Constance Hill Marteena

Constance Hill Marteena (1903 - December 29, 1978) was an American librarian and author, known for her bibliographies about Black women.

Constance Hill Marteena
Marteena in 1965
Occupationlibrarian

Marteena was president of the North Carolina Negro Library Association from 1952 through 1954, and helped guide its merger with the North Carolina Library Association which ended the segregation of professional library associations in North Carolina.[1][2]

Through NCNLA, she published the printed resource Achievements of Afro-American women of the twentieth century : a checklist in 1949.[3] This built on her previous publication, A bibliographic technique illustrated in the compilation of a selective guide to the literature of Afro-American women of achievement which was published in 1946.[4] She also authored the book The Lengthening Shadow of a Woman: A Biography of Charlotte Hawkins Brown about the woman who founded the Palmer Memorial Institute.[5] Marteena was an advocate for women's education stating, "when you educate a woman you educate a family."[6]

Marteena worked at Bennett College from 1937 until 1967, retiring as director of the Thomas F. Holgate Library in Greensboro, North Carolina.[1] She was an instructor in the college's teacher-librarian certification program and worked on a library collection on African American women.[1] The special collections room was named in her honor in 1978.[7]

Early life and education

Marteena was born in 1903 in Richmond, Virginia.[1] Her parents were Irene Robinson Hill and Reuben T. Hill.[1] She attended Hartshorn Memorial College and earned her B.S. degree from Hampton Institute in 1933.[1][8] She studied library science at the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago, and received a Master of Arts degree in 1946.[1] She worked as director of public information at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University from 1929 to 1937 where she was also a founding member of the Alpha Phi chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in 1931.[1][9]

References
  1. Smith, Jessie Carney. Notable Black American Women. New York: Gale Research. pp. 432–433. Retrieved 14 March 2021.
  2. Josey, E. J. (2020-06-10). "Handbook of Black librarianship". Internet Archive. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  3. Achievements of Afro-American women of the twentieth century : a checklist. (Book, 1949) [WorldCat.org]. WorldCat.org. OCLC 15061033. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  4. A bibliographic technique illustrated in the compilation of a selective guide to the literature of Afro-American women of achievement. (Book, 1946) [WorldCat.org]. WorldCat.org. OCLC 43062280. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  5. "Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum". NCpedia. 1961-01-11. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  6. Educating the majority : women challenge tradition in higher education. New York: American Council on Education. 1969. p. 210. Retrieved 14 March 2021.
  7. The Belle. Bennett College. 1978. p. 28. Retrieved 14 March 2021.
  8. "An Exponential Education: The Early Students of Hartshorn Memorial College". Virginia Union University Archives & Special Collections. 2017-03-27. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  9. "Alpha Phi Chapter History". Alpha Phi Chapter. Retrieved 14 March 2021.
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