Today's selection -- from Morgan: American Financier by Jean Strouse. J.P. Morgan employed a fabulous, intelligent and shrewd woman as a librarian. And virtually everything she said about herself was false:
"Belle da Costa Greene had impressed [Junius Morgan, J.P. Morgan's nephew] with her quick intelligence and eager aptitude for knowledge about books. Late in 1905 he introduced her to his uncle. ... [who] hired Miss Greene for $75 a month. She had been earning $40 at Princeton.
"Small and slender, with dark hair and olive skin dramatically set off by light green eyes, Belle Greene had an extraordinary allure that appealed to both men and women. Men in particular. Bernard Berenson, who met her in 1908, later described her as 'the most vitalizing person I have ever known.'
"Her middle name and exotic looks came, she said, from her maternal Portuguese grandmother, Genevieve da Costa Van Vliet. Her parents had separated when she was a child, and her mother, 'a native of Richmond, Va., and a proud and cultivated lady of old-fashioned dignity, [had] moved with her children to Princeton, New Jersey, where she gave music lessons to support them while they attended local schools.' Belle later told the Evening Sun: 'I knew definitely by the time I was twelve years old that I wanted to work with rare books. I loved them even then, the sight of them, the wonderful feel of them, the romance and thrill of them. Before I was sixteen, I had begun my studies, omitting the regular college courses that many girls take before they have found out what they want to do.'
Bella da Costa Greene, a Morgan librarian who is numbered among
the women of the country earning $25,000 a year and over.
"She quickly joined the ranks of gifted deputies to whom Morgan gave large authority and freedom to spend his money. The unique advantages of being female and willing to devote herself almost entirely to his collecting helped her become his agent, accomplice, and personal confidante as well. Returning from Europe one year, she smuggled several of his acquisitions through customs in her suitcase. She let the inspectors find a few things of her own, 'with great seeming hesitation,' she told a friend -- acting 'very indignant' and protesting 'to their great joy.' The examiners never noticed the more important items, and 'when I landed at the library with all of JP's treasures -- a painting -- three bronzes -- a special kind of watch he had asked me to get in London & several other things, well he & I did a war dance & laughed in great glee.' .......MORE
