George Cleveland Hall Branch Library

“Dr. Bentley willed his collection of nearly 300 books on African-American history and literature to the Hall Library. In the fall of 1931, Andrew J. Kolar, President of the library's Board of Directors, nervously voiced concern during a period of eviction riots that enveloped the city that Harsh's appointment and the books on black history that Harsh was collecting for the new library were "likely to cause a 'race riot." Library Commissioner Roden defended Harsh's work, insisting that there was nothing in the "Special Negro Collection" of "an incendiary or revolutionary character." The George Cleveland Hall Library opened to the public on January 18, 1932.”

“She was also a co-founder of the South Side Community Art Center's (a designated Chicago Landmark located at 3831 S. Michigan Avenue) creative writing forum. In 1976 Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African-American appointed to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 1985 she was appointed poetry consultant to the Library of Congress.”

“One of the most significant of these institutions was the George Cleveland Hall Branch Library, located at 4801 S. Michigan Avenue. With an immense African-American research collection and pioneering programming developed by Vivian G. Harsh, the Hall Library fostered the work of many Chicago Black Renaissance writers by providing them with a forum to develop and share their work with library patrons.”

“A pioneering leader in the movement to foster and preserve African-American history, Vivian G Harsh was the first African-American librarian to serve as the director of a branch library in the Chicago Public Library system.”

“Under the founding direction of Vivian Gordon Harsh (1890-1960), the first African-American branch librarian in the Chicago Public Library system, the library began compiling one of the most important research collections on African-American history and literature in the United States.”

“After her visit to the pioneering Schomberg Collection at the New York Public Library, Harsh was determined to develop a "Special Negro Collection” in Chicago. The collection's first materials were donated by prominent dentist Charles E. Bentley, a founding member in 1905 of the Niagara Movement led by W.E.B. DuBois, and an uncompromising foe of segregation.”

“The entrance doorway and circulation desk are further embellished with round arches, carved Classical-style swags, keystones, and other Classical-style moldings and ornament. Identified as "orange" in the Chicago Historic Resources Survey, the George Cleveland Hall Library is an unusual and significant library building in the context of Chicago architecture.”

“In the early 20th century, the Chicago Public Library began to build neighborhood branch libraries. The first, the Timothy B. Blackstone Branch, built in 1902, was a gift of Mrs. T.B. Blackstone in memory of her husband and is a Classical Revival-style building with portico and saucer dome in the Kenwood neighborhood (extant).”

“The Richard Wright House, the Gwendolyn Brooks House, the Lorraine Hansberry House, and the George Cleveland Hall Library, each demonstrate and commemorate the Chicago Black Renaissance literary movement, the interconnected effort by artists, writers, scholars, and activists to promote the study of black history, art and politics, to inform social protest against racism and discrimination in the years leading to the modern Civil Rights era.”