Photography in Early Grinnell: A. L. Child's Studio and Art Rooms

Although early Grinnell, like much of the rest of the country, welcomed the industries that were remaking twentieth-century America, the local economy depended upon a handful of professionals and the small shops of salesmen and artisans. Among the most important of these were the photographers who, riding the wave of photographic innovation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, introduced Grinnell residents to the expanding world of photographic representation. If today every owner of a smart phone can make a record of experience and image, in an earlier time a small cohort of photographers controlled and merchandised photography and its associated products, especially in America's small towns. Today's post examines the local history of photography in early Grinnell, concentrating upon the most successful and long-lived of those enterprises, the Child Studio and Art Rooms.

Art Glass Window From Child Art Studio, 909 Broad Street
(Rescued when the building was razed in 1974)

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When the small settlement of Grinnell was founded in the 1850s, commercial photographers were unusual in Iowa, only recently established as a state in the union. But with the quickening expansion of photography, especially on the heels of the Civil War, numbers rose across the Iowa prairie. According to one recent study, Iowa could claim 185 photographers in 1865, 223 in 1880, and more than 580 by 1900 (Mary Bennett, An Iowa Album: A photographic history, 1860-1920 [Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990], 312).

Advertisement in Grinnell Herald, October 18, 1871

Grinnell gained its first photographer when Charles L. Walker (1835-1900) came to town. Born and raised in rural New Hampshire, Walker abandoned his home turf for New York and later Connecticut where he took up photography, doing some of his work during the Civil War. After a brief spell in Wisconsin, Walker arrived in Grinnell no later than August 1870 when he appeared in that year's census, describing himself as a "Photo Artist."  Very soon Walker opened on Broad Street what seems to have been the town's first photography studio and "art gallery" (GH 2/1/1871).

1890s photo of Hatch Building, SW corner of Main and 4th Ave.
(https://digital.grinnell.edu/islandora/object/grinnell%3A11255)

If Walker was Grinnell's first photographer, he soon had company and commercial competition. No later that 1887 W. F. Stallings (1854-1940) had set up shop in the Hatch Building at 4th and Main. By 1895 Stallings had disappeared, relocating to Des Moines, but J. W. Kester (1868-1953) established his photography studio at Park and 3rd, opposite Chapin House. At about the same time J. M. Stonestreet (1862-1942) was running his photography business from 802 4th Avenue, announcing himself as the successor to Stallings. 

Advertisement taken from an undated (1890s?) Stonestreet Photograph
(https://www.etsy.com/listing/959110732/victorian-albumen-portrait-photograph)

Evidently Grinnell business was not sufficient to keep Stonestreet in Grinnell, so that sometime before 1900 he transferred his business to Marshalltown (Marshalltown Evening Times-Republican, March 20, 1900). For a time W. B. Brooks took over the Stonestreet Studio but the 1905 city directory has John Kester working from this address, so Brooks must have moved on.

1895 Photograph of J. M. Stonestreet (1862-1942)
(Bennett, An Iowa Album, p. 313)

All these photographers played a part in memorializing the people and places of early Grinnell. But none was so influential or long-lasting as Arthur Child and his studio on Broad Street.

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Arthur Child began his apprenticeship in photography by fulfilling minor errands for Walker, but by the time he acquired his uncle's business (probably sometime in early 1880 as Child advertisements begin to appear in the Grinnell Herald then; L. F. Parker contends that Child bought the business in 1881 [History of Poweshiek County Iowa, 2 vols. [Chicago, 1911], 2:696) he had developed an expansive appreciation for the enterprise. Not long after having taken over Walker's studio, Child made plans to erect a new building to replace Walker's premises. Constructed of brick with a stone front, the new block—on which Child's name was carved near the peak—rose three stories and measured twenty-two feet wide and seventy feet deep. Complimenting Child on his plans, the Herald anticipated "the finest gallery in the county" (8/1/1884).

Detail of 1974 William Oelke Photograph of 909 Broad, Taken Just Before the Child Building Was Razed
(https://digital.grinnell.edu/islandora/object/grinnell%3A11242)

From the start Child, like his uncle before him, viewed his enterprise as more than a photography studio, as the words "Art Rooms" decorating the building's second-story face implied. Initially occupying the second and third floors, Child established a richly-appointed gallery on the 2nd floor. The room facing the street was "finished in hard wood—cherry, red oak, and ash, with an open fireplace, cherry mantel, and a mantel top mirror." Changing rooms stood adjacent, just west, separated by colored and ground glass. Behind them lay a skylight room, sixteen by thirty-two, "nicely fitted up"; it was here that Child did most of his studio photography (GH 11/11/1884). Later newspaper reports indicated that Child periodically acquired thematic scenes against which to position the subjects of his camera.

Darkrooms featured "a complete system of water works, and everything is conveniently arranged," the newspaper hummed. Child devoted the third floor—later to be converted to apartments—to printing (ibid.). Reports describe the gallery as "cheery," not least because Child kept the fire burning constantly in the fireplace. A selection of Child's photographs decorated the walls, showing off "the skill of the artist" (GH 12/19/1884). As soon as Grinnell embarked upon a system of city water and sewer, Child added "an elaborate marble lavatory in the ladies' dressing room," giving the business a "decidedly metropolitan" flavor (GH 10/23/94). Probably the most noticed addition to the building came from the photographer's father who in December 1898 anticipated Christmas by giving his son a "beveled plate-glass front door for his new art rooms with his trade mark autograph ground on the glass" (GH 12/13/98; see illustration at head of this post).

The impressively outfitted studio attracted attention well beyond Broad Street, Grinnell. An 1899 issue of Wilson's Photography Magazine, for instance, offered detailed congratulations to the Grinnell photographer. 

The exhibition room is 22 x 35 feet, and has a large plate-glass window for outside display. The walls are hung with Egyptian burlap, surmounted by a deep cornice in Flemish oak, giving the room a sombre but rich appearance. The reception room, 25 x 16 feet, is separated from the foregoing by continuing the cornice across the ceiling, supported by four Ionic columns, pedestals at each side of the entrance displaying statues of the Winged Victory and Venus di Milo. The reception room walls are furnished with trophies of ancient armor...,The dressing rooms are draped with red and white stuffs...The operating room is 22 x 35 feet, giving a good range for all classes of work. The skylight is a single slant light of unusual size, glazed with ground glass. The walls are hung with striped olive and cream draperies, and the woodwork is of mahogany. The dark rooms, printing and finishing departments are conveniently arranged with full equipments for good work. The place is lighted by electric light, and all the departments are united by speaking tubes and bells (v. 36[1899]:46).

