Aurelia Elizabeth Whittington Franklin

Written By Lorna Peterson / womenoflibraryhistory dot com
March 18, 2016

Librarian Aurelia Elizabeth Whittington Franklin was born July 25, 1915, in Goldsboro, North Carolina. She was the daughter of Samuel Windsor Whittington, a U.S. Postal railroad clerk, and Bertha Kincaid Whittington, a piano teacher and graduate of Livingstone College.

Aurelia worked as a law librarian; as a school librarian; and served as editor, indexer, and bibliographer for her historian husband, John Hope Franklin. Her degrees and certifications are BA English, Fisk University 1935; courses in teacher certification A & T College, Greensboro NC, 1937; BS Library Science, Hampton Institute, 1939; and MA Library Science, Catholic University, 1951.

Her thesis at Catholic was “A Check-List of Maryland Imprints from 1819 through 1822 with a Historical Introduction” (MA thesis Catholic University of America, 1951, 304 pages; available online at http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/imprints/pdf/dc014.pdf).

After graduating from Dillard High School, Goldsboro, in 1931, she entered Fisk University (Nashville, Tennessee), where she majored in English and planned for graduate studies in library science. She was mentored by Fisk librarian Frances Yocom. In 1935, Aurelia graduated from Fisk and returned to North Carolina to teach and help her family support the remaining children, Bertha Beatrice and Samuel Wald Whittington.

By 1939, her sister Bertha had graduated from Fisk and little brother Sam had graduated from Johnson C. Smith University and both siblings were now employed. Aurelia felt free to pursue her ambitions for librarianship and enrolled at Hampton Institute for the Bachelor of Library Science, which she earned in May 1939. Her good friend, the future historian John Hope Franklin, was thrilled that she was able to meet this goal.

While at Fisk, they had developed a deep friendship that withstood a post-college separation of five years and infrequent visits as he pursued his graduate studies at Harvard University and she taught high school English in North Carolina. His plans to marry her did not meet with her parent’s approval.

Defying her parents after they forbid her to accept John Hope’s proposal in 1939, she accepted the marriage proposal. It included a promise for her to continue in graduate studies of librarianship [1].

Aurelia reached her decision to oppose her parents and marry after being faced with signing another teaching contract, and on June 11, 1940 in her parent’s living room, she married the man who nurtured, respected, and proudly acknowledged, as well as benefited from, her professional library career.

She was recognized for her work in librarianship formally and informally. Her careful work as a bibliographer and indexer was acknowledged through the fiftieth anniversary celebration of From Slavery to Freedom program at North Carolina Central University, which was dedicated to her [2].

Aurelia’s career included many types of libraries and library work. Her professional life was so important to John Hope’s career that he charmingly referred to the financial contributions her work provided as the “Aurelia Franklin Foundation” [3].

She was a school librarian at Washington High School, Raleigh, NC; law librarian at North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University) in Durham; assisted in reorganization of the Alabama State College (now Alabama State University) Library in Montgomery; librarian at Spingarn High School, D.C.; as well as other jobs and the unpaid work in assisting with his research.

While John Hope was finishing his dissertation, she often accompanied him to Widener Library to assist in his work and also to observe the organization [4]. He appreciated her willingness to move and be the trailing spouse without any thought to her own career [5].

In Brooklyn she was active in the Faculty Wives of Brooklyn College organization, and in Chicago she was a mentor to the graduate students and young faculty members at the University of Chicago. She was a member of the American Library Association, active in her sorority Alpha Theta Omega, and was part of a black women librarians group in Los Angeles.

Aurelia served as a role model for her younger sister, Bertha Whittington Gibbs, who earned her degrees in mathematics from Fisk in 1938 and Master of Library Science from the University of Illinois in 1943. Bertha Whittington Gibbs also enjoyed a career as a research librarian in Chicago.

In 1999, Aurelia published with her husband “For Better, For Worse” a brief memoir of their marriage and life work, which for legal scholar Derrick Bell serves as an example of the ethical life--it is cited in his Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth.

Aurelia Whittington Franklin was a professional librarian who did not benefit from spousal hire policies, a tireless supporter of her appreciative husband, and a mother to son John Whittington (Whit) Franklin who is currently Senior Manager in the Office of the Deputy Director at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Aurelia Whittington Franklin is acknowledged by historians and scholars alike for her scholarship, mentoring, and support of their work. Examples include but are not limited to: Genna Rae McNeil (historian at UNC Chapel Hill, graduate of the University of Chicago, and a frequenter to the Franklin home in her graduate student days) and Martin Krieger (University of Southern California, who acknowledges Aurelia Franklin the forward of his Marginalism and Discontinuity).

Aurelia Whittington Franklin was an accomplished librarian whose efforts in librarianship and support of scholars at various stages of their careers are too significant to be forgotten or overshadowed.

In her later years, Aurelia faced many health challenges and her husband took an active role in providing care for her. Aurelia passed away Jan. 27, 1999 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
....

For additional information, please see
Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005

“ABC’s of John Hope Franklin – (A) Aurelia” posted January 2, 2015 by John Gartrell, Duke University Libraries http://blogs.library.duke.edu/rubenstein/2015/01/02/abcs-john-hope-franklin-aurelia/

“The Charmed Lives of Aurelia Whittington Franklin and John Hope Franklin” by Mark Anthony Neal http://www.newblackmaninexile.net/2010/03/charmed-lives-of-aurelia-whittington.html

“Reflections on Aurelia Whittington Franklin” held, March 25, 2015, Published on April 9, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj0hg6Ku4cM

Notes
[1] Mirror to America, The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin, 2005, pages 82, 87-89

[2] “A Salute to John Hope Franklin; The South: A Continuing Struggle" January 16-17, 1997 The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 82, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 394-407 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2717434

[3] Mirror, page 126; see also “A Life of Learning” John Hope Franklin, in Shapers of Southern History: Autobiographical Reflections, edited by John B. Boles, 2004, page 16.

[4] Mirror, page 91.

[5] Mirror, page 168.