Jean Blackwell Hutson (1914-1998) was a librarian who served as the curator of the Schomburg Collection from 1948 to 1972, then as chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture from 1972 to 1980. The collection contains two audio recordings, dating from 1987 to 1990, including an oral history interview with Hutson about her life and career at the Schomburg Center.
Jean Blackwell Hutson (1914-1998) was a librarian who served as the curator of the Schomburg Collection from 1948 to 1972, then as chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture from 1972 to 1980.
Hutson was born on September 7, 1914, in Sommerfield, Florida, and spent her childhood in Baltimore, Maryland. She attended the University of Michigan, and graduated from Barnard College in 1935. After Hutson received a master's degree in library science from Columbia University in 1936, she worked briefly at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL), filling in for the reference librarian Catherine Latimer, who was on maternity leave. Over the next several years, Hutson worked at several NYPL branch libraries, and earned a teaching degree from Columbia in 1941.
In 1948, Hutson succeeded Dorothy Williams as curator of the Schomburg Collection. During this time, Hutson undertook a complete inventory of the collection and oversaw the publication of the Dictionary Catalog of the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature & History (1962). In 1964, she was invited by Kwame Nkrumah, the president of Ghana, to spend a year building an Africana collection at the University of Ghana. Upon her return to the Schomburg, Hutson successfully lobbied for the collection to be designated an NYPL research library. It was renamed the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in 1972. During her tenure, Hutson drove preservation efforts and advocated for federal funding to construct a new building to house the Schomburg Center's collections, which opened to the public in 1980. She retired from NYPL in 1984.
Hutson was married to poet and songwriter Andy Razaf from 1939 to 1947, then John Hutson from 1950 until his death in 1957. They had one daughter, Jean Frances Hutson (1952-1992). Hutson died in Harlem on February 4, 1998.
The collection contains two audio recordings, organized alphabetically by title. An oral history interview with Jean Blackwell Hutson, dated 1990, explores her life and career at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The original format of the recording was cassette, containing two parts. A vinyl album by Bobby Short, released in 1987, features songs written by Andy Razaf, Hutson's ex-husband.
Gift of the estate of Jean Blackwell Hutson, 1998.
Collection inventoried by Nathan Evans and Anika Paris. Collection processed and described by Lyric Evans-Hunter, archivist. Finding aid published in 2025.
See the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for the Jean Blackwell Hutson papers, Sc MG 652.
See the Photographs and Prints Division for the Jean Blackwell Hutson photographs, SCP 186248.
The following commercial media was transferred to the Schomburg Center LP collection: Roses and Revolutions, Sc Audio RE-17843; Adventures in Negro History, Sc Audio RE-17845; International Favorites, volume 1 by Phillippa Schuyler, Sc Audio RE-17842; W.E.B. DuBois: A Recorded Autobiography (Interviewed by Moses Asch), Sc Audio RE-17844; and None but the Righteous by the ARC Gospel Choir, Sc Audio RE-17841.
See the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division for oral history video interviews with Jean Blackwell Hutson, items 449976 and 443417.
See the division for oral histories conducted by Jean Blackwell Hutson.
See the division for Schomburg Public Programs and other collection material featuring, or about, Jean Blackwell Hutson.
See the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division for Dictionary catalog of the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature & History, Pub. Cat. Z881.N592 S35 1962.