Arturo Alfonso Schomburg: A Guide to the Historian's Life

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg was an Afro-Puerto Rican historian, writer, and curator. Born in Puerto Rico on January 24, 1874, he came to the mainland United States to participate in the Harlem Renaissance and spread awareness about Black history. Schomburg’s collection of slave narratives, historical records, and artifacts is accessible at the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library to this day. He died in Brooklyn on June 10, 1938.

During his lifetime (as well as after), Schomburg’s name sometimes appeared anglicized in publications—as Arthur Alfonso Schomburg.

Schomburg spent much of his early life both looking to the past for inspiration and hoping to create a better future. Here are three key events from his first few decades in Puerto Rico and New York:

1. 1. Encountering racism: Arturo Alfonso Schomburg’s German and Puerto Rican father (Carlos Federico Schomburg) and Black mother (Mary Joseph) welcomed his birth in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Schomburg attended school in the territory’s capital of San Juan. While there, a teacher told him Black people had no history of their own. This lit a fire under Schomburg, who made it his life’s mission to uncover his own heritage and the history of all Black people.
2. 2. Heading to New York City: After attending St. Thomas College in the Danish Virgin Islands of the Caribbean, Schomburg set off to Harlem in New York City. While there, he began to focus specifically on Black history and started building his collection of records and artifacts. While in the United States, he never forgot his home island—he routinely advocated for both Puerto Rico and Cuba’s independence from Spain at the time. He even founded a club called Las Dos Antillas (The Two Antilles) to raise awareness about their plight.
3. 3. Starting a family: Schomburg married three times and had eight children total. He met his first wife, Elizabeth Hatcher, after she migrated northward in search of greater opportunity and equality. After she passed away, he married Elizabeth Morrow Taylor. His second marriage was also cut short by his wife’s passing, and the two-time widower married a third time to Elizabeth Green.

Schomburg made his mark on history by helping Black people remember the history of their forebears. Consider these four key ways he kept Puerto Rican history and the Black experience of days past alive:

1. 1. He amassed a landmark Black history collection. Over the course of his life, Schomburg curated a then unrivaled collection of historical artifacts and documents about life on the African continent and throughout the African diaspora. The Carnegie Corporation supplied funds to the New York Public Library (or NYPL) branch on 135th Street in Harlem to eventually purchase the collection. What was once the library’s Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints is now the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
2. 2. He contributed to the Harlem Renaissance. For most of his life, Schomburg made his home in Harlem, New York City. While there, he read widely and contributed to different publications, like Carter G. Woodson’s Journal of Negro History. “The Negro Digs Up His Past,” published in Survey Graphic, is perhaps Schomburg’s most famous article. His wide-ranging historical collection served as a constant source of inspiration to other writers and artists both during and after the Harlem Renaissance.
3. 3. He supported Puerto Rican independence. Schomburg had a strong connection to his Black and Latinx heritage, and he remained a staunch supporter of both the Puerto Rican and Cuban independence movements for most of his life. He thought the domination of his homeland by first the Spanish and then the United States was unjust and unsustainable, and he worked and wrote tirelessly to persuade others of this, too. Placido, a Cuban Martyr—a pamphlet about the freedom fighter Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés—is one of his most famous contributions to the political literature surrounding these issues.
4. 4. He was a prominent educator. As an insatiable curator, reader, and writer, Schomburg was also a natural educator. He helped build a collection for Fisk University, a prominent HBCU (historically black college or university). Alongside John Edward Bruce, Schomburg founded and helped provide resources and guidance to the Negro Society for Historical Research. He also served as the final president of the American Negro Academy—the first academic institution in the United States to provide Black citizens with a liberal arts education—from 1920–1928.

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