DOROTHY PORTER WESLEY'S BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
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Dr. James Billington, Librarian, Library of Congress has named her "librarian extraordinaire". She referred to herself as "a bibliomaniac". She was also known as a keeper of the keys to the African-American's diaspora, bibliophile, archivist, Africanist, mentor, scholar, writer, historian, and wife of two good husbands - James Amos Porter and Charles Harris Wesley. She retired in 1973 from the Moorland-Spingarn Foundation. The Foundation then became known as the Moorland Spingarn Research Center located at Howard University, and she it's Curator Emerita.
She devoted her life to the acquisition and collection of materials relating to the African-American Diaspora. She administrated and organized the Moorland-Spingarn Foundation in 1929, A Library of Negro Life and History from a small collection of 3000 titles presented in 1914 by Jesse Moorland to Howard University to nearly 200,000 items, which after her retirement in 1973 became known as the Moorland- Spingarn Research Center. Her pioneering work in Caribbean and Latin American Africana deserves great attention, as well as her achievements as an Africanist. She thought that retirement might bring some peace and quiet to her life, however, her literary production never ceased, and her will to assist researchers continued until her demise.
Her accomplishments were numerous including serving on the Executive Council of the Association For The Study of Afro-American Life and History, and memberships in many organizations including the Africanist Society, American Antiquarian Society, American Library Association, Association of African American Museums,
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JAMES AMOS & DOROTHY BURNETT PORTER,
c. 1960's
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African Studies Association, Bibliographical Society of America, Black Academy of Arts and Letters, Columbia University Library School Alumni, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, District of Columbia Historical Society Advisory Board, District of Columbia Library Association, Essex Institute, National Caucus and Center on Black Aged, Inc., National Trust for the Preservation of Historical Sites, Nigerian Historical Society, Phi Beta Kappa Society, the Society of American Archivists, the Library Advisory Committee for the White House, the U. S. President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped; and editorial boards including the Black Abolitionists Papers, Beacon Press, Gale Research and University Microfilms.
James Amos Porter (1905-1970) was an African American educator, lecturer, painter, administrator, critic and advisor. He graduated from Howard University with honors in 1927 with a Bachelors degree in Art. In 1929, he studied at the Art Institute and was awarded the Arthur Schomburg Portrait Prize for his painting Woman Holding A Jug in 1933 exhibited in the Harmon Foundation Exhibition of Negro Artists. He received the Certificat De Presence from the Institute of Art and Archeology, University of Paris in August 1935. In 1937, he received the Masters of Art in Art History from New York University, Fine Arts Graduate Center. In 1953, he was appointed Head of the Department of Art and Director of the Art Gallery at Howard University. In March 1965 he was named "one of America's most outstanding men of the arts along with 26 other teachers in the U.S." to receive the first National Gallery of Art Medal and Honorarium for Distinguished Achievement in Art Education.
His classic book, Modern Negro Art (1943, Howard University Press 1992) proved to be one of the most informative sources to date on the productivity of the Negro artist in the United States since the 18th century. It is a standard reference work on Black Art in America. It is said that "Porter's book placed African American artists in the context of modern art history, which was both novel and profound.
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Drs. CHARLES HARRIS & DOROTHY PORTER WESLEY
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Her second husband, Charles Harris Wesley (1891-1987), the noted African American historian, educator, writer and author of twelve books,including the History of Alpha Phi Alpha in 1927, Richard Allen, Apostle of Freedom in 1935, The History of Sigma Pi Phi in 1954, The Story of the Negro Retold in 1959, The History of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the Free and Accepted Masons of the State of Ohio in 1961, The Negro in Our History with Carter G. Woodson in 1962, and the International Library of Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the Free and Accepted Masons of the State of Ohio in 1961, The Negro in Our History with Carter G. Woodson in 1962, and the International Library of Negro Life and History, a ten volume set published in 1968. He was the Executive Director of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History from 1965-1972; later becoming its Executive Director Emeritus. Wesley became in 1925 the fourth African American to receive a PhD from Harvard University; from 1931-40, he became the General President of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity; President of Wilberforce University from 1942 to 1947, and in 1965 retired as President of Central State College to become the Director of Research and Publications for the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History; and in 1976, Director of the Afro-American Historical & Cultural Museum, Philadelphia. He was the recipient of numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1930/31; the Scottish Rite Gold Medal Award in 1957; and, the Armistad Award in 1972.
Born in Warrenton, Va., May 25, 1905, she was raised in Montclair, N.J., by her father, Hayes Joseph Burnett, a physician and mother Bertha Ball Burnett, a tennis champion and graduated from Montclair High School. After receiving her A.B., from Howard University in 1928, she completed her studies at Columbia University with a Masters of Science in Library Science in 1932. In 1957 she received The Preservation and Administration of Archives Certificate from American University in Washington, D.C. Her fellowships were many including the Julius Rosenwald Scholarship in 1931-32, and the Fellowship for Research in Latin American Literature in 1944-45. The Ford Foundation sent her to Lagos, Nigeria for two years in 1962-1964 to serve as the Acquisitions Librarian to build the collection at the National Library of Nigeria. She received several honorary degrees from the University of Susquehanna in 1971, the University of Syracuse in 1989 and Radcliffe College in 1990. In 1988-89 she was a Ford Foundation Visiting Senior Scholar at the W.E.B. DuBois Institute located at Harvard University and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
Her awards and honors were multiple including BISA. The latest received was from the Association For The Study Of Afro-American Life And History in October 1995; the National
Endowment For the Humanities Charles Frankel Award presented by
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The WHITE HOUSE,
Oct. 14, 1994
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THE WHITE HOUSE LIBRARY,1994
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President William Clinton on October 14, 1994 at the White House Clinton remarks); a Certificate of Recognition from the Alpha
Wives of Washington, D.C., on the occasion of the installation of their archives at Howard University, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center on June 10, 1994; and, in Cambridge on May 18, 1994 there was 'A Celebration of the Lives and Works of Dorothy Porter Wesley and Dorothy Sterling On The Occasion of the Publication of The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women's Political Culture In Antebellum America.
Her pioneering research and bibliographic accomplishments are numerous. Many scholars including John Hope Franklin, Alain Locke, Sterling Brown, Langston Highes, Alex Haley, Richard Wright, Marion Wright, Lerone Bennett, James Blassingame, Peter Ripley, John Henrick Clarke, Marilyn Richardson, Roslyn Terborg-Penn, many others, and both her husbands relied heavily on her bibliographic knowledge, and late night sessions never stopped while both James Amos Porter and Charles Harris Wesley continued their contributions to American history.
Portrait of Dorothy, 1952 by James A. Porter
Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
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