'Vivian Gordon Harsh"(May 27, 1890-August 17,1960)

Was the first African American Librarian the Chicago Public Library system and a significant contributor to Chicago's Black Renaissance.In 1932 she was appointed head librarian of the George Cleveland Hall Branch,the city's first library built in an African American community.During her career,she developed a black history collection that could become a world-renowned resorce for residents and scholars.Vivian was boorn to Fenton and Maria (Drake) Harsh,both graduates of Fisk University.Fresh out of high school,she began work in 1909 as a junior clerk at the Chicago Public Library where she would remain during her 60-year career.In 1921, she received her B.A. in library science from Simmons College in Boston,Massachusetts,and later took courses at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Library Science.In 1924 Vivian became the city's first black professional librarian.Through her involvement with the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History founded by Carter G.Woodson,she recognized the need for library services on Chicago's south side,the heart of the city's African American community.Funding from philanthropist Julius Rosenwald allowed the basis for the George Hall C. Hall branch that opened in the Bronzeville neighborhood in 1932 with Vivian as its director.She and Charlemae Rollins,a children's librarian,developed the branch's substantial African American resources along with programming specifically for the black community.The collection began with over 100 books on African-American donated by George Bentley,founder of the Chicago branch of the NAACP.Operating in the 1920's without funding from the Chicago Public Library,Vivian expanded the collection through private donations and her personal contributions.The library itself became a Mecca for literary and cultural icons of the period including Richard Wright,Langston Hughes,Zora Neal Huston,and Gwendolyn Brooks,some of whom contributed manuscripts to the institution.The resources first accumulated by Harsh and Rollins in the 1920s have grown in the Vivian G.Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature,the largest of its kind in the Midwest and currently located at the city's Carter G. Woodson Regional Library.It includes 70,000 books and unique materials like the historic Illinois Writers Project "Negro in Illinois"paper.In 1958,after a serious illness,Vivian retired from the Chicago Public Library.She died two years later at the age of 70. In 2005, a city park near her childhood home was named in her honor.