Joseph Henry Reason
| Joseph Henry Reason | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 23, 1905 Franklin, Louisiana |
| Died | July 26, 1997 (aged 92) Tallahassee |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Librarian, professor |
| Known for | Director of the Howard University library system |
| Board member of | First African-American to serve as president of the Association of College and Research Libraries |
| Children | J. Paul Reason |
Joseph Henry Reason (March 23, 1905 – July 26, 1997) was an American librarian. He was director of the Howard University library system for 25 years. He was the first African-American to serve as president of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and to be nominated for president of the American Library Association (ALA). In 1999, American Libraries named him one of the "100 Most Important Leaders We Had in the 20th Century". His son, J. Paul Reason, was the first African-American four star Admiral in the United States Navy.
Reason was born in Franklin, Louisiana, the eldest child of Joseph and Bertha Peoples Reason. In 1928, he graduated summa cum laude with a BA in history from New Orleans University and for the 1928–29 school year worked as a language teacher at the Gilbert Academy, a private school for African-Americans in New Orleans. In 1931, he married Bernice Chism. They had two children, Barbara Reason Butler and Joseph Paul Reason. In 1932, he earned a second BA in French from Howard University and in 1936 an MA in French from the University of Pennsylvania. His first published article was in 1934 in Quarterly World on the subject of Tacna-Arica.
Reason entered the library field with the support of John Robert Edward Lee, Sr., President of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a black university in Tallahassee. Lee obtained a General Education Board fellowship for Reason so he could earn a BS in library science from Columbia University in 1936. Following a change in FAMU's organizational structure, Lee appointed Reason first director of FAMU's library. Under Reason's administration, the library began its "Negro Collection" preserving African-American cultural materials. This was the genesis of what eventually became the Southeastern Regional Black Archives Research Center and Museum in 1977.
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