Child Art Rooms Before 1907 Fire
(Grinnell Herald, April 26, 1907)

Reading this description of Victorian overkill today gives rise to fears of fire, and fire did indeed break out on April 25th, 1907. According to next day's newspaper, the late-night fire turned the once elegant, richly-appointed studio into a "smoke-begrimed and water soaked ruin." Although some of the oldest photographic plates stored on the third floor survived, "cameras and all the fine stock of art goods were practically ruined, the plate glass windows cracked and the entire interior blackened and damaged so as to require rebuilding" (GH 4/26/1907). It is easy to believe, as reportage in the Marshalltown Evening Times-Republican claimed, that the highly flammable materials on the walls—burlap, photographic backgrounds, pictures—contributed to the rapid spread of the flames (4/26/1907).

In attempts to calm fears of long-time customers, Child reported that, although there were losses among his photographic negatives, he still had some 35,000 negatives that were spared by the fire and therefore he would be able to make prints for most of his clients (GH 5/28/1907). Even while rebuilding after the fire, Child worked ever more energetically at succeeding in business. As before, he enthusiastically urged sales of Kodak and Brownie cameras (GH 3/31/1916), extending to amateurs the possibility of producing their own photographs. To draw the public into his studio, Child occasionally invited guest artists for special exhibitions, as when he had John Newton Parks (1848-1925) exhibit portraits of a half-dozen Grinnell worthies (including J. B. Grinnell, Grinnell College presidents Magoun, Bradley, and Main, and Rev. T. O. Douglass) (GH 2/1/1918). Another window exhibit featured photographs of "Grinnell soldiers in many styles and sizes," a display that the newspaper judged "worth going some distance to see" (GH 10/4/1918). In a 1921 report Child told of having discovered among his archive of negatives a photograph of some thirty-two Grinnell pioneers which he displayed in the windows of the first floor where he now headquartered his business (GH 8/12/1921). A couple of years later the Grinnell Herald told of Child's recovery of negatives depicting the consequences of the 1882 cyclone (9/7/1923). In short, the Child Studio had become the photographic archive of early Grinnell.

Advertisement in Grinnell Herald, December 21, 1897

Despite the lettering upon the face of his building and the array of art supplies, picture frames, cameras and other goods (including, bizarrely, "golf goods" [GH 4/16/1915]), in the years before 1900 advertisements for the business routinely described it as "The Child Studio." At about the same time, Child began advertising in the college newspaper (S&B 10/16/1897). More than that, he seems to have cornered the market on all photographs placed in the college yearbook, the beginning of that collection of negatives that came to encompass almost everyone who attended the college before 1935. A notice in the April 21, 1900 issue of the Scarlet and Black asked all seniors to "call at once at the Child Studio for sittings in order that orders for albums may be filled." Brief notes in the campus newspaper in 1905 asked members of the Chrestomathian Society (2/18) and the basketball team (3/1) to convene at Child's studio for photographs. Similar notes appeared periodically later, but only in 1922 did the campus newspaper announce that "a contract has been made with the Child studios for all the pictures for the Cyclone," asking that the entire Junior class appear at the studio (in alphabetic order as organized by the Cyclone editors [10/11/1922]). Schedules arranging sittings for all campus groups also appeared in the Scarlet and Black.

Notice in Scarlet and Black, December 9, 1922

No later than 1890 Child also managed to acquire at least some of the photographic business at Grinnell High School. A notice from June 3rd of that year told newspaper readers that Child had taken the picture of the high school graduates (GH 6/3/1890). Over and above all this, of course, Child Studio hosted photography sittings for the distinguished men and women of town.

1880s (?) Photograph of Early Grinnell Settlers
Front row: Ed Wright; Caerlis Fisher, R. M. Kellogg, Levi Grinnell; Back row: Henderson Herrick, W. M. Sargent, and Ezra Grinnell
(https://digital.grinnell.edu/islandora/object/grinnell%3A12830)

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Despite all this success, Child's operation of studio and art rooms did not proceed without interruption. As newspaper reports indicate, Child's health occasionally compromised the attention he could devote to the business. Soon after having purchased his uncle's enterprise, Child fell so ill that he felt obliged to spend time in Colorado, from which he returned in September 1883, "much improved in health" (Signal 9/22/1883). About eighteen months later another newspaper article announced that Child "was able to come out Saturday for the first time in several weeks." Without identifying the illness, the report told readers that the "swelling just beneath his jaw has not yet entirely disappeared, but we are glad to note his improved condition" (GH 3/17/1885). The following winter brought more health concerns; this time the newspaper identified the illness as erysipelas, a skin infection that often affects the lower extremities and face. According to the newspaper, Child had "a serious time of it with this disease" (GH 2/16/1886). Apparently things got so bad that Child withdrew from the business for a year or more, calling his uncle back to duty before resuming work himself (GH 1/24/1890).

The health crises may explain why in spring 1891 Child announced that he had "associated himself" with Mr. E. S. Gardner, who took over most of the photographic work (with the assistance of John Kester) while Child would have "more time to devote to copying, pastel work and crayon drawing for which he is justly famous" (GH 4/17/1891). I could find no record of how long this arrangement lasted, but apparently Child soon reassumed full control.

Undated Photograph of Ella Worsham Child (1859-1928)
(https://digital.grinnell.edu/islandora/object/grinnell%3A13080)

As his business prospered, Child also succeeded in his private life. In 1885 he married Ella Worsham (1859-1928) who, having studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, was then working in Child's studio as a retoucher. To this union were born two children: Maude (1887-1974) and Arthur L., Jr. (1899-1979). For this growing family in 1890 Child built a lovely new home. Described as a Victorian cottage, the Child home at 1226 Broad Street earned much local praise, but also gained unsolicited compliments from a visitor who wrote for the Chicago Herald. During a brief Grinnell sojourn in 1891 Samuel T. Clover (1859-1934), who later gained fame as a graphic artist, described the Child Broad Street home as "the most beautiful cottage in Grinnell" (GH 7/10/1891), praise that resonated with the photographer's local reputation.

Undated photo of 1226 Broad Street, Grinnell
(https://grinnell.lib.ia.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/HistoricDistrictDigitalPhotos2013.pdf)

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As Child approached his eightieth birthday, he decided to give up the business that he had kept alive in Grinnell for almost sixty years. In late spring 1935, local newspapers reported that Child had sold the photography business to O. E. Niffenegger (1905-1992), who for some years had taught business courses at Grinnell High School (1934 Grinnellian, p. 7). 

