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Biography · Education & Scholarship

Virginia Proctor Powell Florence

1897–1991

United States

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Biography

Virginia Proctor Powell Florence (October 1, 1897 – April 3, 1991) was a trailblazer in both African-American history and the history of librarianship. In 1923 she became the first black woman in the United States to earn a degree in library science. This also made her the second African-American to be formally trained in librarianship, after Edward Christopher Williams.

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Biography text · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source checked 2026-10-13

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