58 BCALA NEWS Volume 41, Issue 3


Summer 2014


J.A.: It seems that being a librarian is only a small portion of Regina Andrews’ story, but I’m writing for a librarian publication so that’s my key interest. What do we know about what led to her decision to attend Columbia and become a public librarian?


E.W.: I found very little about why Andrews became a librarian other than a brief mention in a news article. She said a librarian in the school she attended in Normal, Illinois influenced her. She lived there for a few years with her maternal grandparents after her parents divorced. Andrews later became one of the first African American librarians to work at the Chicago Public Library (CPL) when she left Wilberforce and returned to her hometown. She worked with Vivian Harsh, the first African American librarian to head her own branch at the CPL, and also said Harsh was an influence on her library career. Criteria for being a librarian were very different nearly 100 years ago. Andrews worked as a librarian without a library degree when she joined the NYPL. She attended Columbia University’s extension program and took classes in cataloging and reference but never received a degree.


J.A.: Why did you title this work ‘‘Harlem Renaissance Librarian”?


E.W.: It’s true that the Harlem Renaissance was just a small portion of Andrews’ life. She only worked at the 135th Street Library very briefly. However, I think it was a pivotal experience. Andrews met many of the poets, writers, artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance through her work at the library. The article that influenced this project had a Langston Hughes’ quote in the title about the library branch being ‘‘the place to go” when people arrived in Harlem. Andrews set aside space in the library for writers like Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Eric Walrond. She invited artists and intellectuals to a salon she co-hosted with roommates Ethel Ray (later Nance) and Louella Tucker. She had a hand in helping people make connections to help their careers.


J.A.: What were some of her accomplishments as a professional librarian with New York Public Library (NYPL)?


E.W.: I think the most important accomplishment was that she broke down barriers that prevented African American librarians from working in any of the branches of the NYPL. Initially these librarians were limited to working in one or two of the library branches. This limited their opportunities for promotion because in order to advance, librarians often had to go work in another library branch to get more experience. This would require African American librarians to wait a long time for an available position to open at the few branches where they were allowed to work. Andrews collaborated with many of the African American leaders, including W. E. B. Du Bois, who held meetings with the NYPL administration decrying these limitations. In 1938 Andrews became the first African American librarian to head her own branch when she was at the 115th Street Library.


J.A.: Do you know if her work as a librarian in any way informed her accomplishments as an actress, playwright, activist and event-planner?


E.W.: Andrews did not believe that her library career should be restricted by race and she felt that way about life in general. The theater group that she co-founded, the ‘‘Harlem Experimental Theatre”, decided to produce plays about and by both African American and white people. Two of her plays demonstrated the unreliability of racial categorizations. She was an active member of the civic organization, the National Council of Women of the United States, which was an interracial women’s organization that historically had both African American and white members.


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