O. E. Niffeneger
(1934 Grinnellian, p. 7)

Child maintained ownership of the building, but Niffenegger took over the studio, retaining the name and taking possession of the entire stock of photographic negatives, said to number over 100,000 (GH May 28, 1935). Newspaper commentary alleged that Child had "taken pictures of virtually every resident of Grinnell" and "practically every student who graduated from Grinnell College." Since all these negatives would remain at the studio, anyone who wished to have a print of a portrait taken by Arthur Child could do so at the business on Broad Street, despite Child's retirement (ibid.; Drake Community Library Local History Archive [Collection #145] preserves more than 300 of Child's glass negatives ).

Grinnell Herald, May 28, 1935

Unfortunately, Niffenegger was not able to make a smooth transition from schoolyard to photography studio. Ten weeks after he gained possession of Child's business Niffenegger became the object of a restraining order filed by his wife, Virginia, a Grinnell school teacher who charged her husband with cruelty and threats (Cedar Rapids Gazette, August 14, 1935). The following January, the couple divorced, Niffenegger having chosen not to contest the action (Iowa Divorce Records 1906-1937). Six months later Niffenegger remarried, taking as his bride Helen West (1908-1997), a school teacher in Perry, Iowa (Cedar Rapids Gazette, June 7, 1936).

Scarlet and Black, May 8, 1937

The twelve months that followed purchase of the Child business, filled as they were with marital conflict, cannot have helped Niffenegger gain control of his new enterprise, which may explain why in May 1937 he sold the business he had acquired less than two years earlier. As newspapers reported, Roger Lee Preston (1898-1961), a 1918 graduate of Grinnell High School and a 1922 graduate of Grinnell College, acquired title to Child Art Rooms. Unlike Niffenegger, Preston almost immediately changed the name of the business to "Roger Preston Studio (Formerly Child Art Rooms)" (Scarlet and Black, November 3, 1937), although he seems to have conducted the studio very much like his esteemed predecessor. An older brother, James Randall Preston, who himself had briefly operated a photo studio in Grinnell in the early 1920s but by 1937 was headquartered in Hollywood, assisted in organizing the new enterprise (Grinnell Herald-Register, May 6, 1937). By the time that 1950 census officials came to Grinnell, however, Preston had abandoned the studio, having taken a position instead in the "plastics dept" of a washing machine company. Roger Preston died in Grinnell in 1961 at age 62, and is buried in Hazelwood Cemetery.

Undated Photograph of Roger Lee Preston (1898-1961)
(https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/69429807/roger-lee-preston)

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Before departing Grinnell for California in late 1935, Arthur Child was the center of an appreciative reception hosted by the new owner of Child Studio and Art Rooms. 

Newspaper photograph of A. L. Child
(GH 10/15/1935)

Using the premises where for so many years Child had practiced his art and operated his business, Ora Niffenegger invited friends to share memories and to bestow upon the 80-year-old gentleman their best wishes. One of his business neighbors, George H. Hamlin (1855-1945), offered the valedictory, lauding Child's history in Grinnell and describing his long-time friend as "An artist by profession...[and] a gentleman by nature." Hamlin then unveiled for the audience an enlargement of a favorite photograph of the photographer, intended to "hang in the Child Art Rooms" long after the subject left Grinnell (GH 10/8/1935).

Gravestone for Arthur Child Family, Hazelwood Cemetery
(https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/27574281/arthur-leon-child)

Arthur Child did not long outlive this celebratory moment. In his winter residence in California Arthur Leon Child died in early January 1938. The Grinnell newspaper mourned the departure of "one of Grinnell's old guard" who "for a great many years...interpreted the life of Grinnell through the lens of his camera" (Grinnell Herald-Register 1/13/38). A memorial service in North Hollywood brought together "children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, cousins and many old Grinnell friends." As the newspaper remarked, "It was extraordinary that such a reunion was possible in California of a family whose roots had been so deeply sunk in Grinnell" (Grinnell Herald-Register 3/14/1938). Child's body was returned to Grinnell in March for burial in Hazelwood where a remarkable, multi-colored stone now marks the grave of Grinnell's longest-serving photographer whose photographs—beginning with glass plates and then in every new stage of photography—documented the people and places of early Grinnell.

When Grinnell College Pursued Affirmative Action....

The recent Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action has understandably generated much comment.  An official statement from Grinnell College took issue with the decision, and pledged to continue to value "diversity, equity and inclusion" as the college moves forward.

Source: Unofficial Tally by the Author, using Yearbooks, Herd Books, and Other Records

What may surprise commentators is how far back in the college's history affirmative action goes. No later than immediately after World War I Grinnell College sought funding from the Rosenwald Foundation to enroll and finance Black students, a project that ran out of steam (and money) by 1925. Afterwards only a few Black students enrolled at the College. Then again in 1964, thanks to funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, Grinnell College, along with a handful of other liberal arts institutions, received $275,000 each to help recruit and finance minority students. This initiative, renewed in 1967, led to the first significant increase in Black enrollment at Grinnell College. Today's post examines how this second attempt at affirmative action changed the face of Grinnell College's student population and contributed to a generation of influential Black leaders.

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In 1964 the Rockefeller Foundation selected seven liberal arts colleges "to discover talented Negro and other minority group students," providing $275,000 each "to improve the quality of [minority students'] undergraduate education." Grinnell was one of the colleges to receive this funding on a three-year trial. "Enduring gains in equality of opportunity for American Negroes and other minority groups in our society depend on improved education at all grade levels and in all parts of the country," the grant announcement said (Rockefeller Archive Center, RF RG.1.7 Series 200, Box 789). A specific ambition was the "improvement of education for those Negroes and other minority group members who are more likely to be...outstanding leaders among their own groups and in the nation. For this purpose special efforts are required to provide enlarged opportunities and increased encouragement for Negro and other students of high potential to benefit from the best that our system of higher education has to offer" (ibid.).

The Foundation announcement observed that the grantee institutions (Antioch, Carleton, Grinnell, Oberlin, Occidental, Reed, and Swarthmore) 

have been admitting and assisting Negro students over varying periods of time. All have undertaken in recent years more active programs to identify and enroll talented minority group students. All are allocating increased funds from their own budgets to intensify efforts and to provide the extra level of financial assistance which Negro and other minority group students require to a greater extent than the other students in these colleges. Each of the colleges has approached the Foundation for assistance to enable it to enlarge and intensify its efforts to visit Negro high schools in its area, identify talented students and provide such assistance as is required to assure their full and successful participation in the college. Special emphasis in the program would be devoted to Negroes, but other needy minority group students would not be excluded....The aim of the program at each college would be to increase the flow of Negro and other minority group students through these colleges at outstanding levels of performance and to develop the procedures necessary to attain this objective (ibid.).

