foundation, and Dorothy Porter Wesley. A Catalogue of the African Collection in the Moorland Foundation, Howard University Library. Washington: Howard University Press, 1958. OCLC 577265

Porter, Dorothy B. The Negro in the United States; A Selected Bibliography. Compiled by Dorothy B. Porter. Washington, Library of Congress, 1970. Available at Project Gutenberg, 2011. OCLC 746985433

Wesley, Dorothy Porter. Early Negro Writing, 1760-1837. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971. ISBN 978-0-807-05452-9 OCLC 251341

An anthology rare documents of Negro history, including addresses, narratives, poems, essays and documents from fraternal and mutual aid organizations and educational improvement societies.

Porter, Dorothy B. "Bibliography and Research in Afro-American Scholarship." Journal of Academic Librarianship. Vol. 2, No. 2: pp. 77–81. 1976. OCLC 424794640

Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, and Dorothy Porter Wesley. Recent Notable Books: A Selected Bibliography in Honor of Dorothy Burnett Porter. [Washington]: Howard University, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, 1974. OCLC 1818615

Newman, Richard. Black Access: A Bibliography of Afro-American Bibliographies. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1984. ISBN 978-0-313-23282-4 OCLC 9557811

Nell, William Cooper; Wesley, Dorothy Porter; Uzelac, Constance Porter (2002). William Cooper Nell, Nineteenth-Century African American Abolitionist, Historian, Integrationist: Selected Writings from 1832–1874. Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press. ISBN 978-1-57478-019-2. OCLC 50673509.

References

Dorothy B. Porter Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA