PIECING A QUILT: JESSIE CARNEY SMITH AND THE MAKING OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S HISTORY BY CHRISTA VALENCIA HARDY DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Library and Information Science in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Linda C. Smith, Chair Associate Professor Christine A. Jenkins Associate Professor Karla J. Möller Assistant Professor Erik A. McDuffie ABSTRACT This is a critical analysis of Jessie Carney Smith’s Notable Black American Women (1992) as an illustration of black feminist knowledge production. It explores the contributions of Dr. Smith to African American women’s and library history during her more than four decades as Head Librarian at historically black Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Under her editorship, Notable Black American Women was a pioneering effort to fill the previously long-existing gap in reference resources. Prior to 1992, mainstream reference publishers had never published biographical dictionaries concerning African American women’s historical contributions and achievements. Over twenty years in the making, the inaugural volume contains 500 individually handcrafted biographies that chronicle the accomplishments of African American women. Using archival research, oral history and narrative analysis, I examine the influence of race, culture and gender on the research agenda and knowledge production of an African American woman librarian. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I give thanks to the Divine for the energy, enthusiasm and endurance to complete this life-transforming endeavor. I am grateful to my dynamic dissertation committee: Dr. Linda C. Smith (my advisor and chairperson), Dr. Christine A. Jenkins, Dr. Karla J. Möller and Dr. Erik A. McDuffie. I appreciate that you believed in this project and lent your expertise to its development. I give thanks for my loving, supportive parents, Charlie E. and Lillie C. Hardy. Your prayers and your unwavering belief in my abilities mean so much. To my amazing family, friends and colleagues, thanks for sharing your time, resources, wisdom and love with me throughout this journey. I am grateful to Dr. Jessie Carney Smith for trusting me to tell her story. And last but certainly not least, I am forever indebted to all the other notable African American women whose lives continue to inspire me. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW ........................................................................................1 OBJECTIVE ..................................................................................................................1 INTRODUCING NOTABLE BLACK AMERICAN WOMEN...........................................2 DEFINITIONS ...............................................................................................................6 SIGNIFICANCE ............................................................................................................9 JUSTIFICATION .........................................................................................................12 CHAPTER OUTLINE ..................................................................................................13 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................15 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................15 NBAW ANCESTORS..................................................................................................16 DEFINING FEMINISM(S) ...........................................................................................30 AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN LIBRARIANS...........................................................39 QUILT PIECES ...........................................................................................................46 CHAPTER THREE: INTRODUCING JESSIE CARNEY SMITH ..................................47 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................47 MEET THE VILLAGE..................................................................................................48 MEET THE BIGELOW/CARNEY FAMILY ..................................................................50 EDUCATION...............................................................................................................59 BECOMING DR. SMITH .............................................................................................64 QUILT PIECES ...........................................................................................................74 CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY............................................................................83 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................83 PART ONE: RESEARCH DECISIONS & DESIGN.....................................................84 BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH....................................................................................86 PROCEDURES...........................................................................................................96 NARRATIVE ANALYSIS.............................................................................................97 iv PART TWO: INTERPRETIVE FRAMEWORK ..........................................................103 BLACK FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY.......................................................................103 QUILT PATTERN......................................................................................................121 CHAPTER FIVE: CRAFTING NOTABLE BLACK AMERICAN WOMEN...................124 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................124 LIVED EXPERIENCE ...............................................................................................131 USE OF DIALOGUE .................................................................................................134 ETHIC OF CARING ..................................................................................................142 PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY ..............................................................................144 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION..................................................................................153 NOTABLE KNOWLEDGE.........................................................................................153 QUILTING LESSONS ...............................................................................................159 FUTURE QUILTING PROJECTS .............................................................................161 ENDNOTES .................................................................................................................163 FIGURES .....................................................................................................................192 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................................................197 MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS................................................................................197 NEWSPAPERS and MAGAZINES ...........................................................................197 BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, PUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS............................................198 ARTICLES ................................................................................................................208 THESES, DISSERTATIONS, CASES, UNPUBLISHED PAPERS ...........................212 APPENDIX A: JESSIE CARNEY SMITH CHRONOLOGY.........................................214 APPENDIX B: JESSIE CARNEY SMITH ABRIDGED BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................218 APPENDIX C: INITIAL ORAL HISTORY QUESTIONS ..............................................220 v CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW There’s something about…words when you put [them] together to make [them] pretty. When you enrich…I like doing that. I think that’s some of what I picked up on…the utilitarian purpose of the literary quilt.1 OBJECTIVE My dissertation is significant to the field of Library and Information Science (LIS), because it interprets the historic relationship between race, culture, gender and the production of knowledge exclusively from the perspective of an individual African American woman librarian. Pioneering reference work, Notable Black American Women (1992) (hereafter NBAW), helped make African American women’s lives more visible within historical research. In order to understand its contribution and the place of its editor, Dr. Jessie Carney Smith, in American librarianship, we must consider various elements of her personal and professional experience as a woman, African American, librarian, and Southerner. By investigating and setting out the details of her life, this historical study follows the trajectory of one aspect of her scholarship that culminated with the publication of the inaugural volume of NBAW.2 “Piecing a Quilt: Jessie Carney Smith and the Making of African American Women’s History”, examines the groundbreaking reference resource NBAW as an illustration of black feminist knowledge production. NBAW was the first biographical dictionary focusing solely on the contributions of African American women published by a mainstream reference publisher and edited by 1 an African American woman librarian. Black feminist knowledge production, as used in my study, encompassed the influences and the process of Smith’s