The bulk of each Rockefeller Foundation grant ($240,000) went toward student financial assistance at an average level of $2000 a year throughout the four undergraduate years for a total of 30 students recruited during the three years of the trial program. The grants awarded another $35,000 toward increased "efforts to locate and recruit qualified Negro and other minority group students" along with whatever additional programming and counseling might be necessary to guarantee success of the recruited students (ibid.).

A 1967 renewal sent another $275,000 to each of the seven liberal arts colleges. The renewal depended upon the Foundation's finding that the select colleges "have widened their contacts with high schools enrolling many minority-group students," resulting in a "significant" increase in applications from and rising enrollment of "Negro and other minority students. At Grinnell this enrollment has increased since 1964 from seven to fifty-three" (ibid.). The Foundation reported that, despite numerous economic and social disadvantages, the minority recruits, "with very few exceptions,...are succeeding in college, some with excellent records," beginning what officials hoped would be a "growing and permanent flow of minority-group graduates from these colleges" (ibid.).

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Edward Tocus (1950 Grinnell College Cyclone)

Even before Grinnell accepted the Rockefeller Foundation grant and while the numbers of Black students at Grinnell were trifling, the college enrolled Blacks whose careers made them into models of excellence that the Foundation grant hoped to multiply. Edward C. Tocus '50 (1925- ), for example, began college at Iowa State in 1942, but two years later enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force. After the war, he transferred to Grinnell and later obtained graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and fashioned a distinguished career with the Food and Drug Administration. Andrew Billingsley '51 (1926- ), who transferred into Grinnell from the Hampton Institute, became a prolific and respected sociologist who later served as provost of Howard University and then president of Morgan State College. Robert F. Austin '54 was one of the country's leading experts in pediatric hematology. Donald M. Stewart '59 took degrees in political science and public administration at Yale and Harvard before serving as President of Spelman College for ten years, later heading the College Board for twelve years. Herbie Hancock graduated from Grinnell in 1960 and embarked upon an outstanding career in music performance and composition. Henry "Hank" G. L. McCullough '61 was among the first Blacks to work in nuclear science and engineering for NASA, later serving as nuclear energy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George W. Bush. James H. Lowry '61 took a Master's in Public International Affairs and became the first African American recruit for McKinsey Consulting, later founding his own consulting firm.

Randall Morgan, Jr. '65
(https://www.thecobbinstitute.org/randall-c-morgan-jr-m-d-m-b-a)

Randall Morgan, Jr. '65 MD, MBA, is President and CEO of W. Montague Cobb/NMA Health Institute in DC. An orthopedic surgeon for decades in Evanston, Illinois and Gary, Indiana, Morgan is President and Founder of University Park Orthopedics in Sarasota, Florida.  George Moose '66 pursued a career in diplomacy within the U.S. Department of State, serving as U.S. Ambassador to Benin and Senegal, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the European Office of the United Nations in Geneva, and Alternate Representative to the UN Security Council before being named Career Ambassador in 2002. 

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Numerous other Grinnell Black alums from the period before the Rockefeller grant fashioned sterling careers, often as the first Blacks in their professions. After receipt of the Rockefeller Foundation grant, Grinnell College not only enrolled more Blacks, but also continued to graduate Blacks who crafted careers that made them "outstanding in their own groups and in the nation," just as the Rockefeller grant had hoped.

Undated Photo of Judge Henry T. Wingate '69
(https://www.grinnell.edu/user/wingate)

Sandra Bates '68, for instance, was part of the first class financed by Rockefeller Foundation money. After Grinnell she studied medicine, and became the first Black woman to practice radiology in the state of Tennessee. In that same class, Celeste Durant '68 took a journalism degree at Columbia University, and later became Director of Communications and Media Relations at Loyola University, Los Angeles. Adrienne Lemmons '68 took an MBA from Boston University and held numerous leadership positions in business before deciding to pursue a vocation in the Episcopal Church. Henry T. Wingate '69 enrolled in Yale Law School after Grinnell, then practiced law in Mississippi and in the U.S. Navy, later serving as Assistant District Attorney for the Seventh District Circuit Court of Mississippi and as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi. In 1985 he was appointed to the bench of the Southern District Court of Mississippi, a position he continues to hold. Hubert Farbes '69 also enrolled at Yale Law School and embarked upon a career in environmental law. He is now a partner in the Denver firm of Garnett Powell Maximom Barlow.

Gregory M. Coggs '70 won a Watson Fellowship after Grinnell, then entered the University of Michigan School of Law, but later changed course, enrolling in Midwestern Theological Seminary. Deborah  Green '70 left Grinnell for the University of Colorado Medical School, the beginning of a long and distinguished career in medicine. Frances Gray '71 had an outstanding career as a pediatrician in Indianapolis, and also had a position on the faculty of the Indiana University School of Medicine. Beverly Oliver '71 who found Grinnell from Pennsylvania went on to become Regional Manager of the Department of Human Services' Bureau of Equal Opportunity for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Undated Photo of Congressman Alan Wheat (U.S. Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Wheat)

Alan Wheat '72 was elected to the Missouri General Assembly in 1975 and remained there until 1982 when he was elected to the U.S. Congress from Missouri. After twelve years in the House, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, but went on to hold leadership positions in CARE and in the 1996 reelection campaign of President Clinton. In 2021 he helped found Wheat Shroyer Government Relations, a public-service oriented lobbying firm in DC. Allen Hammond '72 was the first African American tenured at New York Law School, and went on to become professor of law at Santa Clara University School of Law. Yvor Stoakley '72 took his JD from Northwestern University School of Law and has long practiced law in Illinois.

Undated Photo of Dr. Irma McClaurin 
(https://irmamcclaurin.com/about/)

Irma McClaurin '73  took graduate degrees in anthropology, a subject she taught and in which she published; she also served as President of Shaw University and as Chief Diversity Officer for Teach for America. She later founded the Black Femininist Archive and the firm she continues to head, Irma McClaurin Solutions. Jon R. Gray '73 is a partner at Shook Hardy and Bacon in Kansas City, but previously served sixteen years as circuit judge in the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit of Missouri. G. Barry Huff '73 was president of Glory Foods, Inc. and held many other executive positions in business. Russ McGregor '73 was the first African American to head Student Government at Grinnell, after which he held senior management positions in several telecommunications firms before founding his own company in 1992.

Undated Photograph of Patricia Swansey '74
(https://mlac.org/staff/)

Patricia Swansey '74 took a master's degree in nonprofit management from Brandeis University, later holding positions in Massachusetts state government, most recently heading the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation. Dennis Moss '74 became involved in local government, becoming Miami-Dade County Commissioner. Celestine Bloomfield '74, now retired, received an M.S. in library science from Case Western Reserve University, then held positions in libraries in Cleveland and Indiana, later becoming a consultant to the Indiana Department of Public Instruction and an instructor at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis.

