The papers of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison will be housed in a permanent library collection at Princeton University, according to the university’s president, Dr. Christopher L. Eisgruber.
Eisgruber made the announcement over the weekend during a Black Homecoming event on campus that included a special appearance by Morrison.
“Toni Morrison’s place among the giants of American literature is firmly entrenched, and I am overjoyed that we are adding her papers to the Princeton University Library’s collections,” Eisgruber told Black alumni. “This extraordinary resource will provide scholars and students with unprecedented insights into Professor Morrison’s remarkable life and her magnificent, influential literary works.”
News that Princeton and not Morrison’s alma mater, Howard University, had secured her papers was greeted with mixed reaction on social media sites. Some Howard alumni said that they had hoped that she would donate her papers to the school’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, which is the repository for dozens of prominent African-Americans.
It’s also unclear if Howard was even involved in the arms race to secure Morrison’s papers. Howard Dodson, who directs the Moorland-Spingarn and Howard University Libraries, has been friends with Morrison since his days as chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a unit of the New York Public Library.
He could not be reached for comment.
“It certainly would have been ideal had [Morrison] left the papers to Howard or at least a meaningful selection of the papers to Moorland-Springarn,” said Dr. Dana A. Williams, who chairs the English Department at Howard. “The Bluest Eye, which she began in a writing group at Howard, would have been the logical choice, for instance.”
