The 1955 Green Book Listing for Magnolia House

A short line in the 1955 Negro Travelers’ Green Book makes a Greensboro address visible to readers far beyond North Carolina: under GREENSBORO and HOTELS, the page lists Magnolia, 442 Gorrell St. The line is brief, but it carries the work of Louise and Arthur Gist, who opened Magnolia House as a hotel for African American travelers in 1949, into a national travel guide built by Victor and Alma Green and their contributors.

What This Source Object Shows

The featured object is the 1955 Green Book page preserved in New York Public Library Digital Collections, image 5214042, canvas 55, printed page 53. It is not a diary of a trip and it is not proof that a room was available on any particular night. It is evidence that Magnolia House appeared as a named hotel option in Greensboro in that edition of the guide.

That distinction matters. A listing gave a traveler something actionable: a business name, a city category and a street address. For Black motorists moving through a segregated travel world, that kind of information could turn local knowledge into a portable tool. The Green Book did not reserve a room or guarantee treatment, but it helped readers begin with more than rumor.

People Behind the Line

The National Park Service identifies Louise and Arthur Gist as the couple who opened Magnolia House as a hotel for African American travelers in 1949. NPS also states that the house was built in 1889 and that Magnolia first appeared in the Green Book in 1955. The NYPL page confirms the 1955 listing itself; the first-listing chronology remains an attributed NPS claim.

The publication system behind the page was also human work. NPS identifies Victor Green, assisted by Alma Green, as beginning the guide in Harlem in 1936. It describes a wider circulation network that included postal colleagues, mail order, business sales and word of mouth. Primary Green Book pages show the publication asking readers and businesses for travel information, arranging businesses under cities and service categories, acknowledging incomplete coverage and warning that listings were not recommendations.

Why It Matters

This page lets us see community infrastructure in miniature. The Gists made a place. The Greens and their collaborators made a way for people to find places like it. Contributors and publicity networks helped update and circulate the information. A single printed entry joined those efforts.

For this episode of Our History, Our Home, Our Future, the Magnolia listing is an artifact of connection. It shows how Black business, publishing skill and shared information could help people move through a hostile landscape with more knowledge in hand.

Current Viewing And Sale Status

The NYPL digital record is publicly viewable online. No current physical exhibition or in-person display of this exact 1955 page was verified for this profile on September 26, 2026. Readers interested in Magnolia House itself should check the Historic Magnolia House’s own website before planning a visit, meal or stay; Defeat History is not the venue operator.

Defeat History does not sell this source object. No current sale listing for the featured NYPL source item was verified. Comparable public auction records show that different Green Book editions can have substantial market value: Swann Galleries records a 1941 Negro Motorist Green-Book sold for $22,500, including buyer’s premium, and reported a 1949 Negro Motorist Green Book sale at $50,000 in 2023. Those figures are comparable market context only. They are not a valuation of the NYPL item, not an appraisal and not an offer to sell.

Sources

• NYPL Digital Collections, 1955 Green Book page
• National Park Service, The Magnolia House
• National Park Service, The Green Book: An Historic Context
• Swann Galleries, 1941 Green Book sale record
• Swann Galleries, 2023 African Americana sale results

Source-reported display status: Unknown / not verified. The effective availability above applies the supplied date window; unknown dates are not inferred. Confirm access with the venue.

Defeat History does not sell objects. Historical prices, published estimates and comparable ranges are context, not an offer or a current valuation. Unknown value does not mean zero.

Actual-object image not published; image or rights information is unavailable.

Published September 26, 2026 · Updated September 26, 2026 · Report a correction