Constance Tuck '75 earned a law degree from Cleveland State University, then held several positions with the state of Minnesota, including Chief Equity and Development officer before her 2016 retirement.  J. C. Woods '75 is an author and Episcopal priest. Careda Rolland Taylor '76, who received an MA in inner city studies at Northeastern Illinois University, is director of social studies and fine arts at Niles West High School in Skokie. Richard Stokes '76 took a masters in guidance and personnel services from the University of Memphis, then held human resources positions at the University of Tennessee, the Memphis Public Library, and the city of Spring Hill, Tennessee. After a successful career as an executive for BP, Vanessa A. Harris PE '76 became Board Chairman as well as President of Strategy for Access Foundation.

Undated Photo of Vanessa A. Harris '76
(https://fun4thedisabled.com/about/)

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It would be easy to enlarge this list, which I compiled on the basis of a very unsystematic series of Google searches. But what this random selection of alumni careers demonstrates powerfully is that the Black men and women who came to Grinnell through the doors opened and financed by the Rockefeller Foundation initiative—clearly "affirmative action" before this term entered general discourse—have made a difference in their communities and in our world. All of us—white, Black, and brown—are the beneficiaries of the talent and labor that these Black Grinnell graduates brought to the world. Of course, had there been no Rockefeller Foundation initiative, talented Black men and women would have continued to enroll and graduate from Grinnell and from the other institutions involved in the Rockefeller Foundation grant. But the intentional commitment to recruit and finance Black students in the 1960s and 1970s greatly enlarged the number of such graduates and correspondingly expanded their impact in society, benefitting us all.

Black and White: 1940s Grinnell

1940s Grinnell was about as white as it had ever been. Several African American families still had homes in town, but as children left Grinnell and older family members passed away, the population of Blacks shrank. Altogether only about a dozen African Americans resided in 1940s Grinnell whose total population the 1940 US Census put at 5219.

Similarly, Grinnell College was almost entirely white in these years: the college did not appoint its first Black to the faculty until 1964, and when Edith Renfrow graduated in 1937, she was the lone Black in the student body. As a result, in the 1940s Black men and women were rare on the  campus where the Depression and World War II had driven student enrollment down to 321 by 1943.

Nate Towles Orchestra and Its Sleeper Bus (September 1940)
(https://events.timely.fun/zgbi8ufc/event/68170404)

And yet into this very white small-town world came a series of Black musicians, artists, and performers. Newspapers reported that Grinnell's white audiences enthusiastically received these Black men and women, frequently demanding encores and additional contact with the visitors. Today's post examines the intersection of Black and white in 1940s Grinnell with an eye to understanding what racial difference meant to a very white community some eighty years ago.

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1940s Grinnell welcomed numerous musicians and special speakers, mostly at the invitation of the college which each year arranged a concert series that included a half-dozen performers. The overwhelming majority of these visiting artists and speakers were white, just like Grinnell itself. But almost every year at least one Black artist appeared to perform either at the college's Herrick Chapel or in the auditorium of the High School downtown. 

The most frequent Black musician to visit Grinnell in these years was Nat Towles who brought his orchestra to the college where it provided the music for several college dances. 

Scarlet and Black March 4, 1939

Although born in New Orleans, Nat Towles (1905-1963) spent much of his adult life in the Midwest where, beginning in the 1930s, he headquartered his dance orchestra. From its base in Omaha, the Nat Towles fifteen-piece orchestra played at dances all over the north central states. According to the college newspaper, Grinnell students danced to the music of "Lots of Poppa" Towles at least four times between 1939 and 1949. In March 1939 the class of 1940 had Towles play for the junior prom (Scarlet and Black, 3/8/1939). Six weeks later, college women in James, Haines, and Read hosted the Black orchestra for a "southern colonial" dance in Quad dining hall (ibid., 4/22/39). Just after the war ended, the college Gadabouts hired the orchestra for its dance (ibid., 11/8/1946), and had the "all-Negro" orchestra return three years later for a dance in the women's gym (ibid., 1/21/1949). 

Undated Photo of Nat Towles
(Scarlet and Black January 21, 1949)

One might imagine that the arrival of sixteen Black musicians in 1940s Grinnell would have caused a stir, bringing into Grinnell more Blacks than resided in town at that time. But because the band played only for college events, townsfolk seem to have taken little notice. I found only one reference in the Grinnell Herald-Register to the orchestra's appearance in Grinnell, the newspaper omitting mention of the orchestra's all-Black membership (GHR 3/13/1939); subsequent visits earned no notice in the Herald-Register, since, after all, the dances were strictly college events. The college newspaper, of course, paid attention to all the band's visits, regularly pointing out the racial identity of the musicians. A brief S&B story that preceded the orchestra's 1939 visit called the group a "negro band" and a 1946 story welcomed "the all-Negro band" (Scarlet and Black 3/8/1939; ibid., 11/8/1946). 

Despite the low visibility of the band in town, townsfolk may well have learned about the visitors. For one thing, chaperones for college dances always included, along with the president and his wife, several deans and a half-dozen faculty and spouses. Indeed, for its 1949 dance the Gadabouts invited "the entire faculty," so that townsfolk who lived in homes near college faculty will have heard about the visit of the all-Black orchestra. Nevertheless, since Towles had his group travel in a specially-designed sleeper bus, the musicians did not have to seek rooms in local hotels as most other college visitors had to do. Therefore, except perhaps for having seen the unusual vehicle enter or leave town or having heard from college administrators or faculty about the orchestra, Grinnell residents had no reason to know that sixteen Blacks had been to town.

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The 1947 Harlem Globetrotters
(https://www.nasljerseys.com/EBA/Rosters/Globetrotters_EBA_Rosters.htm)

In March 1941 another group of Black men came to town. Thanks to an invitation from Grinnell's Jaycees, the Harlem Globetrotters, an all-Black basketball team, arrived to play against a group of Grinnell "All Stars." Founded in Chicago in 1926 and renamed several times afterward, the Globetrotters toured the country—and later, the world—to compete and entertain, usually playing against all-white opponents. On the first of March 1941 the five or so Black men ("colored flashes," said the Herald-Register [2/27/1941]) and their white owner/coach, Abe Saperstein, took on a group of white Grinnell basketball stars at the college gym before some 350 sports fans. The Grinnell Herald-Register told readers that the "clowning Negroes had little trouble in winning the game," their comedy routine keeping "onlookers in an uproar a good share of the time." The Globetrotters ("colored boys," said the Scarlet and Black [3/1/1941]) especially impressed the audience with their ball handling and passing when, toward the game's end, all ten Grinnell players came onto the court trying—in vain—to outplay their five Globetrotter opponents (3/3/1941).

