George Young

Background

Young was born on October 16, 1870 in South Boston, Virginia, the eldest child of Beverly C. Young.

Education

Young had opportunity for only brief intervals of schooling in early life. In his teens, he spent many hours in night schools, and by assiduous reading of his own choosing he acquired a considerable education.

Career

Late in his teens Young went North and found work with a family at New Rochelle, New York, where he remained for three years. He then took a position as servant in a household in New York City, where he continued for several years more, and rose to the position of butler. He began buying books at an early age, and gradually evolved a desire to build a library of Negro literature. In 1895 he began work for the Pullman Company as car porter. For several years he was on private cars, which carried him to all parts of the country. He never failed to browse through the old bookshops in every city where he stopped. Because his particular interest was an unusual one and he visited many cities, he was able to pick up at prices within his means some rarities which most collectors overlooked. Among these, the greatest was a copy in the original white vellum covers of the first known published work written by a Negro. His book was published in 1573, and only two copies of it are now known to exist. Young had other rarities of Negro authorship, such as Jacobus Eliza Capitan's Latin thesis on slavery, published in 1742, and Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). His interest also included authors of mixed Negro blood - Dumas, Pushkin, and others. He acquired John Ogilby's Africa, published in 1670, and early lists of slaves in the American colonies. At its height, Young's collection contained about 9, 000 books and pamphlets by or about Negroes. He had many other books as well, relics of John Brown, letters, and manuscripts. In 1915 he started a book business in Harlem, the largest Negro quarter in New York City, though he did not retire from the Pullman service until some time later. Having built up a wide acquaintance among bookish people by mail or in person, he now bought, sold, and exchanged with them, and his shop became a center for those seeking information on the Negro and kindred subjects. He had customers or correspondents in almost all foreign countries; but his business did not prove highly lucrative, and in his latter years he was for some time a bailiff for the United States court in New York City, and later a special court attendant. He sold some of his best books to a branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem, which was slowly building a collection on the Negro, and others to Arthur A. Schomburg, a Puerto Rican Negro who made a collection of Negro art and literature. This, too, was eventually turned over to the branch library. Young was a lifelong and tireless worker for the cultural advancement of his race. He died in St. Luke's Hospital, New York, of a heart attack.

Achievements

• Young was a book collector, notable for his vast collection of rare pieces.

Membership

Young was national treasurer of the John Brown Memorial Association, president of the Frederick Douglass chapter of that association and of St. Mark's Lyceum, and a worker in the National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes.

Connections

Young married, May 21, 1917, Ellen M. Thomas of New Rochelle, New York, who, together with one daughter, Sara Elizabeth, survived him.

Mother:

Beverly C. Young

Spouse:

Ellen M. Thomas

Daughter:

Sara Elizabeth