University of Delaware Library
Pauline A. Young Residency

Pauline A. Young (1900-1991)


The University of Delaware Library Residency honors Pauline A. Young, a civil rights leader, historian, author, and librarian for over thirty years. Ms. Young grew up in Wilmington, Delaware and attended Howard High School where she later worked as a librarian and inspired generations of African American students. Ms. Young has said , "I grew up during the civil rights era. Our home in Wilmington was a nice stopover place for people like James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes or Paul Robeson. We used to listen to them talk as children. We never realized they were history makers."

Ms. Young received a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania and a master's in library science from Columbia University. She taught and proctored at the University of Southern California and worked on the press staff at Tuskegee Institute before returning to Delaware. Ms. Young served as President of the Delaware Chapter of NAACP as well as Chair of the state NAACP Education Committee. She served as a Peace Corp volunteer in Jamaica from 1962 to 1964 where she helped train librarians and library staff members. She participated in the 1965 March for Equality from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She assisted in founding the local chapter of the League of Women Voters and American Federation of Teachers. She also wrote the first comprehensive state history of blacks, The Negro in Delaware: Past and Present, published in 1947. She was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Delaware Women in 1982.