The appearance of the Globetrotters in Grinnell seems not to have occasioned much mention. But one wonders: where did the men eat and spend the night before heading on to their next engagement? Did a Grinnell restaurant and a Grinnell hotel offer accommodations, despite the rarity of Black guests—not to mention five or six Black guests at once? On the heels of the 1929 Stock Market Crash, Saperstein had purchased a used Model T into which he crammed the five men of the "travelling team" (Ben Green, Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters [NY: Amistad, 2005], 51). So long as the Globetrotters were performing in the Midwest, the Model T was sufficient, although, of course, it provided no beds. Consequently, in each town where the Globetrotters played, Saperstein had to find a place that would accept Black guests. Racial bias emerged often as the Globetrotters criss-crossed the country, but if Grinnell's hotels and restaurants resisted the Globetrotters, the newspapers said nothing about it. 

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1936 Photo of Dorothy Maynor
(https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/maynor-dorothy-leigh-1910-1996/)

The following year Grinnell welcomed to the concert stage Dorothy Maynor (1910-1996), contralto soloist. Born into a churchman's family in Norfolk, Virginia, Maynor gained most of her early music training in church. She later enrolled at Hampton where she majored in Home Economics but sang in the choir. Graduating in 1933, Maynor won a scholarship to Westminster Choir School where she studied conducting and received a degree in 1935. After a brief stint teaching at Hampton, Maynor moved to New York where she studied voice. After performing to much acclaim with the Boston Symphony, Maynor made her Town Hall recital debut in New York in November 1939. Reviews were very complimentary, encouraging Maynor to book concert tours here and abroad. When she first sang at Grinnell, therefore, her career and fame were still young (Patricia Turner, Dictionary of Afro-American Performers [NY: Garland Publishing, 1990], 262-63; Randye Jones, "Dorothy Maynor").

The Herald-Register made no secret of Maynor's racial identity, headlining its story "Famous Negro Contralto to Sing Here" (10/12/1942). The Grinnell newspaper's review, published two weeks later (10/26/1942), was admiring and congratulatory, indicating at one point that Maynor's voice was "able to perform miracles." There was also praise for Maynor's rendition of art songs of Schubert and Debussy, all of which greatly pleased the audience which demanded several encores (GHR 10/26/1942).

But the Grinnell reviewer, like others who heard Maynor in Boston and New York, could not resist stereotyping the soloist.

The great contribution which Miss Maynor, as a Negro singer, can give and is giving is in the interpretation of the Negro spirituals, a type of folk music native to her race...The spirituals, assembled during the days of Negro bondage, constitute a body of music of unique charm which can be sung effectively only by Negroes (GHR 10/26/1942).

Black commentators took exception to racial stereotyping like this. For example, Elmer Carter (1889-1973), writing in Opportunity, a publication of the National Urban League, joined in the praise of Miss Maynor's explosive success, likening her to the better-known Marian Anderson (1897-1993). But Carter rejected reviewers' racialization, observing that 

the art of neither Miss Anderson nor Miss Maynor is particularly Negroid. They  have proved that there are no racial limitations to musical interpretation...they have attained not only technical mastery of, but understanding and feeling for, the music of the Italian and the German, the French, the Spanish—no less than the music of their own race and country ("Dorothy Maynor," Opportunity 28, no. 2 [February 1940]:34).

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Undated Photo of Anne Wiggins Brown
(https://www.operabaltimore.org/annebrown)

The entire town seems to have taken notice when Anne Wiggins Brown (1912-2009), "better known as Bess of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess," visited Grinnell. Born in Baltimore to parents whose ancestry was African, Cherokee, and Scots-Irish, the future soloist attended Morgan State and Columbia University's Teachers' College, all with the aim of becoming a teacher. Brown also continued to study voice, earning certificates in 1932 and 1934 from what became the Juilliard School (Darryl Glenn Nettles, African American Concert Singers Before 1950 [Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.,], 30-31). Then she met George Gershwin (1898-1937) who, after having heard her sing the spiritual, "City Called Heaven," rewrote and renamed his opera to feature Bess, the role that Brown would famously play. Porgy and Bess, which premiered in 1935, catapulted Brown to instant fame. 

Consequently, Brown's visit to Grinnell generated much excitement. The campus newspaper announced that Brown would open the 1943-44 college concert series, hard on the heels of having played herself in the new film based upon Gershwin's life, Rhapsody in Blue (S&B 10/1/1943; 10/15/1943)). The Herald-Register reported that the "sensational original star of George Gershwin's negro opera Porgy and Bess" was coming to town (GHR 10/21/1943). Post-concert reviews were even more expansive. The Herald-Register did not employ the racial stereotype with which it had described Dorothy Maynor; instead the newspaper called Brown a "lieder singer of fine attainments," possessing "a well-trained soprano voice of concert calibre." Lauding the soloist's ability to vitalize the songs she sang, the Grinnell reviewer barely mentioned "two superbly rendered spirituals," concentrating instead upon the European art songs of the program. Emphasizing the appreciation of the many soldiers in the audience, the newspaper judged that Brown had brought down the house (ibid., 10/25/1943).

Brown returned to Grinnell the following autumn, as college president Samuel Stevens told the Scarlet and Black, which described the soloist as a "negro lyric soprano" (9/29/1944). Likewise, the town's newspaper in 1944 welcomed the return of the "famous Negro soprano who scored an immediate success when she appeared in recital here last year." The Herald-Register told readers that Brown had "displayed a beautiful voice combined with a gift for dramatic interpretation which made her concert one of the most popular of the series" (11/16/1944). A few days later the Herald-Register lavished compliments upon the "talented Negro artist" who endowed songs with such drama as to draw the audience into their spirit. The large and "rapturous" audience "loved it all and was insistent with its evidences of appreciation" (ibid., 11/20/1944).

The relatively light attention paid to Brown's race, especially at her first visit in 1943, might have depended in part upon her appearance. Because of her mixed ancestry, Brown was not always identified as Black and sometimes "passed" as white. "I've lived a strange kind of life," she told Barry Singer many years later: 

half black, half white, half isolated, half in the spotlight. Many things that I wanted as a young person for my career were denied to me because of my color. On the other hand, many black folks have said, 'Well, she's not really black.'..Onstage, though, if they couldn't take me as I was—the hell with them" (Barry Singer, "On Hearing Her Sing, Gershwin made 'Porgy' 'Porgy and Bess," New York Times 3/29/1998). 

