In 1924 the private collection was incorporated by the State of New York as a library for public uses, and the Board of Trustees appointed Belle first director of the Pierpont Morgan Library. She was born Belle Marion Greener in Washington, D.C., and grew up there and in New York City. Her biographer Heidi Ardizzone lists Belle's birth date as November 26, 1879. Her mother was Genevieve Ida Fleet, a member of a well-known African American family in the nation's capital, while her father was Richard Theodore Greener, an attorney who served as dean of the Howard University School of Law and was the first black student and first black graduate of Harvard (class of 1870).
Heidi Ardizzone
Belle