Dorothy B. Porter | |
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| Born | Dorothy Burnett May 25, 1905 Warrenton, Virginia, US {New Jersey} |
| Died | December 17, 1995 (aged 90) |
| Other names | Dorothy Louise Porter Wesley |
| Alma mater | Howard University, 1928; Columbia University, B.S. 1931, M.S. in 1932 in library science |
| Occupation(s) | Librarian Bibliographer Curator |
| Employer(s) | Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University |
| Known for | First African American to graduate from Columbia's library school; built Moorland-Spingarn Research Center into a world-class collection |
| Spouse(s) | James A. Porter (m. 1929–1970, his death) Charles H. Wesley (m. 1979–1987, his death) |
| Children | 1 |
Dorothy Louise Porter Wesley (May 25, 1905 – December 17, 1995) was a librarian, bibliographer and curator, who built the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University into a world-class research collection.[1] She was the first African American to receive a library science degree from Columbia University.[2][3] Porter published numerous bibliographies on African American history. When she realized that the Dewey Decimal System had only two classification numbers for African Americans, one for slavery and one for colonization, she created a new classification system that ordered books by genre and author.
- ^ Pace, Eric (December 20, 1995). "Dorothy Porter Wesley, 91, Black-History Archivist". The New York Times. Retrieved April 3, 2015.
- ^ Bledsoe, Kara (August 22, 2018). "What Dorothy Porter's Life Meant for Black Studies". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved August 26, 2022.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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