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In between Brown's two Grinnell concerts Langston Hughes (1902-67) came to town. Of all the Black artists who appeared in 1940s Grinnell, Hughes was probably the best known. Born to well-educated parents in Joplin, Missouri, Hughes grew up mostly in the company of his mother, as his parents had separated when the future poet was just a boy. His single-parent mother, therefore, found it necessary to move often throughout the Midwest, with stops in Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas; Lincoln, Illinois; and Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating from a Cleveland high school, Hughes moved to Mexico City to live briefly with his father. Soon he was back in the US to study at Columbia University, but withdrew to begin extensive travels abroad, visiting numerous ports in Africa and spending time in Paris. When the money ran out, he returned to the United States and to his mother, who by then was living in the District of Columbia. In 1925 Hughes won a poetry contest in Opportunity magazine and obtained his first book contract that resulted in The Weary Blues (1926). A second volume of poetry, Fine Clothes to the Jew, appeared in 1927. Meantime, Hughes enrolled at Lincoln University from which he graduated in 1929 (Notable Black Men, ed. Jessie Carney Smith [Detroit: Gale, 1999], 580-84).

1942 Photo of Langston Hughes (Jack Delano, 1942; Library of Congress)
(https://www.britannica.com/biography/Langston-Hughes)

Invited to Grinnell College in 1944 by the "social budget committee," Hughes brought to town a legacy of poetry, essays, plays, and autobiography. As the Scarlet and Black observed in announcing the visit, Hughes had been "largely concerned with depicting Negro life in America," and much of that work has appeared in "Negro publications" (4/21/1944). A second article that advertised his visit pointed out that the college library, to mark their guest's appearance, was featuring an exhibit of Hughes's publications, including The Ways of White Folks (1934), The Big Sea (1940), Shakespeare in Harlem (1942), Not without Laughter (1930), "Freedom's Plow" (1943), and Popo and Fifina (1932), which he had written with Arna Bontemps (1902-73) (4/28/1944). Whether the student journalist was familiar with these works may be doubted as the newspaper mangled several of the titles. All the same, it is clear that Hughes's visit was a big moment on campus.

The town's newspaper also touted the arrival of Hughes, although the text seems to have depended rather heavily upon the original announcement in the Scarlet and Black (4/24/1944). Calling Hughes a "Noted Negro poet," the Herald-Register recognized the great variety of Hughes's works, and told readers that Hughes would "give readings from his poetry Sunday evening" in Herrick Chapel. In fact, however, Hughes used the chapel platform to deliver what the Scarlet and Black called an "informal autobiographical talk" which "bore obvious traces of social propaganda." Although Hughes concluded the talk by reading several unpublished poems, his presentation seems to have emphasized the "economic suppression of his race" in the United States and elsewhere in the world (including Africa). The student journalist complained that Hughes "made no tangible suggestions for alleviating the situation," reinforcing the journalist's suspicion that he was a "propaganda poet" (5/5/1944).

Postcard that Langston Hughes Wrote in Grinnell, April 30, 1944
(Courtesy of Grinnell College Library Special Collections and Archives)

How Grinnell's townsfolk responded to Hughes is hard to gauge; the Herald-Register did not review his talk, which may tell us all we need to know on that score. But unlike the other African American visitors of the 1940s, Hughes did leave slight traces of his visit. A postcard that Hughes sent from Grinnell on the same day as his college talk survives in the college archives; alas, the poet had no comment upon the college or town. Hughes also used his Grinnell visit to send a letter to his friend and occasional collaborator, Arna Bontemps. Like the postcard, the letter is dated April 29, 1944, and begins by reporting that Hughes had found a room in a Grinnell hotel (Arnold Rampersad identifies the hotel as the Monroe [The Life of Langston Hughes, 2 vols. (NY: Oxford University Press, 1986-88], 2:85) that had "refused to house Marian Anderson a year or so ago—but here it is housing me!" (Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters, 1925-1967, ed. Charles Howard Nichols [NY: Dodd Mead, 1980], 164). So far as I could learn, however, Anderson never visited Grinnell, let alone been shut out of a room here, so Hughes must have had in mind another African American—perhaps Dorothy Maynor or Anne Wiggins Brown, although so far I have found no evidence that either was refused a room in Grinnell.

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Undated Photograph of Roland Hayes
(https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/roland-hayes-1887-1977/)

Roland Hayes (1887-1977), a well-known tenor soloist, opened the 1945-46 Grinnell concert series. Born to freed slaves in Georgia, Hayes was living in Chattanooga, Tennessee when an Oberlin Conservatory student heard him sing, and encouraged him to pursue more musical training. Intending to enroll at Oberlin, Hayes ended up at Fisk where he studied several years without taking his degree. But he continued to sing, and his career received a boost after a 1917 concert that he himself arranged at Boston's Symphony Hall. Past thirty and not yet enjoying enough attention to live off his concerts, Hayes decided in 1920 to leave America. Studying and concertizing in Europe (where he performed before King George V and Queen Mary), Hayes developed a reputation that "disillusioned the curiosity-seekers and chastened the gossip-mongers." Alain Locke, quoting a critic about a concert in Vienna, told readers of the newly-founded journal Opportunity that Hayes had become a "sensation," "not as a Negro, but as a great artist." "Indefatigable work [during his European sojourn]...has made a seasoned artist of a gifted, natural-born singer" (1[1923]:356). Success in Europe gave new impetus to Hayes's career, energizing concert tours across the United States in the 1930s and 1940s (Turner, Dictionary, 198-208; Notable Black American Men, 526-528).

The Grinnell Herald-Register welcomed the "celebrated Negro tenor," advertising a "varied program" scheduled for Herrick Chapel on October 15, 1945. As usual, the bulk of Hayes's program depended upon classical European composers—Scarlatti, Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Debussy, Saint Saens, and others. But the program ended with the emphasis upon African American music, including Hayes's own arrangements of three spirituals (GHR 10/11/1945). One week later the newspaper review observed that Hayes had sung "many perfect songs," the highlight of which the reviewer judged the unaccompanied rendition of "the familiar spiritual, 'Was [sic] you there when they crucified my Lord?'"

While he was singing it was as though the audience was holding its breath. One could have heard a pin drop and when he was through it seemed that applause might well be dispensed with. All the suppressed love and yearning and aspirating of an enslaved race had been expressed through that simple melody (ibid., 10/18/1945).

Apparently Hayes sang to a full house, as the newspaper claimed that "every seat in the chapel was taken and chairs on the platform did not accommodate the overflow." Delegates to the Congregational Christian conference helped swell attendance, but the review took pains to report that college students and townspeople alike were in attendance (ibid.).

