Sims-Wood, Janet L. Dorothy Porter Wesley at Howard University: Building a Legacy of Black History. Foreword by Thomas C. Battle and afterword by Howard Dodson. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014.
“The only rewarding thing for me is to bring to light information that no one knows. What’s the point of rehashing the same old thing?” Dorothy Porter Wesley
Before Dorothy Porter Wesley, researchers using the Dewey Decimal Classification System in an average library had only two subject areas available to locate materials by and about Black people.
As Porter explained in her oral history, “Now in [that] system, they had one number—326—that meant slavery, and they had one other number—325, as I recall it—that meant colonization.” In many “white libraries,” she continued, “every book, whether it was a book of poems by James Weldon Johnson, who everyone knew was a Black poet, went under 325. And that was stupid to me.”
When assessing the collection that would eventually become the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Porter expanded upon the Dewey system by classifying works by genre and author. This revolutionary decision mirrored the ethos of the Harlem Renaissance and centered the role and contributions of Black people across all subject areas, including literature, music, health, economics, anthropology, and political science.
Zita Cristina Nunes, “Cataloging Black Knowledge: How Dorothy Porter Assembled and Organized a Premier Africana Research Collection,” Perspectives on History, November 20, 2018,
February is Black History Month and an excellent opportunity to learn more about the significant contributions of Black librarians who have shaped our profession. Below is a blog post written by former Moorland-Spingarn Research Center Assistant Chief Librarian for Reference and Reader Services, Dr. Janet Sims-Wood:
Dorothy Burnett, daughter of Dr. Hayes Joseph Burnett, Sr. and Mrs. Bertha Ball Burnett, was born on May 25, 1905, in Warrenton, Virginia. She was reared in Montclair, New Jersey.
After high school, she enrolled at Miner Normal School in Washington, D.C. While at Miner she discovered her calling for library science. In 1926, she transferred to Howard University and began work as a student assistant in the Founders Library. She graduated from Howard in 1928 with a resolve to continue her education to become a librarian. While working at the Howard University Library, Burnett enrolled in the Columbia University School of Library Science and in 1931 received a B.L.S. She received a scholarship to attend graduate school at Columbia from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and was awarded an M.L.S. in 1932, becoming the first African-American woman to do so.
Dorothy Porter Wesley joined the staff at Howard University Library in 1928 and in the fall of 1930, she was appointed librarian in charge of the Negro Collection. During these early years she developed a passion and commitment to preserving and sharing the legacy of Africana history and scholarship. Her initial task was to search the shelves in the general library and withdraw all the books she could identify by and about the Negro for addition to the Negro Collection.
Many of the books in the collection bore the autograph of the Howard University president, General Oliver Otis Howard. Then in 1873, the anti-slavery collection of Lewis Tappan was donated to the University Library. Along with the Tappan collection the library owned the collections of William Lavalette and John Cromwell. Several individuals also made contributions, including Charles Sumner.
In 1914, the Negro collection was richly enlarged by the valuable gift collection of Dr. Jesse E. Moorland, a Howard University trustee. The collection was then named the Moorland Foundation. She acquired documents by going through catalogs, asking for materials from publishers and collectors, and helping to clear out basements and attics after a person had passed.
In 1929 she married noted art historian and faculty member, James A. Porter. He passed in 1970 and in 1979 she married historian Charles Harris Wesley who passed in 1979.
Dorothy Porter was a friend to the many collectors including Arthur B. Spingarn, Arthur A. Schomburg, Henry P. Slaughter, C. Glenn Carrington, Charles Blockson and Clarence Holte. All helped her to identify and acquire materials for the collection.
In 1946, Dorothy Porter was successful in acquiring the collection of Arthur B. Spingarn Collection of Negro Authors. It was considered the most comprehensive group of books by Negroes ever collected in the world. The collection is particularly strong in its coverage of Afro-Cuban, Afro- Brazilian, and Haitian writers and contains many rare editions. The collection also grew to contain items in many African languages
One of the most important contributions to black librarianship was incorporating the entire Dewey Classification system by developing a modified scheme which allowed her to use the full scope of the classification scheme to catalog materials relating to people of African descent. She refused to only catalog Africana materials under the narrow category of sociology. This scheme was adopted by many library systems.
Dorothy Porter Wesley was a pioneer in preservation of Africana resources and a scholar par excellence. She not only had a passion for preserving the history but she was also a prolific scholar compiling bibliographies and publishing books and articles. Some of her favorite research topics included David Ruggles, Sarah Remond, Afro Brazilians, William Cooper Nell, African history and black women’s history. She worked with such organizations as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the National Council of Negro Women, the African Studies Association and the American Antiquarian Society.
She was often called on to work on special projects with these and other organizations. Her expertise was known world-wide and she was sought out by students and scholars. Porter’s collecting and research efforts helped many to complete their research projects, including John Hope Franklin, John Blassingame, Carter G. Woodson, Henry Louis Gates, and Darlene Clark Hine, just to name a few.
Dorothy Porter Wesley received many awards and accolades during and after her career. To honor her 43 year commitment to Howard University and the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, the center dedicated the Dorothy B. Porter Reading Room in 1973. And in 1989, The Dorothy Porter Wesley Lecture Series was initiated by Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. She also spent a year as Visiting Research Scholar at the DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard University, and was awarded honorary doctorate degrees from Susquehanna University, Pennsylvania, Syracuse University, New York, and Radcliffe College. Some included awards from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Smithsonian Institution, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and in 1994, she received the National Endowment for the Humanities Charles Frankel Award which was presented to her by President Bill Clinton.
After her retirement, Dorothy Porter Wesley continued to pursue her many research interests until her death on December 17, 1995. Her book on William Cooper Nell was published after her death by her now deceased daughter, Constance Uzelac.
Dr. Janet Sims-Wood, “Dr. Dorothy Porter Wesley,” Moorland-Spingarn Research Center Blog, August 9, 2022, https://libraryguides.howard.edu/c.php?g=385878&p=2617908
