We're taking a look back at "Harlem Postcards: June 2021"—part of a grouping of postcards thematically centered around a collective archive of Harlem. This photograph is from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and was organized by Elana Bridges, former Mellon Curatorial Fellow.⠀ ⠀ For generations, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has been a gathering place for the Harlem community and an important site for Black scholarship. In 1940, a special division within the 135th Street Branch Library was renamed the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature, History and Prints in honor of Puerto Rican–born Black scholar and bibliophile Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, who served as curator of the division from 1932 until his death in 1938. The Schomburg Collection, which includes manuscripts and artwork from the Harlem Renaissance among its holdings, was designated as a full research library in the New York Public Library system in 1972.⠀ ⠀ This image, captured in 1938, is an early indicator of the Schomburg Center's investment in maintaining its archive and encouraging Black scholarship. The Schomburg Center was, at its founding, one of the only research libraries where Black intellectuals could congregate in public prior to desegregation in the United States.⠀ ⠀ Share your favorite archival photos and tag us #inHarlem! 📸⠀ ⠀ —⠀ ⠀ Image: Unknown Photographer, "View of researchers using the Schomburg Collection, when it was the 135th Street Branch Library Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints, as it looked in 1938, with Catherine A. Latimer, reference librarian of the collection, in left background," 1938. Gelatin silver print, 8 1⁄4 x 9 7/8 in. Courtesy Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library