Frequently denied stays in hotels because of his race, and beaten and jailed by whites at least once in the 1940s, Hayes nevertheless thought that post-war America had demonstrated progress in race relations. He hoped that he had helped lessen the division between peoples. "When I began my career," he wrote, "I realized that if I would speak to all men, I must learn the language and the way of thought of all men...So I learned to sing the songs of all people. The song I sing is nothing. But what I give through the song is everything" (Elizabeth Nash, Autobiographical Reminiscences of African-American Classical Singers 1853-Present [Lewiston, ME: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007], 135). 

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Camilla Williams (1919-2012) reached Grinnell in late November 1947. Born in Virginia in 1919, Williams, like some other Black musicians of that era, received her earliest musical training in church. She took a degree in music education from Virginia State College in 1941, after which she taught for a time in a hometown elementary school. Soon she was living in Philadelphia where she studied languages at the University of Pennsylvania and voice with Marian Szekeley-Freschi. Her big break came with winning the Marian Anderson Award in 1943 and again in 1944. After having impressed Geraldine Farrar, the well-known opera soprano, at a 1945 concert, Williams earned an audition with the New York City Opera with whom she soon signed a contract (the first steady contract of a Black woman with a major opera company) and with whom she debuted as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly in 1946. There followed a series of very successful concert and opera appearances (Turner, Dictionary of Afro-American Performers, 391-92; Southern, Biographical Dictionary, 403; Notable Black American Women, 2:712-13). Newsweek (5/27/1946) featured a story about her operatic debut, and the National Urban League put her photo (as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly) on the cover of its winter 1947 issue. Consequently, when Williams appeared in Grinnell in 1947, although still only 27 years old, she was wildly popular, having been named the "First Lady of American Opera" by the Newspaper Guild (Notable Black American Women, 2:713). 

1960s Publicity Photo of Camilla Williams
(Elizabeth Nash, "A Day with Camilla Williams," The Opera Quarterly 18, no. 2 [spring 2002]:227)

The college newspaper welcomed "the talented young negress" to Grinnell, advising readers of the various achievements in Williams's then still-young career (Scarlet and Black 11/7/1947). Much the same prose appeared in an article published on the eve of her November 21st concert, but the newspaper added the complete program, which noted that Williams began the last section by singing "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess as well as three spirituals. The student review was brief and focused upon the "lovely pianissimo on high tones" and the "color and brilliance of her voice," but did point out that Williams, responding to the crowd's applause, sang several encores (ibid., 12/5/1947).

The Herald-Register acknowledged the fame surrounding the visitor, calling her a "high ranking Negro soprano." Judging her program "exacting," the reviewer praised her "ample vocal equipment [that] qualified [her] to sing everything from grand opera to Negro spirituals." Saying little about the spirituals included in the last part of the concert, the newspaper praised her rendition of songs of Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms as well as several opera arias (11/24/1947).

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Other than the polite—sometimes even boisterous—applause with which Grinnell audiences favored the performers, what, one wonders, did white Grinnell make of its Black visitors? For instance, when college students danced to the music of "Lots of Poppa" Towles and his orchestra, did they wonder why no Black men or women were dancing with them and the only Black people in the room were in the band? And when Grinnellians gathered to listen to Anne Wiggins Brown or Roland Hayes sing, did they wonder at the rarity of Blacks in the audience...or in their town? Did they think that the amazing Globetrotters were exceptions to a presumed inferiority of Blacks? We have scant evidence with which to answer questions like these. 

Certainly 1940s America remained acutely aware of race. Not only did Jim Crow thrive in the South, but occasionally episodes of racial hatred blazed brightly in the news. Take, for example, the May 1943 story out of Selfridge Army Air Base near Mount Clemens, Michigan where the base commander, Col. William T. Colman, used his .45 pistol to shoot Pvt. William R. McRae, a Black man who was behind the wheel of Colman's vehicle. It turns out that Colman had issued a standing order "never to be sent a Negro chauffeur," so the furious commander fired two shots into the belly of McRae. The segregated U.S. Army also was responsible for the 1943 "race riot" at Shenango Depot in Western Pennsylvania, the consequences of which minimized the shots directed at Black U.S. soldiers.

Scarlet and Black 12/13/1939

Some Grinnell college students—like Virginia Foote '45—were aware of horrors like this, and attempted to rouse students to protest ("Letter to the editor" in S&B 10/22/1943). But the campus itself was hardly overflowing with racial tolerance. The college's 1939 Honor G club initiation, for instance, had as its theme "negro 'jimdandies' and 'mammies,'" and obliged initiates to "act the part of man and wife, appearing in public with blackened faces and carrying laundry or buckets of water" (Scarlet and Black 11/25/1939). A 1945 survey by students in a race relations class found that of some one hundred Grinnell women who were asked if they had race prejudice, seventy denied it. Yet almost a quarter of those inventoried were unwilling to have Blacks admitted to the college and half did not want to have "Negro blood plasma" administered to them. Many respondents admitted that they did not even want to sit next to a Black in class (ibid., 5/4/1945). 

And yet during these same years the campus gave evidence of changing attitudes to race. The college's post-war seminar that began in 1942 examined race prejudice, and in February 1943 announced its support for admitting Blacks to the college:

One way to combat the rising tide of race prejudice is through active association. One contribution which we could make, one gesture of amity, and one expression of good will is to get two or three negro students for this college (Scarlet and Black 2/26/1943).

This rather modest recommendation seems to have gained force over time. A 1945 editorial in the campus newspaper acknowledged that "Admittance of colored persons [to Grinnell] would automatically mean the withdrawal of a number of white students." In other words, the editorial acknowledged that racism flourished on campus, even if it was not universal. However, the newspaper argued that justice demanded that the college admit Blacks. 

Can we keep our tongues in our cheeks as we bewail the conditions that Negroes in America endure?And if we decide that segregation is the best policy, that we can learn all we need to know about the Negro in a semester course in race relations, that we are incapable of seeing a man's worth regardless of his color, then let's quit all this hypocritical bellowing by students and administration about the Grinnell spirit of democracy and equality (ibid., 12/14/1945).

The number of Black students on campus rose slightly over the next several years, and the exchange program with Hampton brought a small number of additional Black students to Grinnell so long as the program survived. Even with these changes, however, 1950s Grinnell College, like the town which was its home, remained a bastion of whiteness.

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PS. My thanks to Harley McIlrath who, some time ago alerted me to the visit of Langston Hughes and his comment about Marian Anderson. His heads-up got me thinking about Blacks who visited Grinnell and the reception they received.