CORA P. MULDROW EASTERLING (1888-1938)

Cora Muldrow was one of the four African-Americans who were hired as substitutes in 1920 as the New York Public Library began the process of integrating the staff.  Muldrow never received a regular appointment at NYPL but did refer to herself as a former librarian. 

Muldrow was born in Sumter SC.  She attended the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural and Mechanical College (now South Carolina State University) in Orangeburg SC, but the records do not indicate that she graduated.  She did teach at the College in 1909-1910 and was later a high school teacher in Salem NC.

Muldrow married John W. Easterling (1886-1958) in 1921 and they lived in Manhattan.  In May 1938 she was murdered in her home by a burglar.  The notice of Cora Easterling’s death in the Amsterdam News indicated that she had been a housewife, the mother of two children, and associated with NYPL’s 135^th Street Branch.