Naomi Willie Pollard Dobson: A Pioneering Black Librarian

Abstract

ABSTRACT Naomi Willie Pollard Dobson (1883–1971) was an educator, librarian, clubwoman, civic leader, and the first Black woman to graduate from Northwestern University in 1905. Despite her achievements, Dobson is not represented in the literature in Black librarianship history, African American history, or women’s history. This article takes a closer look at an early twentieth-century life well lived. A chance reading of the 1915 Wilberforce University catalog revealed her as the head librarian at Wilberforce, an Ohio historically Black college founded in 1856 by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This article documents the process of uncovering an unknown and unsung figure in African American woman’s biography and library history. The text makes the case for inclusion of an under-researched woman who contributed to the intellectual and liberatory conscious of African Americans. To situate the subject in time and space the article recounts her familial influences through genealogy, explores her movements through the society and women’s columns, and outlines her professional work through institutional reports. Recounting Dobson’s life involved embracing the relational through the significance of a remarkable family, communities centered on self-determination, and progressive racial uplift.